The Daily Carnage

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Emerging Emoji Research 🤓

APRIL 24, 2023

New research confirms that emojis need context. (Maiberger, T., Schindler, D. & Koschate-Fischer, 2023). Data shows that supplemental emojis garner more likes, retweets, clicks, and purchases.

What does this mean in practice?

Essentially, emojis enhance and illuminate the meaning of your message when added to a sentence, but it’s important not to literally replace words with emojis.

For example:

The Daily Carnage is 😅
The Daily Carnage is a life-saver 😅

Two entirely different vibes. 😅

4 Consumer Shopping Trends

APRIL 21, 2023

Shopping behavior is more price-driven these days, with inflation and the cost of living weighing heavily on purchasing decisions. Here’s how consumers are adapting:

Sustainability has become harder to prioritize but remains important. Despite financial challenges and increase in negative mentions on social media, consumers still consider sustainability an important factor in purchasing decisions. In a survey by Gapgemini, 77% of organizations said that their sustainability efforts increased customer loyalty.
Consumers buy more secondhand. Online conversations about secondhand products increased by 21% last year, and more brands are expected to enter the resale market in 2023. Thrift shopping is expected to be a popular alternative in 2023, particularly in the fashion industry.
Off-brand is having a moment. As the cost of living rises, consumers are searching for cheaper alternatives, evidenced by the massively engaging #dupe trend on TikTok, which is especially popular for cosmetics, fashion items, and consumer tech or household products.
Consumers still prioritize convenience. Especially millennials, according to listening data. The pandemic necessitated features like same-day delivery and click-and-collect, and consumers aren’t likely to settle for less moving forward.

Dig in over at at Brandwatch.

5 Elements Every Service Page Needs

APRIL 19, 2023

Your website’s service pages are workhorses. They introduce your signature offering to potential customers and put forth a simple argument: you need this. Good ones have these 5 elements in common:

Long-form, descriptive, benefits-focused copy. Describe everything that’s included in your service or offer, address the problem you service solves, list the positive outcomes of purchase, share why your brand is uniquely qualified to offer this service, and answer any FAQs.
Testimonials or reviews. If it’s great, prove it. Add customer opinions—as quotes, images, or video—along with a list of previous clients if you’re B2B.
Visuals. Depict your service in action with a gallery of photography, demo screenshots, portfolio content, or an informative, introductory video.
Conversion-friendly design. Shoot for easy-to-scan content with meaningful headers, lists, bold CTAs, and short paragraphs. As ever, your site should be accessible, fast, and easy to navigate.
Calls to action (CTAs). If you have more than one service listed on a single page, include a CTA to “checkout” for each of them. If your page is dedicated to just one service, sprinkle “checkout” CTAs throughout. In the case that your audience isn’t primed to buy at this stage, your CTA might be “contact a sales representative” or “get a free consultation.”

Learn more about how to craft high-ranking, converting service pages at Search Engine Land.

8 Google Ranking Factors to Consider

APRIL 18, 2023

If you’re optimizing your SEO strategy, consider these 8 Google-verified ranking factors when cleaning up your site:

Backlinks. These are one of Google’s strongest ranking factors. Build backlinks from other prominent websites on your subject.
Relevance. Understand what your audience is searching for. For example, if the top results for “air fryer” are blogs and listicles, users are in research mode and not necessarily ready to buy. Target accordingly.
Freshness. This is a query-dependent ranking factor. If there is demand for fresh content related to your keyword, be sure to update your page and publish articles regularly.
HTTPS. Improving security for your web visitors can help move the needle in your ranking.
Mobile-friendliness. Google uses mobile-first indexing, privileging sites that adhere to mobile usability, which you can verify using the Google Search Console.
Page speed. While your site doesn’t have to load the fastest, it must not deliver the slowest experience to users.
Core Web Vitals. These 3 metrics (Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift) measure your page’s loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability.
Intrusive interstitials. These are page overlays that create an intrusive and disruptive user experience, triggering a negative ranking.

Check out the infographic at Social Media Today.

7 Content Trends to Watch

APRIL 17, 2023

It’s Q2 2023 and we’re chatting with bots, posting lo-fi shorts, and migrating to GA4. Here are 7 growing content trends to keep a pulse on this year:

AI. Google considers AI-generated content designed to manipulate search results spam, however AI assistance in content creation is allowed and on the rise (though it’s unclear just how Google detects AI systems).
Short Video. YouTube, Instagram, and Meta launched video shorts to compete with TikTok, as brief clips have seen higher engagement, increased reach, and more probability of going viral.
The Creator Economy. Renewed competition among social platforms has placed a premium on TikTokers, Insta celebrities, and content creators for brand partnerships.
Podcasting. Listenership has grown by nearly 30% in the last several years, opening up opportunities for brands to partner with influencers and connect with highly engaged niche communities.
Personal Experience. The consumer demand for authenticity and individual thought leadership has grown, requiring brands and creators to be better storytellers to compete for exposure.
Data. Prioritizing data-driven content—by leveraging machine learning technology and GA4’s enhanced metrics—will be key in the digital marketing space.
Ease. Innovations that optimize user experience, like shoppable content, create seamless funnels and lead to higher conversion.

Dig a little deeper at Search Engine Journal.

5 Tips for High-Converting PPC Landing Pages

APRIL 16, 2023

The better you are at ensuring your customer that you are the unique answer to their specific need—and guiding them to take action—the higher your landing page conversion rates will be. Here’s how:

Create unique landing pages for unique audiences. Improve your conversion rates by providing a hyper-relevant trail for users. Send remarketing traffic to a new landing page that addresses the obstacles they might have encountered the first time around. Plus, you should segment your landing page by traffic source and funnel stage. For example, a Reddit landing page might be more text-heavy and educational than a Facebook landing page.
Test smarter. In split testing, isolate items like selling proposition and elements of trust. How are users perceiving these items within the first few seconds of landing on the page? Pay special attention to features above the fold, like headlines, hero images, and CTAs. Consider also testing dramatically different page layouts—instead of just single elements—to understand how audiences interact with content.
Begin with the end in mind. Eliminate distractions by limiting navigation—include one CTA and no option to click away to another page. Most users will only scan content and few will scroll, so rely on bullets and pictures to convey your message. Consider a sticky bar so the CTA follows users down the page.
Less is more. Write clearly and concisely with a readability at a fifth-grade level (depending on your industry). When it comes to design, user experience will always win out over the wow-factor. Ensure your page loads quickly and meets accessibility requirements.
Nothing beats a great offer. You know the deal: a great offer is urgent, provides immediate gratification, and is novel—but still believable.

Ready to land the perfect landing page? Dig deeper at Search Engine Land.

Find Your People on TikTok

APRIL 12, 2023

TikTok is more than just an entertainment and social platform—it’s a powerful discovery tool that unites niche communities. Brands that tap into these conversations with authentic messaging see serious results. In fact, 76% of users enjoy when brands are participate in special interest groups on TikTok.

Here’s how to leverage the power of communities on TikTok for your brand:

Use your brand’s passion points to identify potential communities and subcultures (BookTok? TechTok? FoodTok?) Try TikTok’s Keyword Insights tool to reveal relevant hashtags related to interests, and test the Top Products tool to scope out what works for other brands.
Try the Stay and Play Framework to identify opportunities. A luxury retail brand might partipate in expected (Stay) communities like FashionTok and, more specifically, GorpCore. Alternatively, the brand could explore more unexpected categories (Play) like FoodTok and, more specifically, Miniature World.

Drive results through value (entertainment, education, connection, relevance) and variety (by serving different need states, like planning or buying).
Ensure your content is optimized for TikTok. This typically means content that is lo-fi, vertical, and high-resolution; makes use of popular sounds; has a narrative; and follows the general format of its category and community (Get Ready With Me for BeautyTok, for example).

Feeling inspired? Check out more insider tips from TikTok for Business.

What to Know About Lemon8

APRIL 11, 2023

When life gives you [a precarious future for TikTok], create a new social media platform. Enter Lemon8.

What is Lemon8?

The app, considered a combination of Instagram and Pinterest, brands itself as “a content sharing platform for a youthful community.”

Like TikTok, Lemon8 is associated with ByteDance and works from the same hyper-relevant “recommendation engine” or algorithm. The feed offers polished images coupled with products and lifestyle content engaging to Gen Z.

What do marketers need to know?

First, it might be a good idea to claim your brand handle, because some early-adopting users have taken advantage of the currently low saturation to snatch up high-profile brand usernames.

The app is certainly worth some attention from marketers, gaining 6.3 million downloads worldwide in the last six months and surfacing at #1 in Apple’s Top 10. Monetization opportunities, however, seem underdeveloped as of yet.

While it’s too early to invest in activating this channel for many brands—and Lemon8’s association with the currently maligned ByteDance is noted—marketers should keep a pulse on the platform as curiosity and adoption grow.

Read the full download on Lemon8 at Digiday.

7 Tips for LinkedIn Video Ads

APRIL 9, 2023

VidMob analyzed over 16,000 video ads on LinkedIn to isolate what works best on the platform. Here are 7 insights from this expansive dataset:

Tip #1: Highlight key campaign messaging early. Data showed a 149% lift in view-through rates when messaging was displayed in the opening quarter.

Tip #2: Include stats for business-minded LinkedIn users. According to the study, video that opened with data points saw a 39% increase in completion rate.

Tip #3: Feature your brand logo in the first 2 seconds. This is a universal best practice for brand recognition. LinkedIn users clicked through 17% more when content featured immediate branding.

Tip #4: Short videos work best. Videos between 7 and 15 seconds long saw a 54% lift in engagement and a 15% increase in click-through rate.

Tip #5: Make it human. Videos that featured a person in the first quarter saw a 175% increase in view-through rates.

Tip #6: Open with the CTA. Giving users an action to follow in the first 6 seconds resulted in a 98% increase in view-through rate.

Tip# 7: Test out text overlays. This engaging feature spiked click-through rates by 72%.

Have any of these tactics worked for you? Read more about the study at Social Media Today.