Tag: social media

Adding Video Content to Your Social Media Strategy

Adding Video Content to Your Social Media Strategy

The impact of social media has altered all kinds of industries.

The value of having a presence online has never been greater. Word-of-mouth marketing that once occurred in small social circles or at the office now takes place online?—?a much larger platform for communication. That value is steadily increasing as time goes on. Now more than ever, brands are able to reach larger audiences with recommendations, partnerships, and ambassadors on social media.

The projected figure for social media users this year will land somewhere around 2.62 billion. Social media now attracts users of all ages. Unfortunately, some brands still underestimate the power of social media. Even though brands may have opted out of creating an online presence due to their demographic in the past, now even once a large following has been established, some accounts may not take full advantage of the potential they have.

What do users like?

Different types of content are gaining traction online, including video content and live streaming. While these may seem new, foreign, and maybe even intimidating to certain brands, it is hard to ignore that this is the content users are beginning to prefer. In fact, according to Cisco, online videos will make up more than 80% of all consumer internet traffic (85% in the US) by 2020. Understanding how to engage an audience with video content and live streaming is vital to increase and properly utilize a company’s online presence. Fortunately, these types of content are also excellent for driving site traffic.

How can companies utilize video on social media?

In order to increase engagement and clicks, create an introduction video or demo a new product. Companies can record and package a short and sweet video or conduct a live stream to engage social media users in a live conversation with brand experts, developers, or ambassadors. Another great piece of content to create for your social media platforms are how-to videos. These can be formatted in jump-cut style steps and are great for highlighting how a product can be used in creative ways. You may recall on your personal social media feed viewing some very satisfying cooking how-to videos. They are always very brief and cleanly executed (for some great examples, take a peek at Tasty Presents). This is the type of content that users are beginning to prefer.

Event coverage is also a great way to grow your brand reputation online. Again, this can be through an edited piece of footage, or through a live stream. Live streams are great for events because they allow users who could not attend to feel like they get to be a part of the experience. They also allow your customers to ask questions on the spot which can create greater company transparency and customer loyalty.

Create, learn and start again.

As with any online activity that a company may conduct, it is important to gather data garnered from video content or live streaming. How many views did your content receive? How many users watched the entire piece of content or stream? How many users dropped off after a certain point? How many users asked questions, left comments, or shared your content? How did your company’s site traffic change once the content was released? How did site traffic and online content impact sales?

Although video content requires a certain level of planning, production, and execution that may surpass what your brand has accomplished in the past with simply photo content alone?—?it is undeniable the potential benefits that video content can have. In order to fully reap the benefits of digital video content creation, data must be recorded and analyzed.

Business Insider reported on a finding by Zenith, predicting that global online video consumption will grow by an average of nine minutes per day each year until 2020. These findings support the idea that the digital video audience is becoming more engaged?—?something all companies with an online presence, seeking to increase site traffic, engagement, and sales, should be aware of.

Article Produced By

Megan Gonzales

Revenue-generating, brand-building marketer. PNW explorer. Yogi. Animal enthusiast. Marketing Manager.

https://medium.com/@megangonzales/adding-video-content-to-your-social-media-strategy-70263056c712

 

David

What is the best ratio of Original Content to Shared Content on Social Media?

photo-1466721591366-2d5fba72006d

How can you outrun your competition on Social Media Networks?

Post sponsored by Markethive – The Entrepreneur's Social Network

How much do you share on Social Media?  I am of the firm belief that you should share more than you create original content on Social Networks. Why do I think that this is a correct strategy?  If the purpose of social networks is to engage your audience and gain likes, shares and follows, the indicators of engagement, then both methods of sharing and original content creation should definitely be used. The reasons for this are two-fold.

  1. No one is, or can be an expert in everything. Every marketer has their own area(s) of expertise.  No matter how much experience and knowledge you think you may have accumulated, there will probably always be someone more knowledgeable than you are.  This is just a fact of life.  It is important to acknowledge those "experts" and your blog will gain additional legitimacy and authority from their informed point of view.
  2. There is never one and one only solution to marketing and promotion problems. If there were a single solution that worked for everyone all the time, every company would be doing the same thing and gaining similar results.  Marketing problems usually take a multi-faceted solution and gain from a multi-pronged strategy.  This takes a diversity of viewpoints that merge into a cohesive solution

If there is a diversity of viewpoints and recommendations, on your social media networks, this can greatly benefit your readers and help them to consider the widest possible array of solutions to their particular problems.  It is naive to think that a single magic bullet will solve all of your marketing problems, so an openness to creative problem solving is very helpful in the process.

It is also impossible to provide a simple ratio of shared content to original content that will work for everyone. It depends on the goals of your social media marketing campaign as well as your particular niche.  I see far too many companies that have much too much original content relative to sharing on the social networks.  

In most cases, the goals of their campaigns would be better served by reversing the ratio of original content creation and shared content. If your current ratio of shared content is currently 70% original content and 30% shared, I would turn that ratio upside down, and try 70% shared content and 30% original content.  

Not only will it likely be more effective, it could also result in significant savings of time and money. It takes only a fraction of the amount of time to find effective content to share as it does to create original content. Shared content also is something that could possibly be automated.  Where possible, this could results in very substantial savings of time and money.   

It is difficult if not nearly impossible to automate original content creation. Most attempts to generate content automatically are at risk for Google penalties. Techniques such as content spinning and other creation manipulation methods should be avoided at all cost, and should be considered "black hat", Google unapproved methods.

Content sharing, or content syndication as it is sometimes called, is an approved method on social networks, and can reduce savings of time and money anywhere from 50-90%. This is a strategy that is long overdue at most companies using social networking in their marketing and promotion methods.

Here is a list of 30 of the most popular blogs on entrepreneurship that offer a rich cornucopia of posts and recent news on entrepreneurship.  They are listed in order of highest traffic to lowest traffic.  (lowest Alexa ranking – lower Alexa ranking number means more traffic)

 

Post sponsored by Markethive – The Entrepreneur's Social Network

 

http://entrepreneur.com/  – a daily source of entrepreneur articles and news.  Alexa 1,510
 
 
 
 
http://tech.co/   Alexa 27,280
 
 
 
 
 
 
http://blog.rebel.com/  Alexa 109,411
 
 
 
 
http://yfsmagazine.com/  Alexa 147,771
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
https://yec.co/  Alexa 341,817
 
 
https://pjrvs.com/  Alexa 346,862
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
http://epodcastnetwork.com/  Alexa 1,064,851
 
 
 
 

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David

Instagram Expands To Over 500 Mil-Can it save Facebook?

Why is this happening? Reason: Most people on the go are highly visual and don't tend to read much anymore. "A Picture Says A Thousand Words" as the old saying goes, so maybe there is something to keeping it short and sweet and visual. 

"Facebook has spread its tentacles into the messaging boom after building the world's most popular social network, buying Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock in 2012. Facebook also owns two other of the world's most popular apps: WhatsApp, which it bought for billions and has 1 billion users, and its homegrown app, Facebook Messenger, which hit 900 million users in April.

"Facebook itself captures enormous amounts of people’s attention on their mobile devices, and that’s hugely powerful. But there will always be alternatives either in broad use or in use by demographic or geographic segments," said Jan Dawson, chief analyst with Jackdaw Research.

EMarketer forecast for Instagram mobile adverting revenue.

EMarketer forecast for Instagram mobile adverting revenue. (Photo: EMarketer)

Instagram, for example, is popular with teens.

"Facebook has arguably been deploying the candy bar strategy — own as many of the brands on the shelf as possible to maximize your market share," Dawson said.

The exception: Snapchat, the mobile app popular with young people which Facebook tried to buy twice.

"It remains to be seen how important that miss will be, but it’s already clear that it’s a really important competitor to Facebook for people’s time and attention, and for companies’ ad dollars," Dawson said.

SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst Robert Peck says Instagram's overall growth is impressive but the numbers suggest growth in the U.S. is slowing as competition from Snapchat escalates.

"We note that most, if not all, of the (monthly active user) growth is coming from international markets. In fact, we estimate the U.S. market likely grew in a range of 0 to 18% on an annualized basis in the most recent 9 month period," Peck wrote in a research report on Tuesday.

Instagram targets small business ad revenue

The jump in Instagram users — and their advertising-pleasing demographics — has helped Facebook bill Instagram as a buy for marketers looking to increase awareness and spur sales. Evidence of its early commercial promise: Instagram already has more than 200,000 advertisers. Analysts say Instagram's nascent advertising business is growing rapidly.

Research firm eMarketer expects Instagram's global mobile ad revenue to reach $1.53 billion this year and more than $5 billion by 2018. Analysts say Instagram's contributions are already being felt in Facebook financial results even though the giant social network does not break those out.

"What is certain is that Instagram has been a big factor in Facebook’s recent repeated blowing out of its financial results, and its impressive rate of revenue growth in particular," Dawson said."

Can Instagram save Facebook? With Facebook trending down and Instagram trending up maybe it will pick up the loss of Facebook. Pretty smart move Facebook! 

Thanks for reading,

David Ogden

PS: David Ogden is a Alpha Founder with Markethive and manages several blogs on the hive. David is a professional Network Marketer. He can be reached through Markethive.

David

What are all those connections on LinkedIn for anyway?

A segment of a social network  

A segment of a social network (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption]

The number of your LinkedIn connections is a critical factor in your long-term marketing success on this unique social network. If you connect with someone that has 10k 1st level connections on LinkedIn. That person's 10K 1st level connections automatically become your second level connections. their 2nd level, automatically become your 3rd.

The larger your network, the larger your reach of potential prospects.  Or, to put it another way, large networks command a larger sphere of influence.  With large networks it is apparent that you cannot know everyone in your network personally, but the advantage in my opinion outweighs the benefit of a smaller network of known associates.

As your network grows it will be more attractive for others to connect to you in order to widen their sphere of influence. For example, it is clear that a certain point, you will have to make less effort to find connections.  (It has been reported that this usually happens on LinkedIn when 3,000 or more 1st level connections have been made).

3,000 connections may seem like a big number if you rely only on friends and associates.  If you could add 30 connections per day, however, then it would take you only about three months to accomplish.  Not bad, right?

The larger your network, the more invitations will come to you, instead of having to reach out for every one of your connections. It is healthy for the growth of your network to have a mix of incoming and outgoing connection requests.  If you only send out connection requests and never receive any incoming requests, it may look unbalanced to LinkedIn. You might want to check your profile to see if there is anything that would prevent someone from connecting to you, if you notice this happening.  

Every time you post on Pulse inside of LinkedIn, your post automatically goes out to all of your first level connections.  If you have 10k connections, you have the chance for your content to be seen by over 10,000 people!  You will likely get many more views, likes, and comments with a larger network receiving your posts. LinkedIn is much more likely to promote your content on Pulse, with a greater number of views.  

If LinkedIn does promote your post, it could potentially be seen by tens of thousands of people.  It is not an easy task to get a blog post to command that kind of attention on a typical hosted WordPress blog. It takes quite a bit of time and effort.

One caution here. You will inevitably get more spammy type messages in your inbox. How long does it take to click delete?  If anyone becomes annoying and sends you repeated messages, you always have the option to remove them from your network. In my opinion the rewards far outweigh the risks, so I am busy building a large network on LinkedIn.  See the following links to find out more about the best ways to do this.

MarketHive – Social Network for Entrepreneurs

Goldfinch Digital Marketing – one-stop shopping for all your local marketing needs

Goldfinch Digital Publishing – marketing blog

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David