Monthly Archives: October 2022
How the Creator Economy Is Changing Marketing
In the modern online world, everyone with an internet connection can be a creator. With so many social platforms, forums, and online hubs, (as well as millions of websites where creators can promote themselves, their business, products, or simply their work), it should come as no surprise that the creator economy is booming all over the world.
But what does this mean for businesses and is there an opportunity here for business leaders to leverage the creator economy to achieve their marketing, sales, and branding goals? The answer is a resounding yes. However, it can often be difficult to identify the strategies and tactics you should employ to make the most of the creator economy for your business.
So, today we are taking a look at the best practices you can start using right now to make the creator economy work for you and help you take your brand forward in 2023 and the years to come.
Identifying the Ideal Creators in Your Space
There’s a whole world of new, experienced, and veteran content creators out there, as well as those who are entering the playing field every minute. Without a doubt, there are many creators in many different online spaces that you can reach out to or people you can influence to start creating content about your brand, products, or services.
But where do you begin and how do you make sure that the people you engage or the influencers you start working with are the right fit for your brand’s identity, values, and vision? First things first, you need to research your audience and potential creators thoroughly.
Researching your audience is essential for all marketing activities and when you’re working with programmatic advertising companies to automate various advertising activities, but it’s also important when you’re engaging content creators for word-of-mouth campaigns, shout-outs, and more. With that in mind, you should make sure to:
- Identify your target audience and build detailed avatars
- Identify the platforms they use
- Identify the top influencers in that space
- Continue researching micro-influencers and creators
- Compare their personal brands with your own brand
- Ensure brand compatibility along with values, drivers, and messaging
Building More Authentic Partnerships
Nowadays, everyone can be an influencer, and while that opens many new opportunities for businesses and individuals, it also comes with certain challenges and potential drawbacks. Namely, with so many influencers and content creators out there, it can be difficult to build a lasting relationship with your audience and inspire them to stick around for the long haul.
New and equally entertaining content creators are popping up at every corner, and people are discovering fresh, exciting content every day. This is why it’s important that the people you work with not only have a loyal following but that they’re staying on top of the latest social media trends in their field in order to keep their audience engaged.
In order to build more authentic, long-lasting partnerships with your content creators, you also need to ensure the perfect brand fit. This is how their audience will become your brand’s audience and eventually your loyal customers because after all, if the creator shares your brand’s values and key traits, then everything they put out will be more honest and authentic – and people will respect them for it.
Types of Content for Your Creators
In digital marketing, there are many types of content that businesses can use to spark engagement and stay relevant in the fast-paced online world. While content marketing is often associated with written content only, the reality is that written content is just one piece of the content puzzle.
In fact, the more you diversify your content, the better you’ll be at engaging audiences across digital platforms. For example, a blogger influencer can create an informative article on their website promoting your brand, but that won’t do you much good for your social media video strategy for those platforms that are strictly visual in nature. That’s why content diversification is important so that you can cover all the platforms and their preferred content types.
When choosing your creators, you should be mindful of the platforms they use and the types of content they create. Make sure to diversify between:
- Reel creators
- Visual artists for unique imagery and infographics
- Podcast creators
- Bloggers
- Vloggers
Leveraging Employees as Creators
While other businesses are competing with who can partner up with the most external influencers, you might want to look internally for your creator superstars. Not many businesses think to leverage their employees for content creation, and when they do, they often do it in such a way that it makes it seem forced rather than organic.
If you’re going to tap into the potential of your employee collective, you can’t demand that they create content, you need to inspire and incentivize it. This comes from:
- Being an excellent employer and having an engaging employer brand
- Acknowledging and appreciating your employees
- Having a positive workplace culture
- Investing in employee advancement and training
- Providing excellent working conditions and perks
When you have this basis, you can confidently ask your employees to share and create content to promote your business. They write engaging posts talking about your brand or a specific solution and complement them with various visuals from Depositphotos.com and similar royalty-free repositories where they can find fresh visuals for every new post.
Combining visuals with written content will be the best way to create engaging posts for their social media pages, but also for forums and online groups, and professional platforms like Glassdoor and LinkedIn.
Utilizing Social Media for Brand Reach and Sales
The majority of content creators can be found on social media networks, and more importantly, social media is where the majority of your audience will spend their time online. While online forums, groups, and even blogging sites should be a part of your strategy, social media content creation should be your primary concern if you want to increase sales and brand reach.
When creating social media content, you can also download the content to be used for other marketing purposes and channels, as well. For example, if your employees are creating reels, they can then download Instagram reels with audio to repurpose parts of the content (audio or video only, or both) for other platforms, the company’s content page, or even your landing pages.
The possibilities are numerous, and you need to optimize the content you and your creators are posting for every specific platform.
Keep in mind that while TikTok strictly thrives on short video content that’s dynamic and fast-paced, Instagram is also good for reels that are very educational and have a slightly slower pace. On LinkedIn, on the other hand, you and your creators have a chance to create long-form educational content and bring a lot of value to your audience.
With all of that in mind, always remember to optimize the content for the unique preferences of every social platform.
Taking Action and Landing on Your Website
Most of the effort you put into your content and your creators will be to incentivize potential customers to head over to your website and buy something with a unique code, or to take advantage of a limited-time offer. In fact, the possibilities here are endless, as you can also inspire them to come over and participate in a quiz, download some free materials, or grab a personalized bundle offer on signup.
What all of these incentives have in common is that they are located on your landing pages, meaning the pages people land on after following a link your influencers published or clicking on a CTA in their posts or video description. Needless to say, this can be a powerful way to promote a product launch as well.
Your landing page strategies need to include everything from testimonials and product tours, to social proof and special incentives in order to generate the desired results. They also need to complement the content created by your influencers in order to ensure messaging continuity from social media over to your landing page.
Once you have optimized your landing pages, then all the content that your creators publish will have a much higher chance of generating tangible results.
Over to You
The creator economy is booming around the world and now’s the time for business leaders to take action and implement the best practices that will help them leverage these creators to boost their marketing, sales, and branding across the board. With these tips and tactics in mind, go ahead and include the creator economy into your 2023 strategy, and invest in this lucrative opportunity to take your business forward in the competitive online world.
The post How the Creator Economy Is Changing Marketing first appeared on PPC Hero.
This Brain Molecule Decides Which Memories Are Happy—or Terrible
When the brain encodes memories as positive or negative, a small peptide called neurotensin determines which way they will go.
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Twitter Users Flock to Other Platforms as the Elon Musk Era Begins
Discord, Mastodon and other services are bustling as Twitter fans make backup plans for their online social lives.
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7 Short-Form Video Trends to Up Your Marketing Game
Do you often find yourself scrolling through TikTok videos or Instagram reels?
Let’s face it. Short-form videos are incredibly popular right now, outperforming most other content on social media.
Thanks to its popularity, there are many short-form video trends making the rounds on various social media platforms. With so many video formats and trends, it can be sometimes difficult for marketers to keep up.
In this article, I’ve rounded up seven short-form video trends that marketers must know about in 2023.
So, are you ready to push your video marketing to the next level? Let’s go!
7 Short-Form Video Trends to Up Your Marketing Game
Trends keep changing all the time. Keeping track of trends is important to remain up to date. Only then will you be able to create relevant and engaging content.
Here are 7 short-form video trends to watch out for in 2023.
1. Increasing Use of User-Generated Content
UGC is created by real customers and posted on various social media platforms. It shows the genuine appreciation of an individual for a brand, which means any claims about the product are generally credible.
That’s why people trust user-generated content more than any other form of marketing content.
80% of people say that they are more likely to purchase from a website if it has photos and videos from real customers. 79% say that UGC influences their purchase decisions.
That’s why you will see user-generated Instagram reels, YouTube Shorts, and Tik Tok videos are routinely shared by many brands to build consumer trust.
People use the best available online video maker tools to create interesting videos and then post them to different social media platforms.
Brands like Maybelline and Elf Cosmetics routinely feature videos from users on their Instagram feed.
So, what are you waiting for? Start featuring user-generated content on your social media pages to build trust and credibility. It will help take your video marketing game to the next level.
2. More and More Brands Creating Product Teasers
Are you planning to launch a new product? If you are, leverage human curiosity by creating a product teaser video.
Be careful not to reveal too much information. This will intrigue your audience and create excitement.
Here are two examples of product teaser videos, one from Apple and the other from Siemens.
3. Rise of Sponsored Influencer Videos
Influencer marketing has been around for some time now. Of course, it is not as cost-efficient as user-generated content. But, it definitely is an excellent way to promote your brand.
Partnering with influencers can help your brand widen its reach. Influencers have built a relationship of trust with their followers. Some of their subscribers have been following them for years. If they recommend a product or service, their followers are very likely to give it a try.
Having influencers create videos about your products is a fantastic strategy you must include in your sales process.
You can ask them to create product tutorials, host live video shopping events, share video reviews of your products, and more.
Here’s an example of popular YouTuber Hallee Smith doing a short sponsored video for Target.
Affiliate marketing is another way in which you can partner with influencers. The only difference is that you’ll need to pay a commission for every sale they help make, instead of a one-time payment.
4. Growing Popularity of Branded Hashtag Challenges
Challenge videos are not uncommon on social media platforms. Brands these days are creating branded hashtag challenges to build brand awareness and drive engagement.
A couple of years back Colgate launched the #MakeMomSmile challenge to celebrate Mother’s Day. The idea was to make your mother or mother-figure smile. You could cook something for your mother or do a dance challenge.
Viewers were encouraged to upload the videos with the hashtag #MakeMomSmile on Tik Tok.
This year the Pink Venom challenge is quite popular. The challenge was started by the popular Korean girl group Blackpink to promote their song “Pink Venom.”
Even Taylor Swift could not stop herself from participating in this challenge.
Creating a branded challenge could be an incredible way to promote your brand and build awareness in 2022.
5. Brands Sharing Behind-the-Scenes Videos
You must have seen behind the scene videos for popular movies. Have you ever considered creating a behind-the-scenes video for your brand?
This is one of those short-form video trends that could work wonders to humanize your brand and build trust and credibility.
Your customers may know you as a brand, but they are also curious to know the people behind the brand. Why not give your customers a sneak peek into a day in the life of your employees?
There are several ideas you can explore. You could give a quick tour of your facility. Perhaps, you would like to show your customers how a product is made.
There are endless possibilities.
Want to add some humor? Why not publish a blooper reel?
Here are a couple of examples of this short-form video trend in action:
6. Educational Videos
Another short-form video trend you must leverage is the use of educational videos. Explainer videos could be an excellent way to explain complicated concepts to your customers.
By making content that educates or solves problems, you can enhance the trust your customers have in you. The more your customers trust you, the more loyal they will be to your brand.
Making informational videos available on your social media pages could spark curiosity among your customers. It will make them want to know more about your brand.
For instance, let’s say your product is a lead generation software solution. You can educate your customers on concepts of lead scoring or nurturing.
Check out how Salesforce has created a short informational video on CRM.
7. Soundless Optimization
Scrolling through social media posts has become a common pastime. It has become quite common for people to turn down the volume or watch videos on mute.
So, how do you attract users’ attention then? Through soundless optimization.
Soundless optimization integrates subtitles or on-screen instructions into your short-form videos, making them more accessible to a larger audience.
Here is an example of one such video:
Conclusion
Are you a marketer looking to reach more customers? If so, short-form videos are a worthy investment.
Short-form videos are very easy to make. They are shareable and create many engagement opportunities for your brand. Following the latest short-form video trends can help you promote your brand and products even more effectively.
Have you used any of the short-form video trends mentioned above? Let me know in the comments section.
The post 7 Short-Form Video Trends to Up Your Marketing Game first appeared on PPC Hero.
Apple MacOS Ventura Bug Breaks Third-Party Security Tools
Your anti-malware software may not work if you upgraded to the new operating system. But Apple says a fix is on the way.
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How to Maximize Google Ads Results With a Low Budget
How much Google Ads budget a business allocates to campaigns has been a question that has lingered for years. Whilst paid marketers around the world would say that their channel should get the most spend, in reality, for lots of businesses the money just isn’t there.
So what does this mean? Is that it for small businesses? Does this mean that Google is a no-go zone? This is most certainly not the case. In this post, I’ll outline the key rules to live by for any low-spending account, as well as discuss the best approaches for making sure you’re making the most of your money.
Important Tip 1. Plug the Leaks
As any good home energy expert will tell you, the key to saving money is to stop heat going out (weird analogy but stick with me!) – no more so is this true than in this situation.
Often on accounts, you see search queries come in that are completely and utterly irrelevant. In larger accounts, this isn’t normally too much of an issue. Typically, advertisers will review the number of clicks and decide whether or not it’s an urgent task based on spend accrued. However, with smaller accounts, this becomes more of an issue.
So what can you do? Well, it’s time to get your detective cap on and find the cause of the leak! Common areas to start with are:
Networks
By default, Google recommends showing content on search partners. Despite this, search partner performance can often be poor when compared to Google’s alternative networks. If you notice performance dipping here, turn content off and help tighten up the ship!
Search Queries
This is an immediate go-to when thinking of tightening up spend. With the ever-increasing blurred lines when it comes to what match types actually show for, the tightening up of search queries has arguably never been so important.
When reviewing search queries, it’s important to remember that not only should you take user searches at face value, but you should also consider asking how your ads show. Is there a theme across search queries? Are lots of irrelevant terms showing at once? Trying to uncover the cause of the issue can often be more beneficial and time-saving than removing queries on a case-by-case basis, so again pop on your detective hat, grab your pipe and get digging Sherlock!
Scheduling
Often forgotten, scheduling is a really easy fix when plugging up lost spend. Put simply, are consumers engaging with your brand at 2-3 am? No? Then pause your ads. It’s as simple as that.
Location Targeting
Until recently I wouldn’t have thought about adding in location targeting to this article. With many advertisers viewing this element of Google as a ‘point on a map and this is where ads show’, Google’s shift towards ‘Presence and Interest’ targeting has now become a much bigger priority.
By default, Google will target ads based on presence and interest – meaning it will target ads to users based in, frequently in, or ‘interested in’ your target location. Now I don’t know about you, but I feel that the majority of advertisers won’t really care if users are only interested in their target location. They’ll want ads to show to users actually IN their location. So don’t forget to check this out as you could find that this has been a costly leak!
Important Tip 2. Remember Your Key Business Aims
Whilst this should be the primary focus for any Google ads campaign (and really any marketing campaign in general!) no more does this ring true than with small spending accounts. Whether you’re an agency running a client account, an in-house marketer, or even a business owner, there’s nothing worse than spending what little money you do have available on irrelevant focuses. If your aim is to raise revenue, focus on that. If you need to build the brand, then focus on awareness. Regardless of your strategic drivers, try to avoid blurring the lines.
This is quite a simplistic way of thinking. Often these goals overlap and intertwine, but by thinking specifically about what one strategic driver you’re hoping to get from your Google campaigns, you’ll find that you’re able to be much more competitive in ad auctions. This is instead of spreading yourself too thin and chasing numerous business aims which could in fact be pushing you further away from your goals.
Important Tip 3. Don’t Silo Yourself
Transitioning nicely off the last point, it can be simple to sometimes forget what other arms of marketing are doing. If you work in an agency it can be easy to just live within your team. Only venturing out once an hour to grab a coffee and bumping into someone from SEO or Social. I’m afraid to tell you however that when spend is tight, you HAVE to do more than that.
A simple conversation with wider teams can help departments understand where paid campaigns can sit within that framework. It’s easy to forget that there is nothing stronger from a marketing campaign than a unified message with consistent aims and a tone of voice. So reach out! How can other teams help you? Is there an area you can’t compete on, but that organically isn’t as competitive? Have you noticed perhaps a gap in the market from a social perspective? Reaching out for help and support will often have beneficial, piggyback effects on your campaigns – so get chatting!
I should at this point say that this also goes if you work in-house or are running marketing solo – understanding the bigger picture isn’t just specific to agency workers.
Conclusion
When it comes to Google ads, if you don’t have the money for major campaigns, I hope you now know that there are steps you can take to see incremental success.
I will end with arguably the most important piece of information. If the money isn’t there to see reasonable results, wait until it is. There’s nothing worse than spending what little you have on campaigns where you’ll likely not prove very competitive. Follow your gut, wait and when you do have the money, don’t forget to come back to this handy article for tips on how best to spend it.
The post How to Maximize Google Ads Results With a Low Budget first appeared on PPC Hero.
‘House of the Dragon’ Wants You to Trust ‘Game of Thrones’ Again
The fix is simple: Give fans of the last series the ending they wanted. But it could still fall into its predecessor’s traps.
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The New Math of Wrinkling Patterns
A comprehensive mathematical framework treats these crinkles as elegant solutions to geometric problems.
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‘Poster Girl’ Explores the Surveillance State’s Allure
“Divergent” author Veronica Roth’s new novel is about a young women coming to terms with the authoritarian regime that manipulated her.
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Are the days of pure organic growth over for apps?
30-second summary:
- Has it become nearly impossible to cut through the noise of six million apps in app stores?
- For app marketing to be effective, it has to take into consideration the whole ecosystem that affects your app’s marketing performance
- Whether it is app store optimization (ASO) or combining organic and paid user acquisition, marketers need to look at data holistically and ask the right questions when analyzing app performance
- A successful app marketing strategy understands the correlation between ASO and paid user acquisition efforts
- You need to understand how your paid funnel impacts organic growth and vice versa
Whether you like it or not, apps have become a day-to-day standard for businesses and consumers. There is an app for everything, whether it is shopping, banking, travel, or gaming. In fact, a recent survey has found that 88 percent of mobile time is spent within apps.
According to Statista’s data from Q2 of 2022, there are more than six million apps across Google Playstore, Apple app store, and Amazon store.
Source: Statista
That’s why marketing your app properly has never been more important and has become an integral part of a business’s marketing strategy. But for it to be effective, app marketing has to take into consideration the whole ecosystem that affects your app’s marketing performance. Whether it is app store optimization (ASO) or combining organic and paid user acquisition (for example, via Google App Campaigns and Apple Search Ads), marketers need to look at data holistically and ask the right questions when analyzing an app’s performance.
Here I will share some of the knowledge I have gained and tricks of the trade I have learned over the past 10 years in the marketing field.
Organic growth on its own won’t take you far
While a few years ago ASO may have been the most important part of your app marketing strategy, to stay competitive in the busy app marketing landscape, you need to power up your User Acquisition (UA) strategy. This does not mean that ASO is no longer important – it sure is – but it has to be combined with your paid user acquisition strategy for an app’s sustainable growth. Both organic and paid UA has the main goal to drive quality conversions while maintaining a low cost per conversion.
To start with, you need a solid ASO foundation to maintain a stream of high-quality users across channels. It is essential as the user will ultimately land in your app store listing. You are literally wasting your money if you haven’t invested time in ASO and optimizing your store listing.
Paid user acquisition can lead to more organic app installs. Ads will bring new attention to your app store listing. The more installs your app generates, the higher your app will be ranked in the app stores. As a result, it increases visibility across search results and browse sections. Due to increased visibility, more and more users will land in your organic store listing and download your app. Hence the growth loop continues!
A successful strategy is about understanding the correlation between ASO and paid user acquisition efforts. You need to understand how your paid funnel impacts organic growth and vice versa. At GAMEE, we have used App Radar’s all-in-one platform which has helped our team work together within one system and understand, as well as maximize, the impact of organic and paid user acquisition for both Google and Apple app stores.
Analyzing app performance
After putting a lot of effort into optimizing your UA, don’t just sit back and hope to see perfect results. Throughout the campaign, you should be analyzing your app’s performance and asking the right questions. You’d probably like to know how much growth your ASO efforts brought. Or was it your paid UA traffic that led to an increase or drop? It can be challenging to answer all these questions, especially considering many factors that can play a significant role. As an example, let’s look at a couple of scenarios.
Scenario one: A drop in app installs
Seeing a drop in installs? It might be concerning at first sight. However, the good news is that there is most probably an explanation for every decrease in installs. And for every problem, there is also a solution.
One crucial impact factor you need to consider is paid user acquisition efforts. When you notice a decrease in downloads, you should first check whether you had ads running during that specific time. Ads can bring a significant amount of traffic to your app, and once you stop or reduce them, this might have a substantial effect on your results. Check the correlation between organic and paid conversions, and then analyze how your paid conversions impact your total growth and understand whether an increase in installs might be due to reduced activity via paid channels.
What should you do now?
First, try to get a better picture of the situation by looking at the last 30 or 90 days timeframe and understanding how significant the impact was. If pausing, for example, your Google App Campaigns greatly decreased your installs, you should consider re-activating the ads.
Scenario two: An increase in app installs
This is the result we are all aiming for. Ideally, you’d want this to continue throughout and beyond your marketing campaign. But for that, you need to know what was impacting the increase. Transferring and attributing success from one place to another can be tricky if you do not know where the success is coming from.
Your best bet would be to look at the conversion breakdown to help you find the answer. Is it Google Ads, Apple Search Ads, another paid channel, or ASO? If you run a campaign via a paid channel at the same time as the installs increased then it is most likely that that was what influenced your overall app growth. It is worth also evaluating which ad platform is the most efficient. Do you get a better cost per conversion with a paid channel? To get an idea of whether your app is performing better or worse, you may want to compare the figures with previous campaigns – How did your impressions, conversions, and costs perform compared to the previous period? Taking all of this into account will help you determine whether you should change your focus or make tweaks to your campaign.
Three takeaways from GAMEE’s experience
At GAMEE we have learned that there are three elements every app marketer should never stop working on:
ASO
It is the end-point to all of your app activities. Every dollar and hour invested elsewhere can be multiplied by a good ASO strategy and approach. This is where our use of App Radar’s platform was extremely valuable in maximizing our campaigns.
Testing
Use custom app store listings (where possible), various combinations of paid ad networks, and app store A/B tests to get the best results.
Prioritizing
Pick the audience, markets, regions, and/or demographics you need to win and focus your ASO and paid channels on them.
While analyzing the impact of paid and organic user acquisition is no easy task, the one thing you don’t want to do is put all your eggs in one basket. You can’t rely on just organic UA or just paid UA. For a successful app marketing strategy, both areas have to work in tandem. Your campaign should also allow room for testing. This enables you to tweak and pivot strategy as you go, and tailor it for your target audience. Trust me, if properly managed your app will soon be reaping your strategy’s benefits.
Jan Gemrich is Chief Marketing Officer at GAMEE, a high-engagement play-to-earn gaming platform, that attracts over 30 million users. GAMEE is part of Animoca brands which is a leading blockchain gaming company. Jan previously worked for 9+ years at Google, based out of Prague, London, and Toronto, where he was responsible for user growth (Google Pay, Android, Search) and the launch of new products (Pixel, Stadia, etc).
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The post Are the days of pure organic growth over for apps? appeared first on Search Engine Watch.