Mediaboss Marketing

Couple travels in RV to teach businesses digital marketing

Christy Millweard, KVUE 7:08 PM. CDT June 30, 2017

While sightseeing, the married couple is also working to help small businesses. (Photo: KVUE)

On National Social Media Day, many think of the platforms as a way to post selfies, or vacation photos, but one local company sees it as a tool to help a small business -- or an individual -- grow.

Kristie and Elijah Whites are traveling the country in their RV.

"Sold our house, all of our stuff, bought an RV, and we're going to travel around the country. Sounds crazy, Kristie said.

While sightseeing, the married couple is also working to help small businesses.

"Were hoping that we can help save that small business, to get them online, to get them educated and to help them thrive, Kristie said. "It's a new concept for a lot of these smaller businesses, they haven't really dived out of traditional media yet -- it is a completely new concept.

They want to teach business owners how to market, digitally.

"They're like 'I don't know how to do that,' and they just back right off, so we think it can be simple if you're given a road map, Kristie said. It's to show them there is a way that marketing can be simple if you're given the right tools and resources, and that there's somebody that cares."

Richard Lindner, the co-founder and president of the company Digital Marketer works to provide that road map for individuals and businesses.

"I really believe trade schools are coming back, said Lindner. "Where we're going to see these individualizations and specializations and trades is in marketing and specifically in digital marketing.

He said digital marketing is like a modern trade, something you can get a certification in, not a degree.

"Instead of having your degree in marketing, you are a certified specialist in social media, said Lindner. "I think trade now means area of specialization.

At the company, they offer eight core subjects businesses can specialize in from social media, to analytics and data, to email marketing.

Theyre all ways Linder said marketers can help small businesses grow.

"People find out about your company, your brand, your product, they engage with you online, before they make the buying decision, said Lindner.

As for National Social Media day, Lindner said its a good time to reflect on the platform.

"It's great now to look back and say what was social media last year, two years, three years ago, different platforms, mainly people engaging one-on-one but now, over the last 3 to 5 years, businesses have really kind of adopted this, said Lindner. "Its not only how they make potential customers aware that they exist, but also how they engage with existing customers and keep top of mind."

Lindner told KVUE their company Digital Marketer is like a lab to help educate businesses owners and help train and certify people who want to go into digital marketing. He said its a field for anyone looking to switch careers and to be part of something emerging.

"This digital space is growing, it's going to become predominant, and there's lots of opportunity for everyone, said Kristie Whites.

Maybe even you.

You can follow the Whites marketing journey on their blog here. And if you want to sign up for certification through Digital Marketer, check out the details here.

2017 KVUE-TV

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Couple hits the road to teach digital marketing to businesses - KVUE

A social media presence is no longer an optional part of running a small business; it's an absolute necessity.

Facebook, Instagram and other popular forums are as important, if not more so, to a company's marketing as is television ads and sponsoring local events. But that's still a lesson some small-business owners are learning.

Half of small-business owners have a Facebook page, according to the CNBC/Survey Monkey Small Business Survey. The survey, conducted in April, gathered the findings from more than 2,000 small-business owners across the country in a variety of industries. It revealed that while 40 percent use social media to communicate with potential customers, just 21 percent advertise their companies on social media.

Those numbers are increasing as these sites become a bigger part of the general public's life (Facebook, for example, recently announced it had hit 2 billion users). If you're running a small business and are on (or joining) Facebook and other social networks, there are a number of ways to gain an edge on the competition and boost your bottom line.

Follow this link:
10 surefire ways to crush your rivals on Facebook - CNBC

By the time you figure out what works, it doesnt.

Thats social media for you a constantly changing frontier where best practices are best because theyre unique and interesting, standing out from the crowd. They challenge the status quo, suggesting a new and better way of engaging with an audience.

And then a bunch of other people figure out how to do the same thing.

Well, it doesnt have to be that way. If youre able to learn some core best practices, you can apply your skills to whatever social trend-of-the-day may come along. Some things, like authenticity and responsiveness, will never go out of style.

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A new infographic from Yeager Marketing shares some timeless advice for building a better social marketing strategy. (Which by the way is worth it.) Did you know, for example

Thats less than a fifth of a full-time employee. Yet those are results that many businesses would gladly hire someone to do for 15 hours a week if it drove the same results.

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Bob Hutchins (Franklin, TN) runs Buzzplant (www.buzzplant.com), A 12+ year old Internet marketing agency targeting the faith/family market. His team was an integral part of the online campaign for Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, The Chronicles of Narnia, Soul Surfer, and many other movies, books, music releases, and Viewfullprofile

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How to Build a Sustainable Social Marketing Strategy [Infographic] - Business 2 Community

June 29, 2017

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery is how the old saying goes, but Snapchat likely isn't charmed by other social apps copying its capabilities.

From offering vertical video ads to releasing its own versions of Stories and face filters, Instagram has been adopting many of Snapchat's distinguishing features, and it could be taking a toll on how marketers view Snapchat. Consider: A Social Media Examiner survey found that 54% of the more than 5,700 marketers polled say they commonly use Instagram; however, just 7% said the same about Snapchat. And while 24% of respondents said they regularly use Instagram ads, just 1% said they regularly use Snapchat ads.

So, what unique benefits can Snapchat offer marketers that Instagram cannot (and vice versa)? We compared the two social apps and outlined each of their appeals below.

Instagram

Instagram has a larger audience than Snapchat

A social network's clout is often measured by its user base, and Instagram is beating Snapchat in this numbers game.

In April, Instagram announced that it had 700 million monthly active users. Snapchat hasn't revealed its monthly active user count; however, in May, it announced that it has 166 million daily active users. Even though this isn't an exact side-by-side comparison, the magnitude of Instagram's audience can be gauged by looking at its Stories feature. According to TechCrunch, Instagram Stories has 250 million daily active users that's more than the number of daily active users Snapchat has on its entire platform.

Instagram has a shorter conversion funnel than Snapchat

One reason Instagram may have a higher user base is because it has a shorter conversion funnel.

According to Thomas Cilius, CEO and cofounder of Snaplytics (an analytics and marketing platform for Snapchat and Instagram Stories), Snapchat's content has almost no virality. So, consumers aren't likely to see a brand's Snapchat content unless they're already on Snapchat and they're already following the brand.

To acquire new followers, brands have to already be in contact with consumers and promote their Snapchat username via other channels, Cilius explains, such as via other social networks. However, this is where things get tricky: Cilius says consumers have to be interested in the brand enough to start following it on Snapchat (this is where some drop-off can occur), and they have to already have a Snapchat account.

Marketers can rely on other methods like Snapcodes or deep-linking to up their follower count, but these tactics aren't as effective. According to Snaplytics' Q4 2016 Snapchat Quarterly Report, 64% of new followers analyzed in Q4 2016 searched for a Snapchat username, compared to 25% and 9% who used Snapcodes or deeplinking, respectively.

Instagram, however, gains followers by having people like your profile, Cilius explains, which generally happens after people have browsed hashtags, see trending content, or specifically search for the brand. Consumers can also discover brands on Instagram through influencers.

Instagram embraces influencers

Speaking of which, influencer marketing is another place Instagram seems to have a foothold. Check out these figures reported by Digiday: According to the 2016 Influencer Marketing Report by visual marketing solutions provider Chute and influencer search engine Thuzio, 89% of the more than 200 marketers surveyed say they work with or find influencers on Instagram; however, about half (45%) say the same about Snapchat. Research company eMarketer also estimated that 2016's global influencer marketing revenues totaled more than $570 million for Instagram alone.

Orli LeWinter, SVP of strategy and social marketing for digital marketing agency 360i, says Instagram offers influencers a bigger community with more scale. This creates a greater sense of efficiency, she says, in terms of ensuring that the content they invested time and resources in is seen. Influencers can also often use their high Instagram follower count to negotiate pay.

It's a currency they know how to barter with, Cilius says.

Then again, consumers in different countries can exhibit different social media behaviors. In Germany, for instance, 55% of the roughly 1,600 Snapchat users surveyed say they follow celebrities, according to eMarketer. What's more, 22.2% follow between 11 and 20. Germany's Snapchat users are predominantly teens. According to eMarketer, 65.7% of users polled are 14 to 19 years old.

Instagram is owned by Facebook

When it comes to favorites, marketers have a fondness for Facebook. According to the Social Media Examiner study, 94% of polled marketers say they regularly use Facebook. In fact, 62% of respondents consider Facebook their most important social channel.

There's a reason for all of this, of course. Facebook has robust targeting capabilities for its slew of ad products and offers marketers more performance metrics than other social platforms out there.

Facebook is the most developed out of all of the social platforms when it comes to the tools and APIs they provide, LeWinter says. She also says marketers and agencies are more comfortable using Facebook's tools because of the social network's longevity although, it has had a few measurement hiccups along the way.

As a Facebook-acquired company, Instagram gets to take advantage of these targeted advertising capabilities. Moses Velasco, chief product evangelist for social marketing and analytics solution provider Socialbakers says marketers can create targeted ads on Facebook and seamlessly run them on Instagram. This allows marketers to broadcast their ads across two platforms with massive audiences at once.

Instagram's metrics are easier to measure.

Snapchat works with several measurement solution providers, like Nielsen and Millward Brown, to track metrics like viewability, reach, resonance, and reaction (i.e. sales lift). However, Velasco says it's still very difficult for other vendors to provide clients with Snapchat performance analytics.

Indeed, in a previous DMN article, Erna Alfred Liousas, an analyst for research and advisory firm Forrester, described Snapchat's metrics as skimpy and listed the following as some of its main metrics: how many users viewed an ad, how many times a brand filter or lens was used, and how many people swiped over an ad to see additional content. Tiffany Elliot, who at the time was an analyst for advisory firm Digital Clarity Group, also said in the article that marketers could track number of users, screenshots, times users snapped them back, and whether a story was watched all the way through.

Instagram, however, can leverage Facebook's reporting capabilities and offer deeper insights on its followers' demographics and post/Stories engagement.

Overall, you're just always going to get more level of detail from Instagram and Facebook than you are on Snapchat, LeWinter says.

Snapchat

Snapchat doesn't have to fight as hard for eyeballs

Snapchat and Instagram serve different purposes. According to Cilius, Instagram is a platform people use to follow brands, friends, and influencers; Snapchat, however, is more of a platform for one-to-one communication with peers.

But Cilius says this can actually work in marketers' favor. If a consumer follows a brand on Snapchat, he says, that brand becomes a member of that consumer's exclusive club. As a result, there's less competition for eyeballs, he says, and consumers are more likely to engage with a brand's content.

According to the aforementioned Snapltyics report, 54.8% of followers for an account will open a story. What's more, 87.5% of those people will watch the story from the beginning to end, according to the report.

Snapchat embraces authenticity. While Instagram is a platform used to share edited and curated content, Snapchat's content is more authentic. Indeed, Cilius points out that the content has to be posted in real-time. This gives brands the opportunity to appear more human and produce genuine content, like Stories about people who work for their companies, Velasco says.

Snapchat is a favorite among young consumers.

Snapchat is known as being the app for teens. As Business Insider reports, investment bank and asset management firm Piper Jaffray found that 39% of the approximately 5,500 teens surveyed said Snapchat was their favorite social network app compared to 23% who deemed Instagram their favorite.

However, teens seem to use both apps regularly. According to the aforementioned study, 81% of teens say they use Snapchat every month versus 79% who say the same about Instagram.

What's more, Snapchat seems to be attracting older consumers. eMarketer predicts that 70.4 million people in the U.S. will use Snapchat this year; 6.4% of this population will be made up of consumers 45 to 54 years old. Although, consumers 18 to 24 years old will still make up the majority this year (about 30%).

Snapchat isn't Instagram.

Despite all of Instagram's benefits, Snapchat still has one thing over the app: It's not Instagram. Some people just prefer one platform over the other, and marketers need to still communicate with their consumers in the channels in which they play.

According to a study by comparison app Wishbone reported by the Huffington Post, 75% of the more than 32,000 young consumers surveyed said they would not consider deleting Snapchat even after Instagram debuted a similar Stories feature. What's more, 57% said they would not consider deleting Snapchat if Instagram implemented filters. Although, this study came out in 2016 and Instagram didn't launch its face features until May 2017, so their sentiments may have changed.

You still may need to cater to two different audiences across channels, Velasco says.

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Instagram Versus Snapchat: a Side-by-Side Comparison - DMN

By Dawn Melesko, Digital Strategist at ZAG Interactive

With the pressure on financial marketers to demonstrate ROI intensifying, its more important than ever to understand the buyers journey and create content that moves people through the sales funnel. To drive measurable growth, bank and credit union marketers need to target key audiences with relevant content to that speaks to their specific needs at each stage of the funnel.

Consumers are visiting branches less often. They can open accounts on mobile phones, and apply for loans at work on their lunch break. While lead nurturing and effective prospecting can be accomplished cost effectively in digital channels, the financial services industry has lagged behind. Banks and credit unions have failed to allocate sufficient budgetary resources where users most of their time. Instead, financial institutions have been flushing money down the toilet on tactics that cant be tracked and dont produce leads.

This is why a content marketing strategy is more important than ever before. Now that people can be targeted in digital channels with amazing accuracy, it makes financial sense to move budgets away from traditional media towards content marketing strategies that focus on generating leads, growing relationships and improving the bottom line.

With that in mind, here are three tips to help you maximize your success with content marketing in digital channels.

As organic reach on Facebook continues to plummet to zero, investing in paid promotion is a necessity. One of the strengths of todays social networks lies within the targeting capabilities available to advertisers. Social media platforms have amassed rich data on consumers that financial marketers can leverage.

Using your research and sales data, you can identify specific segments that can be targeted within social platforms. You can target people who are either engaged, married or pregnant, or those who are members of a credit union, or customers at a national/community banks. For example, 70% of people rolled over their 401k into an IRA due to a recent job change according to Oliver Wyman.

Here are some other great examples of targeting options available within Facebook, and the potential banking products that match with them:

To develop a sound content strategy, marketing and sales teams need to be aligned. They need to share knowledge, and agree on what qualifies as good leads. Working together, they should define common pain points and objections, plan upcoming initiatives and establish metrics for measuring progress.

A study by Marketo found that when both sales and marketing teams are both in synch, organizations became 67% better at closing deals and generated 209% more value from their marketing efforts.

People have different needs and expectations as they get deeper into the sales funnel; accordingly, they seek specific information unique to each stage. Marketers need to develop the right content that speaks to prospects needs at each stage of the sales funnel. Personas and journey mapping can be a powerful way to determine appropriate messaging for different segments. Although it takes more effort to develop unique messages for different target audiences, theres greater potential to make a bigger impact and produce better results. People want to feel like you are speaking directly to them. Lets use the persona Frank the First-Time Homebuyer as an example for a quick content mapping exercise:

Awareness. Frank is newly engaged and is aware of a problem he rents and feels its like throwing away money and isnt sure if he can afford a home. Create content that helps him determine if its better to buy or rent and how much he can afford, like a blog post with a buy or rent calculator. This isnt the time to hard-sell Frank on a mortgage. At this time, just introduce your financial institution and offer helpful advice for his specific needs. During this stage, drop a remarketing pixel on your website, so you can target Frank to return and continue to build awareness.

Consideration to Conversion. Frank is now considering a solution to his problem, buying his first home, but wants to know how to get the lowest mortgage rate, and is concerned about his ability to afford a 20% down payment. Create content that explains how rates arent the only factor in the final actual cost of a mortgage (to compete with online mortgage sites with super low rates and high closing costs), and share information on how he could get a home with no money down. You can also offer more calculators, information on how to get pre-approved or pre-qualified, and a mortgage checklist. At this stage, include a strong call to action to set up appointment with a loan officer or direct him to your online mortgage application.

Loyalty. Frank has become a happy customer and moved into his new home. Now is a wonderful time to introduce a referral program to get him to refer his friends, or ask to get a positive review on social media. Frank may also benefit from some of your other banking or loan products down the road so make sure you keep him engaged with your brand for the next time hes in the market for another financial product.

All content 2017 by The Financial Brand and may not be reproduced by any means without permission.

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3 Tips to Create Content And Social Media Marketing That Sells - The Financial Brand