How to Get Ahead of This Year's Social Media Trends

As mid-year approaches, you may be looking back at your social media plans and goals for the year and realizing they need attention. What was set in motion less than six months ago now causes us to pause. In this ever-evolving industry, key social media networks consistently pivot, refresh, or introduce new features that require social media marketers to change their strategy on the fly. So far in 2016, we've already seen the following moves:

• Facebook launched Reactions and Facebook Live video to all users, and doubled down on Messenger.


• Instagram expanded video lengths to four times their previous length and implemented an algorithmic news feed to show top content first.


• Twitter changed their Home feed, introduced GIF search, and just announced updates to the 140 character limit.


• Snapchat rolled out Chat 2.0 and opened up geofilters.

In a recent webinar with Mention, I addressed the interruption of platform changes and identified four digital trends for marketers to get out in front of now. (Watch the replay here.) These aren't the only changes happening in the ever-evolving social media industry, but if you need help choosing how to position your brand and your content for success, it's a good place to start.

Think of Social Channels as Content Hubs

Imagine if you were to be invited to a friend's house for dinner. Upon your arrival, you immediately tell your host that you have a casserole cooking in your oven, and they should come with you instead to your home, to eat your dinner and get the recipe too. That wouldn't go over well, neither with your host nor the other guests. The more you do this, the fewer invitations you're likely to receive.

So why do brands insist on treating their audience in social media the same way? Too many brands (and people!) think of social media as a way to redirect the audience back to their own website, instead of joining them in that channel. To be a good guest, begin creating content that fits organically within the social media channel. Use each social channel's unique characteristics to inspire creativity, rather than perceive them as limitations. Create content that adds value, not noise.

While fresh content should live on your domain for SEO and conversion purposes, recognize that sending users to your website is not always necessary. Join the party-don't always insist on being the host.

Make Content That Moves, Sings, and Smiles

Content comes in many forms. Even so, there are three specific keys for producing content that gets noticed and earns engagement.

Move

Video is here to stay. Horizontal or vertical. Long form or quick hits. Consumed live on a mobile device or in a virtual reality environment. Audiences vote with their time, and they're increasingly spending time watching video online. In fact, Cisco predicts mobile video will make up the three-fourths of all the world's internet traffic by 2020. (highlight to tweet) Your content strategy should include video in all forms, with the intent of allowing your audiences to consume it natively in whatever channel they interact with your brand.

Sing

Audio is underutilized as a medium for marketers, even though audiences increasingly consume audio content. The same number of people listen to podcasts today as use Twitter. Get started by seeking out opportunities to join podcasts as an interview guest or co-host. When you are ready to launch a podcast, this guide can point the way. If music is more natural for you or your brand, follow the example of Hamburger Helper, and leverage music streaming services as a key community to participate with.

Smile

Don't limit your emoji to text messages. Those ever-lovable pictographs are increasingly part of everyday communication, so much so that the “face with tears of joy” emoji was named the 2015 Word of the Year by Oxford Dictionary. Whether in display advertising or email subject lines, brands are getting comfortable using emoji in marketing messages. Twitter has jumped in with custom Twitter Emoji for historical moments, sports and entertainment events, and elections (and has made them for sale too). If none of the 1,281 characters in Unicode 8.0 fit your needs, than go the way of IKEA and Kim Kardashian, who have both released their own custom emoji keyboards.

Targeted Reach Trumps Mass Reach

Facebook is commonly blamed as the primary culprit for declining organic reach, but the truth is that each of the primary social networks have moved to an algorithmic feed in an attempt to serve up the most relevant content to each individual user. Rumors are that Snapchat will soon follow suit within their Stories and Discovery modules. Now that total followers is a vanity metric and not an indication of views or engagement, what options are left to ensure content reaches the masses?

Social marketers can respond by honing in on intended audiences through organic and paid targeting options. It's time to include “audience“ in the content planning process, alongside intended channel, post type, and time/date to publish. With your paid social budgets, take advantage of the retargeting functionality offered by Facebook and Twitter advertising platforms to continue to reach an audience who has already indicated their interest by visiting your website or downloading gated content. Create unique content specifically for these audiences who are already midway down your marketing funnel.

Consumers Trust People, Not Brands

Who your audience trusts has changed. It's extremely important to understand the role of influence and who truly wields power of influence over your audience. Most likely, your brand and your CEO, or even a paid celebrity spokesperson, are not trusted to the degree of a “person like yourself.” Influencers can help bridge that trust gap with your social audience. Strong influencer campaigns can result in changing perceptions and reaching new audiences.

Working with influencers can be daunting at first. Be prepared to give up control of the message and medium, but do so with trust in the influencers you hire. Outline your own expectations and goals before launching a campaign, but also be sure to understand what outcomes the influencer expects. Offer access to restricted or one-of-a kind experiences, but don't forget that for many influencers, their online brand is a financial venture. Be prepared to compensate them fairly for their time and effort. An influencer's priority is to their audience first, and keeping their message authentic is the key to their (and ultimately your) success.

Get Ahead of the Trends for Success in Social Media Marketing from Lauren Teague

There is no crystal ball in our industry-no way to guarantee the plans we put forth today will result in the outcomes we predict. Every social marketer or community manager understands this nuance and (mostly) embraces it. By reading this post and watching the webinar replay, you've already set yourself apart by staying one step ahead of the masses.

Get more content like this, plus the very BEST marketing education, totally free. Get our Definitive email newsletter.

       

How to Get Ahead of This Year's Social Media Trends

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Storytelling at Face Value: Visual Stories at Work

The “Next Generation” of Visual Story

Doug Drexler is the first Academy, Oscar, and Emmy Award Winning story artist to join us on the Business of Story Podcast.

As a master visual storyteller and one of the FX and makeup geniuses behind operations such as “Dick Tracy,” “Battlestar Galactica,” and ”Star Trek: The Next Generation,” Doug knows his way around the storytelling realm of Hollywood.

Today we tap into his keen visual expertise to better understand the elusive ability to influence clients and customers by crafting game changing visual stories.

Maximize your visual presentations by understanding the psychology behind visual storytelling, the tools at your disposal, and how to use your innated visual storytelling powers for good.

In This Episode

• The squint test for story visuals


• How to gain utter confidence in front of an audience


• The difference between seeing and looking


• How to tap back into your innately creative storytelling powers

 

Quotes From This Episode

“Know how to get information across and keep it charming or funny or make people see it in a way that relates to their everyday life. That's the trick. It's learning how to ring those psychological bells that make Pavlov's dogs salivate.” -Doug Drexler

“Wear your story on your face, or wear the story in your graphics or your PowerPoint. Monitor your graphics. Make sure they give data but can still be understood. Show respect, but get the information across immediately.” -Doug Drexler

“There's a difference between seeing and looking. Everything just breezes by you when you're just looking. But actually seeing it, that's a whole different thing and it takes some learning.” -Doug Drexler

“When you're communicating in a business meeting, yes, you want to get the facts across, but at the same time, you want to manipulate the feelings that the people who were watching are having-a feeling of dread or a feeling of warm-and-fuzzy, that's for you to figure out.” -Doug Drexler

“When you're painting a face you're pushing it larger than life. It's a little bit operatic. You bring out the bone structure, and in different ways you can make them more sympathetic, you can make them scarier, you can make them look unwell. So you're telling a story about someone through their face.” -Doug Drexler

 

Resources

• “C.H.U.D.“


• “Manhunter“


• “The Cotton Club“


• “Three Men and a Little Lady“


• “The Making of Star Trek,” by Stephen E. Whitfield


• “Battlestar Galactica“


• “Dick Tracy“


• “Star Trek: The Next Generation“


• Moving Forward Podcast with John Lim


• Dick Smith, makeup artist


• “The Naked City”


• Mike Westmore, makeup artist


• Warren Beatty, director


• Jack Palance in “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde“


• Doug Murray


• BusinessofStory.com


• Park@BusinessOfStory.com

 

       

Storytelling at Face Value: Visual Stories at Work

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6 Simple Tricks To Make More Money From Your Blog

Are you getting traffic to your blog, but still struggling to make a good income?

Blogging is a great career option but only if you do it the right way. Of course, everything starts with providing great content to your readers and steadily growing your traffic. Once you have decent traffic to your blog and a loyal audience, it's time to focus on the revenue.

You may have heard a lot of people say that your blog revenue is directly proportional to the traffic coming in, but that's not really true. It's all about executing the money-making ideas in the right way.

So here are six marketing tips to make more money from your blog:

1. Place your ads better

Placing ads on your website is not enough, you have to place ads where your readers are more likely to click on them.

Before placing an advertisement, ask yourself why the readers are here and where exactly you should place the ads so that they don't hamper the user experience and yet, are starkly visible.

Here are a few ideas for ad placement for a better click-through-rate:

• Sidebar banner


• Above a blog post title


• Right below the post title


• Between different sections of your post


• At the end of your post, above the author bio

But, of course, every website is different, and that is why I would recommend checking your website's heat map which could tell you where exactly your users tend to click more, and that is where you should place the majority of your ads.

I also recommend checking Google's ad placement policies at regular intervals so you can stay on top of any changes. Also, it's in Google's best interests to make sure the user experience isn't affected, so you won't have to worry about bothering your readers either if you follow their guidelines.

Here is an image that depicts the best places to put ads, the darker the orange the better the placement;

Image Source: Shout Me Loud

2. Go beyond AdSense

Yes, Google AdSense generates the most intuitive ads for your readers, since Google already knows what the readers have been searching and surfing. But, with a minimum payout threshold of $100 and a difficult approval process, it doesn't hurt to look at some other options as well.

Here a few ad platforms you should definitely consider (all of them work alongside AdSense):

Infolinks

With in-text and in-frame ads, Infolinks can monetize your blog in a completely different way. Getting approval on Infolinks is extremely easy and there is a minimum payout of $50 through PayPal.

BuySellAds

This is one of the premier ad platforms which gets you direct advertisements from clients and takes a 25% commission charge. With a minimum payout of $20, the only downside to BuySellAds is that it's not that easy to get approved.

Viglink

What Viglink does is, it monetizes your outbound links. It turns your ordinary links into affiliate links, so when a reader clicks on your link and buys something, you get a commission through it. This brings the power of affiliate marketing to natural link building.

3. Explore native languages

With so many languages in the world, why should you only focus on English? Google AdSense now supports over 35 languages, and this gives you no reason to ignore native languages.

While English might be one of the most popular languages on the internet, there is an array of readers looking for blogs in their regional languages and you can be the first few to exploit that market.

I launched my blog's Hindi version, ShoutMeHindi, back in June 2015 and I've been getting great feedback ever since.

You don't need to make it exclusively in your local language – you can mix and match English terms, as people tend to be familiar with the digital marketing terminology in English.

4. Collaborate with brands for sponsored posts and reviews

This is the quickest way to earn some good cash, but at the same time, you have to be very cautious about it.

Sponsored posts are where you talk about a product in general, or you try to incorporate something associated with the product naturally into your content. Sponsored reviews are when the company pays you to write reviews about their products.

Sponsored posts should only be done when you can talk about products or brands that your readers would be interested in. I don't need to tell you that when you attempt blatant advertising, readers' trust evaporates.

Now, sponsored reviews are a very sensitive ground. You might be getting paid by the company, but you don't have to completely sell the product. It's important to be unbiased and write your honest thoughts about the products.

Test the product extensively, and then list down all the pros and cons. Be sure to let the company know beforehand that you would be writing an honest review.

To connect with brands, you can create a media kit explaining what advertisers can expect from sponsored posts and reviews and how much you would be charging them.

Suggested networks;

• Famebit (Popular among Youtubers but not limited to it)


• Tapinfluence


• Fango.me


• Blogmint (Popular brand to get sponsored posts for blogs & social media channels.)

5. Implement affiliate programs

Affiliate marketing, in a nutshell, is where you refer your readers a product and when they buy it through your recommendation, you get a commission out of it.

Our very own Jeff described affiliate marketing as one of the top ways to make money by blogging in 2016. Every affiliate program has a different commission rate and minimum payout. But the reason why it's so popular among bloggers is because you only have to set it up once and you can get paid from all your posts, whether they are old or new.

Even the traffic doesn't matter so much, because it all depends upon the readers buying products through your recommendation.

There are many different kinds of affiliate programs available, and you can select the ones that relate the most to your blog niche.

6. Write an impressive Ebook

One of the best ways to get revenue from your blog is by developing premium content for your readers. Creating ebooks are cheap, and they also make you a niche expert, which can drive in more business later.

You can also build up your subscriber list with an ebook by providing the book – or the first few chapters, depending on your inclination and the worth of the information – free of charge for every subscriber.

But, there is a burning question plaguing every blogger who creates an ebook – should you sell it on your blog or Amazon?

Well, the answer is not as simple as you would want it to be. To make the right decision, you should definitely check out this post by Jeff.

Your turn

Now that you have some amazing tips for how to make more money from your blog, it's your turn to implement them. Remember that what might not work for some, might work for you. You need to be patient, monitor your analytics and keep a track of all the revenue being generated by every method.

What are the techniques you currently use to increase blog revenue? Please share in the comments.

Guest Author: Harsh Agrawal, a blog scientist and CEO of ShoutDreams Media, started blogging in 2008 and since then has written numerous posts on Blogging, SEO, Social media, Technology, Affiliate Marketing and more. He has also partnered with various international companies, helping them promote their online businesses. His blog ShoutMeLoud has more than 832K subscribers and receives 1 million Pageviews per month.

The post 6 Simple Tricks To Make More Money From Your Blog appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

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New Twitter Update Coming Soon: How Marketers Will be Able to Maximize All 140 Characters

What was once a rumor that Twitter would update its 140 character count guidelines is now official in the social media sphere:

In the coming months, we're introducing new ways for you to express even more with a Tweet: https://t.co/l1sWRvXWqr http://pic.twitter.com/zzhWpRcABs

- Twitter (@twitter) May 24, 2016

Twitter announced Tuesday morning that within the next few months, usernames, quoted tweets, photos, and other media attachments will no longer count against the tweet's 140-character limit.

Twitter co-founder and chief executive Jack Dorsey told the BBC that “It doesn't make sense to anyone. People have had to work around it. That just looks ugly, and it's confusing.”

This big, new Twitter update will surely change the way people use Twitter personally and how social media marketers use Twitter for business.

Now that it's imminent, let's jump into what the newest Twitter update will mean moving forward and how marketers can maximize those 140 characters for your business or brand.

We've come a long way over the past 10 years! What began as a simple 140-character text message has evolved into a medium that allows people and businesses to express themselves with everything from photos and videos to polls to animated GIFs.

just setting up my twttr

- Jack (@jack) March 21, 2006

So what exactly will be featured in this newest Twitter update?

Media Attachments in Tweets

How many times have you written what feels like the perfect Twitter update and the second you add the obligatory animated gif of a puppy doing adorable puppy things, the character count falls to -1? If you're anything like me, it happens nearly every single time.

Twitter's recent announcement details that when your tweet includes attachments like photos, GIFs, videos, polls, or Quote Tweets, that media will no longer count as characters within your tweet!

Every single character in a tweet is super important, especially when you only have 140 characters to work with. Being able to add highly engaging media attachments in tweets without having to sacrifice any characters at all means that we'll soon be able to use the full 140 characters to craft the best updates that we possibly can, with more context than ever – this feels like a massive win for social media marketers everywhere!

@Replies on Twitter

When replying to a tweet, @names will no longer count toward the 140-character count. For now, we want to emphasize the word 'replying' here since we know that those will definitely be free characters. However, when it comes to the initial @name tweet, there are some conflicting reports on how Twitter will be counting those characters – most seem to believe that those will indeed count against your allotted 140 characters.

For marketers, this will make having conversations on Twitter so much easier, especially when replying to several people at once. It's not uncommon for a Twitter conversation to pick up so many usernames that it makes having an actual conversation nearly impossible (Hello, Twitter canoe!). This change in @replies will allow marketers to continue that conversation without sacrificing the quality of the tweet due to a rapidly shrinking character count.

Goodbye to .@replies

Twitter is aiming to simplify the rules around tweets that start with a username. Currently, if you want to broadcast a tweet to all of your followers that starts with a @username, beginning the message with a period is the common practice. Without the initial period, only people who follow both you and the person you're tweeting at will be able to see the message in their feed.

With this change, all new Tweets that begin with a username will now reach all of your followers. This means that you'll be able to drop that first period at the start of the tweet and have it reach all of your followers, despite it being directed at a single user. Bonus tip: you can use that extra character to add a happy face emoji to your tweet

The 7 Best Ways to Fight Banner Blindness

A few days ago I received a call from a friend of mine, a marketing manager at an e-commerce company.

It's a story I've heard all too often these days: He'd purchased banner ad space - unfortunately, the results didn't meet his expectations.

To say the least, he was very frustrated. He needed to get the word out about his company and their products. But the networks he was using weren't delivering.

Frankly, he didn't know what to do.

The problem he was facing is called banner blindness.

After our conversation ended, I thought to myself, is banner blindness killing the ad industry? And perhaps more importantly, what can we do to beat banner blindness?

After some thought… I felt compelled to share my thoughts with you.

The ad industry isn't going anywhere. On the contrary, it's more effective than ever thanks to online advertising. And in this blog post, I'm going to share with you how to beat banner blindness.

But first, what is it?

What is banner blindness?

Banner blindness happens when people ignore banner ads.

Think of yourself for a second. You probably saw a few banners today. Do you recall any of them or their offers?

Many studies have shown that online users ignore banner ads and the messages they contain. In fact, only 14% of consumers remember the last ad they saw and the company or product it promoted. Even with today's sophisticated targeting technology, relevance remains a key challenge – only 2.8% of online browsers think ads are relevant.

To sum up the research: Banner blindness especially affects savvy online users, who look for something specific on a website and ignore banner ads as unimportant. Over the years, people have become conditioned to ignore traditional banner ads and have stopped noticing them almost completely.

It's true, banner blindness exists and it's one of the advertising industry's biggest challenges.

Marketers and publishers need to take note and take the necessary steps to improve the ecosystem.

So how do you fight banner blindness?

Here are the 7 best ways to beat banner blindness, and increase your traffic and cash flow.

1. Check your ad placement

People disregard the routine, the usual, the cliché. And that's even more true when it comes to advertising.

So try to place your ads in unconventional places, including:

• Above the fold where it'll get more visibility. (This is at the top of the page)


• In the text or right after it. Most people start reading a page at the top and give it more attention.


• Within your blog - for example, between the posts in your blog.

Remember, your ad can be beautiful, interactive, surprising. To improve your click-through-rate (CTR), experiment as much as you can with elements that attract attention like social media buttons and video.

Pro Tip: Google Adwords allows you to test your ads performance. Also, try native advertising leader Infolinks – who conducted a banner blindness study and developed anti-banner blindness ads. For example, Infolinks' InFold ads appear in a unique, above-the-fold location.

Try Infolinks today

2. Use relevant content

As an advertiser, you should understand your audience's needs and be able to offer a relevant solution.

Avoid being irrelevant and ignored:

• Don't deliver ads without first identifying what your visitors want.


• Use relevant content, including the keywords that reflect the interests of your primary audience.


• Choose the right ad network so you're linking your audience to publishers who are relevant to your audience and your specific focus.


• Use cookies to create relevant personal ads – which will help your site identify people who've previously visited your site.

If you make sure your site offer ads that are targeted, useful, relevant and delightful, then your visitors will respond more positively.

Pro Tip: Amazon reports that contextual links within blog posts work best. Taboola and Outbrain are good platforms to test this out on.

3. Try non-standard sizes, colors, and ad formats

Seeing the same thing over and over again gets boring – and can decrease the performance of your ads.

• When creating ad space, choose non-traditional and memorable locations to improve user recall. Non-standard formats and designs will also help you avoid being overlooked.


• Create your banner as a part of the page, not as an outer ad.


• Use unusual colors and brand personality, extraordinary ideas, animated banner ads and even 3D design. In addition, applying motion effects could also be a method of increasing interaction.

Pro Tip: Make sure your banner ads have a compelling story and an emotional hook to get people's attention. Try Canva or Infolinks.

4. Optimize for mobile

Nowadays, in order to keep up with today's younger, smartphone audience; you need to have a mobile and social presence. When you do, consider:

• Using video for your mobile banner ads


• Activating your Facebook campaigns


• Including a 'Call Now' button in your ads

Note: A key benefit of online advertising is that you can easily track the effectiveness of your banner ads, including how many people are seeing it, how many people click on it, and much more.

Pro Tip: Make sure your site is mobile-friendly. You can test your site to see what you need to do to make your site look as good as possible on smaller screens. You'll be glad you did!

To make sure people can view your content on the small screen of a smartphone, it's especially important to decrease clutter by serving fewer ads. Publishers who reduce clutter on their pages will attract advertisers who will pay more for premium, uncluttered space.

5. Participate in affiliate programs

Affiliate programs allow you to partner with other companies who share the same audience. By showing your ads on an affiliated publisher's site, you can easily combat banner blindness.

Pro Tip: Infolinks' publisher referral program is one of the most beneficial programs in the industry today. It pays 10% out of the referred publishers' revenue during the first 12 months of your referral!

6. Follow your passion

To attract and keep an engaged audience, you'll want to publish content that people love. In my experience, the best way to do this is to create content about something you're passionate about. Whether it's nature, biking or technology – you can write blogs about it, share photos of it and build a strong community around it.

Find what you really love and transform your site by featuring that passion!

Pro tip: Many terrific blogs create a community of loyal followers by linking to other, related sites. Do you link your site to sites that you admire? Also, give your visitors relevant links within your blogs. For instance, the Infolinks' blog offers the best form of native advertising, giving your audience information that interests them – and you can make money, too!

Try Infolinks today

7. Experiment

Last – but definitely not least – if you're not getting the performance you want, experiment.

Consider each of the previous six recommendations – ad placement, relevant content, non-standard design elements, optimizing for mobile, affiliate programs and following your passion.

How can you transform the content you already have, including your site design and content calendar, to reinvigorate your visitors?

Pro tip: To re-energize your site and overcome banner blindness, consider experimenting with your site design.

If you're using WordPress, there are lots of custom templates you can choose from. When you do, see if you can come up with unexpected content like an interview, a gallery of photos from a trip, something totally different.

Remember, when you put your imagination to work, you can create amazing experiences for your followers.

A final word

What does it all add up to? More money for you!

Let's be honest: Banners are ads.

And they are a useful way for advertisers and publishers to spread the word about their site.

When ads are well thought out and provide the right information, they give your site visitors valuable information about products and services they may not be aware of.

To overcome banner blindness, create better ads. How? By concentrating on what your visitors are interested in. It's about their needs, not yours!

With the right ad network, placing compelling ads in the right locations will increase your traffic and your cash flow.

There are a lot of companies that can help you beat banner blindness. For many bloggers and site owners, you've probably tried many solutions. I've used them all too. Today, I'm here to highly recommend Infolinks. See why now

Plus, Infolinks is regularly introducing new features – including the recently announced AdShop. AdShop is a self-service advertising platform that allows you to advertise globally. Now, you can reach high-quality, targeted users with your ads, and only pay entry-level prices. Sign up to AdShop by Infolinks now

Do you have additional ways to beat banner blindness? Share your story below.

The post The 7 Best Ways to Fight Banner Blindness appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

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