3 essential strategies to increase website traffic

Looking to increase website traffic? Leverage the power of these 3 essential strategies:

1. Blogging
2. Social media
3. Influencers

1. How to leverage the power of blogging to generate website traffic

To generate website traffic you need content and blogging is the most effective way to create content.

Is blogging easy?

No, it’s not, but companies with blogs generate on average 67% more leads per month than companies that don’t blog.

It is a well-known fact that Google loves fresh content so companies that publish new content consistently have a lot to gain and I’m not talking about traffic alone.

Successful companies like HubSpot or Salesforce have grown into content publishing powerhouses. They put out several blog articles a day filled with valuable insights, how-to’s and other recommendations for marketers and sales professionals.

Companies like these two either have a 5-6 writer in-house team or hire freelance writers. Another solution is to welcome guest posts. No matter which option they went with, they have a well-planned editorial calendar for at least 6 months in advance.

It’s totally understandable if your company cannot publish five articles a day, not every company has the human and financial resources of Hubspot and salesforce.

You can start by publishing one article per day. You don’t have a content writer on your team yet? No problem!

Find industry experts or influencers in your niche who are looking to increase their personal brand and invite them to contribute guest blogs.

It’s a win-win situation: contributors boost their visibility and reputation, and your blog benefits from increased traffic from prospects you could turn into leads then customers.

Now that you have writers generating content, it’s time to ensure your published content shows up in Google search results and gets clicked on. In other words: it’s SEO time!

SEO recommendations to get your content to show up in Google search results and get clicked on

1.Keywords with high search volume vs keywords with low search volume

Before jumping into writing content, Nadya Khoja, Chief Growth Officer at Venngage and experienced B2B marketer recommends marketers to determine the search intent of their B2B audience.

Nadya says marketers shouldn’t choose keywords based solely on search volume. When it comes to B2B, marketers should choose keywords and terms that are first and foremost relevant to their audience even if they have a lower search volume.

“Popular searches in your industry will attract more B2C consumers, whereas focused keywords that have a higher value, but a lower search volume, usually fall in the B2B realm.”, says Nadya.

2. Put honey in your titles

The most important element of your blog article is not the contents, but the headline. If the headline is not attractive enough, no one will read the contents.

Think of the headline as honey: it’s sweet and nutritious and bears cannot resist but eat it whenever they find it.

What does a “sweet” headline look like?

A compelling headline:

• offers a solution to the reader’s problem;
• includes an engaging qualifier (i.e.: smart, amazing, easy-to-implement, top, essential, the latest etc);
• is clear on what solution does the article provide (i.e.: recommendations, insights, takeaways, tips, trends etc);
• provides a number (i.e.: 7 recommendations, 25 takeaways).

To help you get really good at writing enticing headlines, use Headline Studio, a Chrome tool that scores your headlines and teaches you how to optimize them.

3. Serve readers with a 3-course meal type of content

Health experts recommend never eat until you are full, eat until you are no longer hungry.

It’s sound advice to prevent overeating related health issues, but that doesn’t apply to content.

Your goal as a content writer is to serve the reader with a 3-course meal type of content.

This type of content satisfies the reader’s appetite in such a way that they don’t need to look anywhere else for delicious content.

It is relevant to the reader and provides valuable information in various forms: how-to, top, round-up, case study, interview or original research.

When the content is valuable, it will get included as a source in other pieces of content and therefore attract further traffic.

2. How to use social media to generate website traffic

For most websites, Google is the first source of paid and organic traffic. Social media comes in second, with Facebook driving the most traffic for business.

Depending on your business, the second social media platform is either LinkedIn or Instagram.

And you should also check out Pinterest because according to the latest reports, each pin can drive up to 2-page visits and 6 pageviews and lasts up to one week compared with Twitter and Facebook whose updates last for 24 minutes and 90 minutes respectively.

Going back to Facebook, what should you write in your post to get your followers to click on the link and visit your page?

Never ever post the link with no copy and expect your audience to click through to your page. It’s unprofessional!

What you need to do is to write a compelling copy that piques the interest of your audience.

Use questions to challenge their assumptions and stoke their curiosity then direct them to your link to find the answers.

3. How to generate website traffic with influencer marketing

The latest stats say influencer marketing strategies focused on branding or engagements generate 8x ROI and according to 71% of marketers, the quality of customers and traffic from influencer marketing is better than other sources.

Influencer marketing is powerful but how should you leverage the power of influencers to generate website traffic?

Here are the main dos and don’ts.

Don’t limit the influencer to sharing a photo holding your product. It’s unprofessional and most of the time it doesn’t work! Yes, I’m repeating myself to grab your attention.

Do have your team and the influencer brainstorm ideas for creative and fun campaigns. The influencer should fall in love with your product and find ways to convey this feeling to their followers.

Which strategy are you using to increase website traffic?

Share in the comments!

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This Tool Helps you Create Content your Audience Will Love

Just as you cannot drive your car blindfolded, you cannot design your marketing strategy without thorough knowledge of your audience. How can you write content if you don’t know whom you’re writing for? The more details you know about your audience, the better you can craft your content and the more efficient your content strategy will be.

Are you a marketer or brand manager looking to update your audience profile?

Do you seek ways to increase engagement on your content?

This tool can help you.

We started Codec to empower marketers and creatives with the empirical evidence they need to make better decisions and we are proud to have worked with some of the best in the business since founding Codec in early 2015.
Codec team

Codec is a product developed by a team of marketers, technologists and data scientists whose purpose is “helping creatives and brands make great content with confidence”.

What is Codec?

Codec is an AI powered cultural segmentation platform and consumer insight tool that allows brands to discover, interrogate and activate new audiences.

Here is how marketers can benefit from using Codec:

1. Identify and understand existing target audiences and personas;
2. Derisk creative and strategic decisions;
3. Increase content performance.

How does CODEC work?

CODEC works as a process, by going through three stages:

1. Select your audience – you can choose from your existing personas/communities, your existing social handles or you can choose from over 1500 Codec pre-built audiences;
2. The platform proceeds with gathering the data and extracting the insights using sophisticated AI and machine learning, from natural language processing to neural nets;
3. Use the insights to inform creative decisions in any stage of the content creation process, be it research, strategy, creative, or distribution.

What kind of insights does Codec provide marketers with?

Psychographics are stronger than demographics

Demographics are no longer enough to get a complete profile of your target audience. Your audience is defined beyond standard criteria such as age, location, sex etc.; behaviours are shaped and triggered by how strongly your audience feels and resonates with a certain subject or interest.

Codec helps marketers discover these interests by providing them with psychographics so they can understand their audience in a deeper and more relevant way.

Here are 8 key insights and data that Codec provides:

1. Passion Point & Interest Analysis

This module analyses the level of engagement that the audience has with any particular interest. Codec tracks over 1,500 cultural interests across multiple European, South American, North American and Asian countries and territories to understand the interests that truly resonate with a target audience. The platform monitors in real time billions of content interactions from millions of users across social media, categorised into our 1500 interests. Marketers receive detailed analysis of their target audience’s passion points from their interactions with 3rd party content.

Benefit: Marketers are provided with actionable & shareable content strategy and enhanced content briefs.

2. Interests over time

As we grow older, our passions change: we lose interest in some of them and we discover other interests or beliefs that we feel strongly about.
Codec’s AI understands the 3rd party content that your audience interacts with and can track how the audience’s interests are changing over time.

Benefit: With the help of this tool, marketers can catch a rising trend or create evergreen content based on stable interests confirmed over time.

3. Personality analysis

Codec goes even further than identifying interests; it understands the core values and personality traits within a tribe or audience. It outlines core personality types by mapping their written text and content preferences.

Benefit: marketers can ensure the content includes the right tone, which dramatically increases shareability, affinity and purchase intent.

4. Optimal platform and format

There are so many formats you can deliver your content in: text, photographs, videos, infographics, epapers, podcasts etc. Which of these formats does your audience prefer and engage with? It can take a lot of time to pinpoint your audience’s preferred content format. Once you established the right format for your content, which platforms do you use to deliver it?
Codec provides marketers with knowledge of the formats and platforms that resonate with their audience so they don’t have to A/B test.

Benefit: This tool helps marketers make precise tactical content decisions to maximise the effectiveness of content through smart distribution.

5. Visual imagery analysis

A picture is worth a thousand words, but the right picture is worth an increase in brand awareness through engagement. Through deep learning and neural nets over millions of types of image, Codec sees the visual imagery and elements that most engage your target audience.

Benefit: Marketers can understand what genres of image content works best. Identify the framing, colour, tones and topics that are in-demand from their target audience.

6. Trending content

Delivering the content your audience is looking for at the moment they need it is a recipe for success. Google calls these moments micro-moments.
Codec identifies the recent, real-time content that is trending among your target audiences.

Benefit: Marketers can pinpoint the specific content that their target audience is spending time consuming.

7. Media planning reports

Nobody likes talking in an empty room and this tool helps you avoid it. Codec tracks exactly where your target audiences spend time online so you can target them effectively, increasing ROI.

Benefit: Marketers can customise entities they do or do not want to target against in order to protect their brand and increase effectiveness of targeting.

7. Influencers

Influencer marketing can drive engagement and increase brand awareness when done correctly. The success of an influencer marketing campaign lies mostly on choosing the right influencer.
Codec picks the most relevant and resonant influencers to use for creation and distribution.

Benefit: Marketers can identify the optimal influencers, YouTubers, bloggers, celebrities and brands that have an impact on their target audiences, and pinpoint what topics influencers would most effectively explore with their communities.

Eve, an UK on-demand mattress company doubled its sales using content developed with Codec insights:

Wrapping up

Here are the benefits of using Codec to help you create the right content for your audience:

• Better understanding of your audience by discovering the interests that truly resonate with it;
• Identifying topic pillars for the content you will create;
• Understanding the motivators for your target audience’s interests;
• Discovering evergreen content;
• No more A/B testing;
• Finding what content format and which platform to distribute it on for maximum impact with your audience;
• Which content your audience loves to engage with;
• Identifying the influencers that have the most resonance with your target audience;
• Making strategic decisions with confidence;
• Validating your choices and strategy plans.

The Main 10 Tricks Any Marketer Should Know

Working in marketing may be one of the most beautiful jobs on Earth as it keeps you always up-to-date with the new trends in the market and is a very fast paced industry. At the same time, receiving some new ideas and points of view comes handy from time to time, therefore we decided to offer you some tricks that we believe will never get old.

1.Load up on data fast. “Facebook advertising can deliver the cheapest CPM’s in online marketing with the ability to test ad efficiency in real-time. Use the power editor “duplicate” tool to create hundreds of ads and change one element per ad. Give these a small budget, and you’ll quickly see what works and what doesn’t without breaking the bank. Double down on the ones that work, and kill the ones that don’t.” – Kyle Ivins, co-founder Envolve Agency for Entrepreneur.com

2.Reduce your subject lines to only one word and get an immediate lift in email marketing. Make sure that you choose that word carefully, as it should create curiosity, while at the same time remain relevant to your message.

3.Watch your competitors’ mentions. You can start by creating a Google Alert for your competitors’ brand names (the ones that you admire,of course). This way you will find out where they are being mentioned and in what context. When you will find an opportunity to be mentioned alongside them, on a subject that fits your business good and /or you have a great angle to approach and present, you should take advantage of it and try and appear in the same context. It’s important to know that journalists might be open to include your point of view.

4.Use Google Trends that recently added new features and simplified its navigation, in order to make it easier to explore data based stories.

5.Promote your content through a .com domain as often as possible. 84% of top-ranking pages use .com as their top-level domain.

6.Live stream as much as possible. This represents an easy way to attract visitors towards your channel, to introduce the customers to your team members, show live events of your company that can project you a real living brand for the customers.

7.Guest blog on popular industry sites and put a link back to your site within your byline or bio. This builds traffic as well as personal brand authority.

8.Re-invent the “old” content in such a manner that will bring something fresh to users who may not have seen it.

9.Use decoy pricing. This is a tactic that boosts sales of high-profit items by creating another version of the product solely to make the pricier versions seem economical by comparison.

10.Endorsed relationships. This is one of the most powerful marketing tools on the planet. They open doors, build trust and create opportunities. And that pretty fast and easy. All you have to do is find the right persons to take beside you and make sure you add this valuable business asset to your marketing mix.

5 pieces of advice for entrepreneurs in 2018, the media agency point of view

Having the right media mix and campaigns represents a very important moment in a company’s marketing strategy. Choosing the right track might be hard to find, therefore every business needs a good media consultant. A point of view written by Razvan Varabiescu – CEO Dentsu Aegis Network Romania.

1. Disrupt Or You Will Be Disrupted.

In a digital economy you have to look at things as a start up or as a business turnaround. If in the past because of the volume of media budgets one could afford to “ignore” the small competitors who due to the financial entry barrier did not afford big reach on TV or other kind of exposures, today, regardless if you are a startup or a 20-year market leader, one can not ignore the new environments, the opportunities that appear, you have to be forever ready to disrupt and to think things like a start up.

2. Content Is King

Today, the consumer has an overwhelming number of options on how to consume media. Whether we are talking about digital radio or analogue TV or live vs. registered by Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Go, YouTube etc., it is very important to integrate the product into the content. The environments are evolving and it is increasingly difficult to predict where and how consumers consume media. However, it is certain that the relevant content for them is different, so the big players continue to invest permanently in premium and unique content. The more we manage to integrate the media into the content, the more we make sure that we will not be ignored.

3. Data Is The New Currency

Everybody talks about our data. However, data collection is still at the beginning. 92% of the data we have today is gathered over the past 2 years and probably the trend will continue. It is still not too late to collect data on our consumers. Why? This is simple: in the future when all the media acquisition is done programmatically, the data we have will make the difference. Imagine a world where the cost per thousand is given by supply and demand, the difference being made by how many consumers I need to reach to meet my marketing goals, sales, etc.; the most effective campaign will be the one that achieves its goals by reaching as few people as possible by getting in contact with those who are willing to act. But how do we figure out who they are? Using the data, obviously.

4. Strategic Thinking At The Core

As media moves towards programmatic, the price pressure will drop and a relevant and different strategy will make a difference. If in the past we were all strategists and we had strategies for media, PR, BTL, communication, marketing, etc. all today’s touchpoints are interconnected and need to have a single strategy able to deliver in all communication disciplines. We cannot have a TV campaign anymore and pray that someone writes a post on a blog about the product, we cannot pay 2 bloggers hoping to get the story. Things must be thought from the beginning, interconnected, measured. The strategy will make the difference exactly as low prices on TV was the law.

5. Attract The Right Talents

This is probably another cliché. But we have to realize that the Y generation is the generation that will provide the main workforce for the next 20 years. 54% of companies will work with online workforce over the next 5 years. It’s the savvy digital generation. Every hour a car replaces the work of a man. The main problem we have in the coming years is to succeed in attracting and securing talent in the organization. For this, every manager should ask himself how can he change organizational culture to adapt to the new needs of the millennial generation. Let’s not forget we’re talking about a sensitive generation called the Snowflake Generation.

How To Engage With Your YouTube Subscribers To The Full Potential

Over the years, YouTube has become the go-to place for content creators to showcase their amazing work to a massive audience. YouTube gets over 30 million visits a day, according to blog.elink.io. And in a period of time when Facebook is pushing a lot on video content, YouTube decided it’s high time it got back on its target radar as the number one video platform out there. Therefore, one of its moves was creating YouTube Community, a place for YouTubers to interact with their fans and followers in a very friendly environment. The YouTube Community gives creators a space to post various types of status updates – polls, pictures, text, GIFs, links and more. Subscribers and other visitors can then like or comment on these posts.

At launch, YouTube had extended the feature to just a few creators, and, according to engadget.com, the rollout has been slow ever since. But the response has been pretty positive and YouTube said it planned to add more channels following the launch. And, in fact, at the end of November last year, YouTube today announced that its Community feature is available to anyone who has a channel with more than 10,000 subscribers. The YouTube Community tab replaces the Discussion tab, the place where creators and viewers used to have general conversations. The main difference between the Community tab and the Discussion tab is that the Discussion tab was purely text-based, whereas the Community tab allows a variety of posting and discussion capabilities.

To get inspiration for your own community posts, follow the community posts of channels you subscribe to by visiting their Community tab or by viewing the Subscriptions tab of the YouTube app.

“It’s extremely important to engage with your users in the comments section. Try to respond to every comment you get; not only will this help your video engagement, it’ll help you mold your community as you see fit. Also, the more engaged a specific user is with your channel, the higher the likelihood that your videos will make it into their emails and notifications,” wrote Jayson DeMers  for Forbes.

How to use the community tab feature to its best capacities? Here are some steps that will help you along the way:

1. Tell your followers about the new feature and how you intend to use it, for them. To add a link to your Community tab in the video description, open the tab and copy the URL from your browser’s address bar. Share the video on your Community tab to make sure first-time visitors to this tab know what they can do to engage with your channel.
2. Reach more. Try cross promoting other channels and creators, or promote your own second channel through the Community tab. This is a handy way of increasing your reach and letting people know about the other content that you care about.
3. Make sure your subscribers enable the notifications. You may use a video or a community post (or both) to let subscribers know how to get notified about your latest channel activity. Tell them that they need to click the bell icon to the right of the button they use to subscribe.
4. Use polls to get to know more about your target. Polls are a great way in which you can easily find out if they liked your video or not or what they want to see next. You can then refine your content based on their suggestions and provide more quality content to your audience.
5. Promote your products. “Post a status update to the tab with an image of your product and a link to the product’s sales page. Consider creating a special landing page on your website for your channel subscribers and offer an exclusive discount just for YouTube visitors to measure the results,” said socialmediaexaminer.com.
6. Create teasers with the following content of your videos or/and of important launches and events you have for your brand. Offering this exclusive new content will spark their interest and get them on your channel when you launch the new finished product or service. At the same time,you can also promote successful past videos for the people that haven’t seen them yet.
7. Share exclusive GIFs and memes. Don’t forget we all want to have fun and enjoy our lives and we were drown to the social media platforms because they offered just that. A brand that can show emotion and humor is a brand that will always win people’s hearts and one that they can relate to.

How hard is it or not to monetize on YouTube in 2018

From now on, YouTube content creators won’t be able to monetize until they hit 10,000 lifetime views on their channel. YouTube believes that this threshold will give them a chance to gather enough information on a channel to know if it’s legit.

“In a few weeks, we’ll also be adding a review process for new creators who apply to be in the YouTube Partner Program. After a creator hits 10k lifetime views on their channel, we’ll review their activity against our policies. If everything looks good, we’ll bring this channel into YPP and begin serving ads against their content. Together these new thresholds will help ensure revenue only flows to creators who are playing by the rules,” wrote Ariel Bardin, YouTube’s VP of product management, in a blog post.

Moreover, according to polygon.com, YouTube executives acknowledged that life would change for a significant number of channels under the new setup. “The company attempted to defend its decision by noting that <<99 percent of those affected were making less than $100 per year in the last year, with 90 percent earning less than $2.50 in the last month>>,” wrote Julia Alexander.

At the same time, she is pointing out that any video that goes through Google Preferred, a classification that pairs top-tier ads with major creators’ videos, will now be watched by a human before advertising is approved. “This screening process should prevent objectionable content, like Logan Paul’s controversial video containing footage of a dead body, from being monetized. By cutting off the sea of channels that YouTube may not have been able to keep a human eye on, the company will also ensure that it can try to gauge what content is receiving placement for advertisers,”commented Alexander.

On the plus side, the companies must be rejoiced by the fact that YouTube is also giving advertisers more control over which channels get certain ads placed,a situation that permits YouTube to work with both creators in the Partner Program and advertisers to keep a better eye on content before it gets promoted.

Some great ideas on how a company or a content creator can monetize on YouTube can be found here.

How to make it work for your brand with Facebook’s new changes

After the new Facebook News Feed changes, all of the marcomm industry has been left wondering what are the best ways of keep on bringing success for the brands and the companies.

We are offering you some solutions that we believe will help you and your business:

Put more emphasize on the content and its value. Even you will post less frequently, try and create content that will stimulate the conversation, bringing more comments and shares.

Avoid click and engagement bait

Use Facebook Live. Live videos get the best interaction of Facebook of all the content posted and,moreover, bring instant interaction and reaction from the followers. A manner to attract more people to your live video is to announce your followers you will have a video session and when it will happen, plus add people in your video and invite people to watch. Moreover, the viewers can interact by posing open questions or by submitting questions during the live feed.

Use the “See First” option. What it happens is that when your followers activate this option they’re less likely to miss your updates. All they have to do is click on “Following” and then “See First” on your page and everything is settled.

Get into Messenger Chatbots, learn about them and use them. They will allow you to nurture leads and sell.

“Businesses in the travel, finance, media and entertainment, health, and retail sectors in particular have all found success with these pocket-sized personal assistants. For example, you can open up Facebook Messenger at breakfast and ask your weather bot what Mother Nature has in store for you that day. Then you can ask your favorite newspaper bot for the latest sports or business headlines. Planning a trip? Message a travel bot for flights and hotel recommendations, to rent a car, and more. Bots use AI technology to understand your question, find the right response, and deliver it in as conversational and “human” a way as possible,” wrote Rob Mathison for Hootsuite.

Learn how to use to perfection Facebook ads. Even the advertising politics are in a continuous change, mastering your ads’ strategy is the way to reach the best your target.

Net neutrality 2018 – where does it go?

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted along party lines on Thursday to repeal landmark 2015 rules aimed at ensuring a free and open internet, setting up a court fight over a move that could recast the digital landscape, reported Reuters.

“The approval of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s proposal in a 3-2 vote marked a victory for internet service providers such as AT&T Inc, Comcast Corp and Verizon Communications Inc and hands them power over what content consumers can access. It also is the biggest win for Pai in his sweeping effort to undo many telecommunications regulations since taking over at the agency in January. Democrats, Hollywood and companies such as Google parent Alphabet Inc and Facebook Inc had urged Pai, a Republican appointed by U.S. President Donald Trump, to keep the Obama-era rules barring service providers from blocking, slowing access to or charging more for certain content. The new rules give internet service providers sweeping powers to change how consumers access the internet but must have new transparency requirements that will require them to disclose any changes to consumers,” commented David Shepardon for Reuters.

What can this mean in the near future? Even the consumers will probably don’t see immediate changes, it is reported that smaller startups worry the lack of restrictions could drive up costs or lead to their content being blocked.

This vote will negatively impact small- and medium-sized Internet business, and has the potential to decrease jobs and economic growth system-wide,” said Christian Dawson, executive director of i2Coalition, which includes Amazon and Google, quoted by USA Today.

“The scrapping of the Obama administration’s rules is likely to set up a court battle and could redraw the digital landscape, with internet service providers possibly revising how Americans view online content. The providers could use new authority to limit or slow some websites or offer “fast lanes” for certain content. Republicans on the FCC have sought to reassure young people that their ability to access the internet will not change after the rules take effect. People who favor the move argue that after users realize that little or nothing has changed in their internet access, it will not resonate as a political issue,” writes Fortune.

Meanwhile, in Europe….

According to Conversation, in the UK, “net neutrality is currently protected by EU policy 2015-2120 in support of a Digital Single Market – Brexit fallout aside. Potentially, after Brexit, the UK government could choose to revoke this policy, although this is unlikely because it has already committed to a Universal Service Obligation (USO), effectively making broadband access a legal requirement, as it has been in Finland for many years. Additionally, ISPs are held to account by the UK communications regulator OFCOM, which is tasked with ensuring fair play and protecting consumers from poor service. There has been widespread criticism that OFCOM has been slow and ineffective in persuading big players such as BT/Openreach to act responsibly in the past, though it has made progress recently.”

Using WhatsApp for business – the new important trend?

WhatsApp has become one of the most popular messaging apps in the world, with 1 billion daily users. Besides being a phenomenon in the people’s private lives, the app is taking control in the work side of the story, businessmen and women using it more and more in their everyday business activities.

A reality that is seen also by the app’s owners that are getting ready to start capitalizing more on its success. According to Tech Crunch, WhatsApp is gearing up to finally monetize its messaging app by charging large enterprise businesses for tools to better communicate with customers. WhatsApp will also offer a free app to small-to-medium sized businesses, though it hasn’t outlined the specific functionality of the app. The enterprise solution will allow global companies “to provide customers with useful notifications like flight times, delivery confirmations, and other updates”.

Moreover, recently, WhatsApp began testing verified accounts for businesses. “Conversations with businesses are encrypted and they can be blocked. Interestingly, if a business isn’t already in your phone number contacts, its name will appear as whatever they register themselves as instead of their number. This could allow WhatsApp to create a business search engine with optional sponsored results, or let businesses cold-message people, possibly for a fee,” wrote Josh Constine for Tech Crunch. More on the subject one can read here.

As the interest towards the app’s use for business is constantly growing, we are offering you some tips on how to maximize the app’s features on the professional life as well.

1. Look at its importance in Customer Communication

According to ProfitBooks, following up on WhatsApp instead of direct calling on the phone calls will help you get a 40% higher response rate. “No one appreciates phone calls from unknown numbers, but we are more likely to respond to personal messages. When we start using WhatsApp for customer communication, we noticed better response and engagement. This also gives an opportunity to be little informal. For example, you have sent a quotation to your potential customer but haven’t heard from him, what do you do? You either call him or send a followup mail using formal language. Instead of doing this, if you just send a short message on WhatsApp asking about the status, you might get a quick response,”writes the website.

2. A great tool for Marketing, Promotion and Customer Support

WhatsApp could be a great tool for customer support simple because of its wider reach. Your customers would always prefer to send you a message over WhatsApp rather than calling a helpdesk number or talking to a robot.

Moreover, WhatsApp can prove to be a very strong marketing tool. It is a good one-to-one platform for direct communication, making it easy to send and receive any type of content (images, audio files, short video clips, etc), really fast, to users all over the world. Unlike SMS or Email, there are less restriction on the format and delivery chances are higher.

This doesn’t mean that you should spam your customers with WhatsApp messages. Ideally you should use WhatsApp to connect with existing loyal customers rather than trying to reach new users.

3. A place for using your creativity

Technology and digital are helping businesses become more creative, offering them the possibility to innovate and surprise their target on a regular basis. WhatsApp, like any fresh and hot app, makes sure it gives its users the chance to grow their business in a cost effective manner, all one has to do is be up to date with its technical features and try and see things from a different perspective. One can get inspired from here.

4. Great for Market Surveys

Whatsapp is a great interactive tool for getting real-time suggestions and feedback from your customers about your products and services, through brief and concise questions relating to the areas of your business or service you need information on.

5. Amazing for Internal Communications purposes

One of the greatest things about WhatApp is that is easy to use and understood by all types of target, almost everyone uses it. At the same time, as pointed out by vanguardngr.com, you don’t need to explicitly ask your employees or team members to check the app, because chances are they’re already hooked to it. “You can form WhatsApp group for different teams in your business, for example you can form a WhatsApp group for the Business Strategy team, another for the Sales and Development team etc. Your team can share ideas, instant messages, images, audio files, video clips and other media among themselves in a quick and fun way. You also don’t need to be too afraid of the information shared on the these groups getting out, because Whatsapp messages are protected with an end-to-end encryption that not only makes it one of the safest messaging apps in existence, but also adequately protects your data from leaks,” adds vanguardngr.com.

More pieces of information and ideas you can also read here.

Is it illegal or not to regram?

Copyright is always an issue than one posting on social media should be careful of and pay attention at. Due to the fact that Instagram doesn’t include the ability to regram directly within the app, many people have feared that this practice of sharing other people’s content is actually a violation of the Instagram terms of service (TOS).

Moreover, there was a statement published some time ago that was saying that in the Instagram’s terms of service sharing content other than your own was a violation of the platform’s terms. Therefore, regramming was a violation.

But, according to socialmediaexaminer.com, Instagram has updated their TOS to state that you’re responsible for any content you post on Instagram. Sections 7 and 8 speak directly to the types of content you’re responsible for. And one can read the most current version of Instagram’s terms here.

So what are the steps that somebody must take in order to make sure they are not breaking any laws or rules?

1. Get permission from the owner to share his / her content. You can do that either by commenting on their post letting them know that you want to share their photo or video with your audience. Then you can ask if you can have their permission to repost it. You can also send the user a Direct Message asking the same thing. Once they give you response in writing, giving you permission to repost the picture, then you’d be allowed to repost the picture. If they don’t respond, don’t use it. Asking is not enough. You need actual consent.

Still according to socialmediaexaminer.com, there are two types of consent: implied and explicit. Implied consent is when users post content with the expectation that it may be regrammed (when the company or the brand has a running campaign with a certain hashtag that wishes it will bring along the wished target and, at the same time, is looking to engage them and make them share the info and get other people involved as well). Explicit consent is when the original content creator gives you direct permission to repost their content on your Instagram account.

2.  Get attribution to the original user. Don’t forget to credit the person or the brand you are getting your information from.

3. Use the Repost for the Instagram app. Available for both iphone and android devices, repost for Instagram makes it easy to #Repost your favorite photos and  videos on Instagram while giving credit to the original Instagramer. The benefit of using this app is that it will add a watermark to the image with the original post creator’s Instagram username. This makes it clear that the content is regrammed and provides attribution to the original creator.

4. There are now also a variety of platforms and services designed for brands to ask users if they can use their content. According to Debbie Miller, on her article on agorapulse.com, one example is a Content Rights Solution designed by TINT who creates a variety of social display tools. “The solution allows you to discover content relating to your brand, request the proper permissions from the author of the image via social media, and track which images to which you have rights,” explained Miller.

More on how to protect yourself legally you can read here.

6 Instagram Policies And Tools Often Overlooked

Instagram has a licence to use your content

If you’re posting images on Instagram, you’re giving up some control of your content. As outlined in the most current Terms, the license you grant Instagram is “a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service.”

This means you’re granting Instagram the rights to use your pictures (although you can still grant those rights to anybody, not just Instagram [non-exclusive]) and Instagram doesn’t have to pay you anything (fully paid and royalty-free) no matter how they use your pictures (even if they happen to make money off of them). Instagram also has the right to transfer this license to anyone in the world (transferable and worldwide) and even sell that license without having to pay you anything (remember royalty-free).

What it means in essence for you and the brand to are taking care of is that, after posting on Instagram, you no longer have any control on what will happen with that post, as anybody can repost it, with their own personal comments and ideas.

When it comes to Instagram contests, you must provide complete rules and terms

Instagram contests and giveaways are super-popular these days. They’re a great way to gain followers and additional exposure for your business. However, there are a few things you need to do to make sure you’re complying with Instagram’s promotional rules. The key is that your contest post must include (1) acknowledgment that the promotion is in no way, shape, or form “sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with” Instagram; and (2) a release of Instagram by each person participating in the contest. “In your contest rules, also include the terms, any eligibility requirements, and the prizes offered. You can list these rules directly in the post or link to a separate website that includes this information, plus other contest rules. Also, make it clear to participants that they can’t inaccurately tag content,” said socialmediaexaminer.com.

It’s really important to use hot and trendy hashtags

It’s not enough just to use the hot hashtags. Your goal is to use the most relevant and highest traffic hashtags. Hashtags are the Instagram equivalent of keywords, so you need to find out which ones your target users are most likely to click on and here is the part where the research gets involved. You must search and see who are the best hashtags for your target and to them, as they are the ones that will get relevant traffic. If you’ll make sure to pick the right keywords, relevant and targeted, you’ll gain a lot more popularity and followers. If you choose the wrong hashtags, you won’t get the level of engagement that you’re looking for.



Comment on other people’s or brands’ pictures, don’t just like them

A research showed that on Instagram, there are 575 likes every second, but only 81 comments. People like photos 609% more than they comment on photos. Obviously, it’s easier to double tap a photo than it is to tap comment, and then think of something creative to say. When you go to that extra effort, people like that. They’re more likely to tap your profile and follow you. You can also get a lot of exposure by leaving meaningful comments on the photos of other people. When you leave a thoughtful and positive comment, there’s a good chance that the author of that photo will become curious to check out your profile.

Using direct messaging

You have the possibility to message your followers, but, unfortunately, few brands use it at its full capacity. Of course you need to it elegantly and from time to time, making sure you are not annoying your followers with every update. But, it is a great tool to leverage when you want to announce something big, like a rebranding, new product line, a sale, or a company merger.

Attention to the bio

On a social media platform where pictures and videos are the stars, your company bio must be creative and smartly written. Make sure to highlight all your key points, using short and to-the-point sentences. Don’t make it crowded and suffocating.

 

The secret to winning a Cannes Lion

No matter the changes that the advertising world saw in the last years, Cannes Lions remains the most important festival of the industry and its awards the most wanted and desired. Therefore, it’s only natural for all the agencies and marketers to be curious to know the secret of winning one. So what are the ingredients that turn your campaigns or executions into possible winning ones? The important, big awards are given to disruptive, irreverent, totally different pieces of work that are known and loved at an international level.

Looking at the works that one and listening to several jury members, we were able to highlight some points that will give you a clearer picture on the topic.

“We felt the new integration is about transcending intermedia and really integrating into culture and society,” said Jury President Tham Khai Meng, for AdAge.com.

• Works that push humanity forward.
• Works that are deeply original and sharable.
• Campaigns that effectively impact business objectives
• New ideas that change people’s perspectives. When inspiration is combined with a  rigorous experimentation program, companies can push today’s marketing innovation.
• Intuition balanced with data, big ideas with bold experiments, inspiration with rigorous validation.
• What wins a Grand Prix in a particular category is work that represents best the category and shows the way forward to the industry.
• Old ideas reinvented and putting things in a completely different perspective
• Including a societal angle in your campaign when producing your case study.
• Going big (a strong idea, consolidated by a depth of the execution and all the content created around it). Jury members were very vocal in saying that they wanted to focus on work that had been widely shared, got press coverage and was being made by big real brands.
• The PR component of the campaign becomes more and more important. No winning campaign has been “discovered” at Cannes. All Grand Prix winners were operations that had been already widely shared and talked about in the media, and had also made an impact on marketers all over the world, even before the start of the festival.
• The concept is still the king.
• Using emotion and focus on a positive attitude. Let’s not forget that jurors are humans as well, and if you can make them feel something, you’re much closer to being in the winner’s circle. The stronger the emotion, the better.
• Short videos presenting the campaign’s idea, execution and results. The shorter and to the point as possible, the better.
• “Work that has impact far beyond its initial intention or that creates a category shift is work that stands out. It’s often not the big brands, but the truly smart, innovative, and conscious work that scores highest with the judges”. – Sue Daun, Creative Director Intebrand London.
• Inspiring creativity envy.
• Works that break the rules and do not conform to what we expect to see—work that transcends a category.