The Top 5 Digital Marketing Practices From Social Media Examiner to Be Absorbed ASAP

By | content marketing, Social Media | No Comments

Social Media Examiner is a U.S.-based media company specializing in social media research and content marketing headquartered in Poway, California. Since the business’ founding in 2009, innumerable businesses and marketing agencies, including our younger employees here in Utah, have sought guidance from the company in an effort to improve digital advertising proficiency.

As a result, each year, more specialists are able to better promote their clients through social media and content marketing and, in turn, are becoming industry experts in their own right. The following is a list of Social Media Examiner’s most fundamental techniques which, when put into practice in Utah or any other American state, are guaranteed to produce real, measurable results:

1) Respect for an Audience Is an Absolute Must

Mike Stelzner—founder of Social Media Examiner—was once quoted as saying, “We don’t ignore search engines, but it’s not our primary focus. Our primary focus is to appeal to people.” In 2011, Stelzner revealed that only 15% of his site’s then 900,000 page-views per month actually came from search.

2) Content Should Be Shared Across All Dominant Social Platforms

Social Media Examiner’s content is constantly being shared across the 5 most valuable social marketing platforms on the Internet and in Utah: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest. An individual piece of content produced by Social Media Examiner averages 1,932 combined shares across the World Wide Web’s most favored social networks.

3) The Importance of Infographics Can’t Be Understated

Social Media Examiner does an exemplary job of varying content type when the time for publication arrives, employing the powers of lists, “how to” posts and infographics. Truthfully, infographics are the most powerful of the lot. Providing useful information that can be consumed in a matter of minutes here in Utah or elsewhere, the image’s social shareability is nothing short of impressive.

On Twitter alone, Social Media Examiner’s infographics average about 2,500 shares. Rounding out the top three for the aforementioned content marketing group is Facebook with around 1,300 infographic shares and LinkedIn with nearly 800 of its own infographic shares.

4) Early In the Week Is Paramount for Content Publishing Prowess

According to research conducted by Social Media Examiner, posts published earlier in the week perform much better than those published later on in the week. For example, on most Mondays, Social Media Examiner sees about 80,000 shares on Twitter. However, on Saturday of any given week, the average total plummets to around 40,000. From Utah to New York, both Facebook and LinkedIn follow a similar trend.

5) Authoritative Authors Truly Crown Content as King

Most content marketing gurus are more than familiar with the claim that “content is king.” Well, while true, it can certainly be improved. Digital content, when created by those with authority in their respective fields of interest, truly gives meaningful content the desired sway it’s intended to bring about.

Social Media Examiner uses only key social influencers to pen their most powerful posts, thus building rapport with any and all digital audiences. For example, Cindy King—Social Media Examiner’s Director of Editorial—averages about 8,400 social shares for her more popular pieces.

Though all content marketing agencies seek to peg themselves as an industry leader, there’s always something to be learned. Needless to say, Social Media Examiner is an excellent source for those seeking to improve upon their current level of marketing clout.

Fusion 360 - The Top 5 digital Marketing Practices From Social Media Examiner to Be Absorbed ASAP (Fusion 360 Agency)

3 Less Popular Social Media Platforms Worth Tapping Into for Overall Brand Success

By | Social Media | No Comments

Social media has transformed the world of digital marketing; realistically, it’s unlikely that it ever reverts back to what it once was. With mega social sites like Facebook and Twitter taking up mammoth chunks of time for worldwide consumers and marketing agencies with any kind of Internet access, it’s hard to imagine a better way to expand your brand’s market reach.

Consider the aforementioned industry leader of all things social: Facebook. Not only does it come fully-equipped with an impressive Alexa Global Traffic Rank of two, it’s pegged that Facebook brings in an estimated 900 million unique monthly visitors. Rounding out the World Wide Web’s best social media networks are Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google+.

That being said, the best, most progressive social media strategies and marketing agencies shouldn’t be limited to the select few sites with which most people are familiar. There’ much more that, unbeknownst to many marketing agencies, has yet to have been tapped for advertorial excellence.

1) Tagged

Tagged is one of the top social networking sites in the world with a current Global Rank of 550 and a bounce rate of only 10.3%. Founded in 2004, Tagged has many features which make it similar to Facebook. Profiles are created and browsed through the site’s main interface. Additionally, once again—similar to Facebook—people are encouraged to post descriptive biographies, share interests and upload photos.

Perhaps you’re asking yourself the following: If so similar to Facebook, then why would any company target this site as a means through which potential clients be identified? Well, with the average visitor spending 20 minutes and 48 seconds on the site—not to mention the 18.6 registered members around the world—the community is clearly engaged and active. In order to more fully put things in perspective, the average online visitor abandons a website within a minute of arrival.

2) Quora

Arguably, Quora is the best question-and-answer website the Internet has to offer. Mimicking Yahoo Answers, the company was founded in June of 2009 and immediately saw tremendous growth. Between January of 2010 and January of 2011, Quora grew a whopping 37,000% in usership, giving the website around 160,000 users at the time. One short year later in 2012, Quora was valued at over $400 million.

Just as Tagged’s value comes from community engagement and passion, Quora has accomplished a similar feat. In fact, many American marketing agencies have made content marketing through Quora’s newly added blogging feature a staple of their respective publication strategies. Areas of audience expertise range from startups, entrepreneurship and venture capital to science and food. Impressively, Quora has been favorably published in the New York Times, USA Today, Time and The Daily Telegraph.

3) Yelp

Yelp is a review site with incredible mobile capabilities for both individuals and advertising agencies. Since it’s founding in 2004, the company has followed in the footsteps of other review companies like the Better Business Bureau and Angie’s List with booming success. Every day, people go online and talk about products and services that they’ve recently experienced. Apparently, there’s plenty of activity: Yelp averages 135 million unique visitors every month of each calendar year. As of October of 2014, there were 86,000 active business accounts on Yelp.

People can’t seem to get enough of the service. In 2014, there were 67 million cumulative reviews on Yelp. That’s about 26,380 reviews being posted every minute. By the third quarter of 2014, Yelp had over 73 million unique mobile visitors. What’s the end result of all of this, you ask? In short, impressive revenue spikes. On average, Yelp generates 200,000 business calls every day.

If you and your brand are looking for new social ground on which to stake a claim, never fear to venture outside of what most marketing agencies consider the best social media sites. Truthfully, there’s plenty left to discover.

Fusion 360 - 3 Less Popular Social Media Platforms Worth Tapping Into for Overall Brand Success (Fusion 360 Agency)

5 Facebook Marketing Tips for Frustrated Social Media Strategists Looking to Improve

By | digital marketing, Social Media | No Comments

Seeing as how Facebook is easily the world’s most popular and efficient media marketing tool for social media strategists and marketing agencies, it’s key that said platform be mastered and tapped for digital product- or service-pushing excellence. While the importance of Facebook is easily recognizable, the booming site can cause headaches from time to time.

User engagement, for example, is much more difficult to activate than it is with other social media outlets such as Twitter, Pinterest or Instagram. Likes, shares and comments can be difficult to come by. That being said, if you and your team of social media gurus find themselves in a creative rut of sorts, there are a few helpful measures which should be considered to get the proverbial ball rolling, yet again.

1) Use a Bit of Cash to Boost a New Product or Service Announcement

Though costing money and seen by many social media experts and marketing agencies as an easy out, boosted posts on Facebook are still effective, especially for small businesses and startups. Recently, a party equipment rental service in Gatesville, Texas boosted a post announcing the purchase of a new inflatable water slide. The $20 boost resulted in a reach of 4,490 people with over 1,000 likes. Furthermore, the friendly advertorial nudge generated 8 reservations at $300 a pop in just a little over 7 days. That’s $2,400 of total revenue for just $20 through Facebook.

2) Give Audience Insights a Gander

Understanding an audience allows for the sound optimization of an entity’s content strategy, resulting in a sturdier return on investment. Facebook’s Audience Insights allows brands and agencies to better see what their respective target demographics most actively engages with, be it custom-made images and photos, shared videos or promotional contests. Additionally, Audience Insights also allows social media specialists to see which specific topics of interest generate more user interaction.

3) Employ the Powers of ActionSprout for Email Acquisition

Few Facebook users visit company pages. Instead, the social marketing battle is either won or lost on an audience’s News Feed. Nearly all Facebook apps require that a user leave their News Feed to interact with a brand. ActionSprout places a specific acquisition action directly in the News Feed. All that’s required is an email address and News Feed comfort is allowed to continue.

4) Adopt Website Custom Audiences as a Means of Potential Client Identification

Simply put, creativity with targeting leads to better customers. As opposed to simply targeting specific fans through Facebook, use Website Custom Audiences to not only run Facebook ads through Power Editor, but to locate people who’ve already visited your website. After all, they’re much more likely to get in contact with your company. Their web history proves it and all of America’s advertising agencies know it.

5) Consciously Make Public Relations a Worthwhile Pursuit

Figuratively speaking, Facebook is a Rolodex of PR contacts with over 1 billion reporter profiles in its digital archives. Through Facebook Graph Search, it’s easy to discover who works where and what publications/websites they cover. Whether it’s a groundbreaking article share or a comment on an issue related to your brand, your company can position itself as a reliable source for newsworthy knowledge. As this and the aforementioned methods are put into play, Facebook engagement is bound to improve.

5-Facebook-Marketing-Tips

Pinterest’s Popping Past

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Okay, so the “clever title” juices weren’t flowing as much as they usually do. Please forgive the sorry attempt to bring alliteration into today’s topic of discussion: Pinterest. Anyway, in the past, we’ve hammered home the importance of the digital bulletin board for marketing agencies with clients from all types of industries, but there’s more to the booming social media platform than meets the eye.

As is generally the case with most success stories, what occurred long before public fame and glory were ever present laid the building blocks of today’s explosive success. As demonstrated by our newest infographic, Pinterest was certainly no different.

Fusion 360 - The Past of Pinterest (Fusion 360 Agency)

‘Mommy Blogger’ Expertise and Marketing Through Pinterest

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Let’s face it: women love Pinterest. Whether she’s a 12-year-old, boy band-loving drama queen or one of the nation’s largest, most reputable mommy bloggers, if you’ve got two X chromosomes, then you’ve not only got a Pinterest account, you’re flooding that shiz with enough pins to open an acupuncture facility.

Though for the longest time women successfully claimed Pinterest as their own private little nook of the World Wide Web, marketing companies have since taken notice and now see the advertorial power of the awesome platform. Amongst all the engagement rings, flower arrangements, beach pictures and fattening chocolate cake recipes, lies awesome marketing potential.

Fusion 360 - Mommy Blogger Expertise and Marketing Through Pinterest (Fusion 360 Agency)

Out Like a Bad Fad In the Night, Google+ Is Now a Thing of the Past

By | advertising, SEO, Social Media | No Comments

Thanks to the supreme product-pushing efforts of many of America’s brightest marketing agencies, our society has had the displeasure of passing through a wide variety of dumb fads: AOL Instant Messenger, Heelys, frosted tips, the Atkins Diet and Sisqó’s “The Thong Song”—still working on that one, admittedly.

Though we’d like to think that we’ve learned a thing or two from our apparent lack of foresight, we always seem to fall back into the pit of being “totally uncool.” Google+ is evidence of such a cyclical occurrence. She’s dead. She’s gone. Mercy, she’s both dead and gone.

Currently, for many users and marketing agencies, the social network is little more than a less-popular Facebook imitation, like something you’d download at a cheap hotel in Thailand. In fact, recently, Chris Messina—a designer who spent three years helping develop Google+ and is often credited with having invented the hashtag—said the following in a blog post through Medium: “Lately, I just feel like Google+ is confused and adrift at sea. It’s so far behind, how can it possibly catch up.”

Simply put, Messina saw the proverbial writing on the wall. Within three months of his initial harsh comments, Google announced that mandatory Google+ registration and Google Authorship were to become nothing more than a distant memory.

Furthermore, as if the damning happenings weren’t enough to put a slug in the figurative cranium of the Google+ thoroughbred, Google’s now put its Streams and Photos into standalone products for the handful of users who still employ them.

Truthfully, if even Google is unable to uproot Facebook as the world’s most beloved time-waster and social platform for marketing agencies, no entity short of Al Gore and his team—he did invent the Internet, after all—likely will.