Blogging Archives | Online Marketing Solutions for Business

Strictly Social Media Weekly Update – August 9, 2019

August 9, 2019

I hope you enjoy today’s Strictly Social Media Weekly Update. Be sure to read the post on alternatives to the “swipe-up” feature in Instagram stories. The alternatives are great! And in the last post, Buffer introduces a new feature to their application. It’s worth checking out.

I won’t publish a weekly roundup again until August 30th as I am taking some time off.

Content Marketing

10 Quick And Easy Ways To Overcome Writer’s Block (when trying to write a blog post) by Blogging Wizard: “Writer’s block is the complete lack of ability to put your thoughts on paper in any coherent way. When I started this article, I was grinding my teeth in annoyance because I couldn’t get going. And the more my annoyance grew, the harder it was to actually write. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle where the only way to beat it is to get out of the situation entirely.”

4 Ways to Catapult Your Content Calendar from Convince & Convert: “Is your content calendar simply a schedule of blog posts in a Google Sheet? If you want your content marketing to have a meaningful impact on your organization’s bottom line, it’s time to catapult your content calendar.”

Instagram

4 Simple Ways to Drive Traffic from Instagram Stories Without the ‘Swipe-Up’ Feature by Dhariana Lozano: “The coveted “Swipe Up” feature on Instagram Stories. Only accessible to those with 10,000 or more followers (or a verified profile), the option enables you to add a direct link back to your website, which your Stories viewers can then access by simply swiping up on your Stories frame.” Note: This post provides solutions if you have fewer than 10,000 followers.

Strictly Social Media

How to Create a Social Media Management Plan That Produces Results via Melonie Dodaro: “If you’re like many business owners, you’re currently using social media with no formal management plan in place. You’re most definitely not alone – most people have been winging it for years when it comes to using social media for business. But winging it has never been a good strategy. It’s simply not realistic to expect that random posting on social media will produce results, much less the results you want.”

Announcing Hashtag Manager: A New Tool to Help You Save and Organize Hashtags for Instagram from Buffer: “With Hashtag Manager Buffer Premium and Business customers will now be able to create and save groups of hashtags directly within the Buffer composer.”

Frances Caballo is an online marketing consultant and the author of six books on social media. Click here to schedule an appointment with her. Writing a book can serve as the best possible business card you can have. And it will establish your authority and expertise in your field. Connect with her on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.

Strictly Social Media Weekly Update – July 19, 2019

July 19, 2019

Here’s my newest edition of the Strictly Social Media Weekly Update. This week, we cover a lot of topics from Facebook advertising to email marketing to Instagram analytics. I hope you find tips that you can put to use right away. Enjoy!

Facebook Advertising

Creative Workarounds for Facebook Lookalike Audience Targeting from Social Media Today: “Lookalike targeting came up as an option many people loved to use, especially for B2B lead-gen.”

Email Marketing

How to Grow Your Email List from Convince & Convert: Growing your email list and getting your readers to opt-in is getting harder and harder these days. This post will show you how to grow your list.

How To Create A Lead Magnet That Converts Like Crazy from Adam Connell: Want to accelerate the growth of your email list? You’re going to need a lead magnet that converts. Discover the ingredients of a successful lead magnet in this post.

Strictly Social Media News

Facebook and Instagram Analytics: Grow Your Following with Insights from Buffer: Data is the fuel that powers a social media strategy. And understanding the data behind your social media performance can help you to make better decisions about your content.

Instagram Brand Engagement: The Latest Statistics: “One of the most popular recurring questions in digital marketing communities (such as our Analytics for Marketers Slack group) is whether X or Y platform’s engagement rates have changed. After nearly a decade of urging, brands have taken engagement to heart as the primary measure of success; what percentage of a company’s reachable audience has engagement with content?”

Instagram Story ads: Rules and best practices for impressive results from Sprout Social and by Jacqueline Zote: As an advertiser, you’d want to make sure that your Instagram Stories ads have the desired impact. This post provides examples of how to improve your story ads.

Strictly Social Media Weekly Update – July 12, 2019

July 12, 2019

Welcome back to another edition of the Strictly Social Media Weekly Update. I have a lot of posts for you today. Included below are posts on content marketing, Facebook, email marketing, and video marketing. I’m confident you’ll find tips that you can put to use as part of your social media marketing strategy. Enjoy the posts!

Content Marketing

How to Build a Content Calendar (Plus a Free Template) from Convince & Convert: “Creating a content calendar from scratch is one of those tasks that seems so much more complicated than it actually is. Even just opening a blank Excel spreadsheet can feel overwhelming. Thankfully, sometimes all that’s needed to get on the right track is a quick how-to and a great starter template, which is exactly what we have for you here.”

Your Content’s Great, Now What? How to Create a Powerful Content Distribution Strategy from Foundr Magazine: “Frustrated Oklahoma teachers, earning $41,000 per year, picked up their phones to inquire about the $10,000 raise they could receive by teaching and living just a few hours south in Fort Worth. The billboards even made headlines, driving thousands of dollars in free publicity for Fort Worth’s school district. Why did these billboards resonate and make such an impact? It’s because the creative minds behind the billboards nailed both sides of every good marketing campaign: message and distribution. It was a brilliant offer strategically delivered to a very specific target audience.”

Email Marketing

11 Fundamental Habits You Must Adopt to Become Brilliant at Email Marketing by Mark Walker-Ford: “Are you looking for ways to improve your email marketing strategy? Want to know the key habits you should develop to improve your email marketing skills? GetResponse share their tips for email marketing success in this infographic.”

Video

How to Use Facebook Live in Your Marketing: An 8-Step Plan by Desiree Martinez: “Looking for proven ways to reach and engage your Facebook fans? Wondering how live video could help? In this article, you’ll learn how to use Facebook Live as the cornerstone of your marketing efforts.

Facebook

7 Common Mistakes Businesses Make With Facebook Advertising by John Jantsch: “Facebook advertising, when done correctly, can be a major asset to your marketing efforts. Facebook offers businesses a wide variety of advertising options to choose from, and with a network of billions of users, it provides the potential to reach tons of prospects.”

How to Drive Engagement on Facebook Without Paid Ads from Social Media Today: “Here are just a few ways of directing your Facebook marketing strategy to promote engagement, as well as direct sales, to produce a more well-rounded space, and a deeper pool of prospects.”

Strictly Social Media Weekly Update – July 5, 2019

July 5, 2019

This week’s Strictly Social Media Weekly Update covers a lot of topics. I hope you read the posts on email marketing because — and a lot of people don’t know this — email marketing is more effective than social media marketing. Yikes! I revealed the big secret. Influencer marketing is on a lot of minds these days and there’s a post on that topic as well. Enjoy all them!

Instagram

8 Tips on How to Create Effective Instagram Stories and Stories Ads by ThibaudClement: “At Facebook’s F8 2019 conference back in May, the company reported that there are now more than a billion people using Stories every day across its family of apps – Facebook Stories, Instagram Stories and WhatsApp Status. Along with this rising usage, research has also shown that 56% of people now use Stories on three or more platforms at least once a week, and 57% agree that stories make them feel part of a larger community.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer Marketing for Small Business: 7 Steps to Finding the Right Influencers ( Free Templates!) from Later and by Nikki Caning: “When it comes to growing your business on Instagram, influencer marketing has proven to be a huge growth asset. And it’s not just for the mega brands — influencer marketing for small businesses can seriously level-up a campaign, build brand awareness and reach new audiences, without blowing the budget.”

Content Marketing

How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy in 7 Easy Steps from Convince & Convert: “The truth is there are no secrets to creating a content marketing strategy. Instead, we simply use our proven, 7-step framework as a guide, plus add plenty of meaningful time and effort (usually about 60 days or so for us). These 7 core steps provide the quintessential framework for long-term success.”

Email Marketing

37 Astonishing Email Marketing Stats You Need to Know [Infographic] by Mark Walker-Ford: “Are you in the process of creating an email marketing campaign for your business? Need some facts and figures to help you implement a successful email marketing strategy? The team from AfterOffers share the stats you need to know in this infographic.”

10 Free Email Marketing Tools to Save You Time and Money from SproutSocial: “Marketing trends and channels evolve over time. While some trends come and go quickly, one of the channels that has remained more or less the same is email. In fact, email continues to be the top channel for content marketing with both B2C and B2B marketers. 87% of B2B marketers and 77% of B2C marketers use it to nurture their audience.”

Strictly Social Media Weekly Update – June 28, 2019

June 28, 2019

It’s Friday and that means that it’s time again for the Strictly Social Media Weekly Update. You’ll find posts on content failures, three new trends in social media, new social media user statistics, and Instagram Marketing. Enjoy all of the tips!

Content Marketing

5 Symptoms of Content Strategy Failure (and How to Get it Back on Track) by Meg Carpenter: “Considering the amount of ads thrust under our noses, is it any wonder that we’re ignoring the majority?”

How to Assess Your Content Performance: 5 Tools You Haven’t Tried from Convince & Convert: “Content analysis is a marketing task that’s never really complete. You can update your old content again and again and better optimize it for more conversions. With that in mind, there’s no set list of tools you should be using again and again. New tools bring new analysis methods and, hence, new ideas. Here are 5 tools to use for content assessment.”

Social Media Marketing

8 Social Media Marketing Stats You Shouldn’t Ignore by Nathan Mendenhall: “When it comes to social media marketing, there’s a lot of misinformation, and a ton of unrealistic expectations set as a result. Luckily, marketers are blessed with a massive amount of data from social media activity, so we can course correct misnomers ….”

The State of Instagram Marketing 2019 – Part 2: Which Options Are Currently Driving Results? by Andrew Hutchinson: “Based on the various responses, it was interesting to note that, while video content is hugely popular, at present, most brands are seeing best engagement with still image posts on the platform.”

3 Social “Trends” That Just Aren’t True (And Why Believing Them is Bad) from Hootsuite: “Kemp recently shared highlights from his Q2 Digital Statshot at The Next Web’sTNW2019 conference in Amsterdam.”