Digital Strategy And Types of Content
If you are running a business online or just going to enter the market, then content marketing will help you with your marketing initiatives.
Whether it’s an email newsletter or a corporate blog with thousands of articles, content marketing opens up new opportunities for your business.
What are the main pillars of your content marketing strategy? What types of content should be must-have elements to make your business fly? Let’s dive deep into this question together!
According to recent Google data, over 50% of readers who watch a product video are more likely to buy products and services advertised online. Video content has always been the king and still remains the most demanded type of content on the Internet.
Live broadcasts and streams are watched up to three times longer than traditional pre-made videos. They also create a feeling of direct participation in what is happening as if everything was happening next door. From a psychological point of view, this increases trust and interest in people and is better stored in their memory. It’s also a great way for brands to understand their audience and communicate with people openly.
Infographics are among the most used types of content marketing assets. They have had the biggest increase in usage among B2B marketers in the last four years.
Social media applications and messengers have become not only platforms for entertainment but also channels of communication between people and brands.
People are tired of seeing random advertisements that have nothing to do with their actual interests and needs. This forces us to switch channels during commercial breaks and buy paid subscriptions to turn them off.
Social Media Marketing
The world is moving faster than ever before. New trends and technology seem to appear overnight, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep pace. So, you get the temptation to jump on the social media bandwagon without a clear picture in mind of what you want to achieve.
But, diving in without a sense of what it encompasses and how it can benefit your business can do more harm than good.
This comprehensive guide will teach you everything you need to know about how to build a social media marketing strategy that delivers value to your audience and helps your business grow.
Savvy businesses know how to benefit from the huge amount of data that users generate in real time. Sure, the numbers are overwhelming – every day, people send over 500 million Tweets, upload 95 million photos and videos on Instagram, and like 4.5 billion posts on Facebook. But, behind this mammoth amount of information, there are valuable insights about your customers: who they are, what they like, and what they are willing to pay for.
Social media has made it easier for brands to eavesdrop on the conversations their customers are having and take part in the discussion. Social networks can also help you gather information about your audience and create better marketing messages that fit their profile.
Unlike traditional marketing, where you bombard prospects with sales messages – social media is a two-way process. You need to listen, engage, show empathy, become involved, and provide value if you want to create a seamless relationship with your prospects that can eventually lead to sales.
If you can’t do that, your social media marketing is likely to fail.
Getting Started With Influencer Marketing
With more and more businesses breaking out into the digital sphere, competition to get your target customers attention is fierce.
If you give them a reason to ignore you… they will.
You see, social media is just a platform. It’s not a magic bullet or masterful new employee that is going to turn your business around overnight.
With the right mindset, advice, tools, and testing, it does provide an ecosystem that is custom-built for scaling your message. It’s the fuel to your fire. The playground for your entrepreneurial dreams.
It’s a platform to find your tribe, talk to them, understand their wants, needs, and desires, and grow a business of meaning and passion.
But if you’re just getting started and your budget and following are small. Or your resources are already stretched thin. How do you reach new customers on social media, at speed, without breaking the bank, or much of a sweat in the process?
Did you know that there’s a way to take advantage of someone else’s hard work – their years of cultivating a legion of fans who hang on their every word?
What if we told you there was a legitimate, mutually beneficial way for you to get in front of someone else’s audience, and fast?
I’m talking about influencer marketing. While this may sound like the type of digital marketing strategy that is reserved for the big brands, well-connected wheelers, and dealers, or Kardashian-like celebrity stars, it’s not. The hardest part of influencer marketing is finding the right people for the job. In fact, 73% say finding the right influencers is the hardest part of influencer marketing. Once you’ve tapped someone to share your products, that person becomes an extension of your brand.
So, do your due diligence. Investigate an influencer’s previous posts to determine that they’ll be a good reflection of your brand’s mission and vision. While you can afford to work with influencers that don’t have large followings, you may never recover from a social media faux pas.
The only way to know if your campaign is working is to track its success. You can’t make changes if you don’t know what’s working and what isn’t, right? Google Analytics and other automated software show you exactly where your traffic is coming from. If one of your influencers isn’t producing results, you’ll know early enough to make necessary adjustments to your campaigns. Influencer marketing campaigns can be a great tool for driving brand awareness, but only if you’re willing to put forth the effort.
How To Create Your Marketing Strategy
If budget and time were no issue, we would all be killing the game of digital marketing! Unfortunately for most of us, that is nearly impossible and we’re left to decide where to invest both our time and money. Knowing what you know now about each channel, here are a few steps you can take in designing the right marketing strategy.
- Evaluate what is (and isn’t) working. This can be done by looking at your Google Analytics data and reviewing where your current traffic is coming from. Review behavioral metrics like conversion rates and bounce rate to determine what channels are working best and where might need a little extra attention. Are you seeing a ton of blog traffic, but few conversions? Then perhaps your first step is you can better leverage that content. Are you seeing amazing results from specific tactics and techniques for your PPC campaigns? Maybe it’s time to expand your campaigns and test these techniques on new campaigns.
- Spy on your competitors. This doesn’t mean replicate what they’re doing. Rather, pay attention to the tactics they’re using, their rankings, messaging, and ad placements. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and do the research they might be doing if they were looking for your service. Are you seeing other companies in places you aren’t? As you evaluate the options, which seem to present themselves as authorities? Those are key areas to evaluate and determine where you might need to sharpen your competitive edge.
- Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket because anything can happen. A competitor could open up a new location in your territory, or there could be a global pandemic. It’s important to remain flexible and not tied to any one tactic. Make sure you stay nimble enough that you can respond to market changes, even when they’re unexpected!
Diversity And Marketing
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are all-encompassing when it comes to being customer-focused and meeting the needs of both consumers and clients.
Companies that don’t find ways and take the initiative to be more diverse with their content, strategic approach, and overall goals will lose out on business and staying on top of trends; not just within the marketing space, but societal needs as a whole; allowing consumers to feel heard and included. An example that might help this concept make more sense is; Blockbuster and Netflix.
These two essentially are the same type of company. However, you don’t want to be considered a Blockbuster. Meeting the needs, wants, goals, and expectations of the consumers of your content within today’s social climate is an absolute necessity when it comes to success. Gone are the days of typical and expected. Marketers must steer away from preconceived notions and begin to speak to a larger audience.
With that said, there is a greater expectation for inclusivity. People are no longer willing to accept the fact that they might be ignored or not completely served by a vast majority of brands. Now what’s different in comparison to other demographics, and other possible personas is that we’ve seen a shift in the connection needed to be felt by content consumers. This can be expanded further into shared values with the companies that they choose to buy from.
If not taken into consideration, your company’s growth can be significantly impacted if an inclusive marketing approach isn’t adopted and not a substantial part of your campaign/brand. Even the smallest step in the right direction can be the start that you need to truly make a change towards more inclusive marketing practices and creating a healthy diversity in the marketing approach. With time, we might all be making a unified leap into a more diversified, equitable, and inclusive digital marketing landscape.
Social Media And Hacking Prevention
Enable Multi-Factor Authentication:
In your privacy/security settings, turn on multi-factor authentication. Each time you log into your account, you can receive a text message with a 6-digit code. Entering this code will allow access to your account. Without this, you (or a hacker) would not be able to log in. Be sure this is enabled for ALL ADMINS on your accounts.
If you receive a 6-digit code without attempting to log in yourself, we highly recommend updating your password. This could mean a hacker attempted to log into your account.
Stop using the same passwords:
We know, there’s no way you can remember a different password for every single account, so you keep them the same (or just slightly different). Unfortunately, this creates an all-too-easy way for hackers to slide right into your accounts. We recommend using a password manager like Lastpass to help you keep track of all those passwords!
Think Twice About Clicking Links:
As a business, you’ll receive all kinds of direct messages. If there’s a link, be sure it’s authentic before clicking it. By hovering over (not clicking) the link, you’ll be able to see the URL of where the link is going. If your gut tells you it’s suspicious, it’s probably right.
H1 Header Tag For SEO, Is It Important?
The H1 tag is considered the most important. Why? It’s essentially the page title. The H1 title tag is a critical ranking factor and is referred to by search engine bots to figure out what a page is about. It’s also usually the most visible content on the page for the reader, as H1-tagged content traditionally displays larger screens (although this is not a must).
To ensure your content is more SEO-friendly (specifically your H1 tag), use our SEO Content Template, which offers suggestions on incorporating the keyword you’re hoping to rank for within different technical SEO aspects of your page.
The new look on how Google can read and understand the content without a direct H1 tag with your keywords impacts how we should write our H1s. John Mueller from Google states that a page will rank if you use one H1 or H2 header or multiple. The only purpose for them is to communicate what a section of content is about. Although it may not make a difference in how we rank on Google, it is important to make sure it is relevant and creates an easy reading experience.
Many SEOs, including Top Floor specialists, do recommend only one H1 header tags on a page to make it clear for the reader the title or purpose of the page. Google is not saying this is bad practice, they are saying that if we want to use more we can, but do not have to.
So how to use H1 header tags today? These days, using H1 header tags is different from how we would practice them in the early 2000s. Today, Google is ranking content and not just keywords. It is looking at your whole page, not just your keywords in your header and top of page content. Since Google doesn’t match keywords the same that it used to, content has become more important for your website.