bright_social_agency

Our SEO/Website Design Process (including Top 5 Strategies) with A Prep Checklist

junaid@brightsocialagency.com (Junaid Ahmed) — Sun, 02 Oct 2022 05:21:48 GMT

At Bright Social Agency, we pride ourselves on providing our clients with the best Web Design and Search Engine Optimization Services. We recognize that every client has unique needs. We therefore conduct a thorough consultations with our clients to identify their needs and we share how we are best suited to meet their needs with a functional and visually-appealing personal and business website.

Our excellent SEO services help our clients' businesses increase visibility and attain a stronger digital presence. Let us highlight our typical website design and SEO services and processes!

Our Typical Website Design Process

1. Client Consultation

The first step is consulting our clients deeply. From our consultations, we hope to establish the goals they hope their website will achieve to enable us to design the best possible website for them. In addition, we also discuss our clients' competitors and audiences and figure out how to leverage a good website design to attain a competitive edge.

2. Conduct Analysis

In our analysis stage, we collect vital data on the goals, audience, detailed features, purpose, etc.

3. Specification

Our third step involves writing the project brief. Here, we pay attention to details like functionalities, colour schemes, number of pages, etc.

4. Site Structure

At this stage, we aim to develop the best site plan, content structure, navigation features, wireframe, etc.

5. Create Good Website Content

After developing the best site structure for our client's website, the next step is to develop high-quality content for their website. Keyword research is one of the techniques we leverage during content development.

6. Handling The Website Design

We use the content structure and client specifications to create a mock-up design of our client’s website.

7. Website Development

When our clients approve the mock-up design of the website we have created, we begin coding the templates of the website pages and integrating the functionalities our clients have approved into the website.

8. Testing and Carrying Out Revisions

To ensure we provide our clients with the best possible website, we test, revise some features, and "polish" the website we have created. We pay attention to testing if the website provides the desired user experience.

9. Launch the Website

After completing the required revisions, testing, and polishing the website and its features, it is finally time to launch it. We transfer the client's website to a live server and perform a final cross-browser check to ensure it runs as expected. If needed, we conduct further revisions and tests before finally handing the website over to the client.

The SEO Strategy or Framework We Offer Our Clients

The SEO strategy we provide our clients consists of:

1. Website And Competitive Analysis

We offer our clients detailed feedback of a competitor analysis and the best practices we can borrow from them.

2. Keyword Research

This involves identifying suitable phrases that the target audience will type into search engines.

3. Website On-Page Optimization

This involves activities like:

Full Onsite Analysis of Client Site
Header tag optimization
Google Analytics & Search Console Set Up
Social Media Integration
Google Schema Markup

4. Manual Link Building

We help our clients' websites get more authority by helping them to get linked with relevant and authoritative sites.

5. Submissions To Trusted Sites

We help our clients submit their sites to other trusted sites, thus getting more high-quality backlinks and boosting awareness of their brands.

6. Weekly Ranking Reports

We offer our clients weekly rankings reports showing their position ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs).

7. Monthly SEO Performance Reports

We provide our clients with monthly reports on the progress of their SEO campaigns

8. Permanent Traffic, Leads, Income, ROI

These are the results of our SEO strategies and our clients enjoy constant traffic flow, more leads, higher ROI, and higher income.

Why Choose Bright Social Agency?

If you are looking for the best web design and SEO services in the market, do not look past Bright Social Agency. We are an experienced outfit boasting a strong success portfolio ofcompanies across different industries. We are competent and have become the go-to agency for many brands rely on us for high-quality web design and SEO services. Some brands we have collaborated with are:

1. ALLIANCE OF HOPE

A few of the services we have offered to ALLIANCE OF HOPE include:

Membership site design
Site content strategy
App integrations and social feed
Content syndication and blog integration

2. 4TELLX PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS FOR EDUCATION

Some of the services we have offered to this brand include:

Website design
Content development
SEO and social media management
Email design and list building
PR and brand strategy

3. THE SANDBOX SERIES

Some of the services we have offered to this company include:

Website design
SEO and social media training
Content development
Email newsletter training

4. SAENZ-RODRIGUEZ & ASSOCIATES IMMIGRATION LAW FIRM

Some of the services we have offered to this law firm include:

Website design
Content development
SEO and social media management
Email design and list building

5. ME, MY FRIENDS, & MENTAL HEALTH

Some of the services we have offered to ME, MY FRIENDS, & MENTAL HEALTH include:

Website design
SEO and social media consulting
Influencer strategy
Email design and list building
PR and brand strategy

Some of the Best SEO Strategies We Employ

At Bright Social Agency, we leverage the best SEO strategies to give you tangible results.

But What is SEO?

SEO is a set of strategies that assist search engines in analyzing your website easily. SEO helps search engines, like, Google, Yahoo, Bing and others, to access website content faster and understand your content better. This helps the search engine determine the most relevant content to show to searchers. With SEO strategies like linking building, search engine algorithms boost your site’s authority and gives it higher ranking on search results. The higher the search engine rankings, the more traffic the website receives.

At Bright Social Agency, we leverage several SEO strategies such as:

1. Indexing Your Website

Search engines index your website by sending out crawlers, that only see the code behind the website. With this code, they determine what the site is about. The title and text of your website still appear the same to them as to us. Search engines look at heading and paragraph tags to determine the most prominent text on the page and help them get a hint of what a page is about.

They can also read the image file's name and alt tags to figure out the image content. By getting a feel of our content, they can establish its value and index the website accordingly.

2. SEO Keywords

These are words or phrases that users type into search engines to find results. Developing an effective SEO strategy makes it imperative to conduct keyword research to establish what potential clients are searching for. These become the keywords you want your site to compete for. A keyword list must comprise of:

General keywords with higher monthly searches and higher competition.
Specific keywords with lower monthly searches and lower competition.

The best keywords to select for a client’s business website specific lower competition keywords. Leverage tools like Google AdWords keyword planner to show you the average number of times a particular keyword is searched for in a given month.

3. Optimizing a Website

You can optimize a website by optimizing attributes such as alt text, meta data, page titles, etc. For example, you can assign a unique meta description to every page to allow it to display its distinct value. Alternatively, you can assign a unique title to every page that describes the page’s content accurately and concisely.

4. Link Building Campaigns

Developing great link-building campaigns is very effective. One way is to leverage guest blogging where you develop unique content, like a case study and post it on another authoritative and relevant site that can attract your audience and link back to you.

5. Omnichannel Marketing

With omnichannel marketing, brands can create consistency in their messaging across different platforms, like social media postings, email newsletters, SMS campaigns, and more. The result is a spike in authentic engagement with users, contributing to higher traffic.

Our Prep Checklist

Preparation is key to successful project management, and design projects are no different. Design checklists guarantee that we work professionally and enjoy efficient workflows. Some of the items that should feature in thechecklists include:

A Budget

A client’s budget helps the designer know what can and cannot be achieved and helps to determine the most cost-effective solution.

A comprehensive list of the client’s design requirements

Similar to a brief, it improves the chances that the final website will meet the client’s expectations.

The target audience

This guides the designers at Bright Local Agency to develop a design that engages the intended users effectively and suits the clients' needs and outrank competitors as expected.

A Deadline

This ensures the project can be completed quickly, allowing the client to enjoy the benefits of their new website.

Ownership details for third-party text and images

Before the design project begins, the client should provide all the information on the legal permissions and the necessary attribution.

Samples of previous work done or other clients

These can act as proof of competency and give our clients confidence in our ability to deliver high-quality work.

Conclusion

If you want your website to look amazing and rank high on search engines, it is best to leave the design and SEO process to the professionals. At Bright Social Agency , we have a team of experienced web designers and SEO experts who can take your business to new heights! Do not hesitate to contact us at info@brightsocialagency.com (or 469-820-8589 ) for a free consultation. We would be more than happy to assist you in launching your new online project and make sure that it is successful from the get-go!

10 Fast And Simple Tactics To Improve Your ROAs!

junaid@brightsocialagency.com (Junaid Ahmed) — Sun, 25 Sep 2022 07:22:00 GMT

Digital managers are always looking to spend their ad dollars more efficiently. As budget are decreasing day by day, and the competition for customers has never been higher. As advertisers , we all know that staying competitive means improving performance while keeping the ad budget as lean and effective as possible. In other word, we all need to boost ROAs .

In this blog, TechNinjaPro will provide the 10 fast and simple tactics to boost your ROAs .

Understanding Return On Ad Spend (ROAS)

ROAs ( Return on ad spend ) is a ratio representing how much revenue you gain for each dollar you spend on ads. It also offers a clear understanding of whether a campaign is worth the money you spend into it. The formula of calculating ROAs is pretty simple: revenue driven by the campaign divided by the cost of running the ad campaign.

Suppose you spend $1000 on an ad campaign in one month. During that time, your ad campaign drove $5000 in revenue. In this situation, your return on ad spend is 5:1 ; in other words, you gain $5 in revenue for every dollar you spend on that ad campaign.

One important note is that Return on Ad Spend is not return on investment which takes into account profit margins and other expenses beyond the amount of money you plugged into the ad campaign. ROAs measures the success of certain recipes while ROI measures the success of the overall campaign strategy.

Why is ROAS Important Today?

The reason why ROAS is important today is because it gives you insight into whether or not your campaigns are producing positive results for your business. If your ROAS is low , then you'll know that something needs to change with your strategy.

You can use this information to evaluate which aspects of your brand strategy need to be improved upon, as well as what steps you should take in order to improve them. Return on ad spend is a critical factor in determining the overall health of your business, and one that venture capitalists frequently use to determine whether or not to fund a company.

For every dollar you spend on ad campaigns, are you getting a dollar (or more) back in sales?

ROAs can help you justify maintaining or even increasing your advertising spending during challenging economic times.

What Is A Good ROAS?

The ROAS you generate depends on many factors, including your technology stack, profit margin, overall business health and more . The general rule is that a 4:1 return on ad spend (ROAS) is a good benchmark.

The 4:1 ratio means you are turning a profit. The 3:1 ratio likely means you're breaking even, but the business has not yet paid for itself. A 2:1 ratio and below means you're losing money.

The life-cycle of your business has a huge impact on the return-on-ad-spend ( ROAS ) you need. If you're a cash-strapped startup, you probably want the most bang for your buck. If you're an established, healthy business, you may be willing to settle for a lower ROAS in exchange for increased brand awareness.

You can use a few tried-and-tested strategies to keep your return on ad spend ( ROAS ) steady in the short term, while helping you reap the benefits in the long term.

Before we get into increasing ROAS, there are a few considerations to keep in mind:

Every Channel is Different : Each ad campaign channel delivers a different ROAs ratio. For example, some sources say 4:1 is a good ROAs ratio for Facebook and other digital platforms, while other tout as a typical results on Google ads. It is completely up to you to balance the marketing mixture for optimal spending and long-term loyalty.

Every Business is Different : ROAs varies between businesses, depending on a long list of factors like audience size, goals, market and more.

ROAs is Not ROI : ROAs can be viewed as a sub-metric of ROI if the marketing mixture includes organic and activity. Return on Ad Spend complements other metrics like CPC and AOV.

ROAs is Multi-Layered : ROAS ratios are based on last-touch attribution. Measuring returns at the channel and campaign levels helps you better understand how your marketing budget is performing, allowing you to optimize your investments to increase ROAS.

The Secret To Improving Your ROAS Performance

Improving your Return on Ad Spend is a matter of breaking down the equation into its underlying components and creating efficiencies at each step.

When you break online ad revenue down into its component parts , it consists of:

Post-click conversions
Online ad clicks
Revenue per conversion

If you pay $1.96 per click and get a 4% conversion rate, it takes you 25 clicks to get a single conversion. If each conversion costs you $49 and your average order value is less than $49, then your campaign isn’t likely to be profitable. You’d want to see an average order value of at least two to four times that amount.

How to Increase Return On Ad Spend?

Coming up with the right digital marketing strategy can be difficult. If you want to improve your return on ad spend (ROAS), though, it’s crucial that you carefully plan out how you use your money and where your ads appear. This blog will give you 10 tested tips for improving ROAS by focusing on key areas of digital marketing such as frequency capping, creative optimization and more!

1. Decrease frequency

Frequency capping is important because it ensures that users do not get annoyed by your ads. If you don’t use frequency capping, then you risk losing the trust of users who see your ads too often.

Frequency capping is also one of the most effective ways to increase ROAS ( return on ad spend ). By increasing ROAS , you can make more money from each campaign and boost your profits. This will help you grow your business and ensure its sustainability into the future!

2. Re-target your top performers

So, how can you re-target your top performers?

The first step is to build a retargeting list . You can do this by exporting your Facebook Custom Audiences into an excel file, categorizing them and then uploading that file as an audience on Facebook or Instagram. You can also build a retargeting list through Google AdWords and LinkedIn. With either method, you'll want to use the same targeting parameters when creating a retargeting list for each platform so that everything stays consistent across all channels and platforms.

Next up : take note of what content has been performing well for you in the past month or so—that's what we're looking for! This could be an article about how to bake cookies using only one bowl (true story), or perhaps it's an infographic about why fur should never be worn again ( #justiceforanimals ). Whatever it is, write down some titles and URLs from posts/pages that have performed well since January 1st (or whatever date range works best with your business).

Now add those to appropriate ad groups in Facebook Ads Manager (or another similar tool) and set up some bids based off percentage of audience size or cost per acquisition goals (" monthly CPA" goals are ideal here! ). By setting these bids at low levels initially ( 1%-5% ), you'll be able to see if there's any interest before spending too much money on unproven ads."

New Title

3. Truthfully assess your conversions

The first step to increasing return on ad spend is understanding exactly how your ads perform .

This can be a challenge, as it’s difficult to determine whether or not an ad is effective without tracking conversions. A conversion could be purchasing a product or service, signing up for an email list, watching a video, downloading an eBook - the possibilities are endless.

It’s important to note here that there are two types of conversions: last-click and assisted . Last-click means the conversion took place after clicking on the ad; assisted means it was from another touchpoint before clicking on the ad (i.e., seeing another tweet about it). Suppose you aren't tracking both types of conversions in addition to measuring overall page views and time spent on page/site.

In that case, you're missing out on vital information about how many people actually see your ads before deciding whether or not they want what you're selling!

4. Don’t be stingy with your money keywords

You should choose your keywords wisely. For example, let’s say that you run a chain of restaurants and want to target keywords related to food. You could use broad terms like “ restaurant ” or “ food ,” which could allow you to reach customers who may be interested in other types of dining experiences (like fine dining or fast food). Or you could use more specific terms like “pizza restaurant ,” “Italian restaurant,” or even just “pizza .” Each keyword has its own benefits and drawbacks—the decision is up to you!

If your business targets local customers , using geographic information in your ads will help them show up when people near their physical locations do relevant searches. Using location extensions also allows users to see whether they can get directions from the ad itself—a great way for businesses with physical locations (such as restaurants) to drive foot traffic!

5. Create a small but effective budget

Once the budget is set, it’s time to figure out how much you spend on advertising.

A good rule of thumb is to spend a little more than you make in sales. So if your average order value is $500 and 10% return on ad spend (ROAS) , then you should spend $50/month on Google AdWords to earn back at least 10% of that cost from one customer. This ensures that your ads are profitable and don’t cause any damage to the business by creating negative ROI for each click or impression made by the advertising campaign.

6. Get to know your audience better

Knowing your audience is another step to making ROAS work in your favor. Knowing your audience's demographics, psychographics, and behavior will help you create better ads and landing pages that resonate with them. It’s also essential to ensure they clearly understand what they should expect from you once they click on an ad—this can be done by creating content around the benefits of doing business with you (or whatever it is that makes you different).

This information can then create targeted offers relevant to each person, improving conversion rates and increasing customer lifetime value (LTV).

7. Craft more enticing ad copy

When crafting ad copy, there are a lot of things to keep in mind. Advertisers have been spending time and money on the art of copywriting for decades, and their insights can help you create more compelling ads that get better results.

One thing to avoid when writing ad copy is being too generic or vague. Generic ads won't invoke any emotional response from your readers; they'll simply be something they read on their way through Facebook without much thought or effort put into it by either party involved in the transaction (you or them). Vague ads don't give enough information about what you're selling so consumers will have difficulty deciding if they want to buy your products/services or not; this is especially true if the product/service itself isn't well-known yet (for example, if you're launching a new website ).

Another thing not worth doing when crafting ad copy is being too salesy: no one likes being sold something all day long! This goes double for social media users who spend most of their time scrolling past ads anyway—they don't need any encouragement beyond seeing what kind of message you're sending out there already before deciding whether or not it's worth engaging with further than just skimming over headlines briefly every now and again.

8. Use countdown timers in ads

With so many choices to make when it comes to marketing, you want to make sure your ads are getting the most bang for their buck. A countdown timer is a great way to create urgency around a product or service and can help increase ROAS (return on ad spend).

Here's how this works: When someone sees an ad with a countdown timer, they instantly know that if they don't click on it immediately, they will miss out on whatever deal or the company is offering offer. This triggers an emotional reaction in the brain that makes people want what they see even more than if there was no countdown timer at all.

In addition to increasing ROAS, countdown timers can also increase CTRs (click-through rates) because of their ability to generate curiosity about what's happening when the clock runs out — leading them down another path where they might be more likely to convert into customers after clicking through multiple pages of content before making a purchase decision.

9. Build a remarketing list for search ads (RLSA)

If you haven't heard of RLSA , it's a great tool to use in your AdWords account. It allows you to show ads to people who have visited your website or used keywords related to your business. This is a fantastic way to increase ROAS because you're targeting people who've already shown interest in your product or service!

10. A/B test your ad groups with ease

AB testing is a great way to improve your ROAS . It’s easy to do and can be accomplished with the help of a tool like Optimizely (which has its own AB testing platform built-in ).

Let’s say you want to find out which ad group performs better: one with only one product per ad or two products per ad. You could simply create two separate ad groups, each containing one product, then split test them by showing one of the ads but not the other over time. Another option would be using an A/B test between two different sets of keywords where one set has 2 keywords, and another has 3 keywords.

How Do I Define Good ROAS for My PPC Campaigns?

If you're a business owner, you probably know that ROAS stands for return on ad spend. But do you know what good ROAS means? And how do you define it for your PPC campaigns?

Let's start with the basics: R OAS is the ratio of money spent on advertising to revenue generated by that advertising. So if an ad costs $50,000 and brings in $100,000 in revenue, then the ROAS is 2x. If the ad only brings in $50k in revenue, then it has a 0x ROAS.

The best way to calculate ROAS is by using custom reports in Google Analytics or Salesforce.com (if your business uses that platform). You can also look at your financials and determine how much profit each campaign is generating for your business as a whole. That's not as accurate as using custom reports from Google Analytics or Salesforce.com, but it will give you an idea of whether or not certain campaigns are bringing in more money than they cost to run!

As you might guess, the return on ad spend ( ROAS ) depends on many factors and is different for different companies. The ROAS is also influenced by profit margins, operating expenses, and the overall health of your business.

For example, if you run a startup with a limited budget and need to achieve higher margins (e.g., a 10:1 ROAS), you may need to focus on getting more customers for your product. This suggests that a company with more resources to invest in growth may be able to afford higher advertising costs—i.e., lower ROAS, such as 3:1.

While a “good” ROAS—or return on ad spend—can range from 3 to 8, a common benchmark is a 4:1 ratio, $4 in revenue per $1 in ad spend.

Is ROAs more important than click-through rate?

Apples and oranges are as different as night and day.

Calculating your return on ad spend (ROAS) gives you a more definite answer as to whether or not your campaign made you money.

Click-through rates tell you whether your copy, creatives and calls to action encouraged your audience to click on your ads. The click-through rate does not measure whether or not users became paying customers after clicking on an advertisement.

When ROAS and CTR are considered together, they provide a comprehensive picture of your ad campaign’s performance. And so, it is impossible to think of one as being better than the other. Each metric has its own advantages and disadvantages.

For example, if your CTR is high (say, over 9,000 clicks) but your ROAS is around 2:1, then you know that your audience is interested in what you have to offer, but they are not converting at a satisfactory rate. If you want to increase your click-through rate, you should look at the quality of your landing page, ad relevance and targeting.

Should I track ROAS over conversion rate?

It's not a good idea to "prefer" one metric over the other since each has its own purpose and meaning. A conversion happens when your audience takes the action you want them to take. This doesn't necessarily have to be a purchase.

For example, you may create an ad campaign that directs visitors to a landing page offering a free eBook. If your conversion rate is 10%, how much more money are you leaving on the table?

You need to track return on ad spend (ROAS) in order to know whether your marketing efforts are profitable. While free downloads or email signups might not bring in revenue right away, users who take these actions might become paying customers later.

Thus, the best approach is to use both metrics.

Final Verdict

For the ultimate ROAS, you should test and optimize at every stage of the advertising funnel.

By creating precise ad campaigns and providing a personalized post-click experience, you can significantly improve your ROAS.

To ensure the success of online paid advertising campaigns, merchants need to set a solid return on ad spend goal, define their budget and get a firm handle on profit margins.

Ready to take your company to the next level? Contact Bright Social Agency for help with improving your ROAS.

10 Ways to Future Proof Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

junaid@brightsocialagency.com (Junaid Ahmed) — Sun, 25 Sep 2022 06:10:29 GMT

The majority of marketers are concerned about the uncertain future. Due to rapidly changing circumstances, expanding digital marketing trends and technology, and fluctuating client preferences, brands can become obsolete in a matter of minutes.

A large rival, new laws, or technical advancement can all constitute a threat to a business. As a result, the concept of future-proofing may assist businesses in rethinking their marketing strategies to be less sensitive to future issues.

Despite the complexity of today's climate, many organizations still rely on old-fashioned marketing methods such as batching and blasting. However, keep in mind that not everyone's the same. A successful social media marketing strategy is all about getting the greatest bang for your buck with the least amount of money invested.

1. Be Future-Forward

The importance of being data-driven and how that can help you make good decisions in the present, but what about making sure that your content is still relevant in five years?

That's where future-forward thinking comes in. The phrase " future-forward " was coined by marketing strategist Dan Weitzel as a way for brands to adapt their strategies and tactics for a fast-changing world. He says that " thinking about tomorrow first is the key to staying competitive long term ".

2. Keep Up with the Latest ‘Relevant’ Platforms and Trends

Staying up to date with the latest platforms and trends is key to keeping your social media marketing strategy relevant. This means that you need to:

Pay attention to what your competitors are doing.
Keep tabs on what's trending in your industry.
Look out for new social media tools, or updates on existing tools.

3. Prioritize Quality Content

As the old adage goes, " Content is king ." It's also the most important part of your social media marketing strategy.

Content creation service is what will keep your audience engaged and coming back to your social media accounts. It will get them to take action and help you meet your business goals.

So how can you create quality content that will engage with customers?

Choose Your Platform(s) Wisely : If you're not using multiple platforms (at least two or three), consider adding one more platform or two to your mix. If you already have a presence on several platforms, think about which ones are most effective at driving traffic back to your website or sending people directly through other channels like email lists, landing pages, and newsletters. Now prioritize those platforms based on their effectiveness in driving leads/traffic/sales—and then focus on those channels first!

Know Your Audience : Next up, it's time for an audit of all existing content types including blogs posts, videos (both short-form and long-form), and images (photos/graphics) that reflect the voice of who “you” are as an organization.

4. Take a Video-First Approach to Social Media

Video is one of the most engaging forms of content, and it's also a great way to get your businesses or products noticed by new audiences. Adding a video to your social media marketing strategy can help you reach people who might not have heard about you before or who visit your site but don't convert into customers.

Video marketing is more than just creating a few Facebook and Instagram videos. It's about understanding the importance of video in general and then taking action based on that knowledge. In other words, it's not enough to just start making videos; you need to ensure they're helping you achieve your goals when posted across various social platforms.

5. Pay Attention to Data and Analytics

Your social media company should be data-informed. That may sound like a buzzword, but it's actually a good idea to make decisions based on what you see happening in the real world. You can monitor your analytics and look for patterns indicating how content resonates with audiences. For example, if you notice that certain types of posts get more likes than others or that some posts get more shares than others, then you know to focus more on producing those types of content in the future.

Using data can also help identify opportunities for reaching new audiences by showing you where people are engaging with your brand online. It'll give you insight into what other platforms are being used most frequently by consumers who might be interested in your products or services. These insights will allow you to target them with tailored ads across all relevant platforms so as not to waste money on ads targeting users who aren't a good fit for what they're selling at any given time.

6. Use Influencers to Constantly Reach New Audiences

Influencers are people with a large following who can help you reach new audiences. They can also help you get the same audience as their own, which is " multiplying " your influence.

For example, if I have 1,000 followers on Twitter , and they all follow me (and therefore see my tweets), then I can say that my influence on Twitter is 1,000 followers. But if an influencer has 1 million followers and follows me (and therefore sees my tweets), now we're talking about an increase in my influence from 1,000 to 1 million !

7. Think How Your Content Will Look Across Devices.

You can use a responsive design, which automatically adjusts to fit the device. This makes it easier for your content to be viewed across devices, and it will look great on any screen size.

If you want more control over how your site looks on different devices, you could use a mobile-first approach or even a mobile-only approach where all the content is created specifically for mobile devices.

8. Create A Social Media Strategy That Supports The Future You Want.

Determine your goals.
Create a social media marketing strategy that supports the future you want.
Consider your current audience and their needs, preferences, and behaviors .
Determine how you want to grow your business in the next 5 years by identifying potential barriers to entry within your industry.
Understand how content will look across devices: PCs / laptops vs mobile phones / tablets vs wearables (etc.)
Evaluate what content works best on different social media marketing platforms ( Facebook vs Twitter vs LinkedIn vs Instagram etc).

9. Consider Your Ideal Customer's Journey.

Understanding your ideal customer's journey to make a purchase is fundamental to future-proofing your social media marketing strategy.

Your ideal customers start with some initial pain point that they want to be fixed, which can be anything from " I'm too busy " to "I'm not confident in my photography skills."

Next, they seek information on how to solve their problem to decide what products or services might help them achieve their goal. After deciding on what solution will work best, they take action and buy something that meets all of their needs and requirements. The final step is using the product/service to achieve the desired outcome (e.g., feeling more confident).

What's important here is that each stage of this process requires different content types: awareness-building content at first; then educational content later when a prospect is ready for more information; finally, transactional and promotional messages as prospects move closer toward making an actual purchase decision and converting into customers with you!

10. Cater to Those Who Want to Get to Know You on Social Media.

Cater to those who want to get to know you on social media . Your customers want a feel for your brand and what it stands for, not just your products and services but your culture, values, mission, and team.

They want to see photos of you in action at events or hear about the people who make up your organization. They also wish to validate that their experience aligns with yours. In other words: "T ell me something I don't know about myself by telling me more about yourself first. "

Future Proof Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

Social media is a powerful marketing tool that can help you connect with your customers and brand, build relationships, and reach new audiences.

If you want to future-proof your social media marketing strategy , there are five things you can do:

Update your content regularly
Create a Facebook page for your business
Use hashtags on Instagram to increase impressions and engagement
Set up an automated posting schedule for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn (if applicable)
Get involved in the community by joining groups relevant to your industry

Conclusion

It's important to remember that social media marketing is not a sprint; it's a marathon . Thinking about the long game is the best way to future-proof your strategy. Think about how your content will look across devices, and consider every possible platform your target audience may use.

There will always be new platforms emerging and old ones fading away, but in the end, it's about the quality of your content and how well it speaks to potential customers that matter most! Bright Social Agency is the one-stop shop for all your social media marketing needs if you are looking for professionals to future-proof your social media marketing strategy.

10 Ways to Make Your Social Media Accessible & Inclusive

junaid@brightsocialagency.com (Junaid Ahmed) — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 17:51:37 GMT

When it comes to managing your company's social media marketing strategy accounts, there is a lot to keep track of. You're probably spending a lot of time on social media brainstorming content ideas, scheduling posts, and connecting with your audience. But have you considered how easily available that information is?

One in every 4 Americans has a disability, and seven out of ten use social media. There's a chance they won't be able to see or read the imaginative captions you submit with your wonderful photographs. Many will not interact with your content unless it is made available.

Why Is It Important to Make Social Media More Accessible?

The purpose of generating accessible content is to ensure that it is enjoyed by everyone, which entails making adjustments and learning how to be inclusive. As a result, you become a better person and marketer.

As a result, anyone can access your stuff. If you don't employ accessible social media tactics, you're excluding folks who can't hear, see or read your content.

So, how crucial is it for you to easily access social media? By adopting inclusive behaviors into your daily routine and constantly acting on them.

And we're here to help with pointers and best practices! Approaches to ensuring that social media platforms are available to everyone. Now that you understand the significance of social media accessibility let's discuss how to create posts and strategies that involve everyone .

10 Ways To Prioritize Social Media Accessibility

Now that you know why it is important to make social media accessible, let’s talk about how to create inclusive posts and strategies.

1. Use Basic Language

Keep your social media posts short and to the point to maintain a conversational tone. The use of simple terms and terminology that is not highly advanced is referred to as plain language.

As a social media manager , you already know the importance of brief, direct copy in attracting your target audience's attention. As a result, your audience will understand what you're saying more easily. People with cognitive disabilities will understand your message better if it is written in plain terms.

To write in simple language , you must first:

When it comes to sentences, less is more.
In a conversational tone , words that the audience is already familiar with are employed.
The removal of crucial information makes assertions more difficult to comprehend
Avoid using slang and jargon.
Not now, when you'd rather be Hemingway than Shakespeare. You can use the Hemingway App to guarantee your writing is clear and precise.
Is your company in need of one, but you haven't yet joined? Make a new Instagram account and optimize it to gain followers.

2. Use First-person Language Instead of Adopting Ableist Language

People or groups should not be classified based on their disabilities, challenges, or appearance. Make a conscious effort to treat others with decency and respect by communicating in a way that prioritizes them. You risk alienating your audience if you unwittingly hurt someone's identity.

Here's an example of person-first language :

" A person who is disabled ," according to the dictionary.
" A person with a disability ."
Deafness is the inability to hear.
When emphasizing someone, make sure to ask how they like to be referred to.
Use more inclusive vocabulary and words.
For many people with disabilities, slang vocabulary and phrases can perpetuate negative stigmas.
When describing something bizarre, use "wacky!" rather than "crazy!" or "Wow! That is amazing!"
Saying "I'm so into this!" rather than "I'm so hooked!" sounds more enthusiastic.
Cases like OCD, bipolar disorder, hysteria, and psychosis are inappropriate .
Simplify your words to emphasize inclusivity.
Gender-neutral pronouns should be used.
Use "We support" instead of "We stand with."

Because disabled people are not broken, the phrase "able-bodied" should not be used.

Furthermore, making jokes about suicide is never humorous. Don't downplay the fact that you want to die. When in doubt, always err on the side of using precise, prejudice-free terminology. It's a good idea to have a second set of eyes review your work before hitting "publish."

3. Describe Your Social Media Profiles In Simple Terms

The written context supplied by image descriptions and alternate text is essential in expressing the visual features of the photographs. People with visual impairments and other disabilities rely largely on alt text and descriptions. If an image on a webpage cannot be shown for some reason, the alt text will inform users.

Images and GIFs can be accompanied by alt-text on social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Facebook. If your social media network doesn't have an alt-text field, put a caption at the end of your body copy.

Use the following suggestions to make your social media image captions more user-friendly:

Begin your sentence with "an image of" or "a photograph reveals." Screen readers alert the user before viewing the image description.
Colors should be mentioned if they are important in the photograph.
Keep it brief, and remember to spell and grammar checks what you write.
You can ensure that everyone is in on the joke by unambiguously presenting humor.

4. Create a Transcription of the Text in the Photos

Include any important content (such as a meme ) in the image's description if it has one.

The greatest method to communicate your ideas is to use simple language. Be descriptive without inserting your own point of view. Describe the image in a logical manner.

5. Make Sure to Capitalize the First Letter of Each Word When Using Hashtags.

Using hashtags to communicate with your target audience and share your ideas is a frequent practice. To make it easier for your readers to read, each word in a hashtag should be capitalized. Camel Case is the most common term for this design. However, it is also known as Title Case and Pascal Case .

If screen readers don't see the capital letters, they may misinterpret your #VERYLONGHASHTAG , which can help you prevent this problem. Even though owls are wonderful, this humorous coincidence can be a bit perplexing.

6. Ensure That Your Photographs And Videos Contain Representation

Is it acceptable not to portray people from underrepresented groups? In recent years, we've seen a rise in the number of varied characters on television, and this trend is continuing in the world of social media.

If you have the money, consider employing a disabled photographer or artist. If not, make use of all-inclusive public domain photos.

Inclusionary photography can be found in a variety of databases, many of which are free or low-cost.

Inclusion and distinction :

Pexel's Disabled Item Collection
Unsplash
Canva Women's Clothing Is 100% Natural
PICNOI

7. Include Captions In Your Videos

Closed captioning is essential for persons who are deaf or hard of hearing. Aside from that, how many times have you watched a video without turning on the sound? You're more inclined to silence the music in a noisy area or without headphones. Customers aren't the only ones who prefer watching videos without sound. It has been discovered that more than 80% of customers prefer videos with subtitles, and almost 50% of those customers expect captions to be accessible.

Closed-captioning services are available on all social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter .
Subtitles can be automated using Clipomatic and Zubtitles .
Both YouTube and Vimeo have closing captions accessible.
Select " Add Captions " under " Video Options " to add captions to videos on Facebook business pages.
On Facebook, you can add your own captions by hand.
TikTok includes automatic captioning.
Go to Instagram's " Advanced Settings ," then " Accessibility ," and then " Show Captions ."

Even if you use an a uto-captioning service , you must manually review all of your content. You should be certain that the auto-captioning service you choose is accurate.

If you opt to transcribe your audio by hand, Netflix has some advice:
It is critical to transcribe the original dialogue consistently.
It is necessary to transcribe all of the vocal lines.

To distinguish between distinct speakers in the transcript, use bracketed names .

What are you doing, for example? [ William ] Laura yells in agony , " I broke my leg! "

8. Avoid Using Custom Fonts in Your Social Media Profiles And Postings

A custom typeface may occasionally be used in any social media post, profile, or moniker. WingDings, italics, and bold, blocky letters are among the typefaces that can be employed.

These typefaces have the potential to be visually appealing or to serve as a strong visual cue to bring attention to a certain message. On the other hand, certain fonts are rejected by screen readers as unreadable. If the screen reader skips over text, your message could be misconstrued.

Use custom fonts on social media only if they look decent . Only use a custom font if you can't read the copy otherwise.

9. When It Comes To Emoji, Moderation Is Crucial

Emojis were named the Oxford English Dictionary's Word of the Year for 2015 due to their widespread use in social media packages . In 2019, about half of all Instagram posts used emojis, and those with emojis were more popular.

On the other hand, screen readers and text-to-speech programs read the emoji's complete name.

Consider this: If you dressed your dog for the Kentucky Derby , what would you caption your Instagram photo? Horse Racing Party Popper with Dog Face Rolling on the Floor, a screen reader will read this. Nobody is interested in figuring out this puzzle.

Technology has yet to grasp the pop cultural language of emojis. For example, Gen Z describes their death from laughter using the slang phrase " skull ," which screen readers will render as " skull ."

You can still use emojis in social media posts, but keep them available:
Avoid using emoticons in your social media profile names.
Check out emojipedia.org to learn how emoticons sound on screen readers.
To avoid being read first, end your posts with emoticons.
Simply select one or two of your favorite emoticons.

10. Use Emoticons Sparingly

Emoticons were used to describe feelings before emojis. These characters are created by connecting together several punctuation marks. For example, a smiley face emoticon can be made by combining parentheses, bullet points, and an underscore line.

Emoticons are not recognized by screen readers and hence cannot be read. Instead, converse using emoticons! Avoid using emoticons in your social media postings, bio, or profile name.

7 Ways to Create Converting Content Like A PRO

junaid@brightsocialagency.com (Junaid Ahmed) — Sun, 11 Sep 2022 07:02:29 GMT

Content is king. And a lot of business owners have heard that phrase and think it's a cliché. But the truth is that if you can create great content, people will keep coming back to your website, engage with your brand, and buy your products. So how do you create this kind of engaging content?

In this post, we'll talk about seven ways to create converting content using audience research, data, headlines, and calls-to-action (CTAs).

Why Is Content So Important For Conversions?

Content is a powerful tool for conversion. It adds value to the user experience and helps people solve their problems. When done right, content can increase conversions by up to 200%.

Content isn't just for SEO purposes, although it does help with SEO (and that's why we'll discuss it at length). Content is what makes your brand memorable, engaging, and interesting. It helps drive traffic from social media and other sources to your website, which helps increase conversions.

There are several reasons why content is so important for conversions.

Content Is King : In a world with so much information, it is extremely important to have content that stands out from the rest. The more engaging and helpful your information is, the more likely you are to convert visitors into customers.
Content Is The Best Way To Build Trust : If you provide useful information, your website visitors will trust you more. This will help them feel more confident in purchasing from your site since they know that you care about providing value for their needs rather than just trying to get them to buy something.
Content Can Help Build An Image : Content can build an image for your company or brand. You can show what makes you unique and different from other companies in your industry. This helps build trust because it shows that you know what people want from a business like yours and how they expect things to be done. It also helps build credibility within an industry by showing off awards or recognition that others have given you regarding your product or service offerings.
Content Can Tell Your Story : Content can tell your story as a company and tell visitors why they should purchase from you over any other company in your field of expertise.

Content is critical in helping businesses get found online and convert visitors into customers. Even if you have an amazing product or service, you'll struggle to convince potential customers that your brand is worthy of their attention without good content.

The good news is that creating great content doesn't have to be difficult or expensive. With the right tools and processes in place, anyone can create compelling content that drives results for their business.

1. Start With Audience Research - Define The Audience Personas that the Content Should be in front of

It's important to define the 3-5 audience personas the content should convert. Start by defining their age, job, likes/dislikes, and interests (which social platforms they use). Then create a customized, personalized experience for each audience persona through web development.

Decide which types of content (images, videos, infographics, etc.) the audience persona responds to and test via A/B ad testing with a minimum $100 budget for one week.

2. Define The Goals/KPIs & Use Data to Adjust Strategy

The next tip is to define the goals/KPIs of your content strategy. To do this, you need to understand what your business is trying to achieve and what actions it wants people to take after reading or watching your content. You should also consider how much work it will take for a potential client to get in touch with you and how many sales leads you expect each piece of content to generate over its lifetime (e.g., monthly).

Once these factors are established, it's time for some data! Use analytics programs like Google Analytics or HubSpot's marketing software platform to regularly track each piece of published material (in terms of traffic source and conversions). This collected information will help inform future decisions about what type of content needs to be created most frequently—and, by extension, where resources should be allocated towards promoting them during their lifecycle.

3. Find & Reuse Content Ideas that Have Conversion Proof: Checklists, Case Studies, White Papers, etc

Reuse is the new recycle. Reuse is a great way to reduce the amount of content you need to create. This is especially important if you're in a B2B business, where people are more likely to read and use what you write than if you were selling something like fashion.

The goal of reuse is to find content that has already been written, where there is proof that it works (conversion proof). This can be in the form of checklists, case studies, customer feedback, or even testimonials (which are fairly easy to collect).

This is the best time you can have when it comes to content creation – there are so many proven ideas out there to repurpose into your own work. This is a perfect place to start when looking at what's working in your industry and how you can translate that into something creative and unique for your business.

Content ideas that have conversion proof include:

Checklists : These have been proven time and again as an effective tool for converting traffic into leads, customers, or sales. You can use checklists as a way to provide information that helps users reach their goals faster and more efficiently.
Case studies : In addition to providing useful information about how other people have solved their problems with your product/service, case studies also show how your company has helped others achieve success. This makes it easier for prospects to see themselves benefiting from your solution as well.
White Papers : White papers are one of the best content ideas for lead generation. The reason is that they are not only useful but also persuasive. When you provide your readers with a white paper, you help them solve a problem and then ask them to fill out a form to get more information about your product or service. This way, you can build trust and make them believe you can solve their problems.
Infographics : Infographics are another great way to increase conversions and grow your business. They are short and easy to read, so they do not take long for people to consume them. Infographics can be used on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest to boost engagement rates as well as traffic.

4. Write Compelling Headlines and Calls to Action

If you're like most marketers , your content strategy is probably built on a foundation of blog posts. Blog posts are great—they allow you to communicate with your audience in an informal way and take the time to explain things in detail. But if you want the best results from your content marketing efforts, it's important to remember that people don't make their buying decisions based solely on what they read online.

Instead, they make them based on how compelling their experience was while consuming that content. This means that creating compelling headlines and calls-to-action (CTAs) is key to creating conversions from your blog posts and other webpages.

5. Write Conversationally and with Emotion

Writing conversationally and with emotion makes you seem more human, which is good. It also makes your writing more engaging. This can help you make your writing more memorable and by helping readers connect more deeply with the content.

Writing conversationally is one of the best ways to create content that converts:

Write in a conversational tone : Your writing should sound like you're talking to your readers, not lecturing them.
Use emotion : Don't just write facts and figures; use emotion to connect with your audience on a deeper level and make them care about what you're saying more than they might if it were just another boring article that they read without thinking much about it (you know who we're talking about).
Use short sentences and paragraphs : Long sentences and paragraphs can be hard for readers to understand because they require more attention from the reader—so don't bog down your writing with overly complex sentence structure or paragraphs that go on for pages at a time! Instead, try using shorter sentences with simple language that gives readers quick insights into what they need when they need them most! This will help keep people engaged while also making their lives easier so they can finish their tasks more quickly without getting bogged down by details later on.

6. Optimize The Layout Of A Landing Page: Keywords, Font Formatting, Focus on Clarity, Be Concise

Optimize the layout like you would a landing page: keywords, font formatting, focus on clarity, and be concise.

Use keywords in the title and body of the content. You should almost always include a keyword or phrase in your title tag; that should be where most of your keywords go to help SEO (search engine optimization).
Make sure it's easy to read by using bullet points when appropriate and ensuring everything is written in short sentences with only one idea per paragraph!
Use a font face and size that is easy on eyesight (this can depend on who's reading it), use different styles within paragraphs, so people don't get bored looking at their screen too long; make sure there are visual elements throughout the piece so readers can break up large blocks of text with something interesting like an image or diagram."

7. Original Graphics: Charts & Graphs, Screen Shots, Images, Infographics, & Videos

Original graphics can be an effective way to grab the attention of your reader and get them to click through to your website. For example, if you are selling a new type of chair, you might use a graphic of a person sitting in the chair. Or if you are selling a piece of software that helps people build websites, you could use a graphic showing a website builder interface.

Use photos when possible instead of text whenever it makes sense. You could include photos in your blog posts but also include video or images in your email newsletters as well.

The best types of graphics include charts and graphs that show data points and trends; infographics (charts and graphs made into one image); screen shots (photos taken from computers or mobile devices); and videos embedded within blog posts or emails.

Scoring Your Content

To improve the performance of your content, you should A/B test it and find out what works best. This will help you measure your progress and adjust your content strategy if needed. Here's how to tell if your content is performing well:

Define the evaluation metrics.

Some people measure success by the number of page views and clickthrough rates they receive, while others are more concerned with the number of social media impressions and shares. When choosing an engagement metric, make sure the metric you choose has a significant impact on your content and conversions.

Launch a content marketing campaign.

Now that you know which metrics to use, it's time to create a campaign whose success can be measured easily. Find a content form that performs well with your target audience and stick with it.

Analyze the content performance of the metrics defined earlier.

Monitoring the performance of your metrics helps you figure out whether your marketing campaigns are successful or not. If you're creating a social media post, assess the number of likes, shares, and reposts before investing more time or money into the campaign.

Cut what doesn't work and double down on what works.

Once you have all the insights you need, it's time to analyze what you should eliminate and what should be multiplied. If a blog or social media post isn't performing as expected, consider making some changes to it before you give up on it entirely.

Replicate the process regularly.

It is important for your content to evolve and adapt. If you want to stay relevant and keep gaining new customers or clients, you must always find new ways to engage your audience. If you find a content marketing campaign that works, re-purpose it and replicate it for more conversions.

Conclusion

After reading this post, you may have a sense of overwhelming. " How will I ever find the time to write all this content? " The answer is: You won't. But that's OK! You don't have to write every word for every piece of content yourself—that's what writers and editors are for. Of course, if you're using freelancers or employees, then make sure they know how important it is to follow these guidelines, too (because, ultimately, it's up to them).

The most crucial factor in marketing success is creating content that converts. By speaking directly to your readers and addressing their needs, you can increase website traffic, grow reader engagement, and boost those overall conversions.

Get your content right, and you'll increase the likelihood of your message being heard.

The 5 Reasons Why You Need a Website Audit

junaid@brightsocialagency.com (Junaid Ahmed) — Sun, 11 Sep 2022 07:02:24 GMT

Everyone knows How a website can improve your business. You've probably heard of many big brand names who use it as a marketing tool to grow their business in a very short time.

A website SEO audit is critical for uncovering issues and opportunities. An SEO audit can determine how well a site performs from an SEO perspective, establish benchmarks for comparison, and provide recommendations for action. A professional SEO audit will allow you to identify and fix any SEO issues your website might be experiencing and help improve your site's performance .

In this post, we will let you know 5 key reasons you need to audit your website.

The Importance of Website Audit

Website audits are a crucial part of the SEO process . You need to know where your site is lacking in order to make improvements. If you don't know what's wrong with your website, how can you fix it?

The importance of website audits can't be overstated. The main goal of a website audit is to find out what needs fixing and why. By identifying these issues and fixing them, you can improve the overall performance of your website and increase revenue.

Website audits provide webmasters with a complete and detailed analysis of their sites' health, performance, and speed.

Different Types Of Website SEO Audits

A website audit is a systematic examination of a website's strengths and weaknesses in order to determine its potential for increased search engine visibility and user-friendliness.

But it's not always necessary to perform a full website audit; below are some of the most common types of audits and when you may need one.

Technical Audit

Good content and links may help your site rank, but if your site has technical problems, all that effort could be for nothing. Technical audits ensure that all website pages meet the best practices for site visibility, ensuring that all pages are easily viewable and indexed by search engines.

SEO Audit

An SEO( Search Engine Optimization ) audit is a complete evaluation of your website's marketing potential. Its results can include findings on keyword use, link profiles, traffic patterns, and goal conversions. An SEO audit can also analyze metadata and image and video optimization. Auditing the technical aspects of a website will help you better understand its strengths and weaknesses.

Content Audit

Content audits are useful not just as a part of an SEO audit but also as standalone review tools that can provide insights into what messaging and tone of voice is converting with your audience.

Other key areas you should focus on include a user experience audit, a backlink audit, code/markup audit, social media audit, conversion rate optimization audit (CRO), competitor analysis, or Google Analytics audit .

5 Reasons Why Do I Need a Website Audit?

When it comes to your website, there are many different ways to look at it.

A website audit is a good way to measure the health of your online presence. It can also be used as a tool for identifying areas of improvement and areas that need attention. This can be done by both the client and their developer, but it’s better to have an external person look at your site.

Here are five reasons why it’s a good idea:

1. Your Audience Can’t Navigate Your Site Properly

If a website is all you see all day long, you become accustomed to its navigation and design. You may overlook any problems a user may have with either.

Some of the common features of hard-to-navigate websites include:

Too many items in the navigation bar : Instead of listing all your services in the top menu, try organizing them in dropdowns and keeping only the most important links in your main menu.
Overlinking : To make your website easily accessible, users should be able to reach the desired page within 3 clicks. Search engines also have an easier time crawling pages that are linked together more frequently.
Every page of your site should have a visible way to return to the homepage .
The homepage is cluttered with a lot of unnecessary information that distracts the reader from useful content.
Hard to contact you? Include a clickable phone number on your mobile site, an exact address, and an email address.

User testing is one of the crucial parts of your website audit, ensuring your site is user-friendly. It generally involves user recording their windows and fulfilling specific "jobs" on your site and feeding back on the process.

2. Your Site Is Not Properly Optimized

There is a wide range of factors that can cause a website to rank poorly in search engines, which can be uncovered and rectified by a website audit. These include:

Areas of Content Optimization : If your content is thin, useless, or outdated, you will need to update it, redirect it or remove it.
Images Not Properly Tagged : The text that appears in the image is what search engines use to determine what the image is.
HTTP / HTTPS : Identifying and correcting any mixed content issues on a website
Meta Issues : Make sure that each page has its own unique and relevant metadata.
Headers : Ensuring that H1's, H2's, and H3's are used logically throughout the site.
Mobile Responsiveness : It's important to ensure your site is mobile-friendly because mobile traffic now outnumbers desktop traffic.
URL Structures : Ensure all your website pages have proper URL structures.
Indexability : Ensure that all pages relevant to your website are indexable, and block those that do not need to be indexed.
Broken Links : Redirecting and rectifying both external and internal 404's will be necessary to make your website more efficient.

3. Your Site Is At Risk Of Penalization From Search Engines

Some established websites may have used black-hat SEO tactics in the past. Link farming, keyword stuffing, cloaking , and similar tactics may have been used by SEO companies working with these sites.

These strategies may have helped websites increase rankings and traffic at the time, but now that search engines' algorithms are more intelligent, those same websites may now be penalized by them.

A website audit can identify and correct anything that can lead to a penalty or rectify the cause of the penalty if one is already in place.

4. Your Website Is Taking Too Much Time To Load

People have short attention spans, so if your website takes longer than five seconds to load, you'll probably see a higher bounce rate, lower pages per session, and a higher cart abandonment rate on e-commerce sites .

According to Google's own research, page load times of 1-3 seconds cause bounce rates to increase by 32% if they reach 6 seconds, the bounce rate increases by 106% .

Additionally, Google has stated that website speed is a ranking factor, meaning that websites that take longer to load than others could find themselves being pushed down in the SERPs .

Using Google's free Page Speed Tool , you can get immediate insights into your website's current level of optimization.

Google will soon consider a new set of metrics called Core Web Vitals , which relate to speed, responsiveness, and visual stability .

Common Reasons for Slow Loading Speed

Here are some common reasons for slow website page loading speed :

Un-optimized Images: Images play an important role in user experience, but if they are not optimized, they can affect your site’s performance. If you are using Unoptimized images, it will increase the load time of your website pages. It is recommended to use tools like ImageOptim or Google’s WebPagetest to compress your images before uploading them to your site.
Data-heavy Pages: Some pages contain too much data, which increases the load time of these pages and makes them slow. Try removing unnecessary scripts from these pages and use lightweight plugins instead of heavy ones like jQuery or JavaScript libraries.
Inefficient Server Configuration: If your server configuration is inefficient, then it will take more time to process each request and respond with content to the browser, resulting in a slower page loading time for users visiting your website.
T oo many plugins installed on your website : The more plugins you have installed on your WordPress site, the slower it will be. So if you have a lot of plugins on your WordPress site, try to find out which one is causing this problem and uninstall them from your site.

5. You Need To Analyze Your Competitors

When you know what your competitors are doing online, you can carry out a better strategy to stay ahead of the pack.

Identifying your main competitors and auditing their content, social activities, targeted keywords, backlinks, and organic / paid search activity will help you learn more about your industry.

Analyzing your competitors can help you gauge your success compared to theirs, allowing you to alter and improve your online strategy if necessary.

How Often Should I Have a Website Audit?

Scheduled and unannounced audits can help companies identify and correct any major issues that are likely to cause trouble in the future.

We suggest a bi-annual audit for larger websites and an annual audit for smaller ones. A website audit should be carried out on your site after it has gone live to rectify immediate problems and increase the speed at which search engines index it.

Why Pay For a Website Audit When You Can Get One Online For Free?

You may know that a quick search for ‘ free website audit ’ leads to various free audit tools. However, these are less effective than a proper audit.

The budding mechanic inside you will do some research once a warning light illuminates on your dashboard, but you still need to take the car to a trained mechanic for repairs.

Additionally, should the warning light on your dashboard malfunction or show a general warning for what could be a number of different issues?

Therefore, online site audits are free for the most part and give a reasonably accurate high-level insight into your website’s performance . However, they can be misleading or confusing to somebody without expert guidance to properly rectify any issues they throw up.

Need A Hand?

Website audits are essential for ensuring the success of any business, but they take time to execute and require expert guidance.

If you think it’s time for your website to have an MOT, or if you’ve noticed a fall in traffic and rankings, we can help. We understand that no two site audits are identical, so we’ll tailor ours to suit your goals.

Our comprehensive SEO audit includes 100+ checks looking at factors including technical analysis, site architecture, security, image optimization, mobile optimization, on-page optimization, and more.

Please contact us using the form to discuss your business’s SEO needs and how we can help .

Why Mental Health, Wellness, and Fitness Brands are (and should be) Deplatforming from Meta

Tue, 30 Aug 2022 18:20:39 GMT

Deplatforming is an act that aims to combat and reduce hate speech, rumor-mongering, use of offensive language, and spreading of false information by individuals. Deplatforming is the act of removing, banning, or blocking users or groups from information-sharing platforms. It may also remove content with elements of extremism that a user or a group may have published or created on a platform.

One of the best examples has to be Donald Trump’s “ Big Lie ” from early 2021. The Big Lie was a hot topic that Donald Trump pushed to advance his narrative of electoral fraud. He used Twitter to try and ignite people’s emotions and managed to spark a lot of outrage and extremist behaviors from his radical followers. He was removed from Twitter to stop his access to millions of users with harmful content. Trump’s “Big Lie" campaign culminated with the unanticipated insurrection against the White House.

In light of the information malpractices in online platforms, several mental health, wellness, and fitness brands have increasingly opted to deplatform from Meta. In this blog, we shall discuss why several brands considering deplatforming from Meta are the right way to go.

Why deplatforming from a Social Media Site, e.g., Meta, is Important

Despite its advantages, Meta can cause users to suffer from mental health problems. Some of these include:

Increased anxiety

Meta uses Instagram to promote pro-eating disorder content

Meta profits massively from the content it publish about eating disorders affecting young children. It has led to continued access to eating disorder content by teen girls, in particular, thus endangering their health when they practice what the content shows. For example, a report by Fairplay, a children's advocacy group, indicates that Meta makes nearly $2 million from users who follow accounts promoting eating disorders.

Meta exposes users to sexual harassment

Misinformation exposure due to a lack of content moderation

Lack of content moderation has put Meta users at risk of misinformation. A bug emerged that led to users viewing posts filled with misinformation. These posts also spread fast because of the lack of appropriate warning labels on Meta. It failed to label nearly 80% of the posts that shared the highly misplaced conspiracy theory about the United States being responsible for funding Ukraine's bioweapons.

More exposure to toxic feedback loops

Meta subtly capitalizes on human psychology behavior. It leverages a feedback loop of dopamine where users are pulled into a "feeding frenzy" to engage in more social media interactions. They partake in whatever campaigns that Meta promotes and advocates to get more likes on the platform. When these users fail to get more likes, shares, and comments on their posts, they end up feeling disappointed and depressed, thus spiraling into serious mental problems.

Users are exposed to bad actors, e.g., Putin, who leverages the algorithms to sow anger amongst citizens (via vaccine disinformation, war propaganda, and Fox propaganda).

Meta has gravely exposed users to disinformation by Putin and Russia. For example, it allowed the false reports which painted the Ukrainian government as being responsible for carrying out genocide to go unchecked. In addition, Meta is one of the channels that Putting and Russian-backed sources used to continually question the efficacy and safety of vaccines such as Pfizer. These posts garnered millions of shares, comments and likes on Meta and contributed significantly toward reluctance to be vaccinated.

Building Your Own Online Community Space for Your Brand Matters!

Building or having your online community space as a brand has many benefits. The benefits of having your platform include:

Reduced exposure to unanticipated platform outages

Existing social media platforms such as Meta, Instagram, and WhatsApp have experienced frequent outages which result from internal networking issues and leave users unable to access their accounts. As a brand, this can greatly hamper your business and marketing efforts. Your online community space gives you better control to take remedial measures.

You are not exposed to frequent policy changes

Meta, like many other social media platforms, constantly introduces new rules. For example, its policy change regarding the inventory listings on Marketplace placed restrictions on auto dealers. Car dealers could no longer feed their vehicle inventory into Marketplace automatically. Dealers can only create manual listings on business pages. With your own online community space, you have greater control of your business's operations and set your policies.

Monetizing your brand becomes easier

Your own online space allows you to build a community around your brand. Once you have an engaged community, you can capitalize on this to earn extra revenue for your brand. For example, you can use subscriptions and paid memberships where users in your online space pay fees to get your exclusive content. You can also organize live paid events, like webinars and workshops.

Having your own online community space helps you achieve focused and centralized messaging

Having a platform or online space allows you to spread your intended message, which is key to the success of every brand. Whether you are a brand specialized in mental health issues or your forte is fitness and overall wellness, a focused and centralized messaging is crucial. Building an online community space prevents your messaging from getting distorted.

Examples of Platforms That Can Help You Create Your Own Online Community Space.

Platforms such as Mighty Networks, Profit and LearnWorlds allow you to create an interactive and profitable online space for your brand. Keep reading to find out more!

Mighty Networks

Mighty Networks offers you an amazing opportunity to build your community and website instead of just renting your audience, as with Meta. Meta has full control of its algorithms to control what your audience can see. For example, if you have a group on Meta, your followers and members can see only a small percentage of the content you publish. With this platform, you also have access to Mighty Networks mobile apps and direct messaging privileges, all of which help you create an interactive community.

However, your online space or community allows you to engage with your audience openly and authentically.

Might Networks lets you choose from three tiers, as shown below!

Tier 1

It is known as the Community Plan and goes for $33 monthly and comes with features like:

Native live streaming and video
Chat and messaging
Paid memberships
Events and zoom integration

Tier 2

It is called the Business Plan and goes for $99 monthly. It offers features like:

You get the Community Plan
Online courses
Analytics and member data
Zapier APIs and Workflows
Live Cohort Course Creation

Tier 3

It is called the Might Pro TBD and comes with features like:

The Business Plan
Google Play Store
Branded App Notifications
Account Management and Strategy Support

2. LearnWorlds

LearnWorlds is a platform that allows you to create a learning community where your members can exchange ideas, share experiences, discuss issues, and seek advice from fellow users. Some of its features include:

Unlimited networking opportunities
Users connect and communicate with each other and build a professional and productive network.
It has great customer service, providing uninterrupted communication and creating a stronger customer connection.

3.Profit

Profit is an all-in-one solution for all professional service providers, including consultants, fitness coaches, and wellness trainers.

Some of the features you get from Profi are:

Booking and scheduling.
Effective client management systems (CRM).
Secure messaging and video calls for members—course creation capabilities.

Conclusion

Free Online Marketing Tools: The $0 Marketing Stack?

junaid@brightsocialagency.com (Junaid Ahmed) — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 18:18:02 GMT

Marketing is getting more and more expensive.

If you are a startup, this presents a problem. You don't have the money to spend on paid ads and marketing services, but you still need to get the word out of your product or service.

That's where free online marketing tools come in. These are tools that are either free or cost very little — usually less than $100/month — and can help you do everything from improving your social media presence to increasing website traffic to growing your email list.

You do not need to be a marketing expert to be successful online. In fact, you can start with zero dollars in your marketing budget and still get results. This series will help you build a complete marketing stack that fits your needs and budget.

The first step is choosing your channels and the tools that will help you reach them. The channels are social media, search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing and content creation (writing).

We've put together a list of the best free online marketing tools and organized them by category. This way, you can quickly find what you need and get back to work!

The $0 Marketing Stack: Free Alternatives To Paid Tools

When it comes to marketing, the most important thing is to get started. The tools you use don't matter that much — what matters is that you're taking action. The more you do, the better you will become at marketing your business.

That said, there are some tools that can make your life easier and help you get more done for less money. If you're just starting out with marketing and don't have a lot of cash, these tools will help you get started without losing your money.

FREE KEYWORD RESEARCH AND SEO TOOLS

1. Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is a free keyword planner tool that makes it easy to find new keyword ideas for your business. It can help you discover long-tail keywords , which are the phrases people type into search engines when they're looking for something specific.

Don't be left behind in your keyword research—if you haven't used Google's Keyword Planner to gather keyword ideas and search volume data, why not start now?

Although it primarily focuses on supporting your PPC campaigns , Google Ads can also help lay the groundwork for your SEO efforts.

When you type a keyword into Google Keyword Planner, it will show you:

Daily search volume for that keyword. The number of times people in the world search for that term each day.

Estimated cost per click ( CPC ) for the keyword. The amount advertisers typically pay to have their ads show up when people search for this term on Google Search and YouTube . This figure varies depending on several factors, like the advertiser's bid, the quality of your ad and other factors.

The AdWords system automatically sets your bids based on algorithms. Still, we recommend using manual CPC bidding so that you can set them as high as possible without exceeding your budget or targeting too many impressions from low-quality clicks (i.e., those from bots ).

The average ranking position of the top five ads is shown above an organic result when someone searches for this term on Google Search (the " SERP "). This figure shows how well an average ad performs compared to other ads in the same position.

2. Keywords Everywhere

Keyword Everywhere is a Chrome extension that allows users to find and replace keywords on any web page. It's currently available for free on the Chrome Web Store .

Keyword Everywhere add-on is the first real solution to find and replace keywords on any web page. The extension works with any text editor, including browsers' built-in ones and Google Docs. It also integrates with popular online services like Evernote , Buffer , Hootsuite , Feedly and many others.

The main idea behind Keyword Everywhere is to make it as easy as possible to find and replace keywords in any text using one of the most powerful search engines available today: Google Search!

Keyword Everywhere can be used in two ways: as a bookmarklet or as an extension. As a bookmarklet, it works on all websites and most email clients. As an extension, it works only on Firefox (and other Mozilla-based browsers ).

As a bookmarklet , Keyword Everywhere adds a button to your browser's toolbar , which can be clicked anytime you want to check what words are included on the current page. As an extension, this button appears next to your address bar whenever there are words on the current page that match its keywords list (which includes hundreds of words from many languages).

3. LSIGraph

LSIGraph lets you three free searches a day to find semantically related keywords.

LSIGraph is a semantic search engine that uses the data from Linked Data Cloud to provide better results on Google. The Linked Data Cloud is a database of semantic relationships between web pages, which can be used by LSIGraph to build its graph.

The service also allows you to add your own data to the cloud so other users can benefit from it as well. The result is that LSIGraph offers more relevant search results than Google or any other search engine out there.

LSIGraph will also provide the top 10 search results for each keyword, along with their estimated monthly search volumes and CPCs.

This is an easy and quick solution to get some ideas for new keywords, as well as compare your existing ones against the competition.

If you are trying to rank for “ digital marketing tools ,” consider adding some of these unique words to your post: “ definition ,” “ free ,” “ essential ,” and “ best .”

TIP : You can also use thesaurus.com to find words related to your topic.

4. SEMRush Free

SEMRush is a versatile and powerful tool for SEO and keyword research . It allows you to find the best keywords for your website, track the results of your SEO efforts and discover new ideas for content marketing. The free version of the tool provides a lot of functionality, but it has limits.

SEMRush's free version is perfect for newbie marketers who are trying to learn all the ins and outs of SEM and PPC. The free version allows users to conduct 10 searches a day and provides keyword monthly search volumes, position rankings, domain overviews and more.

You can also track keyword rankings, SEO ideas and more by setting up one " project " for a specified domain. Although you can't get in-depth information with a free SEMRush accoun t, it's a great tool for beginners.

If you have access to such data, it can be found in Google Analytics when connected with Google Search Console.

5. WordClouds

WordClouds is a useful tool for visualizing and exploring the frequency of words in a text . WordClouds are particularly useful for visualizing social media data, such as Tweets or Facebook posts.

WordClouds allows us to look at word frequency across multiple texts and compare them with each other. They also provide a way to visualize how the frequency of words changes over time or how it compares between different texts.

WordClouds can be created using software such as Gephi , which provides the ability to import text into the software from many different sources (e.g., Twitter feeds ).

You can use WordClouds to visualize any data where you are interested in the relative frequency or importance of words in your data.

6. Copyscape

Copyscape is a plagiarism checking tool that searches the internet to see if your content has been copied and pasted elsewhere. It will also show you where that content was found, so you can contact the offending website to have it removed.

Copyscape is free for personal use only and costs $0.99 per month for business use . The free version of Copyscape lets you download up to 100 results at once, which should be enough for most people. If you need more, you can pay for an upgraded account with more features or simply purchase access to their API from their website.

When you use Copyscape , you can enter any URL, and the tool will search for that piece of content on the internet. If it finds that someone has copied and pasted your work, it will alert you and show you where it was found. This can be very helpful for finding out who is stealing from you or your clients, as well as for finding new audience members who may be interested in what you have to say.

7. Google Mobile-friendly Testing Tool

Google's Mobile-Friendly Test lets you see if your page is mobile-friendly. It checks for common errors that make pages hard to use on mobile devices and shows you how to fix them.

It includes a checklist of mobile usability best practices and an action plan to help you fix any problems.

The tool gives you a score between 0 and 100 based on how well your site conforms to these best practices, which we'll call your " Mobile Friendliness Score ". A higher score means that your site is more mobile-friendly.

The results page also shows how many of your pages require changes to become fully mobile-friendly.

8. Schema Markup Generator

Schema Markup Generator is a free, easy-to-use tool that helps you generate the code you need to add schema markup to your website. It's a simple, one-page tool that will work with any website, whether it's built on WordPress or not.

The generator lets you choose between two types of markup:

Rich snippets (also known as structured data ) are search engine optimization ( SEO ) tools that help your website appear in search results with more information about itself. Rich snippets are generated by a special type of HTML code called schema markup. The Schema Markup Generator can help you generate the code needed to add rich snippets to your website.
Structured data is another type of HTML code that allows websites to provide more information about themselves without relying on third-party services like Google Search Console or Facebook Open Graph. Structured data uses specific codes called microdata to convey meaning about individual elements on a page; for example, if an product has a " price " attribute, it will be possible for search engines to retrieve and display this information when showing the item in search results. The Schema Markup Generator can help you generate the code needed for adding structured data to your website.

9. Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog is a desktop application that enables users to crawl websites and produce a report of all page elements. As such, it is used by SEOs to uncover broken links , duplicate content , and many other issues related to website structure.

It can be used for data mining or any other purpose where crawling and analyzing websites is required.

Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider is a powerful site crawling tool, able to crawl both small and very large sites efficiently while allowing you to analyze the results in real-time.

The SEO Spider has an intuitive interface that makes it easy for anyone to use: just enter the URL of your website and start crawling! Screaming Frog will then fetch all pages from your site, parse them using its proprietary parser (based on Apache Tika ) and store all discovered elements in an SQL database for later analysis.

The resulting data can be exported as CSV files or viewed directly in the interface: you can sort by status (for example, “ 404 – Not Found ”), type (for example “, Image ”), size or external links , filter by hostname or path , and view detailed information on each element.

10. Open Site Explorer

Open Site Explorer is a free site explorer tool that lets you search for links pointing to any website and also analyze inbound and outbound links.

It can also help you find new link opportunities, find out who's linking to your competitors, and discover the keywords that your competitors rank for.

Using Open Site Explorer is easy. Just enter the URL of any website you'd like to analyze into the search bar and click " Check ." You will be given a list of all the pages on that site, along with their social shares, links, and more!

Open Site Explorer also has some great features that are not available on other free tools such as MajesticSEO . It allows you to run backlink history reports and export link data in multiple formats ( CSV, JSON, PDF ).

The downside is that this tool does not provide a lot of information about each individual backlink as MajesticSEO does. However, if you're looking for a simple way to track how many links you have pointing at your website, then Open Site Explorer will do just fine.

FREE CONTENT PLANNING TOOLS

1. AnswerThePublic

AnswerThePublic is a free tool that makes it easy to create content that answers your visitors' questions.

AnswerThePublic can help you write better copy, optimize your PPC campaigns, and improve your SEO performance.

With AnswerThePublic, you can type any phrases, and this tool will return different content questions and topics people are searching for. You can search for specific titles or keywords using a variety of filters, including location, device, time of day and more.

You can then use the information from these searches to create blog posts, emails or other forms of content that answer common questions about your business or industry.

For example, if you type in "what is the best food for dogs," AnswerThePublic will return results that include other questions people have asked about dogs and what they feed them.

The results are organized into categories based on different topics: animals, health, science, sports and so on. If you click through one of these categories, you can see more related questions.

You can also use AnswerThePublic to find topics for your blog posts or articles by typing in phrases like " how-to " or "top 10" and getting back results based on those keywords — which should give you some ideas for what people are searching online and what they want to know more about.

2. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a powerful marketing tool for content marketers. It helps you find the most shared content on social media, but it also allows you to analyze the most shared content in any niche. This is useful because it shows you what people are currently interested in and what type of content they like to share.

The best way to use BuzzSumo is by searching for a specific keyword or phrase. Once you've found what people are talking about, you can use this information to create your own pieces of content and share them on social media.

If you're looking to grow your blog or business, this tool will help you discover what people want from their favorite brands and influencers .

With BuzzSumo, you can:

Find the most trending content in your market.
Find out what types of headlines work best for each social network.
See which sites link to your competitors' content , so you can reach out to them or write similar articles.
Find influencers in any industry who share similar content with their audience.

The free version of BuzzSumo provides only limited access to the company's content analyzer, trends, and influencer bio search functions.

Update: BuzzSumo no longer offers a free version , but you can try the service with a free 7-day trial .

3. Google Trends

Google Trends is a tool that lets you see how often a particular search term has been entered relative to the total search volume across various regions of the world and in different languages. This can be useful for tracking the popularity of certain keywords over time or for comparing the relative popularity of different phrases.

You can use Google Trends to identify popular topics , track the volume of search activity for specific keywords and phrases, and monitor how search terms are changing over time.

The tool was first introduced in 2006 , but it has evolved since then to include more data points, such as search volume by region and country, as well as by language. It can also be used to find related terms that are closely related to your search term.

It can also help you discover new content ideas for your website or blog or even find new keywords for your marketing campaigns.

To start using Google Trends, just type a query into the search box above and see what comes up. The results will show you how often people have searched for that term over time, as well as related queries that may be useful for your research.

4. Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a free tool that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing disciplines. The Google Scholar algorithm processes information extracted from the indexed data, which is then displayed in a user-friendly format.

Google Scholar does not provide access to a particular publisher's material or prohibit access to any publisher's content and does not host any of the indexed material itself. The indexing and abstracts are provided by a number of sources, including publishers and institutions who pay for inclusion in the database.

The Google Scholar index is built on hyperlinks rather than traditional citation indices, based on bibliographic information found on the pages of publications. It was first introduced in 2004 as part of Google Labs and has received significant updates since then. In order to create the index, Googlebot reads through text in all documents it encounters while searching for links to other resources, e.g., web pages that are likely relevant to your query (see example).

Google Scholar allows users to search for information from a variety of publications, including peer-reviewed scientific journals , conference proceedings , technical reports, preprints , newspaper articles , patents , historical publications such as newspapers or books , and legal cases cited in secondary literature like law review articles; and others.

The main features include

Searching for more words at once (e.g., " Truman " and " nuclear ").
Full-text searching for all articles in any journal (and not just those indexed by PubMed).
The ability to compile citations from multiple sources into a single bibliography.

FREE CONTENT MARKETING TOOLS (OPTIMIZATION AND EDITING)

1. Grammarly

Grammarly, the online grammar checker , has announced a new feature that will allow users to correct mistakes in their writing with a single click.

The web-based tool has been available for several years now, but the new instant feedback feature will help writers save time by providing immediate corrections as they type. For example, if a user writes " I'm going to the store ," Grammarly will alert them that " to " is incorrect and recommend they replace it with "toward."

The new feature is in the beta testing phase but should be available to all users soon. It's just one of many upgrades Grammarly has made since being acquired by social media management platform Hootsuite last year.

Grammarly's advanced grammar checking engine analyzes text in more than 250 languages to detect errors such as subject-verb agreement, verb tense consistency, article use, and wordy phrases .

The app highlights any possible mistakes with your writing and suggests corrections so that you can fix them on the go. The premium version of the app checks for plagiarism.

2. Hemingway

Hemingway app is a tool for writers to make their work more concise . It highlights unnecessary words and uses a color-coded system to show how many words are unnecessary. If a writer has written too much, the app will let them know and make suggestions for how to cut down on their word count.

It also tracks how many times people use certain words in their writing. For example, if you use the word " I " too often, the app will highlight it for them in red and tell them how many times they've used it. This can help writers improve their story by ensuring they're not repeating themselves or using too many words that aren't needed to get their point across.

3. Yoast Real-time Content Analysis

Yoast Real-time Content Analysis is a powerful plugin that helps you to analyze the content of your website. This tool is easy to use and fast.

With this plugin, you can analyze your content in real-time, which means you can see how your content performs as soon as it's published. You can also see how it will perform on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram , and more.

You can also use Yoast Real-time Content Analysis to create SEO-friendly titles and meta descriptions for your pages. The plugin will analyze your content and tell you whether or not it's good enough for social media platforms or search engines. If it isn't good enough, then the plugin will help you fix it, so it meets their criteria.

Yoast helps you optimize the readability and SEO of your content, giving all content a color score of green (good), yellow (meh), or red (bad) based on these factors.

4. Word2CleanHTML

If you are searching for a quick way to convert your documents into HTML , then Word2CleanHTML can be the right solution.

It is a tool that will allow you to convert Microsoft Word files into clean and well-formatted HTML files . This software is easy to use and can be used by anyone with basic computer knowledge.

It converts any document that is created in Microsoft Word 97 or later versions, including Word 2000, XP, 2003, 2007, 2010, and 2013 . The output format of this tool is clean and well-formatted HTML code that can be easily edited and updated by anyone who knows how to code web pages.

The software also allows users to create hyperlinks in their documents which makes it easier for them to navigate through different sections of their documents without having to scroll down through long pages of text or search for specific information on their computers or mobile devices.

Word2CleanHTML comes with advanced features such as spell-checking options and customizable styles , which makes it easier for users to create professional-looking documents with little effort on their part.

5. Headline Swipe Files

A headline swipe file is an important tool for any writer who wants to make their content more compelling and appealing to readers.

A headline swipe file can help you improve your CTRs and make your content more engaging.

6. Diffchecker

Diffchecker is a tool for comparing and finding the differences between files.

If a file has been modified since its last update, Diffchecker will highlight and show you exactly what's changed.

7. Coschedule Headline Analyzer

This tool analyzes your headline and grades it on a scale of 0 to 100 . Factors such as word balance, length, keywords, readability, and sentence structure are all considered.

8. Hubspot Blog Ideas Generator

The Hubspot Blog Ideas Generator is an online tool that helps you generate blog topics based on your current level of expertise . This tool will ask you few questions and generate a list of blog ideas matching your answers. This is a great way to find new topics and ensure you always write about what you know best.

The Hubspot Blog Ideas Generator asks questions about:

Your industry -What are the problems and pain points of your industry? How can you help people in that industry solve their problems?
Your company -What does your company do? Who does it serve? What makes it unique?
Your target audience -Who are you trying to reach with your content? What types of people are interested in what you have to say?

9. CharacterCountOnline

CharacterCountOnline is a free online tool that allows you to count the number of characters in your text.

CharacterCountOnline has been designed to be used by everyone: it is simple, fast and easy to use. Copy and paste your content into the box and click the "Count" button. CharacterCountOnline will automatically count the total number of characters and words in your text.

CharacterCountOnline provides you with a free text counter for your blog posts, articles and other types of textual content. You can use our tool to determine how many characters your post contains. This will help you to avoid exceeding the maximum character count on Facebook or Twitter. The tool's character counter also makes it easier to find out if your post has been plagiarized or not.

FREE PAID SEARCH TOOLS

1. Google Ads Editor

Google Ads Editor is a online tool by Google that helps you make changes to your AdWords ads , including adding and editing text, images, and video. You can use this tool to upload multiple versions of an ad to run against different variations of your keywords.

The Google Ads Editor offers a number of features, including:

A dashboard to review your cost-per-click ( CPC ) and cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) data.
A keyword selector to target specific search queries .
The ability to create, edit, and delete ad groups and ads within those ad groups.
In the next section, we'll go over some of the most common uses for Google Ads Editor.

It is a user-friendly tool that will save you time when creating larger, more complex campaigns. It also catches any technical errors, meaning you won't have to go back and tweak your work.

2. Microsoft Advertising Editor (Previously Bing Ads Editor)

Microsoft Advertising Editor is a powerful tool that makes it easy to manage your Ads campaigns . It lets you build and optimize campaigns, as well as test and experiment with different versions of ads, keywords, and bids .

With Microsoft Advertising Editor, you can also manage your budgets, set up conversion tracking for all ad groups in your account, and easily add negative keywords to help control which searches trigger ads on Bing.

3. Google Ads Scripts

Google Ads Scripts is a tool that lets you automate the process of creating, managing, and optimizing campaigns in AdWords. It's designed to help you save time and gain insights into how your campaigns are performing.

You can write scripts to perform any task that can be done manually in AdWords. With Google Ads Scripts , you can change multiple campaigns at once, programmatically create ad groups and keywords based on rules you specify, update bids for entire accounts at once, and much more!

You can use Google Ads Scripts to:

Automate account management tasks, such as creating and editing campaigns, ad groups, and keywords .
Automate your bidding strategy by customizing bids based on your goals and performance.
Automate multi-step workflows such as importing data from third-party platforms into Google Ads.

4. Karooya Expanded Text Ad Preview Tool

Karooya's Expanded Text Ad Preview Tool is a must-have for anyone looking to create beautiful and engaging ads without having to guess how they'll look.

With this tool, you can create ads in your browser and see them right away. You can also edit them and see how the changes impact your ad's appearance and performance.

You can even use our tool to get an idea of what your ads would look like on different devices!

This tool allows you to easily show clients how an expanded text ad will look on Google .

FREE COMPETITIVE STRATEGY AND AUDIENCE RESEARCH TOOLS

1. SimilarWeb

The SimilarWeb mobile app is a tool that helps you find apps, websites and services that are your competitors. It's especially useful if you're looking for alternatives to your favorite apps or want to see what companies or brands are out there in the world of mobile apps.

SimilarWeb can also be used as a research tool to help you discover new content or products that fit your needs. You can use it to find out which sites are popular with people who share your interests, which apps are most frequently downloaded by those who have similar demographics, or which services are more often used by people in cities near yours.

This tool will provide an in-depth analysis of your competitors' organic and paid search performance and a view into their mobile usability and audience demographics . We also show you which keywords they're ranking for in search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo!, so you can get a better idea of what's working for them—and take inspiration from their success!

With SimilarWeb's analytics platform , you can quickly determine whether or not a competitor is performing well based on their Alexa ranking, number of backlinks from other websites and social media activity levels (such as Facebook likes ).

The pro plan gives you unlimited results per metric, but the free plan only gives you five. In most cases, that's all you need. However, if you're facing a large volume of data, the pro plan could be a necessity.

This tool can also be used for link building and to ensure you are not contacting link farms or private blog networks ( PBNs ). You can identify these sites by looking at their direct/referral traffic, monthly visits, the average duration of visits and bounce rate .

2. Mozbar

Mozbar is a browser add-on that provides a complete summary of your search engine optimization metrics. This tool shows you how many links you have, your domain authority, where your traffic is coming from, and more.

Once the page is in the index, you can see additional items such as title, description and link metrics. You can also see various markups on the page such as schema or Twitter cards .

Moz offers a number of free tools that can help you with your SEO campaign, including the Link Explorer and their Online Presence Checker (for local SEO ).

4. Google Alerts

Google Alerts is an online tool that lets you get notified whenever Google finds new matches for the words or phrases you care about. It's great for staying up-to-date with trends and news , finding important content you might have missed, and tracking competitors. You can also assign alerts for specific terms or phrases or just receive a digest of everything Google has found.

You can install this tool to monitor different content with a specific keyword or phrase . This is an excellent way to track what people say about your business and its competitors.

4. SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey is a leading online survey platform , empowering companies to collect high-quality feedback to make better business decisions.

The tool makes it easy to create surveys and analyze responses, giving you the power to see your organization's strengths and weaknesses.

Millions of people use SurveyMonkey's tools in more than 200 countries , including many of the world's largest companies, universities and non-profits . Users praise this tool for its ease of use and powerful features.

Use SurveyMonkey today to get your insights to make better business decisions .

SurveyMonkey's reporting tools are also great for keeping track of responses: You can filter by demographic information such as gender or age group; see responses by the question; compare answers across subgroups (for example, male vs female respondents ); and more.

FREE WEBSITE AUDIT AND SITE OPTIMIZATION TOOLS

1. Hubspot’s Website Grader

The Hubspot Website Grader is an online tool by Hubspot that helps you identify and fix the issues that could be holding your website back from being as effective as it could be.

It’s an easy way to identify and fix common problems like duplicate content, broken links, and more. It also provides an overview of how well optimized your site is in terms of mobile usability, performance, and other key metrics.

The tool will grade your website on a scale of 1-100 for each of the categories listed below:

Performance ( how quickly does my site load? )
Mobile Usability ( is my site mobile-friendly? )
Security ( are there security vulnerabilities? )
Duplicate Content ( do I have too much duplicate content? )

Website Grader is available as an app or via a web browser. The app can be downloaded from either the App Store or Google Play. It's easy to use: just type in the address of your website and hit "Check." The app will analyze the site, give it a score out of 100 and offer suggestions for improving each category.

The tool isn't limited to businesses; it can also help individuals learn more about their own websites and what they can do to improve them!

2. Built With

Built With gives you information about the websites you visit and the technologies used to build them. It tells you how sites are built, what kind of tools they use, and who else uses those tools .

This information is useful for anyone who wants to understand more about the web and how it works. Just enter your website URL, and Built With will tell you which tools power your site and where they come from. You can browse by technology category or company name, so get started now!

There is a Google Chrome extension that enables you to check which technologies are used on a web page without having to go to Built With and type in the domain.

3. Archive.org

Archive.org is a nonprofit digital library that offers permanent access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, movies, moving images and millions of public domain books. The site's mission is to offer "universal access to all knowledge" by providing free digital content through its online portal.

This resource can help you look back at old versions of a website to see how it has changed over time.

4. Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog is a desktop tool for website auditing, crawling, and analysis.

The software can check that a site is configured correctly, verify that links are working, and test different search queries on any page. It can also be used to audit websites for broken links, poor performance and duplicate content.

The first thing that you have to do is import your website into Screaming Frog. You can do this by using their .csv importer or by uploading a .zip file of your site. Once this has been done, you can also run various searches within the software to find the errors and problems on your site.

When running a crawl on a site with 500 pages , Screaming Frog will go through each page individually and check whether it exists or not. It then looks at any links on that page and follows them through until they reach another page on the website or come up against an error ( such as an internal server error ). This process can take a bit of time depending on how big your website is, but it gives you a good idea of what issues exist concerning broken links, missing images etc.

5. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic.

It provides detailed statistics about the visitors to the site, which in turn can be used to improve your site's performance.

Google Analytics is one of the most widely used website statistics services. It offers a wide range of reports and tools that can be used to evaluate your website's performance, monitor traffic sources, track conversions and improve user experience .

The main features of Google Analytics are:

Real-time statistics.
Tracking of individual visitors and their actions.
Detection of system errors to avoid them in the future.
Tracking page views, sessions, path analysis, visitor loyalty and conversion rates.
A/B testing, funnel analysis and reporting for mobile applications.

6. Google Search Console

Google Search Console is an online tool from Google that allows you to see how your site appears in Google Search results.

You can use the data from Google Search Console to improve your site's performance in organic search results by identifying content that might be relevant to queries people enter into Google. This is relatively straightforward if you know what you're looking for, but finding what you don't know about takes a bit more effort.

Two main things can help you uncover potential areas of improvement:

Crawl errors : You can see a list of issues on your site that may affect the way it appears in search results (e.g., pages not loading properly )
Search Analytics : A tool that provides detailed information about the visitors who come to your site from Google Search

It also gives you insights into how you can improve your presence, so you can maximize visibility and traffic.

7. Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager is a free, easy-to-use tag management system that allows you to set up, manage and report the tags and codes on your website.

Google Tag Manager manages the code snippets (or " tags ") placed on your website by third-party vendors such as Google Analytics, Facebook or Twitter . The Google Tag Manager code tells the vendor which of your pages or events you want to track.

Google Tag Manager does not collect web page data; instead, it manages the deployment of data collection scripts or tags provided by outside vendors such as Google Analytics.

This approach has many benefits:

It's easy to test new tag ideas without affecting your live site because the script does not load until after you've tried it.
You can change tag configurations without going back into code (although some customizations may require coding).
You can manage multiple sites from one interface by using templates or workflows.

Google Tag Manager can be used with Google Analytics, AdWords, DoubleClick and other services from the Google Marketing Platform .

8. Optimize Google

Optimize Google is another Google tool that makes it simple to A/B test different items on your site ( CTAs, headlines, layout of content ).

The Optimize app is available on the Google Play Store and the App Store . You can also use the Optimize website to run experiments and collect data.

Optimize Google allows you to set up an experiment between two versions of your website using different headlines or photos. Once you have set up an investigation, you can send traffic from Facebook Ads Manager or AdWords campaigns to those pages to start collecting data about which version performs better.

Once you have collected enough information from your experiment, Optimize will show you which version performed better and suggest what changes you can make on your website based on this information.

Optimize Google is also a great way to see what works best on your website without hiring someone or paying a lot of money. The only downside is that Optimize Google doesn't have as many options as other tools, such as VWO or Optimizely , but it's still worth considering if you don't have time or money for those options.

9. Urlcheckr

Urlcheckr is a tool that analyzes the content of a web page and provides you with an in-depth report on that page. The report includes information about the page's number of images, links, and other elements .

The tool is useful for both webmasters and SEOs. It can help you identify broken links or missing elements on your website (e.g., images or videos). It can be used to verify whether your site has duplicate content or not.

There are many reasons why you would want to use Urlcheckr:

To find out if a website is down or offline
To check if a website is registered with Google Analytics
To check if a website has been hacked recently

The software will allow you to get information about your backlinks, including the anchor text, the URL and more. You can also check the anchor text distribution of your backlinks and their quality. The software also allows you to compare two websites and determine which one has more quality backlinks than the other.

10. Redirect Path

Redirect Path is a free, useful SEO tool that helps you find the most effective redirect paths for 301 redirects. It also makes it easy to track and manage your redirects.

Redirect Path has two main features:

Redirect Path Builder — Enter a URL from a website and Redirect Path will generate all possible 301 redirect results. You can then click on any of these results to see where they lead (or don't).
Redirect Checker — Enter a URL from a website and Redirect Path will check whether there are any existing 301 or 302 redirects on the page, including any duplicate entries in the list of URLs being redirected (this can often be an issue with WordPress themes).

Redirect Path also lets you see how long it takes for each redirect on a page and which server handles that redirect. The speed of your website can greatly affect user experience, so it's good to know where your speed comes from and how fast it really is.

11. Siteliner

Siteliner is a simple yet powerful tool that helps you optimize the performance of your website.

It allows you to quickly scan and analyze your website for all kinds of issues, such as broken links, duplicate content, missing tags, images with no alt text or titles, etc .

You'll also find out how fast your site loads from various locations worldwide and on different devices (desktop/mobile).

The Pro version also provides many other features that make it easy for you to optimize the performance of your site.

Siteliner enables you to create sitemap files in various formats, including HTML and XML .

The software is free, but you can choose to purchase a license and additional access features such as adding links .

FREE PAGE SPEED TOOLS

1. Pingdom

Pingdom is an online tool where you can test the speed of your website. It will tell you how fast your website loads, how many errors it has, and how many resources it uses.

Pingdom is a free service that provides webmasters with detailed information about the performance of their websites. Pingdom offers both free and paid plans , with the free plan allowing you to run up to 10 tests per month. You can also use Pingdom for free with no sign-up required if you just want to see how your website performs against other sites.

Pingdom provides two different kinds of speed tests: a simple page load test and an advanced test that measures page load times in real-world conditions."

You can see how many users are using your website at any given time by using Pingdom's Live Traffic feature . This is especially useful for e-commerce sites where you need to know how many people are visiting your site at any given time so that you can make sure that everything runs smoothly (and so that you don't run out of stock!).

The free version of Pingdom will let you see the average load time of websites in general (based on their own database of over 1 million site s), and it will also give you an idea about how fast other websites are compared to yours (using their own database).

2. Google PageSpeed Insights

Google PageSpeed Insights is an online tool that helps you make your website faster . It looks at how fast your site is loading to users and gives you recommendations to help speed up your site's performance.

Google PageSpeed Insights also gives you a score ( out of 100 ) on your site's performance. As your score improves, so does the user experience on your site.

The tool can be accessed via the Google Developers Console or the Google Search Console.

The recommendations are grouped into four categories:

Speed - Improve page load speed
Best Practices - Follow web best practices
Layout - Improve rendering performance
Content Delivery - Optimize content delivery

FREE LINK BUILDING TOOLS

1. LinkClump

LinkClump is a simple tool that lets you quickly create and share links to your web pages .

LinkClump is designed to help you save time and be more productive by reducing the need to manually copy and paste links from one application to another. With LinkClump, you can quickly create and share links with just a few clicks of your mouse.

LinkClump is free to download, easy to use , and works on both Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10 platforms.

LinkClump makes it easy to organize your web browsing into a folder structure that makes sense to you. The tool has built-in support for tagging and searching, so you can easily find the sites you want to keep track of.

It has various features that make it very useful for any SEO campaign:

Keyword research
Content ideas
Competitor research (to see what they are doing)
Site audits (especially useful for finding broken links)

2. Check My Links

Check My Links is an online Chrome extension that lets you crawl a page and see what types of links (broken, valid, redirect) are on a page. It's similar to the built-in " Check My Links " feature in Google Webmaster Tools (formerly known as Google Search Console ), but it works directly in your browser instead of requiring you to log in to GSC first.

Check My Links helps you find broken backlinks on any website, including your own. It's free and easy to use.

This can also be helpful when you are trying to diagnose a problem and need to see the source code of a page.

Check My Links will scan the page and identify any broken links . It can also verify that external links are working correctly and identify any redirects.

3. NoFollow Simple

NoFollow Simple is a similar tool. It's designed to check whether links on your website are followed or not followed, and it requires you to enter the URL of each site page.

On the site, go to the NoFollow Simple homepage and enter your website's URL. Hit Enter , and NoFollow Simple will check all links on the page for no-follow status. If you want a list of all pages with links on your site, click " Show All Pages ." You can then navigate through the results and manually check any additional pages that don't appear in this report.

Checking each link manually can be time-consuming if you have a large site with many pages, but it's still easier than building a spreadsheet from scratch using Google Spreadsheets' import function .

It will reduce link juice (and thus the ability of your pages to rank in Google). This is particularly useful if you have been penalized by Google for poor-quality links or violating their guidelines.

It can help protect against negative SEO attacks (whereby someone tries to harm your rankings by linking to your site through spammy sites).

4. Majestic Lite

Majestic Lite is a link analyzer. It crawls the internet and stores information about every link it finds.

This information can create backlinks, monitor competitor links, find new niche markets and more.

Majestic Lite is a free version of Majestic SEO's link intelligence software. It helps you visualize and analyze your site's links, uncover new opportunities and help to optimize your content.

It also provides an estimate of the quality of the links pointing to your site, based on data from over 100 million websites.

The Lite version is limited to 500 domains per month . Still, this limit can be increased to 1,000 domains per month by donating or upgrading to the professional version of Majestic SEO.

The Lite version also only contains data from backlinks found in the first 100 pages of search results on Google , Bing and Yahoo!. This restriction can be removed by upgrading to the paid versions of Majestic SEO or by using other tools that crawl deep enough into search results pages to find all backlinks of a given domain.

5. Hunter.io

Hunter.io is an online platform helps you find email addresses for future opportunities .

You can use Hunter.io to help you find the email address of anyone in your industry at any level of your organization. Whether you're looking for a specific prospect or just want to access a broader pool of potential candidates, Hunter.io will make it easy to find email addresses with just a few clicks.

Hunter.io is an incredibly simple tool that allows you to access every contact in your company's database—no matter where it is stored—in one place. Depending on what technology works best for your organisation's needs, you can use it on its own or integrate it with other tools like Salesforce and MailChimp .

Using Hunter.io is easy: just enter the person's name or company name and click "Search." You'll instantly get results that include the person's LinkedIn profile and even their contact information if available! You can also search by industry using our Category search feature if you know what industry your target person works in.

Using a Chrome extension , you can simply click on the icon, which will return 10 email addresses for the domain you are viewing.

6. Custom Search Engine Queries

If you're looking for an online platform to help you scale your link-building efforts , look no further than Using Search Engine Queries. This tool will help you find qualified potential partnerships for guest post contributions.

Search queries are one of my favorite tools to use when link building. Although Google search is not a tool, it can be used as a resource by anyone looking to build links.

7. Ahrefs Backlink Checker

Ahrefs is the best backlink checker out there. It's been around for years and gets better every day. This tool is easy to use and gives you all the information you need to keep track of your backlinks and ensure that they're working for you.

The free version of Ahrefs has everything you need to get started: a database of over 9 billion links , database management tools, and an index of all the backlinks you've ever built and all your competitors' links. You can use this information to find new link-building opportunities or monitor existing backlinks' performance.

The paid version unlocks even more features: competitor analysis tool, keyword research tool, rank tracking tool, social monitoring tool (for Instagram & Pinterest ), and content analysis tool (for YouTube & Facebook ).

8. HARO

HARO is a tool that finds possible backlink opportunities from publications and journalists who need feedback from subject matter experts.

It helps you to get exposure for your business or website by providing you with the opportunity to be featured in news stories, blogs, magazines, radio shows and more.

FREE SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS

1. Canva

Canva is an online tool for creating professional-looking graphics, and it's free! You can use Canva for everything from social media posts to blog graphics.

Canva is super easy to use : just sign up for an account, select the size you want your image to be, and choose from some pre-made templates. Then you can add text, images, borders and shadows to make your picture look exactly the way you want it.

Whether you're a seasoned graphic designer or someone who's never designed anything before, Canva is the perfect place to get started.

With a wide variety of templates, fonts and images , you can create everything from stunning social media posts to professional resumes without spending hours learning how to use complicated software.

With Canva, you can easily create any kind of design in minutes— no design experience required . Just choose an inspiring template in your favorite style, add photos and text, and you're all set! And when you need more customization, Canva's powerful tools will help you make it happen.

2. Free Stock Photo Websites (For Commercial Use)

There are a ton of free stock photo websites , but not all of them allow you to use their photos for commercial purposes. Here are some good ones that do:

Creative Commons (CC image search)
Pixabay
Pexels
Unsplash

Some of these resources are labeled for reuse and modification; others are not. Make sure to read the usage rights before using any resource and give proper credit when required.

3. Buffer

A buffer is a tool that works by first connecting your chosen profile(s) from each of the major social media networks . It allows you to schedule posts to share content at optimal times for audience engagement.

The key to Buffer's efficacy is its ability to integrate with other tools and platforms , such as Google Analytics and Facebook Ads Manager. This makes it easy for marketers to track their progress, see what content works best, and optimize accordingly.

It is a useful for people just getting started in online marketing because it provides a perfect way to schedule posts ahead of time so that they don't have to worry about forgetting about them when they're busy with other things!

4. Content Studio

Content Studio is a content management system that allows you to manage your website and all its contents in one place.

Content Studio works with WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and other CMSs. It provides you with an intuitive interface to manage your website's content, and it allows you to set up automated processes for generating new pages, posts or blog posts. Additionally, it comes with an integrated image gallery builder that allows you to create photo galleries without having to leave the Content Studio interface.

You can also use Content Studio to create landing pages for your business or organization, so you can easily update them with new information as needed. You'll love how easy it is to create new landing pages using our Drag & Drop Builder!

5. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is an online social media tool that allows you to manage all your social media accounts in one place. It also gives you analytics, scheduling, and team collaboration tools crucial to running a successful business.

Hootsuite integrates with over 35 social media networks, so you can update all of your platforms with the click of a button. You can schedule posts in advance and monitor conversations to get an idea of what's working (and what isn't).

Hootsuite also lets you share content from your favorite websites and blogs directly into a post or tweet, which means less time spent creating content from scratch and more time doing what matters most: engaging with customers!

6. Facebook Audience Insights

Facebook Audience Insights is an online tool to gain insight into the audience for more than just the Facebook platform .

It's easy to use and free, so you can use it whenever you need to. You can also export the data if you want to keep it around for future reference.

You can find out where your target audience is coming from, what other websites they frequently visit, and even information about their age and gender.

This information will allow you to optimize your campaign to appeal to your target audience.

Using this tool, you can find out where they live and what they like to do in their free time. You can also learn about their demographics, such as age range, gender, and education level . This information will help you determine exactly who you need to target with your marketing campaigns so that you can reach them at home on social media channels like Facebook or Instagram.

7. Facebook Text Overlay Tool

Facebook Text Overlay Tool is a tool that takes the guesswork out for you so you can test your ad creative compatibility before ever uploading the ad and having it be disapproved.

With this tool, you can try out words, phrases and sentences in any language to see how they'll look on Facebook ads. You can also test out different fonts and colors . It's like having your own little design team at your disposal!

You can upload your graphic if you want to see how it looks with text overlay on top—and we all know how important that is in getting people to click on an ad!

8. Social Media Message Optimizer

The Social Media Message Optimizer (SMMO) is a tool from Coschedule that helps you modify your posts so that your social media efforts do not go to waste by increasing engagement and trust with your audience.

You can also enhance the performance of your content by up to 25% using SMMO. Without it, you’re likely wasting time and money on low-performing posts.

9. TweetDeck

If you're looking for an online platform that will help you manage, monitor, and optimize your Twitter accounts , then look no further than TweetDeck.

TweetDeck is a free tool that allows you to run multiple Twitter accounts from one interface. You can set up various timeline views/streams in a single interface, making it easy to see what's happening with each account at a glance.

It's easy to use, the interface is intuitive , and it allows me to see my Twitter accounts in one place so I can monitor them more efficiently.

FREE EMAIL MARKETING TOOLS

1. MailChimp

MailChimp is a great way to send out email newsletters. It's easy to use and has tons of features, but the best part is that it's free to use! You can use MailChimp to send email newsletters with images, embedded video and audio files, and even social media sharing buttons.

In addition to its great features, MailChimp also offers some really cool tools for tracking how many people open your emails and tick on links inside them. This helps you figure out what content works best in your newsletters to make them more effective.

MailChimp's powerful features and integrations help you design beautiful emails, send them to your subscribers, and measure the results.

Use our drag-and-drop editor to create beautiful newsletters that look great across all devices. Or send a campaign from scratch in just a few clicks with our pre-made templates.
Automate your email campaigns so they run on your schedule, not yours. Create automated workflows to keep your subscribers engaged with timely updates and welcome series that lead up to a big announcement like an upcoming event or product launch.
A/B test subject lines and content variations to see which emails perform best for your audience. Send more targeted campaigns by looking at what content people engage most with in their inboxes.
Track how well your campaigns perform so you know what works for your audience and what doesn't — then use those insights to make future campaigns even better!

This plan offers 2,000 contacts and 10,000 sends per month . It allows you to create one automated sequence, but you can “test out” different options or triggers by deleting the automated sequence and creating another one.

2. MailerLite

MailerLite is a powerful online email marketing software that helps you send newsletters, email blasts and bulk emails. With MailerLite, you can create and send newsletters, email blasts and bulk emails with ease . It's the perfect tool for small businesses and nonprofit organizations.

In addition to being free, MailerLite is extremely easy to use . It has a drag-and-drop interface, so building professional-looking emails is a breeze. There are no difficult settings to mess with or confusing code to learn. Just start writing your message and move it around until it looks perfect.

MailerLite also comes with a built-in newsletter editor that allows you to easily add images, videos, audio files and links into your newsletter template without having to worry about how they will look when they're sent out in HTML format.

MailerLite offers extensive personalization features, including A/B testing and conditional content based on user actions such as opening an email or ticking on a link within it.

MailerLite offers a number of different plans, including free accounts for up to 1,000 subscribers. For all plans, you can send up to 12 campaigns per month, with an unlimited number of subscribers per campaign.

MailerLite offers a free trial period so you can see if it's right for your business before committing. The paid tiers begin at $9/month for up to 5,000 subscribers and increase from there based on subscriber count.

3. Email Subject Line Tester

Email Subject Line Tester is a free online tool that will help you test different subject lines for your emails to see which one gets the best open rate.

This is a simple and useful tool if you are sending out emails regularly but want to enhance the open rate of your messages. It can be used by anyone who needs fast results, including marketers, bloggers, business owners and more.

This free web app will help you find the most effective subject line for your emails . We'll analyze your list and send out multiple variations of each subject line to see which ones get the best response rate.

You can also upload your list and use our optimization algorithm to find the best subject line for it.

Email Subject Line Tester allows you to test different subject lines against one another and see how they perform based on metrics such as click-through rate, unsubscribe rate and more.

FREE LEAD GENERATION TOOLS

1. SUMO

SUMO is a tool that helps build your email list . It's an extension for your browser that lets you add content blocks to your site, just like you would with a blog post or page. You can also use SUMO to bring in new visitors and convert them into subscribers (or customers).

With SUMO, you can:

Add content blocks to your site that drive traffic and conversions.
Get more email subscribers by adding lead magnets, forms and other CTAs to your website.
Find out what type of content works perfectly on your site with heat maps, scroll maps and analytics tools.

The SUMO extension adds a popup window to every page of your website. When someone visits one of these pages, they will be prompted with a question, and they have the option of answering it or not.

Once they answer it, they will receive an email which includes a link back to your website, where they can learn more information about what they've just answered. The more people click on the links in their emails, the more traffic comes back to your site.

You can use SUMO to help build your email list by adding subscribe boxes on your website. The subscribe box adds a form where visitors can enter their name and email address in exchange for something of value.

SUMO also has an analytics dashboard that allows you to see how many subscribers are coming from each channel (e.g., social media), what percentage of those users are engaged with your content, and more.

2. Hellobar

Hellobar is a lead gen tool that allows you to integrate different popup and lead gen styles onto your site. It is a great solution to get people's attention, grow your email list, and increase sales.

It has ready-made templates for many of the most popular email marketing platforms such as Aweber, MailChimp, ConvertKit, Infusionsoft and more. But don't worry if you use something else — we also have an easy-to-use editor where you can create your custom templates.

Hellobar is highly customizable and supports custom CSS stylesheets, so if you want to change the look of it or integrate it with another theme/plugin, that's no problem!

Hellobar supports multiple popups, including:

Welcome screen : Show a welcome message to new visitors, or offer them a discount in exchange for their email address.
Newsletter subscription box : Convert more visitors into subscribers by showing them an easy way to subscribe to your newsletter on the same page where they're already reading content from your blog.
Subscribe to blog updates box : Show an easy way for readers who don't want to subscribe to your newsletter but still want updates from you on Twitter, Facebook, or other social networks.
Website stats box. Display current traffic stats for your website in a popup so that visitors can see how popular it is with their peers (or just curious about what kind of traffic you're getting).

Free Project Management Software

1. ClickUp

ClickUp is a free online task management tool that helps you organize, prioritize and assign tasks to your team.

If you are a manager looking for a task management tool, ClickUp will help you manage projects from start to finish.

If you are searching for an easy way to manage multiple projects, ClickUp has the features you need in a single app.

And if you're a freelancer working with clients on different projects, ClickUp will help keep your projects organized and make it easier for clients to communicate with each other when needed.

There are two main features of ClickUp. The first is the project management tool , which lets you create projects, add tasks to those projects, assign those tasks to users, set due dates and track progress on each task.

The second is the " minutes " feature, which allows you to record meeting minutes without typing them out by hand.

The project management tool is great for managing projects of any kind — whether managing a team of writers or planning your family reunion.

It's also useful for keeping track of personal projects like household chores or organizing your wedding events.

2. Nifty

Nifty is an online project management tool that lets you plan and manage your projects online. It's designed to help you get things done, whether planning a wedding, organizing a book club meeting or building a house.

With Nifty, you can:

Create your goal and share them with friends and family.
Add due dates, tags and comments to each task.
See your tasks grouped by date or tag at a glance in the sidebar.
Get reminders via email or text when tasks are due.

Nifty is a web-based application that provides all of the features you need to manage your team's projects and tasks. You can create tasks, assign them to team members, set due dates and create reports to show how things are progressing.

Nifty uses a Kanban board concept where you create tasks in columns based on priority. The columns can be moved from one column to another based on the stage of completion of each task.

The software lets you add notes directly onto each task as well as attachments so you can upload files related to specific tasks.

3. Trello

Trello is an online, free, flexible and visual way to organize anything with anyone.

Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, Trello tells you what's being worked on, who's working on what, and where something is in a process.

Trello makes it easy for you to get organized and collaborate with others. Build better teams by setting goals and keeping members accountable.

With Trello's simple interface, you can drag and drop cards from list to list with ease. It's perfect for organizing projects, planning events or managing your life.

Trello has three main functions:

Create boards for organizing tasks. Create lists on each board to organize your tasks. Assign cards to specific lists or add them to existing cards on other lists, as needed.
Use checklists to track progress on each task, or add comments and attach files as needed. You can even use " sticky notes " to keep track of things that don't fit into the traditional Trello model of lists and cards — just like you would on a physical corkboard!
Add labels to your boards and lists so you can easily find what you're looking for later on (I tend to use labels like " in progress ," " done ," and " waiting ").

You can also see what needs to be do and who's responsible for each item on the board. It's also a good way to collaborate with others on projects because you can share different boards with different people.

4. Bitrix24

Bitrix24 is a corporate social network and a business collaboration platform. It offers a secure, reliable and fast communication channel for employees, partners and customers. Bitrix24 is compatible with Microsoft Office 365 , Google Docs and other productivity software.

Bitrix24 can be used to connect employees within one organization or to partner companies across multiple locations. The platform enables users to collaborate on documents, share data and communicate via instant messaging, video conferencing and conference calls.

Bitrix24 also allows teams to manage their schedules, share calendars, create task lists and track projects in real-time.

Bitrix24 offers several modules to help you manage your business. For example, the CRM module helps you track leads and contacts, while the Project Management module gives you control over projects and tasks. You can use the Calendar module to schedule meetings and events or send emails via the Mailer module.

The Social Networking module lets you promote your business on Facebook and Twitter, while the Newsfeeds module shows users' activity on social networks like LinkedIn or Google+ .

Bitrix24 has everything you need to run your business. Its powerful project management system lets you create multiple projects with subprojects and organize them with folders, milestones and tags.

You can also assign jobs to your team members, share files with clients and set due dates for each task. You can even create separate projects inside projects so that you can keep track of different stages of development or launch events.

5. Asana

Asana is a beautiful and powerful tool for managing your tasks and projects . It helps you visualize your work, focus on what's important and stay organized.

Asana is where your team's work comes together—so you can do more of it. Asana helps teams get stuff done. It combines the power of workflow, organization, planning and communication tools with the simplicity of a social network.

Asana is an online cloud-based task management platform that helps teams manage their workflow from start to finish, including creating tasks, assigning them to team members, tracking their progress, discussing them in real-time, and reporting on results.

Asana helps you get your work done by breaking it down into smaller tasks, which makes it easy to assign, organize and prioritize everything on your plate. You'll be more productive and efficient when you use Asana to stay organized while collaborating with others.

In Asana, you can easily create a task list, add details, assign it to someone else or schedule it in the future. You can also attach documents, photos, or files related to your tasks .

When everyone on your team uses Asana, everyone knows what's going on — there are no vague emails or unanswered questions about what needs to be done next.

6. Todoist

Todoist is a task management service that helps you organize your life, whether it's managing your to-do list, planning projects or sharing tasks with co-workers.

Todoist has been featured in The New York Times, TIME Magazine, CNET, Mashable and more. It's also the top-rated to-do list app in Google Play and App Store .

Use Todoist on the web and across all your devices to stay on top of tasks. Create tasks quickly by adding them right from Gmail or Google Calendar emails. Set reminders, so you don't forget important deadlines. Manage shared tasks with collaborators using Todoist for Android, iOS, Mac & other platforms.

The app has three main views: My Tasks, Today and Projects . The My Tasks view shows all of your tasks, organized by date or priority level. I like that you can also see incomplete tasks at the top of this view — it makes checking off items much more satisfying. The Today view shows a list of your tasks for the day, as well as weather conditions and calendar appointments.

7. TeamGantt

5. Asana

TeamGantt is a simple yet powerful project management software solution that allows you to create, view and share Gantt charts online. With TeamGantt, you can:

Create beautiful Gantt Charts in just a few minutes
Share your projects with your team members and clients
Collaborate on projects with other users
Track your time from anywhere using our mobile apps (iOS and Android)

TeamGantt offers two different plans: a Free Plan, which is limited to one project per user, and a Premium Plan, which includes unlimited projects. The Premium Plan also features additional features such as task dependencies, critical path analysis, etc.

TeamGantt offers a variety of templates for common project types like 'sprints', 'roadmaps' and 'agile' projects . You can create your custom templates or start from scratch with a blank canvas.

TeamGantt is completely customizable. You can set up different roles with different permissions, customize your Gantt chart with an unlimited number of tasks, resources and dependencies, add comments to tasks, assign tasks to team members and more!

8. Zoho Projects

Zoho Projects is an online project management tool for small businesses and teams. It provides visibility into projects, tasks, deadlines, and milestones .

It has various features that can be used to manage your team's workload. You can keep track of tasks and dependencies, deadlines and progress, resource allocation and more. It also allows you to assign tasks to your employees and measure their performance through reports.

The dashboard of Zoho provides you with a quick overview of all projects with due dates, budget breakdowns and performance reports.

Features of Zoho Projects:

Easy Team Collaboration - Manage your team’s workload by creating projects, assigning tasks to members and tracking their progress through reports.
Innovative Workflow Management - Create workflows for every step in your project management process so that every task is completed on time.
Easy Project Management - Manage multiple projects at once with an intuitive dashboard that provides a bird’s-eye view of all aspects of each project, such as budgets and timelines.

You can also create issues, deal with incidents, and resolve problems so that you can manage your project from beginning to end.

Zoho Projects offers an easy-to-use interface that makes project management simple for both newbies as well as experienced managers.

Free Video Marketing Tools

1. Content Idea Generator, by Portent

Content Idea Generator by Portent is the only tool of its kind on the market today. It uses AI algorithms to analyze your past content and generate ideas based on what's worked best for your audience . The results are always unique and fresh, so you'll never have to worry about running out of topics again!

This tool is designed to help you come up with fresh ideas for your next piece of content and help you avoid the dreaded " writer's block ." It uses a combination of algorithms and human editors to create a list of potential topics that are likely to resonate with your online audience. All you have to do is select one and start writing!

2. Storyboarder, by WonderUnit

Storyboarder by WonderUnit, is a tool that helps you create storyboards for animation.

Storyboards are crucial in producing any animated film, TV show, or video game . They allow animators to visualize their ideas and communicate them to other production team members. A well-drawn storyboard can also be used to pitch your project to investors and distributors.

WonderUnit created Storyboarder because we wanted an easy way to create high-quality storyboards without having to deal with the complexity of traditional software like Photoshop or Illustrator . Their goal was to make it easy for anyone with no art experience to create professional-looking storyboards using their iPad or iPhone!

3. Script Timer, by Vidyard

Script Timer, by Vidyard is a free tool that makes it easy to track the time you spend on scripts.

Script Timer, by Vidyard helps you:

Keep track of your spent time on each script.
Know which scripts are taking up the most of your time.
Plan out what you need to do next, based on how much time you've already spent on each script.

It l ets you record your screen as you work on a presentation, so you can see how long each slide takes to read aloud. After that, You can use the data gathered to tweak your presentation and improve the flow.

If you're working with text slides, this tool will also allow you to see how fast or slow your audience reads them when watching the video.

It's easy to use and works seamlessly with Vidyard's video editor, so you can focus on creating great content and not worry about keeping track of how long each scene is taking.

4. Adobe Premiere Rush

Adobe Premiere Rush is an online tool for those who need an easy-to-use video editing app that can help them make short videos but don't have much time to learn how to use it. This tool is easy to use that even your kids can use it!

It has a simple interface that makes it easy to get started. You can also select from numerous templates to get started with your project. The templates will give you a solid foundation for your video, but they're also flexible enough that you can customize them if you want.

You'll also be able to easily add music and text to your videos and apply filters and transitions . There are even some special effects available if you'd like them!

If you're looking for something more advanced, Adobe Premiere Rush might not be your best choice. However, if you need a quick way to edit your videos without spending days learning how everything works, this will probably work great!

5. Headline Analyzer

Headline Analyzer is a free platform by CoSchedule that helps you analyze your headlines to see what’s working and isn’t.

With Headline Analyzer, you can:

See how your headline stacks up against 28 industry benchmarks in terms of social reach, engagement and more.
Get suggestions on how to improve your headline.
Try different combinations of words to see which ones work best for your audience.

In one sentence, it tells you what words to use to get more clicks from Google Search, Facebook Ads and Twitter Ads .

The tool analyzes your headline and gives tips on how to improve it. It also lets you see which words in your headline will most likely get clicks on each social network.

The Headline Analyzer uses an algorithm to analyze your headline and give it a score based on how likely it is to engage readers. You can also see how it compares to other headlines from the same content category.

The extension has three main features:

Word Count - This feature automatically tallies the number of characters in your headline. It does not count spaces, punctuation, or capital letters.
Readability - This feature automatically calculates the readability of your headline based on Flesch-Kincaid grade level and Flesch Reading Ease score . The higher the grade level or reading ease score, the more difficult it will be for readers to understand what you're saying in your headline.
Common Content Writing Mistakes - This feature looks at commonly confused words (there, they're) and common content writing mistakes (using 'is' instead of 'are').

Free Pinterest Keyword Tools

1. Pin Inspector

Pin Inspector is a new, innovative, and one-of-a-kind Pinterest tool that has revolutionized Pinterest keyword research!

With Pin Inspector you can:

Discover the most relevant Pins in any category or niche.
Find out your Pins that are getting repinned the most.
Find out who's repinning your Pins and what they're pinning.

Pin Inspector will help you find untapped keywords that you can use to drive traffic to your website or blog. You can also use these keywords in your Pins and boards on Pinterest to get more followers and increase sales.

Pin Inspector will help you find the keywords that matter for your business so that you can create more engaging content and increase traffic on your blog.

2. KeySearch

KeySearch is a free Pinterest keyword tool where you can see a variety of keywords and their search volumes!

KeySearch is the easiest way to discover new ways to grow your Pinterest account. As soon as you enter a keyword, KeySearch will show you:

The top related keywords that people are searching for on Pinterest.
How many people are searching for each one of these keywords (the search volume)
A graph that shows how the popularity of each keyword has changed over time (the trend)
You can use KeySearch to find new topics to pin about, or simply get inspiration for an existing board.

KeySearch gives you the ability to find popular keywords on Pinterest. This tool can help you gain more followers, traffic, and sales. You can also use KeySearch to find topics related to your niche so you can expand your audience!

KeySearch also has a ton of other features that you can use to help grow your Pinterest profile. For example, you can find out how many people are searching for your brand name, which keywords are being used with your brand name, and more!

KeySearch reveals the most relevant search terms for your boards and pins so that you can optimize them accordingly.

3. Pinterest’s built-in keyword tool

Pinterest’s built-in keyword tool is one of the most powerful tools you can use to discover new content ideas for your account.

As you browse through Pinterest, you may have noticed that there are grey dots on certain pins. This is the result of someone using the Keyword Insights tool.

Keyword Insights is a free tool that allows you to see how many people are searching for a specific term on Pinterest, how often it’s searched and what types of pins are popular among those searches.

This tool is useful for finding keywords that are relevant to your business or industry, but also for finding new ideas for content and inspiration for your brand. Let’s take a look at how you can use this feature to get more out of Pinterest marketing!

Pinterest uses an algorithm to determine what people search for on their platform and how those searches relate to each other. This means that if someone searches “ paleo diet recipes ”, they may also be interested in “ gluten free recipes ” or “ healthy eating tips ”.

The Pinterest keyword tool works by analyzing your content and identifying words that people have used to find it. You can then use this information to find new ideas for things you could be pinning about.

Free Hashtag Generator Tools

1. All Hashtag

All Hashtag is a tool that lets you find relevant hashtags for your Instagram posts and other social media content.

All Hashtag makes it easy for you to find the perfect hashtags for your photos and videos by providing you with a list of trending tags and suggestions based on what your followers are using.

All Hashtag allows you to search for any hashtag on Instagram, as well as other social platforms like Twitter and Facebook. You can filter by category or location in order to narrow down your search.

The app allows you to add custom hashtags to your posts and monitor the performance of your campaign in real-time.

All Hashtag also offers advanced analytics that helps you understand how people are reacting to your marketing efforts.

2. Ritetag

Ritetag is a chatbot that gives instant hashtag suggestions for images and texts on desktop and mobile, based on real-time hashtag engagement.

It was created to solve the problem of finding relevant hashtags for social media posts. The idea is simple: you insert a text or an image into our bot, and it will return a list of related hashtags to use in your social media post.

The algorithm behind Ritetag is designed to generate the most relevant hashtags, so that you can use them to grow your audience and increase your visibility in social media.

It's free to use and there are no limits on how many hashtags you can add to your content.

Ritetag is available as a desktop app or as a mobile app. If you're using it on desktop, you can open up an image file or paste text into Ritetag's window to get instant suggestions for the best hashtags to use. If you're using it on mobile, simply enter any text into Ritetag's search bar and it'll give you suggestions based on what other users have used in their posts.

Ritetag also allows you to search for keywords related to your business or industry so that you can find appropriate hashtags for your posts.

3. Instavast Hashtag Generator

Instavast hashtag generator is a tool to help you create the best hashtags for your Instagram posts. Use the Hashtag Generator to find the best hashtags for your next Instagram post and increase the reach of your content.

Instavast Hashtag Generator is the only free tool that allows you to search hashtags on Instagram and see if they are relevant or not. This is crucial, because you want to know if people are actually using your hashtag before you start promoting it.

You simply enter a keyword and click "Generate". Instavast will then generate relevant hashtags for you to use in your posts. You can also sort the hashtags by popularity, recency or alphabetical order.

4. #HashMe

HashMe allows you to upload a photo, or search hashtags with text input.

HashMe is the first app that lets you search through hashtags on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr . You can search for any hashtag or username in the world.

The app also gives you a list of popular tags and related hashtags, so you can find new people to follow or photos to like.

5. Hashtagify

Hashtagify is a tool to find the most popular hashtags .

Hashtagify is a tool that helps you find what's trending on Twitter by showing you the top tweets and finding the most popular hashtags related to them.

The app also shows you which hashtags are being used most often by your followers, friends or family members. This can help you discover new people to follow based on similar interests or topics that are important to you.

On the Hashtagify website, you can enter any keyword and see how many times it has been used with different hashtags on Twitter and Instagram . You can see which hashtags are most popular with each keyword, along with an analysis of how much traffic each hashtag brings in.

This is great if you want to learn more about social media marketing trends or find out which hashtags are popular among your target audience.

6. HashtagsForLikes

HashtagsForLikes is a tool that allows you to create and share your own hashtags.

HashtagsForLikes is different from other hashtag tools because it creates a unique hashtag for each of your posts. This means that even if you use the same hashtags on multiple posts, they will be different.

HashtagsForLikes also has a unique feature where you can see how many people are using a hashtag before you use it. This is great because it prevents you from using an existing hashtag that already has hundreds or thousands of posts.

This tool is super easy to use and there are no limits on how many hashtags you can create at once!

The app will give you a list of popular hashtags related to your post , as well as suggestions for more hashtags that you can add to your post.

You can also create a free account on HashtagsForLikes.com, which allows you to save the hashtags you've used in the past so that they are available whenever you want to use them again.

Final Verdict

The big question: Does it work? Yes, it does . This free marketing stack is an effective tool for small businesses or startups just starting out. In the past, implementing a marketing campaign might have required hiring companies to do this for you—but what if you didn't have the money to do that?

What if you wanted to take a DIY approach to your marketing? This guide provides you with free online tools to get your online marketing started on the cheap.

What Are TikTok Coins Used For? 3 Best Ways to Spend Them

junaid@brightsocialagency.com (Junaid Ahmed) — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 15:20:43 GMT

When TikTok announced the introduction of coins, many fans wondered how to purchase TikTok coins and what they could be used for. Since being released on September 25th, 2019 , TikTok coins are available across the United States and have been featured on Instagram as well as Snapchat .

TikTok coins are a virtual currency that can be used to purchase premium features within the app or for making purchases from other users' shops on the platform. These coins are available for purchase through an in-app purchase option.

You can either pay for them using your payment method or earn them by completing offers or watching ads through the " Earn " tab in the Settings menu.

You can purchase them by entering your credit card information or a PayPal account. Spending coins on TikTok is a great way to achieve your goals. Here are some ways you can spend your coins in the TikTok app .

1. Sending Gifts on TikTok Live

Sending gifts on TikTok Live is a great way to show your appreciation for your favorite creators. You can send a gift to anyone's live on their profile, whether you're watching a video or not.

One of the best ways to spend your TikTok coins is on gifts for other TikTok users.

The gifts on TikTok are represented by different emoticons and vary in price. Creators can exchange them for money once they have stocked up enough tip s.

Sending gifts to creators on their TikTok Live will boost your popularity and put you in front of more people.

When you purchase a gift to send on TikTok Live , the creator will see a notification on their screen.

This allows the creator to thank their gift-givers in real-time , encouraging a stronger connection between creator and viewer .

When sending a gift during your favorite creator's TikTok Live, follow these steps:

Join the TikTok Live of the creator you want to give a gift to, so they can see it.
Tap the gift box icon in the bottom-right corner to receive your rewards.
Choose the gift you want to send from a range of options, depending on how much money you have to spend.
Tap the Send icon, and your message is on its way.

When you send a gift, the icon corresponding to your gift will appear on the screen and a comment that says you have sent a gift to the creator.

2. Sending Gifts in a TikTok Creator's Comment Section

By sending gifts to your favorite creator through their comment section, you will show that you appreciate their work. Creators who use the TikTok Live feature may not respond to comments in the comment section, so if you want to show your support, you should use the " double hearts " feature.

Here's how to send a gift to a creator using the comment section:

Find a TikTok video from the creator to whom you wish to send a gift, and then click the " Gift " icon below it.
Open the video's comments section and see what other viewers are saying.
Tap the gift box icon in the bottom-right corner of your screen to access your gifts.
Choose the gift you want to send by choosing the coin package that best suits your budget.
Tap the Send button in the bottom-right corner of your screen .

3. Buying a TikTok Promotion

Another way to spend your TikTok coins is through TikTok Promote , which allows you to promote your own TikTok videos.

TikTok Promote is a feature that lets you boost a video on TikTok over a set amount of days . Boosting can help your video gain exposure and reach a wider audience.

TikTok promotions run the gamut of costs, depending on how many days you choose to run your advertising and how many views you wish to get.

To purchase a TikTok promotion , follow these steps:

To promote a TikTok video , find the video you'd like to promote. Note that videos containing certain sounds won't be eligible for promotion due to copyright limits. To use the Promote tool , use copyright-free audio , or create your own original audio .
Click the three dots .
Tap on the fire icon above to see how the game works.
When you promote your TikTok account on social media , you can choose to focus on getting more engagement, website visits , or followers .
You can choose your target audience on the TikTok app . You can let TikTok select your target audience or customize your own, which allows you to target a wide range of demographics.
You can choose the duration and budget of your promotion . Your budget is converted into TikTok coins you must purchase to begin buying an advertisement.
If you don't have enough coins to purchase the promotion, you can r echarge them and then buy the promotion .

Promotions on TikTok can cost as little as $5 ( approximately 506 coins ) and up to as much as $7,000 (approximately 707,072 coins) .

Are TikTok Coins Useful?

People can use TikTok coins in several different ways. If you are someone who likes to show your support financially, TikTok coins are a good way to do so.

If you do not wish to send gifts to creators or use the promotion feature, you will not need to use coins on TikTok unless the platform introduces new uses in the future.

If you have an account on TikTok and want to grow your following , coins can be used to boost your posts, so more people see them.

How the New Twitter Advanced Search Will Change the Way Brands Tweet

junaid@brightsocialagency.com (Junaid Ahmed) — Sat, 20 Aug 2022 10:52:18 GMT

Every second, more than 5500 tweets are sent on Twitter. That is more than 500 million tweets daily! Using the fantastic Twitter Advanced Search Tool feature , you can easily search them all plus the multi-million profiles attached to them.

Twitter has announced new updates to the way users search their databases. These recent changes could drastically affect the way brands draft their tweets. Twitter Advanced Search is a perfect tool for small businesses and marketers because it can help you quickly find new customers and search for someone's tweets.

In this blog, Bright Social Agency will share new tips and tricks to help your business win with Twitter's new Twitter Advanced Search.

Overview of the New Twitter Search

The new Twitter search update seems to take numerous cues from Google. It tries to guess what a user is searching for based on what is trending and provides the user a drop-down list that helps complete their search query without the user having to finish typing. It can correct spelling if something is mistyped.

This social media app will now take your search query and provide options for similar search terms. For example, if I search for " Social Media Strategy. " it might suggest that another search option is " Social Media Agency ." This can be very useful when trying to discover new content or follow a trending topic .

The most arguably important update is the ability to filter search results down to people you follow. This new search feature makes it easy for users to find old tweets they want to favorite or messages from friends.

The more I think about this feature, the more excited I am about it. The update may seem minor, but it has the ability to change how we interact with Twitter completely.

Why Twitter Advanced Search?

Twitter advanced search is a robust tool that can help you find exactly what you need in just a few clicks . The Twitter advanced search feature allows you to search for tweets by keyword and location, as well as by date range. For example, you can search for all tweets that contain the word " dog " within the past month or all tweets that mention " New York " during the Super Bowl.

The first thing to know about Twitter's advanced search is that it's really easy to set up. You must type some keywords into the search box at the top of your screen and then click " Search ." This feature is useful for researching topics and trends in the news , finding out about events in real-time, or just learning more about what people are talking about.

So, why bother with advanced search? The answer is simple: It saves you time. You can use it to refine your searches to include only certain kinds of tweets, only from specific accounts , or from a specific date range. If you're searching for something specific—like articles on black history —you can also set up your advanced search to exclude tweets that aren't related to your search.

Suppose you have a lot of different ideas about what you want to find. In that case, this feature will save you tons of time by allowing you to narrow down your results without having to check each individual result individually!

How To Navigating Twitter Advanced Search?

At first glance, you may be confused by the Advanced Search results page . There are many fields of study to consider, and it can be confusing to figure out where to start. To help you get started, Bright Social Agency has put together this quick guide.

Search Filters to Use

With these search filters, you can select the text that you need or don't need to appear in your search results.

Searching for Specific Phrases or Words

All of these words : Enter two or more phrases or words in this field, and you will see tweets that contain those terms. You can search for one or more words or phrases using quotation marks to separate each. For example, " social media " or " Social Marketing ."

This Exact Phrase : It's best to search for just one name or quote in this field. This is a good place to find quotes , characters ' names , locations , etc.

Any of these words : This field is excellent for searching multiple terms. For example, use " Bright Social ," " @brightsocial ," and " #BrightSocial " to search all things Bright Social related.

None of these words : The words or phrases entered here will exclude tweets from your search results.

These Hashtags : This will help you hone in on specific hashtags, for example, #Brightsocial .

Searching for People or Accounts

For these accounts : This will show you tweets from the specific accounts you select.

To these accounts : These are the tweets sent as replies to a specific account.

How to use Twitter Advanced Search?

Twitter Advanced Search lets you search for tweets on a specific topic and filter results by date, location, and other parameters.

1. Start by searching Twitter in the top right corner of the website.

2. To find what you’re looking for, navigate to the “ Search filter s” menu on the right, then click “ Advanced search .” You can then explore a variety of search options.

3. When looking for a word, phrase, or hashtag used in a Tweet or bio, start with the “ Words ” section.

4. If you want to see what people are saying about specific accounts, use the “ Accounts ” filters. You can choose whether or not you are shown replies and original tweets that include links.

Pro Tip : You can track your brand mentions in the “ Accounts ” field to find and respond directly to questions from your audience. You can easily find and reply directly to inquiries from your audience or perform some competitor research.

5. The search terms “ Engagement ” and “ Dates ” can help narrow down a search for your topic. Be sure to start broad and make your search terms more specific as you go along.

6. When you click “ Search ,” you can filter your results. If a Tweet is popular (“ Top ”), it is recent (“ Latest ”), or it was sent by a particular person (“ People ”), then you can click “ Advanced search” again to keep narrowing down your search.

Tip : Save up to 25 searches per account to keep track of people sharing your content and other relevant information. Tick “Save search” on the right side of your search query.

Effect on Brands

Most importantly, this update will make it easier for brands to run successful Twitter promotions . As the platform begins to structure itself for searches, it will be necessary for brands to do the same. Tweets must be optimized for Twitter as blog posts and websites are optimized for Google . Tweets that are not optimized for Twitter will be ignored by users and search engines alike.

Hashtags : As hashtags become increasingly crucial in tweets, the old habits of hashtagging will not change—but they will likely impact searches more. Brands should consider optimizing their hashtags to include commonly searched terms. A tweet containing only or mostly hashtags may sacrifice readability, but one that consists of a few carefully selected hashtags may improve brand awareness.
Keywords : Similarly, tweets should be optimized with keywords. Instead of using a link, try to find ways to entice users with information related to the tweet. Tweets should grab followers’ attention and use keywords to help them appear in Twitter searches.

In the future, the information from Expanded Tweets will likely be used in search results. This would add another dimension to SEO in tweeting , but it remains to be seen if this will happen.

Hopefully, brands will use this kind of tweeting as an opportunity to increase engagement on the social network. We will likely see more focused conversations and a richer exchange of ideas , neither of which seems like a bad thing as long as Twitter can eliminate spam.

Supercharge your Twitter Account

The Advanced Search feature of Twitter is a powerful tool for building relationships, finding new leads , and promoting your brand . The recent changes bring smart instant searches, recommendations for similar search terms, and the ability to only search tweets from people or brands you follow.

The new system will make it much more critical for brands to use appropriate keywords and phrases in their tweets. As a brand manager, you should consider using Twitter's search functions to reach potential customers more effectively. If you are a Twitter user , prepare to have a more meaningful interaction with people and brands than before.

Are you using the newest search features yet? How will you incorporate them into your future research? Let us know what you think about the new Advanced Search feature in the comments below!

SEO Link Building With SEMRush: 7 Techniques You Must Try

junaid@brightsocialagency.com (Junaid Ahmed) — Mon, 08 Aug 2022 08:09:11 GMT

When you're working hard to get your blog on page one of Google, why not utilize every technique available to you? Link building is one of the best strategies out there, and there are several link-building strategies you can use to increase your search engine rankings and drive traffic to your blog.

To get high-quality backlinks for your website, you have to make a compromise between quantity and quality. If you prefer quantity, then implement tons of spammy techniques, and if you prefer quality, you have to afford a considerable amount of time.

SEO Link Building is one of the essential parts of On-Page SEO . There are many tools available in the market to do this task, but with link building, SEMRush is your best companion in 2022. SEMRush is a powerful tool that can be used for link-building purposes. But to use it to its full potential, you must try these 7 ways.

1. Check What Is New in Your Website's Backlink Profile

When analyzing your backlink profile, the first thing you should do is check the new links built to your site. It can be easy to spot the new links if you have an updated backlink profile and then compare it against an older version of your link profile. It is important to notice these links because they might point to pages where you don't want to draw attention or even contain malware.

Depending on how massive your site is, you may need to check on your backlink profile at least once every week, if not more frequently. To get started, try your domain name into SEMRush backlink report . Select the quick filter " New " backlinks, and as an option, select only the " Follow " type to check the most important ones first.

In this way, you can see your previous outreach and other marketing cooperation ended with new backlinks. Then, you can prove you are doing work by combining this data in a report to your client or manager with other KPIs such as:

Ranking improvements from position tracking .
A boost in your website's authority .
Amount of referral traffic from Google Analytics .

2. Get Back Everything You have Lost

Getting new backlinks is perfect for SEO, and you need to ensure that you are not losing any of your important pre-existing backlinks. Sites rewrite their SEO content, and links can be lost. To find lost links on SEMRush, select the " Lost " filter in SEMRush Backlinks report , add the " Follow " filter, and sort by descending authority page. In this way, you will find the biggest losses.

Once you discover the domains where the link was lost , you should reach out to their domain owners and make a pitch to get your backlink back. Above all, if the backlink was lost due to a page on their website breaking, the chances are high that the domain owner would appreciate you letting them know! You can see the dates when SEMRush first and last saw the backlink, which could add some context to your outreach email.

3. Pick New Link Building Ideas from the Right Competitor

If you do not know where to get new ideas, the ideal place to start is by looking at a website similar to yours. By looking at your competitor's backlink profile ad applying some filters, you could find the best website to reach out to in hopes of gaining new quality backlinks. There are some ways to select your most successful competitors.

SEMRush backlink Competitors Report shows your competitors based on the number of your common referring domains correlated with the size of the site's backlink profile to avoid detecting wiki-type giants , which most SEOs do not want to analyze.

Now you have an initial point of whose referring domains you will need to analyze. For example, if you are TechNinjaPro.com , you could look into the backlink profile of Tomsguide , VPNranks , and Privacysavvy for new ideas. You can tick on your competitor's domain from this report to generate a new backlink report for that website.

Go to the Referring Domains page to see the websites that link to your competitors, and then use this listing to put together your prospect " Outreach " register. Do not forget to pay dedicated attention to the authority score to select valuable domains.

4.Find Unique Content Ideas to Attract Backlinks

Do you struggle to look for content ideas to create?

As in the previous step, you can easily get inspiration from your genuine competitors.

In SemRush's indexed pages report, users can find their competitor's content that attracts the most quality backlinks. Just type in your competitor's domain and see what pages attract the more number of backlinks from different authority domains.

At the top of this SEMRush report, you will see their homepages as the top page setting backlinks , but scroll down to find more content ideas that are working perfectly and getting backlinks in your niche.

5. Smartly Implement Redirects for formerly Successful Pages

While It is normal to regularly earn links to a product page that always stays live, you could see new backlinks come to a non-permanent page on your website. For example, you could host a page for marketing that acquired backlinks , and then after a year, someone removes the page because your marketing campaign is over. Sadly, your website would lose all of the link power that specific page contributes to your site.

What would be good to do is to redirect users to the main category page related to the thread topic. Pay attention to your high-performing pages from a link perspective because you do not need to lose customers and do not need to ruin relations with websites linking to you for future cooperation.

6. Audit Your Anchor Texts

Anchor text is one of the SEO details that can add up to making a significant impact if optimized. Any phrase or word that is highlighted as a clickable hyperlink is the anchor text of a backlink. Anchor text is important for two specific reasons :

Anchor text notifies your readers what to expect before clicking on the link. Anchor texts are the promise about what is on the other side of the backlink, so they must be relevant.
It also tells Google what your content is about. Google's algorithms use your anchor texts to ensure that you are not engaging in spammy practices.

One way of ensuring that your anchor texts do not reflect spammy practices is by checking the ratio of what anchors exactly match a keyword that a site is trying to rank for. Since Google compared it to your on-site keyword optimization , it is superior to reduce the number of these " money anchors " or irrelevant anchors and maybe work on improving the number of branded anchors.

To find all the backlinks with a specific text, go to SemRush's Anchor report and type the keyword you need to check. In the drop-down list, you will see the suggestions taken from all the anchor texts you have.

In case of an overused keyword in your backlink profile, put together a template asking website owners to change the content of your anchors and speed up the outreach process. This would help users avoid a situation where Google considers your content strategy spammy or penalizes your web pages in the Google SERPs .

7. Automate Your Link Building Ideas Search

last but not least is all about SemRush's Link Building Tool. This specialized tool was designed to help the outreach process of gaining new backlinks. It mainly covers three main steps of the backlink acquisition process: gathering prospects, outreach, and monitoring progress.

To help users find quality prospects, this will look for some sources for ideas, including:

Links that your competitors managed to get .
Links that you have lost.
Mentions without any backlinks .
Automatic searches of quality sources using advanced search filters .

To start your backlink campaign, click the setup button in the Link Building tool and enter up to 10 keywords and competitors. The next outreach targets will be presented based on the link helping other sites rank for your target keyword or audience.

As soon as all the content ideas are gathered, SEMRush automatically estimates your prospects' quality with a rating out of 5 . This rating includes many factors such as authority score, the amount of traffic this domain gets per month, the number of links, referring domain leading to this site, common category relevancy, and any potential danger signs from the target site.

After searching and filtering the prospects, you can work through your flow by sending some to the " In Progress " section and rejecting others. You can also use a template from SemRush's list of the most common link earning situations to narrow your targeting.

Once you are done analyzing, it is the right time for you to contact the shortlisted domains about adding your required backlink. SemRush's automated wizard allows you to do this directly from the interface. Just customize the email template or save your template for future use. If you are interested

If you are looking for a digital agency to develop your website and build a strong SEO strategy, Bright Social Agency is the one-stop shop.

Inspiring Change Through Social Good: Digital & Social Media Strategies That Fuel a Brighter Tomorrow

Thu, 21 Jul 2022 22:32:36 GMT

Did you know that digital and social media strategies can inspire change for social good?

Marketers are most influential in promoting messages that create awareness and mobilize people around important issues.

Why businesses? Business today is more than just making a profit and more about stewardship. From climate change to economic equality to environmental sustainability, these issues have forced companies to become more purpose-driven and contribute to the greater good in their community.

Therefore, the role of companies does not merely revolve around being employers but also as stewards of society. They are increasingly devoting more resources to ensuring that their socially responsible initiatives succeed. These companies focus on a "triple bottom line," which means profit, people, and the planet.

This blog post will outline five inspiring best practices that socially responsible companies engage in to advance a good social cause. Stay tuned: you'll be motivated to start your social change campaign by the end of it!

Moving Towards Sustainability

Sustainability is the action of businesses that do not harm the community or environment. Many companies incorporate sustainability into their business plans because they realize that they can do well by equally doing good.

Examples of Sustainability in Business include:

Many successful organizations actively participate in sustainable business practices unique to each organization. These can include:

Using sustainable raw materials in their production process
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the way they dispose of waste.
Powering their facilities with renewable energy
Sponsoring community initiatives like feeding the homeless food drives in the local community.

Luxe Design Center believes in supporting its community and preserving this beautiful planet. They believe that family, friends, health, and love are more important than anything. They also believe in long-lasting relationships, service quality, and making a difference in their community. Luxe Design Center partnered with Habitat for Humanity and other local nonprofits to provide labor for home remodels and construction in the North Texas area.

They have held many parties to foster a sense of togetherness and charity events. In addition, Luxe Design Center has collaborated with its clients and business partners to raise over $100,000.00 for various community charities. These charities include the BC Breast Cancer Foundation, the Victoria Cancer Centre, Victoria Symphony, The Victoria Pride Society, Habitat for Humanity, and the Mustard Seed Food Bank.

Are You Ready to be a Climate-Friendly Company?

Many organizations feel they lack the tools or resources needed to create a healthier business environment. However, even the smallest steps can positively impact the environment. Here are some tips that can help create a healthier workplace environment.

Use eco-friendly cleaning solutions.

Using conventional cleaning products is known to release harmful chemicals into the environment and affect employees' health. Leveraging natural, eco-friendly products helps reduce waste in landfills because many of these products use less packaging and more sustainable manufacturing processes.

One way to do this as a business is to use the services of a LEED-certified janitorial service using only eco-friendly (and certified) products and sustainable methods. A past client Cris had the opportunity to work with, REDLEE SCS , also works within their community to create further social good with their earnings, volunteer work, and community outreach.

Encourage a new mode of commuting to work.

The transportation sector is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. It has greatly contributed to air pollution and negatively impacts employee health. According to the 2016 American Community Survey , about 150 million workers had driven 115 million vehicles to work every day.

While working with Debra Silverman Astrology on a beta online course launch, one of the great things they offer their team is the remote life – even for their paid interns!

Minimize the use of single-use plastic

More focus should be on reducing plastic use instead of using alternatives like plant-based, compostable bags, which can reduce waste, save money, and minimize their environmental impact. When you use reusable water bottles and mugs, you support the preservation of natural resources used to make plastic. Additionally helps to reduce your business's carbon footprint and lessens the amount of waste that fills landfills, oceans, and the environment.

Bella's Dress Closet is a great example. Bella’s helps reduce landfill waste by allowing people to donate almost new clothes and accessories. Items are borrowed or rented for proms, quince celebrations, and graduation days. This recycling opportunity provides the perfect opportunity to give back to the community.

Equality

Some businesses are at the forefront of advocating for diversity initiatives to create equal opportunity for all genders. These include the income levels at the workplace and the community in general.

Our long time client, The Sandbox Series prides itself in combatting sexual harassment in the workplace and globally. They leverage a head-on approach to deal with sexual harassment in the workplace immediately when such harassment occurs. Sandbox Series relies on continued dialogue with male and female networks to identify and modify bad behavior while fostering respect and positive relationships.

Accessibility

Some companies direct many resources to ensure that their communities have more access to valuable resources, better job opportunities, health services, and other necessary things to improve their lives. They give resources that help to understand, cope, and embrace healing.

We worked with the Alliance of Hope to provide people with an accessible online support program for suicide loss survivors . The platform offers a supportive community consisting of survivors.

The organization helps to find strength in sharing, discover comfort in connection, and embrace healing. New survivors can also find valuable information on how to cope. Alliance of Hope's mantra is that no suicide loss survivor should go without support. That is why it has been working non-stop to reduce stigma, demystifying the suicide loss experience, and provide direct support to survivors throughout the pandemic and beyond.

Community-Focused

Some businesses and firms are community-focused and engage in best practices that aim to improve and guarantee the well-being of community members. They recognize that merely focusing on growing the business or organization and leaving the community to suffer is the wrong move.

BSA Client Saenz-Rodriguez & Associates, an immigration law firm, is primarily responsible for connecting individuals and families with the legal representation they need. The law firm also supports continued diversity in their changing through connecting in the community including with nonprofits RAICES, Bachman Lake Together, North Texas Dream Team, IMMLAW, NHI, the Human Rights Initiative, Momentous Institute, and the ILRC.

Education for All

Investing in education is a way for businesses to give back to the community. Companies can buy school accessories, provide amenities, provide food and more to schools. They can also offer technologies or software that aims to promote the productivity of students in the community.

Bright Social Agency worked with 4TELLX over the last few years, an educational SAAS platform which provides districts and schools a 360-degree view of a student, including custom data to help superintendents, administrators, and students identify and resolve learning gaps. 4TELLX has changed how the community looks at student data and helps identify the most vital factors that drive student performance.

Reinvesting in Employee Education

One outstanding trait of organizations is reinvesting in building their workforce skills through education. The main objective of this best practice is to ensure that their productivity levels go up.

Amazon represents a company that reinvests in developing its staff. This is important because technology is consistently becoming so advanced. Amazon has been upskilling and reskilling its employees to get them ready for future jobs.

Hobbies

Some organizations choose to invest in the most popular hobbies of their community to help live a balanced life. If most are fitness enthusiasts, the company can build fitness facilities for their community.

Cris recently mentored the Vitality Health and Wellness s ite development. Vitality focuses on various aspects of self-discovery and bettering your unique lifestyle from mind to body. It recognizes that we intend to be happy and stress-free and that remaining active, properly nourished, and resting is key to improving your life. The business provides blogs, interviews from health and fitness experts, product recommendations, and reliable resources to the public to further explore the many factors that influence mind and body renewal and recovery.

Health

To be socially responsible, many organizations invest heavily in the health of their community. They may give back to their community by developing health programs that help address the health issues and diseases affecting the people surrounding them.

In 2020, Cris mentored the podcast host in web design and development (and more) for Me, My Friends, & Mental Health provides a podcast for teens dealing with the mental challenges of growing up right now. The podcast focuses on solutions and self-growth. The target audience is teenagers and provides them perspective on the methods that work.

Stopping the Expansion of Pollution

Ending the pollution in the world will never happen. One movement Bright Social Agency supports is stopping the expansion of pollution through community actions to stop chemical corporations from being built in rural communities. Current chemical corporations need to update their current systems, revise their chemical compounds, and create products that do not cause any lingering harm, long term damage, or poison the water and air.

Final Take Away

Social responsibility is at the heart of many global companies today. Firms are directing heavy investments into ensuring that they make a profit and do this with society at heart. Most of their strategies are tailored towards addressing the issues that the community is struggling with, from environmental conservation to improving literacy in the community to improving the community’s health and wellness and fun with hobbies. Start these initiatives in your business this year for long-term rewards! If you're ready to connect with a team that is facing the world's problems and making the way for a better future, you've finally found them! Contact us now to get started.

How to Set Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Tue, 12 Jul 2022 21:21:42 GMT

If all of this is too much, contact us now to have Bright Social Agency create, optimize, launch, and manage your digital marketing strategy!

Digital marketing has become a vital cog that contributes to the success of many businesses globally. These companies are investing heavily towards digital marketing efforts to capitalize on the increasing number of potential customers online. Coming up with the best digital marketing strategy is therefore necessary to help you reap a good Return on Investment (ROI) from your digital efforts. Keep reading this article, to find out how to create a solid digital marketing strategy for your business.

Set Digital Marketing KPIs and Goals.

Start by setting goals to help you know what your digital marketing strategy hopes to achieve. The goals could follow the SMART framework, which means the goals must be, S pecific, M easurable, A ttainable, R elevant, and T imely. For example, generating 20% more visits to your business’s website using ads on your Facebook page for the next three months is a SMART goal. It is very specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely.

Alternatively, you can also adopt FAST goals when creating your digital marketing strategy. The FAST framework offers more agility to execute strategies successfully. FAST stands for F requent discussions are A mbitious, are measurable using S pecific metrics, and T ransparent to all company or organization stakeholders.
Here’s a brief highlight of these elements below.

F for Frequently Discussed.

Every staff should keep the goals at the top of their minds, because they discuss them frequently. In addition, it makes monitoring progress easy.

Are A mbitious.

These goals are pretty challenging but are possible to achieve. In addition, they will motivate you to be more innovative and creative.

Are S pecific.

Every person has a clear idea of what role they need to play to ensure they achieve the purposes of the digital marketing strategy.

Are T ransparent.

These goals allow better coordination and cooperation across different business departments. As a result, quick adjustments are possible.

Digital Marketing KPI’s

In addition to goals, incorporate digital marketing KPIs into your digital marketing strategy. Some of the best digital marketing KPIs to use in monitoring the overall effectiveness of your digital marketing strategy include:

Referral Traffic: volume of traffic driven to your website from outside sources.
Conversion Rate: number of leads converted into sales or buyers.
Click-Through Rate: how often your potential customers click on your website link and visit your page.
Customer Attrition: how your business loses customers over a particular period.

Identify Audience Personas.

Knowing your audience allows you to create a solid digital marketing strategy that focuses on your target customers and is free from personal bias. Define your audience by demographics, habits, lifestyles and more. Lead generation strategies also becomes clear and much easier to develop when you identify your target customer.

Identify the Platforms Your Audience Personas are Mostly Active.

Knowing where most of your target audience spends the most time online is very important. This will assist you to create campaigns for the right platforms. Facebook has the most active users with more than 2.9 billion active users in 2022 .

YouTube has approximately 2.6 billion users. The fact that nearly 1 billion hours of video are watched daily on YouTube makes it a great platform to consider when creating your digital marketing strategy. WhatsApp and Instagram are the other two social media platforms to incorporate into your digital marketing strategy, boasting 2 billion and nearly 1.5 billion active users respectively.

These statistics give you fantastic insight into where your audience personas spend most of their time online.

Basics of an Email Marketing Plan

Email marketing can help you boost conversions for your business, create lasting relationships via personalized engagements, and create more awareness of your brand. To ensure your overall digital marketing strategy is successful, use the steps below to make your email marketing efforts highly relevant.

Identify Your Target Audience .

To make your email marketing efforts effective, you will need to identify your buyer persona accurately.

Identify Your Goals.

Establish reasonable goals for your email campaign. Is it to get more leads, traffic to your website, etc.?

Create Your Email List.

Provide attractive information to encourage potential clients to opt-in and get your email content. You can use lead magnets such as free Ebooks, webinars, whitepapers and more.

Come Up with A Consistent Schedule.

Decide how frequently you wish to contact the people in your email list. Let your subscribers know this too so as to prevent un-subscriptions or worse, have your emails go to the spam folder.

Definitions of SEO, SEM, PPC, SMS, and SMM and How to Set a Basic Plan for Each.

SEO Search Engine Optimization is a process that helps your web pages to rank higher on search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo, to get more traffic to your website. You can set a simple SEO strategy by leveraging practices such as:
Use Relevant Keywords. Find the most relevant keywords that are used by your potential clients.
Optimize Your Content for Mobile. Optimizing your content for mobile prevents you from losing a significant percentage of potential customers.

SEM Search Engine Marketing is a digital marketing technique that helps businesses boost their visibility on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) by leveraging paid advertisements. You can create a simple SEM strategy by:
Defining your goals. Decide what you wish users to do after clicking on your PPC ads, e.g., signing up for your newsletters.
Analyze Your Competition. Evaluate your competitors' PPC campaigns and identify the conversion metrics that work so well. You can then create a similar SEM strategy.
Research The Best Keywords to Use. This helps visitors discover your business quickly.

PPC Pay-per-click involves advertisers paying a set fee every time a user clicks their ad. Here's how to set up a good PPC marketing plan!
Determine your goals. Identify your objectives first; is it to launch a new product, build brand awareness, etc.
Research. This will help you determine the best advertising platforms, the best keywords for your campaign and more.
Launch your PPC plan. Leverage buyer personas and use copy that addresses your potential customers’ needs.
Track the performance. Monitor performance to know what is working and tweak your PPC plan accordingly.

SMS Short Message Service is a technology that allows people to send short text messages to each other's mobile phones. You can use these best practices to create a good SMS strategy!
Create an SMS Subscriber List. Seek consent to enroll people in your SMS list. You can partner with a credible SMS platform and motivate people to join your SMS list by offering unique offers.
Leverage SMS Marketing Software. SMS marketing tools help to automate your messages and also combine your email automation workflows with your text messages.
Personalize Your SMS Plan Ensure your SMS plan can be personalized by the time you send and by using their names to create rapport.

SMM Social Media Marketing uses organic and paid marketing efforts to promote products and services on social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. You can set up an excellent social media marketing strategy by:
Set Reasonable Goals. Your goals will depend on the needs of your business. For example, boosting brand awareness may be your primary goal if you need more visibility.
Research Your Target Audience. You can analyze vital customer data using Google Analytics, Email Analytics, and your CRM. These will help you get valuable insight to craft effective marketing messages and even develop good customer service strategies.
Select Your KPIs and Metrics. Choose social media metrics that align with your objectives, like you can choose "Reach" to discover the number of unique website users who viewed your posts or Clicks to establish the factors that spark users' curiosity.

Decide On the Tools and Channels You Will Use and Allow Delegation of Different Responsibilities.

You need to leverage different tools and platforms to develop an effective digital marketing strategy, using the following:

Email marketing tools. These are software that helps you create the best marketing campaigns via email. The best examples include Zoho, MailChimp, and SendInBlue.
Social media message/management tools. This software enables you to post, manage, and monitor different social media channels from a single interface. Our suggested tool for this is Content Studio
Analytical tools. These are tools that show you your digital marketing results and offer insight on how to improve them. They include Google Analytics, SEMrush, BuzzSumo, etc.
Social channels. These online social platforms help you reach and interact with your target audience. They include Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Your digital marketing strategy should also allow delegation of responsibilities like crisis management, video editing, branding, testing, copywriting, copy editing, inbound messaging, etc. Managing these tasks alone is an impossible endeavor that consumes a lot of energy and time. Delegating helps you focus on your core competencies and reduce the wastage of resources significantly.

Conclusion

Creating the best digital marketing strategy is easier said than done. However, use these valuable insights to develop the most effective digital marketing strategy. With it you will enjoy high the Return on Investment (ROI) desired from your digital marketing efforts! We know it can seem like a lot, it is! If you're ready to offload this entire task list and the management of your digital marketing, please contact us now to schedule a consultation with our digital marketing expert!

What Is the Facebook Protect and How Do You Activate It?

Sat, 25 Jun 2022 22:21:19 GMT

Learn All About Facebook Protect

As Facebook continues to grow, so do its security concerns. With users’ data always at a risk of being stolen, the social media giant has implemented ways for you to be safe on their platform. Facebook users can choose from several different account security features to guard against identity theft and other forms of web-based crime.

The Facebook Protect program is designed to help political candidates, and elected officials adopt stronger protections for their Facebook accounts.

You can activate Facebook Protect to improve your account security. This feature helps monitor your account activity, sets restrictions on who can contact you, and lets you know about suspicious activity.

What Is Facebook Protect? Is Facebook Protect Free?

Facebook Protect is a free security service that helps you stay safe on and off Facebook. With the help of Microsoft, we use artificial intelligence to protect you from people using your personal information or sharing it with someone else.

The program provides Facebook users with a simple way to access and implement Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) on their accounts.

To log in to Facebook, you'll need your password and another "factor of authentication."

In addition to your password, you can also choose to use a second authentication factor. This code is sent via text message or generated by an app on your phone or another device. Each time you log in, you will receive a new code.

Platforms with large audiences or the ability to reach many users may be required to use Facebook Protect by default.

In early March 2022, Facebook users were prompted to activate the "login approval" feature when they tried to log in. Facebook sent spam-like emails to many of these users, who opted not to join the program because of these emails.

Facebook did not send notifications to users through the Facebook platform. While not as impactful as the Facebook outage of 2021, the mistake still resulted in many users being unable to access the platform.

Some of the features of Facebook Protect include:

Security Checkup : This feature allows you to see which apps can access your personal information, including your photos and friends list. You can then remove any apps that aren't necessary for your site use.
Login Review : This feature allows you to see if any suspicious activity has occurred when logging into your account. For example, if a hacker tries to log in using an incorrect email address or phone number, this feature will alert you so that you can change your password immediately.
Privacy Checkup : This feature allows you to review what kind of information is visible on your profile and how much personal information other people can see about you when they look at your profile (for example, their friends' list). You can also learn how much information other people on Facebook are sharing about themselves publicly through their profiles' privacy settings.

How Does Facebook Protect Work?

When you see an alert on Facebook, it means that someone has reported an emergency near you. If someone reports a dangerous situation (such as a crime or natural disaster) in your area, Facebook will notify your friends, so they know you need help.

It also allows users to communicate with each other about what is happening in their area during these situations.

How to Activate Facebook Protect System?

Here are the steps Facebook provides to activate Protect.

Tick the down arrow on the top-right side of Facebook.
Tick Settings & Privacy and then Settings.
Tick Security and Login.
Tick Get Started under the Facebook Protect System menu.

Once you click Get Started, Facebook's Security Checkup lets you quickly and easily scan your account for potential security vulnerabilities. Protect will recommend security settings that can help make your account more secure. It is important to adopt a stronger password and activate 2FA.

You may have already received an email from Facebook about activating the Facebook Protect System.

This feature helps you keep your account secure by notifying you anytime someone tries to log in to your account from an unknown device or location. If you receive an email from Facebook that doesn't come from security@facebookmail.com, it's not legitimate.

This URL is the correct address for Facebook to send you email notifications. This email will provide detailed instructions on activating Facebook Protect, but the steps above will work just as well.

Other Possible Ways to Improve Facebook Account Security

It's not possible to verify whether your account is eligible for Facebook Protect yet. However, you can still access many features designed to keep your account safe.

To activate two-factor authentication for your Facebook account, follow these steps:

Go to Facebook Settings and then open the Login Settings page.
Scroll down to the "two-factor authentication" option and tick Edit.
Select a two-factor authentication method and follow the on-screen instructions.

You'll have several choices for two-factor authentication on your account, including your smartphone, a separate device, a physical security key, or an authenticator app.

Consider implementing at least one of these methods to increase the security of your account.

If you need to use a phone for two-factor authentication, you will need to use a phone that is already associated with your account.

Adding a phone number to your account will make it easier to use 2FA.

Facebook users can make their passwords more secure by changing them to something more difficult to guess. It's worth your time to create a secure password, but you can also use resources such as a password manager to make one easy to remember.

What You Want to Know About Facebook Protect

Facebook Protect is a new feature that helps you stay safe on Facebook. It’s built on top of features we’ve had for years, like reporting abuse and using the Block feature. But it also has new features designed to protect you from malicious content, like fake accounts and scams.

The right security settings can help you prevent scammers, hackers and anyone else from gaining access to your personal information. Not everyone can use the program yet, but users are encouraged to adopt its security features.

What Is Decentralized Social Media?

Sat, 25 Jun 2022 19:11:45 GMT

If you want to contact your friend today, there's a good chance you'll use social media to do so. Using the web to connect has become a big part of our daily routines, whether you need to check the news, chat with a loved one, or share life updates. Decentralized social media—a relatively new phenomenon—is now beginning to carve out its niche in the industry.

What does it mean for something to be decentralized? Will decentralized social media replace the social networks we all use today?

What Is Decentralization?

In the world of cryptocurrencies, decentralization is a term thrown around a lot. What exactly does it mean?

Decentralization is an important concept in the world of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. It's important because it differentiates these technologies from other systems like fiat currencies or central banking.

Decentralization has become a trending topic in the cryptocurrency community because it allows for a more transparent, fair, and secure network.

Decentralized networks ensure that no one entity has power over all the data. Data is spread between nodes, or connection points, within the network instead. Decentralization ensures that no one user entity can control or manipulate the data.

Decentralization makes it much harder for a network to be overruled by an attacker. It also has no central administrator, creating a more democratic and collaborative environment. Yet, the essence of decentralization remains at the core of the crypto industry: all transactions are stored safely on a blockchain. How will social media and decentralization merge?

Decentralized social media is a new term that's recently been coined to describe a new type of social network built on a blockchain and cannot be censored by any entity.

The idea behind decentralized social media is to create a system in which no single entity controls the content or the user experience. Rather than being operated by one company, decentralized social media networks are controlled by their users and managed through decentralized protocols.

Decentralized social media platforms allow you to create your content, upload it to your profile, and share it with others.

Anyone can join a decentralized social network and contribute to it. There are no restrictions on what you can post or how much time you spend using the network — there are no rules at all!

The obvious upside of decentralization is that it gives users more control over their data. In the case of Facebook, users can choose who they share their information with and what they want those people to see.

How Does Decentralized Social Media Work?

Decentralized social media platforms are like Facebook, but without the central authorities that control what you see and do on the network.

You can create your social account and post whatever you want without worrying about how others will receive it or whether your content will be censored because it contains certain keywords or phrases.

There are many different decentralized social media platforms, but they all work roughly the same way. Here's an overview of how decentralized social media works:

Users create accounts on a decentralized platform and connect with other users through their unique usernames.
Users can create posts containing text, images, or videos; other users can see these posts if they follow that person's profile page or have added them as friends by the posting user.

Decentralized social media is not a centralized system, meaning it doesn't rely on one central server. Large social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are centralized, meaning one core authority holds all the power over the network. This makes them vulnerable to hacks, takeovers, and leaks.

Decentralized social media outlets have several advantages. These include the fact that they can host multiple networks, meaning users can choose and create their networks, connecting with others who share similar interests or ideas.

These platforms are governed by their users. Users can vote on things to have their say in how the platform progresses instead of going along with whatever the central authority wants.

Decentralized social media networks allow multiple networks to coexist on one platform, all controlled by independent servers.

This means that social media users must be more aware of what they post and what they share.

Improved Security

Decentralized social media platforms avoid the problems of centralized platforms by using multiple, independent servers. Popular social media networks are known to crash frequently because of their servers' overload, a situation that happens more than you might think.

Using multiple servers massively reduces the likelihood of a total network failure due to technical error and greatly decreases the chances of DDoS attacks.

On the other hand, users don't need to give real names in decentralized social media networks. They can create pseudonyms and communicate with one another under pretenses, adding an extra layer of privacy.

Improved User Control

Users lack control over the post they create when using social media platforms. Social media networks are defined by the users who participate in them and evolve to meet user demand. Therefore, it makes sense that users should have some control over the networks they use.

The concept behind decentralized social media gives users control of their data, interactions, and social networking experience. This helps create an equal network for all participants.

But decentralized networks do have their drawbacks, and they are not perfect, like any other type of technology.

The Main Drawbacks of Decentralized Social Media

While decentralized social media platforms offer some exciting perks, there are some risks associated with this technology. For example, malicious individuals can take advantage of how the technology is structured because it is not centralized.

Creating multiple, decentralized networks (i.e., social media) seems like a fun idea, but it could also lead to the spread of hate speech, propaganda, and illegal content. Users can post information on social media sites that are only accessible to other users within their network, and so it becomes easy for malicious groups to extend their beliefs openly.

While decentralized social media networks such as Steemit have an ethical code of conduct, individuals are likely to try to exploit smaller or newer networks that haven't yet figured everything out.

In addition, there's a chance that users with a common goal could try to corrupt the governance system in their favor, undermining the platform's fairness.

The biggest drawback is that the information you receive is not verified. This means that you may be exposed to fake news or cyberbullying.

In addition, it is difficult to track down the origin of a post or comment on a decentralized social media platform because there is no centralized server hosting the information. The only way to do this is by looking at the user's profile who posted it.

Another drawback is that users have little control over their data as they are not in control of where and how their data will be stored. If you want to delete your account, all your posts will still be available elsewhere on different platforms such as Facebook or Instagram.

Does Decentralized Social Media Already Exist?

As decentralized social media platforms become more popular, you may be wondering if they even exist yet. The answer is yes—these platforms are already being used for various purposes.

The decentralized social media platform Mastodon has attracted over four million users since its 2016 launch. This platform offers multiple internal networks for different communities, giving users the ability to connect with like-minded individuals. The available tools will help you protect yourself from harassment and other dangers.

Blockchain-based social platforms like Steemit are currently operating, and are a step forward in the evolution of online interaction.

But these networks aren't gaining nearly as many followers as traditional platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. Why is that?

First, the concept of decentralization is still foreign to many people. Currently, only tech-savvy individuals and crypto or NFT enthusiasts know much about how decentralization works because this technology has not yet become widely known enough for many people to require learning about it.

Additionally, many decentralized social media networks are not as user-friendly as today's biggest platforms. The simplicity or complexity of an app's interface often determines its success.

However, many people remain unaware of how social media platforms mishandle data or censor content. In addition, there isn't yet much of a public outcry for a new kind of online communication.

Decentralized social media platforms are likely to remain niche, alternative ways of social networking for the foreseeable future.

In the past, internet users were forced to rely on centralized platforms like Facebook and Twitter to share their ideas with other people. But now, with the advent of blockchain technology, we can finally create a truly decentralized social media platform where we can share our thoughts without having to worry about censorship or exploitation by third parties.

The Decentralized Social Media Ecosystem Needs Time To Mesh

Even if the decentralized social media ecosystem takes some time to mesh and utilizes blockchain technology in a not entirely revolutionary way, it will still be worth its weight in gold.

That's because it will give users control of their content, protect the data they input and allow them to do so without dealing with any centralized authorities.

Bright Social Agency is the one-stop shop if you are looking for digital marketing services.

Why Twitter Has Turned Its Privacy Policy Into an Online Game

Wed, 22 Jun 2022 00:31:47 GMT

A privacy policy is a statement that describes how a website or app handles information that users share. It also explains how data is used, for example, to show ads on a website or to send marketing emails.

Privacy policies are important in building trust in a business relationship because they give individuals control over their data and let them know what they can expect from the business handling their data.

To address user concerns, Twitter has introduced a new privacy policy that is easier to read and navigate. Additionally, the company is allowing users to read the policy as an online game.

Twitter's New Policy Aims for Simplicity

Twitter's new policy, which aims for simplicity, could impact how users share content.

On Wednesday, Twitter announced that it was updating its rules of conduct, making them more concise and easier to understand.

"We want our guidelines to be understandable and scalable," the company said in a blog post. "This means that we need clear policies and can be applied evenly across all types of content."

Twitter announced that it would no longer allow tweets glorifying violence, provoking fear, or threatening any group of people. It also said it would apply its existing rules on hateful conduct more consistently, focusing on behavior that could cause direct harm to others.

"We want people to feel safe freely expressing themselves on Twitter," the company said in a blog post. "We believe in freedom of speaking truth to power, but that means little as a primary philosophy if voices are silenced because people are afraid to speak up."

The new policy has been in the works for some time, but it comes when Twitter is under pressure from lawmakers and advertisers over hate speech and misinformation on its platform.

The revised rules cover everything from illegal activity to sharing copyrighted material without permission or credit.

The new Twitter privacy policy, effective June 10, 2022, describes how the company can use users' data:

"We wish we could fit everything you want to know into a Tweet; our regulators ask us to meet legal obligations by explaining them in detail. In light of that, We have written our privacy policy as simple as possible to allow you to make knowledgeable decisions when using Twitter."

After that, the page presents six things that the company wants you to know about its privacy policy. Each point is in a single phrase, but there is also a link to view each point's full version in its privacy policy section.

However, the most surprising development of Twitter's new policy is that it has also created an online game to promote it.

Why Did Twitter Develop a Privacy Policy Game?

Last month, Twitter released a fun little game to help people read their privacy policy. It's called Privacy Policy Simulator, and it is what it sounds like: a game where you read through the legalese of your favorite apps and websites.

The idea is to make privacy policies more accessible for the average user. It's not the first time Twitter has tried something like this — they also launched a similar tool in 2016 — but it shows that they're committed to improving user experience.

The Twitter Data Dash game is a multiple-level 8-bit platform that allows players to win prizes by collecting information and sharing it.

Twitter says the game is to help users understand more complex parts of its policy and help them take control of their Twitter experience.

As a privacy policy game, it is flawed. While the game has hits and misses, it's worth playing for the chance to experience navigating the dangers of PrivaCity. Each level presents a new environment to navigate through.

The game is not too hard, but the enemies slow you down. You also don't have a health bar or a limited number of lives. Instead, you must collect items throughout each level to progress to the next level.

But we found that it doesn't help you learn and understand the privacy policy in detail. The enemies center around the core ideas, but you get only a tip on using Twitter at the end of each level.

The wording of these tips is more helpful than the simplified privacy policy's presentation.

However, if you have not read the privacy policy yet, playing through it as a game will not solve that problem.

Has the Policy Changed?

Despite the claims made by the administration, there seem to be few noticeable changes in the policy. But the policy was not effective until June, which seems strange considering that the policy did not change in any meaningful way.

The only thing noteworthy about Twitter's privacy policy? It explicitly states that how Twitter handles private data may be subject to change in the event of an ownership transfer.

A disclaimer by Twitter in anticipation of Elon Musk buying the company, which has been negotiated but not yet confirmed.

Have You Read the Policy or Played it?

The privacy policy may not be fun, but it is important. The game may not be important, but it's fun. If you're concerned about your privacy on Twitter, or if you already have a handle on their privacy policy, this plan won't interest you.

If you feel passionate about the privacy policy of Twitter but have always found it confusing, this initiative is for you.

What is Digital Transformation?

Mon, 16 May 2022 23:43:00 GMT

Digital Transformation

Digital transformation means leveraging digital technologies to create entirely new or alter current business processes, customer experiences, and the existing business culture to meet the evolving market requirements.

Digital transformation goes beyond the typical functions of customer service, sales, marketing, and customer service and revolves around how you perceive and interact with your customers. Small businesses do not need to set up their processes and then embark on modifications down the line. The most recommended approach is to create a flexible and agile company that can be transformed anytime to meet evolving customers' needs.

This post will explain the aspects that play a central role in the overall success of digital transformation. Keep reading to learn more.

Online Platform (Aka A Website or E-Commerce Shop, or Online Storefront)

Businesses today integrate and apply digital technologies to implement urgent changes at all levels of their operations. Leveraging the latest technological trends allows enterprises to drive innovation and gain a competitive advantage. Businesses across all industries have increasingly adopted digital or online platforms such as a website to streamline both customer-facing processes and internal ones.

These integrated online platforms are a robust foundation for transformation. They combine different technology streams such as big data, data analytics, cognitive computing, AI, machine learning, cloud, social media, etc.

The most commonly used online platforms usually leverage business process management (BPM) technology. These platforms promote digital transformation through:

1). Operational focus:
Involves using process-based business applications to perform previous activities in a cheaper and faster way.

2). Strategic focus:
Involves using online platforms to take your business’s strategic vision to greater heights by making it highly operational.

Importance of the Online Platforms

They save time through improving communication.
They save money. This is possible through cutting costs resulting from better interoperability among existing systems, equipment, and staff.
They improve customer relationships by streamlining customer-facing processes such as return or exchange into single, cohesive, digital strategies. These create an easy, engaging, and efficient customer service experience and build customer loyalty.

Product Enhancements

The value of most products revolves around how customers perceive your product or service. The pointers we have shared below will advise you on how to enhance the appeal of your products and services in the eyes of your target audience.

Provide Good Info and Product Descriptions.

The fact remains that most customers complete their buying journey digitally. If you want such customers to buy your products, you should provide them with all the information they need. The product information provided must be adequate, and you must be careful not to miss out on essential details. It should respond to all pressing questions. This factor can make your products look unique and stand out amongst others, and it would increase your customers; perception of the value of your product.

Effective Marketing to Your Target Clients

Marketing to the inappropriate consumers decreases your products' value. For instance, you cannot sell waist trainers on a social media platform that consists of mostly males, and it may be appropriate for female partners. The best place to market is to your most ideal consumers. Your product is only valuable when real consumers assess it and end up using it.

Relations With Your Clients

How efficient is the consumer service team working? When people contact you for inquiries, how reachable is your staff? It is important to note that your different communication platforms such as emails, social media and (its associated likes, shares, and comments), and phone calls too, must be used very carefully. This is because these media can either be beneficial or detrimental depending on how you use them. All your replies must be fast, very courteous and valuable. The most effective does not merely revolve around creating compelling content but productive interactions with your customers.

Branding and Packaging

How user-friendly is your website? Your customers need to navigate through your site with ease. The quality of the images of your product should be high. A lot of attention must be directed to quality and standard when promoting products.

Customer Reviews and Feedback

Customer reviews help to enhance the value of your products. You may be asking how do I control my customers’ reviews? Some marketers use the review of customers as part of their marketing strategy. Willing customers can post messages about their experience while using your product. Where customers post negative reviews, you must be prompt to respond satisfactorily. You may apologize, offer an alternative, or quickly refute the claims if it is false. People are reading about your product, and you have to stay ahead of the game so they can read the right thing.

Collaborative Innovations

It should be pretty obvious for all companies to engage in tighter cooperation. Digital all about "breaking down silos," first and foremost you have to remember. However, most companies don't make it their number one priority, and in the rare cases they do, they tend to struggle to execute it right. Many senior executives have claimed that their different business functions are competing rather than collaborating on digitization.

It implies their Research and Development (R & R&D), engineering, production, marketing, operations, and sales are in direct competition to maximize their digital efforts. Instead, they should be collaborating to drive better results for the company.

The result of this internal competition is that many companies don’t get the most out of their digital investments and are ill-prepared to respond to both opportunities and threats. In times like these, such behaviour becomes a liability.

Customer Expectations

As customers go through massive disruptions to their everyday activities due to COVID-19, they adapt to new systems resulting from digitization. The systems are usually in charge of modifying their behaviour and preferences. How can businesses adapt to these changes and still remain connected with their clients?

In tough times like this, businesses should always try to humanize their brand and be highly customer-centric. They should also remain engaged with customers and inform them of arising changes that occur to products and services. Concurrently, their marketing efforts are instrumental in helping them by monitoring changing customer trends and interests and leveraging these insights to adapt their products and services to reach customers more effectively.

Marketers should also assess and replace broken processes and systems in their internal marketing and lead capture efforts. They should look into tools and strategies that allow them tom create seamless client experiences that can easily connect with audiences while also supporting intelligent, real-time interaction capabilities.

Learning from the newer limitations that have disrupted daily routines and evolving customer behaviour has helped marketers to effectively modify their tactics and processes to achieve significant success in their lead generation efforts.

As customers and businesses have shifted to digital, marketers should do the same and leverage automation solutions such as:

Implementing mobile-friendly lead capturing forms for landing pages, content downloads, virtual giveaways, etc.
Pairing customer data collection with workflow tools and information systems to create personalized campaigns.
Using intelligent tools that boost how data is captured and transferred from marketing to sales quickly and efficiently moving leads down the sales funnel.
Keeping customers engaged through quizzes and surveys can double as marketing data collection tools.

Organizational Forms

Analog-native companies that have hit relatively high digital maturity levels typically share a common characteristic, a highly enabling organization. If the companies lack this feature, they will get sucked into entrenched silo mindsets and a create a situation where there is lack of collaboration and wasted investments. This can lead to the failure of the companies' s digitalization efforts that you have out in place.

Usually, the option regarding the best organizational model to adopt to effectively facilitate the process of digitalization will depend heavily on factors such as the intended target audience, the existing digital maturity, the need to change quickly, and risk aversion.

The organizations that are digitally aware and wish to adopt digital transformation usually go for the central models first. An integrated model is the solution here. It will generate more significant momentum for change. However, it simultaneously risks causing alignment problems because of a lack of clearly defined accountability and the challenges of sticking to a shared vision.

The hybrid model typically combines the positives of the central and integrated models. However, it is usually more complex and quiet challenging to deliver. Finally, the most digitally mature organizational structure is typically a centrally facilitated and entirely integrated model. Here, aspects of digitalization are found fully entrenched in the company's business model, its products and services, its underlying processes, etc.

Few analog-native companies that have not yet embarked on creating highly dedicated organizational structures that digitalize. For many businesses, top management remains the one responsible for developing the company's overall digital strategy and is also in charge of the implementation.

Final Take Away

Digital transformations are set to cause significant evolutions in the business environment for the foreseeable future. Collaborative innovations, product enhancements, customer expectations, and organization are at the heart of this digital transformation!

6 SEO Lead Generation Tips For Growing Your Business

Mon, 16 May 2022 23:42:58 GMT

Your top priority should always be growing and developing your business. SEO and Lead Generation are the two most important elements for creating an efficient marketing process to grow your business. Lead generation involves refining interest in your business to attract qualified prospects to nurture and transform into clients and loyal brand ambassadors.

Even though SEO and lead generation are different, when you bring these two creative strategies together, you will drive huge growth for your business. Let's look at 6 SEO lead generation tips that you can use to grow your business.

What Is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It's improving a website to increase its chances of being found and ranked high in search engines. SEO is important because it helps your site get found by others, which means more visitors can turn into loyal readers, customers, and clients. It can help you network with other bloggers and build relationships.

As SEO campaign revolves around growing organic search rankings. Search Engine Optimization is a vital element of any marketing campaign you undertake to boost traffic to your site.

What Is Lead Generation?

Lead generation is collecting information about prospective customers for your business. The goal of lead generation is to create and nurture a pool of potential new customers to market your products or services to them.

There are many ways to generate leads, including:

Social Media Marketing (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Website and Landing Page Design
Email Marketing
Content Marketing (Blogs, Video, etc.)

In today's world, effective lead generation campaigns are necessary. Lead generation campaigns turn customers into customers by combining landing pages, calls to action, paid ads, and relevant content. Lead generation identifies prospects interested in your service and converts them to sales.

Why SEO is important for your business ?

SEO involves refining web pages to enhance their rankings on the SERPs. A search engine's ranking algorithms determine how your web pages appear in response to a particular search query. The more relevant your pages are to the user's question, the greater the likelihood that Google and other search engines will elevate your pages above others on the SERP.

When it comes to your website's visibility, the stakes are high. You need to use search engine optimization (SEO), an all-encompassing term that describes everything you do to achieve higher visibility for your website and its content online. SEO also includes everything from embedding keywords on your website to link building and social media marketing, and so on.

Search Engine Optimization is crucial for your business because it provides you more visibility online. It drives organic traffic to your site, which leads to more leads and customers and ultimately more sales and development for your business.
Search Engine Optimization also helps your site stand out from your competitors online. By implementing the SEO tactics, you will rank well, get found by your target audience, and improve your lead generation.
SEO can lead to a consistent stream of qualified traffic from search engines daily to your site. If you understand how to convert site traffic to potential customers, you will capitalize on the traffic.

How does SEO impact lead generation?

As previously mentioned, lead generation and SEO are two different strategies. Search Engine Optimization is focused on adjusting and editing the various aspects of your website so that it ranks high in search engines like Google and drives new website traffic. On the other hand, lead generation increases the number of prospects and customers for your business.

The connection between them comes down to search engine optimization's impact on lead generation. Search Engine Optimization can complement a business's lead generation efforts by increasing awareness through organic traffic to the site. The more your site shows up on Google's first page, the easier it is for your customers to find you and learn about your business's solutions. According to marketer online. Search Engine Optimization is better than other marketing strategies, including PPC, for generating leads.

Many different ways to efficiently use SEO to boost your lead generation efforts, including:

Auditing your site
Performing keyword research
Updating on-page content
Creating a creative content marketing strategy
Creating a backlink strategy.

Effective SEO strategy helps you please both search engines and site visitors. It also allows you to optimize your site for search algorithms without sacrificing your readers' experience. You make sure that your site is ready to generate as many leads as possible.

6 SEO tips to boost lead generation

Now that you understand the power of SEO to enhance your business. Consider these six tips to boost your lead generation.

Build a blog with SEO-optimized content

Building an active blog with optimized blog posts is one of the best ways to use SEO to get more leads. A blog combines all the elements you want for great site SEO. By posting content regularly, you offer fresh content, keywords, Backlinking, images, social engagement, etc.

Here are the SEO basics for optimizing your blog:

Keyword Research : Do keyword research to find the most trendy keywords in your niche, and then add them to your headline and throughout your blog content. Just keep in mind to add those keywords organically and avoid keyword stuffing.
Publish Regularly : To get more traffic from your SEO efforts, you have to create content regularly.
Use Subheadings : Use H2, H3, and H4 headings to help you make your content scannable and improve your user experience.
Add links : Each time you publish a blog post, you must link it to relevant content. Links enhance usability and help to spread the link juice.
Keeping SEO in mind from the start of your blog launch will lead to reliable business growth opportunities.

Improve your site speed

Site speed affects search engine rankings. Google's key goal is to offer its users the best possible experience, and the rate at which your site runs is a huge factor in helping them get that goal. The faster your site responds to a user's search; the higher Google will rank it.

Here are some of the basic ways to improve site speed:

Make your site mobile responsive.
Use a reliable hosting provider.
Use an image optimizer.
Optimize your scripts.
Remove unnecessary plugins and scripts.
Clean up your website's database.
Fix broken links and delete spam comments.

Do keyword research

Keyword research is a critical element of search engine optimization (SEO). When you know what keywords your potential customers use when searching for information, products, and services and use those terms in your online marketing, you will get their attention.

There are several keyword research tools that you can use to find the niche-relevant keywords that lead to your site to drive more website traffic, increase sales and get a high ROI from your marketing.

Start link building

Link building is obtaining links from other sites to your own. Links help users navigate pages on the web and help search engines crawl between individual pages on your site and entire websites.

Link building is an essential element in your overall SEO lead generation strategy. It is crucial to do it realistically if you need to get positive results. You must never buy links and only link to high-quality sources that will help increase your ranking. Manual outreaching to bloggers relevant to your niche is still credible.

If you are a local business, Use local SEO strategies

A site lets you make your business visible to the online world. In contrast, local SEO is more focused on helping business owners rank higher. If you have a local business, you need to use local SEO strategies to ensure that your audience can find you on Google.

Use online directories to build and market your business to create a stronger presence online.

Use local keyword data to optimize your website content and tell your target audience who you are and where you are.

Always ask your customers, family, and friends for reviews. The more positive review you have, the more leads you will get.

Have active social media accounts

Many SEO managers are confused about social media's impact on SEO, and Google says that social signals are not among its ranking factors. The data suggests that social signals are strongly correlated with website ranking since the top-ranking pages on Google display significantly more social signals than websites that don't perform.

There is a direct link between social media and search engine optimization (SEO) because the more of a social media presence you have, the more likely you are to attract those who will link to your website.

For example, if you are a writer who relies on social media to attract more visitors/leads to your site. In that case, SEO experts say that the number of actual visitors to your site is less important than the number of high-quality links you may get from people who see your content and link to you from other websites.

So, make sure to maintain active social media accounts to help improve your SEO lead generation campaigns.

Maintaining Your Mental Health While Managing Social Media

Mon, 16 May 2022 23:42:46 GMT

Social media’s anonymity encourages bullying behavior, and has given rise to trolls who exist to harass, abuse and even dox people across the internet.

Social Media managers and online community managers are subject to abuse from customers, trolls, and others online while managing their day-to-day work responsibilities.

If you need help right now, head to HeartMob provides real-time

support to anyone experiencing online abuse.

Have you ever been a victim of online abuse?

The abuse I'm talking about is not limited to trolls or misogynists. It can be from your friend, former friend, colleague, or blogger. I have been a victim of abuse from all these types of people. If you're a woman, chances are you've had an experience online with catcalling, insults, or actual harassment. Harassment isn't unusual for women in the modern age of the internet.

A 2014 study found that over 25 percent of American women have experienced sexual harassment in location-based interactions. It happens to everyone (women and men alike), and it is not okay.

Have you ever wondered about the effects of social media on your mental health?

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) found in a study that extended use of

Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram linked to higher levels of anxiety and depression among teens.

What is Mental Health?

According to MentalHealth.gov, mental health, "includes our emotional, psychological, and social wellbeing. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood."

Toxic Platforms

Despite social media platforms publishing mission and value statements supporting our mental health, profit

wins over ensuring our safety, security, and support. Let's look at a few ways each of the major social platforms is toxic within themselves and how that gives rise to mental health hazards for any brand manager reviewing comments, searching for user-generated content to repurpose, or managing customer complaints.

Facebook

Facebook is the largest social network globally, claiming to have 2 billion monthly active users. Many spend

more time on Facebook than anywhere else online. It has also developed an unprecedented amount of control over our lives and our thought processes.

Facebook is not a safe platform for us or our children. Facebook is an addictive, toxic platform that hurts society, says former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya.

The company creates "short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops" that are "eroding the core foundations of how people behave."

We continuously see much information and reports about the damage Facebook, now known as Meta for the parent company, is doing to our children and society. There is evidence suggesting that Facebook is damaging society.

More specifically, the research indicates that this social media monster negatively impacts our mental health. Recent studies have found that spending more time on Facebook leads to depression at the University of Pittsburgh because it makes us compare ourselves to others. A separate study reported that people who spend more time on Facebook were less happy than their peers. Facebook meddles in politics, puts people in harm's way, profits off of misinformation that has caused deaths, and does nothing to end online abuse campaigns.

Instagram

Instagram is a photo-sharing app with 700 million active monthly users. Instagram, owned by Facebook, was

purchased for 1 billion nearly a decade ago. We all know that abusive, hateful language and threatening messages are not okay, nor are allowed by these companies' community standards, and Instagram/Facebook/Meta have deployed tools and staff to help crackdown on removing, blocking, and deplatforming abusers.

However, they do not do enough to allow anonymous trolls who can create a fake profile, wishing harm upon someone in mere minutes. Trolls will never stop, but more of the problem is that Instagram has been walking a fine line lately with its policies, allowing messages that Instagram would otherwise remove if not sent via direct message. The story of Instagram and its cesspool of toxic people calling people names, threatening them, writing long paragraphs of

vitriol on their photos - all of this is happening to people every day on Instagram. Women and other marginalized groups receive a disproportionate amount of online abuse than their male counterparts. Yet, the sheer volume of

this type of behavior has led many people to believe that it is normal. It's not. The comments and behaviors I experienced on Instagram were shocking and left me feeling deeply alone and isolated. My experiences were not an anomaly.

Twitter

A recent study by Amnesty International showed that more than three in ten women had been subjected to

online abuse or harassment globally. Dr. Emmashort, Lecturer in Computing Science at Loughborough University, has described the scale of abuse on Twitter as "chilling." She explains that incidents range from "name-calling, to more extreme behaviors such as threats of rape, death threats, blackmailing people for money or publishing private information."

Twitter is toxic: That is the conclusion of a new study on online abuse of

women. It shows that Twitter users with female names or showing markers of

being female — such as pictures of women, women, or (@) mentions — received at

least three times more abuse than their male counterparts. The results suggest

that Twitter's environment is inhospitable to female users. Even if this was

not Twitter's intent and is often against its own stated rules, their system

enables and rewards unmoderated speech on their platform. As of writing,

Twitter has updated its rules around sharing media on its platform.

Tip: Jump to the top of replies to see how the Twitter community responds.

YouTube

The world's largest video platform is the most toxic. How did the company become one of the largest platforms for

harassment, abuse and toxic communities on the internet? It's no secret that YouTube's comment section is a septic tank of hate, derision and flat-out creepy (questions like 'when will you be 18'). As if this was not bad enough,

there appears to be a growing trend of harassment, and abuse video creators are

receiving via actual physical mailboxes. The ad revenue model on YouTube is broken, and the promises of fame and income that young people are led to believe in are a lie. The algorithms promoting specific videos increase radicalization and the spread of hate doctrine. It's not simply YouTubers like Logan Paul, but mainstream media like CBS news promoting conspiracy theories such as pizza gate and accusing scientists of lying about climate change. The algorithms that enable videos on YouTube are incredibly flawed. The channels that get views don't necessarily mean the videos are of quality. Many of these channels resort to clickbait tactics, making their videos shareable on social media to increase their views out of fear of becoming irrelevant, desperate, and greedy. Clickbait videos often spread hoaxes and advertisements. Clickbait videos contribute to the radicalization of viewers who have a weak grasp of critical thinking skills.

Read further: What Are the Social Media Platforms Doing to Support

Users' Mental Health?

Abuse Types

Online abuse is affecting more and more people every day. It comes in the form of catfishing, targeting, trolling,

and many other internet-based crimes. Cyberbullying, doxing, harassment, emoji flooding, hate campaigns, review bombing are just a few of the different types of abuse trolls, customers, and social media users do to each other. Some of these will be new to you.

I think it is safe to say that most people have heard of cyberbullying- whereby people use the internet to harass, abuse, threaten, embarrass others, etcetera. There are many other forms of online abuse that are less well-known (and offline abuse). I've experiencedmany forms of abuse myself through my blogs, digital marketing consulting business, and social media platforms. I'm passionate about advocating and supporting abuse survivors.

I'm not an expert in this area. However, I help brands and influencers handle being the target of hate

campaigns. Hate campaigns are people who unite to target a person, brand or product. An example of a hate campaign is Jake Gyllenhaal and Swifties (AOC and the GOP) and review bombing (creating fake profiles and leaving as many

one-star reviews as possible). I read a startling statistic on social media the other day. It claimed that 54 percent of people who see mean comments from strangers on social media feel at least one negative consequence from those

comments.

Doxxing - Known transphobe

J.K. Rowling was recently doxxed (though her celebrity home has been previously

shared online) by posting her home address and images of her home online to

personal social channels. The motivation behind doing this is to let others who

are also angry with her actions know her possible location and provide mailing

information or give way to physical, real-world harm and abuse to the lady.

Some will dox family members, share cell phones and home phones, share

children's schools and names and ages.

Emoji Flooding - Google Kim Kardashian and

Taylor Swift and �� for

examples.

Harassment :

Negative images, videos, and text messaging online may be sexual or abusive. I'm focusing not only on online abuse but also on abuse that happens offline. Many will print inappropriate images and leave them in your workspace, share your photos, and photoshop graphic visuals onto your likeness. It is only getting easier to do with tech from the abusers' standpoint. Abuse can come in many different forms, and some can be verbal, abusive messages sent to your phone or email; others more sinister have the potential to escalate into more intense forms of harassment. As a reality star bullied his way through the presidential office, many other bullies felt empowered. If a bully can be president of the USA, what's a little harassment of a coworker? Who cares if you yell at a sales clerk? Grab the waitress' ass? Force your staffer to kiss you? "They just let you."

For social media managers, community managers, influencers, and digital marketing careers, these toxic

platforms, the communities and trolls they must face, the abuse and harm caused

can derail futures, cause PTSD, anxiety, depression, and more. How do they

expect us to manage all that?

Read further: 'Always on trauma machine': Social media managers grapple

with burnout, leaving the industry

How to manage your mental health as a social media manager?

Managing your mental health is paramount in the social media space. Social media managers are constantly at

risk for mental health issues stemming from the toxic nature of the job. Many

social media managers are expected to work long hours, overnight shifts, and

24/7 responding to everything coming down the pipeline, the abuse included.

Here are tips regarding managing your mental health as a social media manager:

1. As a social media manager, working hours are your best boundaries.

Schedule time to unplug weekly. Set up a backup with others to ensure a

rotating schedule time off and publish the community management hours to social

profiles. Your audience does not expect 24/7 monitoring unless the company pays

for this through outsourcing or delegation among staff.

2. Ensure that the company you work for or with is aware of the

toxicity and potential abuse you face in your position, such as graphic

imagery, verbal abuse, or trolls. Not seeking help is what gets people in

trouble.

3. Set up a crisis management response process for possible doxing of

yourself and your company's public-facing staff.

4. Create community management guidelines for your brands' social

profiles and share those with your community managers, brand advocates,

influencers, and the company to create a unified front for dealing with

negative comments, trolls, and online abuse. When engaging with trolls, respond

once and then move on.

5. Use Your Tools: Whether that is using safety tools like Instagram's Manual Content

Filter or Twitter's Advanced Muting Options to filter out abusive or harmful content or

scheduling content, setting up Facebook Messenger Autoresponders, or using

chatbots for off-hours, tech does have some useful tools to provide relief to

social media managers.

6. When in doubt, talk about it with a trusted colleague. A mentor in

your field, a friend in a similar position, a coworker or boss.

7. If you need help right now, head to HeartMob provides real-time support to anyone experiencing

online abuse.

For more ideas on how you can avoid burnout in the workplace as a social media manager, check out these resources:

Deplatform. Diversify. Demand.

I hope your email newsletter list has all current and past customers, partners, and advocates on the subscriber

list. Start now if you don't, as it's never too late. Collect customer contact information so that you may go "old school" with handwritten letters, notes, postcards to their addresses on file. Send text message campaigns for promotions and loyalty programs. Ensure that you own at least one URL and control everything shared on that URL, the content, the products, the frequently asked questions information, a forum or comment section, a contact form for Zendesk ticket management. Share the content in your email newsletters, asking your subscribers to jump to your URL to read the full article, watch the full video, complete the purchase. Partner with other relevant brands and sponsor content in their email newsletters to hit the target audience of their subscriber demographics.

Reach out to bloggers of all sizes and ask them for reviews (pay these writers for their work!), if they run ads on their site or promoted posts, be sure to stipulate what platforms you do not want them to share your paid content. Write out your issues with each specific forum and give that to your platform ad reps, post on their appropriate pages/profiles if you do not have a representative, and submit your requests to the platform's help desks.

Conclusion

Social media is a tool, and it can be good or bad. The company you work for may not have any social media policies

in place at this time. You have a right to protect yourself from toxic internet use. Crippling anxiety cannot be cured by simply switching to a new social media platform.

The problem lies within the general culture of social media, and it has yet to be solved by any designer or developer. However, there are ways to mitigate these problems while online. Don't hesitate to take breaks while you work. Inform your employer how it feels to be active on social media—practice mindfulness. And, remember that you have more power than you think in changing the way social media works. Reach out to your friends who work at these companies to give your perspective when making decisions. Take a stand as a company as Lush recently has and pull your advertising dollars and company time from managing these platforms. Invest in advertising through local

expert bloggers, TikTokers (though it has issues with being toxic), market surveys, text campaigns, email marketing, and utilizing your website to share messages and marketing information.

Astroturfing, Influencers, and Sponsored Content. Oh My!

cris@brightsocialagency.com (Cris Haest) — Mon, 18 Oct 2021 18:14:37 GMT

What is Astroturfing?

Astroturfing is a manufactured impression of grassroots support for a policy, individual, or product. The term "astroturfing" is derived from the AstroTurf brand of synthetic carpeting designed to resemble natural grass. Astroturfers use multiple online identities and fake pressure groups to make the public believe their position is the commonly held view.

Although it is commonly thought that the practice of letter-writing began with the invention of the internet, it can actually be traced back to newspaper editors who first invented the letters page. When you read a local newspaper at the time of an election, you will likely see multiple letters from concerned residents of X objecting to the disastrous policies of Y.

Astroturfing is a deceptive tactic used by individuals with personal agendas or by large organizations funded by corporations, lobbyists, labor unions, nonprofits, or activist organizations. In contrast to grassroots movements, which are generated spontaneously and reflect authentic engagement by people who have organized on their own, astroturfing campaigns do not represent a genuine expression of public sentiment.

Where does Astroturfing show up in history?

"Generally understood, astroturfing is comprised of “political actions masquerading as grassroots efforts” (Lee 2010,p. 73). However, the first inklings of astroturfing emerged in the early twentieth century. Around 1910, one of the early versions of an astroturfing-like campaign promoted drinking water from disposable paper cups rather than sharing cups. Some of the reasons that were cited for pushing this change were enveloped in a health and hygiene narrative. At the time, other campaigns were launched as well to reeducate consumers and redirect their behavior to switch to paper cups. However, the peculiarity of this entire effort was that the publisher of the campaign flyer The Cup-Campaigner was no other than Hugh Moore, a co-founder of the Public Vendor Company, which would later become the Dixie Cup Company (Lee 2010). In addition, Moore distributed materials with specific instructions on how to influence your local politicians to support this effort. These were the beginnings of the product-boycotting movement that supports specific causes; a tool that has become, nowadays, one of the most widely used approaches in American politics to encourage change (Lee 2010). This approach allowed, mostly, wealthy capitalists and corporate titans to further their interests with the help of the public...

Examples of astroturfing campaigns can be found in the tobacco industry (Apollonio and Bero 2007; Tsoukalas and Glantz 2003) to, for instance, discredit the effects of second-hand smoke or in the pharmaceutical industry to challenge animal rights groups that are against animal drug testing. In a more concrete astroturfing example, a grassroots campaign called People of the West! supports western communities and receives a lot of its funding from corporate sponsors, some of whom have a strong interest in keeping alive the General Mining Act of 1872—The Act allows corporations to purchase and mine public lands for $5 per acre (Lyon and Maxwell 2004). In another tangible astroturfing example, IBM openly encouraged its employees to blog in favor of the company and against competitors (Cox et al. 2008). Mustafaraj and Metaxas (2010) found evidence of online astroturfing via Twitter during the Massachusetts senate race between Martha Coakley and Scott Brown." ( source )

"There are estimations that as much as one third of online consumer reviews on the internet are fake. It’s common knowledge that a significant portion of Amazon reviews are false , and the same is likely true for Google, the Apple app store, and other platforms with similar rating systems.

But consumer reviews are just the tip of the iceberg. The reality of corporate astroturfing goes much deeper, to the point where by the nature of it, it becomes impossible to tell whether there was ever an astroturfing effort to begin with." ( source )

"Astroturfing is the attempt to create an impression of widespread grassroots support for a policy, individual, or product, where little such support exists. Multiple online identities and fake pressure groups are used to mislead the public into believing that the position of the astroturfer is the commonly held view.

Although usually associated with the internet, the practice has been widespread ever since newspaper editors first invented the letters page. Pick up any local paper around the time of an election and you will find multiple letters from "concerned residents of X" objecting to the disastrous policies of Y. Similarly, concerned residents often turn up on talk radio shows and even in campaign literature...

To overcome these dangers, most astroturfing now takes place on the forums and comment sections of blogs and newspaper websites. Here, individual astroturfers can leave comments under numerous identities with little fear of discovery. Discovery does occur, however, and in 2008 one member of Boris Johnson's campaign team was caught posting comments on blogs critical of his boss without sufficiently concealing their identity. A few years later, another member of Johnson's campaign was found posing as a concerned Labour supporter trying to prevent Ken Livingstone from being the party's candidate for mayor." ( source )

Published in the Guardian NINE YEARS AGO (imagine how much has changed in the tech space since then)...

What are the latest astroturfing trends?

"None of these British examples comes close to the sort of operation seen in Russia. New forms of software enable any organisation with the funds and the know-how to conduct astroturfing on a far bigger scale than even the Kremlin could hope for. As reported by the Guardian , some big companies now use sophisticated "persona management software" to create armies of virtual astroturfers, complete with fake IP addresses, non-political interests and online histories. Authentic-looking profiles are generated automatically and developed for months or years before being brought into use for a political or corporate campaign. As the software improves, these astroturf armies will become increasingly difficult to spot, and the future of open debate online could become increasingly perilous." ( source )

Why is this happening?

New tools for astroturfers are both a response and a result of the openness inherent in online communications. Twitter and blogging have given a voice to millions of people who would otherwise be unable to reach the masses, providing a platform for genuine opposition movements to take their cases directly to the public. While censorship of these movements has not always proved effective, only authoritarian governments will implement it.

For big business and less repressive governments, simply crowding out dissenting voices online must seem a far more attractive prospect.

Different Forms of Astroturfing and Examples

The first political astroturfing efforts were letter-writing campaigns, such as that credited to Sen. Bentsen in 1985. In such campaigns, paid individuals flood elected representatives with letters from people who are not actually their constituents and make it seem like there is widespread support for their cause.

The increasing sophistication of forms of astroturfing is due to the growth of the internet, identity masking software, and online crowdsourcing, along with a general increase in the public’s interest in government and social reforms.

Front Groups

Front groups are organizations that claim to be nonpolitical voluntary associations or charities, but they represent a secret organization's interests. Front groups appear to be grassroots movements, but they're funded by political groups, corporations, labor associations, or public relations firms.

Front groups are one of the most easily exposed forms of corporate astroturfing. They are designed to look like independent organizations and are often created by PR firms, lobbying firms, or corporate interests.

For example, the National Smoker's Alliance was formed in 1993 to oppose anti-smoking legislation in the U.S. Congress. When the National Smokers Alliance (NSA) presented itself as a grassroots organization of private citizens concerned for the rights of adult smokers, it was exposed as a public relations group created, funded, and operated by tobacco industry giant Philip Morris.

Sockpuppeting

In politics and public policy, sockpuppeting is concealing your identity by creating fake online identities to give the impression of broad support for or opposition against a particular candidate, cause, or organization. In internet-based astroturfing campaigns, a third party poses as an independent blogger on blogs and websites while being secretly funded by another entity. Paid sock puppeteers can create and post as multiple unrelated identities through persona management software.

In 2011, for example, the United States Central Command paid a California company $2.76 million to create fake online personas to influence net conversations in Western Asian languages, including Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and Pashto. On September 11, 2014, people on Twitter reported a major explosion at a chemical plant in Louisiana that caused extensive damage to the facility.

U.S. intelligence authorities revealed that the posts were part of a Russian government-sponsored campaign to sow discord by using fake social media accounts. In 2016, the U.S. intelligence authority claimed to have found evidence that Russia had manipulated public opinion during the presidential election by using paid sockpuppets to support Donald Trump's candidacy.

Is Astroturfing Wrong?

Astroturfing is a bad thing, and it's wrong for two reasons.

First, it's unethical. In astroturfing, people are paid to post fake comments on blogs and news articles in order to sway public opinion. It's a form of fake news that has been used by companies, politicians, and other entities who want to make themselves look better than they really are. The problem with this is that if people don't know paid actors are manipulating them, they may be more likely to trust whatever they're saying. And this trust could lead to them making decisions that negatively impact their lives.

Second, astroturfing makes it harder for legitimate grassroots movements to gain traction online because these campaigns tend to be smaller and less organized than those backed by large corporations or political parties. When astroturfers flood online spaces with false information and paid trolls, it can be impossible for these real grassroots causes to get their message across effectively—even if their message is worth hearing!

Consequences of Astroturfing: Why This Practice Should Be Avoided

The practice of Astroturfing is controversial and often discouraged or disparaged. While most forms of online content are created to engage with the public, manufactured memes often cross the line and are viewed as astroturfing by an uninvolved audience. An online business that gets caught astroturfing will suffer embarrassment and possibly damage its public relations if people find out.

In addition, many Western nations have laws regulating overt and especially deceptive forms of astroturfing. For example, both the United States and the European Union require bloggers and social media authors to disclose their financial relationships with companies whose products they promote.

Due to the prevalence of astroturfing, some forms of online reviews are now considered untrustworthy. Astroturfing is unnecessary where effective marketing, quality products and services, and customer satisfaction are in place. If a company is found to be astroturfing its customers, it risks losing credibility and may even face legal action.

What is Sponsored Content?

"Coordinated networks of social media influencers, especially small-scale influencers with fewer than 10,000 followers, are now a powerful asset for political campaigns, PACs, and special interest groups. Partisan organizations are leveraging these “authentic” accounts in bids to sway political discourse and decision-making in the run up to the 2020 U.S. elections. Political marketers tell us that they see influencers, particularly those with more intimate followings, as regarded as more trustworthy by their followers and therefore better positioned to change their behavior. Groups on both sides of the aisle are paying influencers to promote their causes. Many influencers don’t reveal they’ve been paid, and payments often take place off social media platforms. This amounts to a new and growing form of ‘inorganic’ information operations—elite-dictated propaganda through trusted social media spokespersons. What is more, top-down propaganda from influencers are better able to evade detection systems built to detect political bots and sockpuppets and to defy regulators concerned with digital free speech—all while using influencers’ captive audiences to more effectively prey upon fraught emotions during a highly contentious election. Such influencers, far from being “volunteer digital door knockers,” are paid, highly organized surrogates of political campaigns failing to report this new mode of politicking. Social media firms and governments face serious challenges ahead in dealing with this new form of digital propaganda. The propaganda research team at the Center for Media Engagement notes these challenges and offers cursory solutions." ( source )

What's the main difference in how the two parties leveraged influencers? Democrats rarely tap into niche influencers, preferring to go with celebrity icons and guest appearances by candidates, and when employing influencers Democrats controlled the message that their influencers shared. In working on past influencer partnerships, I know this is going to gain a little lift on your campaign KPI's but unless you allow the influencer to write their own sponsored content, your ROI for that paid partnership is going to be low. This is in a huge contrast where Republicans are eager to employ micro-niche influencers and celebrity/high profile influencers alike. The next part is crucial in that Republicans allow their influencers to write their own posts, scripts, and paid endorsements - which when shared across their target market allows each member to add their own slant to the message and often will have the racist, bigoted, hateful messaging or undertones and continue to allow some Republicans to dogwhistle their racism instead of saying it outright. In a move of liability, the message is on the microinfluencer (who should be disclosing their paid partnership per FTC guidelines, but mostly aren't).

"Across the aisle, Republican groups appear to understand the utility of influencers. According to one politically agnostic influencer firm we spoke to, the Republican campaigns that approached them demonstrated a better grasp of how the influencer platforms could be used to mobilize hyper-specific audiences, as opposed to simply partnering with well-known influencers, as their Democratic counterparts were doing. 28 The GOP has equipped “Rising Stars” with social media training and invited young, minority influencers to the RNC headquarters to discuss how to influence conversations in their local communities. 29 Without apparent GOP oversight, there are also collections of influencers who have gathered into “hype houses” on TikTok. They have large-scale reach: the Conservative Hype House has 1.5 million followers and the Republican Hype House has nearly 900,000. 30 Coordinated with greater GOP guidance, the conservative youth group Turning Point USA has a well-established Influencer Media Program with a reported 260 influencers who have an average following of 170,000 people. 31 An affiliate, Turning Point Action, was recently found to be operating an influence operation described as “among the most ambitious domestic influence campaigns discovered this election cycle.” 32 Operating through an external digital marketing firm, Turning Point Action paid individuals, including minors, to use their personal accounts to spread coordinated content without disclosing their affiliation or payment. Thousands of posts, replies, and comments across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram were found, some of which used identical language. The coordinated content spread false information about COVID-19 and mail-in ballot fraud, sought to discredit mainstream media, implicate Joe Biden, and promote Republican candidates. 33 Due to evidence of coordination, particularly comments replicated en masse, Facebook and Twitter removed several accounts for violating manipulation and spam policies. 34 " ( source )

Why is sponsored content a popular form of marketing?

Sponsored content can increase your brand's credibility and trustworthiness by placing it alongside other things that viewers enjoy.
Sponsored content enhances the user experience rather than distracting it.
Sponsored content is one of the few ways to pay for exposure without interrupting people, but it's important to consider how different types of paid media will affect your message.
Sponsored content can take many forms, and it doesn't have to be restricted to the same media types.
Sponsored content is a win-win relationship – a content creator (with an audience) gets funding, and a product creator (who needs an audience to acquire customers) gets an audience.

Pros and Cons of Sponsored Content

Sponsored content has the following benefits:

You can gain credibility and trustworthiness from a viewer by showing your logo alongside other things the viewer enjoys.
It improves the user experience and doesn't interrupt it as regular advertising posts do.
Sponsored content can appear in any format or media, which makes it a flexible marketing tool.
It benefits both parties, which can expand their subscriber bases by working together.

Sponsored content has the following drawbacks:

The nature of social media platforms, along with laws in some countries, require that sponsored content be clearly marked, so the corresponding mark may detract from the overall nativity of an image.
Some users have negative expectations about the quality of paid content.
Sponsored content that is irrelevant to the user experience can disrupt the user experience and lead to negative feedback, which can ultimately increase unsubscribe rates, harming your reputation.

What is Native Advertising?

For sale: The front page of the internet

"Perhaps you’ve heard of Reddit, the self-styled 'Front Page of the Internet'. It’s a social media platform that consists of a network of user-created news, content, and discussion forums called ‘subreddits’, the users of which are called ‘Redditors’.

It works by aggregating content that is both created by and then voted on by users, the most popular content of which is then displayed at the top of the subreddit it was posted in. If a post becomes popular enough it can reach the ‘front page’, which displays the most popular posts across the whole website within a given timeframe.

Reddit is different than most other ‘connection-based’ platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, in that users are connected through the communities they’re active in rather than through a process of ‘friending’ or following other profiles. With roughly 330 million users, Reddit is a similar size to Twitter, and ranks as the 18th most visited website globally. And, like any social media platform of its calibre, it also has a serious astroturfing problem.

It’s a bit oxymoronic, really. Because of its young demographic and user-curated ethos, the Reddit community (if you can put 330 million people in a box) is described as being comprised of generally privacy conscious people who dislike being manipulated by brands or overtly advertised to. At the same time, the voting system is easily exploited. With a bit of forethought, a halfway decent marketing team can not only get a disguised advertisement to the front page where it will be seen by millions, but create a trend that can take on a life of its own." ( source )

"Of course, Reddit has measures in place to combat astroturfing and botting. Communities won’t let you post in them until you’ve amassed a certain amount of ‘karma’, which is a rough sum of the voting other users have done on your posts and comments. Unfortunately, this only stops the laziest of astroturfing attempts, because there are plenty of services that sell pre-aged accounts so as to avoid suspicion from moderators and users alike.

The above video explains how easy it is buy a pre-aged account and game the Reddit algorithm – so, if a couple of guys with a shoestring budget were able to get a fake news story to the front page of an influential subreddit, just imagine how simple it must be for a corporation." ( source )

Norm Shifting: Increasing Politicization and Extremism on Social Media Platforms

"Echoed across interviews was the sentiment that there has been a distinct shift in Instagram’s influencer culture over the last year. With the murder of George Floyd and subsequent protests, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the spread of QAnon, influencers have begun to post content that would have previously been considered too controversial. Our research identified three main motivations behind this shift in influencer postings: the desire to use platforms for political activism, changes in audience expectations, and the incentivization of posting political content due to increased follower engagement." ( source )

" Motivation: Personal Political Activism

In the words of one influencer we interviewed: “My whole thing was that I wanted to spread a message that was meaningful. I wanted to make a difference in society, one way or another. I didn’t feel like I was doing enough.” The current influx of personally motivated political activism is causing ripple effects throughout the social media landscape, provoking and inspiring others, and, subsequently, establishing an expectation of political discourse. While this type of content may invigorate the influencer’s audience, it can also, conversely, invigorate those in opposition. One popular conservative influencer we spoke with told us that their primary motivation for becoming a partisan influencer was the activity they saw on social media during police protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd: “The main catalyst for me to start making content was after I saw people, you know, burning flags, stepping on flags, it kind of brought out this passion that was lost.” Once the apolitical norm of Instagram was broken en masse—arguably by the controversial “Blackout Tuesday” meme accompanied by Black Lives Matter hashtags 37 —political posts have bred political posts, regardless of whether they are authentic or performative." ( source )

" Motivation: Audience Expectations

According to those we spoke with, a main driving factor for influencers to post this new kind of politically-charged content is a general change in audience demand. Since influencers operate in an engagement-driven system, when their audiences expect them to speak about social issues, the influencers have to respond. In the words of one influencer platform executive: “It’s become a place where influencers are expected to say something, and they are expected to be on the right side of history if they want to continue to operate their businesses.” Especially for nano-influencers, whose audiences are smaller and highly engaged, these kinds of posts in support of a social movement can become a price of doing business. In the past, such posts may have been decried as “armchair activism” or “slacktivism,” but now, authentic or performative, they are expected." ( source )

"Motivation: Increased Engagement and Followers

Social media platforms have long been fertile ground for the spread of conspiracy theories and, in 2020, countless “mainstream” influencers, from fitness gurus to beauty bloggers, have joined the ranks of those spreading the content. A prime example is QAnon, a conspiracy theory that came out of the fringe message board site 4chan in 2017. 38 The conspiracy theory alleges that Donald Trump is defending the world against a large network of satanic elites who are running a global child-trafficking operation. QAnon has found its way into mainstream platforms through the co-option of existing social causes like the anti-vaccination and anti-child-trafficking movements. 39 Using language like “#savethechildren,” many QAnon posts appear innocuous upon first glance—moms speaking out against child abuse and sex-trafficking—but the posts are often also tagged with hashtags like #thegreatawakening and #wwg1wga, which lead followers to more radical conspiratorial content. QAnon followers are extremely active, and these hashtags also help them, and QAnon automated “bot” accounts, 40 to “signal boost” to other members, which leads to masses of comments, likes, and reshares of the content. Posts often encourage people to do their own research into topics, and even suggest what web browser to use to do so, giving preference to those which index alternative news sources higher in the search results. 41 " ( source )

"Influencer culture that thrives on authenticity and being an individual fits well with these kinds of messages that encourage individuality in pursuit of the truth (e.g. questioning mainstream media, the government, and academia). 42 Posts focused on rescuing children and other QAnon adjacent talking points also represent a “watered-down” version of the core QAnon content, enabling it to be more palatable and sharable for ordinary people, and shifting the norms regarding acceptable discourse. 43 QAnon is no longer a fringe theory; 2 out of 10 Americans think it is “very good” or “somewhat good” for the country, and 4 in 10 Republicans believe the same. 44 From our interviews, it appears to be an established tactic for influencers to capitalize on QAnon to get a boost in followers and engagement, even if the engagement isn’t sustained. 45 A recent study of climate change deniers found that they have begun to use QAnon hashtags and post QAnon content, gaining a marked increase in engagement. 46 "( source )

The Ethics of Mobilizing Political Influencers

"Is coordinating networks of influencers to share political content ethical? On the one hand, some argue that it is no different than conventional volunteer work. In the words of one strategist, “This is digital door-knocking, I think of this as e-canvassing.” However, there are three key differences: (1) scale of reach, (2) influencers’ relationships with their audiences, and (3) disclosure and transparency regarding coordination. Influencers differ from canvassers because a single post can reach thousands of people in an instant versus the reach of a canvasser who is knocking on a single door or calling a single number at any given time. There is also a relational difference between a canvasser knocking on a stranger’s door and an influencer whose audience has a relationship with them, perceived or otherwise. Lastly, canvassers gain trust by affiliating with a campaign so they are willing to disclose, while influencers gain trust by remaining “authentic.” Lack of disclosure regarding payment or affiliation make it extremely difficult to assess coordination, enabling secretive political groups, dark money, 55 and foreign actors to potentially sway masses of unsuspecting voters through the voices of trusted friends and idols.

By focusing on disclosure, proponents of paid political influencers overlook the deeper issue of digital astroturfing—the coordination of accounts, deceptively seeking to mimic legitimate discourse. 56 In recent years, social media bots were a primary method of artificially inflating a candidate’s popularity online, 57 but as technologists have become more adept at detection, bot usage appears to be waning. User-generated content is both effective at swaying public opinion and creating the appearance of a groundswell of grassroots support. Coordinating real humans to post political content, although more time consuming, is also a tactic to avoid detection. As discussed prior, in the lead-up to the 2020 election, Turning Point Action reportedly paid teenagers in Arizona to reply to tweets posted by Democratic politicians and news organizations on Twitter in order to manipulate conversations on the platform. 58 The teenagers, who were pulling approved messages from a shared document, did not disclose that they were working in coordination with a political group and several used pseudonyms. Notably, Turning Point Action claimed that this coordinated effort was “sincere political activism” that was pushed online due to COVID-19, 59 echoing the justifications we heard from strategists coordinating political influencers on Instagram." ( source )

CONCLUSION: Policy Solutions Stymied

"Influencers pose a threat to campaign transparency, accountability, and informational quality. Political influencer posts do not qualify for the stricter rules imposed by Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter on political advertising due to the fact that payment occurs off- platform. Without standardization of disclosure practices, differentiating between coordinated political campaigns and genuine grassroots political speech will continue to be difficult for the platforms. Furthermore, the Federal Elections Commission—which could change the legal requirements surrounding these kinds of political advertisements—once again finds itself without a quorum, leaving it powerless to act. 60 The commission itself has also become increasingly polarized in recent years, and disclosure has become a party-line issue. Current rules regarding online political speech are “technology-neutral and platform- agnostic,” leaving social media platforms and campaigns to make up many of the policies themselves. 61 The environment has been described by one former Federal Election Commissioner we interviewed as a place where bad actors “can just act with impunity, and there’s never going to be any enforcement.”

Lack of proper disclosure regulations leaves significant openings for dark money and foreign actors to fund influencer operations with little to no detection, threatening the security and integrity of elections in the United States and beyond. Russian influence operations in Africa have been testing tactics to spread disinformation by using local people instead of fake accounts to avoid detection of Facebook. 62 As Facebook and Twitter focused more attention on foreign actors after the 2016 election, the Kremlin’s Internet Research Agency successfully targeted black Americans on Instagram by mimicking influencer behavior as a part of an orchestrated disinformation campaign in 2017. 63

In order to combat the rise of political influencers, both the federal government and social media firms must act. While some precedents have been set for monitoring influencers paid for commercial purposes, the use of political influencers is different. Ultimately, the use of paid political influencers amounts to active, professional electioneering. It should be treated as such. Even when influencer groups are not paid to communicate by political groups, as seems to be the case with the “hype houses” mentioned earlier, they are often using inorganic organizing tactics in bids to game what social media firms prioritize in trends and recommendations. The use of broadscale coordination of influencers, particularly small-scale nano-influencers who are basically “regular” users, in efforts to dictate outcomes on digital systems amounts to computational propaganda by other means. Here, political groups may not be using bots or sockpuppets, but they are seeking similar outcomes." ( source )

The How-To's of Creating Video Content

Wed, 22 Sep 2021 12:00:13 GMT

Our advice on producing a great looking video.

You’re talking about what, some metric you wish you were hitting with your video posts? Some filters you can't decide on using? Why your engagement isn’t skyrocketing as you go viral with video of your cat playing a tuba? There’s a lot of factors to break down when trying to get your video blog / commercial / whatever when you’re working in the visual aspects of your online campaign, and for someone who’s just getting started with this it can be overwhelming and a little confusing. Googling doesn’t always help unless you know how to use a search engine to filter out the clickbait and slide shows. You might search for “Best Video Tips” and fifteen minuets later you’re down a rabbit hole about the 15 best products on Amazon you didn’t know you needed for your car. Let's take a few minuets and talk about some best practices for working with video online.

1. Planning / Shooting

First and foremost Let's talk about the simple act of shooting. Don’t worry about hardware yet; I’ll get to that. But we want to talk about shooting the footage that you will be using.

Before you begin, have a clearly defined plan. One of the most frustrating things I experience as a videographer, or as a photographer, is working with clients who have no idea how to get from concept to final product. "I have a million-dollar idea! Its a video of a dog and he’s got sunglasses on!” Ok, cool. Whats the dog doing? How does it relate to your product or brand? Whats your call to action? A great idea is literally 10% of the process, if that. (By the way, a dog with sunglasses is played out, but you do you.)

What you want is some semblance of a script. Now, I’m not telling you to write some five act Leone-esque opus that takes three and a half hours to tell. What I am saying is know what you're going to say and have a general idea of what its going to look like, shot by shot. Storyboards are a great way to plan your story in a visual medium. Sam Raimi, who directed the early 2000s Spider-Man movies, would scribble stick figures in a box on the set as he changed his shots. It can be that simple.

Planning ahead can save you hours of time not only filming, but also editing. Who wants to go through hours of footage to find three sentences that will make it into your final product? I don’t and have had to because clients have literally handed me a Dropbox link of 20 files they shot on location. Now, I get paid by the hour so, ok, sure. But I like to be as efficient and precise as possible when I work so that’s not my ideal workflow.

So sit down with yourself, your creative team, whoever is going to be working on this video and ask yourselves the following questions:

“How long do we want the video to be?”

“What’s the topic of our video and what are the important things we need to say with it?”  “What visuals do we want to highlight?”  “What is our call to action?”

*Side note, your call to action is the thing that engages the viewer to take the next step in your interaction. It could be signing up for a mailing list (which I highly recommend for any online brand) or checking out that new product you’ve put on your online store, or making a video and posting it with your branded hashtags… You get the idea.

Once you’ve answered those questions, you should have constructed your outline. You know who’s in the video, where your shoot location is, what the video will look like, what you’ll be saying on the video, all the good stuff. If you need to write out your script, this is the time to do it. Be as detailed or as brief as you need. If you’re good at riffing, it can just be some bullet points, if you need cue cards, write EVERY. WORD. DOWN.

Ok, that’s probably the most tedious part of video production.

I lied. It’s not. It’s all tedious. But it’s fun, so don’t worry. This is about being creative and getting to make something that hopefully people will watch and share and enjoy.

So now, let's break down the aspect of shooting. What’s the most important part of a shoot? Is it the Lighting? The camera? The talent?

Yes. I worked on an independent film twelve years ago where the producer told us it would be better to pay for the actors and borrow equipment. In the end we had a camera that ruined the DV Tapes we shot on (this was before digital.) and the whole project was a bust. What I learned is if you know the talent personally, you can find other ways to compensate them for their time. Spend the money on the goods.

LIGHTING - Lighting is probably the biggest factor between a great looking video and "dad’s Christmas morning videos.” Thanks to several factors from LED technology, to the internet and competitive markets like Amazon you can get some great lighting options inexpensively. If you’re shooting a blog through the camera on you laptop, a ring light and one or two fills might be enough to properly light you and the environment. I’ve even seen ring lights now that snap onto your phone for photos and videos. My barber used one the other day to take a picture of my faded side for her branded Instagram page. Again, I’ll be listing some product at the end of our little journey here so don’t worry.

I will also say natural lighting can be very flattering but also very fleeting. The sun moves, so that perfect shot of it cascading through your office window may only last about twenty minutes. You’ll also want to have something to diffuse your light. This will soften it and give a healthy glow to your skin. Direct light can often highlight flaws, wrinkles, etc. A cheap diffusion method is simply hanging a white sheet in-between you and your light source, but there are plenty of diffusers you can buy for your lighting set up.

FILMING - Ok, we’re not doing this on VHS tapes anymore (Although there is an app called VHS CAM to simulate that.) I have a professional DSLR Camera that shoots high def video as well as photographs. I have a 4K camera on a gimble from DJI as well. Do you want to know what I like to shoot video on the most? My iPhone. The best camera is always the one you have on you and thanks to smart phones, chances are you’re reading this on it right now. When I buy a phone, the number one factor I look at is the camera. Whats the video output specs? More importantly HOW DOES IT LOOK? Get on the internet and do some research, because not all phones are the same. A video professional I know was hired by BRAND X (major tech company that made phones) to shoot video on their upcoming new phone that would be used in the commercials. They had to run the video through three different programs just to make it usable on TV. Meanwhile, we’ve all seen that billboard on the side of a building downtown in almost any city that says “SHOT ON IPHONE.” But even these have some editing involved, so let's talk about that.

Lenses -Just having the camera phone isn’t enough. It can be, but there are some great features to look at to really step up your video game. First of all, lenses. There are a plethora of lenses you can buy that can easily attach to your camera phone for you to use ranging from inexpensive to well worth the cost of purchase. I prefer to use lenses from a company called Moment. They’re some of the sharpest looking lenses you’ll get, and thats a big reason I use them. You may notice with cheaper lenses there are more obvious distortions or flaws in the final image. Moment Lens manufactures lenses that have less than 5% distortion in the image. They recently came out with an Anamorphic lens, which is the holy grail of film making. It’s my go to lens for video on the phone. I would also recommend a wide-angle lens (but not too wide or you get that skater video fish eye look,) and a telephoto or macro lens.

You’ll also want to stabilize your video. There are a variety of tripods you can buy, and as long as they’re durable and can hold the weight of your camera equipment they’re great. A Mono-pod is basically a stick you can hold that your camera attaches to, and then you’ve also go stabilizing hand-held gambles like the DJI Osmo Mobile. The most recent version is priced very well, and will intelligently stabilize the camera as you move giving you the smoothest possible footage. If you’re sitting or standing in place, go with a tripod, if you’re moving around, look into the gimbals. Want smooth video without a gimbal? This is going to sound silly, and it looks even weirder, but bend your knees and walk with a semi-crouched position.

Some basic rules of shooting: Unless you’re specifically shooting for a format that calls for vertical video, DO NOT SHOOT VERTICALLY. Your television screen is horizontal. Your computer monitor is horizontal. YOUR EYES ARE HORIZONTAL. When most people watch a video online that is in wide-screen format, they turn their phones to fill the whole screen and get the biggest, sharpest image. Unfortunately some features like IGTV, Instagram Stories, and various live streams require you to film vertically; if that’s the case, roll with it.

There’s also composition rule called The Rule Of Thirds. Basically, if you split your video screen into thirds both horizontally and vertically, you get nine squares made out of four intersecting lines. Your subject should be in the cross points of three of those lines, and your horizon should be on one of the two horizontal lines. This also allows you to have clear unused area for graphics or text if need be.

It may not be a bad idea to use some sort of an indicator at the beginning of a shot to indicate what shot that is, what part of your outline/script you’re shooting. Just take a piece of white paper and write something on it like :

“Scene 1. Take 2”

Hold that up for a few seconds before you start talking. The great thing is this also gives you something to white balance off of in the editing process.

2.Editing

Ok, let's talk about cutting this thing up and getting it ready to for your adoring fans. You’ve just planned out your shoot; you shot it, and now you’re ready to cut it. So where do you cut this bad boy up and stitch it together?

You can either use editing software on a computer, which generally gives you more options and control, or you can use a mobile version of editing software on your tablet or smart phone. I prefer computer based options because I use professional software but that cost me hundreds of dollars and years of learning/using to master it. You may not be ready for that so lets break down some options for you starting with the free ones.

If you use Apple products, you have access to a great, free program called iMovie . It comes preinstalled on their computers and on their mobile devices. It has a very easy to learn drag and drop interface, great use of templates (although the mobile version is template-based and you may find that limiting) text, music, and exporting and sharing is all at your fingertips and easily learnable and usable.

Professional programs like Final Cut Pro X and Adobe Premiere exist as well. I’ve used both, and at this point prefer Final Cut, despite what a lot of my peers think. It’s a completely different theory to the editing that some find “dumbed down” but I find that i can edit twice as fast and love the use of plug-ins available to it. It does cost around $200 though, but considering Adobe is a never-ending subscription service I’ve already saved money on it.

On my phone i use three apps to shoot video.

1. Moment - If I’m shooting with their lenses this is a must, but I also love the fact that this app has some of the best built in Contrast and color built right into it. It can shoot in high resolutions, has manual controls if you really want to get into the nitty gritty of it, and delivers stunning images. Oh, and its FREE.

2. FiLMiC Pro - The most in-depth video shooting app you will find, hands down. Commercials and movies have been shot using this app. If you understand what bit-rates and aspect ratios are, this is for you. You can do basic edits, color corrections, reformatting, and many other things in it. I love the fact that I can shoot in a flat color profile in it, which gives me a vastly wider range of color correction options once i drop it into my professional editing software. The base price is 14.99, plus there are few pro features you still have to pay to unlock.

3. Camera - Yeah, i use the basic camera app on my phone sometimes. It’s there. It’s useful. Barebones and i can adjust the exposure and lock the focal point. Work With what you’ve got.

With all of these, you can tap on a point on the screen to focus/adjust white balance. This is important. You want crisp images, and you want good exposure. Those are the most basic things to remember when shooting your footage.

So to recap, Plan your shoot out from the start. Some people like to run and gun, and it may work for them, but a good plan never hurt anyone. Have good lighting, shoot with a good camera and edit in something that makes it easy to deliver your finalized product.

3. Recommended Equipment

Here’s a rundown of some of the items and equipment I’ve found for you to look at. I tried to find things in a range of prices, but keep in mind like most things you get what you pay for.

THE IDEAL MOBILE SETUP

My go to set up for mobile videography would be the DJI Osmo Mobile 3, a Moment lens of my choice, and the Shure MV88 mic. The great feature about the newest Osmo is that it no longer needs counterweights to adjust for the added weight of the attached Lens and mic. It does take some fine tuning to get the balance right but if you use it a couple times you have a good idea of where the balance point is on the phone when you're attaching it to the Osmo.

DJI Osmo Mobile 3 Combo Kit - $129.00 Includes attachable Tripod, charging cable, carrying case.

Shure MV88 Microphone - $149 Includes carrying case, wind guard, headphone jack extension.

Moment Lenses - $119-$150

Anamorphic Lens

18mm Wide Angle Lens

58mm Telephoto lens

Lighting Solutions

QIYA Selfie Light - $12.99 easily clips onto your mobile phone or iPad for continuous lighting

Newer LED ring light - $79.99 includes stand, phone tripod, carrying case, remote control, power cable, Color filters

A Day In A Social Media Manager's Work Life & Why Your Brand Needs an Agency

Wed, 22 Sep 2021 11:52:26 GMT

Every Great Social Media Manager's Days Are Filled With Tasks

Creating A Social Media Strategy

Creating a social media strategy that incorporates all key stakeholders, chosen KPIs, a defined audience, and the agility to optimize ad content and successful omnichannel marketing is necessary for successful social media campaign launch results with 2XROI or more! Make sure that you focus on the right channels and activities.

Audience Personas

Creating your user personas to target (aka target audience) and helping your team find tactics that lead to desired goals within those personas.

Creating A Social Media Strategy

What is the goal of your social media presence? How do you intend to achieve the goal? What social media channels are the target audience persona active on? What keywords are they searching for (aka the semantic SEO phrases)? What images will drive them? What action do you want them to take after seeing the ad? Click, call, form fill, video watch, subscribe, enroll, etc. Defining the campaign strategy is the easy part. Execution is where it matters.

Generate a Campaign Brief

Once you've outlined your strategy, write this all out in a simple one-sheet document to share with your team as your campaign brief. On a second sheet, add inspirational launch-related imagery - the key here is to provide thematic elements (colors, emotions, feelings, and scenes) that will be emulated in the creative assets generated for this campaign and the omnichannel presence across your website, email newsletter, and out of home (OOH).

Choosing A Budget for Your Social Media Campaigns

When you have a strategy where you want to go, you need resources to get you there. For budgeting, we lean on over two decades of digital ad industry experience, hands-on community management, cold-hard analytics, the company mission, values, and KPIs to help set the appropriate budget by platform, goal, and audience persona.

Some audiences cost more to get ads in front of, such as if they are buying a new car, versus life insurance, versus a new couch, versus a present for a "insert relationship identifier here," all that you also as a shopper have different budgets for.

If your product is a higher purchase upfront, to be competitive in the online ad market that is auction-based, bid pricing on placement will need a higher monthly budget than a lower upfront purchase item's campaign budget will need to be.

Work With Internal Stakeholders

Sometimes you need to prove that your budgets are an investment that will generate a positive ROI for the business. You need people who support your efforts. These are also the decision makers and trendsetters at the company. It's best for this team to be diverse to ensure the ad campaign ideas are vetted through more than one's personal bias viewpoint.

Plan Your Social Media Campaigns

When your social media strategy and budget are in place, then you can start to plan the execution phase. What will be the day-to-day activities needed to get you to positive results?

Recruit and Manage the Social Media Marketing Team, the SEO team, the Web Development team, and the Design Team for Your Organization.

Decide how many people you need. What social media activities do you want to keep in-house, and what can you outsource to an agency or a freelancer? What technical skills and know-how does your staff have for building and updating your website for better conversion rates, domain authority, and page authority? Is your team equipped to set up and manage ads, ad asset changes, ad optimization changes, and reporting?

Can they handle community management and customer service inquiries over email and social channels? What can you give to a trusted agency partner? What needs to be better defined with current contractors? What training does your staff need to future-proof your company for any pandemic, platform outage, or hacking attempt?

Your online forms need to work, or your social team's actions will fail; your website needs to have an SSL, huge images, slow load times, or the bounce rate is higher, costing you more in ads to get any ROI. All of these teams should communicate and workflows connected to ensure successful online ad campaigns.

Manage Change and Adopt Social Media and SEO into Your Organizational Culture.

You can combat the declining organic reach, algorithm changes, and network outages on major social networks by engaging your team and co-workers to generate initial organic reach for your campaigns, directing everything back to the home hub of your website to ensure your raving brand fans have somewhere to connect when Twitter is out, Slack goes down, or Meta closes shop (here's hoping).

In teaching SEO to everyone, the company benefits through long-term higher value link shares. The social posts rank higher in search results, landing page content has better conversion rates, and website accessibility is improved, causing higher search rankings for relevant semantic keywords.

Work with other branches of marketing, and the rest of the people filling your org chart at your company to integrate social media with all marketing.

When different company activities support each other, you get results exceeding your individual efforts. In this case, one plus one is often more than two. Break down the silos for company marketing initiatives, gamify the requested support activities (or pay them to flat out additional money for these tasks), provide a culture worth shouting about, and your company will grow.

Social Media Implementation

You need to measure the results when you have planned your social media strategy and executed it flawlessly. Increased awareness, more leads, sales, etc. These are the numbers by which you evaluate your performance. Take a look at the social media KPIs - Manage social media campaigns and day-to-day activities – Avoid micro-managing your colleagues.

And some of these tasks take more than your average Facebook status update. Track results and keep communication channels open to deal with any issues that may come up in the dynamic social media marketing environment (school shootings, pandemics, failed coups).

The Social Media Team's Responsibilities

Manage Presence On Social Media Networking Sites

Posting new content, answering comments, and sharing material from important influencers, fans, and customers. Each social network has its own individual features and ways to engage and post on the platform. By and large, they are photo posts, text-only posts, and video posts. Some platforms allow link shares, some provide live streaming capabilities, and some provide post and delete options.

These features get updated and changed frequently and can create their own individual positions within a company or need full teams to provide enough coverage on creating, community management, planning, and analytics.

Brand Advocacy

Finding bloggers, forums, and influencers to work with. Build a brand ambassadors network where all the members feel that their relationship with your brand is something special. There are some prebuilt brand advocacy networks available, niche and non-niche out there, we've worked with BlogHer for many of our influencer programs.

Community Outreach

Go to the communities that discuss the issues related to your business. Are they on Reddit, a community Discord, have a bi-monthly Twitter chat, IG Live, TikTok Live, YT Live? Help out people and engage with active members of the community. Engage in conversations and answer relevant questions to provide value to these conversations and build trust with you and your brand.

Content Creator Responsibilities

Create Images for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, SnapChat, and LinkedIn
Create Images for Blog, Website & Email Newsletter
Create Videos for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Youtube, SnapChat, and TikTok
Edit Videography, add branding and overlay elements for customer engagement (cta examples: "Follow us!, "Like for more ideas like this!", & "Subscribe to get Reminders for New Content!",)
Review Analytics & Engagement to Optimize Future Creative Assets
Create Ad Assets for display, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, TikTok, SnapChat, Youtube,& LinkedIn
Host and Co-Host Influencer Events, Lives, and Calls Across Social Networks and IRL

Content Marketing Manager

Responsibilities Somewhat overlapping with a Social Media Manager's tasks is a list of Content marketing manager responsibilities. The Content Marketing Manager is essentially the editor in chief of your brand. They are the last view point on social copy, email copy, and website copy. They live and breathe your brand online in the form of commenting, content sharing, and link building.

Post and Comments on relevant blogs
Create and Maintain a social media editorial calendar and posting schedule
Syndicate Content on Social Networks - put your content where it has a chance to spread. Don't post it only on your social profiles. Your message will spread on other people's properties.
Write editorial content – write every day. Write something that you can use as content. At least 100 words per day and 1000 words per week. This will get you to about 3 blog posts per month. You need more but that's a start.
Find and negotiate relevant brand partnerships to increase link building opportunities
Track & analyze onsite engagement metrics; form fills, click thru rate, pages per visit, time on site, bounce rate, and new users are all excellent KPIs to focus on when measuring the content performance. Social shares and engagement on social posts is another!

Social Media Manager / Social Strategist:

Know or be familiar with the industry in which the company or business is in.
Design a social media strategy that's in line with the brand identity, the company's audience, and goals.
Administer and control budgets for different strategic actions.
Define strategies to build/enhance the follower/fan base and to develop channels that strengthen engagement.
In coordination with the marketing team, define promotion campaigns, competitions, paid-advertising, events, and product launches, in order to implement them on various platforms that have been decided to be used.
Define content strategy, communication style, and control the execution of calendar content.
Define and segment the user or “marketing persona” who the communication and actions will be directed towards.
Define and control: social media KPIs, conversions and ROI objectives (always in coordination with the sales and marketing department of the company).
Select what tools and apps will be used to perform tasks.
Design a plan to tackle a social media reputation crisis.
Define an SEO strategy.
Guide research for market and industry insights in order to apply different strategies.
Study and analyze the results of reports provided by the Community Manager to detect both threats and opportunities, as well as to measure the effectiveness of various actions. Based on this, make decisions concerning each of the above aspects, in order to make improvements, changes, or a change of strategic direction, etc.
Work closely with the client and the various departments of the company, to discuss the results and propose strategic improvements: Public Relations, Marketing, Product, Sales, Directory.
Work on the development of strategic alliances within the social media industry for future actions that can strengthen the growth of communities and the brand.
So far, this is what we can say are the characteristics of an SMM, which leaves in general terms, the mission of building, managing and administering a community in the various social media platforms for the Community Manager, along with the aim of establishing and sustaining a lasting and reciprocal relationship with it.

Inspired by the Manifesto of Community Managers created by Tim McDonald (Hello SXSW) Natalie Rodic Marsan and Nick Cicero, I created the following list.

Community Manager Responsibilities:

“Represent the spirit” of the brand or company, and be the number one advocate.
Create pages on social media platforms that were selected in the strategy. Optimize them as defined by the brand image of the company.
Create, recognize, find, and cure valuable content to the community and that follows the “editorial” line proposed by the strategy. In this case, it may be necessary to work with a graphic designer to optimize the content.
Update pages: planning, profile about sections, scheduling and publishing daily posts, tweets, using tools such as Content Studio
Listen to users and respond to their comments and inquiries, to make them feel valuable. -Customer service using tools such as Content Studio-
Identify, cultivate, and strengthen relationships with brand influencers, so that they become followers and advocates of it.
Moderate activity and conversations on the various platforms.
Create a space for communication, participation, and collaboration through established Community Guidelines.
Implement actions such as competitions that are defined by the SMM.
Monitor trends in social media to stay updated across different platforms, not only with the content that's already been created or cured.
Identify needs and preferences of users
Constantly control basic indicators such as likes, clicks, reach, participation, retweets, re-shares, number of comments.
Be the voice of the community and provide the company and SMM with insights and opportunities for improvements obtained by the opinions and behavior of the community - Identify great User-Generated Content aka UGC.
Give daily feedback about the activity on the platforms and review metrics with the Social Media Manager
Collect the results of different reports obtained from the analytical and monitoring tools and prepare reports for analysis by the various departments and especially by the SMM.

Keep scrolling for the AM/PM Checklist for Social Media Managers Guaranteed to help you grow your online social presence! If you're ready to hand off your SEO, Social Media Management, or more, contact us now to get started!

If you're ready to get to work as a social media manager for your brand, download the am/pm checklist to keep yourself organized and on the right track to growing your brand's online social presence!

Disinformation and Social Media Algorithms and the Case for Saving Humanity

cris@brightsocialagency.com (Cris Haest) — Thu, 19 Aug 2021 15:51:44 GMT

Hate Divides, Love Multiplies except when it comes to increasing engagement on your social media platforms. People will love and like and comment, but what really drives the keyboard to click-clacking is the anger that erupts inside all of us.

Before we get started, here are some facts:

Covid-19 vaccines saved nearly 280,000 lives in the US and prevented more than a million hospitalizations in the United States ( View Full Content )
Face masks were 79% effective in preventing transmission, if they were used by all household members prior to symptoms occurring ( View Full Content )
614,530+ Americans have died due to Covid ( View Full Content )
To Protect Children, Everyone Should Wear A Mask In Schools, Vaccinated Or Not, per The American Academy of Pediatrics

If at this point you want to argue with me, dear reader, I must let you know that you have been a victim of disinformation. Please read on and hold all comments until the end.

Researchers from the universities of Cambridge and New York found that tweets and Facebook posts about opposing political parties are far more likely to be shared than content containing emotional language.

Up front: Social media platforms have long been accused of algorithmically promoting divisive content, because it’s more likely to go viral and thereby attract ad revenue.

The team analyzed around 2.7 million posts from news media account and US congressional members.

They found that posts about political opponents were shared roughly twice as often as those about one’s own party. In addition, each extra word about an adversary — such as “Democrat” or “Leftist” in a post by a Republican — increased the odds of a share by 67% .

Notably, emotional language was far less likely to boost engagement.

Per the study paper:

Each individual term referring to the political out-group increased the odds of a social media post being shared by 67%. Out-group language consistently emerged as the strongest predictor of shares and retweets: the average effect size of out-group language was about 4.8 times as strong as that of negative affect language and about 6.7 times as strong as that of moral-emotional language.

The researchers warn that amplifying this rhetoric can incite real-world violence, such as the storming of the US Capitol in January.

Quick take: It’s not surprising that dunking on opponents is a strong driver of virality. Social media platforms are acutely aware of the effect.

The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Facebook researchers had warned the company that their “algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness.”

Company executives allegedly shut the research down and declined to implement changes proposed by the team.

This content was originally publis hed here.

Facebook removes Russian network that targeted influencers to peddle anti-vax messages

Facebook said on August 9th, it had removed a network of accounts from Russia that it linked to a marketing firm which aimed to enlist influencers to push anti-vaccine content about the COVID-19 jabs .

The social media company said it had banned accounts connected to Fazze , a subsidiary of UK-registered marketing firm AdNow, which primarily conducted its operations from Russia, for violating its policy against foreign interference. Facebook said the campaign used its platforms primarily to target audiences in India, Latin America and, to a smaller extent, the United States.

The company’s investigators called the campaign a “disinformation laundromat,” creating misleading articles and petitions on forums like Reddit , Medium , and Change.org , and using fake accounts on platforms like Facebook and Instagram to amplify the content. Facebook said while the majority of the campaign fell flat, the crux of it appeared to be engaging with paid influencers and these posts attracted “some limited attention.”

False claims and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and its vaccines have proliferated on social media sites in recent months. Major tech firms like Facebook have been criticized by US lawmakers and President Joe Biden’s administration, who say the spread of online lies about vaccines is making it harder to fight the pandemic.

Facebook said the Russia-linked operation started with the creation of batches of fake accounts in 2020, likely originating from account farms in Bangladesh and Pakistan, which posed as being based in India. It said the network posted memes and comments on its platforms in November and December 2020 claiming the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine would turn people into chimpanzees, often using scenes from the 1968 Planet of the Apes movie.

Alongside this “spammy” campaign, Facebook said a number of health and wellbeing influencers on Instagram also shared hashtags and petitions used by the campaign. It said this was likely part of the operation’s known tactics of working with influencers.

Facebook said that in May 2021, after five months of inactivity, the operation then started questioning the safety of the Pfizer vaccine by pushing an allegedly “hacked and leaked” AstraZeneca document. Facebook investigators said the two phases of activity coincided with periods when several governments were reportedly discussing emergency authorizations for the vaccines .

Facebook said it took down 65 Facebook accounts and 243 Instagram accounts as part of the Fazze-linked operation. It said 24,000 accounts followed one or more of the Instagram accounts .

Social media is killing people with Covid misinformation

U.S President Joe Biden has expressed disappointment on big social media platforms like Facebook for spreading misinformation about the coronavirus and vaccines.

“They’re killing people,” the president said when asked what his message was to social media platforms like Facebook on the spread of false and misleading claims about the virus and the safety of vaccines that prevent it.

“The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated, and that’s — they’re killing people,” he continued.

President Biden’s statement comes as health officials are voicing concern over rising cases of the coronavirus and stalling vaccination rates.

“We are seeing outbreaks of cases in parts of the country that have low vaccination coverage because unvaccinated people are at risk, and communities that are fully-vaccinated are generally faring well,” he said. “Our biggest concern is that we are going to continue to see preventable cases, hospitalizations, and sadly, deaths, among the unvaccinated.”

The U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy had on Thursday issued his first advisory raising alarm regarding the spread of false information about COVID-19 and how misinformation is working against government’s efforts to fight the deadly virus.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki also accused Facebook on Thursday of not doing enough to stop the growing rate of false information about the coronavirus and the vaccines.

“So we’re regularly making sure social media platforms are aware of the latest narratives, dangerous to public health that we and many other Americans are seeing across all of social and traditional media,” Psaki said. “And we work to engage with them to better understand the enforcement of social media platform policies.”

She added, “As you all know information travels quite quickly. If it’s up there for days and days and days. When people see it, you know, there’s, it’s hard to put that back in a box, and of course, promoting quality information algorithms, I don’t know how they work, but they all do know how they work.”

The spokesperson said Facebook “removed more than 18 million pieces of COVID misinformation, removed accounts that repeatedly break these rules, and connected more than 2 billion people to reliable information about COVID-19 and COVID vaccines across our apps.”

When asked whether the White House found those actions sufficient, Psaki said, “Clearly not because we’re talking about additional steps that should be taken.”

This content was originally published here.

Where is the Covid Misinformation and Conspiracy Theories Coming From?

The vast majority of Covid-19 anti-vaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories originated from just 12 people, a report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) cited by the White House this week found.

CCDH, a UK/US non-profit and non-governmental organization, found in March that these 12 online personalities they dubbed the “ disinformation dozen ” have a combined following of 59 million people across multiple social media platforms , with Facebook having the largest impact. CCDH analyzed 812,000 Facebook posts and tweets and found 65% came from the disinformation dozen. Vivek Murthy, US surgeon general, and Joe Biden focused on misinformation around vaccines this week as a driving force of the virus spreading.

On Facebook alone, the dozen are responsible for 73% of all anti-vaccine content , though the vaccines have been deemed safe and effective by the US government and its regulatory agencies. And 95% of the Covid misinformation reported on these platforms were not removed.

Among the dozen are physicians that have embraced pseudoscience, a bodybuilder, a wellness blogger, a religious zealot, and, most notably Robert F Kennedy Jr, the nephew of John F Kennedy who has also linked vaccines to autism and 5G broadband cellular networks to the coronavirus pandemic.

Kennedy was since removed from Instagram, which Facebook owns, but not from Facebook itself.

“Facebook, Google and Twitter have put policies into place to prevent the spread of vaccine misinformation; yet to date, all have failed to satisfactorily enforce those policies, ” wrote CCDH’s CEO, Imran Ahmed, in the report . “All have been particularly ineffective at removing harmful and dangerous misinformation about coronavirus vaccines.”

This content was originally publishe d here.

Disinformation for Hire, a Shadow Industry, Is Quietly Booming

Back-alley firms meddle in elections and promote falsehoods on behalf of clients who can claim deniability, escalating our era of unreality.

Platforms have stepped up efforts to root out coordinated disinformation. Analysts especially credit Facebook, which publishes detailed reports on campaigns it disrupts.

Still, some argue that social media companies also play a role in worsening the threat. Engagement-boosting algorithms and design elements, research finds, often privilege divisive and conspiratorial content.

The disinformation network has developed hundreds of accounts with elaborate personas. Each has its own profile and posting history that can seem authentic. They appeared to come from many different countries and walks of life.

Graphika traced the accounts back to a Bangladeshi content farm that created them in bulk and probably sold them to a third party.

This content was originally published here.

The Federation of State Medical Boards says doctors who knowingly spread false information about vaccines could lose their license.

They believe this could help stop the spread of disinformation on social media.

He said he's noticed the decision for his patients to get vaccinated has been a hard one for them to make, which he blames on the spread of false information.

"I would call it a sad thing that there is so much disinformation.” Dr. Ward said.

The Federation of State Medical Boards says physicians who generate and spread COVID-19 vaccine misinformation or disinformation are risking disciplinary action by state medical boards, including the suspension or revocation of their medical license.

Dr. Ward believes COVID-19 deaths among people who were vaccinated are being highlighted on social media and leaving out factual information.

"It's usually people that have a lot of more issues, like they are obese, they have heart disease, they have diabetes. That is an example of how people receive information and say 'geez, if I get a vaccine, it's not going to save me,” Dr. Ward said.

Dr. Ward said those with breakthrough cases have been shown to rarely end up at the hospital, and even fatal outcomes are less than one percent.

He said the best way to learn about vaccines is to talk to your doctor.

"The disinformation received by the public has literally many people vaccine-hesitant,” Dr. Ward said.

Since the vaccines are currently under emergency FDA authorization, Dr. Ward believes full approval will help discourage false information.

This content was originally published here.

This isn’t the first time Russia has spread disinformation and conspiracy theories on social media platforms.

Russia 'meddled in all big social media' around US election

The report suggests YouTube, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram and Google+ were affected by Russian interference, as well as Facebook and Twitter

Russia used every major social media platform to try to influence the 2016 US election, a report claimsNew research says YouTube, Tumblr, Instagram and PayPal - as well as Facebook and Twitter - were leveraged to spread propaganda.

The report, released by the US Senate, exposes the scale of Russian disinformation efforts.
Its authors criticise the "belated and unco-ordinated response" by tech firms.
The report was put together by University of Oxford's Computational Propaganda Project and the social network analysis firm Graphika.
It is the first analysis of millions of social media posts provided by Twitter, Google and Facebook to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

While Facebook and Twitter have previously disclosed Russian interference, little has been known about the use of other platforms.

The report suggests YouTube, Tumblr, PayPal and Google+ were all affected, with Russia adapting techniques from digital marketing to target audiences across multiple channels.

"It's a whole family of social media sites," says Philip N Howard, director of the Oxford Internet Institute. "We think the goal was to make the campaigns seem more legitimate."

The research details a vast campaign spearheaded by the Internet Research Agency (IRA) - a Russian company that has been described by the United States Intelligence Community as a troll farm with ties to the Russian government.

The report says Russia had a particular focus on targeting conservatives with posts on immigration, race and gun rights.

There were also efforts to undermine the voting power of left-leaning African-American citizens, by spreading misinformation about the electoral process.

Another report, also released today by the Senate, by the research firm New Knowledge , similarly highlights Russia's efforts to target African-Americans.

It explains how Russia's IRA were focused on "developing Black audiences and recruiting Black Americans as assets," which included encouraging activists to stage rallies.

One IRA campaign highlighted in the Oxford and Graphika paper, Black Matters US, existed across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Google+, Tumblr and PayPal. These various accounts would promote each other's posts and events.

When Facebook suspended the group on its platform, the group's Twitter account complained about the move and accused the social network of "supporting white supremacy".

"What is clear is that all of the messaging clearly sought to benefit the Republican Party - and specifically Donald Trump," the report says.

"Trump is mentioned most in campaigns targeting conservatives and right-wing voters, where the messaging encouraged these groups to support his campaign. The main groups that could challenge Trump were then provided messaging that sought to confuse, distract and ultimately discourage members from voting."

While the data used by the researchers was provided by Facebook, Twitter and Google, their findings criticise the "belated and uncoordinated response" from these companies to Russia's disinformation campaign.

The researchers highlight details that could have led internet companies to detect interference earlier, such as the use of the Russian rouble to buy advertisements and internet signatures relating to the IRA's base of operations.

The IRA was among the three companies indicted earlier this year, as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Twelve of the agency's employees faced indictment charges, as well as its alleged financier, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

"Social media have gone from being the natural infrastructure for sharing collective grievances and co-ordinating civic engagement, to being a computational tool for social control, manipulated by canny political consultants and available to politicians in democracies and dictatorships alike," the report says.

This content was originally published here.

Read the Full U. S. Senate Report

BOOK EXCERPT: Making the Most of Communications and Social Media In Political Campaigns

KEEPING UP WITH THE TIMES

Social media isn’t all negative outcomes when used for politics and government communications. Bright Social Agency’s cofounder Cris Haest discusses social media and politics with author, Angie Timmons.

“Social media’s potential is remarkable because it can help a candidate “reach around the world in minutes” to organize volunteer activities, hold virtual town halls, and broadcast campaign events. Social media allows campaigns to “easily share a candidate’s stance on topics, even as those topics are breaking headlines, without the need to wait for a report to connect with your staff for an interview or the cameras to be rolling. It helps increase the ability to communicate with all possible voters and allow candidates the ability to see in real time how their constituents feel and are affected by all topics.”

"The Social Media Maelstrom

On social media, algorithms (automated reasoning calculations based on a particular formula) allow bots (a program or network that operates without human oversight) to target users with information based on those users’ trends. For instance, someone who searches for news about Republican candidates will be presented with “news” about Republicans by bots that share on a mass scale what their algorithms tell them will be of interest to that particular social media user--without regard for the quality or source of the information being shared. Therefore, fake news can be shared on an incredible scale. This is dangerous, considering that 65 percent of adult Americans get their news from social media (according to a 2016 study by the Pew Research Center), and considering that the public (and even some candidates) use social media as their primary way of discovering and discussing politics.

UPDATED STATS: In 2019, the Pew Research Center found that over half of Americans (54%) either got their news "sometimes" or "often" from social media, and Facebook was the most popular social media site where American adults got their news.

Social Media expert Cris Haest said that while social media has expanded the way politicians and candidates connect with the community, it has also “become a weapon to take down people on the opposing side via smear campaigns turned trending topics, to help enlarge and encompass echo chambers that both help with progress and help with enraging those that choose an anger- or fear-based response.”

While fake news is technically propaganda or yellow journalism reinvented for the digital era, the term itself has been used incorrectly to undermine legitimate news sources. For example, during his presidency President Donal Trump attempted to cast doubt on legitimate news organizations that reported anything negative about him by calling them “fake news: sources. He even went so far as to refuse interviews with or banish reports from major mainstream news organizations that he deemed “fake news” just because they’d reported something he perceived as critical of him.

However, social media isn’t all bad news when it comes to politics. Haest says that social media can be used for politicians. For example, devices like smartphones can be used to photograph, film, and record candidates and share their words and actions with the world over social media. This permanent record makes it harder for politicians to deny their words and actions."

Get the book, "Making the Most of Communications and Social Media in a Political Campaign (Be the Change! Political Participation in Your Community)" on Amazon here.

How long has social media played an issue with politics?

Honestly, we could point to Facebook Open Graph, when the network allowed third-party apps, which is how Cambridge Analytica enters the issue but I can honestly tell you the issues would have existed without Open Graph.

In researching for this article, I came across a LinkedIn post by Charles Johnston, MD Psychiatrist, Author, and Futurist, which says:

“In my recent book, Rethinking How We Think: Integrative Meta-perspective and the Cognitive “Growing Up” on Which Our Future Depends , I went into detail about the dangers of device addition and what can be done to address this concern. Today attention is being given to a further digital media–related dynamic that could ultimately prove at least as dangerous, how social media algorithms—in just how they work—exacerbate social and political polarization.

In Rethinking How We Think , I described how advertising-driven digital media in combination with machine learning algorithms creates a mix that requires no malevolence of intent to put is in major danger. By offering electronic substitutes for real fulfillment, our likes and clicks mimic the mechanisms of addiction (addictive substances work by providing the feedback that accompanies feelings like pleasure or power while requiring none of the vulnerability demanded for the real thing). It has been a dirty secret of high teach companies that they were optimizing programs for these addictions effects, but we would see the effect even without their efforts. Simple optimization depends on hijacking our attention—an necessity that is multiplied many times over by the fact that sites are advertising driven. Addiction is a much more reliable way to get attention than providing content that actually benefits us. A related consequence is that social media algorithms inherently create distortion and “fake news.” It has been well documented that the soap opera of sensationalized contend (and outright lies) is much more likely to attract eyeballs—and more likely to trigger search algorithms—than real news.

Part of the reason for concern with addictive dynamics is simply that there is nothing more precious and central to meaning than our attention. Another is that there is no obvious way to counter the effect other than the advice that works with other kinds of addiction to “just say no.” George Orwell in his dystopian novel 1984 warned of Big Brother taking control of our minds. The real danger in the future may not be government manipulation, but artificial stimulation masquerading as substance and information being used in ways that ultimately disconnect us from real importance.

The further dynamic that I noted—the way social media is amplifying polarization—in potential dramatically amplifies these dangers. Very intelligent people are setting off alarm bells about this effect. Some are describing it as the primary driver of modern social divisions. (The Netflix film “The Social Dilemma” provides a good summary of this argument.) I think of it more as exacerbating more fundamental processes that had already been well underway. (See my recent article: A Very Disturbing, and Dangerous, Situation—Political Polarization and Populism Run Amok .) But I find it of major concern.”

Me too, Charles.We’ll come back to more from Dr. Johnston later on. First, let’s review the timeline of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

APRIL 21, 2010

FACEBOOK LAUNCHES OPEN GRAPH

In April 2010, Facebook announced the launch of a platform called Open Graph to third-party apps. This update allowed external developers to reach out to Facebook users and request permission to access a large chunk of their personal data — and, crucially, to access their Facebook friends’ personal data too.

2013

'THISISYOURDIGITALLIFE'

Cambridge academic Aleksandr Kogan and his company Global Science Research created an app called "thisisyourdigitallife" in 2013. The app prompted users to answer questions for a psychological profile.

2014

RULE CHANGES

In 2014, Facebook adapted its rules to limit a developer's access to user data. This change was made to ensure a third-party was not able to access a user's friends' data without gaining permission first.

DECEMBER 11, 2015

TED CRUZ

In late 2015, The Guardian reported that Cambridge Analytica was helping Ted Cruz's presidential campaign. The report suggested the Republican candidate was using psychological data based on research spanning tens of millions of Facebook users in an attempt to gain an advantage over his political rivals — including Donald Trump.

2016

DONALD TRUMP

Ahead of the U.S. presidential election, Trump's campaign team began investing heavily in Facebook ads.

MARCH 17, 2018

EXPOSE

In an explosive expose published in mid-March, The Guardian and The New York Times initially reported that 50 million Facebook profiles were harvested for Cambridge Analytica in a major data scandal. This number was later revised to as many as 87 million Facebook profiles.

MARCH 20, 2018

FTC LAUNCH INQUIRY

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) opened an investigation into whether Facebook had violated a settlement reached with the U.S. government agency in 2011 over user privacy protections.

MARCH 21, 2018

ZUCKERBERG BREAKS HIS SILENCE

In a Facebook post published several days after the initial reports, Zuckerberg eventually responded to the continued fallout over the data scandal. He said: "We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can't then we don't deserve to serve you."

MARCH 25, 2018

SORRY WE DIDN'T DO MORE'

Around two weeks after the reports were published, Zuckerberg took out full-page ads in a number of British and American newspapers to apologize for a "breach of trust."

(for a more in depth breakdown of the timeline, see the original story published here.

APRIL 10, 2018

TIME TO TESTIFY

The United States Senate Judiciary Committee called witnesses to testify about the data breach and general data privacy. They held two hearings, one focusing on Facebook's role in the breach and privacy on social media, and the other on Cambridge Analytica's role and its impact in data privacy. The former was held on April 10, 2018, where Mark Zuckerberg testified and Senator Chuck Grassley and Senator Dianne Feinstein gave statements. The latter occurred on May 16, 2018, where Professor Eitan Hersh, Dr. Mark Jamison, and Christopher Wylie testified, while Senators Grassley and Feinstein again made statements.

AFTERMATH

Aftermath

Following the downfall of Cambridge Analytica, a number of related companies have been established by people formerly affiliated with Cambridge Analytica, including Emerdata Limited and Auspex International. At first, Julian Wheatland, the former CEO of Cambridge Analytica and former director of many SCL-connected firms, stated that they did not plan on reestablishing the two companies. Instead, the directors and owners of Cambridge and its London-based parent SCL group strategically positioned themselves to be acquired in the face of bankruptcy procedures and lawsuits. While employees of both companies dispersed to successor firms, Cambridge and SCL were acquired by Emerdata Limited, a data processing company. Wheatland responded to news of this story and emphasized that Emerdata would not inherit SCL companies’ existing data or assets and that this information belongs to the administrators in charge of the SCL companies’ bankruptcy. David Carroll, an American professor who sued Cambridge, stated that Emerdata was aiming to conceal the scandals and minimize further criticism. Carroll's lawyers argued that Cambridge's court administrators were acting unlawfully by liquidating the company's assets prior to a full investigation being performed. While these administrators subjected SCL Group to criminal injury and a $26,000 fine, a U.K. court denied Carroll's lawsuit, allowing SCL to disintegrate without turning over his data see full article.

Who believes disinformation when presented with it on social media?

A new study has further exposed the effect of polarizing content on social media engagement.

Summary: Study reveals conservatives are less able to distinguish political truths from falsehoods , and the glut of right-wing media organizations producing politically incorrect content is likely to blame.

Source: Ohio State University

Conservatives are less able to distinguish political truths from falsehoods than liberals, mainly because of a glut of right-leaning misinformation, a new national study conducted over six months shows.

Researchers found that liberals and conservatives in the United States both tended to believe claims that promoted their political views, but that this more often led conservatives to accept falsehoods while rejecting truths.

One of the main drivers of the findings appeared to be the American media and information environment.

“Both liberals and conservatives tend to make errors that are influenced by what is good for their side,” said Kelly Garrett, co-author of the study and professor of communication at The Ohio State University.

“But the deck is stacked against conservatives because there is so much more misinformation that supports conservative positions. As a result, conservatives are more often led astray.”

In the end, participants had evaluated as many as 240 statements on a broad range of topics and representing many different viewpoints.

A separate group of people, recruited online, were surveyed to determine whether the claims, if true, would be better for liberals or for conservatives, or if they were neutral.

Overall, both liberals and conservatives were more likely to believe stories that favored their side – whether they were true or not.

The differences in beliefs were often stark, Garrett said.

For example, participants rated this true statement that received widespread social media engagement when it came out: “Investigators for the DHS Office of the Inspector General have identified poor conditions in several Texas migrant facilities, including extreme overcrowding and serious health risks.”

Results showed that 54% of Democrats correctly said that the statement was “definitely true” – compared to only 18% of Republicans.

Another statement – a false one – was “While serving as Sec. of State, Hillary Clinton colluded with Russia, selling 20% of the U.S. uranium supply to that country in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation.”

Here, only 2% of Democrats said this was “definitely true,” but 41% of Republicans did.

“These are important factual claims, yet we see vast partisan differences in belief,” Garrett said.

One of the major issues identified in the study was that these widely shared truths and falsehoods have different implications for liberals and conservatives.

Two-thirds (65%) of the high-engagement true statements were characterized as benefiting liberals, while only 10% of accurate claims were considered beneficial to conservatives. On the other side, 46% of falsehoods were rated as advantageous to conservatives, compared to 23% of false claims benefiting liberals.

“ We saw that viral political falsehoods tended to benefit conservatives, while truths tended to favor liberals. That makes it a lot harder for conservatives to avoid misperceptions,” Garrett said.

Although the information environment was the primary reason conservatives were susceptible to misinformation, it may not be the only one.

Results showed that even when the information environment was taken into account, conservatives were slightly more likely to hold misperceptions than were liberals.

“It is difficult to say why that is,” Garrett said. “We can’t explain the finding with our data alone.”

Results did show further distinctions between how conservatives and liberals approached the political claims in the viral stories they evaluated.

Liberals showed greater overall sensitivity, which characterizes an individual’s ability to distinguish truths and falsehoods . Conservatives and liberals were equally good at detecting truths and falsehoods when most true stories were labeled politically neutral.

But if more of the factually accurate stories were labeled political – benefiting either liberal or conservative positions – liberals became better than conservatives at distinguishing true from false statements.

“Conservatives did not get any worse, but they did not keep up with liberals who were getting better at discerning truths and falsehoods,” Garrett said.

Conservatives also showed a stronger “truth bias,” meaning that they were more likely to say that all the claims they were asked about were true.

“That’s a problem because some of the claims were outlandish – there should have been no ambiguity about whether they were true or not,” he said.

Garrett said a strength of this study, compared to many previous ones, is that it analyzed a wide range of political claims, reflecting the diversity of the media environment that Americans are exposed to. It clearly confirms the point made by many media commentators that conservatives are awash in false statements that support what they want to believe.

“We show that the media environment is shaping people’s ability to do this very basic, fundamental task. Democracy depends on people being able to tell the difference between what is true and false and it falters when people have difficulty agreeing on what’s real,” he said.

Conservatives’ susceptibility to political misperceptions

The idea that U.S. conservatives are uniquely likely to hold misperceptions is widespread but has not been systematically assessed.

Research has focused on beliefs about narrow sets of claims never intended to capture the richness of the political information environment. Furthermore, factors contributing to this performance gap remain unclear.

We generated an unique longitudinal dataset combining social media engagement data and a 12-wave panel study of Americans’ political knowledge about high-profile news over 6 months. Results confirm that conservatives have lower sensitivity than liberals, performing worse at distinguishing truths and falsehoods.

This is partially explained by the fact that the most widely shared falsehoods tend to promote conservative positions, while corresponding truths typically favor liberals. The problem is exacerbated by liberals’ tendency to experience bigger improvements in sensitivity than conservatives as the proportion of partisan news increases.

These results underscore the importance of reducing the supply of right-leaning misinformation.

This content was originally publis hed here.

What do we do now?

History has shown that the social media platforms will continue to do what serves their best interests. Divisive content will continue to play a huge part of our lives on social media. Social media and the platforms we have active today only heightens problems of the world such as sexual harassment , racism , and child explotation . Having walked the campus of many personally, I can say every single one of these tech companies have the funds and the know-how to create content filters and alerts prior to any of the disinformation, illicit porn, or hateful content being posted, but they don’t. Why? Because those angry views are worth more than the lives that are lost.

We as the audience must get better at identifying and labeling misinformation, fake news, and conspiracy theories. This includes being able to identify an astroturfer, a scammer, an influencer, a brand, sponsored content, and actual news. Reviewing the news sources, the news owner, the report, and the reporter’s sources also play a part in helping weed out misinformation. As a brand, navigating these social platforms with an agency will ensure maximum brand growth and avoid potential PR crises. In our future posts, we’ll look at these terms, ways to and websites to review if you think you’ve spotted an astroturfer, find out a few you may not believe (thanks twitter sleuths!) and a few tools to help you review potential influencers for a brand partnership.

We must do our part in calling out fake news when we see it online, and in offline conversations speak up to the people in our lives who have become gullible to spreading conspiracies and fake news. Covid has shown one way that misinformation can cause massive death tolls and without a proper solution, bad actors will continue to exploit social media for spreading havoc, anarchy, confusion, anger, and heartache. The hospital beds are full and the world is on fire.

Do you know how a social media algorithm works?

Well, I do. I've been writing about, studying it, and yes - even manipulating it myself - since before Facebook Open Graph came out in 2010.

Let me tell you something, social media algorithms have deep machine learning and they know you, they know what will get you to click, share, and comment. With the rise of AI bots, you wouldn't even know the post was generated by a computer and not a person.

Social media platforms have long been accused of algorithmically promoting divisive content, because it’s more likely to go viral and thereby attract ad revenue.

When your motto is "Move Fast and Break Things", something I picked up in poster form way back when I walked the Facebook campus, you really need to take a step back and look at what things - trust in authority, climate, humanity - that are being broken, you have to ask: is our ability to communicate 24/7 worth it?

Let’s revisit Dr. Johnston.

“All this leaves us with the obvious of question of just what can be done. The best the technology gurus have to offer as a solution is that something has to happen at a “cultural level.” On that I think they are right (though it is an observation that too easily lets technology companies off the hook when it comes to responsibility).

To get at how I think of that needed cultural level response, we can start with the addiction aspect of the dynamic. When I work with someone who is addicted to something like heroin, ultimately therapy depends on helping the person get in touch with real significance to replace the pseudo-significance the drug has provided. The person can then see clearly how the drug is highjacking their life and robbing them of the things that in fact most matter. The parallel at a cultural level must be an image of meaning, an image of advancement that can work for our time, that can be authentically compelling and sit in clear contrast to imposters. The fact that we can’t get rid of damaging effects by legislation or policy may not have the dead-end consequences we might imagine. The better way to do so is to create enough contrast that social media of the harmful sort get regarded as having little more significance than the afternoon soaps or professional wrestling.

I think of this sort of antidote as having both personal and institutional aspects. At a personal level, the kind of psychological changes that Creative Systems Theory describes with the concept of Cultural Maturity would be expected to make being exploited in this way increasingly unpalatable. (See Cultural Maturity: A Guidebook for the Future .) There would be a growing awareness of the importance of making better choices. In working with clients around this kind of question, I point out that there is nothing more precious that our attention. Whether our interest is personal well-being or our larger human future, as individuals we simply can’t let it be exploited and manipulated.

More institutionally, we need social structures able to engage the important questions before us collectively with the needed maturity. One of the most striking characteristics of contemporary society is the degree we have lost trusted agents. Decades ago we had our Walter Cronkites and Edward R. Murrows who we could count on to at least make a effort to communicate the facts. With postmodern times and new communications technologies, many people celebrated that news would now finally be democratized—we could all be experts. Today we discover that the consequences are not at all what we might have hoped. There may be no more important question as far as our future well-being than what it might mean to again have trusted agents. They must be of a new sort. We must work together to establish and support sources of information and institutional structures we can count on."

This content was originally published here.

IDENTIFYING CREDIBLE SOURCES

The “lying media” like Fox News, OAN, Newsmax, and conspiracy theorists on social media are guilty of spreading disinformation about masks and vaccines. If you want to know what a credible source is, here is a chart to help. It was created by people who study information without an agenda beyond identifying liars and the truth.

https://www.adfontesmedia.com

Please get your facts about something that may kill you from actual experts at the CDC & the WHO. Not some talking news head who may have already passed because they refused to believe in covid, or who are literally profiting over your refusal to acknowledge that you may be wrong.

Being nice hasn't solved this, so it's time to be blunt. Get vaccinated, wear a mask, test frequently, or stay home if you can't do the first two & are actually waiting for FDA approval so that you do not spread something that has a chance of being asymptomatic in you. It may kill me, or my child.

Love thy neighbor. I am thy neighbor.

bright_social_agency

Our SEO/Website Design Process (including Top 5 Strategies) with A Prep Checklist

Our Typical Website Design Process

1. Client Consultation

2. Conduct Analysis

3. Specification

4. Site Structure

5. Create Good Website Content

6. Handling The Website Design

7. Website Development

8. Testing and Carrying Out Revisions

9. Launch the Website

The SEO Strategy or Framework We Offer Our Clients

1. Website And Competitive Analysis

2. Keyword Research

3. Website On-Page Optimization

4. Manual Link Building

5. Submissions To Trusted Sites

6. Weekly Ranking Reports

7. Monthly SEO Performance Reports

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Why Choose Bright Social Agency?

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Some of the Best SEO Strategies We Employ

But What is SEO?

1. Indexing Your Website

2. SEO Keywords

3. Optimizing a Website

4. Link Building Campaigns

5. Omnichannel Marketing

Our Prep Checklist

Conclusion

10 Fast And Simple Tactics To Improve Your ROAs!

Understanding Return On Ad Spend (ROAS)

Why is ROAS Important Today?

What Is A Good ROAS?

Before we get into increasing ROAS, there are a few considerations to keep in mind:

The Secret To Improving Your ROAS Performance

How to Increase Return On Ad Spend?

1. Decrease frequency

2. Re-target your top performers

New Title

3. Truthfully assess your conversions

4. Don’t be stingy with your money keywords

5. Create a small but effective budget

6. Get to know your audience better

7. Craft more enticing ad copy

8. Use countdown timers in ads

9. Build a remarketing list for search ads (RLSA)

10. A/B test your ad groups with ease

How Do I Define Good ROAS for My PPC Campaigns?

Is ROAs more important than click-through rate?

Should I track ROAS over conversion rate?

Final Verdict

10 Ways to Future Proof Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

1. Be Future-Forward

2. Keep Up with the Latest ‘Relevant’ Platforms and Trends

3. Prioritize Quality Content

4. Take a Video-First Approach to Social Media ﻿

5. Pay Attention to Data and Analytics

6. Use Influencers to Constantly Reach New Audiences

7. Think How Your Content Will Look Across Devices.

8. Create A Social Media Strategy That Supports The Future You Want. ﻿

9. Consider Your Ideal Customer's Journey.

10. Cater to Those Who Want to Get to Know You on Social Media.

Future Proof Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

Conclusion

10 Ways to Make Your Social Media Accessible & Inclusive

Why Is It Important to Make Social Media More Accessible?

10 Ways To Prioritize Social Media Accessibility

1. Use Basic Language

2. Use First-person Language Instead of Adopting Ableist Language

3. Describe Your Social Media Profiles In Simple Terms

4. Create a Transcription of the Text in the Photos

5. Make Sure to Capitalize the First Letter of Each Word When Using Hashtags.

6. Ensure That Your Photographs And Videos Contain Representation

4. Take a Video-First Approach to Social Media

8. Create A Social Media Strategy That Supports The Future You Want.

Scoring Your Content

5 Reasons Why Do I Need a Website Audit?