Tag Archive for: LinkedIn

Selecting the Perfect Platform for Your Business

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Harnessing the power of social media is vital for expanding your business’s online footprint. However, with the plethora of platforms available, it’s crucial to be strategic and selective rather than spreading yourself too thin. 

While a balanced approach to social media marketing is beneficial, we understand the importance of choosing the right social media platform to fucus on for your unique business needs. Here are our four tips to guide you through the selection process.

Understand Your Company’s Identity

Before diving into the world of social media, take a moment to reflect on your company’s identity and branding. Consider the nature of your business and the image you want to portray. For instance, if you’re a small business specializing in visually appealing products, platforms like Instagram or TikTok may be ideal due to their emphasis on imagery. 

Conversely, if you operate in the B2B sector and offer professional services, LinkedIn could be a better fit. Remember, each platform has its own unique strengths and audience demographics, so choose wisely to align with your brand’s ethos.

Conduct a Competitive Analysis

In a crowded social media landscape, standing out from the competition is essential. Conducting a thorough competitive analysis can provide invaluable insights into what platforms your competitors are utilizing effectively. By studying their presence, you can identify trends, gauge audience engagement, and determine which platforms resonate most with your target demographic. This knowledge will inform your decision-making process and help you carve out a distinct identity amidst the noise.

Familiarize Yourself with Platform Dynamics

Each social media platform operates within its own ecosystem, characterized by distinct communication styles and user behaviors. Take the time to research and understand the dynamics of each platform you’re considering. For example, Twitter thrives on real-time conversations and trending topics, making it ideal for fostering engagement and interaction. On the other hand, LinkedIn caters to professional networking and industry insights, offering a platform for thought leadership and brand credibility. By grasping these nuances, you can tailor your content and engagement strategies to resonate with each platform’s audience effectively.

Align with Your Marketing Strategy

A cohesive marketing strategy is the cornerstone of a successful social media presence. Define your objectives and align them with your chosen platforms accordingly. Whether your goal is to drive brand awareness, generate leads, or provide customer support, select platforms that complement your overarching marketing strategy. For instance, if content sharing and engagement are your priorities, platforms like Facebook or Instagram may be ideal. Conversely, if rapid customer response is essential, consider platforms like Twitter for its real-time communication capabilities.

Final Thoughts

At Onimod Global, we craft bespoke social media strategies tailored to your business objectives. With our knowledge, we can elevate your brand’s visibility and engagement across multiple platforms, helping ensure maximum impact and ROI.

Ready to take your social media marketing to the next level? Start the conversation with our digital marketers today and unlock the full potential of social media for your business growth.

Leveraging LinkedIn: A Comprehensive Guide for B2B Marketers

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Marketers have a vast landscape of social media platforms to navigate, and each platform presents unique opportunities. But when it comes to B2B marketing, LinkedIn stands out as the ideal channel for more reasons than you may realize. Let’s take a deeper look.

From optimizing your business profile to generating engaging content and executing successful ad campaigns, today, we explore how to effectively leverage LinkedIn for B2B marketing. 

Understanding LinkedIn’s Potential for B2B Marketing

Have you ever asked yourself why LinkedIn is the go-to platform for B2B marketers? The reason is twofold: LinkedIn’s robust user base and rich, business-focused content. LinkedIn is a professional networking powerhouse, boasting over 774 million users and spanning 200 countries. 

It is a platform where business decision-makers, influencers, and executives converge. This offers B2B marketers an invaluable opportunity to reach a unique targeted audience. LinkedIn is a hub for insightful business content. It’s where professionals share industry trends, insights, and thought leadership, making it an ideal platform for B2B brands to establish a strong voice.

The Magic of LinkedIn for B2B: Strategies and Tactics

First impressions matter. That’s why having a compelling company page that clearly articulates your value proposition is crucial. Ensure your banner image, logo, and ‘About Us’ section accurately and professionally represent your brand.

Like Google, LinkedIn has its search algorithm. Thus, incorporating relevant keywords into your company page and personal profiles is essential for visibility. Consider the terms your audience might use to find your business and weave these keywords naturally into your descriptions.

Connections are the backbone of LinkedIn. Contact relevant industry professionals and join groups to foster a meaningful network. Remember, the goal isn’t just to grow your numbers and create a value network where meaningful interactions occur.

LinkedIn is an excellent platform to share thought leadership content. Write articles, share blog posts, and engage with others’ content to demonstrate your industry expertise and build trust with your audience. Use LinkedIn’s native publishing platform to produce articles directly on the site. This will help increase your visibility and present your brand as a leading voice in your industry.

Best Practices for LinkedIn B2B Marketing

  • Be Consistent: Consistency is key to maintaining an active and engaging presence. Regularly post content, interact with your audience, and respond to comments or messages.
  • Use Visuals: Posts with visuals tend to have a higher engagement rate. Use images, infographics, or videos to make your posts more appealing.
  • Leverage Hashtags: Use relevant hashtags to increase the visibility of your posts. It will help users interested in those topics to discover your content.
  • Personalize Connection Requests: When sending connection requests, always personalize your message to increase acceptance rates.
  • Stay Up-to-Date: LinkedIn often rolls out new features and updates. Stay informed and leverage these updates to enhance your LinkedIn marketing strategy.
  • Learn from Others: Follow other successful companies and influencers in your industry. Analyze their strategy, content, and engagement tactics to glean insights that can be applied to your strategy.

LinkedIn Advertising

Leverage LinkedIn’s paid advertising to amplify your reach. You can use sponsored content, InMail, text ads, or dynamic ads depending on your objectives. LinkedIn’s targeting capabilities allow you to narrow your audience to industry, job function, seniority, and more, ensuring your content reaches the right people. 

These pay-per-click (PPC) or cost-per-impression (CPM) ads appear on the sidebar of LinkedIn. They’re an affordable and effective way to increase brand awareness and generate leads.

LinkedIn’s Sponsored InMail allows marketers to deliver personalized messages directly to users’ inboxes, offering higher open rates than traditional email marketing.

LinkedIn Stories and Live: New Ways to Engage

Embrace the latest LinkedIn features like Stories and Live to stay ahead of the curve. LinkedIn Stories allows for sharing short-lived content, a perfect way to share behind-the-scenes looks into your business, brief updates, or quick tips. On the other hand, LinkedIn Live lets you host real-time broadcasts to your network, ideal for Q&A sessions, product launches, or webinars.

Measuring Success on LinkedIn

LinkedIn offers robust analytics tools to measure the success of your efforts. Regularly track and analyze your metrics to understand what’s working and where improvements are needed. Implementing a successful LinkedIn strategy requires time, effort, and a keen understanding of the platform. The potential rewards for lead generation, leadership, and brand awareness are immense.

Final Thoughts

LinkedIn’s potential for B2B marketing is immense, from its robust user base to rich, business-focused content. Leveraging it effectively, from profile optimization to creating engaging content and executing successful ad campaigns, can help B2B marketers tap into this potential and drive their business growth.

At Onimod Global, we deliver digital marketing strategies that achieve results. Whether you’re looking to boost your LinkedIn presence or improve your overall digital marketing strategy, we’re here to help. 

Reach out to us today to learn how we can help elevate your B2B marketing efforts.

What is Social Selling?

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In 2023 cold calls simply don’t cut it anymore. As the digital landscape evolves, businesses are turning to social media to reach and engage with new customers. And while social selling has been around for a few years now, many organizations are missing out on this new marketing strategy. 

With more consumers turning to the internet to find products and information, businesses that are not utilizing social selling are missing out on valuable opportunities. In this blog, we’ll explore the importance of social selling in today’s business environment and provide practical steps for implementing a successful strategy.

Get ready to level up your marketing strategy and tap into the power of social media.

What is Social Selling?

Increasingly, the opinions of our social network and other consumers factor into our buying decisions.  Research shows Millennials and Gen Zers are 4.1x more likely to say that user-generated content (e.g., product reviews, photos, or testimonials from other customers) is important when they’re considering a purchase. In this era of hyper-connected customers, social selling takes on a new prominence.

Social selling involves utilizing digital platforms to reach potential customers and establish connections. This method is a crucial tool for sales professionals seeking new leads and connections with relevant individuals.

A report conducted by LinkedIn’s “Global State of Sales 2022”, estimated one-third of sellers have successfully closed deals worth over $500,000 without physical interaction with the buyer. Additionally, 89% of customers are more likely to consider a brand if the seller demonstrates a change in their approach.

So how do you become a social seller? If your business and sales employees are already using social media, their best bet is to leverage those networks as sales channels.

Choose Your Network

When it comes to social selling, not all social networks are equal. Different social networks have different strengths and weaknesses, and what works for one business may not be effective for another. To maximize your results, it’s essential to understand the unique features and demographics of each social network and tailor your approach accordingly.

For instance, if your business operates in the B2B space, LinkedIn may be the most effective platform for making connections with other businesses. On the other hand, if you want to find and follow people in your industry, Twitter may be a better option. It’s important to look at engagement rates and determine where your target audience is active to make informed decisions about which social networks to use. By doing so, you’ll be able to reach the right people and achieve your business goals more effectively.

Make a Target List & Know Your Audience

Knowing your target audience is key to successful social selling. To get the most out of your efforts, it’s important to have a clear understanding of the companies or individuals you want to connect with. Creating a list of these target prospects can help you focus your efforts and ensure that you’re spending your time and resources on the right people.

When creating your target list, consider factors such as industry, job title, location, and size of the company. Having a clear understanding of your ideal customer profile will allow you to craft a messaging strategy. This will resonate with your target audience and help you build meaningful relationships. By taking the time to identify and understand your target audience, you’ll be able to maximize the return on investment of your social selling efforts and achieve your business goals more effectively.

Post Relevant Content and Be Consistent

Content is a crucial component of any social selling strategy. By finding and sharing relevant and interesting content with your target audience, you can position yourself as a trusted resource and establish credibility with your prospects. This content doesn’t have to be directly related to your company or products, but it should be relevant and of interest to your target audience.

Sharing media articles, podcasts, webinars, and other resources can help you demonstrate your expertise and provide value to the right people. By doing so, you’ll be able to build trust, establish relationships, and create opportunities for engagement and sales. Remember, the goal of social selling is to provide value and help your prospects, not to push products or services. By focusing on adding value, you’ll be able to achieve better results with your social selling efforts.

Implement Social Listening Tactics

Social listening is a valuable tool for businesses looking to stay informed about what’s happening in their industry. By implementing social listening, you can see what customers are saying and keep an eye on your competitors. This can help you stay ahead of any emerging trends. It can also help you resolve issues in a timely manner. Staying informed and engaging with your audience will allow you to build stronger relationships. Eventually it will lead to better results with your social selling efforts.

Final Thoughts

Social media continues to play a significant role in the sales process and companies need to stay up-to-date with the latest trends in order to succeed.  With the right marketing strategy (and agency) in place,  you can help drive growth and increase revenue.

At Onimod Global, we are dedicated to helping businesses achieve success with their modern marketing strategies. Whether you need help identifying and targeting your ideal audience or creating valuable content to engage with potential clients, our team has the expertise and experience to help you reach your goals.

Contact us today to learn more about how we can help with your 2023 digital marketing marketing strategy.

4 Ways to Use LinkedIn Stories to Promote Your Brand

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LinkedIn has recently rolled out their own stories feature, following Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook. For many, Stories are now preferred over standard feed posts when it comes to consuming content, meaning LinkedIn Stories may be a great new way to reach your audience, especially for B2B companies. 

For marketers looking to utilize this new feature to promote your brand, here are 4 of the best ways to do so. 

1. Share Professional Tips 

Majority of LinkedIn users use the platform in a professional manner. Looking for networking connections, industry news, trends, ect. The goal of LinkedIn Stories is to build a strong and professional network for your brand. Sharing professional tips is one of the most effective ways to do this. 

For a product-based company, you can share product development, show how to use your products, answer questions, etc. If you have a new product, making your audience feel like they’re a part of the process, creating a connection and making it more likely they’ll purchase the product when it’s released. 

For a service-based company, you can show how you solve your audiences’ pain points. An innovative way to do this is my holding an “Ask Me Anything” session on LinkedIn Stories. Users can send in their questions about your services. It’s easy to answer in real time and you can describe your services in greater detail than if it were a standard social media interaction. This is a great way to build a relationship with your audience members and demonstrate your expertise.

2. Highlight Achievements 

It’s encouraged to share awards and accolades on LinkedIn, this can be both personal or company-wide. For example, if a member of your staff gets a promotion, wins an award or gets an article published, you can share that information on your company LinkedIn story. Similarly if your company wins an award, won a high-profile partnership, released a new product/service, etc. you can share that as well. Be sure to include a call-to-action to learn more either online or offline so your audience can view your wins. 

3. Go Behind the Scenes 

Everyone loves to feel like they’re getting a special peek at something, no matter what it is. This also allows you to show off a more casual side of yourself and your company. You can show your or other team member’s work environment or team members interacting, create a “day-in-the-life” series, share different tools or apps you use to boost productivity, ect. This is just an additional way to allow your audience to feel more connected with you, creating a better relationship and ultimately, solidifying loyalty. 

4. Share Customer Testimonials and Stories

When it comes down to it, people trust people over brands. And today, online reviews have a great impact on potential customers. If you receive a great customer review, take advantage of it and share it on other platforms. If it mentions a specific team member you can also use it to give them a shoutout of praise on LinkedIn that they could potentially share on their personal profile. Even better, if a customer is willing, they can tell a personal story of how your product, service or company in general helped them. This can ultimately help make your brand feel more relatable. 

Final Thoughts 

LinkedIn Stories really just presents a new way to reach your audience. Most social media users are looking for quick information and in a less formalized form. Because this feature is still fairly new, this is a great opportunity to jump ahead of your competition and get out in front of your target audience before them. 

More from Onimod Global

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.  

Social Media Strategy: Where You Should Start

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Has the current pandemic catapulted your small business into the world of social media advertising and e-commerce? In what is already an overwhelming time, starting from scratch on how you’re advertising your small business may seem like too much to take on. Onimod Global is here to help with a guide of where is the best place to start from scratch with a social media strategy.

Audit your current social presence.

Before you are in too deep strategizing about where you need to go, take some time to evaluate where you currently are.

  • Which networks are you currently active on?
  • Are your current platforms optimized (images, URL, bio, etc.)?
  • Which are the most successful for you?

Onimod Global offers a free digital audit that measures your online success in terms of SEO, social media influence, local business optimization, SEM breakdown, and more. Check it out further and get your very own custom digital score.

Define your type of business and ideal customer.

Are you service or product based? Are you primarily B2B or B2C? These are very important questions to determine which socials you need to be focused on creating content and advertisement campaigns for. Every business is unique, but there are industries that perform well on certain social channels versus others. For example, B2B businesses can focus more efforts on social media channels such as LinkedIn and YouTube versus Facebook. These platforms will give you the opportunity to reach your target market in a more direct way. For example, if your company is selling a type of consultancy service, your content is a better match to a professional networking channel such as LinkedIn. B2C businesses, where you’re selling a product or service to anyone and everyone, this can be very successful on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. On these channels, you are able to show your product and service to a target audience that is more likely to convert into sales.

Even the best marketers will fail if they are marketing to the wrong audience. Use the following criteria to help you come up with a highly focused persona of a potential customer:

  • Age
  • Job Title
  • Location
  • Pain points (where your business offers their solution)
  • Most used social network

Create useful and engaging content.

“Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet.” – Bill Gates

This is arguably the most attractive step of creating your social media strategy. From this post, you now know there are several steps that take place before getting to this point. Your social media content needs to always have a purpose behind it. Decide in your team what your mission is for social media. For example, it could be informing and educating your customers on the respective industry and its services. This ensures the content you curate will be attractive and engaging to your audience.

Here are a few examples of content that you can create:

  • Images
  • Videos
  • Interviews
  • Company News
  • Infographics

Remember that quality content is far more important than the quantity of what you post. However, it is crucial that you consider creating high quality, engaging content as a top priority. Experts at Onimod Global strongly recommend creating a content calendar with specific topics and types of content. This will also serve of great use when looking back on the month and reviewing the performance of your content.

Track and analyze.

This is the most important step, a lot of content creation is about trial and error. Let all of your decisions, both in content and in your business in general, be data driven. Social media strategies are never set in stone, make sure you are always evolving.

Are you in need of more assistance with your social media strategy? Onimod Global is here to help with a custom social media strategy and content plan.  Check out the dozens of case studies on our site by clicking here!

More from Onimod Global

Make sure to stay tuned to Onimod Global news for part 2 of this week’s series and learn all about e-commerce and online marketplaces going live Thursday. To catch up on the latest digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

 

 

LinkedIn Adds New Features to Campaign Manager

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LinkedIn announced late last week that it will be adding three new features to their advertising platform. These features include brand awareness campaigns, website conversion tracking capabilities, and job applications. This new version will also have an optimized click pricing option. 

LinkedIn has recently been putting a lot of emphasis on improving the platform’s advertising capabilities and proving the product should be considered more in the paid social space. From updating ad targeting capabilities to new integrations, such as moat analytics integration for video marketing. The newest update is focusing on campaign objectives, ensuring it’s easier to achieve the right results that better align with them. The updated Campaign Manager has been in public beta since October, but LikedIn reports that it’s working, as customer satisfaction has lifted 67%. 

The New Campaign Objectives

Brand Awareness: Introduced as the first top of funnel ad objective to the Campaign Manager, designed to help advertisers increase “share-of-voice” on the platform rather than generating traffic. These campaigns are charged by impressions (CPM or cost per thousand), rather than clicks. 

Website Conversion Capabilities: Because “conversion” has such a broad range of meanings, LinkedIn has tightened the integration of its conversion tracking tool. Campaigns can now be created that are optimized for specific actions, such as purchases, downloads, or registrations. 

Job Applications: LinkedIn is a large recruiting tool for companies looking for new applicants. Now any LinkedIn Talent Solutions customer can create ads using Campaign Manager, driving applications to LinkedIn or back to the company website. 

Optimized Click Pricing 

Going along with the new Campaign Manager, LinkedIn has optimized their click pricing to better align with advertisers’ objectives as well. Meaning that you only pay for what’s valuable to you. For example, if website visits are selected as the campaign objective, the only clicks that are charged are those that made it to the landing page. For social engagement campaigns, pricing is optimized to include all social actions such as likes, comments, shares, etc. LinkedIn has been previously known as an expensive paid advertising platform. This new payment model is supposed to better align with larger objectives, and hopefully provide better ROI for advertisers. 

Final Thoughts 

LinkedIn is starting to become a much more marketing-friendly platform and a stronger competitor in the paid social space. When it comes to digital campaigns, it can be extremely beneficial when the machine learning systems have a better understanding of your objectives. Providing more variety in campaign goals, as well as different pricing models to match each type, will help advertisers get the results they need, while avoiding paying for the actions that they don’t. 

Putting these Features to Use 

At Onimod Global we’re experts in SEM and Social Media. We handle paid advertising on Google, Bing, and across all social platforms, including LinkedIn. We’ve recently been rolling out brand new LinkedIn campaigns for a few of our clients, and have started producing a few results. We understand that LinkedIn is not an appropriate advertising platform for all brands or all campaigns. Having the correct brand positioning is essential, and with our expertise we know exactly where you and your ads need to be. 

Learn more about what we do here, or if you’re ready to become a client, contact us here.

 

Is Your LinkedIn Account Reaching Its Full Digital Marketing Potential?

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Whether we’re talking about a personal account or a company page, there are several different ways to utilize LinkedIn as a powerful digital marketing platform. LinkedIn is reported as the most effective social platform in 2017 by MarketingProfs. So, you definitely need to be asking yourself, how does your LinkedIn account compare to the competition?

Recent LinkedIn Update

Just a few weeks ago, LinkedIn introduced the “LinkedIn Audience Network”. With uncanny similarity to the Facebook Audience Network, this new product is meant to assist marketers by allowing them to reach users on apps and websites that are not currently managed by LinkedIn itself.

In short, marketers can get their LinkedIn ads in front of more people. The goal of this wider audience capability is to increase impressions, engagements, and ultimately increase conversions. AdAge released an article that includes testing results of this new LinkedIn product, which boasted an impressive 3-13% increase in unique impressions.

Helpful Hints

LinkedIn is not foolproof. There are many ways that you may be unknowingly sabotaging your digital marketing efforts through this popular platform. Christopher Heine of Adweek compiled a list of 20 LinkedIn Do’s and Don’ts, which includes first hand recommendations from highly successful digital marketers.

We here at Onimod Global decided to create a shortlist from this Adweek article of the tips that we found to be the most useful.

Do:

  • Make it Personalized: No one likes getting spammed with random messages through their LinkedIn inbox. In order to make yourself stand out and get attention, you have to give the recipient a reason to keep reading. Brittany Simpson from Site Strategics suggests, “Don’t immediately approach with an ‘ask,’ but approach with a ‘give’ of some sort.”
  • Analyze Your Target Audience: Now that LinkedIn has added more people to its audience, use it! If you already know who your target market is, great. If not, do some preliminary testing to try and narrow it down. As you move forward, Kirsten Chiala of Cisco recommends, “From that research, take it a step further and develop personas so you can customize your content to that target audience.”

Don’t:

  • Stalk Your Connections: Everyone has been in a situation where they continually ignore or delete requests from other users on social media. Take the hint, and move on. Do not waste your time chasing after connections who clearly do not want to hear what you have to say. Try to focus on generating new leads instead. If you continue down this path you will only spin your wheels, and as Rick Smith of Exos put it, “Plus … it’s kinda creepy.”
  • Treat LinkedIn Like Facebook: These platforms may be similar, but they are incredibly different from a digital marketing perspective. While you want to continually try to engage with your connections by posting content on your page, you also don’t want to take it too far and annoy them. Appearing as a pest may cause others to ignore you, or even delete you from their network. If you must post, make sure it is relevant and actually useful.

3 Deadly Digital Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

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Digital marketing is often much more difficult than many people think. You can’t just hand over a marketing department to any millennial with a laptop and a Facebook account. You need a trained professional. Onimod Global is here to help with a quick list of marketing mishaps to steer clear of.

1.) No Clear Marketing Strategy

This is without a doubt the most effective way to sink your company. Moving ahead with digital marketing initiatives without any type of real game plan is detrimental. Not only will it waste time and money, but some of the damage may be irreversible. It can be very hard to change a consumer’s perception of a business once they’ve already interacted with it. After all, no one gets a second first impression.

Make sure to develop a real strategy before making any major moves. Consult with real professionals outside of your business. You may also want to seriously consider hiring someone full time to run your marketing campaigns. Digital marketing is not something that can be learned overnight. It requires real experience and education to be implemented successfully.

 

2.) Limited Social Media Exposure

First of all, you need to make sure that your brand exists on social media. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Instagram are just a few to get started. If you aren’t on these 4 basic platforms, then you are most certainly missing out on an enormous customer base.

Being present on these various platforms is invaluable to your brand’s identity. They are also completely free, aside from the time it will take to get them up and running.

If potential customers cannot find you anywhere on the internet besides your website, they may think that your company is a scam. Social media is a perfect way to build up a solid foundation and spread the word about your business. It is also a great way to push your content.

 

3.) Not Enough Content

The more original content you generate, the better. Whether in the form of a tweet, blog, or newsletter, these all have the potential to gain more traction for your business. This is a great way to get people interested in what you have to say.

Every extra minute you spend inside of a particular platform helps you gain more knowledge and credibility. Engaging with others is a great way to prompt them into engaging with you. The more time that you spend tweeting, retweeting, hashtagging, and following major influencers, the more recognition your brand will receive.

Which Social Media Platform is best for Paid Advertising?

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If you’re an organization that utilizes social media channels for sponsored advertising, it’s important to determine which platform to allocate the majority of the budget to. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn all have unique advertising options and contain different types of audiences. This post will evaluate each of the three platforms and give direction on which advertising medium is right for your organization.

Facebook:
The largest empire in the social media world has about 1.3 billion registered accounts and around 175 million daily users according to the Business Insider. Therefore, with these astounding numbers the biggest upside to sponsoring content on Facebook is visibility. The advanced targeting options and cost effectiveness of Facebook are also massive bonuses. Targeting options consist of location, interests, education, work, gender, and relationship status. These advanced settings allow businesses to hit their target audiences to ensure ad dollar is spent as efficiently as possible. Ultimately, from my experiences with paid advertising on social media, I would argue that Facebook is the superior platform when it comes to targeting capabilities and cost effectiveness.

Twitter:
Relative to Facebook advertising Twitter is another viable option for promoting sponsored content. Although the number of accounts and users don’t match up to Facebook’s rank, Twitter still has a substantial following that can’t be ignored. Twitter’s targeting capabilities are probably it’s best feature, as you have ability to target by interests, keywords, hashtags, and even followers. Based of previous experience, I would argue that advertising on Twitter is your best option in terms of generating impressions. Running awareness campaigns is most likely your best bet with advertising on Twitter, however it can be difficult to measure cost effectiveness. Essentially, if you’re focusing on brand awareness – Twitter advertising is your “go to” option.

LinkedIn:
In theory, sponsoring content on LinkedIn seems like a great idea if your target audiences are more “professional based.” This can be true if your targeting options are set right and have appealing ads. Reliable leads can be generated through led-gen campaigns, but the cost per lead can be very high. Some of our experiences with LinkedIn advertising have seen high CPCs, low CTRs, not a lot of clicks, and a higher cost per conversion. A major positive however is the quality of these clicks – which are typically very high compared to clicks on Facebook, Twitter, etc. In the end, LinkedIn is by far the least cost effective advertising platform, but if utilized correctly it can generate some high quality leads, viewers, and overall visibility.

Contact Us: With our cross channel expertise in social media management and advertising, our team at Onimod Global can help solve all of your digital marketing needs. Feel free to reach out to us on our Contact Us page to get a free evaluation today. We look forward to hearing from you!

Surviving Google’s New Policy Against Interstitial Ads

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Google has spoken — and an important part of the mobile web will never be the same. At least that’s the theory, and certainly the search giant’s intention.

Google sees app install interstitials — those big ads that pop up suddenly on the mobile web and monopolize all of your mobile device screen to prompt you to download an app, rather than let you keep surfing — as too annoying to users. On November 2, the company therefore put in place a new policy to discourage the ads.

According to this policy, Google has since penalized mobile websites that use such interstitials by declaring these websites mobile-unfriendly. According to Google’s more detailed blog post about the policy from September:

Mobile web pages that show an app install interstitial that hides a significant amount of content on the transition from the search result page will no longer be considered mobile-friendly. This does not affect other types of interstitials. As an alternative to app install interstitials, browsers provide ways to promote an app that are more user-friendly.

Google app intall interstitial ad graphic

Graphic of an app install interstitial ad by Google.

Assessing The Policy’s Early Impact

Here at Yozio, my employer, we specialize in growing mobile apps through organic channels. We also considered app install interstitials a very viable option to drive downloads prior to the new policy going into effect. Hence, we’ve been watching its effects closely.

Now that the policy has been in place for a couple of months, we wanted to explore some basic questions: Has Google’s decision actually affected how mobile websites attempt to drive visitors to download apps? And how have some of the most prominent and growth-hacking savvy companies dealt with the change?

To answer those questions, let’s start by understanding the real context for Google’s sudden change — and why app install interstitials may not be that bad after all.

Google’s Rationale For Penalizing Interstitials

Google published the results of an experiment on the effects of interstitials on one of its own mobile websites, Google+, earlier this year. In this study, Google compared the results of showing visitors to the Google+ mobile website an app install interstitial with the results of showing them a smaller and less intrusive app install banner.

When showing the banner, Google reported that the number of people installing the Google+ app stayed virtually the same compared to showing the interstitial, while the number of one-day active users on the mobile website actually increased by 17 percent.

Although Google did not mention this study in its announcement of the policy, it’s reasonable to assume that such a directly relevant experiment is related to the company’s decision.

However, the results of the study may not be as clear-cut as they seem at first glance, and Google’s case against interstitials not as simple as it appears.

The Problems With Google’s Experiment

First, this was but one experiment, by one company, for one kind of mobile website and app. Across Yozio’s customers, we’ve seen some who increased installs significantly through optimizing interstitials: by 100 percent for Pinterest and 300 percent for Airbnb, for example.

For other customers of ours, interstitials were much less important. This experience suggests Google should not necessarily draw conclusions from just one test for one app.

Second, the experiment involved an app that Google doesn’t seem to care about: As the post about the study mentions, Google since retired both the interstitial and the banner permanently, preferring to leave users on the Google+ mobile web pages.

Third, if you’re not using one of Google’s apps (or at least an app featuring Google’s advertising), it’s clearly in the search giant’s interest to keep you on the mobile web instead — where you can access its search engine and see its ads much more easily.

It turns out that app interstitials may not be that bad, then, and Google’s reasons for opposing them not that simple. And what if your app does actually offer a better experience for users than your mobile website?

Let’s look at how some of the best companies that now comply with Google’s policy — and still find ways to drive traffic to their mobile app.

Using A New Kind Of Interstitial

One of the most innovative ways to circumvent Google’s new policy comes from — you guessed it — Google itself. This time, it’s for Google Docs, an app that’s decidedly better than its equivalent mobile web experience, and probably more valuable for more users than Google+.

What mobile users see when they arrive on the Google Docs site looks almost exactly like an interstitial, but it isn’t one. It’s the web page itself, only made to look like an interstitial. The navigation menu in the top right corner gives it away.

This is how Google survives its own policy.

This is how Google survives its own policy.

Yelp uses a similar strategy. No longer able to use a separate interstitial, Yelp (not affiliated with Yozio) simply made a mobile web page that looks exactly like one.

In fact, the page looks so much like an interstitial that we ran it through Google’s mobile-friendly test — and it passed with flying colors.

This mobile web page from Yelp looks like an interstitial

This mobile web page from Yelp looks like an interstitial.

Hiding Interstitials From Google

LinkedIn (again, no affiliation with Yozio) uses an equally innovative, but somewhat more sophisticated, approach. While the mobile web version of LinkedIn’s site does not use interstitials, when you request LinkedIn.com in your mobile browser, you’re instead redirected to a new, separate mobile web page. And this does look like an interstitial.

Cleverly, however, LinkedIn has excluded this new web page from Google’s indexing. So therefore, Google can’t penalize LinkedIn for using it, either.

LinkedIn app install interstitial mobile web page

LinkedIn’s special web page cannot be indexed by Google.

Developing Better Banners

Google recommends using App Install Smart Banners in Safari or Native App Install Banners in Chrome to replace interstitials. Unfortunately, these don’t offer much flexibility in design, which makes them a bad alternative for growth teams who need to experiment and iterate. The ability to do that is non-negotiable because it’s by far the best way to increase users, engagement and conversions.

Airbnb (a Yozio customer) is a growth-savvy company and currently experimenting with its own banners as opposed to the ones recommended by Google. We checked — and Airbnb’s site is still mobile-friendly.

It seems Google has left some wriggle room for the experimenters after all.

Airbnb app install banner

Airbnb flouts Google’s recommendation by using a homemade banner.

Beware of making those banners too large, though. We found an example on Zappos’ mobile web pages that ran into trouble in Google’s mobile-friendly test, which stated that the page “appears to have an app install interstitial” and “may not be mobile-friendly.” (Yozio is not affiliated with Zappos.)

Zappos app install banner

Zappos runs into trouble with its workaround.

Is Google Really Putting The User First?

We’ve seen our customers drive tens of millions of installs through organic channels such as mobile websites using app install interstitials or banners. Both can work — it all depends on the user.

Ultimately, understanding the user’s intent and presenting her with personalized content determines the click-through rate and install conversion rate. As Marketing Land editor Danny Sullivan’s excellent overview of Google’s policy explains, the company is ironically declaring war on the same problem it helped to create when it first started to drive users to download apps on its own sites.

By implementing this wide-ranging policy on the basis of questionable evidence, we don’t believe Google is putting the user first this time.

 

H/T: Marketing Land.