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How to Craft the Perfect Words for Social Media Captions

AUGUST 28, 2019

“Copywriting is one of the most essential skills for a marketer to have.”

When it comes to writing copy, there are a lot of moving parts. We’re here to help.

Below are some social-specific copywriting tips to keep you on track.

Begin your planning with copy (not visuals): Visuals are important (obviously), but what if you started with copywriting first? Copywriter, Karola Karlson follows this four-step process when it comes to featuring copy before visuals.
- Plan what you want to say
- Plan the exact wording
- Develop the post’s design
- Upload and publish your message.
Pay attention to trending content: We talk a lot about content relevance. The same logic applies to your social copy. Staying on top of social trends will help guide the direction of your copy.
Use power words: Power words are all about triggering a psychological or emotional response. Here are 5 of the most persuasive words: YOU, FREE, BECAUSE, INSTANTLY, & NEW. We want more, we want more. Ok, here are 189 more power words. Have fun.
Try some proven copywriting formulas: Buffer did a knock out job on this one, so just head over to this link and get out your notepads.

How to Network Effectively

AUGUST 28, 2019

Networking. Ew, right?

It’s a buzzword that has developed quite the reputation over the years. Love it or hate it, it’s not going anywhere. Building personal relationships is paramount to a successful career in whatever industry you’re in.

A study from the McColl School of Business found that 70% of jobs are found through personal relationships. Follow that up with another survey finding that 40% of people feel more comfortable engaging with people online in person.

Takeaway: It’s time to get uncomfortable folks.

But, how do you network effectively and without the awkwardness? Read on.

What’s your goal? A good strategy starts off with a definitive goal. Next time you’re at an event, ask yourself “who do I want to meet, and why?”
Have some relevant conversation starters: Be informed on industry news and trends as it pertains to the event you’re attending. It’ll make jumping into a conversation a lot easier. To skip the awkwardness of approaching a big group, try to find someone flying solo. Introduce yourself to them to get the party started.
So, you’re kind of a big deal? Talk to people that intimidate you. Don’t approach the conversation as a fan, but rather as an equal. Fire off a thought-provoking question and own it with confidence.
Ask people questions about themselves: To show a genuine level of interest, it’s important to move past the “what do you do,?” “who do you work for?” questions. Dive into their personal interest and passions. If they don’t reciprocate, move on. It’s not productive to be the only one talking.
Ask for what you want: At some point, you have to put yourself out there and ask for what you want. Think of ways to frame what you want around being mutually beneficial as opposed to coming off as a pushy salesperson.

The Ideal Marketing Team

AUGUST 27, 2019

We all want to be on a successful team, right? If only it were as easy as saying it out loud.

As the digital marketing landscape continues to evolve, the modern marketing team must evolve with it to be successful.

So, how do you build a successful marketing team? Great question.

The folks at DigitalMarketer spent 3 years testing this question. Here’s what they learned:

Finding good marketers is hard (duh, right?). The average entry-level salary for a digital marketer is $70k. It takes about 6-8 months for a new employee to have a profitable effect.

The solution: Full-stack marketers

Digital Marketer suggests in order for your marketing team to be successful, you must build a T-shaped team.

What the heck is a T-shaped team?

A T-shaped team means that every employee has a wide, yet shallow knowledge of everything. The goal with a T-shaped team is to create a hybrid of generalists and specialists.

Each member of your team needs to be well-versed in the following core disciplines:

conversion funnels
content marketing
paid traffic
email marketing
social media
search marketing
data/analytics
testing/optimization

Whether or not your team is involved with these disciplines every day, they need to have a general understanding of them. It’s crucial people, crucial.

Digital Marketing dives in a lot deeper here, including structure break downs, acquisition, and marketing ops. It’s definitely worth a read. In the meantime, try to get a pulse on your marketing team.

Are they well-versed in the above disciplines? If not, take steps to get them up to speed.

How the Travel Business is Crushing SEO

AUGUST 26, 2019

For SEO Monday, we’re taking a page from the travel business.

Why?

Because organic traffic is the #1 source of traffic for travel brands, which means in order to rank, they must be doing something right. Surprisingly enough, they’re still imploring a lot of old school tactics that are working.

So, without further ado, here are 5 principles you can apply to your SEO strategy from top travel companies.

Home page text: If you’re a paid-ads focused brand, home page text might not be for you, but it’s often overlooked by brands who are trying to rank organically. Head over to Hotwire and check out their footer to see how they’re using keyword-rich text to drive organic results.
Internal links in footer: There are 2 schools of thought on links in the footer. The pro-footer link folks say they’re a good way to ensure your key pages are linked to and crawled. Either way, it ultimately comes down to the size of your site. Check out Hotels.com to see how they’re using footer links with exact match anchor text.
Text on every important page: When it comes to your most critical pages, custom keyword content will go a long way. Case in point: Kayak created custom keyword-rich text and FAQs on their U.S. to Ireland flights page. Keep in mind they have thousands upon thousands of similar pages. Takeaway: find a way to get keyword-rich content on your most important pages.
Landing pages built just for organic keywords: The goal here is to scale up on your landing pages with specific keywords. If you’re a smaller site, try to create 10-12 service or product pages that serve user intent.
Click-worthy title tags: Title tags are important and one of the best elements to A/B test. Travel brands are always experimenting with new title tag variations to stand out. Head over to Google and type in “hotels in Paris,” to get an idea on what brands are doing.

The Power of the FAQ

AUGUST 22, 2019

“You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers.”

Bonus points if you remember the company that trademarked that slogan (*answer at the bottom*).

Do you really have answers though?

Today, we’re talking about the importance of your FAQ page.

Why is the FAQ page so important?

Because it shows that visitors are moving through your sales funnel. They’ve already shown interest by clicking through to your FAQ page and now they’re entering the consideration phase.

So, if you really want to seal the deal, you need to take your FAQ page seriously. Don’t look at it as just another page. Instead, think about designing and writing your FAQ page to drive conversions.

Alright, let’s pull up those FAQ pages and dive into optimizing them for conversions.

Ask the right questions: Your FAQ page is not the place to display when your company was founded or your founders’ favorite hobbies. It’s all about asking the right questions because the last thing you want to do is confuse your readers. If you’re looking for the ‘right questions,’ turn to your customer emails, live chats, and submission forms for inspiration.
Simplify the navigation: Think about user experience here. Is your FAQ page easy to find? What’s the format like? Is it a long list or is it broken into categories? Try to simplify the experience as much as possible for your visitor. Allbirds does a great job at breaking down their FAQ page.
Keep your answers short: Attention spans are short. You know that. Keep your answers clear and concise. The goal is to keep everything broad enough to appeal to as many people as possible.
Offer added support: Despite your best efforts, people will always have more questions. Your goal is to give them options. We recommend adding a live-chat feature or your phone number at the bottom of your FAQ page.

*Answer: Radioshack 1994.

5 B2B Social Media Strategies That Work For Any Industry

AUGUST 21, 2019

Wouldn’t it be nice if B2B marketing were as simple as B2C?

You advertise to your consumer and they buy it or they don’t.

B2B marketing is a little more complex than that. Dialing in your audience, breaking down product complexities and the length of the sales cycle all add to the difficulties of B2B marketing.

Here’s the thing though…

There are a lot of B2B companies that are crushing the game on social media. If they can do it, so can you.

So, without further ado, here are 5 social media strategies that work for any industry.

Set SMART goals: What does success mean to your brand? Are you trying to increase reach, clicks, conversions, etc.? Start off with your goal. From there, list out the following: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound goals. See specific examples here.
Spy on your competition: Don’t confuse spying with copying. It’s crucial to keep tabs on what your competition is doing. Are their campaigns successful? Are they targeting the same audience? The goal is to take inspiration and to note what’s working and what’s not.
Highlight your employees: Here’s some low-hanging fruit that is often overlooked by companies. When you spotlight your team, you humanize your brand. People care about people. If you’re creating a product, consider highlighting the people behind the product.
Maintain consistency: Content creation and social media management is no joke. It takes a lot of time and planning. Don’t bite off more than you can chew to start. If you’re only able to post once a week, stick to that. The goal is consistency.
Use multimedia: From Instagram Stories to LinkedIn Documents, there are plenty of ways to reach an audience. Whatever space you’re playing in, it’s important to stay up-to-date on all social media platforms. Doing so will allow you to experiment with your audience through different channels and mediums.

Check out 5 more strategies below. 👇

How to Ensure Your Content is Relevant

AUGUST 20, 2019

Last week, we talked about the Google algorithm and the importance of content relevancy.

When a visitor is genuinely interested in your content, a few things will happen…

You’ll drive more qualified leads.
You’ll reduce your bounce rate.
You’ll drive more shares.
Your rankings will improve.

These are all things that Google likes very much.

So, how do you ensure your content is relevant? Follow along.

Create a customer persona: Ya, you’ve heard it before, but make sure you dive in deep here. What industries does your target audience work in? What job titles do they have? How old are they? What are their hobbies? The more specific you can get with your answers, the more targeted your content can be.
Choose your format wisely: Different strokes for different folks, right? The same logic applies to your content. Whether it’s a white paper, a case study, a video or an ebook, make sure your content format resonates with your audience.
Figure out where in the funnel your content should live: You’re a sharp marketer, so you know that customers need different types of content at different stages in their journey. How do you do that? Create a user journey map so you can connect the content to the funnel. We like Airtable when it comes to organizing our customer journeys.

Actionable SEO Techniques You Can Use Right Now

AUGUST 18, 2019

SEO still matters folks, which is why we talk about it every Monday.

Brian Dean (SEO Whiz) at Backlinko put together a killer piece on 21 actionable SEO techniques that work great in 2019. We’re giving you the highlight reel. Make sure you dive into the full article below.

Discover untapped keywords on Reddit: According to Brian, Reddit is a “keyword research goldmine.” Head over to Reddit and find your audience through a topic search. Take note of what they’re talking about. Boom. You got yourself some keywords.
Update, upgrade and republish old blog posts: Don’t let your old content just sit there; repurpose it. Ideas: add a case study, customer reviews, etc. Get creative.
Use Google Ads to your advantage: Need some inspiration for a new blog post? Head over to Google and type in your keyword. Use the copy from the ads to inspire your title and description tag.
Give people the ability to share: If you want folks to share your content, make sure your share buttons are prominently placed on your page or blog post. #LowHangingFruit
Use the word ‘Because’ in your outreach email: “The word ‘because’ has surprisingly powerful effects on human psychology.” Brian saw a 45% increase when he used the word ‘because’ right away in his email outreach. Takeaway: get to the point quickly and use ‘because.’
Write mini blog posts for YouTube descriptions: 🚨Newsflash: Google owns YouTube. It comes as no surprise that YouTube video results are so prevalent on Google’s first page. Next time you post a video to YouTube, try to write a 200-word informative description including your target keyword several times. Your rankings will thank you.

It’s go-time. Smash that button below for even more tips.

Get Pumped Up

AUGUST 15, 2019

We’re mixing it up with the tactics section today and going straight inspirational.

Why?

Because sometimes you just need to get fired up. Enjoy the following quotes from some of the top marketers in the game.

“Data is omnipotent. Acting upon data is the only effective way to make informed marketing decisions. If you know and understand your data, you can adjust your marketing accordingly.” Larry Kim-CEO of MobileMonkey

“The person who gives value first has the leverage.” Gary Vanyerchuck – CEO of VaynerMedia

“It doesn’t matter how sophisticated your funnel is – people simply aren’t going to convert if you don’t spend the time to create something people want, explain it to them in a way that’s clear and compelling, and do it all through the delivery of an experience that your prospects and customers will connect with.” Brad Martineau – Co-Founder & CEO of SixthDivision

“Stop selling. Start helping.” – Zig Ziglar

“A click-worth title is actually worth a lot more than just a perfectly keyword-targeted title.” Rand Fishkin – CEO of Moz

“Mediocre marketers think in terms of campaigns. Great marketers think in terms of growth frameworks. “ – Neil Patel

“It’s much easier to double your business by doubling your conversion rate than by doubling your traffic.” – Jeff Eisenberg

“Think about what the user is going to type” – Matt

“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but the stories you tell.” – Seth Godin

“Does your content lead readers on a journey, or does it merely stuff them as leads into a pipeline?” – Ann Handley

“One of the best ways to sabotage your content is to not tie it to your goals. Know why you’re creating content.” –Ellen Gomes, Senior Content Marketing Manager at Marketo

“Boring will put you out of business in 2019.” – Billy Gene Shaw

Feeling inspired?