Pandemic Assistance: How Digital Marketing Has Saved Small Businesses in 2021
The pandemic has caused many small businesses to shutter. Some, however, took it as a sign to assess the situation and pivot. Instead of closing shop to avoid further risking their resources, businesses that are still in operation found a window of opportunity to stand out with fewer competitors in a dwindling marketplace.
Small businesses that established themselves online and creatively leveraged digital marketing were better able to cater to the sudden changes in market demands, especially with a drop in competition.
Read on to discover how digital marketing has aided small businesses despite the pandemic’s catastrophic effects.
Digital Marketing Assists With Growth
As many people have sheltered in place at home without the ability to interact outdoors, the reliance on the internet for both necessities and recreation rose exponentially. Many users shifted from in-person communication and services to online interactions and transactions.
By creating a steady online presence, businesses that changed their focus from traditional methods to digital marketing were able to retain or increase their engagement with consumers — and, in turn, also increased their conversion rates.
Digital marketing can help small businesses expand and reach a wider audience, too. By keeping up-to-date and utilizing social media trends, many small businesses found that the pandemic created new niches and demands to cater to.
By paying more attention to digital marketing, small businesses can also discover a means of potentially competing with larger companies. This is because, when done correctly, digital marketing can be just as effective at reaching the masses as traditional marketing without needing an exorbitant budget. It can help save more money for investing in other areas of your business that need it.
Digital Marketing Provides a Workaround for Many Industries
The food industry suffered greatly because of the pandemic due to social distancing, quarantine, and lockdowns. These have effectively barred food businesses from performing at their peak — even causing an alarming number to shut down entirely.
As such, food businesses had to make changes concerning their marketing strategies. With a heightened demand for food delivery services, food establishments that typically rely on in-person foot traffic have started to develop digital marketing strategies using social media and online advertisements to keep businesses afloat.
This also applies to other industries that rely on brick-and-mortar shops. Retail stores selling clothing, home goods, and other sundries have found a semblance of stability by establishing online stores, shipping services, and stronger social media presences to resume cash flow.
Some services, like therapy and other medical consultations, have started offering online assessments and sessions to continue servicing their communities without the risk of COVID-19 infections in hospitals and clinics.
Digital Marketing Helps Keep Customers Informed and Engaged
Thanks to constant advancements in technology, it is getting easier and easier to communicate and transact with almost any type of audience. Social media, in particular, has helped businesses form stronger connections with their audience by providing a convenient means to engage with customers using different forms of media.
Many brands have utilized their social media accounts to share stories that make emotional impacts on their audience. Strong examples include marketing campaigns revolving around pandemic relief efforts and showing support for movements that aid marginalized communities.
Some brands even create online-only products and services that evoke a sense of exclusivity and prestige, subconsciously promoting brand loyalty.
Small businesses have also utilized online platforms to keep customers informed about changes in operations, especially when moving from a physical location to a digital domain. This way, existing local customers know how to continue supporting small businesses.
Lastly, by establishing a well-rounded online presence, small businesses can give their audience multiple avenues for customer feedback and support. By showing an open interest in customers’ opinions, businesses can also encourage brand loyalty and increase positive brand reputation by building trust.
Action Tip
To best utilize digital marketing, make sure that your website and contact information are always kept updated. You must also maintain a strong and constant online presence on major social media platforms to stay relevant.
The Key Takeaway
The pandemic has challenged our way of handling our businesses. However, we must not give up in these trying times. We must learn how to be resilient and be resourceful.
With the many types of pandemic restrictions in place, it is important to continue using digital marketing as other surviving businesses have. It has contributed a lot in helping businesses flourish and grow despite the absence of physical stores and in-person interactions.
Regardless of which platform you use, you will see success in your digital marketing efforts by using it wisely and creatively. Keep your website and social media profiles up-to-date, stay connected and continue engaging with your customers and always look for new ways to meet your market’s needs by paying attention to online trends. By doing so, you will have a higher chance to keep your business afloat throughout and after the pandemic.
Ready to start your digital marketing plan? Contact out digital marketing agency in Philadelphia, PA to learn more!
When Are the Best Times to Post on Social Media
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram were created to be enjoyable and convenient ways to connect users to their friends and family. But, with advancements in technology, constantly changing market trends, and the big shift from in-person interactions to online connections, social networking platforms eventually found themselves heavily utilized for business and marketing.
These days, social media is used by both small businesses and big corporations as a major means of reaching and engaging with clients all across the globe in real-time.
For small-scale entrepreneurs and those who are looking to start their businesses, social media is an incredibly handy tool for establishing connections with potential customers.
One thing most businesses fail to realize, though, is that while posting good content is key, the timing of your posts plays a very important part in casting a wider net.
Read to learn more about social media platforms and the best times to share content.
The Top Social Media Platforms for Businesses
Many social media platforms are utilizing many different forms of media available to consumers right now but, for businesses, the most important ones are:
Facebook is the most popular social media platform in the world. As it has the most active users of every demographic, this is the one platform business owners can’t be without.
Its interface allows businesses to create and share content in a wide range of media formats, including text, photos, videos, and stories. It also allows users to schedule posts for future publishing, which is perfect when doing bulk content creation.
Facebook’s design also allows customers to easily engage with businesses through comment threads and post reactions. On top of that, Facebook allows people to easily share content to their timelines or through private messaging for instant word-of-mouth marketing.
Many celebrities, politicians, and other people of note utilize Twitter for sharing announcements, opinions, and recommendations. Because of this, Twitter has a user base of all genders belonging to a wide range of ages, social classes, and beliefs.
Twitter allows its users to publish (or ‘tweet’) images, videos, and short text posts with a 280-character limit in real-time. As Twitter’s design puts a heavy emphasis on conciseness, this requires users to create straight-to-the-point and witty content to attract the eye of other users.
Business owners can take advantage of Twitter’s interface that allows for the easy sharing (or retweeting) and quoting of user posts. Besides sharing, users can also like posts. These liked posts are archived in the user’s profile, which can serve as a bookmark for future reference.
Another feature that makes Twitter ideal for businesses is the ease of communicating with other users. Many corporations use this platform to engage with users, as well as for customer support purposes.
One of the most downloaded apps in the United States, Instagram focuses more on the photo and video content and less on text.
Setting an Instagram account properly is just as important as knowing when to post. Businesses need to take advantage of linking their website and writing a good bio for their accounts as these are some of the first things a user sees when visiting an Instagram profile.
As a platform that prioritizes visuals, the key to making a good Instagram account is posting very aesthetically appealing photos and videos. It is important to make your Instagram grid appear cohesive, so crafting a strong visual identity for your brand is a must.
Instagram also recently added an update that enables businesses to directly sell and transact with consumers by hosting their online shops within the platform.
To be able to reach many people when starting on the platform, utilize popular hashtags to make your brand visible.
The Best Time to Post On Social Media For Optimal Engagement
Besides creating good content, it is also important to study the demographic you are trying to reach to identify the best time to post. Important factors to consider, besides age and gender, include habits and interests.
If you already have an existing social media account, you can also look into your top posts to determine your peak time for posting. You can sort through your analytics by certain metrics, such as engagement and number of likes and shares.
Keep in mind that each platform has its algorithm that may affect your post’s visibility. For Instagram and Facebook, it was found that their algorithms prioritize “recency” for ranking, so it only makes sense to post when your target market is online. These algorithms are revised occasionally, though, so business owners must adjust to that, too.
If you would prefer to leave the social media optimization and analytics to someone else, you can reach out to a social media management company in Philadelphia for help.
Around 73% of Facebook’s nearly 3 billion users were found to log onto the platform every day, with 57% of users from the United States primarily using it for sharing content.
Through user data, Wednesday around 11:00 AM CST was discovered to be the peak time for general engagement, although 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM on all other weekdays are not far behind.
As for marketing your products, Facebook users are most receptive to posts about consumer goods on Wednesdays and Fridays, from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM, with a distinct drop in interest before 8:00 AM. Meanwhile, media consumption sees a spike at 5:00 PM mid-week.
In general, individual consumers tend to check Facebook most right before work hours, during lunch break, and during downtime after work. Sundays typically see the least amount of active users.
Unlike Facebook and Instagram algorithms, Twitter’s algorithm ranks tweets by potential user interest instead of in chronological order. With over 500 million tweets per day, businesses need to know when to post so as not to be buried under other tweets.
Twitter sees a jump in activity around 8:00 AM every day — weekends included — as users tend to use the platform as a news source, checking for updates right before starting their day.
As mentioned earlier, many corporations turn to Twitter for addressing customer support issues. Unlike Facebook, Twitter’s best day for business engagement is on Sundays from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. General engagement, though, still does best on weekdays from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM.
While Instagram does somehow show posts based on recency, it is also notorious for being unpredictable and does not present content in chronological order. The best workaround is to know what your target demographic’s peak hours are.
Like Facebook, Wednesday around 11:00 AM tends to be the best for user engagement. General engagement also peaks on Fridays from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM but is consistently good on all weekdays from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM.
For marketing goods of any kind, Wednesday at 3:00 PM has seen the most movement, followed by Tuesdays to Fridays from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM.
Moreover, Facebook acquired Instagram and has now established a cross-posting feature between the two platforms, which business owners should take advantage of.
Conclusion
For businesses venturing into the world of social media marketing, it is important to partner in creating good content with an effective posting schedule.
Different platforms see different activity trends from their users, and it is imperative to take note of your preferred platform’s peak hours, as well as studying your target audience’s online habits, to make the most of your social media experience.
How Digital Marketing Is Changing the Real Estate Market in 2021
Most potential buyers prefer to see a property in person before making their final decision. But now they can go back and view a house at any time through virtual tours and images. We have adapted to research our interests online before making a time commitment. Real estate agents and homeowners have begun to step up their marketing game and build a strong online presence.
Check out the following article to see how digital marketing is transforming the real estate market. Having a plan and adjusting your marketing strategies can help real estate agents and homeowners alike remain safe during this pandemic.
Virtual Tours
Given the challenges brought by COVID-19, conducting home tours in person became risky and impractical. Instead of putting everyone’s life at risk, many realtors now carry out virtual home tours. Doing so allows prospective buyers to examine the properties in the comfort of their homes. This helps narrow down the search for homes without having to set our several hours for tours.
You can utilize different platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. Others opt to utilize augmented technology to make these virtual tours possible. These video marketing strategies boost the exposure while protecting ourselves and our clients from the virus. Virtual home tours are expected to be the trend for the rest of 2021 and probably the years to come. They offer potential buyers to view the home and have a general idea of the house before the initial contact.
Social Media Marketing
Since most of us stay home now more than ever, social media platforms have become more versatile — either for school, work, or entertainment. The same is true for real estate agents. People looking to buy or sell their properties would browse the internet to find reliable real estate agents and the available homes they are sharing.
Using different social media channels, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn, can build your brand and boost exposure. Maximize the power of social media by producing catchy and viral content and leveraging social ad campaigns. This real estate trend will likely continue throughout 2021, so we need to quickly adapt to this fast-paced real estate market.
Drones
Most, if not all, property buyers want to look at the neighborhood outside so they can imagine what living in the neighborhood would be like. They need to consider different factors, like the amenities, proximity to hospitals, schools, markets, and other essential establishments.
While some people take their time to view the area on Google Maps, the images are not always up to date. This is where drones come in. You can use them to give potential clients a real-time experience of the community through the images and videos taken from the drones.
You can also feature these drone footage on your social media platforms as another selling point. Doing so can save time and reduce the amount of in-person meetings with clients.
Blockchain Technology
The benefits of blockchain technology are also now maximized in digital marketing. Through this technology, you can track ad placement and see if customers are clicking the ads. This feature makes it easier for us to reevaluate and improve your real estate marketing strategies.
Given the technology’s transparent nature, potential clients can see how marketers utilize their personal information. Once they trust us, they will likely share their details, helping us know them better.
Such transparency also helps us cut down real estate transaction costs, like registration fees, loan fees, and taxes. They can be reduced or even removed as platforms automate these processes.
Content Marketing
If you want to cut down on your expenses, especially since the pandemic has brought us inevitable economic challenges, you can focus on another digital marketing trend this 2021: content marketing.
As real estate agents and homeowners, it is important to keep seeking real estate marketing ideas that won’t burn a hole in your pocket but are still effective. That means exploring new marketing strategies like content marketing. Real estate internet marketing services can offer a window into an affordable way to share and view houses for sale.
With this type of marketing, you just need to focus on producing or repurposing content through blogs, Zoom webinars, YouTube videos, Facebook or Instagram stories, and several other platforms. Utilizing these channels helps us share valuable insights with potential clients and build your authority.
Community Service
The coronavirus pandemic has left so many people jobless and businesses closed. That is why every effort or outreach — no matter how big or small — would be appreciated by local communities.
Real estate agents who have the means can give back to the community by helping out the less fortunate through volunteering or donations. Potential clients would always pick competent real estate agents. However, it’s a great plus if they see agents actively involved in the community and going the extra mile to help other people.
With such a reputation, you can build credibility and trust, send a positive message, and expand your customer base. These charitable causes are expected to be the trend in the real estate market in 2021.
Keep Up With the Changing Real Estate Market
Virtual home tours, social media marketing, content marketing, and other digital marketing strategies are changing the real estate world in 2021. Knowing these trends help us plan and adjust your marketing strategies to keep up with the fast-moving real estate market. To find more real estate and digital marketing tips and trends, contact our digital marketing agency in Philadelphia today!
How Digital Marketing Can Help You Gain Momentum in 2021
As we reach the end of 2021’s first quarter, it’s essential to step back and analyze the various ways digital marketing can help us gain momentum for our businesses. It’s also important to look at the emerging trends and align these with your company to take advantage of the things happening around us. Because 2020 drastically changed our economy, this year will continue to challenge marketers looking to help businesses get started or continue what they have built. Here are a few ways how digital marketing can help you gain momentum.
The Ever-Growing Demand for Online Services and Shopping
According to a survey from PYMNTS, almost 36% of U.S. consumers bought their retail goods online in July, compared to 29% from April last year. The increase was due to the closure of many stores in the middle of the pandemic. The same can be said for customers who order from restaurants online, where 21% of consumers ordered during July, compared to 13% from April 2020.
As a result, companies rushed to meet these digital demands, with Target taking up the lead in expanding its curbside grocery business. Target was able to further its digital transformation, and sales increased by 141% in the first quarter alone in 2020. Because of this, more of their stores will have designated curbside pickup spots along with fresh and frozen space for online grocery orders. Target aims to provide a high-quality digital experience while delivering orders quicker and cutting costs simultaneously.
Share Your Stories
“Stories” began with Snapchat back in 2013, and while it took a while for other social platforms to implement it, almost every one of them uses it today. From Twitter Fleets, Instagram Stories, and YouTube Reels, each of these stories have their twist to it, but they all serve the same purpose. To get success from using stories, we’ll need to use every feature it has to offer.
This means we need to engage our followers through clickable media and polls, utilize the whole screen, and experiment with effects, motion overlays, stickers, and other kinds of creative things. For marketers and brands, this medium allows us to be candid and post as much as we want. It also offers an easy-to-use tool and an excellent opportunity to increase brand awareness, so it gives you the whole package.
Repurposing your Existing Videos for Social Media
Because of the pandemic, the number of clicks on videos has skyrocketed. As such, viewers will be expecting to get more video content on social media — whether it’s customers, stakeholders, or employees. It’s precisely because of this demand that you need to empower your team to create video content, all of which can be done with simple video makers online. If you’re stuck for ideas on what kind of videos you need to create, don’t worry about making anything new.
Instead, take existing webinars and blog posts and make teaser videos out of them. You can then repost them as new content for your other social media platforms such as LinkedIn. Product tutorials and customer case studies can also be transformed into beautiful Instagram stories. You never have to worry about the content because it’s always there, and the possibilities are endless; you just need to present them in a new perspective every time.
Showing the Public that Your Business Exists
In recent years, we’ve seen more and more businesses shift to a multi-channel marketing strategy rather than sticking to just one form of traffic and revenue generator. One key reason behind this is that companies want to reduce the risk of revenue by being too dependent on Youtube, Google, or Pinterest algorithms.
Another reason is that businesses look for target audience-specific marketing channels to optimize their marketing campaigns for their particular platform to out-spend the competition. The final reason is based just on common sense; because companies want to grow their revenues, it’s best to use all major marketing platforms to get as many customers as possible.
Digital Customer Strategy
The year 2020 launched a brand new way of conducting business through an offline-to-online transformation of many stores and shops, which have mostly flourished in the year that has passed. However, some companies couldn’t keep up with this trend and have stopped all their activities. We believe that marketing activities shouldn’t just focus on getting new customers, but also on assisting our existing and future customers.
Some experts have focused on more tactical aspects of digital marketing, but others focus on digital customer strategies. These hold critical importance from the limitations and lockdowns still in place in many places around the world. Such strategies range from customer education, customer retention, and concepts of “predefined personalization” to reach out to your digital customers.
Getting a new client shouldn’t be the end goal for any company, especially during these trying times. Simply acquiring a client for our services won’t help the business flourish if he/she will drop out after a few months. This is where support and education will help our clients endure difficult times and grow alongside us. Aside from creating lead magnets and well-functioning marketing funnels and developing sales processes and webinars, having a thorough digital customer strategy in place will ensure your business’s growth and the customers you serve.
By evaluating the current situation around us and the hurdles we’ve already jumped over in the past year, we can get a sense of the digital marketing trends and hiccups we need to look out for. By learning from what works and the mistakes made by others, we can adapt digital marketing strategies that we can use for the year ahead of us. While it can be so easy to lose our way or to chase after a brand new trend, it’s best to stick to practices that have been tested, so you can use them to build your momentum to keep your business running even after the pandemic is long gone.
For more information on digital marketing strategies and more, contact our digital marketing agency in Philadelphia today!
Are My Competitors Using SEO: How Can I Tell?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a critical part of your marketing effort that you need to incorporate if you hope to optimize your online visibility chances. With it, you can easily improve your visibility on search engines—both locally and internationally—so that when someone goes on search engines looking for what you provide, they can easily find your website and get in touch with you.
Sadly, the increase in the number of companies using the internet has also led to an upsurge in SEO applications. More companies have seen this component’s critical nature, and they’re using it to improve their market visibility significantly. So, while it is recommended that you also employ SEO in your efforts, you will be better served if you understand how competitors are working to know how best to capitalize on it.
Like everything else that has to do with your business, you must engage in thorough competitor analysis to launch your SEO efforts. Your competitors could eventually become your greatest allies when it comes to SEO if you allow them. By gaining insights into how they work, you can essentially reverse-engineer their success and capitalize on their weaknesses. Eventually, you can one-up their strategy to record better wins.
To do this, you will need some practical competitive intelligence. The objective here is to understand how others are employing SEO strategies. From there, you can adopt what works, improve on it, and gain the advantage you desire.
So, how do you get a look into your competitor’s SEO strategy?
Examine Your Competitor’s Keywords
Of course, this is a no-brainer. Keywords are the central element of SEO, and they form the building blocks of any company’s running strategy.
Besides organic searches, your rankings on search pages will be significantly affected by keywords. The better you can apply these keywords, the better you can optimize your strategy. To look into the keywords your competitors are using, you can take advantage of several tools.
Keyword Search Results
Perhaps one of the most prominent tools is checking the search results. Multiple tools work as a tracker. This lets you see your competitors’ keywords in organic search results, and it even shows you their keywords in Google Ads. Such tools, like Ubersuggest, will display top keywords and metrics like monthly pay-per-click hits and more. You will need to register to use its leading features, but Ubersuggest is among one of the many great ways to start.
Tracking Tools
You can also use tracking tools, another powerful resource that provides tons of features. Ahrefs, one of the available tools will show you top keywords, backlinks, most widely-used keywords, and even your competitor’s highest-ranking pages. The tool isn’t free, but you’ll find that it provides an excellent bang for your buck when you consider all its features. There are plenty of other options as well that may be a better fit for your industry or intent
The Importance of Keyword Research
It’s easy to see why this component is critical. By understanding the keywords that help your competitors rank, you’re seeing the secret to their SEO success and can draw ideas on possible keywords that will help you outrank them.
Look out for the term frequency-inverse document frequency tool to see your competitor’s approach to using keywords. If you’re looking to incorporate specific keywords into your content, this tool offers excellent help.
For further help on SEO research and success, you can reach out to a local SEO company in your area for professional SEO strategy advice and more.
Checking for Backlinks and Domain Data
As you probably know, keywords aren’t the only critical component of SEO. Several other elements will affect you and your competitors’ rankings, and one of them is domain authority. Essentially, this component assesses a website’s relevance in the company’s physical location.
Backlinking is another critical SEO component. It essentially examines the links that point to your website or other websites in the content available on the site. Having backlinks communicates that your site is of high quality and that it’s worth linking to. Eventually, you rank higher that way.
You can use tools to check domain data and backlinking information. Ensure you check how many backlinks your competitors have. Also, look into the websites that feature their links and the websites that these competitors also feature.
With all of this information, you have a better idea of how best to craft your content and the sites you should link to.
On-Page SEO Analysis
You will also need to look into your competitor’s on-page SEO. Essentially, this is the practice of optimizing your website using elements like image alt tags, meta descriptions, alt titles, and more.
To know more about your competitor’s on-page SEO, check out SEO inspection tools. Without a doubt, this is one of the most effective ways to check SEO. It will show you more details on your competitor’s website, including their metadata, page titles, and more. This way, you know what works and what doesn’t.
With page titles and metadata, SEO tools help you to know the correct format and length. Concerning image alt tags, the tool shows you the proper ways to apply meta descriptions so that Google’s algorithm and bots will be able to crawl through your site easily.
Social Media Checks
Beyond websites and search content, you should also look into your competitors’ social media pages for SEO ranking tips.
Brands are spending a significant amount of money on their social media presence these days. Whether you already have a page for yourself or are just looking into creating one, be sure to look into how your competitors handle theirs.
Look into how these companies interact and engage with their followers, including those that turn to customers and casual followers. Get to know what they post about, their post formats, and their activity levels.
Note that you don’t want to just copy their profiles. Understand their work and be inspired by it. Then incorporate some of their strategies into your social media campaign.
Does Social Media Matter to Your SEO?
Social media is critical to your SEO. By optimizing your profile and the content you post, you have a greater chance of getting people to go to your website. By extension, your chances of making higher sales are optimized as well.
It’s a delicate balance, but you’ll find that you need all the help you can get in today’s highly competitive SEO landscape. So, work on your social media as much as you can.
If you are ready to competitively market your company through SEO and other digital marketing tools, you can contact SEO Local for more information on digital marketing in Southampton, PA and the extended area today!
SEO: How to Level the Playing Field with Your Competitors
The business world is incredibly competitive. With a multitude of companies in your field, it’s a chore to keep an eye on the competition while managing your business. Some businesses try to cut corners to win because it seems easy and can get them the results they seek. However, the truth is that cheating tactics only work for a short time. At the end of the day, everyone gets found out, and you could get severely penalized for this.
When it comes to growing your business the right way, there’s no escaping the internet. Many people use it, so you can’t do without incorporating it into your growth strategy. With that in mind, it’s essential to also look into effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as part of your growth.
In this guide, we’ll look into how your small or medium business can capitalize on SEO for exponential growth as well as some tips you should consider when implementing it.
Leveling the Playing Field With SEO
Plugging Into Web Traffic the Right Way
When it comes to web performance, only a few things matter as much as organic search. It improves performance over time, can move customers down the purchasing funnel, and eventually gets a user to complete an action, be it a sale, a call, an engagement, etc.
However, it all begins with search, and when it comes to search, organic search is the purest form that can get you results. As many know, Google owns the largest share of the global search engine market. There are several other search engines and browsers out there, but Google’s share dwarfs theirs even when combined.
Of course, you could easily get higher visibility via other search engines. However, Google is the clear-cut leader in this category and is truly where you should focus your energy.
Being the most visited site in the world, Google is also the largest email service provider. Its subsidiary, YouTube, also owns the world’s most extensive catalog of video content and is one of the top search engines as well. At least once a day, a vast majority of people with internet access go on Google to get information.
By having high visibility on Google, you can easily capitalize on it to grow your business. The only way to achieve this, however, is through quality SEO and a standard website.
Good SEO Points to a Seamless User Experience
Many SEO professionals tend to focus more on keyword rankings and more while working. This goal is great, but it’s not the entire picture. When ranking sites, Google also considers things like website user experience and content quality.
In fact, user experience on its own is just as significant a factor in your SEO efforts as are things like keyword and content optimization. Positive user experience is a critical element of your success, and you need to ensure it as you go forward.
Customers know what they want, and they’ll go elsewhere if they can’t find it with you. Soon enough, your site and its performance will suffer. When your site has a high SEO ranking, it shows that the site’s content isn’t just good, but the site also provides enough features to draw users to stay on it.
Local SEO Grows Conversions
One of the most significant search engine trends available today is the rise of mobile traffic. More people are browsing and, by extension, searching for businesses on their phones. This trend has made local search more of a fundamental part of business success, especially for startups and medium businesses that are trying to grow.
Essentially, local SEO looks to optimize your website and online platform for a specific area. This way, people around you can easily find you. Considering that you’re closer to them, it becomes much easier to convert them. Local SEO focuses on towns, regions, cities, and even states to establish a channel for you to grow from the ground up.
A local SEO company can take advantage of this by optimizing your site and its content. This step includes adding local backlinks, citations, and local listings that are relevant to the area you’re looking to rank for, the target audience, and your business sector.
Local SEO can also incorporate services like Google My Business and reviews on sites like Yelp and more. All of these focus on optimizing for a specific vicinity, and they are incredibly effective at doing this.
Relative Cost-Effectiveness
Sure, SEO costs money. There’s no way you can rank high and grow your business without spending money. However, when you put it in the grand scheme of things, you’ll find that SEO is affordable. The payoff is also much more considerable over time. You can get an estimated cost for local or national SEO services from a national SEO agency.
When thinking of SEO, don’t consider it a marketing cost. Instead, think of it as a business investment. When implemented right, SEO will reap benefits for years to come. The more investment and attention it gets, the more it improves. So, you can get much more with less money.
Tips for Effective SEO Implementation
Take Out Anything That Slows Your Site
Remember that bit about site performance and user experience? Well, nothing contributes to a terrible user experience quite like slow responses on websites. Site speed remains a critical factor in SEO, and you want to ensure that you optimize your site as much as possible. A delay in load time can cost you conversions in real-time. Perform a thorough audit of your site, and if you find anything that delays traffic, take it out.
Build Links
SEO is not a one size fits all marketing technique. There are many important pieces that can benefit a business. Backlinks are one vital part to a strong SEO plan. Try to link to other sites with similar information in your content. It is recommended that you get sites with data to back up the information you’re trying to convey.
For this, make sure to only link to sites that bounce off yours. Essentially, when someone clicks on that link, they should see it open in a separate tab, not yours. Otherwise, you run the risk of losing that customer and having them go to a separate page entirely.
Optimize Your Content for Humans
Whatever you put on your site, make sure to optimize it for the people you’re trying to reach. Let your language flow naturally and make the content easy to read. Don’t let your focus on keywords cloud you from trying to form that all-important human connection with your readers.
The Latest Social Media Trends For 2021 And How You Can Use These For Your Business
In today’s world, social media is one the most effective marketing channel for any company. With billions of people handling at least one account each on a social media site, it’s critical for you as a business to be on these platforms as well if you hope to reach members of your target market.
However, building up your social media isn’t quite as easy as you might imagine. For one, you need to remember that there’s fierce competition out there. Companies in your field are also on social media, and there’s a significant chance that many of these firms have larger budgets than you. With that in mind, you need to play smart.
Thankfully, this one of the many benefits of digital marketing strategies. Social media is ruled by trends — things and concepts that are the most “in vogue” right now. Trends differ between social media platforms broadly, but some are generally encompassing. It’s important to consider these as you chart a course forward.
Live Streams and Sessions for Engagement
If there’s one thing that captured everyone’s attention in 2020, it was the COVID-19 pandemic. It forced life to halt to a standstill, and people were instructed to stay at home.
Nevertheless, life must go on, and social media played a significant part in this. To maintain social distancing but still connect with others, people hopped online. Meetings soon became a standard on Zoom, and companies turned to live streams on social media to optimize their operations.
Naturally, this led to a surge in the use of live streaming tools across all social media channels. For instance, Facebook saw a significant upsurge in its live streaming and messaging channels — especially in areas most hit by the virus, like Italy and the United States.
As a stat sheet from Facebook showed, the number of views on Facebook Live and Instagram Live doubled in just a week at a certain point.
In 2021, it’s pretty evident that we’re not entirely out of the woods just yet. Life is slowly beginning to return to normal, but the coronavirus situation continues to evolve. People and companies remain committed to communicating through their devices, and social media live streaming is still a prominent part of this.
If you’re looking to optimize your social media strategy, you can’t possibly do it without live streaming. While everyone remains at home, you could engage your followers with live streaming sessions and grow your audience base from there.
Stories as Instagram’s Top Content Source
Instagram launched Stories in 2016. While the feature had a pretty rough landing due to comparisons with Snapchat, it has since risen to become one of Instagram’s biggest hits. On average, 500 million people react with Stories daily on Instagram, and there’s no sign of them going away soon.
If you aren’t using your Stories, it’s recommended that you do so. Incorporate videos and pictures into the component — primarily videos, which seem to outperform other content formats on Instagram.
People tend to spend more time viewing videos on their Stories than images. You need to get on Stories now, and you need to do so with engaging videos.
Virtual Reality is Coming
Thanks to the stay-at-home orders and prolonged social distancing requirements, people have begun looking into alternative reality iterations. For now, virtual reality remains one of the most effective technology trends out there.
The allure of virtual reality is easy to see. It allows you to get the sense of actually being somewhere — or with someone else, even if they’re on the other side of the planet. In a period where people are forced to stay home, this is the type of development that we desperately need.
There are already signs that 2021 will see more integration between social media and virtual reality. Facebook is working on revamping its Oculus to allow people to connect with others, play games, explore, and more.
As a business, you could leverage virtual reality to enable consumers to view what you’re selling. Industries like art, real estate, e-commerce, and more — those which deal with tangible assets and products — will undoubtedly benefit from this.
Upwards Growth for Social Commerce
Over the years, we’ve witnessed a significant shift that brings social media together with improved user experience. This shift has led to the development of more tools to connect social media with seamless online shopping.
For instance, Instagram allows e-commerce companies to add product tags and embed checkout links for products on their pages. Facebook even allows you to set up an entire shop, encouraging people to browse what you’ve got and make purchases right from the platform.
If you’re a marketer, this is a significant trend that you should be working on. Data shows that around 54% of social media users use these platforms to research products before purchasing. With social media playing a more critical role in influencing purchase decisions, you could use it to optimize your sales.
With social commerce, you can significantly optimize your customers’ purchasing journey. Now, users will be able to see a product on social media and purchase it from the app directly. There’s no need to leave the platform, go back to the website, and then begin looking for the product again.
By allowing customers to purchase straight away, you’re improving their experience and also reducing the chances of abandoned carts and transactions. Putting a “buy now” link or button on your platform will improve your chances of making a sale on your own. If your business deals in selling, you’ll need an effective social media storefront that provides shoppable posts and easy-to-purchase links.
Purposeful Marketing Campaigns
Social media has always been an excellent tool for driving engagement with meaningful causes. With the pandemic still going on out there, “meaningful causes” have taken on a new form. People want to lend a helping hand, and brands are also expected to do something.
This year, it’s important to lend a helping hand as best as you can as a business. With social media, it’s much easier and more comfortable to do so. You can use purpose-driven engagement and relief campaigns that help the most vulnerable of people, and you can use social media to increase your following while doing it.
Collect leads from events or customers entering your store. A product like OnSpot Social has the software that will help you collect the leads so you can create some purposeful marketing campaigns on top of your current marketing.
At the end of the day, customers follow brands that they can relate to. When they see a more humane side of you, they’re bound to believe more in your message.
Interested in developing your own social media marketing plan? Contact our social media marketing agency in Philadelphia to learn more!
5 Reasons Using a Digital Marketing Company Can Optimize Your Business
Digital marketing is a key part of today’s marketing strategies. Thanks to the rise of online and social media platforms, everyone is taking advantage of the internet to sell their services or products.
However, while it might seem easy to just hop on a platform yourself and start making moves, it will be beneficial to go through a qualified and reliable digital marketing agency. Here are some reasons why these people are in a unique position to help you.
Understanding Who You Serve
In today’s business climate, everything is incredibly competitive. It is hard to find a field that doesn’t have at least three companies blazing the trail and making significant headway, and many of these brands have been able to leverage social media to their advantage. As an upcoming name in your industry, you can’t do without having a social media presence.
Today, a significant percentage of adults worldwide use social media. So, it makes sense that you use these channels and engage with your customers. With digital marketing, you can use tools like social media platforms and digital ads to meet your customers where they are and draw them to you.
Advancements in technology have also made it possible to reach multiple people across various devices. While they use apps, play games, and generally interact with their devices, you can serve ads directly to them.
A digital marketing agency’s job is essentially to help you find the people who make up your target audience and develop means to reach them. You should understand that what you sell most likely does not appeal to everyone. That’s okay; you have a market you’re selling to. The point of a digital marketing agency is finding the people you’re looking to attract and using digital channels to get their attention.
A digital marketing agency will be able to harness the power of platforms like Google, Facebook, and Twitter to find your target market. These platforms have demographic and psychological information about many of their users. You can tap into these information bases to target people.
Instead of serving ads to every single person, you can target your efforts to improve efficiency. Digital marketing companies understand this, and they provide the infrastructure for you to get that done.
Analytics and Tracking
One of the most critical factors to consider when launching a digital marketing campaign is to set your goals. These goals will help you to track your performance and understand how well you’re doing.
With digital marketing, you can analyze your campaigns based on any time frame you like. It could be a day, a week, a month, and even hours! A digital marketing agency will understand how to work with analysis tools to access your customers’ demographics and other vital details. From there, it becomes easy to know how well your marketing campaign is performing.
It’s worth noting that your digital marketing campaign’s goals don’t necessarily need to be confusing. It could be as simple as improving brand awareness and growing your audience, generating leads to your website or online store, or making actual sales through your various platforms.
There are several other examples of what you would like to achieve with your digital marketing campaign. The point here is just to know where you’re trying to go before you even start the journey. Understand what you would like to happen as a result of your campaign; then walk backward from there.
Digital marketing companies can help you with this process. They can consult with you to understand what your campaign is all about and what you’re trying to achieve with it. From there, they devise the proper methods to help you out. All in all, knowing what to optimize for will help to determine what you believe to be a success.
Cost-Effective Operations
As stated earlier, the business climate is incredibly competitive. It’s difficult for you, a small startup looking to make a name, to compete with the industry leaders who have vast resources. However, digital marketing can be the ultimate equalizer.
Back in the day, everyone had to go through conventional media and marketing channels to sell their products. However, these platforms have become too centralized. Control by a group of people means that your efforts can easily fail since your top competitors can easily outspend you and drown out your marketing efforts.
Digital marketing helps to cancel that out. While a lot of digital marketing still depends on money, you will find even more success if you can connect with your target audience. To do that, you don’t need vast resources.
There have been several stories of brands that used targeted and focused digital marketing to improve their clientele over time, despite having limited resources. With digital marketing, you get an advertising medium that is trendy, cost-effective, and highly reliable. Also, since you can measure your success over time, it’s easy to understand your investment return.
With just a few dollars per day, optimization, and focused targeting, you can engage in a low-cost digital marketing campaign and see impressive results. With consistency, you can increase your budget and reach even more people. That’s how you get the ball rolling!
Relationship and Reputation Building
To grow your business, you must have a stellar reputation. Word-of-mouth marketing remains a highly effective marketing medium, and it relies heavily on the reputation you’ve built with existing customers.
Digital marketing agencies can help with this as well. They will help you monitor all your marketing and online channels, managing interactions with your current and prospective customers. By watching these channels, the digital marketing agency responds to compliments and complaints and answers questions. They can manage issues that your customers might have, discover trends, and build relationships with your customers that will last long.
When your company has a reputation for answering questions and responding to customers, you become more trustworthy. Soon enough, your reputation spreads, and your customers essentially become marketers.
Earning Potential
Digital marketing strategies can earn you multiple times the revenue. By bolstering your conversion rates, digital marketing can help to get leads. Over time, these leads translate to paying customers and growing revenues.
With a complete digital marketing strategy, you can easily turn casual viewers or followers into paying customers. Once they engage with your brand more often, you can also advertise for other brands looking to piggyback off your success. Start the process of learning more by contacting our digital marketing agency in Philadelphia!
Should You Use Social Media Stories?
Social media stories provide an avenue of opportunity that many businesses have overlooked. According to Facebook, over a billion people use stories across their social media platforms. These include Instagram and Snapchat. Many people access their stories daily, and it can be the way for you to take your business to the next level.
How Do Stories Work?
Social media stories are a separate feed that allows people to share full-screen vertical images and videos. They cater to people who want to focus more on this content, as made popular by websites such as Instagram. Platforms like Snapchat, YouTube, and Facebook allow stories to appear for 24 hours.
While they are temporary, some sites like Instagram allow storage into collections for later viewing. However, it doesn’t derail from the advantage that stories provide. Stories are an avenue of content that is only available for a short period. The temporary nature appeals to a broad audience who doesn’t want to miss out on their favorite brands.
Since they are short term, they become more personal. It makes your audience feel like they are the first ones to experience your post. The full-screen aspect of it is also immersive. Stories have been so popular that at least 75% of all users access them regularly.
The Target Audience
Most users who access social media stories are from the millennial and generation Z eras. A study showed that more than half of all millennials frequent stories. At the same time, around 70% of generation Z uses them. This trend exists because the stories feature began on Instagram, which was already used by these generations. While stories are now more widely used, they remain as the majority of the audience.
There is an opportunity for businesses who have these age groups in mind. Around 25% of these users browse stories to learn about new products and services. It has become a selling tool that many can take advantage of. Not only that, it is these generations that are also becoming a significant part of the world’s purchasing power.
Stories also have a high lead rate, with around 15% of all viewers checking the links associated with branded stories. Since stories only last for a short period, your audience will view the image or video through to the end.
Using Social Media Stories for Your Business
While stories are a relatively fresh avenue you can take advantage of, many don’t know how to start. It is a different type of media, so you should use its strengths to your advantage. Here are some ideas you can use for your content.
Develop a Series
Creating a story series you update weekly is a way to connect to your audience and build your brand. You can use it for discussion, updates, Q&A, and more. The trick to creating a series is to find content that matches your brand. You may need a more creative name or be more experimental.
A weekly series helps people stay tuned to your business. Those who want to learn more about you will have something to look forward to. It builds brand loyalty and makes you more interactive.
Behind the Scenes
For most consumers, all they see is what is at your storefront. They view the website, the products, and the services. You can use stories to help bring people deeper and give them the information they might want. By doing so, you transform otherwise generic content into something more engaging.
Sharing insights into your business, crazy events, and even simple things you use can be captivating. People love learning more about the endeavors of people behind the scenes. It gives you personality and makes you relatable. Here are some ideas of what behind-the-scenes content can look like:
- Making the product
- Stories/Background about team members
- Favorites in your inventory
How-To Content
Content that brings value to its watchers is very popular. We see videos of instructional videos, tips, and hacks everywhere. They are a hit for a reason. Think about your ideal content and think about how you can help them.
If you’re a food business, teach them more about picking ingredients or give them fun facts. Give them an idea about how you create food and the history behind it. You can even cover local events and interact with your audience.
Promotions
People are always looking for deals. They are looking for value with their purchases. By providing promotions in stories, you give your audience a feeling that they got something only a few people were able to snag. It keeps them tuned in, and they will start to monitor your feed regularly. It opens the door for you to do more marketing or build your brand.
Promotions are also easy to do, as you won’t need a lot of resources to give them discounts. You can even add something unique to your promotion to make it stand out from your competitors.
Shaping Your Story Content to Success
When it comes to creating social media stories, it is important to keep up with trends. Learning more about what is popular at the time can help you stay in the conversation. Here are some other tips that can help you build a business.
- Post Regularly: Create a schedule and stick with it. You don’t need to post every day but go at a pace that works for you. If you stick with it, you start to build a regular audience.
- Social Media Challenges: Challenges appear from time to time and become a trend. You can use these challenges to your advantage and bring more visibility to your business.
- Hashtags and Advertising: If any avenues can bring in more people, do it. You may need to spend a little to advertise. Also, don’t forget your hashtags, as it helps people when they are doing searches.
Social media stories will be one of the defining features of social media moving forward. While you have the chance, you should jump on the train before everyone else does. We all understand the value of being one of the first in any industry. Doing so will help you yield the rewards.
Interested in learning more about optimizing your social media? Ready to start your business’s social media strategy? Check out our social media marketing agency in Philadelphia and start building your digital marketing strategies!
Should You Invest Your Time in TikTok?
TikTok is perhaps one of the top conversations in the social space. With millions of users and metrics going higher by the day, the service is currently the most popular social media buzz.
Like every trend, companies have been looking into the possibility of using TikTok to promote their business. So, it begs the question, “Is TikTok really worth it?” The short answer is a resounding “Yes,” and we’ll look into the details to see why below.
Understanding TikTok
TikTok is quite different from Facebook, Twitter, and other social media that most people are familiar with. It was built as a video-sharing platform.
With TikTok, users can create, edit, and share videos that last no longer than 15 seconds. You can add music, animations, special effects, and several filters to your videos to spruce them up.
Depending on the style of your video and what you included will determine how it reaches people. While you can share with your followers, there are also themes that your content can be placed under, certain hashtags can help determine how a video will rotate through with Tik Tok’s algorithm. The views are based on the viewer’s theme preferences and what Tik Tok has created for them.
TikTok is available on Android and iOS. The service has grown significantly over the past year, combining internet connectivity and artificial intelligence to change how users consume their information.
How TikTok Works
TikTok operates primarily using artificial intelligence. The service provides customized suggestions for videos and content based on your feed to send you videos directly. It also provides filters based on facial recognition data for you. The end goal is to provide users with precisely what they desire when they want it.
For now, TikTok is one of the best ways to reach people under 25. However, several members of the older generations are also using it to reach out to their base and build new audiences, and there have been significant success stories so far.
Understand What Performs Well on TikTok
Now that we understand what TikTok is, it’s beneficial to understand what drives this social media platform’s operation. If you run a business, you’re probably wondering how TikTok knowledge can translate to marketing gains. Well, the answer will depend on your target market and brand.
You will need to study TikTok before launching your business there. Just as it is with other social media platforms, you need to understand how best to develop posts that will rank and perform well on the service. It might take a while, but it’ll be well worth the effort.
To begin, you need to understand the type of content that performs well on TikTok. You will also need to learn how best to interact with the service’s users to ensure that your business easily fits into the platform and its audience. By knowing who you’re serving and how to reach them, you essentially find the right fit for your content overall.
As you dive into the best type of content on TikTok, keep the following in mind.
First, TikTok is all about creating visually appealing content. You simply need to check the trending page to find that out.
Also, keep in mind that most of the people on TikTok are between the ages of 16 and 24 but as the platform grows more age groups are getting involved.
You will need to approach engagement more creatively. If you’re hoping to come here with a serious sales pitch, you will not get far. Be fun and creative with your content.
Creating Attractive Content
With the two principles above, let’s look into the type of content you should create while on TikTok. To begin with, understand that you don’t need perfect, highly-polished videos. TikTok is more about simplicity than anything else. So, instead of making a large production budget, just get your phone and start filming.
As long as you keep your content funny and wacky, you can reach millions with amateur video quality. It’s all about being light-hearted and informal. If this tone doesn’t fit your business, TikTok might not be your preferred platform.
Capitalizing on TikTok Ads
Understanding its reach, TikTok recently introduced ad features to its platform. This feature is a significant boon for companies looking to sell themselves on TikTok.
With TikTok Ads, you can generally use the following ad formats:
a. In-feed native content
In-feed native content is basically an ad like the ones you see on popular social media platforms like Snapchat and Instagram. They are more like story ads, and they support several features like web clicks and app downloads.
b. Hashtag challenges
A hashtag challenge provides the best means of going viral via a promoted hashtag and ad campaign. If you’re looking to get user-generated content to promote your brand, this is the ideal way to go.
c. Brand takeovers
A brand takeover essentially allows a company to take over TikTok’s platform for a period. It is usually a day, and on that day, users will be able to create videos and GIFs with embedded links to landing pages, hashtag challenges, etc.
d. Branded lenses
Branded lenses are high-definition glasses like those you see on Snapchat. They allow you to meet with new users via branded content.
The Power of Branded Hashtag Challenges
If you’re really looking to get your brand on TikTok, hashtag challenges are a perfect way. With this approach, you can encourage TiKTokkers to develop or redesign content and incorporate your brand’s hashtag into them.
Several brands, including Chipotle and Guess, have used this trend with significant success.
When it comes to marketing your business, there is hardly a better way to go about it on TikTok than with a branded hashtag.
Call Up TikTok Influencers
Like any other social media platform, TikTok also has significant influencers who can help you build your brand. Simply pay them to participate in whatever you’re doing, and they can use their videos and reach to get their followers to do the same thing.
The benefit of these influencers is that they help you to do what you otherwise couldn’t with a regular ad. Millennials and GenZ are more opposed to ads. You can bypass that wall with an influencer and get your material in front of these people without them dreading the pause in their scrolling.
All in all, marketing on TikTok is definitely worth it especially if you have a younger audience. You just need to understand what works and what passes as useful content. From there, it’s easy to get your target audience to pay attention to you.
Do you need help with TikTok advertising? Are you a business owner or an agency, we offer white label advertising, contact us today!