Tag Archive for: Social Media

How To Increase Your Online Visibility Through Social Media

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Social media plays a vital role in today’s society. It can help you generate buzz around your products and your brand by having users share your content. But social networks are incredibly busy and filled with stimuli. With so much going on, how do you make sure that users will find your content throughout all this mess? Read on to find out more…

Social media is a great resource when it comes to increasing your online visibility. There are so many ways that an organization’s pages can be optimized in order to do so.

We’ll take a look at how you can bring a couple of strategies together to generate more searches for your business—and from this, achieve a greater online presence.

Does Social Media Posting Help With Online Visibility?

While social media cannot directly impact your rankings, you can create a more holistic approach to online marketing. However, social media activity can raise your company’s profile and increase the clicks on their website. What are you aiming to achieve by linking social media activity with online visibility? Here’s a couple things you can do to get started:

  • Getting clicks on your organization’s website
  • Having an increase in online searches for the company
  • Social shares for a wider post reach and increased audience
  • Sharing information to help analyze social engagement

All of the things above have one thing in common and that is that they all increase the possibilities for lead opportunities. The way you can achieve lead opportunities above is by having and creating quality content. Often times quality content gets overlooked, its truly one of the best ways you can leverage and boost your online presence.

Which Social Media Platforms Are the Best for SEO?

Which platforms do you currently use? Most social media platforms can help with online visibility. A lot of people have that mindset, but you should honestly be thinking about  using the platforms that will help you reach your target audience. Each social media platform works slightly differently when it comes to encouraging clicks and shares.

It goes without saying most brands have a Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Google My Business accounts. But many businesses also utilize Youtube, Tiktok and Pinterest. But which performs best? Facebook continues to be powerful all over the world. With more than 1.71 billion monthly users, the social media platform is ripe for SEO. Be attentive with your company page and find and nourish your best promoters on the platform. Facebook is a great lead generator, so always stay on brand and use targeted keywords in your posts. Make sure to cross-post videos you produce and publish on your YouTube account as well.

Although Meta owns both Facebook and Instagram, they perform differently for different organizations’ offerings.

Also, any social platform a company uses has to be “on brand” for them, otherwise it will defeat the purpose of boosting your SEO. At the end of the day, a great website should have all the key elements of an effective inbound marketing strategy:

  • An active blog.
  • Responsive design.
  • Intuitive navigation.
  • Effective conversion strategy with calls to action.

What Are the Best Ways to Optimize Social Media for Better Online Visibility?

How can you make the most of your brand’s social media platforms? Here are a couple of techniques that you can use to improve your websites online visibility. 

LinkedIn & Facebook

Most people breeze by “SEO-ing” their About us/Summary section. It’s one of the easiest ways to put the information you want out there for leads to easily access. Filling out as much as you can in the About section is a great start.

  • The “About” summary section gives you the capacity to use 2,600 characters (on LinkedIn, Facebook gives you 50,000!) to explain what you do. Use keywords that your clients are using to find your products and services.
  • Use keywords that describe your products and services in your headline.
  • The “Experience” section also gives you 2,000 characters to show case your expertise. Make sure you include a few paragraphs that talk about what your company provides from a product/services perspective.

How do You know if your Social Media Strategy is Improving SEO?

All social media platforms have some sort of analytics feature that you can use to measure the attention your socials are getting. You can also look into social media engagement tools, which you can download and use to generate tables and graphs. You can compare the social media and website stats to see the effect the former has on the latter. Lastly, you can see the organic changes in your Google Analytics account.

Last Thoughts

Social media is a crucial part of your marketing strategy. It can help you generate buzz around your products and your brand by having users share your content.

As trusted Google experts, our team is here to help with holistic digital marketing strategies including optimizing your Google Business Profile listing and ensuring you have the highest rank possible. Whether you’re looking for SEO tips, social media marketing ideas, or paid media strategies, our goal is to make your business more successful. Get a free audit and see how you can improve your digital presence with us here.

Social Media Strategies That Boost Awareness and ROI

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Social media marketing is absolutely necessary for brands and businesses in order for them to stay relevant. By having a social media strategy in place, it helps businesses engage and influence their target audience. 

There are so many campaigns across social media that have gone viral by simply having a strategy in place.

The average amount of time that people spend on social media is 2.27 hours. Considering the increase in popularity with apps like TikTok it has people spending more time scrolling throughout the day. Here’s a look at the benefits of having a social media strategy in place that can drive both brand awareness and ROI.

Benefits of Having A Social Media Strategy

A social media strategy is a plan that outlines your social media goals, the tactics used to achieve them and metrics tracked to measure performance. A strategy doesn’t need to be over-thought and difficult. The best way you can go about creating a strategy is by having a simple yet specific plan with meaningful measurable. 

This will help you clearly identify whether or not the tactics you’re implementing are successful or not. Ultimately, your social media strategy should drive brand awareness and engagement across social media channels for your target audience/s. 

One of the hardest things about social media marketing is consistency. It can be tough to try and recreate a campaign and hope for the same results. By having a social media strategy you can provide your business with the following benefits:

  • Increase Your Brand Awareness
  • Increase Your Web Traffic
  • Generate Quality Leads
  • Quality Data you can analyze and measure

There are so many benefits to social media and having a strategy in place will only strengthen your ability to achieve your business goals.

Steps to Building a Successful Social Media Strategy

Now that we have covered the basics of a social media strategy, let’s get into a couple specific steps you can take to create one. Here’s a couple tips on how you can implement a successful social media strategy:

Set Goals for Your Business

Spending some time in this step will help you understand and define what your social media goals are. This will ultimately determine the rest of your strategy.

Think about what your business wants to achieve from social media and understand that marketing and business goals are different. For example, are you trying to draw brand awareness in the marketplace, or expand your following or generate more leads? You may want to achieve these goals, but it’s crucial to note each one of them as they will involve different tactics on social media.

When you set your goals, define your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to understand which social media metrics are important. To be successful on social media, set metrics for each channel you use. Over and above basic metrics you can dig deeper and track audience growth rate. There are many metrics you can use to track success, so narrow them down to what matters to your business.

Research Your Audience & Your Competitors 

Your audience and your competitors go hand in hand. In order to create personalized messaging and content, you need to understand who your audience is and what they want. The best way to achieve that is to do market research. You can do this through online surveys, interviews with your customers or by setting up a focus group.

Once you’ve done this, you will get a better look at your buyer personas which in turn help you create a better understanding of what your ideal customer is. Then you can begin catering to that demographic.

Competitor research helps you understand what your competitors are doing online such as what platforms they use and campaigns they run. You can also see what their messaging is like, as well as their content and how frequently they post. By understanding how they engage with customers and the success of that engagement you can either emulate it or take another direction to capture customers’ attention.

Social Media Platforms

Choosing the best channels for your business can be confusing at the beginning. There are a lot of platforms out there to choose from. Depending on the type of business you are, you may be making a mistake by not being present on all of the platforms. 

Facebook: Is one of the biggest social media platforms and the oldest around. Facebook offers a targeted way to engage with prospects and customers. 

Instagram: Is a great visual platform. Instagram continues to be one of the most popular amongst younger audiences and has seen huge growth over the past few years. It’s a great platform to showcase products and connect with influencers to grow your customer base. Plus with in-app shopping coming to Instagram soon through shoppable posts, customers will be able to purchase on the platform. 

LinkedIn: LinkedIn is the place to be for B2B businesses and provides opportunities for B2C too. It provides businesses with a way to connect in the B2B space both organically and through paid advertising. Content that works well on this platform are blogs, white-papers, eBooks, and industry-related content. 

Twitter: Twitter is a real-time platform which means your content should be timely and relevant. It can be a great customer service channel for brands as it allows quick replies and its hashtags help discover new and trending content. 

TikTok: As one of the fastest-growing social media channels, TikTok is a great place for video content. Known for its short-form and quirky videos, it’s developing rapidly as a platform and can be used effectively for marketing. TikTok is a great place for influencer collaborations. 

Planning Your Content

When you plan your content, you’re creating a tone for your pages. It’s a way for you to figure out if you engage with your audience in a formal or informal voice. It’s how you showcase your brand’s personality. The best way to plan your content is by creating a content calendar. That way you can create posts and schedule them regularly on social networks.

You can measure your posts by monitoring their performance, tracking your KPIs, and lastly, testing out new content to see which keywords resonate with your audience.

Final Thoughts

Doing content marketing without a content strategy is a disaster waiting to happen.

The more you know about how social media works, the better your strategy will be. It’s important to understand the fundamentals of social media marketing along with the intricacies of each platform so you can target the right audience.  

At Onimod Global, our data-driven content strategies align your content marketing efforts to real business results. Our content strategy services make it easy to understand your audience’s needs, where your competition is winning, and areas where you have an opportunity to lead your industry.

As a Chicago-based, in-house marketing team, we are your partner experts for specific marketing verticals or some nice balance in between. We excel in customer service and will teach you the most relevant and up-to-date digital marketing skills. 

Have questions about creating your online presence and need help strategizing? Contact us here today.

3 Ways To Boost Your Digital Presence

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These days, a strong digital presence is required for any business that wants to bring in or engage with new and existing customers. But what is a digital presence? And what elements are needed for a strong digital presence?  

In short, Digital Presence is essentially what people find about your business when doing an online search, including everything from your website to social media, customer reviews, and more. Oftentimes, in today’s digital age, digital presence gets overlooked. Digital Presence allows businesses to showcase themselves online. It’s crucial to have a digital presence implemented within your marketing strategy for many reasons. The main one being, people searching for your business online.

A recent survey done by Bright Local found that 93% of consumers used the internet to search for and find a local business and 87% read online reviews for local businesses. What consumers find when doing these online searches will impact how and where they spend their money. When you do a quick online search for your business or industry, what results appear? Do any reviews or consumer recommendations come up? Is your website in the #1 spot?

Generating a digital presence can be simple with the help of resources like a website, social media platforms, business directory listing, customer reviews and other online sources. Here’s a look at 3 simple ways you can boost your digital presence.

1. Boost Your Site’s Search Engine Optimization Strategy

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a process that increases your website traffic and improves your brand’s recognition and online presence. This strategy helps potential customers have a better chance of finding your website when they search for terms related to your brand. Mastering SEO can also boost your rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs).

To rank higher, business sites must incorporate two categories of SEO: on-site and off-site SEO.

On-site SEO is the practice of optimizing the elements of a web page to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic from search engines. 

  • Good on-site SEO helps search engines understand what humans see and the value they would receive when they visit a page. To master on-site SEO, business owners should ensure their HTML source code is well-formed, and all elements of the site need to be optimized for speed.

Off-site SEO refers to actions taken outside your website that affect your rankings in SERPs. Optimizing off-site rankings involves improving a search engine and user perception of a business site’s popularity, relevance, trustworthiness, and authority.

  • Improve your off-site SEO by encouraging other relevant pages, sites, and people to link to and promote your website. This step vouches for the quality of the web content that you produce.

2. Expand To New Social Media Platforms

Technology has grown tremendously and it affects the way we communicate. Social media’s growth in the US is comparable in speed to that of most modern communication-enabling technologies, such as our phones and computers. The percentage of US adults who use social media increased from 5% in 2005 to 79% in 2019.

If you haven’t jumped on the social media train by now, you should definitely take advantage of it. Nowadays, almost everyone has a Facebook profile set up for their business, but other social media outlets can be great ways to connect with different audiences. Instagram and TikTok can be ideal places to display new products and upload video content snippets. It’s also a great platform to share photo content. For a while now, Twitter has been considered the go-to place for breaking news updates.

Start by determining where your target customers spend their time using social media and try to cultivate followings on a new platform in 2022. Spend some time expanding on customer profiles and determine which social media platforms are most likely to appeal to them. 

3. Increase Your Brand’s Authority

Brand authority builds as you connect more deeply with your audience. For example, does your audience know they can trust you for the latest industry news? When you consistently provide your audience with relevant content and prove you know what you’re talking about, and that they can trust you, you essentially build authority.

With a strong brand, you are able to do the following:

  1. Retain a loyal customer base that seeks you out first before turning to your competitors.
  2. Attract the attention of influencers within your industry, who can then use their authority to promote your brand.

Your brand authority has a significant impact on your SEO performance. A great way to work on the two is to look for opportunities to prove your place as an industry leader. For example, if you publish content to your blog and simply list your contributing authors as “staff” without creating fleshed-out author bios for them, this is a big missed opportunity to build your authority and earn some easy SEO points under the new EAT update.

Final Thoughts

Consumer tastes and behaviors are always changing, and it can be hard to keep up with the rapidly changing rules of SEO and the shifting demands of your market. By planning ahead and strategizing the next moves can help you stay ahead of the curve and create a more flexible, adaptable SEO strategy for 2022 and beyond.

At Onimod Global, we have endless experience and expertise when it comes to all things SEO, expanding your social presence and digital marketing. Got questions about how to develop a digital marketing strategy for 2022 or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today.

Why You Should Invest in Video Ad Marketing

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Investing in video ads can help drive brand awareness, more engagement, foster a greater audience connection and ultimately boost sales. If you’ve yet to commit to a solid video marketing strategy, here are 3 reasons to consider. 

Better Engagement

Movement and sound are two elements of an ad that easily catch user attention. They also help convey efficient, effective messaging, both which lead to higher engagement. This format is additionally effective in delivering your narrative to the target audience with a tailored message that’s easy to consume. Video ads that capture the interest of users and follow through with a CTA are more likely to succeed with keeping audiences interested. 

Additionally, research has found that the average user remembers 95% of a message when watched, compared to 10% when read. Meaning potential customers are more likely to recollect your brand’s message through video content, rather than a static image or text ad. 

More Shareable

Video content is quick, concise and makes it very easy to tell stories that are easy to consume by users. Video ads offer brands the perfect opportunity to express themselves and tell consumers why they can be trusted and why their products or services are worth purchasing. All of these elements also make videos much more sherable. As seen on Twitter, where 700 videos are shared by users every minute. Posting more shareable content helps increase your brand reach, generate more awareness and put yourself in front of more customer prospects. 

Higher Click-Through Rate

Along with being more engaging, videos also get a much higher-click through rate. According to a Smaato study, the average CTR of video ads via mobile is 7.5 times higher than standard display ads. One particular brand even found that video ads generated 47% higher CTR on Facebook than text ads. 

Final Thoughts

Though video ads can be more time consuming and costly to create, their ability to effectively narrate your story allows you to engage more prospects, gain higher reach and generate more ad clicks. 

At Onimod Global, we’re experts in all things digital marketing, including SEO, SEM, social media, web dev, graphic design, branding and more. If you’re looking to get started on building a video marketing strategy, we can help. Contact us today. 

More from Onimod Global

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

How to Utilize Instagram at Every Step of the Sales Journey

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Instagram continues to be a valuable marketing tool for many brands, especially as the popularity around influencer marketing continues to grow as well. However, not many businesses use their own profile to build a complimentary marketing channel to create a more effective sales journey for their customers. 

With that being said, here are tips to utilize your Instagram profile at every step of the sales journey. 

Step 1 (Top of the Funnel): Post engaging stories 

Stories continue to be an increasingly effective marketing channel, especially with Instagram’s most recent update and the ability to include clickable links within the frame. 

One of the most valuable story features being “swipe-up.” This can be added to the bottom frame of a story and allows users to swipe up to be redirected to a brand’s website or a specific landing page. Because of the nature of this feature, it’s generally highly-converting. The only downside is not everyone has access to it. To qualify for the feature, your profile has to have at least 10,000 followers and be verified. While this takes some work, it’s still very attainable. 

When it comes to stories, it’s important to not only post sales content. This is a good way to lose followers quickly. Instead, focus on being engaging and incorporate soft-sales when it feels natural. You can add polls, quizzes and Q&A’s to stories to make it easier for your audience to engage with you. The more people have engaged with a brand at the top of the sales funnel, the easier it will be to move them to the next step. 

Step 2 (Middle of the Funnel): Curate and display social proof 

This is the stage of the journey where a customer decides whether to leave or give your brand a chance. Social proof can be a big factor in this decision. Many retail brands have started to use regular customers’ Instagram posts, showcasing them in their products on their website. This shows that real people have purchased your product, increases engagement and can help build a more loyal community.

If you go about this strategy and incorporate customers’ content yourself, be sure to ask for their permission first. This can be as simple as commenting on their original post, or just direct messaging them. 

Step 3 (Bottom of the Funnel): Retargeting 

Since Instagram is owned by Facebook, they have the same retargeting abilities when it comes to ads. Facebook enables businesses to target both Facebook and Instagram ads to people who have visited your site and performed a specific action in the past. Even more valuable, you can retarget those who have abandoned their shopping cart without completing their purchase, making it easier to boost your sales funnel performance and trigger more action at the bottom of it. 

Final Thoughts

Instagram can be a powerful tool to add to your marketing mix, especially when it’s used to its fullest potential. 

Looking for an agency to increase Instagram engagement and turn your Instagram business into a customer converting machine? Reach out to us here!

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

The Clubhouse App: What Marketers Need to Know

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Clubhouse has been steadily gaining traction since it first launched in 2020. This app has an entirely different concept than any other social media platform, creating a brand new opportunity for marketers. Here’s what businesses need to know about Clubhouse and some ways it may be relevant for you and your customers. 

What is Clubhouse? 

Clubhouse is a free, voice-based social media app. Users can listen in to conversations, interviews and discussion between people on various topics. It has been described as listening to a live podcast with an added layer of exclusivity. Currently, Clubhouse is invite-only. Meaning not everyone can download it off the app store. 

For those that have been invited to join, you first select topics off of interest, like tech, books, business, health, etc. The more information you give the app about your interests, the more conversation rooms and individuals the app will recommend you to follow or join. The rooms resemble a conference room where some are talking and others are just listening in. Once the conversation is over, the room closes and disappears. 

How can you use Clubhouse for your business? 

The biggest benefit from Clubhouse is the ability to connect with prominent business leaders, entrepreneurs, others in your industry and potential customers. You can also position yourself as a thought leader in your industry. As more people join the app, it can have a large payoff to have spent time positioning yourself as an expert and start gaining followers early. 

The voice-note aspect of Clubhouse also allows a new way to humanize your business to others. It can help make interactions feel more personal, allowing you to convey more emotion and have real conversations with other users. 

There is also a new development of an influencer program. This program will only be open to 40 top users on Clubhouse and will allow business to tap into those with a large number of followers. 

How can you get an invite? 

To join, an existing Clubhouse user has to send an entire from their app, giving you access to set up the account. When you’re invited you’ll get a link through a text message. Users can’t invite anyone, though. They only get two available invitations at first. 

Final Thoughts 

As Clubhouse continues to scale, the number of audio creators is growing. Their impact on the broader influencer economy is just beginning. Some members of the pilot program have begun contemplating brand deals and cross-platform promotion. Others have begun to form creator collectives, like those started by prominent users on TikTok. Overall, this could be a good future opportunity for many businesses.

More from Onimod Global

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

How to Use Instagram’s New Keyword Search to Grow Your Brand in 2021

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Instagram’s recent update came with several new features. While this one may not seem like the most exciting, it’s extremely useful for brands. As marketers, we’re always working to get our content found easier online and on social platforms. Instagram’s keyword search tool now allows posts to get found, even without using specific hashtags. 

Here are three ways to utilize this new Instagram feature to help grow your profile and your brand in 2021. 

1. Customer Engagement and Profile Growth 

One of the biggest opportunities from Instagram keyword search is brands being able to identify and engage with customers. Today, frequently engaging with your audience on social media is essential for organic growth. With this new feature, you can now search for posts by using the words and phrases your ideal customers are known to use in their captions. 

You can then spark conversations with these users and build stronger relationships with them on social media. This growth method requires really getting to know your audience, their interests and pain points, in order to identify the correct keywords and phrases to search. 

The tool also helps you find brand mentions that you may have missed prior because the user didn’t tag you or use a branded hashtag. 

2. Market Research and Competitive Analysis 

Social listening is critical for social media growth, as it enables brands to conduct competitor analysis and get into the mind of their ideal customers. With Instagram’s keyword search tool, brands can now look up competitor keywords to see what their audience is saying about them. Brands can also now see if users are speaking about pain points that their products or service solve. 

These insights ultimately help with creating better content that resonates with your ideal audience, in turn, boosting your Instagram presence. 

3. Get Discovered Easier 

One of the biggest benefits of Instagram keyword search is that it makes it much easier for users to find you, ultimately enabling you to grow faster as well. Be sure to use highly trafficked and relevant keywords in the captions of all your posts.

Final Thoughts

Despite this new tool seeming like a very underwhelming update, the opportunities for brands are huge. 

Looking for an agency to increase Instagram engagement and turn your Instagram business into a customer converting machine? Reach out to us here!

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

4 Steps to Create a Successful Paid Social Campaign

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With the holiday season upon us, eCommerce spend is set to hit new records. With people online shopping now more than ever, reaching out through social should be on the agenda for your brand. 

If you’re looking to refine your approach to paid social ads this season, here are 4 simple tips to create a winning campaign. 

Step 1: Define Your Goals

The first step to any winning campaign is defining your campaign goals, KPIs, parameters, plan and strategy. The easiest way to to do this is by creating a checklist with a variety of questions, such as: 

  • What is your campaign objective? 
  • Why does this matter? What’s your ultimate business goal? 
  • How will you measure success? 
  • What is your budget? 
  • Who is your target audience? 
  • How far through the funnel are they? 
  • What is your ideal audience reach? 
  • Which platforms best reach your target audience? 

Step 2: Design Ads 

When creating your ads, you should be guided by your audience data, social style guide and social listening tools. You should also craft multiple versions of the same ad to avoid creative fatigue. Best practices include designing 3-5 creative options for your ad visuals and writing multiple captions for each. Asking questions in the copy is also a good way to help boost engagement on the ad. 

It’s also important to incorporate different types of ad formats to test what performs best. This includes carousels, stories, video, ect. When doing this it’s important to make sure your creative is within specs and renders properly across all ad formats. 

Lastly, make sure your ad creative and copy are both on-brand and compliment whatever organic content you’re posting at the same time. Also ask for feedback to identify which creative assets are your best. 

Step 3: Build Ad Sets 

To get started on this step, build target audiences and upload your creative assets to your chosen social platforms. 

When building your target audiences you want to create multiple segments such as prospective, lookalike, retargeting, ABM, etc. Here are a few tips for building multiple segments: 

  • To build an audience of prospective customers, use platform offerings. 
  • For lookalike audiences, utilize your company’s first part data. 
  • Create retargeting audiences from your site tracking pixels. 
  • Use platform target parameters to suppress and exclude those you don’t want to reach.

Once you’ve completed these steps be sure to take advantage of custom tracking links to collect data and measure your success. You want to be granular but don’t go too narrow with your targeting.  

You should also be sure to install tracking links and that your conversion tracking pixels are placed correctly on your site. Utilize custom tracking links to collect your data and ultimately measure your success. 

Lastly, bid strategically. Implement automated rules and cost/bid caps to avoid high ad costs. Since there are so many brands running ads during the holiday season, it can be easy for costs to get high. 

Step 4: Launch Campaign

Once you’ve launched your campaign, A/B testing is essential. Learn what resonates better with your audiences and monitor your progress frequently. We recommend running ads for about 1-2 weeks before making any changes. 

Continue to go back and review your goals and KPIs when measuring your success. If there are ads you notice aren’t performing as well, pause them and don’t be afraid to increase spend on the ones that are. 

More from Onimod Global 

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

Your Guide to Instagram’s Newest Feature, Guides

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Back in May of this year Instagram had rolled out a new “Guides” feature to only a select few influencers. This week they have now made this available to all users, giving everyone a new way to share themed content on their Instagram profile. 

Here’s everything you need to know. 

What are Instagram Guides? 

At its release, Instagram explained they wanted to offer a way for users to “easily discover recommendations, tips and other content” from their favorite creators, public figures, organizations and publishers. They in turn launched Guides, which allowed creators to share more long-form content in a dedicated tab on their user profiles. Guides make it easier for users to follow a curated flow of posts with commentary – which makes it great for almost “blog-like” content that incorporates text and visuals. See below:

Image Source: Instagram

Where Can I Find Instagram Guides? 

To access an Instagram Guide, visit a creator’s profile and you’ll find an icon resembling a newspaper next to the standard posts icon. 

Image from: Later

Users will also be able to share Guides via Stories and Direct Messages, expanding their possible reach even further. Guides will also be available in users’ Explore tab. 

How Do I Create a Guide? 

To create a Guide on your Instagram profile:

    • Head to your Instagram profile and tap on the ‘+’ icon at the top left of screen
    • From the ‘Create’ menu, select ‘Guide’
    • You then select which type of Guide you want to create – ‘Places’, ‘Products’ or ‘Posts’
    • From there, you select the posts you want to add to your Guide (either yours or content from other users) and put them into your collection
    • You can then add a title and description, and change the cover image if you wish

Additional Updates 

Instagram announced another new update that will be very valuable for brands. Before, users were only able to search names, usernames, hashtags and locations. With today’s changes, users will now be able to search keywords to find content relevant to their interests, mirroring a standard search engine. 

Instagram says their ultimate goal is to allow users to continuously browse without having to leave the app. 

Final Thoughts 

This feature can be easily utilized for brands across all industries. If you already create a blog for your website, you can easily re-curate that content and optimize it for Instagram Guides. Not only will this expand your reach, but it will also increase your content engagement due to the face that users no longer have to leave the app to read your blog. Instagram Guides bring a whole new way to curate and consume content, which opens up huge opportunities for e-commerce, story-telling, educating and just creating brand awareness in general. 

More from Onimod Global 

We’re experts in everything from social media marketing and content creation, to SEM and SEO. If you need assistance in any area of digital marketing, we’re here for you. 

Learn more about who we are and what we do, and contact us here today. 

We also release the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here.

Influencer Marketing Tips: Finding the Right Influencers for Your Brand

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Influencer marketing allows brands to easily break into the consumers’ circle of trust in a way that feels more organic and welcomed. It’s relevant, reliable and relatable, making it an extremely effective marketing tool for brands. 

Are you looking into influencer marketing but not sure where to start? Here are our top tips to help guide your search and create a successful campaign. 

1. Know the type of influencer campaign you’re going to run. 

As you begin mapping out your marketing plan, identifying the specific type of influencer campaign you want to run is crucial. This will in turn help you connect with the best influencer and help you reach your campaign goals. Different types of influencer campaigns include: 

  • Gifting. This entails giving the influencer free products in exchange for shoutouts, mentions, posts, etc.
  • Guest posting. The influencer would get to create a post for you that you would then be shared directly on your page.   
  • Sponsored content. You would pay the influencer to share your content or create content that is somehow tied to your brand. 
  • Contests/Giveaways. Using contests as an incentive to get influencers to mention your product, brand or share your content. 
  • Takeover. You would be allowing the influencer to completely take over your social media page for a set amount of time. 
  • Affiliates. Share affiliate codes with influencers so they can earn money each time a user comes through their funnel and purchases from your brand.
  • Discount codes. Allowing influencers to give discount codes for your offerings to their own followers. 
  • Brand ambassadors. Partnering with an influencer who would then regularly promote your brand in exchange for discounts, deals and additional perks from you. 

2. Research influencers relevant to your niche. 

A great place to start finding influencers is by looking at famous, well-known or respected figures in your industry. This will not only increase the reach of your message and build more brand awareness, but drastically enhance your authority within the industry as well. While this can be difficult for smaller brands, it’s not impossible. You just have to prove why you stand out from others in your industry and get in contact with the proper people. 

To support this strategy, set up Google alerts for industry terms to see who is regularly writing content about important topics in your industry. You can also try browsing forums to see who might be regularly answering questions related to your industry. 

3. Research competitors’ influencers. 

It’s not uncommon for influencers to work with two competing brands, as long as both brands agree to it. So, to find influencers that are likely to work with your brand, look for those who are already working with brands like yours. Another benefit of this is that since they already create content or write about others in your industry, you won’t have to do much educating on your niche. 

Finding these influencers should be fairly easy. You can browse industry-related hashtags on different social platforms to see who is already sharing content and engaging with competitors. You can also look through competitors’ pages to see if there are any influencers working with them that look like they would be a good fit for you as well. 

4. Find influencers that already share your audience. 

It’s not necessary for an influencer to be directly tied to your industry to be effective. Influencers who share your audience can provide just as much value. Actually, working with influencers in an industry that overlaps or is complimentary to your own can help you extend your reach even further. It also connects you to your audience in a space that isn’t already saturated with messages from your competitors. 

To find these influencers start by doing a target audience analysis. This will help you to fully understand your ideal audience, their needs, interests and other sites they frequent. This can help you to then identify other non-industry-related influencers that your audience already follows. 

5. Audit potential influencers’ following, reach and engagement metrics. 

Once you’ve identified a few different influencers you’re considering, start evaluating their authority. Or in other words, determine if they have a large enough reach to help you accomplish your campaign goals. An influencer analysis consists of looking at factors such as: 

  • Number of followers 
  • Engagement rate of their followers 
  • Type of regular content 
  • Quality of content 
  • The depth of niche coverage 

Final Thoughts 

A strategically planned influencer marketing campaign that leverages the influencers most relevant to your goals, audience and niche can lead to big results for your campaign and brand as a whole. 

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