The Daily Carnage

The savvy marketer's hub for industry news, insights, resources, and culture.

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The Year of Slop

SEO bait, syrup sneakers, and more.

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About Those TPS Reports

JANUARY 21, 2019

Whether you need to prove your worth in your current ‘social media’ role or you just want to have a bang-up report, the folks at Sprout Social got you covered. When it comes to reporting, think about these things:

What’s your frequency? Weekly, monthly or quarterly. If you report quarterly, you’ll have a lot more data to show trends with. Either way, make sure your frequency is dialed in.
Who’s looking at it? A productive report will have you speaking to the right person(s). A marketing team is likely going to look at a report differently than a CFO. Make sure your reports speak to the person(s) reading them.
KPIs on KPIs: Key performance indicators are v important. Things like, reach, new followers, posts and conversions should be featured somewhere in your report.
Keep it real: Your report can include all the data in the world, but it needs to have some context. For example, what’s the average engagement rate of a business in your industry? Sprout Social calls this principle SMART.
Action items: If you wanna leave a good impression, end your report with specific action items based on the data. For example, I’m going to run more ads based on this finding.

Close More Deals with LinkedIn

JANUARY 16, 2019

When it comes to B2B, LinkedIn is the MVP (Most Valuable Platform). If you’re posting pictures of what you did last night or pictures of your pets, you’re doing it wrong. Ain’t nobody finding value in that! Head over to Facebook for that ish.

Here are some quick stats on LinkedIn:

277% more effective than any other social platform for B2B.
More than 80% of all B2B leads generated from social media come from LinkedIn.
There are 8.2 million C-level executives on LinkedIn.

That’s some compelling data right there.

So, how do you effectively use LinkedIn for closing deals?

Connect: Who is your ideal client? What challenges do they face? Who is the decision maker? Go into the advanced search and find that person(s) based on your criteria. Make sure to create a search alert to receive new notifications. If you do connect with them, send a personalized note. Put some actual thought into it.
Build Rapport: There’s no point in being a ‘connection troll’ on LinkedIn. If you’re going to put effort into connecting with folks, be ready to put some time into getting to know them. It’s no different than connecting with someone in real life. Show some interest in them by asking ‘appropriate and relevant’ questions.
Give em’ what they need: We’re not in the pitching sales phase quite yet. Once you’ve built some rapport, it’s time to show your stuff. When it comes to sharing content, think about these questions: What are they interested in? What is important to them? What problems do they face?

Alright, there are a few more tactics here, but that should give you enough to get your connect game on.

Crush it with Google Ads

JANUARY 16, 2019

First things first, the cool kids (aka Google) are calling it ‘Google Ads’ now. Peace out Adwords.

The days of setting and forgetting are no more with Google Ads. You gotta be in it! Here are some tips to stay relevant with Google Ads (we’re catching on) in 2019.

If you’re looking to save time and money, automate your bidding. Head into the dashboard and select ‘rules’. From there, you’ll be able to increase average spend, CPC, etc.
It’s all in the offer! Joanna Wiebe from Copy Hackers offers the following tips when it comes to your offer. “First, focus on optimizing the consumer offer. Then, communicate that value with better copy. And remember: Optimize your offers and persuasion, not your buttons.”
What device are you targeting? This one is super important but often overlooked. Choose either mobile or desktop. Whatever you do, don’t pick both.
Don’t be salesy. You’ve heard it before, but you gotta provide value to customers. Google Ads is becoming more customer-centric and it’s expecting advertisers to do the same. Target keywords that aren’t giving much value and go in hard with the value prop.

Alright, that should get you on the right track for now. Click the read now to dive deeper.

Less Spam, More Inbox

JANUARY 14, 2019

Would you rather try SPAM (the premiere pre-cooked canned meat) or have your emails end up in spam (the electronic trash box)?

We’re gonna go out on a limb here and guess you’d rather try SPAM. If you’re investing time and energy into your email marketing efforts, you gotta make sure they’re landing in the inbox.

This key metric is called…

Deliverability.

Here are 5 things that can seriously hamper your deliverability:

The single opt-in: we could write a whole blog post on the advantages and disadvantages of single and double opt-in. The long and short of it is this: employ the double opt-in. While you’re creating a little more friction on the front-end for the person signing up, the numbers and deliverability will pay off in the long run.
Using a free domain email address: sammycakes234@yahoo.com ain’t gonna cut it for your “send from” email address. Get yourself a custom domain email address ASAP. Sorry sammycakes, we still ❤️ you.
Not having an unsubscribe button or link: make your unsubscribe button or link visible. No sense in paying for a list that people don’t wanna be on.
Not maintaining the text-to-image ratio: the folks at Mailchimp recommend an 80/20 rule. 80% text, 20% imagery. Stay in your lane!
Subject lines that trigger spam: there’s a whole list of suggested words you shouldn’t use in your subject lines. Check em’ out here.

If you need some assistance on your next email marketing campaign, hit us up. We kinda have a thing for emails.

The YouTube Dish

JANUARY 13, 2019

Question? What is the second largest second search engine?

Answer: YouTube

Over 1.8 billion users per month on YouTube. Wrap your head around that for a second.

You’d think with that many users, there’d be a lot of businesses utilizing YouTube for marketing purposes. False. Only 9% of businesses are using the tube for marketing. (You can dive deep into the stats here.)

The door is wide open! Here are a few tips to get You(on the)Tube.

-Develop an SEO strategy for YouTube specifically

Optimization is key if you want folks to watch your videos. Just like your website SEO strategy, YouTube is fairly similar. Research some keywords that actually get searched, but aren’t too competitive. Once you have some keywords, put them in your title and say them out loud in your videos.

-Increase viewer interaction

Unfortunately, keywords aren’t enough to put you on Casey Neistat’s level. The YouTube algorithm is a big fan of interaction (likes, shares, and comments). Don’t expect this to happen overnight. You gotta work at it people. Organize your videos into playlists and ask for comments and engagement in your videos.

-Be unique and stick to it

YouTube gives you plenty of space to customize your channel. Don’t overlook these features. Bright thumbnails with text on the left side are your new best friend. Keep them consistent though.

Alright, you got some videos to make. Get after it.

Pod Goals

JANUARY 9, 2019

Urban Dictionary defines Squad as an informal group of individuals with a common goal and a sense of solidarity. On Instagram, they refer to these crews as PODS.

The common goal is pretty simple; boost engagement.

When done right, IG pods can consume a lot of your time. The comments are more than just 👍🏼 and ❤️. You’re actually leaving genuine, long-form comments.

Our very own, Gloria Pyltak drops some knowledge on whether or not Instagram pods are worth your time.

Here are a few things to consider before you go ‘pod wild.’

The ever-changing IG algorithm is a pod’s worst enemy. Currently, there are 6 key factors measured in Instagram’s algorithm for content to rank highly.

Interest
Timeliness
Relationship
Frequency
Following
Usage

The biggest takeaway here is that engagement has no clout in IG’s algorithm. So, if you’re trying to beat the system, sorry this isn’t going to cut it. Dive deeper on the Instagram algorithm right here.

The Ultimate SEO Checklist

JANUARY 8, 2019

If you ever hear someone tell you they can get you ranking on the first page of Google in a day or two; run. Run fast.

SEO can be straight up overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. The folks at Search Engine Journal made life a whole lot easier by releasing this amazing checklist. We’re gonna give you some highlights here and challenge you to dive deep with the checklist when you have some time.

Know what keywords you’re targeting: seems like a no-brainer, but it’s often overlooked.
Optimize your keywords in your content: go after low-hanging fruit keywords first (aka keywords you can easily rank for). When you’re ready to target highly competitive keywords, be patient. It can take up to a year to rank.
How many words? word count isn’t necessarily everything. Look at what your competitors are doing using the plethora of SEO tools available. If they’re ranking, they’re doing something right. Do more of that!
Speed matters: page speed is baked into Google’s algorithm. It’s not hard to optimize for page speed, it just takes some time. Do it and you’ll be ahead of the curve. Bonus: we featured 3 tools on Monday to make your site go fast.

Alright, you got some work to do. SE-YO at us if you have any questions.

The Best Video Facebook Ad Format?

JANUARY 7, 2019

We keep hearing that video is the future on Facebook, so to keep our team sharp, we’re all required to submit at least one selfie video a day on Slack. We’re still trying to figure out what to do with all of them. JK (kind of).

But seriously, video continues to be one of the most monetizable formats on Facebook and you should definitely incorporate it in your 2019 marketing playbook.

Let’s Settle the Score

The folks at AdEspresso did the dirty work for us and dropped $1k to figure out the best video ad format to use. They tested 3 ad formats:

Animation
Face-to-camera, no captions
Face-to-camera, captions

The goal of the ads was to promote a custom audience ebook and get leads. The cost per lead was their measure of success.

You can get into the dirty dirty of the ad structure, audience, and placement here.

Drum roll, please…

Animation, you sneaky little devil. The cost per lead, CPC, CTR, and CR Rate won out across the board with animation.

As with every campaign, you need to test everything. While the animated video proved to be the best format for AdEspresso, it may not translate across the board.

If you need help setting up your own FB campaign, hit us up here.

Ditch These 3 Things Now

JANUARY 6, 2019

A quick Google search for ‘funny 2019 resolutions’ yielded some legit funny stuff:

@LandonAnderson: I have like 9 New Year’s resolutions and I’ve already mentally given up on about 6 of them.

@SwtngTwng: I am really unfit. Running for a train has almost done me in. A new years resolution of never running again I reckon.

@mjs030: My New Years resolution is to be more active. Sexually.

@CarneyandCo: Ditch these 3 influencer marketing practices in 2019….

The New IM
As marketing budgets continue to shift to social media, influencer marketing remains one of the best ways to tap into audiences and broaden your reach.

Fun fact: Influencer marketing is predicted to be worth $101 billion by 2020.

As you incorporate influencer marketing into your 2019 strategy, make sure you ditch these 3 things.

1. Getting hung up on follower counts:

According to a 2017 survey by Edelman, 49% of internet users worldwide said they trusted information from online personalities with a small following, whereas only 36% said the same of well-known online personalities.

2. Writing over-prescriptive briefs:

When done right, influencer marketing shouldn’t look forced or fake. Let your influencer do their thing and have some fun with the campaign.

3. Letting content live and die on social:

A lot of brands fail to use their influencer assets to their maximum potential. Whatever you do, make sure you find other ways to amplify the content captured by your influencer.

Takeaways: Choose a micro-influencer with stellar engagement. Stay away from overly detailed briefs. Repurpose influencer content.

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