The Corporate Magic of Networked Teams and High Transparency

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on bizjournals.com.

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Corporate leaders often pride themselves in their capacity for pattern recognition. But somehow, even as tech startups are remaking entire industries, many management teams remain slow to meet the fight. How is that even possible?

One reason, perhaps: As a group, CEOs cling to hierarchical, top-down structures. Information is hoarded at the top and divisions work in silos.

In short, it’s bureaucratic, and often why big companies cannot move quickly.

It’s the kind of “command-and-control” system of leadership that we often associate with the traditional military. Soldiers just follow orders, and information is given out on a ‘need to know’ basis.

So it may seem strange that in an effort to create a more dynamic culture I make every member of my executive team read a book by a 4-star U.S. general, as well as recommend it to anyone else who wants to become a better leader.

“Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World,” by retired U.S. General Stanley McChrystal is much more than a military memoir; it’s an indispensable guide to the radical organizational change that all businesses should embrace.

In short, it’s the story of a quantifiably better leadership approach in fast-moving, complex and ambiguous environments.

Running a modern business is obviously a very different challenge than rooting out insurgents in Baghdad. But when you think about it, the military has been forced to adapt from conventional strategies and tactics to guerilla warfare as the modern battlefield has changed. In business, we say “adapt or die” as a figure of speech. For the military, that’s a very literal proposition.

After Gen. McChrystal faced such challenges personally, for instance when he led the special operations forces to hunt down and kill Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of al-Qaida in Iraq, he began to recognize the military needed to completely remake its approach to a much less conventional enemy than it had been trained to meet.

He then went on to create a quantifiably better and more dynamic leadership style.

That’s why the book has become a lodestar for me as we a company builder trying to foster a culture of trust, speed, teamwork, and transparency.

The first lesson from “Team of Teams” is the need to push decision-making to the edge of your organization. For many leaders that might seem like a recipe for disaster: “Wait, you want us to let junior people make big decisions?”

It does seem counter-intuitive at first, but think of it in a different way: who really knows the most about your business — the workers on the front lines or executives in the boardroom several steps removed?

Here’s how it worked out for McChrystal, who ran the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in Iraq from 2003-2008. When he arrived in Iraq, the U.S. military was on its back foot, struggling to launch effective missions due to slow, centralized decision-making. After realizing that the existing processes needed to be abolished rather than improved, he implemented a “Team of Teams” approach that entrusted decision-making to commanders and soldiers on the ground. After all, who had a better handle on the local conditions and prospects for success — generals hundreds of miles away from the action, or soldiers who were risking their lives every day on the front line?

The effect of this radical change was a massive increase in the number of U.S raids from one per day previously to dozens per day. McChrystal went from approving every raid to ceding all raid decisions to his troops. The “Team of Teams” approach also resulted in quicker decisions. Rather than waiting for a decision from the top that may have been based on outdated intelligence, raid teams were able to make their own well-informed calls on the spot.

The second radical takeaway for business leaders from the book is the practice of shared consciousness. That is what happens as a result of high transparency and visibility. Without a steady flow of accurate information, teams won’t be able to fuse together into a network and make good decisions based on a common purpose.

For McCrystal, that meant throwing open a daily planning call that had been limited to the top brass so it included around 7,500 personnel globally. He regarded this as perhaps his single most important change because it freed up officers from passing information down the ranks and resulted in faster better decision-making.

In the corporate setting, the lesson here is that there is no such thing as too much communication. At NewsCred, we share board decks and financials and have special days for teams to communicate what they are working on. I also send a weekly email to the whole company with whatever is on my mind. This builds a culture of shared consciousness that allows all employees, no matter how junior, to make decisions without always needing top-down approval.

How do McCrystal’s principles apply in our field of content marketing? As marketers we are feeling the winds of technological change more than most, making it even more crucial to embrace the transformation that breaks down silos and speeds decision-making. Content teams have a big opportunity to orchestrate content across silos and teams to create a unified customer experience.

Decentralizing decision making by empowering people with information and authority can make a good organization even better.

Shafqat Islam is the CEO of Newscred.

The post The Corporate Magic of Networked Teams and High Transparency appeared first on Insights.

source https://thebtrade.com/2019/09/30/the-corporate-magic-of-networked-teams-and-high-transparency/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-corporate-magic-of-networked-teams-and-high-transparency

8 Strategies to Optimize Your Google My Business Profile

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If you own a local business—especially one that’s trying to increase influence and exposure in your local market—you’re always looking for effective marketing strategies to put yourself in front of prospective customers who are most likely to use your products and services.  Unfortunately, many companies overlook one of the most potent tools to achieve this and other core business objectives:  a Google My Business profile.

What is a Google My Business Profile?

A Google My Business profile is a Google tool that lets you directly influence the way local consumers connect with your business online and substantially improve your local SEO.  That’s important because about half of all consumers who conduct local searches (things like “restaurants near me”) visit a store that same day.

As HubSpot notes, a Google My Business profile will help you manage the way local consumers see you in Google Search and Maps, including things like your business name, location, and hours.  It also helps you monitor and respond to customer reviews.  Simply stated, if you’re new to local SEO, your GMB listing is probably the best place to start.

Why Is GMB So Important For Your Local Business?

In the first place, if your business is primarily or exclusively local, you need to find effective strategies to advance your local SEO.  Why?  Because most people find local businesses through local searches.  Second, Google My Business can substantially increase the power of your local SEO.  Consider, for example, these metrics from HubSpot:

• Almost half of all Google searches are seeking local business information
• Approximately 72% of consumers who do a local search will visit a local business within 5 miles of their homes
• More than 97% of consumers learn more about local businesses online than through any other source
• 88% of consumers who do online searches for local businesses on smartphones either call or visit that business with 24 hours of the search
• Google My Business accounts for about 25% of your local SEO search ranking—more than links or reviews on on-page SEO strategies

8 Best Practice Strategies To Optimize Your Google My Business Profile

Optimizing your Google My Business profile is one of the best ways to increase your influence and success in your local market.  As Bright Local notes:

Simply put, every business needs a Google My Business listing. It offers a wealth of business information to Google and local consumers and offers a rich local search presence. The details you provide in your Google My Business profile are used in a number of different ways by the search engine, from populating the highly visible knowledge panel which appears to the right of the search results and filling out the local pack to populating Google Maps, providing voice search results and assisting with Google app search results.

Equally important, optimizing your profile isn’t rocket science.  There are several smart strategies you can leverage to make your Google My Business profile stronger and more influential, including the following 8:

Get the NAP on your Google My Business profile right:

NAP is short for the Name, Address and Phone Number for your business, and getting it right is crucial to optimizing your profile.  That sounds simple, but remember that your business changes over time and has possibly had different addresses or numbers in the past. You need to make sure that all your online business citations are consistent with the one you include as part of your GMB.

Claim your business short name:

If the name of your business is “John’s Auto Parts,” local customers might refer to it as simply “John’s.” Google calls that your “short name,” and you need to claim it for it to be exclusively yours.  One of the best ways is to include your location as part of your short name (as in “John’s Springfield”). Including your name is also useful if your local business has multiple locations (you could use “John’s Springfield” for one location and “John’s Worcester” for another, for example).

Another great feature of the short name is that Google adds ‘/review’ to the end creating a direct link to your GMB review profile which simplifies the process when asking customers for reviews. No more frustrated customers searching for how and where to leave you the reviews!

Write a compelling business description:

Google gives you 750 characters to describe your business, so you need to make them count.  Don’t include promotional talk in your description (Google doesn’t allow that) but do tell people about your products and services and what’s unique about what you do.  It’s also a good idea to include something about your company’s mission and history.

Pick the right Google My Business category and subcategory:

This is an important component of local SEO, so you need to get it right.  For example, if you sell pizza, you might choose “pizza restaurant” as your category so that people looking for “pizza” or “pizza restaurants” can find your business in local searches.  The subcategory is also important, especially if your business does more than one thing.  For example, you might have a supermarket that includes a pharmacy, in which case “supermarket” would be your category and “pharmacy” would be your subcategory.

Use photos to your advantage:

Google gives you lots of options for the photos included in your profile. You can use both interior and exterior shots of your business, as well as 360-degree views.  The photos you choose are important because 60% of local shoppers say local search results with strong images capture their attention.

According to Google, businesses with photos receive 42% more requests for driving directions to their location from users on Google, and 35% more clicks through to their websites than businesses that don’t have photos.

Best practice is at least 3 images each of your exterior, your interior, your team, and the products you sell.

In fact, new research shows a very strong link between Google My Business photo quantity and search performance. To wit:  The research found that businesses with more than 100 images on GMB get 520% more calls, 2717% more direction requests, and 1,065% more website clicks than the average business!

Monitor and respond to reviews:

The reviews that prospective customers see are important—on average, consumers read at least 10 reviews before they trust a business—and they trust these reviews more than word of mouth from friends and family.  So, it’s not enough to wait for customers to write reviews—you need to be proactive with a consistent process to request them.  You also need to monitor and respond to those reviews—for example, a policy of simply thanking customers who leave positive reviews.

Publish posts regularly:

Posts within your Google My Business profile are essentially mini-blogs which give consumers important information and updates about your business.

More importantly, by posting to your profile it does two things for your local SEO.

1. It feeds the important keywords and phrases vital to your business directly to the AI of Google’s algorithm. Building the crucial association of your goods and services with your business.
2. Regular posting drives up engagement. Google measures how much you as a business owner engage with your profile. The more you as a business engages with your profile, the more serious Google takes your business.

Good posts will increase your visibility and rankings in local searches—and they can be highly influential in a customer choosing your business over one of your competitors.

Optimize your Google My Business profile Q&A:

The Q&A feature of your profile can be enormously helpful to your business, but you need to make it work for you.  Google gives you the ability to create a storehouse of both questions and answers within your profile. This is to ensure that the answers consumers get are the ones you want them to.  Use the customer data you have to make sure you include the right questions—and the best answers.

In Conclusion

Previously, we’ve discussed and put together a 10-point Local SEO Checklist to get your business ranking at the top of local search results pages.

Optimizing your GMB profile is right at the top of that list.

These are just some of the ways you can optimize your Google My Business profile, and in the process, increase your exposure and influence in your local market.  Although the optimization process (as noted above) isn’t rocket science, it can be complicated and confusing, especially if this is your first go at it.  Fortunately, there are experienced agencies who specialize in local search strategies and can help.

To learn more about the ways our local SEO and Listings Optimization services can help your business rise to the top of local searches to help your business grow, contact us today.

The post 8 Strategies to Optimize Your Google My Business Profile appeared first on LocalBizGuru.com.

source https://thebtrade.com/2019/09/29/8-strategies-to-optimize-your-google-my-business-profile/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=8-strategies-to-optimize-your-google-my-business-profile

What to Do If Your Google My Business Listing Is Suspended

Want to know how to get a suspended Google My Business listing reinstated? Here’s everything you need to know to get your all-important listing back, by GMB Product Expert Ben Fisher.

Joe awoke one morning to find that the phones were not ringing for his business. He then had some people calling in from billboard advertisements, but they were calling to ask for directions.

After a few moments of confusion, Joe checked to see if anything had happened to his business listing on Google.

Sure enough, this business was no longer on Google Maps. Gone! All those hard-earned reviews… poof! It was as if the business no longer existed.

The kicker? This was a real business. There was clear signage visible from Street View, there was a professional Street View created by a trusted photographer. The warehouse was huge.

You could even find them as a legal business entity with the secretary of state. They had another listing for a separate business entity that also had all the legit checkboxes, like a separate phone number, entrance, and LLC.

Joe immediately used Google’s reinstatement form. Bad idea.

On July 21st they heard back from Google…

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Google My Business team. 

We’ve looked at your account and it looks like your business is not eligible to display on Google Maps per our quality guidelines. Check out our guidelines for representing your business on Google to see what types of businesses are eligible to be on Google Maps.

If you have any further questions please consult the Google My Business Help Center.

So Joe sends an email back, with photos of the building, entrance, signage, billboards and more facts.

Here’s what Joe said…

“We paid Google to have a photographer come in for the 360 tour and pictures a couple years ago. 

I’m attaching pictures of our building, showroom, service truck, and even a billboard we have down the street advertising our business. 

PLEASE HELP GET US BACK ON GOOGLE MAPS AND GET OUR REVIEWS BACK ONLINE!”

Joe ended up calling me at Steady Demand, and after looking at all the evidence and seeing that they had one listing still live, I asked: “Who else is managing the listing?”

In particular, I asked him which manager was not on the live listing but was on the suspended listing. At first, he said, “Oh no-one, I think. Just my GM.” I asked him to humor me and take a look.

Lo and behold, there was the answer: a manager from, without being too cryptic, a reputation management company that, shall we say, “flies and has a facial feature”.

I said, “Okay, let’s remove that user. Now we can proceed with a reinstatement.”

Seven days later the listing was reinstated on Google Maps.

Because the user from the reputation management company was performing map edits on a regular basis, this behaviour was flagged as suspicious by Google and this led to that user’s account being suspended (if you’re an agency managing client GMB profiles, I’d recommend avoiding making too many map edits on a daily basis).

That’s how easy to get your listing suspended on Google My Business without even knowing why, and that’s why I’ve put together the little guide below, which I hope answers all your questions about why your GMB listing has been suspended.

What Is a Google My Business Suspension?

In short, a Google My Business (GMB) suspension is what happens when your free listing on Google and Google Maps is no longer visible or under your account control, and its validity has come under question from Google.

A quick ‘word to the wise’: Whatever you do, if Google suggests creating a new listing, do not do it. You could lose all of your reviews and any ranking power you had will be gone. As long as the listing and account are in within guidelines, then you will get reinstated, no matter what support says.

How to Tell How Serious Your GMB Suspension Is

There are two kinds of Google My Business suspension. To find out which you’ve got, search for your business on Google Maps. If it’s not there, you’ve got a hard suspension. If it’s still there but you can’t access it, it’s a soft suspension.

Hard Suspensions

This is very bad. In this case, the listing has been removed from Google and from Google Maps, and is in a state where it can lose its reviews entirely.

Soft Suspensions

More often than not, this has to do with a user on the account. Soft suspensions usually mean that the listing is “disabled”. It’s still visible in search but you no longer have the means to make changes to manage it. The listing is in an unverified status at this time and very vulnerable to user edits for removal.

What Can Trigger a GMB Suspension?

Algorithmic Sweep

Sometimes Google does what is called a “sweep”, like what we saw back in June of 2109 when suspensions increased significantly.

This was an algorithmic sweep of sensitive business categories that were highly susceptible to fake GMB listings, like locksmiths and plumbers. I have even seen a listing get suspended after doing a move reinstatement, right after doing a verification. Frustrating, yes, but also computer-controlled!

The algorithmic sweep is the most common suspension cause and also the hardest to troubleshoot. It could result from anything from having your hours set to 24 hours to not setting your address properly.

Account Issues

Sometimes an account manager or owner has had their own account suspended. Maybe it’s the representative of an SEO company that has a user account and submits a ton of spammy map edits, or maybe it’s a user that does other things that violate other guidelines.

When an account gets a suspension they will usually have all listings in the account receive a suspension. I need to note here that I very often see accounts that have multiple bad listings (10+ virtual offices or spammy listings) get suspended wholesale.

If you’re managing multiple GMB accounts and most are suspended but one or more aren’t, then your account is not at fault. It will instead be a manager on a listing that is on a suspended account. If this happens to you, you either need to do what I call an “owner swap” (basically removing the current owners and replacing them with a new Google account, preferably connected to Gsuite) or you need to remove all managers before attempting a reinstatement.

Manual Suspensions

Manual suspensions happen when a Google employee has personally decided that you should not be on Google Maps. This is usually after being reported via the spam redressal form.

The way I look at this is very simple: for the most part, you are guilty until proven innocent. If there is some slight doubt on the part of the Google employee, you will get a soft suspension: you’ll still be on Google Maps but will have to go through the reinstatement process.

Note: During this time, your listing is vulnerable to removal by any user. If there are enough signals suggesting your business should be removed (which I’ll go over shortly), you will get a hard suspension and your business will be removed from Google Maps. Spammy business names and having an address at a virtual office are common reasons for a hard suspension.

Commons Reasons for GMB Suspension and How to Rectify Them

Below are some common reasons for a suspension. In all instances you will want to file for reinstatement.

Before reading on, here’s a small but important tip for you: Get it right.

In some cases, you’ll have just two chances to get reinstated. Have other professionals look over your listing. First go to the Google My Business Help Community and ask someone to review your listing details (provide business name, the address the business was verified at, and a screenshot of your GMB info tab). Then submit as much proof as possible on the reinstatement form.

P.S. Do not gripe about how much money you are losing or who cannot pay bills. It’ss distracting to anyone trying to help you and, trust me, we know your pain. In addition to this, Google doesn’t care about that or how much you spend on their ads; they are looking for facts.

With that out of the way, here are those common reasons for GMB suspension:

Listing yourself as open 24 Hours when you’re not

Make sure you are not listed as open 24 hours if you are not staffed in the office for 24 hours. Change your hours to something that is reasonable like 9AM – 5PM. It doesn’t matter if you have a call centre responding to calls at all times; Google basically wants to know when your physical door is open.

Adding keywords to your business name

Make sure your name reflects what is on your signage or with the secretary of state. It’s what people know you’re business as. It’s what’s written on your business cards and your office pens. Remove the keywords; pretty simple.

Having your address at a virtual office or co-working space

Avoid this altogether. I get it, it is cheap. But it paints a huge target on your back for competitors looking to get your listing removed, and Google is just no good at policing it. Most of the time you will have to move. If you want to stay, be prepared to show a mountain of evidence. I have reinstated a ton of them, but they are not easy at all.

Changing your address

This one is not as easy to understand since it should always trigger the re-verification process within Google My Business. But in some cases, the listing will simply get suspended. Make sure you document the previous address and, of course, the new address. Provide this during reinstatement.

Creating multiple listings for the same business

Remove the fake listings from your dashboard and then try to remove them yourself in Google Maps, or document the URL and admit your fault on reinstatement.

Creating multiple listings at the same address

Same as above: get rid of any fake business listings or be prepared to show legal proof there is another business at the location.

Interlude: Story Corner

I talked to a guy today. He was totally mystified as to why all 16 of his listings were suspended. After providing me with a spreadsheet of the listings, I could see why.

He had all 16 listings at his home address. All of them were keyword stuffed, except the real one. He explained that with his business license he could operate all over the state, so in his eyes it was totally “normal” to have a listing for every county. (If I had $10 for every time I heard this…).

After I went over the guidelines, he realized that, in total, he only qualified for two listings. If this is you or your client, you have been warned!

In a different instance, I had a client that had their Google My Business name being edited by a competitor every day. Even though the name legally had keywords in it (as in, it was their registered business name), they got so fed up that they just gave up and let the pending edit sit there. They “had better things to do”.

Well, unfortunately, one day the edit stuck and, bam, the listing was suspended immediately. When I asked the business owner if they had any of the required proof for reinstatement they were caught off guard and found their business offline for over a month.

This last example was one of the reasons I ended up developing a My Business Listing Assurance program as part of Steady Demand’s offering.

What Can Cause Suspensions to Be More Common?

There are plenty of activities that can increase the chances of suspension, even if they’re not the direct cause. Here’s a bunch I’ve noticed recently, in no particular order:

• Rogue account managers, or a user that has made too many spammy edits
• Keyword stuffing in business name (and being reported for it)
• Repeated edits to a listing in a short period of time (it’s best to wait 60 seconds between edits)
• In the wake of the now-infamous Wall Street Journal article about fake Google My Business listings, there was a wave of suspensions in quite a few categories of businesses, so publicity and press can play their parts
• Changing from a Storefront to a Service area business (this has recently become very common)
• Address or hours not matching with those on your website (especially in the case of a location inside a virtual office)
• Pin marker being in a suspicious location (I once saw a reinstatement get declined because the pin was on a garage, and had to do a video proving the location was in a duplex behind the garage)

 

How to Avoid Google My Business Suspension

The best way to avoid suspension is to follow the guidelines at all times and don’t try to bend the rules.

I’ve helped reinstate more than 150 locations just in the past two months, and along the way, I have witnessed many very common errors and some that were just mystifying. My key tips are:

• Make sure your business information is always up to date in the state business directory, city license or state bar.
• Hire a Street View photographer to refresh your signage.
• And don’t try to game the system with tons of listings. It’s just not worth it.

One last note: I talk to businesses every day that feel they deserve to be listed in every city they serve, and I say the same thing almost every time: this is a business decision.

If you will earn more revenue by having a presence in a metro area than the cost of staffing an office and registering the entity legally, then do it! If not, then don’t. I really think it is that simple.

The post What to Do If Your Google My Business Listing Is Suspended appeared first on BrightLocal.

source https://thebtrade.com/2019/09/27/what-to-do-if-your-google-my-business-listing-is-suspended/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-to-do-if-your-google-my-business-listing-is-suspended

Why Work with a Local SEO Service?

One of the best things about the internet is that it’s global.  Just punch in a search, and you have an entire world of information at your fingertips.  And, this is awesome, no doubt about it.  But sometimes, you want a specific product or service, and you’re really looking for something you can find in your area.  That’s what going local is all about on the consumer’s end.  And, for the supplier of a particular product or service, it’s about reaching these consumers.

When you work with an SEO company, the goal is to make your company visible.  A professional SEO service will find out what your target demographic is searching for, and they’ll optimise your site so that it shows up when you search for those terms.  And, if you have a local business, you don’t want to spread your audience across the whole world.  You want to reach out to a focused demographic that will find you in your area.

So, for instance, when you’re looking to outsource SEO, and you have a local company in Sydney, the best way to find the ideal SEO service for you is to search “SEO services Sydney,” for example.  But why?  Even with a local company, you could get a solid return from an SEO expert halfway across the world, right?

Well, yes and no.

Theoretically, an SEO professional should be able to do a fair job of mechanically optimising your site for a given list of keywords.  They’ll also make sure to provide quality content, backlink, and excellent site speed.  All of this is important, but there’s more to it than that.  To take your site to the next level, you also want it to appear on local listings.  You need to appeal to the local market, and this is a bit of an art form in itself.

First of all, not all links established in your site are created equal.  When you have a local business, you want to include local links or those that are relevant to your target demographic.  Most huge companies will automate their link-building process and generate them more or less randomly.  But, with a local SEO company, you can be sure to have higher quality local links, such as those for your local chamber of commerce and including your business information on search engines..  This helps to legitimise your business and dramatically boost visibility.

Another huge element of SEO is content creation.  Fresh, unique content is regularly evaluated by Google algorithms, so it’s important to get new articles, blogs, and other information on your site.  When you work with a local company, they’ll be able to speak to the people in your area.  They’ll be aware of the nuances of your community, so the content can be tailored rather than generic.  Local references give you a local edge and boost your market strategy.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  Local SEO:

• Increases local search rankings;
• Boosts conversions in local advertising channels;
• Helps mobile users find your business through search engines, directories, social media channels, and voice searches;
• And ensures that your business shows up on Google maps and other navigational apps.

If you’d like to know more about how to boost your site visibility or make the most of local SEO, feel free to contact us.  At Local Web, we know how to speak to the Sydney community and we are dedicated to providing you the highest quality of SEO service.

The post Why Work with a Local SEO Service? appeared first on Local Web.

source https://thebtrade.com/2019/09/26/why-work-with-a-local-seo-service/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=why-work-with-a-local-seo-service

Tech Talk: The Importance of Pipeline Analytics in Proving Content Marketing ROI

Although the idea of content marketing is not new — 91 percent of B2B marketers use content marketing to reach their customers — marketers still struggle with defining and proving content marketing success. In fact, only 8 percent of marketers consider themselves successful in tracking content marketing ROI.

Why is that? An overwhelming majority of marketers say their biggest challenge with measuring ROI is establishing key performance indicators and having the right technology to support the measurement of those metrics.

As a result, most marketers use softer, top-of-funnel metrics such as page views and impressions to prove value — and at one time, these vanity metrics were a sufficient means of measurement. When content marketing first became a popular tactic, brands had no baseline for truly defining success, and technology limited the types of metrics marketers could track.

However, as marketers (and CMOs specifically) realized they could use content for more than just expanding brand awareness and reach — and could actually drive audiences to take a desired action — the need for more definitive metrics became stronger. Now, thanks to tools that go beyond standard site analytics, such as NewsCred’s very own Action Analytics, marketers can easily track engagement metrics such as attention, time on site, and return visitors.

The buyer journey, however, doesn’t stop there — and neither should the metrics that marketers measure. But without the proper technology, marketers are left struggling to measure that final part of the buyer journey: content’s impact on revenue. This presents a significant challenge in today’s marketing landscape, as marketers must demonstrate content ROI to both defend their budgets, and prove the value of their work (and their place on the marketing team).

But how?

How NewsCred empowers content marketers with Pipeline Analytics

At NewsCred, we believe we are in the performance era of content marketing, where content’s goal is to drive real business results and is therefore measured as a revenue driver — the need to measure and demonstrate content marketing ROI is here to stay.

And although we believe measuring the full-funnel impact of content from first-touch attribution through to closed-won revenue is critical for optimizing the entire sales cycle, we also believe the true leading indicator of content marketing success is tied directly to content-generated & content-influenced pipeline.

That’s why we’re excited to announce Pipeline Analytics — a new feature that quantifies content influenced pipeline and content-generated pipeline, so your team can easily prove the impact your work has on the marketing KPIs that matter most.

With Pipeline Analytics, your team can: 

• Measure Content-Influenced and Content-Generated Pipeline so you can attribute the impact of your content on both the number (and dollar amount) of new opportunities created for your sales team, as well as the number of open opportunities with contacts who have engaged with a piece of content. 
• View and tailor the content journey for every contact in an opportunity. With visibility into who is consuming what content, and when, you can uncover hidden pain points and deliver the right content at the right time to help nurture prospects through the sales cycle.
• Identify which content types, formats, and topics influenced the buyer journey to inform your strategy, optimize distribution, and create the most effective content possible.

With the addition of Pipeline Analytics to our suite of Engagement, Action, and ROI analytics, teams now have an end-to-end solution for measuring their impact on the entire customer journey, as well as optimizing their content strategy to create and deliver the most effective content possible.

But don’t take our word for it…analysts agree! 

“Without proper analytics across every stage of the content lifecycle, marketers often see a disconnect between the content they’re producing and the content that is actually making an impact,” said Christine Polewarczyk, Service Director, Content Strategy and Operations at SiriusDecisions. “Understanding the impact content has on sales pipeline and revenue creates a feedback loop for marketers to plan, create, and publish better content, ultimately increasing the efficiency and output of their teams.”

Ready to see Pipeline Analytics in action? Reach out to us for a demo!

The post Tech Talk: The Importance of Pipeline Analytics in Proving Content Marketing ROI appeared first on Insights.

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Fake Online Reviews? Here’s What You Can Do About Them.

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Online reviews are, bluntly, one of a potential customer’s best tools for choosing a company. Fake or malicious reviews can, thus, be a huge problem, requiring hours of your time spent on PR damage control rather than your core business.

When you consider that 85% of consumers trust online reviews and 84% are unable to spot fake reviews when they see them, fake online reviews can have serious consequences.

A lot of business owners feel that there is little they can do about fake reviews and that the best tactic is to ignore them.

This is not, in fact, true. It is often possible to have fake reviews removed, but there are good and bad ways to go about it.

Here are the steps you should take.

Learn to Identify Fake Online Reviews

There are a number of differences between fake online reviews and real ones.

While any one of these things may not be a problem on their own, two or more are definitely red flags:

1. No avatar or a fake avatar. Some people are too lazy to upload an avatar. Fake reviewers are more likely to go one step further and steal their headshot. Do a reverse image search on their avatar to see if it is, for example, a famous actor or taken from some company’s board of directors page.
2. A review history that contains repeats of the same review. If a review looks like it is copied and pasted and sent to multiple businesses, it may be a bot.
3. A review history that contains negative reviews of most of your competitors and glowing reviews of one specific company. Some people think spamming their competition with fake bad reviews is a great way to get customers (Pro tip: It isn’t, and it’s also illegal).
4. A large number of negative reviews in a short period of time. Again, this could be a bot. On the other hand, a large number of positive reviews on a competitor’s page in an equally short period could indicate that they are paying for reviews.
5. Language syntax that doesn’t match the reviewer’s claimed origin, particularly people claiming to be from the US but incorrectly formatting certain things or using British spelling.
6. Negative or hateful tone.
7. Not having a specific reason why they are leaving a bad review.

Report Fake Online Reviews

If you suspect a review of being fake, your first task is to report the review to the site. Most sites are willing to take down obvious fake reviews, although be prepared for the fact that they may not agree that the review is fake. Yelp, on the other hand, is notorious for refusing to remove false reviews. Instead, they expect you to handle it yourself and confront your accuser. Dealing with fake reviews on Yelp, thus, relies on some different tactics.

It may take a bit of time for the review to be removed. Generally, it is not a great idea to report even very obviously fake positive reviews on the page of a direct competitor, as it may look to the review site like sour grapes or jealousy.

You can often report reviews by flagging them directly. For example, on Google, there is a small flag icon that appears when you put your cursor on the ad. Clicking on it will open a violation page and ask you to check what kind of violation type it is. You may also be able to report reviews that directly link to your competitors.

Prove Your Case

However, even when reporting fake online reviews, you need to be thorough and prove your case.

Take the time to investigate and compile the necessary evidence. Only then will your case be taken seriously and gives you the best chance of getting them removed.

Also, if you can prove a review is both untrue and malicious, you may have a case for libel against the reviewer. However, it can be very hard to track down people who leave fake reviews, and you may not be able to catch them to sue them. It is, however, often worth a try, and mentioning legal action can get sites (possibly even Yelp) to play ball on removing the ugly review.

Additionally, fake reviews are punishable by the FTC with a minimum $250,000 fine. So if you build a solid case and can demonstrate that either your competitor engaged in a negative review campaign against your business or a positive one for themselves, reporting them to the FTC can certainly improve your chances of getting justice.

Professionally Respond to Reviews

This includes fake ones while you are waiting for them to be removed. You should not argue with a reviewer, but it is perfectly fine to apologize and explain yourself. Thanking customers for good reviews can make a huge difference when it comes to getting them to come back.

One study shows that 89% of consumers read businesses’ responses to reviews. Make sure to include your business name and location in the response so that it boosts your SEO.

Most real negative reviews are not intended to be spiteful, but rather to express a legitimate grievance. When responding to negative reviews, avoid using your business name and location. Ideally, move the conversation offline.

When responding to a fake review, obviously do not do this, but emphasize your good customer service. Try doing it without getting into a fight – a proportion of people posting fake reviews are trolls who actively want a fight. You need to stay calm and rational. If you have difficulty doing so, delegate the task to the most level-headed person in the office.

Try to Drown Them in Good Reviews

You can’t control whether you get good reviews. You can, however, actively encourage satisfied customers to leave a review. Most people are inclined to leave reviews only when they are not satisfied.

For online businesses, including a link to your preferred review site in a follow-up email helps. For brick and mortar, politely ask them before they leave. Make sure the link you include goes directly to your page, as you want leaving a review to be as easy as possible.

However, do not offer discounts or extras for leaving a review. It’s illegal to pay for customer reviews. If you want to give a discount to returning customers, you should give the same discount to everyone, and not have it be contingent on reviews.

Seek Professional Assistance

Remember that fake online reviews can, in fact, be an illegal attack on your business. If you need more help and advice dealing with your fake and/or bad review problem, contact LocalBizGuru today.

Download the following infographic for a quick reference on what to do about fake and bad reviews:

Illegal Reviews: How To Spot Them And Actions To Take created by Elliot Legal Group

The post Fake Online Reviews? Here’s What You Can Do About Them. appeared first on LocalBizGuru.com.

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How to Bring Your B2B Content Marketing Back from the Dead

Content marketing has transformed our industry, with B2B brands large and small using it to generate millions of engagements. In fact, by 2016, 88% of all B2B brands were using content marketing.

Then something changed.

Marketers produced too much. They oversaturated the market. They made it too hard to stand out.

But content stopped succeeding for a few other reasons, too.

Skimping on research: Often, marketers rushes to get their content out as quickly as possible. For example, in December 2017, more than 40,000 articles were being published about Bitcoin each week, according to Buzzsomo.

The problem is that in the rush to get content out first, organizations were skimping on research and not delivering anything truly valuable to their audience.

Remember, if someone spends their time reading content, it needs to be worth their while. Otherwise they’re unlikely to do so again.

Treating distribution as an afterthought: Organizations’ focus on content creation came at the expense of thinking through distribution.

Making content is all well and good, but effectively distributing and amplifying it is the key to getting it seen. And there’s no point producing something great if no one’s going to see it.

Failing to monitor performance: Data is at the heart of all good marketing programs. Tracking and monitoring a piece of content reveals what is and isn’t working. Without this insight, there’s no way to gauge performance, improve on what’s not working, and ensure the effectiveness of its delivery.

6 Ways To Breathe New Life Into Your Content

With that in mind, let’s turn to what can be done to improve content. Here are three steps marketers should already be taking:

1. Know your audience: The first step to creating engaging content is understanding who the audience is and what they want. This means mapping out buyer personas and journeys before the proverbial pen hits the paper.
2. Distribute and track: When producing any piece of content, here are three questions that must be thought through: Why is it being produced? Where is it being distributed? How is it going to be tracked? Marketers will be at an immediate disadvantage without clear answers.
3. Match the right content to the right people: Generational differences can be found in content preferences. Younger consumers prefer video and social content, for instance, whereas older generations are more comfortable with email. Make sure you know how best to reach your audience.

Those are the basics. Now let’s look at some tips that can really kick-start your B2B content marketing:

4. Find your niche: No matter how good your content is, if you adopt the same perspective and talk about the same topics as everyone else in your field, you may as well throw in the towel. Find a niche in your space—preferably an emerging trend that will be relevant in the next three to five years—and start creating content in that area. That way, when your topic hits the mainstream, you’ll be an established expert.
5. Experiment and innovate: Most of the advice we’ve given so far has been about carefully planning content. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t experiment. Saturation is the No. 1 enemy of content marketing. Experiment with new forms of content and new channels to give yourself a better chance of standing out.
6. Say something different: On that note, don’t be afraid to go against the grain sometimes. Doing things the way they’ve always been done is a guaranteed way to get left behind. Those who spot a new possibility, however, and dare to say something truly different will likely reap the biggest rewards.

You’re On Your Way

Content marketing isn’t going to get any easier. The market is crowded, and will presumably grow. But quality trumps quantity. So take a step back, assess what you’ve been doing, and make the necessary changes in the name of differentiation. In the end, strategically developed content will always reign supreme.

The post How to Bring Your B2B Content Marketing Back from the Dead appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog – Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

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How I Ranked For 636,363 Keywords Using This Simple Hack

When I started doing SEO on NeilPatel.com I used this advanced formula
to rank for 477,000 keywords.

Over time, my traffic started to flatline and I wasn’t ranking for many more keywords, even though I was continually creating more content.

But then I figured out a simple hack that took me from
477,000 keywords to 636,363 keywords as you can see in the image above.

So, what was this hack?

Well, it’s so effective that I just updated Ubersuggest so that includes the
hack.

So how did I do it?

When someone does a Google search, what are they typically
doing? They are trying to find a solution to their problem, right?

So how can you easily identify these problems people are
searching for?

Typically, you want to look for 3 types of keyword phrases:

1. Questions – people type in questions because they are looking for answers. And if your product or service helps answer those questions, you’ll see a boost in conversions.
2. Comparisons – when someone is searching for comparison keywords such as “MailChimp VS Converkit” there is high buyer intent, even if your company isn’t mentioned in the search phase. (I’ll go into how to leverage this in a bit.)
3. Prepositions – when keywords contain a preposition, they tend to be more descriptive. If you aren’t sure what a preposition is, simple prepositions are words like at, for, in, off, on, over, and under. These common prepositions can be used to describe a location, time, or place.

But how do you find these keywords?

Well, I just updated Ubersuggest to now show you questions, comparisons, and prepositions.

Just head over to Ubersuggest and type in a keyword that you want to go after. For this example, I typed in the word “marketing”.

Then as you scroll down, in the keywords ideas table you’ll see tabs for questions, prepositions, and comparisons.

I want you to click on the “view all keyword ideas”.

You’ll now be taken to the keyword ideas report that looks
like this:

Now, click on the tab labeled “questions”. It will adjust the keyword recommendations to show you all of the popular questions related to the main keyword you just researched.

You’ll then see some suggestions that you could consider
going after. Such as:

• Why is marketing important?
• What marketing does?
• How marketing works?

But as you scroll down, you’ll find more specific questions such
as:

• Why a marketing plan is important?
• How marketing and sales work together?
• How many marketing emails should you send?

Now that you are able to see these questions people are typing, in theory, you can easily rank for them as most of them have an SEO difficulty score of 20 or so out of a 100 (the higher the number the more competitive it is).

More importantly, though, you can create content around all of those phrases and sell people to your product or service.

For example, if you created an article on “why a marketing plan is important,” you can go into how you also can create a marketing plan. From there you can transition into describing your services on creating a marketing plan and how people can contact you if they want your help or expertise in creating one.

You can do something similar with the “how marketing and sales work together” article in which you can break down how to make each department work together. From there, you can either be an affiliate for software solutions that help merge the two departments like HubSpot or sell your own software if you offer one. You can even pitch your consulting services that help tie sales and marketing together.

And as for the “how many marketing emails should you send,” you can create content around that and have an affiliate link to popular email tools that have high deliverability and offer automation. Or you can promote your own email product.

Now imagine all of the extra keywords you can rank for by going after question-related keywords. What’s amazing about this is most of these keywords are competitive and they have extremely high search intent.

Can it get any better?

Speaking of search intent, I want you to click on the comparisons
tab.

You’ll see a list of ideas just like you did with the questions tab. But what I love doing here is typing in a competitor’s brand name here.

Let’s say I am offering an email marketing tool. I could type in “Mailchimp” and see what comparison ideas Ubersuggest comes up with.

Now for this example, I want you to imagine that you have an email company called Drip and Drip isn’t really mentioned in any of these keyword comparison ideas.

What’ll you want to do is create articles on all of the popular comparison terms like “Mailchimp vs Constant Contact” or “Mailchimp vs Convertkit” and within those articles break down the differences and also compare them with your own tool Drip.

Be honest when writing the comparisons. Show off which is the best solution using facts and data and break down how you are different and in what ways your own solution is better than the two solutions the reader is comparing.

This will bring awareness to your solution and you’ll find
that people will start purchasing it even though they were comparing two of
your competitors.

If you want a good example of how to create a neutral
comparison type of blog post, check out this article
comparing web hosts.

And if you want to take it one step further, you can click on the “prepositions” tab to find even more ideas.

Sticking with the Mailchimp example, you can see that people are curious about Shopify and WordPress integrations.

You can write articles related to integrations and also push your own product and break down how it differs from the others.

If you want to take it one level deeper, it will give you ideas on how to modify your business. For example, if I created an email marketing tool, I would create a Shopify, WordPress, Woocomerce, and Squarespace integration based on the ideas I got from the prepositions tab.

So how did I rank for 636,363 keywords?

I didn’t use all of the examples above on NeilPatel.com because I am not really trying to sell a product and I don’t have the time to write thousands of new blog posts.

But I did type in my domain name into Ubersuggest and then headed over to the top pages report.

From there I looked at the pages that are already ranking well on Google and clicked on the “view all” button to see the exact keywords each page ranks for.

As you can see from that page I rank for questions like “what
is affiliate marketing” as well as popular prepositions and comparisons.

How did I do this?

Well, that top pages report shows you keywords each of your pages already ranks for. So all you have to do is research each of those terms through Ubersuggest and find popular questions, prepositions, and comparisons.

Conclusion

The natural instinct for any SEO or marketer is to rank for
popular terms that have a lot of search traffic.

But there is an issue with that strategy. It takes a lot of time, it’s extremely competitive, and many of those search phrases don’t cause a ton of conversions as they are super generic.

So, what should you do instead?

Focus on solving people’s problems. The way you do this is by creating content around the questions, prepositions, and comparisons people are searching for in Google.

What do you think about the new Ubersuggest feature?

The post How I Ranked For 636,363 Keywords Using This Simple Hack appeared first on Neil Patel.

source https://thebtrade.com/2019/09/24/how-i-ranked-for-636363-keywords-using-this-simple-hack/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-i-ranked-for-636363-keywords-using-this-simple-hack

How to Survive and Thrive in a Clickless World

Recent data has revealed that less than 50% of Google searches result in a click.

That means over half of Google’s search engine results lead to no clicks through to websites or properties that aren’t owned by Google.

This data was attained via Clickstream and first analysed by SparkToro.  

Why are fewer people clicking from the SERPs?

This Google organic search trend milestone has been caused by a number of factors:

• An increase in search engine results page (SERP) features that pull information from external websites directly into Google’s search results. E.g. featured snippets and People Also Ask boxes.
• Google related properties and features appearing for an increasing number of verticals (Google Flights, Google Maps, YouTube etc.)
• Ongoing changes to the SERP design, directing more traffic towards paid advertisements

How does this impact my website?

Fewer searches resulting in clicks could mean fewer website visits. This could lead to a decrease in organic traffic, despite an increase in organic visibility or ranking position.

Measuring the performance of a site will be impacted, as traffic and conversions have traditionally relied on users moving from the SERPS to a site.

The extent to which this impacts traffic and conversion is highly dependent on vertical, however, as Google continues to expand its reach, there are lessons that can be learnt for SEO strategy moving forward.

What can we do about this?

With fewer clicks available than before, the organic landscape is more competitive than ever. But organic search still represents a significant opportunity. There are several things that can be done to make sure a website not only survives, but thrives in this new search environment:

1. Optimise for Google’s SERP features

While some search results may lead to no clicks, being present in the SERP can have other benefits, like brand visibility and keeping your website at the forefront of a searcher’s mind. Crucially, optimising a site for Google features also means that competitors are not taking advantage of the same opportunities.

When investigating which SERP features to target, it’s important to prioritise. A site may choose to focus only on keywords that have a high click through rate (CTR), or may go after increasing visibility rather than clicks; optimising for features even if it results in a reduced CTR from that SERP. Be aware of the landscape and make informed decisions.

2. Optimise content for Google-owned properties

Making sure a website is in a position to capitalise on traffic from Google-owned properties will help a brand stay visible, even if organic clicks are reduced. For example, a travel company may want to ensure they’re included in Google Flights. And websites with a physical location will want to be optimised for Google’s Local Pack.

3. Optimise for search journeys

Searches rarely occur in silos; so even if one search results in no clicks, a future search may drive a visit. Ensuring that a website is set up to answer a user’s need at every stage of the search journey will give it the best chance of driving qualified leads.

It’s not enough to just offer a product as the organic search environment gets increasingly competitive and dominated by Google itself.

4. Continue to build content that places users at the centre of a website experience

Organic search is often a significant part of any marketing campaign; however, SEO is not a silver bullet. Building a product and an experience that customers love is crucial to keep people coming back.

It’s worth noting that Google is currently being investigated by the US Department of Justice over antitrust claims relating to its search results. While we would never recommend relying on external factors like this, it’s worth noting that discussions are ongoing.

Should we target other search engines if Google results are resulting in fewer clicks?

Many SEO campaigns focus attention primarily on optimising for Google.

Despite Google offering fewer clicks from its search results than ever before, it’s still the largest search engine by a significant margin. This means that small gains in Google are equivalent to large increases in smaller search engines.

Google is at the forefront of search engine technology, with other search engines often playing catch-up. Optimising for Google will future-proof a website.

 

This article was written by Dan Cartland from The Drum and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.

The post How to Survive and Thrive in a Clickless World appeared first on Insights.

source https://thebtrade.com/2019/09/24/how-to-survive-and-thrive-in-a-clickless-world/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-to-survive-and-thrive-in-a-clickless-world

I Started a New Job and Had the Best First Day

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on Medium.com. It is authored by one of our talented, new employees.

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I’m proud of the work I’ve done in advocating and normalizing my gender identity at work. I’ve lived my truth in the most public of ways, including at customer workshops, sales pitches, conferences, and speaking engagements. I’ve cultivated a network of colleagues, customers, leaders, and friends that I’m deeply proud of. The grueling, exhausting dual role of my day job and gender identity 101 educator has led me to the best first day.

I was terrified to find a new job. My company was in the midst of an acquisition. I was being congratulated left and right, and yet I knew I couldn’t stay.

I wanted to find something different, but I felt paralyzed. As a transmasculine non-binary human, I knew that any job transition was going to require tremendous emotional labor and vulnerability to not only constantly come out in interviews, but to also advocate for the role, company, and culture I know I need to be successful.

I’m now 21 days on the other side of that paralyzing fear, and I feel energized and grateful. I’m in a senior leadership role, working with a talented and motivated team on trailblazing work that allows me to be…me.

I had a good hunch that I could be both myself and be respected when I came into the office for my final interview. Without even having to ask, my correct pronouns were used and I was offered a gender-neutral restroom. These small gestures had me cautiously hopeful that I was landing in an affirming and safe work environment.

As I was filling out the requisite first-day paperwork, I had my first “best day” moment. There, on the first page of my benefits enrollment paperwork, I saw it. Casually placed after “Male” and “Female,” I was able to effortlessly and easily select my gender as “Non-binary.” This is a big deal. It’s the first time I’ve been able to accurately indicate my gender marker on employment paperwork, and I didn’t even have to ask for it. This is the first new beginning where I didn’t carry the emotional burden of owning my presence in a professional dynamic.

I’ve had my pronouns on my LinkedIn profile and in my email signatures for years, but it felt like no one noticed or cared. I was often misgendered in workshops, emails and/or meetings, with my own senior leadership team members, as well as customers and colleagues. But this company is different. I’ve never explicitly shared my pronouns with anyone here … they simply did their research and are leaning on the company values to facilitate a positive and inspiring culture (for everyone).

I feel so cared for and seen by my leadership team and colleagues because I don’t have to do the work alone. The entire experience has been new and different, and it’s offered me a valuable opportunity to reflect on how I’ve gotten to this point in my life.

It’s liberating and powerful to finally feel seen. I feel more connected, valued and inspired. I’m experiencing the long-tail effects of my many years of work, and all I can think about is this Ayesha Siddiqi quote, “Be the person you needed when you were younger.” Starting this new job with such ease and kindness ignites even more passion for gender identity activism.

You don’t have to be in a leadership position or fill a People Ops role in order to create a best first day like mine. Start with fostering an environment of inclusion and communication through modeling (like adding your pronouns to your email signature or LinkedIn Profile), ask your People Ops team to make gender identity resources widely accessible, support professional development that nurtures diversity and inclusion, consider adding more inclusive messaging on your website and/or job postings, and make sure your office signage welcomes everyone.

 

Carter Stepanovsky is the VP of Platform Strategy at NewsCred.

The post I Started a New Job and Had the Best First Day appeared first on Insights.

source https://thebtrade.com/2019/09/20/i-started-a-new-job-and-had-the-best-first-day/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=i-started-a-new-job-and-had-the-best-first-day

How Should Brands Measure Success On Instagram If ‘Likes’ Are No Longer Relevant?

You have probably heard the news. In July, Instagram announced their test of hiding “likes” on posts just expanded to more markets around the globe, including Australia. Instagram says the reason for the new feature is to have users concentrate on their posts and interacting with the app, rather than likes.

However, the big question is, how will this affect a business that is purely built on social media marketing and relies on social proof? Our first thought – a massive change for the business.

Likes are one of the most recognizable elements of social proof, and a core element to engagement metrics of a brands’ social platforms. If not engagement, what social metric will drive business results at top? Nonetheless – the new era is here, and we believe it will be defined by personalized content. 

More than just a like

At first, social media was a new way people used to connect. Over time, people started to rely on social media platforms more and more. As a result, business owners started to take advantage of the data to understand a specific audience to create strategies to market their products on social media. Today, social media has become one of the most important aspects of digital marketing.

When you think about successful social media content, you are probably already thinking of the generic metrics like the number of likes you get. The number of likes a post receives helps brands to determine how engaged their followers are, what works and what doesn’t.

Yes, the number of double-taps can be considered as an acknowledgement. However, today’s social media users want to interact with brands on a more personalized level, which includes much more than just a like.

Opportunity from customers

For us, the biggest marketing channel has always been social media. When we first started out, we saw the opportunity from customers, and how we could connect with them immediately through social media. Ever since then, we have been constantly engaging with and listening to our customers on social media to create content they love and want to share. By engaging with our customers, we saw what was working through views, likes and audience reach.

Now that Instagram has launched their newest prototype, brands need to think differently to stand out and position themselves in the ever-changing competitive environment. This is where personalized content comes into play. In the digital marketing space, personalization is critical when it comes to capturing the attention of your audience.

Today, consumers want to interact with brands on a more personal level and be treated as individuals. Content that is meaningful for your audience can help build social engagement, which can result in customers becoming brand advocates.

A community on social

We believe we have cracked the code to set ourselves from other retailers. At Supernova, we give back power to the creators by allowing them to work directly with their customers; with the help of our community on Instagram as the deciding voice.

A community is where the sharing, influencing and passing on information starts. By creating social communities, we can talk with our audience to ensure that they stay engaged and trusts our brand.

However, identifying and developing a community on social media start with creating personalized content. As retailers, we have seen that consumers are growing increasingly accustomed to personalized content. This means that it is more important than ever for brands to provide personalized content.

At Supernova, we see opportunities in the whole movement of social media influencers. Brands are lining up to be associated with popular social media accounts, and this high demand has created a whole industry of its own. Influencers are people who have a passion and aren’t afraid to tell the world about it, and they are becoming more and more sophisticated.

Their strength is in creating content, and the better content they can create, the more working together with a brand makes sense because they can create something consumers would like to engage with. We like how everything on the Internet is customisable and delivers the content our customers are interested in.

Now, as the new era on Instagram has arrived, brands and influencers need to work even harder to deliver stronger content.

In a world without “likes”, influencers would be pushed to create not only better content, but more diverse types of content such as videos and Instagram “stories”. We believe this change can result in a stronger engagement between influencers and their followers, as it could cause more reading of captions and more thoughtful content, in addition to the photos.

Get to know your audience

Social media personalization isn’t only about your content, but also the way you communicate with your audience. Supernova’s business model is proof that success comes when it is based on collaboration with your customers. To truly make our audience feel connected to our brand, we have to directly communicate with them to find out what their needs are.

What type of content do they want to see? How do they feel connected to our brand? In return, we know if we’ve hit the nail on the head, and will move forward, acknowledging and taking on all the feedback. We are also using social media to test brand and product names, as well as price.

The result – all our brand names have been chosen by our customers. Sand & Sky, for example, was originally called Rose Beach, but we couldn’t get the URL, so our customers voted for the second choice, Sand & Sky. Instagram’s new era means we as brands maker, will have to invest more time, money and effort to get to know their audience on a deeper personal level, to further create content that grabs their attention. Furthermore, pair that with the right strategy to reach the right audience; that’s what will earn brands the best return on their social investment.

Having no likes will force the businesses to measure what actually matters: value, relevance and impact. This will most likely force brands to take time to build a community and not just fans.

Emily Hamilton and Sarah Hamilton are the co-founder and managing director at Supernova, respectively.

 

This article was written by Sarah Hamilton and Emily from The Drum and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.

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