Why Follow Competitors on Social Media
Every morning when we pick our phone, the first thing that we do is check notifications in our Insta, FB, and other social media accounts. This is how influential or we can say important social media has become is all our lives. We don’t want to miss even a single notification from our friends or the brands that we follow. (https://glasshousefarms.org/) We must say that social media has become a necessity for a large percentage of individuals across the globe and even businesses as well. This platform holds so much value to the brands that their popularity and status cannot stand strong without having a presence there. That is the reason why millions of businesses are actively engaged in social media and interacting with their target audience to ensure good brand recognition and authority. Having a presence on social media gives the opportunity for businesses to learn from their competitors. Yes, you read it right, social media provides the best opportunity for you to do better than your competitors and for that, you are just required to follow them. In this post, we will tell you the benefits of following your competitors and how it could be defining for your marketing strategies. Reasons to follow your competitors on social media Know your competitors The first key benefit of following your competitors is that you get to know them. This is one of the best ways to keep an eye on the products or services they provide and compare them with yours to identify whether they are the same or different. Following your competitors will give you deep insights into their business as they share with their target audience. By acting as a loyal client, you can also get to know everything they share with their premium customers and that would be of great help for your business. In this way, you will be able to strategize better for your brand and have maximum chances of overpowering them. Know the way they react The conversation is the key to open new opportunities for lead generation and getting sales. The way businesses react with their audience decides how loyal they will be and what response businesses will get. Now here is the catch, if your competitors are getting great engagement from their target audience and it is reciprocating the way they have thought, then there has to be something in the way they interact with the audience. The communication strategy of your competitors might be different from yours and some of the others as well. Hence, the best way to know the way they react and interact with their audience is to be part of the audience and monitor closely. See how they reply to conversations, how they tackle negative comments, and what tone they use while talking with the mass audience. All these parameters will help you improve the way you interact with the target audience. Know what’s next in their kitty This is a big plus of following your competitors on social media. Companies first inform about their new releases to their target audience through social media and if you follow them, you will also get to know better. While, if you also have any upcoming new product release, it will help you make it sooner or delay according to the response of the audience on the competitor’s product. If you see that the response is good, you might delay the product launch and if the response is not satisfactory then launching your product early could be a good idea. Know what is working for them When you follow someone, especially business on the social media platform, you will be able to see everything they do on their account be it a simple post, contest, or something else. This will tell you which strategies are delivering the best results and which are improving their brand reputation. Getting insights into all this will be of great help to optimize your strategies and implement them in the right way. You can check the type of content they are posting, their branding strategies, promotion tactics, and relationship with their audience. Focusing on all these parameters used by your competitors will give you better ideas to plan for your brand. Know what is not working for them Positives and negatives are part of everyone’s life and this implies to businesses as well. Not everything you do will go in your favor and that’s how everybody learns. So along with knowing what is working for your competitors, it is also important to have an idea of what is not working for them. Doing this will give you an idea of what you should avoid doing with your marketing strategies. For example, if you see videos posted by your competitors are getting less attention than infographics, then it might not work for you as well. While, if you want to try something that is not working for your competitors, you need to be more careful and use different tactics to get the attention you desire. It is advised not to get your hopes high while trying those tactics. Know how they handle customer issues Following your competitors will give you the authority to read customer reviews and post one you want. The theory is simple, if your competitors are doing better than you, then their clients and target audience is trusting them and they are getting better customer service as well. Remember, not all wants discounts, there are some people who look for better product quality and better customer service, and such an audience is the loyal and genuine one. So, you will see that your competitors must be addressing each of the issues faced by their customers and making every effort to solve them. You will encounter that even with harsh customer comments, your competitors are maintaining a soft professional tone and apologizing for the bad experience even when it’s not their fault. To some, they might be giving compensation with the apology.
Grow your Brand with Social Media Contests
Social media is ruling the world and it won’t be wrong to say that millennials cannot imagine their lives without social media. Not even millennials, generation Y is also actively engaged with social media. This has become an integral part of our day to day lives. We love to share our photographs, emotions, achievements, and many other things with our friends on social media contests. This platform has gained so much popularity in less amount of time that no one would have thought of. Over the years, social media has also evolved a lot that now, it is not only important for people to share photographs and memories, but it has also become a key part of businesses across the globe. Considering their popularity and importance, we must say that no business can think about digital marketing without social media. This post will be focused on telling how you can build your brand using contests on social media and improve recognition. Running a contest on popular social media platforms is a great way to attract genuine online traffic, build authority, increase user engagement, and boost traffic. Let us see how you can do it. How to build your brand by running social media contests Define the goal Whatever you do, having a clear goal is a must because that will keep you focused and help reach it sooner. So, while running a social media contest, the first and foremost thing for you must be the clarity of what you want to achieve through that. Some of the common goals could be: Increase in web traffic Better user engagement Genuine lead generation Improved brand authority and reputation Strong social media presence Growth of email list These all you can achieve by running an effective social media contest. But it is not necessary that every business wants all of them, some might look to achieve only a few and that could be different from the list provided above. Thus, to strategize which type of contest you should run, it is important to know your goals first. That will make it easier for you to move ahead. Know your audience The next important thing you need to do is to understand the audience you want to target. This is necessary because knowing your audience will help you generate specific content for them to get the desired attention you want. Creating a contest according to their interest will ensure better engagement and to know what entices them, you need to understand them. Knowing your audience includes the age-group you want to target, their lifestyle, interest, and income. All of these parameters are important based upon the niche of your business and the products or services you offer. Whom you want to target must also be clear before running any contest on social media. The prize should be worthy Deciding everything beforehand is always a good idea to prevent any last-minute hassles and ensure better results. Now when we are talking about a contest, there must be a prize as well for which your target audience will take part in. Based on your business’s niche, type of contest, and your target audience, you need to decide the prize you will give to the winner of the contest. Remember, the prize you choose must be worthy enough that tempts people to take part willingly and seriously follow all the rules & regulations set for the contest. For example, if you have a business of footwear than you can offer the winner with one of the premium shoes of your brand or a massive discount on the purchase on store or online. The prize is what people will participate for and if it is interesting, more and more people will participate for the contest to make it a big success. Set clear rules Whatever contest you want to run, its rules must be clearly stated so that everyone can understand them and follow them. Try to keep rules simple and wherever possible include an example to make people understand better. If rules are not clear, it could become a problem for you at a later stage. Creating a bullet point list of rules is always better to ensure easy to read appearance. Including a link where people can ask their queries regarding the rules or contest would be a great idea. Use a predefined yet unique hashtag Hashtags are becoming increasingly popular day by day on almost all social media platforms. With your contest as well, a predefined hashtag will be really helpful. You can include this in your rules that using the hashtag provided by you is a must for every participant. Doing this will make it easy to find contest entries and minimize any chances of missing even a single submission. Considering this will also make your hashtag popular and that will be of great help in the future. Choose the type of contest Now when you have prepared all the essentials for your social media contests, it is time to decide which type of contest to run. This will hold the most importance in deciding the success of the contest. Choosing the right contest according to the business’s niche and interest of your target audience is vital. Remember, the contest must be interesting enough to grab the attention of the target audience and keep them engaged so that they reach the end of the contest. Promote your contest Be it a brand or brand’s contest, promotion is always necessary to reach out to the target audience and tell them that you are running a contest with amazing prizes. While promoting the contest, using the right channels is the key as that’s where you will drive participants from. We must tell you that never only rely on free promotions, considering paid ones also hold the key. A combined effort will get you a lot of participants that you want. Promotions can be done on popular social media accounts relevant to your business including Facebook,
Digital Marketing Mistakes You Should Avoid
Every business needs to be digital in this technologically advanced world, and if it is not you cannot think of its success. Everything is going digital be it shopping or marketing and it is necessary as well. The digital platform has become the main source of leads for most of the businesses and why not, this platform is the most popular one with millions of active users. Irrespective of the business’s niche, digital marketing holds equal importance for everyone. All they need to do is pick the right marketing strategy based on their goals and expectations. But there are businesses, that with zeal to do everything, end up doing things they should not do, and that hurts them in the future. There is no doubt that digital marketing is one of the key focus areas for all businesses but it is also important for them to see what is right to do and what is not. This post will tell you about some of the common mistakes that businesses end up doing with their digital marketing strategies. You must avoid those, and knowing about them will help you strengthen your digital marketing campaign with the least chances of error. Digital marketing mistakes to avoid Having no goals Goals are a must in life to stay focused and avoid being distracted. Whatever you do, it must be clear in mind what you want to achieve through that. The theory is the same with digital marketing as well, you must know why you are adopting this strategy or starting the campaign. There are businesses that know digital marketing is important for them but they don’t have a clear idea of what they want through that, and that’s where the problem arises. If you don’t know your goals, you won’t be able to pick the right tactics and even the right audience for your campaign. Thus, you must know your goals, be it high web traffic, lead generation, sales, or subscription before starting the digital marketing campaign to make your strategy accordingly and move ahead strongly. Ignoring mobile users Forgetting mobile users is a serious crime when it comes to digital marketing and if done, you might face a serious punishment as well. You must know that more than half of the world’s population is using smartphones and without the internet, those smartphones have no value. The evolution of smartphones has made it easier for people to use the internet and they prefer doing so for general surfing like shopping, looking for services online, making payments, accessing their bank accounts, and more. The key reason behind this is the ease and speed by which they do so without worrying about where they are. While this is not the case with desktops as they are bigger and can only be used you have a proper place to sit. Several studies have shown that there are more mobile internet users when compared to desktops, and the reason you already know. Thus, it is necessary for every business thinking to make a mark in the digital world to have a mobile-friendly website, and if the budget allows, an app as well. Remember, most of the business that you will get digitally is from mobile internet users, so never ignore them and optimize your site and everything else you do online for mobile users. Not listening to the audience Remember one thing, without your audience, your business cannot flourish as no audience means no leads and eventually no sales. Thus, make it a habit to listen to what the audience is saying, whether it is unhappy with your service or has any suggestions for the betterment. If you don’t listen to them why would they, and hence, you need to take every single thing said by them on a serious note. Your audience wants to get heard for their queries and responding is one of the best ways to create a strong relationship with them. Ignoring what your audience is saying will create a negative image of your brand and depict that you are not concerned about delivering good customer service. So, while running your digital marketing campaign, do pay attention to what the audience wants to say and how it wants you to reciprocate. Ignoring offers and discounts Not always, but it is important to give offers and discounts to grab the attention of new customers and increase sales. It creates interest in people to grab the product before the best deal ends and there are chances that they will stay with you for long in search of more exciting offers. Some businesses have this theory in mind that giving discounts might be a loss for them but this is not the case, doing so increases the chances of getting more leads. Giving the best deals is also a great idea to increase web traffic and that could eventually help in improving SERP ranking as well. Having abandoned social media accounts Using digital marketing tactics and not experiencing any improvements in your online position is really heartbreaking. But this is only possible if you do something wrong and one of those reasons could be keeping social media accounts sidelined. Having social media accounts does not define your digital presence, for that, you need to stay active there and engage with your followers & target audience. Abandoning or ignoring your social media accounts could not get you the success you are looking for. Social media is the king when we talk about digital marketing tactics for businesses, without it, your businesses cannot speed up. So, avoid this and make yourself present 24/7 for your target audience and regularly post relevant content to keep them engaged and share the information they like. Taking blogs lightly Remember, it doesn’t matter what is your business’s niche, blogs are always important in showing your target audience and others about your expertise in whatever you are doing. So, if you think that blogs are not meant for the business you are
How to create engrossing and effective visuals from simple data
Be it a presentation at conference or a meeting or the home page of your website, visuals are always effective and interesting. They provide an attention-grabbing touch to the page or content they are added and could also be a deciding factor in ensuring better engagement of the audience. Visuals are more compelling than a written piece of information and they attract people easily & create interest. They are also an integral part when it comes to the SEO of any website and also of any content be it a blog post or a presentation in a meeting. One misconception most of us might have with the visuals is about the data. We think that the data for visuals need to be complex and bulky. But this is not true and we need to understand this. This post will tell you about some tips and strategies for create amazing visuals from a simple data and even limited piece of information. What are visuals? When we talk about digital marketing, images, infographics, videos, and GIFs play an important role in defining the success of your website and social media accounts. All these are known as visuals and they are not a choice to be used rather they are necessities. A single visual can speak more than a content of 1000 words. If used in the right way, visuals could be the key for the success of your digital marketing campaign. Tips to create visuals Content is the priority A visual displays a piece of information and for that, content is required. So, the first priority should be unique and informative content. You need to create a content with precise and concise information that will be put in the visual. One thing to remember while creating the content is that it should be data-driven because that is what will make your visual effective. While, if your data is facts-based, it will just be the icing over the cake. Try to tell a story Visuals are best at storytelling and that is what engages people more. With whatever information you have, just try to tell a story through visuals and for that, you can use infographics to a good effect. If you are able to create a story with facts, then it could be a wonderful thing for you. For example, if your product or service is capable of solving a problem of users, then your visual could include a brief description about the problem that viewers can relate followed by the benefit of choosing your product or service. Chart could be the best A chart is one of the most commonly used yet simplest form of visual that has the power to demonstrate most complex of numerical data in simplest form. Thus, if you have some data like the growth of your customers in recent years or the rise in the subscription made by your audience in last 5 years, then representing this sort of information in a chart form will be great and compelling. You can find numerous examples of how to represent an information through charts in interesting manner. All you are required to do is research to create a unique design. Remove the add-ons The key to create an interesting and effective visual is to include only relevant information as any add-ons could be distracting and they might make it a messy one. Anything that is not supporting or justify the information you want to deliver must be removed. Plus, be smart with the design also, as choosing a heavy one might also mess things up. Include different data visualizations This is of importance when you have enough information for creating a visual. In such a situation, it is important to use different data visualization designs to ensure that the information is being conveyed clearly. A combination of different types of graphs, charts, and pictorial representations will be a great idea. All of this will make an engaging and information-rich infographic that people would love to share. Ensure easily readable font style Creating a unique visual never means that it should be so stylish that it becomes difficult to read what is written. So, whatever template design you choose, make sure that font style is clearly readable and if necessary, make it bold. Make sure that headlines have larger font size than the content to depict the information correctly. Even if you have simple & limited data, all your text must be clearly readable because that is most important as if people are not able to read all the rest of your efforts will be wasted. Choose colors effectively Colors play a vital role in creating any type of visual as they will make it appealing and attention-grabbing. But you must know that not all colors combinations work well and while choosing them, a special care must be taken. The key here is to use contrasting colors that make every information appear easily while on the other hand, you can choose bright colors for displaying key points. Remember, the better you color combination is more impactful will be the visual. Less sometimes can be more When it comes to including data in the visual, not always you require bulk of the information as sometimes, a small piece of information could do the job the more data cannot. So, if you have limited information, try to represent it with relevant yet attractive pictures like icons, clipart, or symbols. Your ability to innovate could be the deciding factor here and if you are finding it difficult, do consider help from a professional. Your minimal resources can deliver best of the information. Be original Last but not the least, only originality is admired by people and even search engine bots like original content. So, while create visuals, it is necessary for you to know that being unique is the key. Thus, whichever visual you are creating, try to be unique and ensure that it is delivering the right message that you
How to Increase Audience Engagement
To ensure a strong online presence, it is important for you to have a company’s website because that’s where people will land in the end to get more details. A website is an online platform for a business where interested people can visit and see what’s in there for them. But for users to check your website and spend some quality time, your website needs to be attractive, informative, and easily navigable. Because one of the most important things for your website is the user’s engagement and only this will help you get the visitors to the call to action on your website. While on the other hand, if you are not able to engage the audience on your site, no matter how many visitors come, you won’t be able to achieve your goals. If a user lands on your site, it is important that he/she spends enough time searching for the information he/she seeks and getting details of it. This way, the reputation, and authority your brand will improve along with the position of your website in the search rankings. Now, for a user to spend time on the website, it should have almost everything that the user is looking for and for that, you need to consider some points. This post will cover all the important tips by which you will be able to improve audience engagement on your site and take your brand to the next level. What is Meant by Audience Engagement? In simpler terms, audience engagement can be defined as the active participation of your website visitors with the content present. It is also known as the scenario where people are spending enough time on a website reading the content they were in search of and are convinced enough to do what you want them to. A site or even a business’s social media profile with good user engagement has a high chance of driving the audience to the call to action with complete consent. Plus, high user engagement gives you a more loyal audience along with a high number of returning customers and conversion rates. Engagement of people is very important for a brand to succeed in this extremely competitive world. This is because only engaging with something can help anyone know details about it and that’s how they can decide about its qualities and unique points. Tips for Increasing Audience Engagement Consider site speed First and the foremost thing that you need to consider while designing your website is its loading speed. If the site is slow to load, it is likely that not many will wait to load it completely and then look for the information they want. Keep this thing in mind that the audience doesn’t have patience, it wants things to get done quickly and a slow loading website surely cannot meet the expectations of people. Thus, the first rule of increasing audience engagement is to have a fast loading website that doesn’t let visitors wait for much to see the information they are in search of. To ensure good loading speed, it is advised to choose a good hosting provider and avoid having a shared one. This is the prime reason for having a slow loading website. Another reason could be the inclusion of videos and images with heavy file size. So, you need to optimize your web pages accordingly to ensure quick loading. To check the current loading speed of your site, you can take the help of various tools available on the internet. Know the needs of your target audience Remember, the site is yours but it will be used by the target audience to get the information they want. Thus, it is important for you to know the needs and requirements of your audience and optimize your site accordingly, because when visitors don’t get what they want, why will they stay? The audience will only engage with your site when it finds the information provided by you relevant and qualitative. The simple theory here is to fulfill the needs of visitors and they will ensure better engagement. For that, you need to know what they want and provide that through your website. Do proper market research, look into what competitors are offering to their customers, act like your target audience to know what to provide better, and look for strategies to improve user’s experience on your site. Considering these points will help you stand different in the crowd and you will see results soon. Simplify the layout of landing pages Sometimes, landing pages with too much content could also result in bad user engagement and a high bounce rate. This is because having too much content creates confusion and visitors cannot decide what next they should do, and eventually, they end up leaving the site. Having a high bounce rate not always mean that the quality of content is low, sometimes it is also due to the clutter present on your site. Thus, it becomes important for you to have enough white spaces in between the content of landing pages so that users can easily visualize the elements present there. Despite having unique and quality information, you need to place it tactically on the landing pages so that it gets the attention of users. And when people will find it suitable for them, their engagement level increases. It is advised to only keep necessary elements on the landing pages that you think are relevant for the target audience as placing unnecessary ones will only make them messy. Another important thing that you need to consider is the font size and font style, it should be easily readable, as if it is not, you cannot even think of any engagement. Quality always overpowers quantity Always remember this while posting anything on your website that quality should be your priority not the quantity. By delivering valuable and qualitative to your target audience, you can expect most of them to come back for more. But by only focusing
How to Increase Organic Reach on Searches
Every business is playing the digital game as without that they cannot survive in this fiercely competitive world. The digital platform is a necessity of every business to succeed online and achieve the growth they seek. A strong online presence means a good number of visitors on your website, and if they come organically, the value just multiplies. Though there are numerous traffic building strategies adopted by business yet organic traffic holds great value in the eyes of search engine bots. Most of us might have sidelined the organic reach on searches but, it is still as important as your other strategies to promote the business. This post will tell you some defining tips that will help you increase organic reach and pose you a genuine one in the crowd. Organic traffic is always admired by the popular search engine like Google and plays an important role in defining the ranking of a website. Let us see what it is and how it works. What is meant by organic search? Organic search results are defined as those results that are purely based on the quality and relevance of the query made by the user. In other words, we could say that organic search results do not require any paid advertisements or other paid efforts as they are completely based on the SEO of websites. These results are also known as unpaid search results. Though paid results are also shown in the form of display & pay per click ads when a query is made by a user. But such results are always denoted by the word ‘Ad.’ Importance of organic traffic on a website People who come to any website naturally and stay there can be trusted as genuine ones as they can be considered as long-term traffic. More organic traffic on a site means that it is qualitative and provides quality information to users based on their search. This is also examined by search engine bots and will result in the improvement of the SERP ranking of that website. It is also seen that organic traffic is the most relevant because the user will only land if the content matches to his/her query. Thus, it is important to have good organic traffic on your website if you want to reach long-term goals and compete strongly. Let us see how you can do that. Tips for increasing organic reach on searches Everything floats on the content Just like you cannot think of success without having a presence on the digital platform, similarly, you cannot think of having a strong digital presence without quality content. It is a must and it always will be. If you want to do well with the organic reach, you must focus on creating engaging, informative, unique, and relevant content for your website. This is because the content is indexed by search engine bots and the site will only receive authority if the content is relevant and of great quality. So, the first thing you are required to do is research to find the information relevant to your business and about which people are not very much aware. You should also search for trending topics in your business’s niche and create content accordingly. You should also include visuals in your content to make it more interesting and attention-grabbing. They play a key role in ensuring better engagement from the visitors and improving the quality of your site. Thus, visuals like images, infographics, GIFs, and videos are a must in any content you post online. Remember, more the qualitative and informative your content will be, the more organic traffic will be on your website. Don’t ignore social media profiles Remember, the organic reach of your brand not only depends upon your website but it also requires optimization of social media profiles. If you don’t know, then it is important to be aware that social media links are vital for effective SEO strategies, and considering them with every other factor could only help you increase organic reach. So, here’s the key, first of all, you need to stay active on all your social media accounts by regularly posting content on trending topics. But here’s a catch, try including relevant keywords that you want to target on your social media pages and content as well. This will help you get indexed by search engine bots and build a good reputation. People also directly move to a website to find more information when they find relevant content, they are looking for on social media profiles. The chances of getting visitors from social media are very high due to its huge user base and you must focus on this and optimize social media profiles accordingly. Define a list of keywords The site ranks on search engine results based on the keywords they target and the query made by people. Thus, it becomes important for every business to prepare a list of keywords they want to target and are popular among queries made on the search engine. Now, the next thing you need to do is prepare the content using those keywords relevantly so that bots can identify and index those. This will help improve the organic visibility of your business and build authority. Remember, keywords that you use must be closely related to the search queries made by people, and the content you create must solve their purpose. This way, you might also get recommendations and it’ll improve the reputation of your business. Having the right keywords on the right landing page will make you a strong competitor along with a significant improvement in organic reach on searches. Content strategy is must Remember, only creating and posting content will not get you anywhere, you need to promote it as well, and that’s where content strategy comes in. Content strategy is a detailed plan of how often you update content, after how much time you think is important to optimize it, which social media platforms you use it to promote it, tactics
How to Grow your Brand with Social Media Contests
Social media has taken up the charge of digital marketing game played by businesses to promote their brand and get success. This platform has become an integral part of marketing, especially for those who want to make a concrete presence in the market. The prime reason for social media Contests being such an important platform for businesses is its reach that no other platform has. Here, you can find people of all categories and interests, thus, it becomes easy for businesses to find their target audience. And once the target audience is found, they can further work to attract them and generate leads. Another importance of this platform is that it makes it very easy for brands and people to connect & contact with each other. Thus, queries could be easily solved and strong client-business relationships can be built. Social media gives you the leverage of trying different tactics to attract the target audience and build your brand. When it comes to trying different tactics, one of the best things that you can do on social media is to run a contest. Doing this will fetch you great attention along with better recognition. This post will tell you how you can grow your brand by running contests on social media. Let us start with why you need to create a contest. Why it is important to run a contest on social media Grow your followers Running a contest is the best way to increase your following and visibility of your posts. Through contests, you can have more followers on your social media account which means your popularity will increase. How this could be done is by making it a necessity to follow the account to participate. Plus, you can also ask participants to use a particular hashtag in their post. Your contest rules could look like this: How to enter Follow @Abc (your account name) Tag 5 friends Add this to your story using @Abc and #Xyz (related to your post) This is just an example of conditions that you can set accordingly for the participation. In this way, you are not forcing anyone to follow you & participate, they will do it willingly. Thus, you will get genuine followers through this and they will stay with you for long as well. Create brand awareness In the above point, you came to know that how creating a contests will increase your followers and your content is shared. Social media algorithms recognize when people start talking about a particular brand through their likes, comments, shares, and following. This creates a positive impact plus, gives you a chance to connect with other businesses for your promotion. To get the maximum attention, giveaways could be the best and you can ask the audience to follow your giveaway partners as well to create a strong relationship and increase brand awareness. In return to this, the businesses you connect with also introduce you to their audience. Grows email list It doesn’t matter what we do to create a strong market presence in this competitive digital world, but we cannot forget email marketing, and for that, it is important to have a fresh & quality email list. Now, you must know that social media contests could help you grow an email list that has a high chance of delivering a better conversion rate. While running a contest, you can ask your target audience to sign up or fill a short form (having a column to provide email id) and in this way, you can build a list of email addresses of people who are interested in your brand. But remember, to convince people there has to be something exciting that you need to offer them. Better engagement Businesses strive for high engagement on their social media accounts to make your brand trending. Engagement can increase the popularity of your brand and improve its recognition plus it ensures that people are talking about your brand. And, if you are popular among your target audience there has to be something important. Running contests can create a buzz on your social media account and your followers along with other people will start talking about you. In this way, you will see improved engagement and that will be helpful in building your brand’s authority. How to run a contest on social media to grow your brand Be SMART Before starting any contest, it is a must for you to first set goals you want to achieve through it and they should be SMART. What we mean by saying SMART goals is that they should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Considering this will help you achieve better results and provide motivation to do well. Let us see how SMART will work: Specific- Be specific with what you want to achieve through the contest, whether it is only followers, increased engagement, leads, or sales. If you are specific, it will help you strategize your contests accordingly and derive improved results. Measurable- Remember, you can only analyze how much you have achieved when you can measure your goals. If you cannot measure, it will be impossible for you to decide which of your efforts are working and which require changes. So, it is important to set goals that you can measure anytime to see the progress of your campaign. Achievable- Now this is something that is of most importance to keep your morale up. Let us clear this more. Achievable means that the goals you set should be on your radar and you can achieve them with your hard work. For example, if you set a goal to get 10000 followers in a month. Now that sounds a bit unreal, and having such a goal will only pressurize you up and will bring your morale down when you won’t be able to get that. While on the other hand, if you set a goal of getting 1000 or 1200 followers in a month, then it seems achievable, and getting some more
How to Stand Out Against Your Competitors
Everyone is in the race to achieve one or the other thing, and the interesting thing here is that everyone wants to win. But it is also important to consider that only ‘wants’ cannot get you what you wish to achieve, for that, you need to make some serious efforts. One mistake that most businesses do while starting fresh is to forget that there are numerous others running in the market of the same niche. And, they have fierce competition out there. Thus, it is important to know that even the smallest of businesses can give you a tough competition and if you ignore them, it’ll be a big mistake for your brand. There is only one tactic of getting the desired success, and that is to be different from all your competitors. By being the same, you will only find yourself lost in the crowd and there is no coming back after. Thus, your strategies along with whatever you provide must be unique and qualitative, so that people tempted to see what you have in the box for them. This post is dedicated to helping you out with how you can stand out against your competitors and build your name in the market. After reading it completely, you will get acquainted with tactics that will not only make you different but also ensure the good attention of your target audience. Why it is important to stand out in the market? It is true that most of the businesses don’t prefer to stand out and the reason is their thought process which tells them that being different is annoying as people will keep them aside. But this is not always the case and being different never means to put a hat with joker attire to get the attention of people. What we mean to stand out in the crowd is with your marketing tactics and the products or services you provide. We are living in a digital age and here, being different but with quality is admired by people. They love to try new things. It’s not the time where people used things for decades and still, they found them brand new. The time has changed and so does people, they now get bored quickly and want something new. And that’s where it is important to stand out in the market, as people will recognize you easily and urges to see what you have to offer. We are not unaware of the fact that there are hundred thousand of businesses of the same niche and if you are planning to open one, then how will you survive in that tough competition despite have top quality products. You will be new and people are already interacting with other brands that are there for years. The simple answer to this question is to be different. Show people how you are not the same and how choosing you will solve their purpose in a much better way. Now you can make a place between those hundred thousand businesses that too with the attention of your target audience. What you should do to stand out against competitors? Give people what they want Standing out does not mean that you are offering things that are of no use for your target audience or things that they are not in need of just to be different. The first rule you need to follow here is to give people what they are looking for but with added benefits. That’s how you can say that ‘we are different.’ For example, there are many socks making companies out there, both branded & local, but the one that provides socks with some amazing prints especially of something trending like animated characters could grab the attention of people. Similarly, as we are facing this COVID-19 pandemic and wearing a mask is a must. Thus, offering matching masks with shirts and suits could make you different in the crowd and get the desired attention. With all this, one thing you need to ensure is fair pricing and good product/service quality. Create a need that no one would have thought of We just might sound offending if we say that most start-ups are only following the trend that their competitors are, and that will not make you any different. It’s good to analyze what your competitors have done and what they are doing, but following exactly the same will get you nowhere. Success is all about being different with better quality. Let us say, for example, most people face the problem of stinking feet. Now, if the socks provided by a company can help people with that, why would they not choose it? Here, the company has created a need by telling people that their socks can reduce the problem of stinking feet. Thus, instead of buying socks from other brands, people will try that company’s socks. Another good example we could give is of a company that provides glasses. They have come with a glass that protects eyes from the rays coming out from digital devices like laptops, PC, TV, and mobile phones. Now, the maximum percentage of the world’s population is working on PCs and using mobile phones. So, they feel it a need to buy such glasses that can protect their eyes. Similarly, your brand also requires to create a need that people find useful and it could be as simple as free delivery with no minimum cart value. Never forget some traditional practices Now you might be thinking that we are talking about standing out from the crowd and suddenly, why traditional practices came into the picture. Remember, standing out doesn’t mean to just grab customer’s attention, but it also means to maintain a good relationship. Thus, it is important to be an old school in some places to show a good gesture to your clients for their support. Such practices could be sending personalized emails to customers for their purchase, giving exclusive discount coupons for your prime
How to Write Your First Blog
Blogs play a n important role in defining the expertise level of a business and also to improve its SEO rankings. Almost all business websites have a dedicated blog tab where they post trending and informative blog posts to share knowledge with their target audience and show expertise in their business’s niche. Besides business sites, there are also blogging sites on which people only post blogs on different topics of a particular niche for which the site has been made. In general, we could say that blogs are everywhere and without them, it might be difficult to build authority online and get high SERP ranking. Writing and posting information-rich blogs are always helpful in grabbing the attention of the target audience and giving an edge over competitors. Now, when it comes to writing blogs, not all are experts, everyone has their first experience of writing one for someone or themselves. As we know that “the first impression is the last impression”, but with blogs, you need not panic as with experience your blogs will become better. But still, your first blog must create an impact that readers want to read more from you in the future. This post will help you out with writing your first blog post and making most out of it. Let us see how you can write your first blog post just like an experienced professional. How to make most of your first blog post Define your audience The first and most important thing that you need to consider before starting with your first blog post is the audience. You need to have a clear idea of whom you want to write or whom you want to read your blog posts. It is obvious that blog posts are written for a specific audience and if it is not tailored for them, they will not show any interest. Thus, it is important for you to define your audience with a clear-cut idea in your mind. Considering this will help you out to come up with a post that is loved by the target audience. Remember, more specific your target audience will be better will be your blog post. Write with the right attitude Everyone has to experience one or the other thing for the first time and it is likely that they will make mistakes. But here, mistakes are not a matter of concern rather attitude is. While writing your first blog post, you need to ensure that you do it with the right attitude. Because that’s what will give you confidence and make sure that people admire you for what you do. Your attitude while writing the first blog will decide how far you will go as a blog writer and how much success you will get. Introduction Whenever a new brand comes in the market, it introduces itself to the target audience and tells what it is and what it is going to sell. This is of most importance as without an introduction, people will not be able to recognize the brand and also won’t give much attention. Similarly, while your own blog for the first time, it is also important for you to give an introduction to your target audience. You should tell them a bit about yourself along with the purpose of writing blogs. Plus, do not forget to tell for whom you will be writing and what benefits they will get by reading your blog posts. Considering this will be a great idea to get people acquainted with what you write. Though it is not necessary to give an introduction in your first blog post as you already have about us page of your website for that, yet, it is a decent to do, especially when you are going in front of a huge audience. Toast of topic Now, here’s the real thing that you need to do, and that is the topic of your blog post. As you are writing a blog for the first time, thus, it is necessary for you to choose a unique & interesting topic of your niche. Remember, never come up with a topic that is boring or is not solving any purpose for the readers. It is always a good idea to choose a topic that is in trend and people are searching for it on the search engine. This way, you’ll be able to get a good response and receive a good SERP ranking. The best tip anyone could give for the topic of your first blog post is the keyword research. Through keyword research, you’ll find what people are searching more and the results they are getting. Hence, after analyzing all this, you can prepare a better blog that what people are receiving after their search, and with this, you can build the authority of your blog. Identify the type of blog post you want to write Along with choosing the topic for your blog, it is also important to consider the right blog-type according to that topic. You can also choose the blog-type as per your ease, the one you think you can write comfortably. The type of blog will also depend upon the niche on which you are writing. Here are different types of blog posts you can choose from: Listicles As the name suggests, these types of blogs contain the information in the form of lists, for example, ‘10 tips of relieving back pain.’ This type of blog is admired the most as it is easy to read and understand. Guides These blog posts contain information in detail and especially are written to explain everything about a particular topic. For example, ‘a complete guide to SEO.’ ‘How to’ blogs Such blogs are generally focused on telling something and their title often start with ‘how-to’, for example, ‘how to write your first blog.’ These types of blogs solve the queries of readers step by step and are of great help if written well. Review posts Review posts are often written
Marketing Funnel- Here’s What You Need to Know
For any business to get attention and ensure a strong market presence, it is important to do marketing. Be it digital marketing practice or the traditional ones, both hold equal importance, and businesses need to strategically focus on both. It also won’t be wrong to say that the success of brands mostly depends upon their marketing strategies and the way they react to those. When it comes to marketing, one of the key things everyone should know is the ‘marketing funnel.’ Every business needs to follow this funnel to ensure effective marketing and optimize only required strategies later on. Marketing funnel gives businesses the liberty to individually manage each step and check their progress. In this way, it will become easy to identify what is going wrong and what is hitting the right spot with their marketing tactics. This post will tell you about marketing funnel and what role it plays in defining success. Let us see what it is. What is a marketing funnel? A marketing funnel is a system through which every customer passes from knowing your product to buying it. This funnel comprises a series of steps that hold equal relevance and helps businesses identify at which stage the maximum people end their interaction with your products or services. The reason why it is known as a funnel is that a huge number of people enter it from the top but only a small percentage of them make it to the end-stage. Each marketing funnel has these four basic stages: Attention Interest Consideration Action Attention The first stage of the marketing funnel is to attract people towards your product. People need the products or services that you offer will search for it, and you need to ensure that your brand encounters them. If they are not visible in their search results, you will be out directly from the first stage. Thus, it is important for you to take every necessary step in order to make your brand visible in people’s search, and that could happen with your effective marketing strategies. Interest When you successfully get the attention of people towards your brand, its time is to create interest in the product. For that, you need to give them an offer that is better than your competitors and show the quality your products or services have. If you keep things as they are and don’t do anything to differentiate your brand from others, then people will prefer your competitors or the one that they normally choose. Thus, it is necessary to tempt them and show that you are better. Consideration The third step of the marketing funnel is to ensure that people are considering what you offer. If they don’t, how will you promote sales? Thus, here you need to tell people that your products/services can solve their problem the best than any other products could. You need to create trust in your products by ensuring that they are of better quality. Wherever possible try to give a live example as it will make their consideration to buy your product stronger. Action It is the last stage of the marketing funnel where people are convinced that your brand or product is best for them or better than others. Thus, they make the final decision of buying the product. Remember, the action will completely depend upon the efforts made during the first three stages of the marketing funnel. If you want the action of most of the people to be in your favor, then you need to attract and convince them through the right means & tactics. Each of the stages of this marketing funnel has its own purpose and makes your work easier in the long run as well. Thus, every business must create strategies for all stages individually and make the same efforts to achieve success. What is the need to have a marketing funnel? It doesn’t matter what you do, having a strategic approach always helps. It not only improves the result but also assists in effective planning. Same is the case with your marketing efforts, having a market funnel will help you out analyze each stage and find from where you are losing your customers. In other words, we could say that the marketing funnel organizes all our marketing activities and ensures that all the activities are implemented correctly. With the use of a funnel, you need to make the process of driving customers to the sales smooth. For that, you need to provide the information about your products and brand in the simplest, yet interesting way. Because, that’s how people will get attracted, and another way to grab their attention is to be genuine with whatever you say and ensure transparency with what you offer. If you don’t work according to the marketing funnel, it will make it almost impossible for you to decide where you are lacking and what you need to improve. In that scenario, you might need to work from the start again and that is something no one wants. Benefits of having a marketing funnel Businesses that use marketing funnel effectively have an added advantage over those who do not. Let us take a look at some of the key benefits a marketing funnel provides: Increased sales Marketing funnel allows businesses to personally monitor people who opt out of buying your product at the last stage. Thus, it helps retarget them by sending personalized emails, discount offers, and other tempting messages. Considering this helps in improving sales. Plus, through effective use of marketing funnel, one can also maintain good relationships with the customers by giving exclusive offers and even freebies. Get insights of lead’s behavior The marketing funnel helps analyze how people are reacting to your products. Whether they are comparing it with others, looking multiple times, and then going back, leaving them abandoned in the cart, etc. Getting such insights are helpful for the sales team to close the leads by giving what they need. That could be