How Does Social Media Help in Times of Crisis?

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Most people in the world today own at least one social media account — Facebook being the most universal. Social media platforms are used for a variety of different reasons, several of which include staying in touch with friends and family, sharing important and meaningful life events, or documenting what they ate for dinner.

With the increase of smartphone usage over the last 10 years, social media has now quickly become one of the largest players in digital advertising. Most Americans spend on average 10 hours a day in front of a screen, so it’s no surprise that marketing agencies have latched onto this current trend and geared their advertising toward mobile-friendly approaches.

As an advertising agency, it is vital to recognize and utilize social media as an integral part of the agencies presence and success.

It’s Not All Just Fun and Games

Though the original objectives of social media have stayed relatively the same, there has been an added objective that has had an astounding impact on society today. Social media now acts as a way to relay current events and offer support during difficult times, specifically in world crises.

Being able to use social media as an outlet for offering assistance, consolation and love allows for communities, as well as the world, to come together in unity and show strength.

Ariana Grande Concert Catastrophe

Tragedy occurred last night at Ariana Grande’s concert in Manchester, England when an explosion occurred, killing 22 people and injuring many more. Social media platforms acted as a way for people to express their feelings and concerns about the events that occurred that evening.

Celebrities and fans offered their condolences and support via Twitter and many Manchester natives started using the hashtag #RoomForManchester in tweets to offer spare beds and rooms in their homes for people who were stranded after the attack. Hotels and transportation companies also turned to Twitter to offer places to stay and free rides from the arena where the attack occurred.

The Importance of Knowledge

It is beneficial to not only use social media as a means of showing solace during times of tragedy, but also as a way to inform and educate its users of current events. Digital marketing companies and other marketing agencies all over the world use social media because of its ability to reach vast amounts of people.

Using social media to spread awareness, information and understanding about events going on around the world is going to give a massive amount of people the correct knowledge and power to take action.

How to Make Your Video Ads More Successful

By | advertising, content marketing, digital marketing, SEO, Utah, web development | No Comments

 

If research and statistics are right, then you’re probably not going to read this entire article.

If people are looking for in-depth insight on any given subject, people now more than ever will turn to videos to get information. Marketing agencies that are worth their salt know that people turn more to videos for content than anywhere else. But how do you make your online video ads stand out in a crowded field of cat videos, how do you make your multimedia presence stand out?

Here are some of our personal tips:

Tip #1 Produce “How to” Videos

In 2015, “how to” video searches grew by 30 percent, which means that people are in a hurry to figure out stuff, and they need someone to walk them through how to do something step by step. “How to” videos are only increasing in popularity, and the more unique your “how to” topic is, the more views you’re likely to get.

So, for example, “How to change a flat tire” won’t get that many hits, being as there are literally thousands of those videos already. But a “how to fix a foosball table” video will get much more of an audience for you, even if that audience is smaller than the “fix a tire” group.

Tip #2 Make Testimonial Videos

In the age of Yelp and Rotten Tomatoes, people are more likely to look at reviews for your brand well before they even come close to buying your product. Marketing agencies have figured this out, so for their clients who sell products or services, they’ll make testimonial videos that prove to consumers that what they’re product or service is better than everyone else’s.

Tip #3 Find the “Sweet Spot” for Video Length

Marketing agencies that produce videos for their clients know that the best video ad length (according to Google) is no longer than three minutes. Within 45 seconds, people will know if they’re interested in the video they’re watching. There are some videos that can be longer than 3 minutes on Youtube that still deliver incredible results, but those exceptions are rare, and your video has to be incredibly engaging to pull something like that off.

SEO Horror Stories: What We Can Learn From Them

By | SEO, Uncategorized, Utah | No Comments

 

SEO, as with anything else business related, can go bad quickly. When it does, the results can lead to a maelstrom of havoc the business then has to clean up. From Utah to the Big Apple, any business can learn from SEO horror stories.

Night of the Living Blog

Search engine optimization is still a new enough concept that not everybody who works in business understands how it works. Because of this, a well-meaning public relations person sent out a press release that was meant to be a one-time blog. The press release was reprinted on a massive amount of traffic driving spam blogs and websites, causing mass confusion to customers and management alike, as they tried to clean up the mess.

The lesson here is that if you are partnering with another part of the company to work on SEO strategy, make sure they understand everything you’re doing before they release something meant to be helpful as a plague to all mankind or your little Utah business will be just another victim of the internet.

So, I Married an SEO Manager

Back in the early days of Google, and thus the early days of Search engine optimization, the penalties were harsh for anybody who broke one of Google’s strict rules. Before you could access the world from anywhere, fixing the problem usually meant being present in the office, even if you’re on your honeymoon.

One manager found this out right after getting married, when he realized while relaxing with his new wife that he made a mistake on a website. By the time he got back the company had been heavily penalized and traffic was at a trickle. It took him weeks to work out the problems. Moral of the story: Always have a team with you, so if someone needs to escape Utah for a romantic weekend with the missus, you’ll be covered.

Gender and Color

By | advertising, digital marketing, SEO, Utah | No Comments

Selecting the color of your logo, advertisements or even social media posts can be a big deal. The colors your advertising agency uses often determines part of the audience’s reaction and reception. Knowing which colors to use in order to get the desired result will take your advertising agency to the next level.

From Utah to the Southeast, colors hold different meanings for different groups of people, different locations in the world and different genders. Knowing what colors mean to your target audience, be they male or female, local or national, could be the difference between a wildly successful advertisement and a total flop.

What Social Media Site Is Best for Your Business?

By | advertising, digital marketing, SEO, Social Media, Utah | No Comments

The most successful digital marketing agencies in the country know that no two clients are the same.

 That’s true when it comes to branding, voice, marketing, advertising and also choosing the appropriate social media channels for your client. Channels like Facebook and Twitter are pretty universal to have for all clients, but some companies might thrive greatly by posting videos on their YouTube account or by having boards on a company Pinterest.

 How you find out what social media site is best for you is pretty simple: Find out what your voice and demographic is, and see what site best facilitates your mission.

6 Ways Fonts Makes Your Website Better

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There are so many elements of successful website design to think about. What colors work best? Which graphics will draw in visitors? What layout will best display the information? The list goes on and on and on and on. It’s such a long list that it’s easy to forget an element or two.

Font choice may seem like a small thing, but it is crucial for a great website design. Your site will never get high traffic if the people visiting it can’t read what you have to say. It doesn’t matter how great your website is if your font is terrible.

The Stories Behind Some of the Best Celebrity Stage Names

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What’s in a name? Well, Shakespeare, a lot actually. Marketing agencies know that a name can make or break a product, company or career. It may seem silly that a few words could define so much, but think about it. Words convey so much power. Would you shop at a store called “Lots of Cheap Clothes?” Maybe. But you would be way more likely to shop a store called “Ross Dress for Less” or anything with the word “outlet” in its name.

Celebrities understand the power of a name better than anyone. Many of them entered the world of entertainment after adopting a new moniker. Some have changed their names after being famous in an effort to transform their brand. Here are the stories behind some of our favorite celebrity name changes.

Three Great Ways to Make Your Content Posting Less Boring

By | content marketing, digital marketing, Utah | No Comments

No matter what you’re selling, content marketing has become a crowded industry. It’s crowded because marketing agencies see the great benefits of getting brands out to new audiences. Unfortunately, that has led to a lot of content marketing that is being pushed out in boring and dull ways.

Luckily, we know a thing or two about making producing, publishing and promoting good content (because we kind of do it every day), so here are some tips to making content promotion a little less boring.

Tip #1: A Picture Is Worth More Than 1,000 words

Time after time, social sites such as Facebook and Twitter have shown that marketing agencies that utilize images with their content will get better engagement among users than content without images. The reason is pretty simple: reading’s boring. Ok, not boring, but an image that utilizes a powerful and well-written headline can make user entranced with your post, and they won’t hesitate on clicking on your content.

Speaking of well-written headlines…

Tip #2: Master the Art of a Headline

Writers tend to not give too much thought to what their headlines should be because they’re focusing on writing great content. But if you want your content to be seen, you better spend a good amount of time coming up with a great headline too.

They’re difficult to come up with, because headlines have to wear multiple hats. They have to be intriguing while not looking like click bait, and they have to make your content seem unique or worth reading. It’s a tricky thing to master (some marketing agencies still don’t know how to make great headlines), but once you do, you’ll see your content shares go up.

Tip #3: Be Unique

When making content, you shouldn’t think about producing something you’ve already seen before. Try and come up with content and ideas that are out of the box. Writing more unique content will in turn give you more unique visitors to your website, and you’ll get audiences of all types flocking to your social media sites to see what’s the next best original piece you’ve written.

Get Started With Livestreaming Video

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Step aside Facebook photos and Instagram. Livestreaming video is the new frontier in social media. Statistically, people are way more likely to stop and watch a video in their newsfeed than anything else. Just ask any of the nation’s top marketing agencies.

Photos are great, but video is awesome. Maybe it’s because video makes us feel like we are really there experiencing something. With livestreaming video, we practically can be there experiencing something in real time.

Livestreaming video is a new tool. With all new tools comes a time of experimentation as the general population figures out what works and what doesn’t. As you enter the world of livestreaming video, here are a few tips to get you off on the right foot.

LIVESTREAM-01

RFPs: They’re a Thing of the Past

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Businessmen shaking hands

If you’re a brand searching for the right marketing agency with an Request for Proposal (RFP), you’re out of touch and dragging dead weight.

Brands often spend months getting a traditional RFP put together, which no longer cuts the mustard in a world where the media landscape is changing at a rapid pace. Those wasted months creating an RFP could be critical to raising your brand’s awareness through constantly evolving, modern digital marketing techniques.

Not only do RFPs waste valuable time, they potentially increase employee stress levels and workloads as employees are asked to help organize an RFP on top of their regular duties, often resulting in low employee morale and work output.

Marketing Agencies Know What They’re Doing

RFPs can be aggravating to those who have already spent years working and studying in the digital content marketing arena. Many digital marketing companies view RFPs as naive and condescending when, through those proposals, a brand assumes that it knows exactly what marketing hurdles it faces and solicits a narrow, ready-made solution.

While it can be useful for a brand to use an RFP to ask advertising agencies for basic info like client lists, case histories and strategic approaches, brands should instead look at an advertising agency’s willingness to adapt to changes in the media landscape.

Brands looking to hire digital marketing firms should seek those that develop and utilize forward-thinking, dynamic and unique communication strategies — not just those good at responding to a complex RFP. Creativity and out-of-the-box thinking are also discouraged through the traditional RFP approach since they are so formal and rigid.

Perhaps RFPs would still make sense if people didn’t have the ability to communicate instantaneously via the internet. Brands can now search for content marketing companies online, check out their work and list of clients, then email or message ideal candidates and set up a quick meeting, eliminating the wait time and costs associated with an RFP.