When something can become a trending topic in a matter of seconds, it is important for social media marketers to always stay up-to-date on the marketing trends affecting social media.

How to succeed in social media? Monitor and adjust your strategy to these trends:

1. Real-Time Marketing is Redefined

Historically, Real-Time Marketing (RTM) has been described as having a clever response to a trending topic at a moment’s notice. But these days the description is shifting to having “the right content to share with the right audience at the right time.”

This means you really have to know your audience, what kind of content gets them engaged, and which posts will get their attention. We have given a lot of advice about RTM – how to newsjack upcoming events, and how to prepare content in advance to really adhere to this shifting trend.

Thanks to marketing automation, personalization is becoming a norm rather than an advantage.

2. Privacy is Your Priority

After all privacy and data security scandals, it’s no wonder privacy regulation has become a huge trend over the years.

Hari Ravichandran, founder of Aura, names data protection one of the biggest business opportunities these days: If you can figure the balance between data protection and data analytics, you will win your niche.

3. Social Media Ad Spending Increases

It’s no secret that Facebook posts have seen organic reach decline in the last year with an updated algorithm. It especially has caused frustration across small businesses due to the limited budget these companies have to work with.

The trick is to provide less sales-related and more industry-related content as organic posts to enhance brand awareness, and save your sales and promotional content for the ads. This way you can balance your Facebook checkbook and keep your content in front of your fans. (Utilizing targeting tools to the social audience that you know will engage can help keep these costs down and return on your investment (ROI) high!)

4. Content Marketing Continues to Grow

While content sharing continues to increase, social media marketers continue to struggle with measuring the ROI of such efforts. The ROI of social media or content marketing is notoriously in murky waters. But remember, there isn’t one formula for all; ROI will be calculated differently for every organization.

It all depends on the goals of your content. Should the result be the download of a whitepaper or a visit to your website? Establishing these goals before you release the content will help you visualize your results with quantifying value.

5. Video Isn’t Just About YouTube Anymore

Facebook topped YouTube in U.S. desktop views by 1 billion views back in August 2014. And the rumor is that Facebook is giving more value to Facebook videos over YouTube videos in organic reach.

According to JSH&A, Vine and Tumblr are also incrementally seeing more video views, suggesting that video is no longer a one-size-fits-all solution across platforms.

6. Facebook is No Longer King of Engagement

Let’s clarify.

The point JSH&A wants to point out here is that “A Facebook-first or Facebook-only approach may no longer make sense for some brands.”

This doesn’t mean that ALL brands should abandon sharing to Facebook and start an account on EVERY platform. You have to make informed decisions about where your audience is engaging with the brands they love, and post effective, visual, and valuable content to those platforms.

While the infographic points out that Pinterst, Tumblr, and Instagram have gained more than 10MM visitors last year, it is likely that those users are already present on Facebook.

So what is the moral of the story?

Stay visual, stay engaged, stay informed, and you will be able to provide valuable content to the audience you have established a loyal relationship with on social media.

Image by Werner Moser from Pixabay

It isn’t always easy to evaluate ourselves and our work. Anyone who has created content in any professional capacity has had the experience many times of people responding strongly to a piece you didn’t think was any good, and then all but ignoring the one you poured your heart and soul into. It is an exasperating experience that reminds us that it isn’t always so easy to determine quality based on perspective alone.

The bad news is that evaluating content performance is a very necessary job. We have to be able to see what is working, and what isn’t, in order to continue to grow. Luckily, there is hard data to assist in the process, as well as a few things to keep in mind.

What Makes Content Successful?

Before looking at how to analyze the success of your content, you need to define something very important: what constitutes success. You might get a lot of views on a blog posts, but be disappointed by its lack of comments. Something could generate a ton of comments, but never get shared once on social media. It could be republished (with permission) on another site, but hardly generate any traffic for your own.

There are several ways that you could define success:

• The content receives a lot of engagement on social media, and brings people to your profile.
• The content drives click-throughs to your actual site.
• The content generates a lot of traffic via SEO and search engine results.
• The content improves your visibility, and attracts an audience you were trying to target.
• The content enriches the authority of yourself and your brand.
• The content assists the steady growth of your site, even if only in part.

Here are only some examples. Really, success is defined entirely by what it is you choose it to be.

Once you have established this criteria, you will know what to look at moving forward.

Further reading: The Comprehensive Guide to Content Marketing Analytics & Metrics

The Need For Analytics

The simplest way to go about evaluating your content is to find patterns within data. That is where analytics come in. Google Analytics is your most basic tool (it is free for most people), and easiest to use. But you can find any number of tools online, including plugins that can be integrated into WordPress to provide the details right in your dashboard, or on individual posts.

Don’t make any decisions based on a couple of months of information. While three to five months can give you a small glance at how certain content is doing, it is a very small sampling. Six months should be your minimum, but a year or more is much better. The more posts you have to analyze, the better the picture as you see what has happened over time.

Analytics will tell you how much organic traffic has been generated, how long people have on average remained on the page (did they immediately click out, skim, or read in detail), and what posts are top performing.

Once you have that data comes the tricky part is deciding what to do with it. It isn’t enough to know what content is doing well. You have to figure out why. Ask yourself:

• What patterns are emerging based on the topic?
• How was the SEO handled on those posts?
• Was there a specific tone within those posts?
• Did it include any kind of visual content that enhanced it?
• Was the style done in a particular way?
• Who created the content?
• Did anything special happen on social media, such as the use of particular hashtags when sharing?
• Were the topics related to something trending at the time?

You want to find the common links with this content, in order to figure out what it is about them that has been working.

Featured tool: Finteza is a comprehensive web analytics solution that allows you to measure your content performance and even A/B test your sales funnel:

Most online form builders come with built-in analytics solutions you can use as well.

When The Same Thing That Always Works Stops Working

One thing you may notice is a surge of popularity based on these patterns, and then a decline. If what you thought was always working isn’t anymore, analytic data will show you that with brutal clarity. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; times change, and you have to adapt with better content for new eras. Otherwise, you will be left behind.

If you find yourself noticing that what used to work is no longer bringing you the results you need, it is time to try something new. That might also be hidden in the data, as you can see the second most popular content that is still rising beyond the decline you’ve noted. It could inspire you to create something new. Take it as an opportunity to grow!

Further reading: talkingAds, a company that “translates data into actionable results”, puts it very well:

Interpreting and acting on the basis of marketing analysis is the key… Aligning marketing analytics with company requirements makes a difference.

Being Honest About Your Content

You are going to be shocked by what you find, from time to time. You are going to want to deny it. No, there is no way your readers have started to avoid your Freaky Fridays theme week, or lost interest in meandering stories about your time working that job only you find interesting!

Further reading: To help you out, here’s a great article on creating great content from startablog123.com: How To Write A Good Blog Post

Well, that is just the way the cookie crumbles. People get bored, they move on, and you have to bring them back. Don’t get so bogged down with what you’re used to. Enjoy this chance to start fresh, and pay attention to what the data tells you. Even if what it tells you makes you a little bit sad.

2021 has seen an explosion in audio content, especially podcasting. A few factors play into this. The technology to produce quality audio from anywhere is available to pretty much anyone. iTunes has ramped up their focus on podcasting with the launch of their podcast app in 2013 and podcast platforms such as Stitcher are moving into automobiles.

The success of podcasters such as John Lee Dumas, Cliff Ravenscraft and Chris Ducker bring positive attention to podcasting, not just as a content option but as a viable revenue stream.

So how can you turn up the audio in your content strategy?

Adding audio content can be done inexpensively and with less stress around the technology than you may realize. Once you decide to add audio, you will find that this is an excellent medium to leverage for not just podcasting, but other areas of your content strategy.

Free tools like Facebook Live provide an easy way to host your own podcast. Australia-based marketing agency gives some great tips on hosting a live event on Facebook:

The live video will stay on your page after the broadcast and will appear in your friends’ and followers’ feeds just like a usual post. There’s a handy rehearsal feature called Test Broadcast that allows you to broadcast live to admins and moderators of the page to test the audio quality and lighting before you go live to everyone else

Internal podcasting

When you think of podcasting, it’s common to have programs come to mind that are designed for an external audience. But what about your internal audience? Developing a podcast or series of podcasts designed for internal audiences can be a great way to engage your team members and provide important information in a consistent, easy to access delivery model.

Getting Started:  Deduct which areas of your organization could benefit from information, updates or education on a regular basis and who can easily download or access audio for listening. Some possible ideas for internal podcasting implementation could be:

• Human Resources hosts a series of interviews showcasing employees in your company.
• Sales Management produces a weekly podcast providing updates, product details, and training for the sales team.
• Employee Benefits uses audio to keep employees up to date on benefit changes, enrollment information and frequently asked questions.
• The C-Suite hosts a regular podcast to update the company on the state of the organization, vision of where the company is headed and allow everyone to better connect to management and culture.

To keep things organized and consolidated, use a hosted contact center for your business.

These are just a few ideas on how an internal podcast could benefit your content strategy. What other ways could audio content be used to increase morale and efficiencies, while decreasing costs and turnover?

Are you engaging your community the best you can with visuals?

In most cases the answer is: probably not.

Yet, visual marketing is crucial these days. According to Megaphone Marketing,

With 70% of visual receptors in our eyes, it only takes 150 milliseconds to recognise and symbol and 100 milliseconds to attach a meaning to it. Our brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than text and retains 80 percent of what we see versus just 20 percent of what we read.

Here are a few tips and stats for you to consider:

1. In the age of “infobesity” and with an adult attention span of 3-8 seconds, marketers need to learn how to stand out with visual content.
2. Viewers spend 100% more time on web pages with videos. 60% are more likely to buy a product if video is included. Use an online video editor to create videos.
3. Web posts with visuals drive up to 180% more engagement than those without visuals. Use visual elements to create better lead magnets!
4. Publishers who use infographics grow in traffic on average of 12% more than those who don’t.
5. According to Sephora, their Pinterest followers spend 15X more than its Facebook fans.
6. 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual and processed 60,000x faster.
7. Cartoons can increase your newsletter open rate to 45% vs 5% industry standard.
8. The 7 elements of visual storytelling are:
   1. design,
   2. personalisation,
   3. usefulness,
   4. personality,
   5. storytelling,
   6. share-worthiness,
   7. real-time app… Know them!
9. Don’t be afraid of low-fi (Low Fidelity) images taken on the go, we live in the Now! economy and people get it. Have fun w/ it.
10. Make content easy to consume, make it snackable!
11. Remember the Cs: content + context: know what content to place on what networks. Ex: GIFs do well on Tumblr, but not others.
12. Ensure every blog post has at least one great picture and you have a Pin It button on your site for heavy Pinterest users.
13. Twitter is extremely visual, even if you are sharing a link attach a picture to draw attention and increase click-through.
14. On Slideshare, use less text on slides, keep it short and visual, use a catchy title, and include a “tweet this” button on the slides.
15. Don’t be afraid to play with different types of content. See what works for your community; ask them too!

Never stop monitoring and improving. Use web analytics platforms to understand how your audience is engaging with your visual content and whether it is sending them down your conversion funnel:

There’s no one secret for success! Leave a comment and share what visuals you’re using and what’s working to help you and your brand better connect with your community.

Lately, I have been seeing a lot of people talking about growth hacks. These are little tricks that you discover that launch you into the mainstream by creating a surge of user accumulation in a short time.

Plenty of businesses have been scrambling to hire on a growth hacker for their businesses ever since the term started to trend, and even I have been approached by some clients asking me about it where before they had never seemingly heard of it.

The problem – as I have explained to them – is that this method is actually, at the heart, an unscalable hack. But when I say this it usually causes more confusion than it alleviated, which sent me to Google to see what others had to say on the subject. I was shocked to discover only a couple of relevant article on the same concept, and at least two were bases around the technical design definition of the phrase.

The Definition of Unscalable Hacks

An unscalable hack is more or less a short term solution that may or may not yield results. It is usually a temporary solution to a problem that will only patch the original issue, or provide a momentary injection. Which is, to me, what growth hacking is in both theory and practice. It is a short term means of creating a growth surge before you move onto the next tactic.

The problem with this kind of solution in any context is that it is only beneficial if you truly do find that mystical strategy that makes it all worth it. The one that will be your ace in the hole, and boost you onto a new level where you can begin a whole new tactic for continued growth.

Now, I am not saying that unscalable hacks don’t have their place in a sound business strategy. Just look at the way Reddit used the gap created by Digg to sweep in, or Google+ leveraged invites to build hype (not that it helped them in the long run). These are examples of short term actions that really paid off.

All I am pointing out is that an unscalable hack (or growth hack, for that matter) mean nothing if you don’t have the juice behind it to keep things running past the point where it stops being effective – which can be a very small window of time, indeed. If you don’t see many results with that hack in the first place, it is just creating even more problems.

A Better Way To Do Things

If you manage to find that genie’s lamp, by all means, rub it.. Would LinkedIn have been successful if they hadn’t started off following a single minority elitist line within the niche? Probably not. But don’t put too much effort in thinking of wishes that you forget how many you have. The end result is going to be based on more than a good idea that launched you into the mainstream…once you get there, you have to stay there.

The best method of leveraging hacks is to apply them to already solid business and marketing models, and incorporate many sound ideas that will work alongside your genie. Don’t put everything you have behind it’s power, because it only has so much.

With that said, regardless of which growth hacks you are using, always top it off with:

• A sound SEO & content marketing strategy
• A well-planned email marketing strategy
• A well-executed social media marketing plan
• A well-organized customer relationship management system,
• A well-defined marketing toolset, etc.

What do you think about unscalable hacks? Are they worth taking the risk for the average business or site owner? Let us know in the comments.

Image by talha khalil from Pixabay

Video marketing has been rapidly growing over the years. Still, many companies are still shying away from it fearing large production and marketing budgets.

Fear not, the below tools are both effective and low-cost (some are completely free!) so you can start marketing on Youtube this year!

Video Marketing Research

Google

Here is the obvious place to start. Google isn’t just a connecting point for websites, it is a way to see the most popular people, places, topics, websites, and more. A simple search can give you a lot of information about what interests your audience, what your competitors are doing and who is dominating certain keywords. It will also show you where you are lagging, and what phrases may be worth dropping.

Google Autosuggest

Another way to use Google is to check out its autosuggest. When you begin typing something into the search box, it will give you a collection of popular keyphrases that are often searched for. You will get an instant look into what people want to know, and what keywords are worth researching further. You can also see what keywords are currently associated with your brand.

Do use our this free Bulk Suggest Tool that will give you an instant glimpse into what users are searching in your niche.

Cyfe

Cyfe is multi-purpose digital marketing platform that will help you on lots of levels. I use it as a curation tool connecting many sources and allowing me to see everything in one place. I use it to curate Twitter, niche blogs, keyword research tools, etc.

MyBlogU

MyBlogU is another invaluable research tool which also comes completely for free. Create a new project and its helpful users will send you ideas: What they would like to watch in your industry and which questions they’d want to be answered.

Twitter

In the same vein as MyBlogU, Twitter can be just as useful in establishing keyword trends across the world. Any social network technically has this ability, but Twitter is unique in that it is widely open platform with a live updating feed and search algorithm.

You will get a lot more information there than anywhere else. I am mostly fond of Twitter as a way of finding new concepts to exploit, and establishing new marketing tactics and campaigns. But you will also see what keywords are making it on the social realm, and often competitors wouldn’t have thought to apply those to search metrics.

BuzzSumo

Content is a major part of most marketing strategies these days. So, what is working best for your competitors? What about the topics you want to cover? Just do a search on BuzzSumo, and you can get a detailed look at all that, and a lot more. This is arguably the best keyword and topic research tool on the web right now. They also provide influencer research for social media marketing, and content alerts.

Create a Video

You can create cool professional videos using this online video editor: It requires no training and no expensive software. And the results are great!

Video Promotion

Viral Content Bee

Viral Content Bee is a great freemium tool that lets you put your content in front of eager social media sharers.

Just submit your video URL, select which networks you want to promote it and you’ll soon see it being shared all over the place. Great for traffic and views too!

YouTube Promoted Videos

YouTube is going to be your major platform, but also the hardest to break out on. You can get a boost using YouTube Promoted Videos. YouTube stars don’t get there over night, they work for years perfecting their videos and gathering followers. But now the site has a simpler way to get seen.

You can become one of their Featured Videos using their promoted content feature. Best of all, you choose your own budget and the advertising costs never go over that amount.

Finteza

It is a smart idea to use your own site to promote your videos. Using Finteza’s advanced web analytics suite you can build conversion funnels involving your videos.

You can also use this online form builder to generate leads from your videos and landing pages.

Publicizing

Youtube is not the only place to publish your video at. Here are more ideas:

Blip

Sometimes your best bet is launching yourself on a platform that has less competition. Blip is a good option, as it is both popular as a place to watch different web series (That Guy With The Glasses is hosted there, for example), but not so overcrowded as YouTube. They even have their own app for consoles, so they can be watched in multiple places. They don’t have the best advertising plan, but if you are looking to launch a full series or a number of videos, it is a great option.

Vimeo

A godsend for creative video creators, this website is really for the artists more than casual clips. They also have a number of promotion and profit generating ventures, including a tip jar that allows people to give you donations for your next project. Vimeo is very handy, and one of the biggest video hosting sites on the web.

Metacafe

Target your reach a bit more narrowly than you can with some other video websites using this classic. Metacafe has been around since 2002, and it has become well known for hosting high quality work and videos made by creative film makers. It doesn’t have as many visitors as YouTube, or the same artistic focus as Vimeo. But it is a nice, solid platform or those who are presenting more casual work to the world.

Are there more tools to promote your video? Please let me know by tweeting to @jessytroy