Friday, 29 September 2017

#SproutChat Recap: Managing a Social Crisis

It can happen in an instant. A seemingly harmless response to a snarky comment on social can spiral into a full blown reputation crisis for a brand. How you manage and de-escalate a social crisis, as well as the steps you take to prevent it from happening again, are crucial to your customer service blueprint.

In this week’s chat we turned to our #SproutChat community to explore some best practices for managing a social emergency effectively and how to take precautions ahead of time to be ready with a plan.

Create a Crisis Communication Plan

Take the time to plan out a social media crisis management plan not just with your team, but across your organization—like your legal team and customer support—to thoroughly handle the issue. Be in tune with your audience and understand that certain tones, content or messages may not resonate with them and cause backlash.

Loop in the Appropriate People

When creating your crisis management plan think of who should be looped in with each step. Think of when your technology, legal, PR and Executive teams need to be brought in to help when crafting these plans. Consult with the appropriate people within your organization who would need eyes on what’s happening.

Brand Guidelines Are Key

When launching a new social channel take the time to figure out if brand guidelines are necessary. If you offer social support on your channels coordinate with customer service to be looped in on the appropriate responses to comments. Offer your brand guidelines to anyone at your business who is externally facing.

Don’t Ignore the Situation

Ultimately your crisis management plan may have a “stay silent” rule, but it’s important to not ignore comments and communicate with your team to effectively move forward with the plan. Encourage social team members to take the conversation offline as quickly as possible.

Keep Track of Incoming Messages

Negative comments are the first indicator that a possible crisis is brewing. If you tag incoming messages in your social platform you can easily take note and figure out the root of the problem. This is an easy method to also share the situation with others in your organization.

Join us for #SproutChat next week to discuss managing online communities with Sprout All Star, Meagan DeMenna, Community Manager at ClearVoice. Until then, be sure to join our Facebook Community to connect with other folks in the industry and stay on top of the latest social media news.

This post #SproutChat Recap: Managing a Social Crisis originally appeared on Sprout Social.



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Thursday, 28 September 2017

41 Must Have Digital Marketing Tools to Help You Grow

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Want Free Backlinks? Put These 6 Elements in Every Post

The notion that quality content will naturally earn free backlinks is a fallacy.

Thankfully, there are 6 elements that can actually build free backlinks.

What is the most criminal fallacy in the world of SEO?

If you answered, “the idea that quality content naturally attracts backlinks,” congratulations!

You’re right.

For years, SEO experts have hammered on about how high-quality content earns free backlinks.

And yet,

any experienced blogger can quickly list plenty of high-quality articles they’ve written that got zero free backlinks.

Quality content does not earn free backlinks. And it’s simple to see why, once you flip the situation on its head.

Bloggers do not link to other sites because they value the quality of the content.

They link to each other’s content because it’s beneficial for their own purposes.

The best type of content for backlinks is content that other bloggers can use on their own sites.

If we want other bloggers to link to us, we have to give them something valuable that they will want to use on their own site.

Infographics are a famous example (though they have lost considerable value over the recent years due to overuse).

Another fantastic example are maps. Some experts say they’ve earned hundreds of backlinks just from creating images of maps.

And still another example is bite-size charts, the kind Neil Patel uses in every article.

What all these content types have in common is that they are reusable content assets.

They are:

  • Content that other bloggers can’t recreate quickly, cheaply, or at all
  • Reusable - in other words, they can be used in multiple articles

These types of content are the real sources of free backlinks because other bloggers can see the value of using them in their own posts.

Give other bloggers something of value that they can use, and you will draw backlinks in bulk.

If you want to earn free backlinks, include these six things in every post:

#1. Produce content assets that are appealing, difficult to create, and reusable

The key to using your content assets to build free backlinks is creating content that cannot easily be reproduced but that is reusable on other blogs.

Infographics are the classic example, for the following reasons:

  • They are appealing (provided they look professional and show interesting information).
  • They are not easily recreated. (It takes time or money to produce a quality infographic.)
  • And they are reusable. Simply provide an embed code and other bloggers can reuse the infographic on their own blog with a backlink.

Again, not easily recreated, appealing, and reusable are the keys.

Provided content meets these three criteria, it will have a good chance of earning backlinks.

So how do you make use of this?

Take another look at your latest post, or the post you are currently writing.

Ask yourself:

Could I communicate the information in this post in a way that is not easily recreated, appealing, and reusable?

If so, create the content that meets those three points.

And if graphics are not your strong point, I find tools like Canva.com and Snappa.com to be a great tool for quickly creating high-quality images.

They offers lots of templates that speed up the process.

#2. Take original, high-quality photos

One of the best sources of backlinks is images.

There are countless blogs online that have mid-level domain authority from backlinks that point to images.

And oftentimes, those images were not even created by the blogger but lifted from resources like DeviantArt.

Why do images earn free backlinks? Because they help other bloggers produce their own content.

Depending on a blog’s niche, it can be incredibly difficult to create high quality-images.

Imagine how difficult it would be for an astronomy blogger to produce high-quality photos of planets every time they write an article.

This, of course, is an extreme example.

Nevertheless, it can be time-consuming, hard work, or just plain impossible to produce high-quality images that are applicable to certain subjects.

Therefore, if you do produce high-quality images, there’s a good chance other bloggers will use those images and provide a link to you as the source.

If you are unable to create unique images yourself, there are workarounds. The most obvious solution is to simply pay for stock images.

A better solution is to find an amateur photographer who is interested in your niche. Offer them exposure in exchange for the images.

You get the images (and the backlinks they produce). The photographer gets exposure. It’s a win-win.

#3. Testimonials and reviews

Another good source of free backlinks is testimonials and reviews. Give a product a positive review, and the manufacturer is likely to link to your article.

The same is true for testimonials. Lavish praise on a professional’s work, and they will likely want to tell their customers about it.

This is why “Best of…” posts are so popular. They are an easy way to earn backlinks.

Testimonials hit our three key points:

  • A positive review or testimonial is highly appealing.
  • They are not easily recreated in many cases, as it could be difficult for a product to attract many such reviews.
  • And they are easily reusable because the recipient can simply copy and paste a quote with a backlink.

The problem with “Best of…” articles is that they can seem unnatural.

The solution? Don’t write “Best of…” roundups. Instead, include a couple of testimonials inside an article.

For instance, if we’re creating content about copywriting, give testimonials or reviews to one or two copywriters or copywriting products in the post.

This will limit the number of external links on the page while attracting backlinks, and the backlinks will likely be high-quality and very relevant.

Once you’ve created testimonials and reviews, send out emails.

Here’s an example:

#4. Do your research and load your articles full of facts

Another type of content that bloggers will link to in droves is facts and research.

Any blogger worth their salt knows to include sources to validate the information in their articles. Those sources have to come from somewhere. Be the source. Get the link. Simple.

This technique used to be abused by bloggers who would produce false facts for link-bait. Now that Google is taking measures against fake news, it’s important that our facts be truthful.

To truly take advantage of this technique, we need to attract traffic from bloggers who are looking for facts. That way, those bloggers find our articles and use them as citation.

One way to do this is to include a few choice keywords, like “research,” “facts,” and “science.” These will help bring the right traffic (other bloggers) to our site, whereupon they will use our facts in their articles, giving link attribution to us as a source.

#5. Express commonly held ideas, thoughts, or feelings in appealing ways

The key to our backlink strategy is creating content other bloggers can use.

Logically, we can attract more potential backlinks by making our content applicable to more bloggers.

To do this, create content that communicates commonly held ideas or feelings.

The obvious example of this is memes. Memes get shared because they express an idea, thought, or feeling that millions of people experience at one time or another.

For instance, the Morpheus meme (“What if I told you…”) is applicable to a million different situations.

This strategy is not exclusive to memes.

Any content that expresses commonly held ideas, thoughts, or feelings in an entertaining or valuable way has a good chance of attracting a healthy amount of backlinks.

Another good example is image quotes. The most famous quotes are used by thousands of bloggers at one time or another.

If you create the best image for that quote, there is a very good chance other bloggers will use that image in their own articles, with a backlink pointing to your site.

#6. Use interviews to get expert advice on common problems

Genuine experts carry a lot of authority in their niches.

Getting interviews with these authority figures is a surefire way to substantiate your articles.

But do interviews hit our three criteria for attracting backlinks?

Interviews are appealing because they offer authoritative information and because most people interested in our niche will also be interested in our interviewee.

Everyone who is interested in SEO, for example, is interested in hearing the latest expert insights on the subject.

Interview an expert and there’s a good chance other bloggers in your niche will link to the article.

Interviews are also not easy to recreate, depending on the interviewee and the answers you manage to get them to provide.

Interviewees will not agree to every interview, so if they agree to yours, it could very well become a highly valuable content asset.

And interviews are easily reusable.

Just make sure you put a message on the blog post saying that quotes may be taken from the interview provided a backlink is provided.

Interviews meet our criteria. And indeed, interviews are a valuable source of backlinks.

A simple look at the latest news articles will bring up countless citations to interviews, most of which provide backlinks.

But how do you actually get interviews?

As a journalist of more than ten years, my experience is that it’s best to be introduced to an interviewee via a mutual contact.

If there is no such contact, however, the next best bet is to appeal to the interviewee’s heartstrings.

Tell them why your interview genuinely matters.

Explain how it is in their best interest, and relate it to subjects they care about.

And remember, even famous people have souls.

If you let them know that this interview truly matters to you and for more than just financial reasons, there is a good chance they will say yes.

I find the following email sufficient for most purposes.

Content that is appealing, reusable, and not easily recreated will bring a significant number of free backlinks

Focus on creating content that hits these criteria, and you will earn free backlinks in bulk.

Paul Harrison is a copywriter and online marketer based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada . His passion is helping independent creatives and businesses to succeed online. Get in contact with Paul at PMHarrison.com.

The post Want Free Backlinks? Put These 6 Elements in Every Post appeared first on Ninja Outreach.



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Wednesday, 27 September 2017

Getting Granular With Message Data Using Sprout’s Inbox Export  

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Tuesday, 26 September 2017

What Are Inbound Links and How to Generate Them

Believe it or not, gaining inbound links has always been - and still remains - an essential part of any SEO strategy, not to mention the success of a website.

Link building is a very challenging part of SEO, no doubt about that, and while many site owners resort to generating spammy links to their site to increase their website traffic, this isn’t an effective solution.

In fact, such method could result in your site being penalized by Google, something you want to avoid occurring at all costs.

Marketer working on acquiring inbound links

The thing is link building doesn’t have to be so complicated.

There are various easy opportunities to generate inbound links. But what exactly is an inbound link?

What Are Inbound Links?

An inbound link, otherwise known as a backlink, is a hyperlink coming from another website to your own.

The links to your site are very important for SEO.

This is because search engines, such as Google, see multiple high-quality and relevant inbound links to a page or site as an indication that the content on that page is useful for its users.

An inbound link differs from both an outbound link and an internal link.

Where an inbound link is a link from an external website to yours, an outbound link is a link from your site to an external website, and an internal link is a link from one web page on a site to another web page on the same site.

When SEO and link building first came about, people would get hundreds of backlinks to their website through spammy link building efforts, which included generating hundreds of low-quality links from low-quality sites to their site.

SEO word cloud

Web admins would beg other webmasters for a link back to their site, with nothing of value in return.

These methods of link building are no longer effective ways of ranking a website, and are viewed as blackhat SEO.

The importance of high-quality links is now bigger than ever.

Google favors the quality of inbound links over the quantity, and this is something web owners must take into account if their aim is to improve their website rankings.

Only good inbound links from authoritative sites and natural anchor texts will be approved by Google’s current algorithm.

Having the right backlinks to your site can do two things:

  1. They improve search engine rankings. Having several backlinks from authoritative sites will tell search engines that your site is considered a great and authoritative source. As a result, your site will rank higher in search engine results for specific keywords and phrases.
  2. They drive website traffic. If your site appears higher in search engine results, it is likely to attract more new and existing customers. If the site ranks well for industry-specific keywords, it’s likely to draw more targeted audience to the site.

However, it is hard for every site to get a backlink from an authoritative website.

It is unlikely that every single site on the web will gain a backlink from a high-authority site.

These authoritative sites aren’t just going to give out backlinks for the sake of being kind. Instead, it is best to offer them something of value in return for a backlink.

So now the question arises: How do you generate inbound links in the first place?

How Do You Generate Inbound Links?

There are a lot of ways to generate inbound links which are the right way of doing it.

You just have to find the best method that fits you and your SEO strategy.

Here are just some of the ways to generate inbound links to your site.

Inbound Links - Inbound traffic

1. Constantly Update Your Blog with Fresh Content

By maintaining a steady stream of unique and fresh content on your site, chances are people would want to naturally link to you.

People don’t want to link to content that is duplicate content - content they have seen before.

Instead, they want to see something new and of interest to them.

A great way of finding topics for content which receives a lot of engagement from users is by using the content explorer which Ahrefs has to offer, for example.

2. Write Guest Post Blogs

Finding relevant websites within your industry that are accepting guest blogs is another way of generating inbound links.

There are several pieces of software you can use to find relevant sites.

For example, Buzzstream, the CRM for content marketing and building links.

When searching for relevant sites, there are two things you need to keep an eye out for:

  • Whether or not the site accepts guest post contributions
  • The domain authority of the site

When reaching out to your chosen sites, you want to keep the email personalized and friendly as a way of improving your link outreach success.

Within the email, you must be explaining what it is you want (a backlink), and what it is you are offering of value in exchange for the link (a great piece of content which abides by their guidelines).

3. Create Skyscraper Content

The skyscraper technique is a system that turns great quality content into high-quality backlinks.

There are three steps to the skyscraper technique which includes:

  • Researching content that is link-worthy
  • Producing something that is even better
  • Reaching out to the right people

It is in our nature to be attracted to the best that is out there. That is why the skyscraper method works so well.

What you are essentially doing with this method is finding the highest skyscraper that you can… and placing 20 more stories on top of it.

And suddenly, you have the best piece of content out there.

A piece of content which everyone is talking about, and as a result, wants to link to.

4. Search for Competitor Backlinks and Monitor Them

Keeping track of what your competitors are doing is a great idea.

In fact, conducting competitor research every so often to find new opportunities to take advantage of can really help improve website rankings.

Using tools such as Ahrefs is a great way to search for competitor backlinks and monitor them.

Such routine is a great way of easily finding high-value link opportunities.

With this method, together with the guest posting method, you can easily generate high-quality inbound links.

5. Design Compelling Infographics

Big websites all over the world are using infographics.

Not only do they often end up going viral on social media, they also help generate a large amount of quality backlinks to your site.

Infographics could be the solution to all of your SEO problems.

There isn’t a secret formula to creating an infographic.

However, all infographics have a few things in common.

They need to have a great design, something that will catch the reader’s eye.

The infographic needs to be well researched, and contain reliable information and statistics.

You also need to promote your infographic via outreach.

People won’t know what is out there unless you promote it.

If you correctly put these elements into place, you should be seeing some quality inbound links coming your way.

6. Build Backlinks Using Competitors Broken Pages

What's better than earning yourself inbound links?

Fixing backlinks that are currently linking to a broken page on your competitor’s website.

Finding backlink opportunities and building inbound links to your site often takes days, months, or even longer to acquire. That’s where this link building method comes in.

Instead of spending hours trying to generate inbound links through writing long pieces of content for external sites, or creating compelling infographics for people to link back to, look out for sites linking to a 404 page on your competitor's site.

This way, you can easily reach out to the website, informing them that they are currently linking to a 404 page, and could link to a useful resource on your own website instead.

There are several pieces of software that can help you find broken and lost backlinks, including Ahrefs.

Ultimately, there are many ways to generate inbound links. But like I previously mentioned, it is all about finding the method that fits your marketing strategy.

Whether you have a blog on your site that you feel needs to be updated with some fresh content or you want to create an infographic and show off your creative work, if you put in the effort, you will achieve the backlink results you expect and need to increase your search engine rankings and website results.

Libby enjoys socializing. Which means that she likes to go out with her friends, drink, then hit the gym to work it off. She’s a social media addict, who turned it into her profession. She loves her role as an account manager and researcher at Speechless Web Design. Almost as much as Big Macs. She once ate 3 in 24 hours.

The post What Are Inbound Links and How to Generate Them appeared first on Ninja Outreach.



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How to Easily Manage Multiple Social Media Accounts

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Monday, 25 September 2017

4 Steps for Creating a Social Media Calendar

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Saturday, 23 September 2017

NEW Program: Learn How to Win the Game of Social Media

NEW Program: Learn How to Win the Game of Social Media

NEW Program: Learn How to Win the Game of Social Media

Here at www.whatissocialmediatoday.com, our goal is to empower you to build your business, sell more books and spread your message more effectively by harnessing the power of social media.

There are four ways you can learn how to Win the Game of Social Media here at www.whatissocialmediatoday.com:

  1. A LIVE, in-person seminar in Atlanta on Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 4 and 5
  2. A Bronze Level package where you get two one-on-one social media coaching sessions PLUS more
  3. A Silver Level package where you get six one-on-one social media coaching sessions PLUS more
  4. A Gold Level package where you get 12 one-on-one social media coaching sessions plus more

Here’s more details:

Option One: Weekend Workshop

When: Saturday, Nov. 4 – Sunday, Nov. 5

Where: Atlanta, Georgia
What: Learn how to play the Game of Social Media with Ramajon Cogan and Catherine Carrigan. At this weekend workshop, learn our total approach to social media and learn how to take your business and books to the next level.

Cost: $895

Ongoing Support

Option Two: Bronze Level:

•Access to our full library of videos that teach you how to do every aspect of social media, including our radio show and podcast contacts

•Access to weekly webinars to keep you on the cutting edge

•One hour session social media coaching with Ramajon Cogan

•One hour session social media coaching with Catherine Carrigan

•Cost: $300 or $25 per month for 12 months

Option Three: Silver Level:

•Access to our full library of videos that teach you how to do every aspect of social media, including our radio show and podcast contacts

•Access to weekly webinars to keep you on the cutting edge

•3 one-hour sessions social media coaching with Ramajon Cogan

•3 one-hour sessions social media coaching with Catherine Carrigan

•Cost: $900 or $75 per month for 12 months

Option Four: Gold Level:

•Access to our full library of videos that teach you how to do every aspect of social media, including our radio show and podcast contacts

•Access to weekly webinars to keep you on the cutting edge

•6 one-hour sessions social media coaching with Ramajon Cogan

•6 one-hour sessions social media coaching with Catherine Carrigan

•Cost: $1,800 or $150 per month for 12 months

Join Our program at What Is Social Media Today

Putting all this together takes time and is part of creating a successful social media strategy.

We’ve got four ways for you to learn:

•Weekly webinars that you can join LIVE or listen to at your convenience

•One on one coaching

•Peer competition

•A forum with resources where all your questions can get answered

Join Catherine Carrigan and Ramajon Cogan at www.whatissocialmediatoday.com and we will show you how!

Call Catherine Carrigan today at 678-612-8816 or email mailto:catherine@catherinecarrigan.com or contact Ramajon Cogan  at (928) 821-4553 or email mailto:wheresramajon@gmail.com

 

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Best Marketing Techniques of 2017

2017 is seeing a myriad of marketing techniques being implemented with great success.

Largely, it’s because marketers now understand that consumer needs are changing.

As we reach the end of the third quarter, let’s take a look at some of the best to hopefully guide your marketing strategy for the remainder of the year - and perhaps into the oncoming year.

1. Expert Blogging

In this day and age when social media rules, just about anyone can proclaim themselves an expert, guru, or self-made CEO.

As such, content consumers crave content penned by the real experts.

They want informative, in-depth, actionable content they can immediately implement, not cookie-cutter, run-of-the-mill content that’s haphazardly done, just so you can publish as scheduled.

Expert content demonstrates a focus on quality instead of quantity.

The content you create must be relevant and informative, helpful and actionable, and created primarily for readers in mind.

But because putting together expert content is a time-consuming exercise, take the time to actually sit down and develop content suited to your audience’s needs.

If that isn’t an option, hire an expert - the real deal - to create trust-building content for your brand.

Examples of marketers and marketing organizations that consistently put out expert content are Neil Patel, Jay Baer, Moz, Kissmetrics, and Copyblogger.

Does it surprise you that they’re widely known and considered authorities in the online marketing industry?

2. Mobile Marketing

If you’re yet to look into mobile marketing as a strategy for 2017, you have a lot of catching up to do.

According to comScore, 2014 saw mobile devices lording it over desktops, as majority of digital media consumption took place on handheld devices.

In 2016, data from analytics firm Flurry confirmed that U.S. consumers spent an average five hours per day on their mobile devices.

As of August 2017, Statista’s figures are at 49.73% for mobile internet traffic versus global online traffic, and 3.5 billion active mobile internet users worldwide.

Long story short, mobile marketing has long ceased to be a nice-to-have.

People are already on mobile, so mobile is where you should also be connecting with them.

To reach out to your target market, mobile marketing involves a combination of digital marketing strategies, such as email, mobile search, web content, social media, SMS and MMS, and mobile apps.

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has compiled a number of mobile marketing case studies to take inspiration from, such as the campaign by Levi’s Shanghai where their creative team partnered with Tencent’s mobile app QQ Music, which Mashable calls “China’s Spotify.”

The goal was to engage millennials, particularly those in lower-tier cities, who saw rival Lee Jeans as the better denim brand.

OMD China, the agency that handled the mobile marketing campaign, set out to connect with millennials for brand recognition and sales increase.

They did this by giving the younger Chinese demographic (15 years to 24) a chance to express their originality through music and fashion via the “We Are Original” campaign.

The results were clearly a winner:

  • 2.6 million Levi’s ads by millennials in just two weeks
  • 2.9 million consumer engagements in the form of likes, shares, forwards, and comments
  • 50% higher CTR on fan-created digital ads over display ads
  • 15% boost in sales year-over-year
  • 14% increase in eCommerce site traffic
  • 45% annual spike in total online sales

Read the full case study here.

3. Personalized Marketing

Personalized marketing is pretty much what it says it is - a marketing strategy that aims to connect with a target consumer on a more personal, deeper level.

Think about it: Every day, your target buyers are bombarded with numerous ads from an endless list of brands, all shouting to the high heavens how they’re better than their competitors.

The subway, the streets, building facades, the bus station - ads everywhere!

The New York Times even suggests adding blank spaces to the endangered list.

Why?

Marketing research firm Yankelovich surveyed 4,000+ people and discovered that the average person today is exposed to approximately 5,000 ad messages a day compared to 2,000 three decades ago.

What’s even worse, about half of the survey respondents believe that marketing has gone “out of control.”

People are tired of being treated as walking, breathing sales targets, which is why personalized marketing makes absolute sense.

Personalized marketing is a strategy that tailors the online experience to your audience’s unique interests.

It’s a marketing technique that sees your target consumers for what they are - human beings with needs different from the next person’s.

So how exactly do you personalize your marketing?

Below are five ways from WordStream:

  • Data. Leave no room for guesswork by collecting as much data as you can from your target audience (e.g., demographics, challenges, goals, fears, and interests).
  • Buyer persona. Create buyer/customer personas using the data you gathered.
  • Content roadmap. Map out your content structure so every piece of content you create addresses the specific needs and interests of your target audience. Ask questions such as “What type of content do top-of-the-funnel leads need?” or “What additional information do qualified sales leads look for to seal the deal?”
  • Content creation. Roll up your sleeves and start crafting personalized content. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes and create content you’d be willing to consume.
  • Holistic personalization strategy. Use analytics tools to personalize not just the content on your website but the entire customer experience with your brand.

One personalization marketing example that has seen tremendous success is Coca Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign. It started in Australia in 2011. In the U.S. where it launched in 2014, sales grew “after more than 10 years of steady declines.”

Said Lucie Austin, one of the original brand executives in Australia to launch the campaign: “At the end of the day, our name is the most personal thing we have. It's our fingerprint…our identity…in one word.”

4. Email Marketing

You’d think that spam would have tolled the death knell for email.

According to Statista, the global spam volume as a percentage of total email traffic worldwide is a whopping 56.87%, with the most common spam emails originating from the healthcare and dating sector.

(Viagra tablets, anyone?)

But alas, despite our collective hatred for spam, email marketing is still alive and well. In fact, statistics compiled by Constant Contact indicate that:

  • Radicati expects 3 billion people to use email by 2020, which is half the total global population
  • 205 billion emails are sent every day, a number expected to reach 246 billion by year-end 2019
  • Email ROI is a spectacular 3,800% - meaning, $38 for every $1 you spend
  • 80% of marketing professionals believe email is a prime factor for customer acquisition and retention
  • Research by Forrester found that people are two times more likely to subscribe to your email list than engage with you on Facebook
  • Email conversion rates are higher than search and social media combined

There are more where those came from. But the bottom line is that email is alive and well, and email marketing, based on the stats above, still is a powerful way to reach your target audience.

Ninja Outreach recently compiled a list of email marketing case studies, and I’d like to focus your attention on “How Vero Got a 450% Increase in Conversions.” The case study demonstrates the power of segmentation in email marketing, with the Vero team gleaning the following top three lessons from it:

  • Send the right message to the right segment
  • Use targeting, style, and tone to avoid the dreaded recipient fatigue
  • Determine which email campaigns work and automate them

In other words, each email you send should be tailored to the unique needs of the recipient.

Top-of-the-funnel leads won’t respond well to “Buy Me” emails. “Hot” leads - meaning those ready to buy - will likely turn cold if you keep sending them information on something they already know.

And subscribers in Asia will likely unsubscribe every time you send them deals only available in Chicago or California.

5. Influencer Marketing

From Kendall Jenner to Lily Singh, from Rand Fishkin to Instagram’s hand-holding couple Murad and Natalya Osmann, influencer marketing is going stronger in 2017.

It’s the fastest-growing online customer acquisition channel, with 94% of those who have used the marketing technique believing it to be effective.

The benefits include:

  • Creation of authentic content about a brand
  • Increased traffic to websites and landing pages
  • Boost in brand engagement

But influencer marketing isn’t about getting the most popular face on the planet to endorse your brand. There are other factors that play into it - factors that have nothing to do with popularity, such as:

  • Authenticity. Is the influencer a good fit? Would anyone believe that this or that celebrity actually wears your jewelry line or drives your car brand?
  • Long-term relationships. You don’t want an influencer who endorses you today and will readily endorse your direct competitor the following day.
  • The rising influence of micro-influencers. What about the escalating costs of celebrity endorsements? The good thing about influencer marketing, it isn’t anchored on popularity. Micro-influencers - or influencers with small but a more engaged following - can win you bigger returns than if you focus your attention on a popular influencer who will come off as fake to your target consumers.

With influencer marketing, it’s all about finding the right fit.

But how do you find the right influencers for your brand?

There are many ways, and one of them is by using prospecting tools like Ninja Outreach.

In the old days when similar tools were unheard of, the most popular way was feeding your search keywords to Google Search and spending a good chunk of time manually separating the “wheat from the chaff.”

With Ninja Outreach, all you do is enter your keywords, and everything you need to know about prospective influencers are available in just a few clicks, including:

  • Contact information
  • Social engagement
  • SEO metrics
  • Website traffic
  • The content types they publish or promote

For a more granular drill-down into the data at your fingertips, you can filter the results based on content reach, social media following, engagement, site metrics, and the like.

We also put together a list of influencer marketing case studies to show you how this marketing strategy works and how it helped several businesses so far.

6. Interactive Marketing

How much has “Game of Thrones” f*cked you up?

Which Power Ranger would you have been back in the ‘90s?

If you’re a regular on BuzzFeed, you know those to be the titles of two of their user-generated quizzes.

Then again, what’s quizzes got to do with marketing, right?

The human attention span, reportedly, is now less than that of a goldfish, no thanks to smartphones and a hyperlinked web.

Whether this human-goldfish comparison is true or not remains to be seen.

What is indisputable, however, is the fact that so many things are competing for people’s attention these days, which makes attention a highly valued commodity in the attention economy.

Interactive marketing, also called event-driven or trigger-based marketing, is a one-on-one marketing technique where the direction of the content varies based on customer input.

Quizzes, assessments, calculators, and interactive storytelling are all interactive content tactics implemented by marketers to make the user experience more engaging and effective.

Other popular interactive content techniques implemented by marketers today include:

  • Polls/surveys
  • Galleries
  • Interactive video
  • Sweepstakes or contests
  • Interactive white papers
  • Interactive infographics

To prove that this type of marketing works, here’s a case study by interactive marketing platform Ceros.

After posting interactive, visually compelling content that gives the reader freedom to influence the content’s direction through the choices they make, NewsCred registered thousands of unique visitors, increased average view time, posted a 20% CTR (from ebook to NewsCred Academy), and tripled their social media engagement.

If you want to see more interactive content in action, here’s another example, also from Ceros:

Final word

Digital marketing is an ever-evolving field. While the above are undoubtedly some of the marketing techniques making marketing teams busy these days, keeping your pulse on changing consumer preferences and other trends should help you steer your strategies in the right direction when the need arises.

What have been your best marketing approaches for 2017 so far?

The post Best Marketing Techniques of 2017 appeared first on Ninja Outreach.



source https://ninjaoutreach.com/marketing-techniques/
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Friday, 22 September 2017

#SproutChat Recap: Social Recruiting for Higher Education

Ask any college student about social media, they’ll tell you that it’s an integral part of their school experience, both on and off campus. Social media marketers already understand the importance of tailoring messaging for audiences and focusing on the platforms that their audience consumes the most, but for colleges and universities it’s goes a little beyond that.

This week at #SproutChat, we were joined by Sprout All Star, Phil Hughes of NYU Admissions, to chat about where schools ideally allocate social efforts and the types of content that compliment an institution of higher education’s messaging.

Craft Content With Audience in Mind

It’s important to share content that will resonate with your audience and ensure that you’re delivering your institution’s messaging effectively. Depending on the platform, try exploring video and images and see what performs best.

Gain Interest of Senior Leadership

Show senior leadership how other colleges, universities or brands use social to boost recruiting. Get them involved in the process to show prospective students what can’t be shown in glossy recruiting print materials.

Focus on Authenticity

Remember the audience that you’re communicating with. Keep your social platforms conversational and play with posts featuring less copy and more visuals to better capture your audiences attention.

Target Audiences Means Separate Accounts

Not all messages can or should be published from general accounts. If you’re looking to give prospective students an inside look into your institution or, for example, have a robust athletics program to promote, creating separate social accounts can be useful.

Be sure to know your objectives with each audience before creating accounts specific to them and line up your strategy.

Tune in to #SproutChat next Wednesday, 9/27 at 2 p.m CT, to talk about effective actions during a social crisis. Until then join our Facebook community to interact with other folks in the industry.

This post #SproutChat Recap: Social Recruiting for Higher Education originally appeared on Sprout Social.



source https://sproutsocial.com/insights/sproutchat-social-recruiting/
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Thursday, 21 September 2017

The Incredible Benefits Of Second Tier Links For Your SEO

When I went to BrightonSEO last year, some of the speakers said link building wasn’t important anymore.

They said it was not a significant ranking factor and we should be focusing our attention on other factors.

However, other speakers (and I agree too,) believe link building continues to play a crucial part in SEO.

In this post, you will learn why I think second-tier links are important.

I’ll show you some examples and tell you how you can get more secondary links to improve your rankings and your traffic.

Wait a minute, what are second-tier links exactly?

From experience chatting to SEOs, talking about first-, second-, and third-tier links can sometimes bring up some confusion.

While you may not be able to describe what these different type of tier links are, you’ve probably been using them already.

First-tier links are website links that directly link to your website.

For example: If you’re writing a guest post on behalf of your company, the links you include in the content that link directly to your website will be first tier.

The image below shows links we have achieved through writing guest posts and being mentioned on a site. This data is found through Moz.

newly discovered links on moz ose

Second-tier links are links that are directed to your guest blog that contains links to your website.

For example: You share a social media message linking to your guest post that links to your website.

The social message link is a second-tier link. When other websites are linking to your guest blog, these links are examples of second tiers, too.

Some SEOs don’t like spending time on second-tier links because they think these links don’t offer any ranking benefits.

But if they’re sending traffic to your guest post, and people are then clicking on your website link in the author bio, you’re getting valuable traffic to your site.

Regular traffic is considered an important ranking feature.

Second tier links are still important and this is why…

More authority

When you’ve written a guest blog for another site, you can receive some ranking benefits of being associated with a higher domain authority site.

But it doesn’t just stop there. If other high domain authority sites are linking to your guest blog, you’re then getting the benefits, too.

Just because they aren’t first-tier links doesn’t mean they aren’t valuable.

Helpful tip: Discovering you’ve got high authority websites linking to your site is a good “conversation starter” when asking to write a guest blog for a high DA site.

If you know a high domain authority website has linked to your guest blog, it’s clear they like what you’ve talked about before.

You can mention you’ve seen they have linked to your work, and you can ask if they are interested in getting an article from you on their site.

More referral traffic

It doesn’t matter if the link on your guest post is a nofollow link because it doesn’t stop referral traffic from visiting your website.

Second-tier links give you the opportunity to get even more readers to see your guest post, and hopefully visit your website/blog, too.

More relevance

Second-tier links automatically link you to other sites.

The website you’ve written a guest post for will already have relevance to your site (that’s why you chose to write for it, in the first place), and the other sites linking to your guest post will very likely be relevant to your topic, too.

When talking about ranking factors, Google has said relevance is crucial.

Being relevant with keywords and link building helps the search engine understand what your site is about.

When your website is associated with more sites in your particular niche/industry, it helps Google pinpoint where it belongs.

More customers

Potential customers and readers will be able to find your site with secondary links.

When other sites link to your guest content, it’s highly likely they have an interest in your industry.

People from those sites will see your guest post, and there is a chance they will visit your site, too.

And most importantly, the people who are coming from these second-tier sites are using relevant keywords and are your ideal customers.

They are ideal visitors because they are already interested in the subject niche and have taken the time to visit your site for more of your knowledge and products.

Therefore, very valuable contacts to have.

Secondary tier links in action

I’ve collected some examples to show second-tier links in action.

This blog on Moz.com is a guest blog entitled “How to Stop Spam Bots from Ruining Your Analytics Referral Data” by Jared Gardner.

In the bio at the bottom of the guest post is information about Jared and a link to his website, Red Door Interactive.

In the profile bio, there is a link to the writer’s website.

To see second-tier linking in action, I researched how many links are linking to Jared’s guest post.

Using Moz’s link tool Open Site Explorer, I can see how many and what types of referral links there are.

Moz ose link inspection

In the Page Link Metrics section, there are 50 root domains linking to this guest post.

That means there are 50 websites potentially bringing readers to this blog, and it’s likely they will visit the author’s website, too, particularly if what the author wrote resonates with those readers.

Through Moz.com, the author has written for a popular and highly regarded site in his industry.

The 50 sites that are linking to this blog will likely bring high-quality traffic, too.

Another benefit of second-tier link building is the opportunities continue to grow long after you’ve written a guest post. Just last month, 5 new sites linked to this guest post, providing 5 additional routes for relevant readers to find it.

Newly discovered link on moz ose

These websites have just been discovered.

These websites are bringing relevant people in your niche to your guest post and giving them the chance to find your website.

This shows second-tier links in action.

How to increase your second-tier link building

From what we’ve just covered, it’s clear that links from secondary sites offer many benefits.

But how do you increase the number of second-tier links to your site?

Do social sharing

Promote the guest blogs you’ve written on social networking sites. As soon as your article is live, you should be promoting it to your networks anyway.

Just because you’re sending traffic to another person’s site doesn’t mean you’re not getting the benefits, too.

These secondary links from social sharing will bring interested readers to your content.

Helpful tip: To get the best out of social sharing, make sure you’re posting on social platforms that are relevant to your ideal readership.

Make sure the site owner you’ve written the content for does their own social sharing because it’s likely they have a different following to yours.

Encourage them to retweet or share your social posts. After all, you’re promoting their site.

The more publicity the site owner receives from social networks, the more readers who will read your guest blog and likely visit your site, too.

Reach out to relevant sites

Be selective with the sites you want to write for.

Before you send an outreach email, spend some time going through the prospective website.

Do they have the same type of readership as yours?

Do they discuss similar topics that you have on your site?

While second-tier links are important, you want links that will bring in relevant traffic.

You want people reading your guest content and then visiting your site.

They will only do that if they are genuinely interested in what you’re talking about.

Do PR

PR campaigns are perfect opportunities to promote your business and to get secondary links.

Get newspapers and magazines to write about you (or your business).

These articles will be read by interested readers, and if they link to these PR sources, they will instantly become second tier.

It’s important to contact newspapers and magazines that are relevant to your industry.

This way, you’ll likely get more people who are interested in your business and what you have to say.

And if they like the sound of your business (or you), they will promote the newspaper article on their social networks or even on their own sites, creating more secondary links.

The importance of secondary link building

While you might automatically want to focus your outreach time on creating first tier-links, you shouldn’t completely ignore the opportunities of secondary links.

In SEO discussions, the topic of link building is always brought up. Some people think it’s not important anymore, but it’s clear it is still relevant and shouldn’t be disregarded.

Link building is still a ranking factor but you must follow Google’s guidelines to avoid harmful penalties.

Along with link building, there are many other SEO ranking factors, and it’s important to use different strategies to improve your site’s overall rankings.

Other factors to consider are Page Authority, anchor text, uniqueness of page content, and many more.

To help with your SEO efforts, it’s worth reviewing all these ranking factors to see how easy they are to implement and if you have the resource to carry them through.

Make a list of the most important, the factors that will make the most difference to your efforts and get to work!

 

Next time you’re planning your outreach campaign, consider how you will approach secondary link building.

If you’re creating helpful and relevant content, you will automatically see an increase in second-tier links because most people like to share information they think is helpful.

Rikki is the director at Digital 22. He is an inbound marketer with over 8 years experience and has qualifications from Hubspot, Google, Bing and The Chartered Institute of Marketing.

The post The Incredible Benefits Of Second Tier Links For Your SEO appeared first on Ninja Outreach.



source https://ninjaoutreach.com/second-tier-link-seo/
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