Tag Archive for: instagram marketing

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.

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.

The Best Times to Post on Social Media for Your Business

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As a business, the goal of posting on social media is to generate brand awareness, engagement and drive more traffic to your website. To optimize your social media marketing strategy, the times you post on social media does matter. A well-timed post can lead to greater reach, more likes, comments, shares, etc. It is important to note that optimal times do vary based on industry and user trends. But in general, there are times of the day users are more engaged than others. We’ve put together a guide for the best times to post on each social media platform, making it easier to find your sweet spot for optimal performance in your specific industry. 

Facebook: 

Reaching people on Facebook isn’t as easy as it once was. Organic traffic has been on the decline over the last few years due to it becoming mostly a pay per click platform. That doesn’t mean it should be ignored, however, as there is still massive opportunity. 

During the week, the best time to post on your business page is between 1pm and 4pm. This is likely because it’s the time of day when users have some downtime at work are browning their desktop or scrolling through their phone screens. 

The best days of the week to post on Facebook are Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Weekends in general show the highest levels of engagement. And Sunday at 3pm is the single best time to post on Facebook. 

Twitter:

With Twitter, timing is everything. The lifespan of a tweet is only 18 minutes so you only have a short period of time to make sure you’re reaching the right people. 

The best time to tweet has shown to be between 12 and 1 pm. Workdays seem to drive the highest engagement, with Wednesday being the single best day. Tweeting during lunch every week day can help increase your general social media engagement. Additionally, the weekends have shown to be the worst days of the week to tweet, driving the lowest engagement. 

Instagram: 

Instagram has recently changed its algorithm for how the platform ranks posts on users’ feeds. In general, it has made driving traffic and engagement difficult for pages with small follower numbers. It favors “recency,” but does not use chronological order. It shows users posts they believe they will be more likely to engage with. This makes it even more important to post during the time your followers are most engaged. 

If you’re marketing or selling products, the best time to post on Instagram is 11am to 1pm during the week or evenings from 7pm to 9pm. Because Instagram is favored on mobile, most users tend to avoid it during the work day. When it comes to days, the best performing are Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, with Wednesdays driving the highest levels of engagement. But the single best time to post on Instagram has shown to be Saturdays at 5 pm. Overall, Sundays are the worst days to post. 

LinkedIn: 

LinkedIn’s algorithm is very different from all other social media platforms. Oftentimes, it will show posts from weeks ago. This makes it even more important to create compelling content that will stand out amongst the crowd. 

Considering most LinkedIn users are business professionals, the best times to post are between 10am and 11am on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Weekends and after office hours tend to be the worst times to post. 

Final Thoughts

It’s important to note that this is all a general guide. To be successful on social you really need to know your own audience. Consider their age, their location, their challenges, pain points, etc. It’s also essential to continue to test and optimize. You never want to get complacent because things are constantly changing, especially when it comes to social media. 

If you need assistance with social media marketing, we can help. We’re experts in everything from SEO and SEM to social media marketing and website development.   To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here. To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here.  

 

Instagram Story Best Practices for Businesses

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With over 500 million daily users, Instagram Stories are a great way to reach potential new customers while building a stronger connection with your existing ones. Instagram stories were first introduced in 2016 and have since become a powerful tool for businesses. 

Stories have continually changed and evolved over the years, now including many engagement-boosting features such as polls, reaction stickers, question stickers, quizzes and chat options. If you’re not regularly posting on your business’s Instagram Story, you could be missing out on a big opportunity. Let’s go over what your business can gain from posting Instagram Stories, as well as best practices for doing so. 

Benefits of Instagram Stories 

1. Regularly engaging with your audiences.

Millennials and Gen Z make up the vast majority of users on Instagram and it can be difficult to effectively engage with them. With social media users having access to endless amounts of content, it takes time, commitment and effort to get and keep their attention. Instagram Stories have a number of features that allow you to do this easily. You can now: 

  • Set up polls.
  • Ask your followers questions or let them ask you questions.
  • Tag others.

2. Driving traffic to your websites.

You can effectively use stories to create content that drives traffic to your website. If you run a retail or e-commerce business, you can direct your followers to shop products on your website. A recent study actually found that 1 in 3 users were more interested in a brand or product after seeing it on an Instagram Story. There are now features enable businesses to:

  • Utilize the shopping bag notification. This allows users to click on select items on your story and shop the items on your site. Product stickers help people access product information seamlessly.
  • Incorporate the swipe up feature. This helps drive traffic to your website by directing your followers to landing pages, blogs, etc.

3. Growing your audience. 

As we previously mentioned, Instagram has over 500 million daily users, making it a great place to increase your brand awareness. There are now many story features that makes this even easier, such as: 

  • Location Tags. Using geographic location tags on stories can help make your business more discoverable. Whether it’s a specific location, city or even a country, it can help reach a variety of demographics.
  • Hashtags. Including hashtags helps increase the searchability of your profile and its content among Instagram communities.

 

Instagram Story Best Practices 

1. Point your followers to your stories. 

Even with Instagram’s huge user base, not everyone regularly checks stories. So, if you’re posting fresh content, don’t be afraid to let your followers know. You can include it in your regular content caption from time to time, such as this: 

2. Make it visual. 

With stories, you have a very short window to grab users’ attention. You can make your stories more compelling by:

  • Using bright contrasting colors.
  • Including a person to make an emotional connection. 
  • Capture interesting or unique settings. 

3. Post consistently. 

The more consistently you post on your story, the greater your chances of reaching more users as they tap through their feed throughout the day. With every new story you get bumped to the top of your followers’ story feeds. 

4. Create shareable branded assets. 

Visual and shareable assets on your story can help boost your Instagram virality. For example, content creator Kelsey in London, regularly shares templates on her Instagram Stories that can be screenshotted and personalized. 

Data visualisations, Q&A’s, recipe cards and how-to’s are great content types that are most likely to generate re-posts. Be sure to always make your branding clearly visible, so you benefit from every share. 

Final Thoughts 

Stories have become an integral piece of so many brands’ Instagram presence lately. Given that Instagram is focusing so heavily on Stories and the format only appears to be getting bigger, brands should get on board with them ASAP. By understanding the best practices above, you can stay ahead of the curve and keep your followers engaged via Stories without missing a beat.

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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.

Tips on Managing Negative Social Media Comments

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Social media is a unique public environment that has its own culture and expectations. And at some point in social media managing, you’ll have to deal with negative comments on your brand’s page or posts. While some of these comments may be from blatant trolls, others will be clear criticism of your product or service. It’s important to know how to effectively deal with these comments. Here are 5 tips on how to manage negative comments on your social media. 

Don’t ignore or delete. 

The worst thing a brand can do is ignore their negative comments. This can aggravate the commenter even further and may lead them to continue to leave negative comments in more places. This can also look bad to other users and existing customers. You want to remain transparent with your audience. Deleting messages rather than addressing them head-on conveys that you might have something to hide. 

It’s important to note that this doesn’t remain true for all negative comments. If a comment is inappropriate, offensive or derogatory, it should be deleted. To make this decision, exercise your own judgement or refer to your organization’s code of conduct. 

If it’s your fault, apologize sincerely. 

The saying goes, “the customer is always right.” Even if you disagree with their point of view, it’s still best to apologize. This is the first step in resolving a conflict. Keep a calm, cool and sincere tone throughout the conversation. When someone is bashing something you’re passionate about, this can be difficult, but it’s crucial to not let your emotions get in front of professionalism. 

On the other hand, you don’t want to admit fault for something you had no control over. If that’s the case of the complaint, lead with something like, “We’re sorry to hear you weren’t satisfied with your experience.” This shows you still care, but doesn’t recognize that you or a team member did anything wrong. 

Take offline if necessary. 

It’s best practice to resolve the conflict privately. Try to shift the conversation off of social media to another place. Whether this be through direct messenger, email, over the phone, etc. After you apologize, close the response by asking the customer to contact you through one of the mentioned forms of private communication. You never want to get in a further argument in the comments for others to see. Depending on the issue, the customer may write dozens more negative replies, which can reflect poorly on your brand. 

Be personable. 

No one likes their frustrations to be met with automated replies. This also looks bad to anyone else that reads the conversation on social. It’s beneficial to have a plan for negative comments, but you want to personalize the message as much as possible. This shows real empathy, authenticity and sincerity. You want to show that you really do care about your customers. See the following conversation between Delta and a customer. 

source:https://www.socialpilot.co/

It’s evident that these messages were written by a real person and are not automations. They effectively communicate with the customer and show that they genuinely want to help. 

Be timely. 

Timeliness is key with negative comments. Most users expect a response within 2 hours. If necessary, follow up with the relevant departments to give your customer a satisfactory answer. Word travels fast on social media, which is also why it’s so important to respond quickly. A slow response can make it seem like you don’t care or are ignoring the complaint, both which can quickly damage a company’s reputation. 

Be sure to consistently monitor your reputation throughout the day, whether it be through Google Alerts or other social listening tools. This will help to ensure no negative messages go unnoticed. 

Final Thoughts

Negative comments are unavoidable, but if managed the right way they can actually do more for your brand than positive ones. Responding to positive comments is easy. Dealing with negative comments is how you show company integrity, sincerity and personability. This is where long-term customer loyalty stems from. So if you want your company to succeed, watch what people are saying about your brand on social media. React to all the comments you get and be attentive to the problems of your customers.

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.

5 Tips for Your Instagram Advertising Strategy

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More than a year ago, Instagram made a huge change to their algorithm. This change resulted in switches from chronological posts to more relevant posts that users were more likely to engage with.

Many users expressed their discontent with the change, and many advertisers did as well. It was believed that the switch made it more difficult for brands to interact with their audience, and with frequent tweaks still being made to the algorithm it can be hard to know what type of strategy will help or hurt your brand on Instagram.

Insta Basics

First, it is crucial to know the key influencing factors that the platform’s algorithm takes into account:

  1. The relationship between you and the person (or company that) posted the photo: The more that users regularly engage with your content, the more the algorithm will highlight your new content to those interested users.
  2. Timing: Even though the new algorithm is not in chronological order, Instagram will still take timing into account to make sure that it is showing content that has been posted fairly recently.
  3. Likes and comments: Although the platform said that the new algorithm will not result in a “popularity contest” it is still making efforts to push content that possesses many different engagement factors such as likes and comments. The more interaction your post receives, the better!
  4. Direct shares: Instagram will also be taking note of posts that you share with others since this is another type of interaction that clearly shows a user is interested in the content from a particular brand.
  5. Profile searches: Recent searches will also prompt the platform to suggest new users to follow, or if you currently are following them then even more of their content will be pushed to the top of your feed.

Primary Focus

The entire point of each and every one of these factors is engagement. The more that users engage with your content, the more that the algorithm will make sure to update users when new content is available.

Much of the idea behind the algorithm can be related to the same operations of search engines like Google. The most important aspect that Google’s algorithm considers is relevancy. In this same respect, Instagram’s algorithm is trying to ascertain whether or not users will find your content interesting and relevant, which can be judged by how often they show interest in your brand through likes, comments, searches, etc.

Additional Suggestions

When optimizing your content for Instagram, it is absolutely necessary to make it as interactive as possible. Utilizing unique forms of motion based content can help to increase interactions by posting a video, story, or Boomerang.

Adding hashtags to your post can significantly boost its impressions. In fact, Adweek states that adding even one hashtag can increase engagement by an average of 12.6%.

It is also worth including some advertising dollar in your Instagram strategy in order to make certain that your content is being pushed to target users. In light of Facebook’s recent organic content changes, it would not be out of line to suspect that Instagram may also adopt a similar strategy when it comes to sponsored content versus unpaid posts.

The Increasing Power of Instagram

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As marketers, we are constantly on the lookout for the latest and greatest marketing technologies. New gadgets and gizmos come and go, but few can withstand the test of time. One that has achieved this honor is Instagram.

A Brief Instagram History

Instagram’s success has been gaining ground ever since the platform launched in 2010. Only 2 months after its release, Instagram had already acquired over 1 million users. But they didn’t stop there.

Instagram continued improving and innovating itself. Users loved uploading their photos, applying all kinds of professional filters, and adding witty captions to explain their images.

The team at Facebook saw the incredible potential that Instagram possessed, and so they made a move to buy the company in April of 2012. For more information regarding the history of Instagram, please visit wersm.com.

Recent Accomplishments

Today, the social media platform boasts an enormous network of 800 million active users, according to Statista. Instagram also recently announced that more than 25 million business profiles exist through their platform.

These incredible numbers are a direct result from advertisers catching the Insta-wave. Advertisers have started to notice that there is no slowing down for the platform as it continues to increase the size of its network year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. This produces an incredible base for many different ad campaigns.

Social media marketing has been proven to be incredibly useful because it is a more native form of advertising. As consumers continue to reject pushy and annoying advertisements, platforms like Instagram become more and more attractive to them.

It is likely that businesses and marketers will continue to flock toward Instagram. As the platform goes on to increase its user base, it also increases its appeal to marketers.

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