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With over 1 billion monthly users, Instagram is the largest and fastest growing social media platform for sharing videos and photos. 60% of users learn about new products directly through Instagram, 70% of users look up a brand on Instagram, more than 200 million users visit a business profile at least once a day, and if you don’t have an active Instagram account, you might be missing out on a lot of business.
According to Forrester, companies that are on Instagram have a 4.21% engagement rate, which is 10x higher than Facebook and 84x higher than Twitter. Whoa! That’s a lot of engagement, and it’s pretty remarkable for something launched only 9 years ago to be growing so quickly.
The importance of having, and maintaining, and Instagram account to reach more customers can no longer be ignored. But, how do you get started? How can your company break through the millions of content being posted to Instagram every day and increase your business? Here are some helpful tips to start implementing today:
1. Start with a Strategy - You have goals for your business, and you should have goals for everything you do in support of your business, including social media. A social media strategy defines how your company will use social media to achieve its communication goals. At the very least, it can be a simple statement of intent, outlining the goals, measurable objectives for using the platform, and the target outcomes you wish to accomplish. It’s critical to start with an Instagram strategy; otherwise you’ll waste precious time and money posting with no end goal in mind, nothing to measure your success, and nothing to improve upon.
2. Upgrade your Instagram account to a business profile – If you don’t already have a business profile for Instagram, it’s pretty easy to set up. First, sign up with a business email so your Instagram profile isn’t linked to your personal Facebook account. Next, follow the prompted instructions on Instagram to enter your account details. After you have completed your account set up, switch to a business profile. Just go to Settings -> Account -> Switch to Business Profile. It will then have you confirm your Facebook business page and update your Instagram account for you.
Upgrading your Instagram account from a personal to a business profile will give you insights into your audience that will help you reach them more effectively. You will be able to see how many people you reach on average, what posts are the post popular, what time of day your followers are most likely to be on Instagram and see your posts, and more. This is very important to guide you in adjusting your strategy for the best results.
3. Know how often and what type of content to post (quality over quantity) – This section could be the most important to your Instagram account success. Knowing how often and what type of content to post can be tricky. However, if followed well, these tips should help your Instagram improve.
The purpose of Instagram is to create visual inspiration for your followers. Therefore, following the rule “Quality over Quantity” is extremely important. It may seem like it’s better to post 3x per day for more engagement and followers. However, if you are posting poor content with low-quality images or videos, you might as well forget it. Utilize your Instagram account to tell the story of your brand in an ascetically pleasing way, even if you only post 2x per week. It’s far better to post less often and have high-quality images and videos than to post more often with low-quality work that will make your company look cheap and turn people off.
The amount of posts you make per week should also be taken into consideration when you are creating a strategy for your social media. You should never approach a week with no plan for your posts, or with a plan in mind to “just post what comes to you” because often times, you’ll get busy and forget to post. Planning monthly and creating a content calendar can help take the stress off of you.
It may surprise you to know, major brands post on Instagram on average 1.5 times per day. You should aim to post 1-3 times per day. An extremely important tip is to utilize your business profile to its full extend by digging into your insights and figuring out when your followers are on Instagram. You can adjust your strategy to post on the days and during the times your followers are most active. For example, if you find most of your followers are extremely active on Wednesdays at 7 AM and 9 PM, you should aim to post every Wednesday at 7 AM and 9 PM to reach the most people.
4. Post User-Generated Content – One of the easiest ways to keep posts running on your Instagram account, or even on your Instagram story, is to post user-generated content (UGC). In fact, 86% of Millennials say that USC is a good indicator of the quality of a brand, and 68% of social media users between the ages of 18 and 14 take into account UGC shared on social media while considering following a brand.
UGC is defined as any type of content that has been created and put out there by unpaid contributors or followers. This refers to images, videos, testimonials, tweets, blog posts, etc… where your followers promote your brand. Followers like UGC because it puts the customer front and center and makes your brand more about them. Just be sure to ask permission from the original poster before reposting.
5. Always add a compelling CTA - CTAs (Call-To-Action) direct people into what they should do after seeing your post. The key is to be as creative as you can in order to make people take action. A few CTAs to consider in your next post: ask people to tag a friend, make a comment, give your company a call, repost your post, fill out forms to get exclusive discounts, etc.
These tips should help your Instagram account improve. But, remember… gaining followers and seeing a ROI takes time. If you need help, the team at BIS Design’s is always here for you! Just give us a call to discuss your needs.
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Algorithms: How Each Platform Keeps You Engaged
Phillip Long - CISSP, CEO of BIS Technology Group, along with his team of marketing and information technology experts, will walk you through an overview of what your business should be doing to protect your data and plan your digital marketing strategies.
About BIS Technology Group
BIS Technology Group is the technology leader on the Gulf Coast and is comprised of four divisions: Information Technology, Web Design & Digital Marketing, Office Equipment and Business Consulting. Together these divisions help local businesses exceed expectations and allow them to group to their full potential while minimizing risks. To learn more about BIS Technology Group, visit bistechnologygroup.com.
You may reach out to us at: Phone: 251-405-2527 Email: plong@askbis.com
The social media marketing discussion is now dominated by algorithms – almost everywhere you engage, within almost every platform you use, machine learning and data sorting is used to decide what it is you see.
Now social platforms are in much the same position, which adds a more complex, technical element to the social marketing process.
With this in mind, what do you need to know to ensure you’re on top of the latest social algorithm shifts, and how can you best prepare yourself, and understand the focus of each platform to maximize your business page performance?
Here’s a quick overview of the current state of each platform’s algorithm, based on what I’ve studied of their workings.
FACEBOOK
The most influential social algorithm is Facebook’s. The Social Network was the first to implement an algorithm feed, in response to the flood of spammy posts and junk which had taken over the app as its popularity grew.
Facebook’s algorithm aims to show you the content you’re most likely to engage with – though obviously there’s a lot more to it than that.
To best understand Facebook’s algorithm, you first need to get your head around the basic engagement equation Facebook uses.
Facebook’s News Feed chief, Adam Mosseri, explained this in several webinars, conferences and online publications last year, comparing their selection process to choosing a meal for a friend at a restaurant:
This process, says Mosseri, is essentially utilizing an algorithm within your own head – Facebook’s system simply transfers these though processes to a machine, shifting the same core elements into more technical factors – Inventory, Signals, Predictions and Scores.
Here’s the same calculations with Facebook actions replacing restaurant options:
Facebook rates each post based on your individual usage patterns, which, along with a range of other measures, enable it to come up with a score for each post. That score then dictates where each will appear in your feed.
Sound confusing? Yes, it is. These algorithms change constantly so studying and keeping up with the social channel’s updates are crucial to any business social media marketing plan. In basic terms, Facebook measures the likelihood that you’re going to take a particular action which their data suggests is the most engaging, then shows each story to you based on that probability.
TWITTER
Twitter’s algorithm is less advanced than Facebook’s, but they are putting increased focus on their machine learning efforts to boost engagement.
Users were initially outraged that Twitter would even consider changing to an algorithm, but the data has since shown that the system has helped the platform boost performance – as algorithms have on virtually every platform.
Twitter’s main objective with their algorithm is to show you more content you may be interested in – similar to Facebook, though Twitter is more about showing it to you in addition to the other tweets you might see, as opposed to “instead of”.
Even with an algorithm in place, Twitter can still show you almost every tweet, due to the real time nature of the feed. Nowadays, when you first login into Twitter, you’ll see tweets you may have missed, which are basically the most popular tweets from the people you follow. Twitter has also been working to boost engagement by showing you tweets that people you follow have liked, too.
INSTAGRAM
Instagram is one of the hottest social platforms at the moment for social engagement. They have now also implemented a Facebook-style algorithm. Facebook actually owns both platforms now, so the algorithms are almost exactly the same now. Like Facebook, Instagram’s algorithm is based on your likelihood to engage.
LINKEDIN
Like Twitter, LinkedIn’s algorithm is not as advanced as Facebook’s. A good example of how LinkedIn’s feed algorithm works is their comment sorting tool – LinkedIn recently published an update on how comments are displayed on each post, based on engagement.
In my opinion, and the opinion of many other LinkedIn users, their algorithm needs some work. You’ll often see posts from weeks ago in your feed but they are refining their data, and working to show you more relevant content, slowly but surely.
PINTEREST
The last platform has a constantly evolving algorithm to uncover more relevant Pin matches. Their goal is to keep you searching and their system has been upgraded from its initial matching efforts to better highlight relevant content.
Do you have ideas of how these social platforms might improve their algorithms in the future? Tell us in the comments!
Why Your Business Needs A Paid Facebook Ad Budget
Author: Stephanie May - smay@askbisdesigns.com
If you’ve been keeping up with the national news for the last two weeks, you’ve heard the reports of political campaigns acquiring private data on millions of Facebook users. It has now sparked new questions about how the social media giant protects user information.
First of all, as a business advertising on Facebook, we are all thankful for the data which identifies personalities and buying trends of users. This doesn’t mean people’s personal information like credit cards, social security numbers and other secure information was ever shared via Facebook.
What does it mean?
This all plays a big part in Facebook’s algorithms, which have changed drastically in the last two years. The algorithms now only allow content that you are interested in to be in your newsfeed. To me, this isn’t a bad thing at all. It is a highly intelligent way of keeping users happy and engaged. For businesses, it also makes it more difficult to advertise because you need to pay attention to what users want to see on a daily basis and tailor your content to that audience. Otherwise, your content will go unseen. This is what I do on a daily basis for dozens of business accounts, study trends in order to make sure the business pages are reaching the most customers.
Now, back to Cambridge Analytica. What’s the big deal? The firm offered tools that could identify the personalities of American voters and influence their behavior. This behavior was then, allegedly, used to target voters for the election. This app has since been removed from Facebook but there are reports that the data still exists, so this is why Facebook is being scrutinized.
What kind of information was collected and how was it acquired?
The data included details on users’ identities, friend networks and “likes”. The idea was to map personality traits based on what people had liked on Facebook, and then use that information to target audiences with digital ads.
Researchers in 2014 asked users to take a personality survey and download an app, which scraped some private information from their profiles and those of their friends, activity that Facebook permitted at the time and has since banned.
Facebook has always prohibited this kind of data to be sold or transferred “to any ad network, data broker or other advertising service” so the question everyone has been asking is, was Facebook hacked? No one really knows for sure.
What is Facebook doing to fix the situation?
Really, there isn’t much they can do about it at this point. Once the data is out, there isn’t really a way to recall it. They can conduct all the forensic audits they want, but the information will remain out there in some form, and will likely remain useable and indicative. For damage control, Facebook needs to show users that it is improving, learned its lessons and their systems are actually now better for it.
We’ll see in the next year whether or not users pull away from the social giant or whether it will blow over and everyone will go back to using Facebook as usual. As already stated, no sensitive information was really obtained but it is simply a matter of users trusting Facebook to keep up with their social habits without exploiting it for political reasons.
What do you think? Does it bother you that Facebook tracks your likes and, in turn, creates a personality profile of your daily habits in order for businesses to advertise to you? We want to know! Let us know on Facebook!
12 Reasons Why Your Business Needs A Content Marketing Strategy
Here’s a quick illustration of how SEO works…
Google has developed automatic algorithms that rank your website. They send out what are called “spiders” to “crawl” your site and check it for over 100 indicators that determine whether the website is valuable or useless. These indicators include things like backlinks, domain age, traffic, fresh content, etc.
SEO can be considered the art of making sure those crawling spiders are happy with what they find. It is a very complex field that is always changing but in all that chaos there are a few constants that have remained the same since the beginning.
1. You need your own domain and hosting.
One thing that beginners need to know is that you need your own domain and hosting. Free blog set ups don’t do any favors for your SEO efforts. Why?
People tend to speculate that if you were serious about your website you would get your own name and host it yourself. Google only wants to point to websites that are considered serious and trustworthy and so this is a basic signal.
Starting your own website, hosting and a business blog can seem intimidating but that’s why we’re here. We offer multiple packages to meet your needs, which saves you a lot of time.
2. Problem solving with original content.
Keep in mind that Google’s entire purpose is to provide their customers with relevant and useful search results. Everything they do is built around this goal.
To be realistic, the most important thing you can do for your SEO is create the most useful content that solves people’s problems. If you are solving problems that people are searching for then it is likely that you are going to get shared on social media and ranked higher in Google.
And “original content” means so much more than just blog posts these days. You can expand into:
3. Make sure your theme is SEO optimized.
Think of SEO as having two components: the off-site stuff like social media and backlinks and the on-site stuff like optimizing your theme.
Optimizing your theme is important because it helps give Google indicators that you are a trustworthy site. It also helps Google find your content. Some of the things to keep in mind when optimizing are:
4. Build your social media profiles constantly.
You want to have a big focus on social media for SEO purposes as well as traffic building purposes.
Why?
Because Google is now looking to social media as a signal of an article’s authority and relevance. If people are sharing on Facebook or tweeting about it, you must have written something pretty good. The best way for this to happen is to build a strong following, keep them engaged and they’ll see your blog posts as they are shared.
Commenting and sharing other business blogs is always a great way to build a community and possible cross-promoting opportunities for the future as well.
Are you now ready to get a blog started and make sure your SEO is on the right track? Schedule a meeting and we’ll handle every detail from writing, optimizing your website and sharing to your social media!
Author: Stephanie May
5 Benefits of Business Blogging
Research by the Content Marketing Institute has reported that B2B marketers who have a documented strategy and an individual to oversee the strategy, are the most effective group of content marketers out there. Whether you are just now starting your digital marketing process or you have made sure your brand has a recognizable presence on the web, you’re missing out if you aren’t using a content marketing strategy.
There is a lot more to it than running a few social media accounts and publishing a blog for your brand. Even with great, well-driven content, if you don’t have the SEO skills to drive organic traffic to your website, the landing pages to capture leads and the email marketing, white papers, dynamic offering of webinars, infographics, event marketing and more to convince your customers that your brand is an industry leader and has long-term value to offer, then your content lacks dimension.
You need a system for gathering and analyzing your customer metrics, and using this data to constantly update your strategy. Without this system, you’re failing to offer what customers expect today from marketers. Your content may slip through the cracks, going unnoticed as your competitors are appealing to your market with a direct approach at content that touches every point. Stringing everything together to create something that matters is the ultimate goal.
Richard Pattinson, CEO of Brafton, says “The intention behind content can be good, but the scaffolding is missing, weak or flawed.” Pattinson sees this as a major flaw for businesses.
With a documented strategy, there is a place and purpose for each piece of content. Everything flows into the next. A case study, vlog or email subject line sets up other aspects of your strategy and holds the entire plan together. A good flow will allow your entire strategy to be flexible enough to evolve along the way as your make an effort to continually work towards creating that simple, clear and yet remarkably complex brand environment that is the most effective way to attract your market and build long-term customer relationships at the same time.
A good content marketing strategy is:
The better your strategy, the more potential you give each piece of content created.
WHY YOU NEED A CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY
1. A better content marketing ROI – as you refine which tactics are the most appealing to high-quality leads and which are the most motivating, you’ll be able to invest in the content that works and either reduce or eliminate what isn’t working.
2. You’ll actually know what your content ROI is – only with a documented strategy are you going to have the metrics to give you an idea of how effective your content marketing is.
3. Repurposed content – with a dynamic strategy, you can plan ahead how you repurpose your in-person events into eBooks and podcasts, your video interviews into blog posts, and your white papers into infographics.
4. Better customer segmentation – with a content management system, you’ll be able to personalize your content for different segments, the key to boosting your conversion and retention rates.
5. More accurate buyer personas – you’ll also be able to create smarter campaigns with better buyer personas as you use your gathered customer data to continually evolve your ideal buyer personas.
6. Less churn – when you have a better idea of what your customers want because you’re using a strategy, you’ll be able to reduce your churn rates and boost your long-term revenue numbers.
7. Ability to leverage more marketing tactics – with a short and long-term plan, you’ll be able to see ten steps ahead, planning for that mega branding conference in five years and pulling off your brilliant influencer marketing campaign six months from now.
8. Optimized social media channels – when your social media posts are integrated with the rest of your content marketing strategy, your customers grow used to the value that comes out of following and engaging with your social platforms and are more likely to stay engaged. Rather than random posts, they’ll know there will be a consistent flow of value coming out of your Twitter feed and Facebook pages – industry news or tips, special deals, links to informative blog posts, early bird event registration they don’t want to miss.
9. Boosted brand reputation – with your comprehensive brand presence both online and off, you’ll do wonders for your brand reputation as you’ll have a larger social following, contact list, and more activity on your website such as blog comments, online reviews, and forum posts (depending on what channels are relevant for your business).
10. Improve lead generation – when you flow your social media posts and email marketing into your blog posts and to your landing pages and CTAs, you’ll attract more visitors to your website and invite more qualified leads down your sales funnel.
11. Higher customer acquisition rates – as you get to know your market better, you’ll be able to turn more leads into customers.
12. You’ll become a better marketer. The more love you put into your strategy, the more you’ll learn about just how much content marketing is capable of.
Getting the results you want from your content marketing all boils down to strategy. Even if your strategy is limited to a blog, a modest website and social media – make each piece work together and that strategy will do more than a disconnected collection of components ever could.
BIS Designs offer these services and more. As a business owner, having a team to handle the content marketing for you can be a better option than spending the time to do it yourself. We’re happy to discuss ideas with you. Give us a call!
Create a Winning Content Marketing Strategy in 5 Simple Steps
Facebook is a popular way for companies to market their products and services to consumers like ourselves. In the past, it hasn’t been as helpful for businesses looking to market to other businesses. However, that’s no longer the case. Facebook is now proving itself to be a successful marketing tool for business-to-business (B2B) marketing.
LinkedIn has long been the most effective platform for businesses to market on social media to other companies. However, Facebook has over 1.4 billion monthly users allowing businesses to get their message in front of the right audience through paid advertising. Businesses are five times more likely to engage with a sales rep who shares a mutual connection. This is one reason why it’s important not to ignore Facebook. We have seen success with this social media strategy with our clients in Mobile, AL.
1. Expand your audience. Reach past your current audience through advertising on Facebook and targeting people that meet certain qualifications. 2. Target work categories. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram advertising allows you to go past general demographics to drill down to specific interests, job titles and income levels. 3. Offer incentives for lead generation. Using ads to target the audience you want, you can bring prospects to your website looking for access to the content you’re offering. By directing them to a landing page that asks them for their email address, you’re able to generate leads by giving them access to a free trial of your product or service, or access to an ebook or webinar.
4. Create custom audiences.
Custom audiences can be set up in Facebook by:
• Importing a list of emails from your contact database. • Upselling to customers that purchased a particular item or service (making recommendations). • Retargeting lost customers by putting a Facebook pixel on a certain web page to track if users completed your call to action. If they didn’t reach the ‘Thank you for signing up/purchasing’ page, then you can retarget your ads to those who missed out.
• Increase awareness, connections and leads. • Set you apart from your competitors. • Strengthen your company’s credibility. • Keep your business’ name at the top of potential customers’ minds.
Contact us for a complimentary marketing evaluation and let’s get your business back on track!
By now, you’ve probably heard that video marketing is all the rage. It’s evidently more impactful and can engage many more people on social media networks than a post with an image alone could. You may be saying, “Yeah, that sounds great, but I don’t have the time and the resources to make a video!” Well, don’t throw the idea away just yet.
What if we told you that within just a few hours, you could have enough video content for almost a whole year to dole out each month? There are many styles of videos for marketing and some will take much longer to make. However, a simple Q& A style video can be done relatively quickly and provides numerous beneficial results to your marketing.
Before you take your first stab at making a video, keep in mind the following pointers to get the most out of your work:
Ideally within 1st 10 seconds or less, appeal to the viewers’ emotions by addressing particular pain points, concerns, or other impassioned viewpoints.
Determine what your ultimate goal is for the video, i.e. visiting your website, sharing the video, etc. and incorporate that into a straightforward CTA usually toward the end of the video, such as “Learn more at (insert url).”
What you write about in the text for the video post is very important and should be used as the bait & hook to the video. Be sure to not spam it with hashtags.
One study found that 85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound. The video needs to be able to attract attention without sound, meaning an aesthetically pleasing background and camera quality is important, but so is the need for subtitles. Facebook offers this as an option now. Contact us if you want more specifics!
Depending on the platform the video is posted on, make sure you know how to read the metrics, i.e. the number of shares, the amount of engagement, and the number of clicks to your site.
Make sure you have a good audio (lavaliere wireless microphone), a clear and aesthetically pleasing, but not distracting background, and that you’re discussing something that you are passionate about.
While it would certainly be easier to share the same link across all channels, Facebook’s algorithm favors videos placed directly onto their platform more than links. Doing it this way will create greater organic reach, especially on Facebook.
The text you include in your post about the video won’t be searchable, but the headline and descriptions you post with your video will. Try to include those keywords or phrases you think viewers would be searching for to help them find your content, and include a couple relevant hashtags on platforms like Twitter and Instagram to boost search results.
It’s important to keep the video short, so if it’s a visual “How-To”, use the speed-up feature in your video editing software to shorten the duration.
Give brief answers to a few of the main questions you know your audience is interested in. This is a great way to establish your business’s expert credibility.
This is a powerful brand-building tool as users on social media follow companies typically because they have an affinity for the business and want to learn more about what the brand really is and what it stands for. Show viewers how something works or how something is made and this can lead to major increases in brand loyalty.
By creating a story with a beginning, middle, and end that fits into a 30-second video, you’re bound to easily connect with viewers. Telling stories about real people is ideal, but even telling a story about your customers, your business, or a cause you want to raise awareness on are dynamic tools to build and sustain loyal relationships.
If you’re pressed for time, but feel video marketing is an excellent strategy you want to give a try, start out with the Answering Questions format.
If you schedule a day on your calendar that you can sit down and record 20 videos back to back, you can have 10 months of videos ready to go that get posted online every two weeks. Pretty efficient, right?
BIS Designs is more than happy to come to your location or schedule time in our studio to record video tutorials, testimonials, or any such video as described above. Our comprehensive marketing services can integrate your video marketing with your website, social media, and print marketing endeavors, all the while ensuring your videos are efficiently optimized to help your search engine rankings. Contact our Designs team to learn more about our video marketing services and how we can increase your brand’s recognition, reinforce your business’s credibility, and boost both your search rankings and social engagement.
For many businesses, it’s already starting to look a lot like Christmas—and with good reason.
Online sales showed significant gains in 2015, but brick-and-mortar sales fell during this peak shopping period. Why? This is possibly due to businesses extending the holiday sales from Thanksgiving Day to the Cyber Monday finale. Online retailers typically have strong digital marketing strategies in place to promote their seasonal sales. Brick-and-mortar stores should also be taking advantage of how digital marketing can increase their foot traffic.
Read Our October 2016 Newsletter Here!
As the name implies, “social media” is a platform for real time social exchange. This exchange takes place on a global scale, offering you unprecedented access to desirable demographics around the world.
You can infuse your brand with personality in a number of ways. Whether you write a blog or create a carefully crafted ‘about us’ page on your website, you’re putting your personality out there for the community to see. By posting informative, funny and inspirational posts, a human side to your business comes out, which naturally instills a greater sense of trust for your organization, ultimately enhancing your networking efforts.
Be professional, but don’t sound scripted, and avoid industry-specific terms and phrases. Try to strike a casual tone.
These can be tangentially related to your business offerings, or as unrelated as a hobby. The goal is to flesh out who you are beyond your brand.
We communicate a lot of day-to-day information in story form. Relatable anecdotes are easy to follow and – if told well – hard to forget. The more entertaining, the better.
More specifically, use your sense of humor – so long as it’s appropriate. Laughter is the easiest way to tear down any barriers separating you from future clients.
We often hear companies ask why social media is so important for their business. The answer is simple: businesses need a solid online presence if they expect to be successful. At the end of the day, you need to be actively posting on social media to expand that presence. According to the Small Business Technology Impact Study of 2016, 50% of 18-34 year olds, 42% of 35-54 year olds, and 24% of 55+ year olds prefer businesses who regularly post to their Facebook pages. “If you're choosing between setting up a website and starting a Facebook page for your business, know that up to 30% might not buy from a company without a social media presence.” Source: TWC 2016. BIS Designs is your local and reputable source for digital marketing. We can complement your company’s digital presence with customizable social media marketing packages that fit your business. Whether through LinkedIn, Facebook, or email marketing, our digital marketing specialists will help you communicate your brand voice and promote your company through social interaction. By staying top of mind within your community, you will retain both loyal customers and attract potential leads. Call us at 251-405-2535 for more information or visit our website to request an online quote.