It turns out that neuroscience can come in very handy when putting together a marketing campaign - the next time you’re choosing whether your marketing campaign is better served by a collection of blogs posts, an infographic, or an online quiz, look no further than the human brain for your answer.
Our brains process different types of content in different ways, whether it’s written text, visual images, graphic animations, or interactive content. Did you know that it takes your brain about 1/10th of a second to interpret and understand visual content? Some types of content are faster for us to take in, while other types stick more easily in our memories. This infographic below dives into the science behind how the brain processes various forms of content. For marketers, this knowledge is key - understanding the way the brain engages with content can drive your decisions about what types of content to produce, depending on your campaign goals.
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Social media provides marketers with a whole new way to share their brand messages, with advanced tools and options that enable you to not only hone your outreach efforts, but to also get a better understanding of who the people you're trying to reach are and what they're interested in. But social is also different from the traditional marketing approach, something many still fail to realize. Many brands still see social as another broadcast opportunity, another way to reach as many people as possible by shouting your message from as many platforms as you can.
But it just doesn't work like that. The fundamental difference between social media marketing and traditional outreach platforms (like TV, radio and magazines) is that social media is 'social'. And while broadcast is still an important element - more people hearing your message increases the opportunity to build connections - the 'social' element is also crucial to your overall success. The brands that broadcast, and fail to communicate - or more importantly, listen - via social, are simply not maximizing the opportunity that the medium provides, and in doing so, they're also limiting their outreach. And as more and more noise floods our various media platforms, the brands that are able to attune their message to their customer needs, and communicate directly with them, are the ones that are poised to win out. Underlining this, LookBookHQ have created this new infographic which provides an overview of the current media landscape, and how consumers are being flooded with information, making it increasingly difficult for brands to cut through - even with access to more options to do so. The amount of noise underlines the importance of tuning your marketing messages into the specific niches and audience segments of most relevance to your products and services, and creating better connections with your audience through social connectivity and responsive options. 1. Run Targeted Contests
I’ve seen and worked with brands running contests on Facebook for years and it works. It works wonders. The challenge is: If you give away an iPad, Macbook Pro or new hoverboard – it’s very possible that the people who enter your contest will consist of everyone and anyone. If you want to grow your following, you want to ensure that the followers you’re acquiring are relevant and potential customers. So make sure the prize you’re giving away is high quality and aligned with the interests of your audience. 2. Content Curation It’s easy to spend hours looking for content to share on social media. Content curation is the act of sifting through the noise to find the signal. The best content curators understand that content curation isn't about content aggregation. It's not about sharing for the sake of sharing - it's about finding content that will educate your audience and in most cases, uncovering content that your audience hadn't come across before. 3. Tweet Optimization Thread your tweets back to one another so your old tweets show up in a users timeline. Rather than letting old tweets disappear, reply back to your older tweet, remove the @mention that Twitter auto develops and upon pressing send – the tweets will link up. 4. Paid Advertising There’s no question that paid media works best on Facebook. If you have the budget, invest in spending some cash on acquiring followers who have interests that line up with your page. 5. Cross Marketing & Promotion Tell people on one channel that you’re also on another channel. Share it via your Facebook Page and even your Snapchat account. You’ll be surprised by the amount of people who follow you on one channel but not another. On Snapchat (and now Twitter) you can easily access your personal QR code which can be distributed on other networks. A successful marketer knows how to read people. We used to have to put together elaborate buyer personas and market to people who fit into those molds. However, with the rise of social media, and the increasing number of people from all demographics using various social media platforms, we can now create content and programming based on real people.
Prior to social media, marketing tactics were more widespread. We could put together a great promotion and send it out to a wide variety of stores, or place an ad in a newspaper where hundreds of people would see it, or even put up a billboard. That was how we used to reach people, broadcasting en masse, in hopes that we would reach both our current customers and potential new clients. But in the modern landscape, that method is less effective. Today, we need to personalize content to each person, and market to that one person. Consumers today are not just smarter to the ways of marketing, but they're suffering from marketing fatigue. Even if a great ad comes across them, they might tune it out without even meaning to – there are simply too many messages being thrown out there on too many mediums. So, how does a brand break through that? If people are tuning out ads without even knowing they’re doing it, how can we ensure our messaging won’t get tuned out also? It's a lot easier than many marketing folks realize, and while it takes more work to market with personalization, it will help to ensure your messages are landing where they need to be. 1. Know Who You Are Talking To This goes a bit deeper than simply saying “know your target audience.” You need to get more specific in your head with who IN your target audience you are speaking to. For example, my target audience for a brand I work with might be men and women, ages 18-40 who live in Southern California. Sounds pretty specific, right? Yet it’s not specific enough. I need to delve deeper and start listening to what segmented groups of that audience are saying about my brand, what their buying habits are, and how I can reach them before they even realize my brand can enhance their life. 2. Relate Your Messaging to “Me” We're all consumers at some point in our day, of a variety of different products. What makes you choose one brand over another? For me, I'll choose a brand that makes the most sense for my life. As a marketer, I need to reach you and show you how my brand can seamlessly fit into your life, and how much easier or better your life will then be due to using, eating or drinking my brand. What questions are being asked by the people you're trying to reach and how can your product or service answer those questions? Those answers need to be provided in your content and messaging. 3. Where Can I Find My Audience, and in What Format? Not only does the content I create need to be relevant, but it also needs to land in the right spot for “each” person. I'm pretty vocal about my love for Twitter - some people don’t use Twitter and prefer to use Facebook. If the person I’m trying to reach prefers to receive their messaging on one platform, my personal preferences matter none – theirs do. How “you” want to receive content needs to be a marketer’s main focus. Emails have employed this idea since inception – how many times have you signed up for an email subscription and been asked if you prefer messages in HTML or plain text? That is an example of personalization. Today, people consume content in more ways than simply plain text – does your target audience prefer infographics? Blogs? Do they attend Twitter chats for the information they seek? 4. Don’t Be Creepy Personalization, when done right, is smooth. You don’t want to personalize too far down - to the point that people feel like their privacy is being invaded. You can personalize content and strategies without it seeming like you've been listening in on people’s private conversations. Social listening doesn't mean stalking. Undoubtedly, personalized content marketing takes much longer than any marketing of the past. However, what happens to the very best content ever produced in the history of man when it’s not seen? Did it really exist? If you're taking the time and spending the money to put out marketing messaging, it only follows that you want those efforts to pay off. There's more data to be found and more ways to have real conversations with your target consumer than ever. Understand who those people are so you can develop relevant content for them that's then delivered at the right time, in the right format and where they are best able to benefit from it. So what do your customers really want on social media – and what annoys them or turns them off? To find out, Sprout Social recently conducted a survey of more than 1,000 people to get their thoughts on various aspects of branded social media content. And while the survey pool is relatively small, some compelling trends did emerge from the data, which are worth noting for those looking to maximize their company’s social media presence.
First off, respondents indicated that the most annoying thing brands do on social is still over-promote. It’s been said many times before, but social media is not a broadcast platform, it’s a conversation medium best suited to two-way interaction, as opposed to blasting out ads. Yes, social platforms have massive reach, but you can’t ignore the ‘social’ element, and you can’t approach it like other media options. Paid ads are a different story, but your social content, on balance, should not be overly promotional. Sprout’s findings once again underline why, Other annoyances include:
Conversely, Sprout also asked consumers why they follow brands on social, with ‘Interested in their product/service’ coming out on top. People are also following brands to hear about promotions and incentives, while some are also following along simply to be entertained. That, too, is an important consideration, particularly when you’re looking to build your brand presence. Gaining followers is one thing, but connecting with your audience, getting engaged followers, is far more powerful. If you’re able to entertain them and better align them to your brand and offerings, that will significantly increase the chances of that person going on to become a paying customer. And worth noting too, in the reasons people unfollow, ‘Information not relevant’ was the second biggest issue. It’s important to be entertaining, to provide reasons why people would want to follow your brand, like promotions and incentives. But also, those messages need to be contextually relevant. Sprout also found that a staggering 75% of respondents had made a purchase because of something they saw on social media. If you needed further proof as to the value of social media marketing, there it is. With more and more people active on social platforms every day, it’s become a key consideration channel, a key element in the purchase process. Sprout also found that the majority of people are more likely to buy from a brand they follow on social media. The findings basically reinforce the playbook for content marketing – provide your audience with contextually relevant, entertaining content, along with some promotions and special offers, and they’ll be increasingly likely to buy from you. The challenge, of course, lies in community understanding, in ensuring you’re delivering content that is relevant and that helps reinforce your brand. But Sprout’s data shows that if you do the research and are able to become that key source that people follow, there’s a much greater chance of them moving to the next stage of the purchase cycle. There’s a range of other data points in Sprout’s full report, including industry-specific breakdowns and further insights – it’s worth reading if you get a chance. Andrew Hutchinson Top 16 Most Effective Search Engine Optimization Tips [Infographic] SEO is a dynamic industry which requires keen observation and consideration in any kind of on-page changes, off-page activities or link-building strategies. Marketers are always looking at ways to beef up their SEO plans and boost traffic, while on the other hand, search engines are getting smarter and smarter every day. The below Infographic, curated and designed by Dilate Digital, takes into account the “Top 16 effective Search Engine Optimization tips” recommended by Ahrefs
According to Ahrefs research, the most important factor for an optimized website is site layout and architecture, which contains well-researched and relevant keywords with proper title tags, meta descriptions, header tags and vice-versa. Website design must also fulfil the requirements of user-experience and search engine friendliness. To track your website performance and bugs, Google's Search Console is your best option, while to understand traffic changes, landing page performance and other SEO elements; Google Analytics plays a vital role. Other factors that need to be considered are, content optimization and website speed (both for desktop and smart phone users), image optimization, link building, social media, Google Penalty recovery, content promotion and General SEO tips and advices. Take a look at the key elements identified below. |
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