5 Instagram Articles Every Marketer Should Read

It's no secret that Instagram has incredible reach. It grew more than 400 million users just in 2015. Here are 5 Instagram articles to help your brand. 

Does your business have a presence on Instagram?

Instagram has doubled its user base, to 700 million monthly actives in two years, fueled by Stories, web signups and better onboarding on low-end Android phones. Instagram’s growth rate is actually speeding up. It took just four months to add the last 100 million users since hitting 600 million in December , while it took six months to go from 500 million to 600 million.

However, not every business has jumped on the Instagram marketing band wagon and we understand why.

At first glance Instagram seems like it’s really only beneficial for those in e-commerce. Some businesses struggle with figuring out what they could post in Instagram that could really help grow their brand. And for many, it’s just one more social network to manage. Now that Instagram lets users manage multiple accounts from one device, it will be even easier for marketing managers to use.

All that aside, there is some true potential and value in Instagram, and the businesses that are taking the plunge are quickly seeing results.

Whether you’re active on Instagram, are thinking about starting your business profile or are reminded every once in a while that you should look into Instagram, these five articles can help you leverage the power of the platform.

1) How to Build Your Brand With Instagram:

    4 Tried-and-True Tips

HubSpot just got done helping a business grow their Instagram followers by 400,000 people which resulted in 70,000 email subscribers in just 12 months. It’s safe to say they learned a thing or two from their experience and we love that they’re sharing it with the world.

In this article they discuss four surprising ways that you can use Instagram to build your business and brand. The ideas include:

1. Grow your Instagram following with strategic partnerships Instagram,
2. Build your email list by converting your followers into subscribers
3. Create compelling content that’s worthy of being shared by others
4. Foster a community of highly engaged followers

Each strategy includes a variety of additional tips that any business can start implementing on their Instagram profile today.

Original article: How to Build Your Brand with Instagram Marketing

2) 5 Ways to Grow Your Instagram Following

Most businesses on Instagram report that it’s their most engaging social media platform. That’s exactly what Jess Ekstrom, CEO and Founder of Headbands Of Hope, explains in her article, even though her business’s Instagram profile has fewer followers than their Facebook Page.

Jess has found a strategy that allows her business to grow their presence and in this article she shares her five tips.

1. Put your handle on your packaging and marketing materials
2. Send products to Instagram influencers
3. Comment
4. Tag a friend
5. Give people a reason to follow

Two nuggets really stuck out to me in this article and those were put your Instagram handle on your packaging and marketing materials and send your products to Instagram influencers. Both of these strategies gives people a reason to upload a photo of themselves wearing your product to Instagram and tag your business, resulting in more eyes and followers on your profile.

Original article: 5 Ways to Grow Your Instagram Following

3) Never Designed an Instagram Ad?

  Here Are 7 Things That Will Make You Stand Out

Once you have a presence on Instagram you may want to look into your advertising options. According to our friend, Jeff Bullas, the two most important elements of an Instagram ad are inspiration and information.

In Jeff’s article he discusses seven tips that businesses should keep in mind when building their Instagram ad. The tips include:

1. Think about composition
2. Decide on a focal point
3. Create an intimate perspective
4. Don’t be aggressive with your logo
5. Use the power of color and contrast
6. Pay attention to consistency
7. Go easy with text

Jeff has an image example to go with each of his tips so that you can see exactly what he’s referring to. This article will help you get your Instagram ads up and running and seeing success in no time.

Original article: Never Designed an Instagram Ad? Here are 7 Things That Will Make You Stand Out

4)The 5 Best Free Instagram Analytics Tools

Now that you know how to build your Instagram presence and create beautiful ads, you need a way to track your efforts. You may or may not know that Instagram does not have native analytics. This means you have to use a third party tool to track your efforts, but knowing what works and doesn’t work will be worth it in the end.

In this article from Pete Schauer from SEMGeeks, he discusses five free tools for Instagram analytics. The tools include:

1. Iconosquare
2. SimplyMeasured
3. InstaFollow
4. Union Metrics
5. Crowdfire

Keep in mind that free analytics tool with come with some limitations, but they’re a good place to start. If you’re looking for some more advanced analytics consider paying for a software such as Postano or Unmetric.

Original article: The 5 Best Free Instagram Analytics Tools

5) 15 Hidden Instagram Hacks & Features Everyone Should Know About

Everyone loves a good social media hack. They save us time and usually show us some interesting things we didn’t know were possible.

Whether you’re a business using the social network or an individual perusing Instagram when you’re bored, these 15 hacks from HubSpot are what they call “game changers”

1. Get notifications when your favorite people post
2. See all the posts you’ve Liked
3. See the posts your friends have recently Liked, commented on, and so on
4. Look through pictures without worrying about accidentally Liking them
5. Clear your search history
6. Reorder the filters, and hide the ones you don’t use
7. Use Instagram as a photo editor (without having to post anything)
8. Insert line breaks into your bio and captions
9. Hide photos you’ve been tagged in
10. Adjust your settings to approved tagged photos before they show up in your profile
11. Remove photos from your photo map
12. Browse photos taken in certain locations
13. Drive traffic to an external website
14. Hide ads you don’t relevant
15. Send photos privately to your friends

Original article: 15 Hidden Instagram Hacks & Features Everyone Should Know About

If you’re ready to get started building your Instagram profile, check out Short Stack’s latest template, the Interactive Gallery Template. For e-commerce businesses, the Interactive Gallery Template allows you to create a shoppable gallery. However, the template is also designed to feature links to external pages, contest entries, newsletter sign-ups, downloads or even other pop-ups from within the Campaign. Use it as a landing page where your fans can click through to learn more about what you’re posting on Instagram.

Start improving your Instagram business profiles. Connect with your customers and increase sales. If you want more marketing suggestions and a way to generate conversion-ready prospects each month, then click here and learn more about my done-for-you system.

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Creating a Social Media Business Profile That Connects with Customers

You’re likely already using social media as a part of your marketing strategy. If you get a lot of traffic to your website and don’t get a lot of attention on social media, then your business profile may be turning potential customers away.

Social media business profiles that connect with customers are more likely to result in high-converting traffic to your website.

Make Sure That You Use the Right Name

The first, and one of the most important, factors of your social media business profile is the name of your social media account. If you’re developing a personal brand, you should stick with your own name. This is especially true if you use your name for all promotional purposes.

For businesses with a specific business name, make sure that your social media account matches. Basically, whether you’re developing a personal brand or a business identity, the name should match your website and your promotional material. People should not have trouble searching for your profile.

Choosing the Best Profile Pic

Once you choose the right name, you need to choose the best profile pic. Again, there’s a difference between profile pics for personal brand and business brands. For a personal brand, such as an internet guru or a blogger, you’ll want to use a picture of yourself.

Businesses should use the same logo that they use on all other promotional material. You’re probably noticing a pattern here. The goal is to make things consistent across your website and social media profiles.

Along with remaining consistent between your website and social media account, you also need to use the same name, profile pic, and other details across all networks. This means using the same info on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and any other social media networks that you use.

Be Clear and Direct with Your Bio

After looking at your profile pic, a visitor may check out your bio. They shouldn’t have any trouble determining what it is that you sell, after reading your bio. So, keep your bio clear and direct. It should be short and to the point.

Describe your business or website in a single sentence. Don’t worry about making a sales pitch in your bio. Instead, focus on the actual value of what you do.

Use a Background Image That Matches Your Image 

The background image that you choose for your profile should match the overall image that you’re promoting. In fact, the background image can be more important than the profile picture. A poorly created background will look unprofessional, limiting your ability to connect with customers.

If your background appears pixelated or hard to read, you need a new background image. You could hire a graphic design freelancer to create a background for you or take the time to create a clear, easy to read background yourself.

When you make your own background, either use a vector editing program or make sure that your image matches the exact dimensions recommended by the social media network. These recommendations are different for every network.

Keep in mind that the sizes of backgrounds and other details can change. Twitter and Facebook have updated the layout of profile pages several times in the past few years. Make sure that you remain up to date as these changes occur.

Choosing the right name and using a professional profile pic and background can go a long way towards helping you connect with customers. You should also interact with your followers. Respond to questions and comments and encourage a discussion in your posts by ending a post with a question.

Start improving your social media business profiles. Connect with your customers and increase sales. If you want more marketing suggestions and a way to generate conversion-ready prospects each month, then click here and learn more about my done-for-you system.

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Boost Your Sales with Highly Effective Social Media Posting Strategies

The importance of social media should never be ignored, when it comes to internet marketing. Every online business needs to have a social media marketing plan in place. It’s one of the most cost-effective ways to promote your products or services.

If you’re struggling to make good use of your social media marketing, then you need to rethink your current strategy.

Set Goals and Objectives for Your Social Media Campaign

The first step is setting goals and objectives for your social media campaign. You need to decide what you want to get out of your marketing campaign. Set clearly defined goals, such as increasing your sales by a certain percentage or gaining more traffic to your landing page.

After setting your goals, don’t forget to implement a way of tracking these goals. Analytics software will help you keep track. Pay attention to your referral traffic that comes from your social media accounts.

Create a Schedule for Your Social Media Posts

Consider the frequency of your social media posts. Whether you have an employee that handles social media posting or if you handle it yourself, set a schedule for these posts.

If you look at the major players in your industry, you’ll see that they post daily, sometimes even several times per day. At the very least, you should post once per day, Monday through Friday.

In addition to posting daily, you should post around the same time each day. Find out which times your target audience is most likely to check their social media accounts.

Some people check their accounts throughout the day. But, the best times are between 1 and 4 in the afternoon in the time zone that you’re targeting. This peaks at 3PM on Wednesdays.

It can be hard to come up with a new post each day. Plan your posts in advance. If you post once per day, Monday through Friday, then come up with 5 posts on Monday that you can use throughout the week. This makes it easy to stick to your schedule.

You Need to Create a Balance Between Sales Pitches and Helpful Content

If you only post about your products and services, no one is going to want to follow your social media profiles. They’ll either ignore these posts or unfollow you. That’s why you need a balance between sales pitches and helpful content.

The majority of your posts should contain helpful information that you believe your followers will enjoy. This could include tips and suggestions related to your industry or in some way connected to your products or services.

Limit your sales pitches to about 20 percent of your posts. This means that out of every 10 posts, only 2 should be focused on directly promoting a product or service. The rest should be geared towards informative content, such as blog posts, tutorials, and videos.

Look at What Other People Are Doing on Social Media

Finding out what your competition is doing is always a smart idea. Visit the social media accounts of your main competitors and leaders in your field. Look at the type of content that they post, how often they post, and the interactions that they have with their followers.

You should check these accounts regularly. Every couple of weeks, see what your competition is doing. This could help you stay on track and remain focused on your primary goals.

If you want to boost sales through social media marketing, you need to develop an effective plan. Put these tips together in order to improve your social media posting strategy.

Along with social media posting strategies, if you’d like additional marketing tips, along with a solution for generating conversion-ready internet marketing prospects, click here to learn about my done-for-you system. Including a Bonus Special Offer of 7 Days Trial for only $1.

What Millennials Want From Brands?

Whether you like it or not, millennials are becoming one of the fastest-growing demographics in the US. They will be your future customers and your future workers. With new demographics comes new ways of doing things.

Millennials have gotten a bad rep. They’re lazy, they’re narcissistic, they’re entitled, and they’re the “me generation.” They’re addicted to technology and can’t put down their smartphones. They believe that everyone deserves equal recognition, regardless of how much work they put in.

Not only are many of these statements wrong, such myths will make it difficult for companies to adapt to a new demographic. So, what do millennials want from brands? Here are a few things they look for:

Authenticity

Millennials want brands to be real and authentic. A study by Concentric Marketing found that 49% of millennials return that they know and trust. Many millennials see companies as nameless and faceless corporations. Social media is a great way for such companies to engage with millennials and show their authenticity.

Social influence

Millennials are very receptive to content on social media websites, particularly if that content is shared by trusted friends and family. The Concentric Marketing study found that 55% of millennials find out about products from friends, 40% of millennials buy from brands recommended by friends and family, and 85% of millennials tell friends about products they enjoy.

Social causes

 Millennials want to change the word for the better. In fact, 2014 Millennial Impact Report found that 87% of millennials gave donations to at least one nonprofit in 2013. Millennials support companies that give to charities and want their donations to be spent wisely and transparently. A great way to do this is to promise to give a certain fraction of your profits to various charities and causes. Use social media to advertise your company’s humanitarian efforts and millennials will notice.

Purpose

Millennials are much more likely to buy products if the brand’s values match their own. This requires more than just a good marketing campaign or a catchy slogan. It involves transparency for how the products are created and how companies operate. Branding must be consistent across all social media platforms to keep the message strong and consistent.

Engagement

Millennials want to engage with brands. They want to have dialogues rather than monologues. They want to listen and they want to be listened to.

Brands should engage with millennials. Find ways to allow them to participate and share their thoughts and opinions. Internet contests and open Q&A sessions are two great ways that companies can reach out to their audience. Brand who invite millennials to be a part of the experience will ultimately succeed at capturing their attention and winning their hearts.

Conclusion

Millennials represent the largest growing demographic and most brands must appeal to them one way or another. A 2016 study from Statista found that Americans aged 25-34 spent more time on the internet than any other age group. In fact, that group spent an overage of 2,891 minutes on the internet via PC every single month! Add this to the popularity of smartphone and tablet apps and you have an internet-addicted generation.

Your company’s internet presence can give them what they need: authenticity, social influence, social causes, purpose, and engagement. You can interact with your audience members, build a loyal fan base, ask for their feedback, and tailor your strategy accordingly.

Ask yourself how your company upholds these values on social media and study your marketing metrics to see how engaged millennials are with your company. You may find that your internet marketing needs to be updated to become more appealing to millennials.  And, if you’d like more access to invaluable online marketing strategies, check out my done-for-you system. This Currently includes a BONUS of a 7 day Trial for only $1

Why People Share: The Psychology Behind Social Media

Social media has taken the internet by storm. There are 31.25 million Facebook messages, 347,222 tweets, 17,361 LinkedIn profile views, 48,611 Instagram pictures, and 300 hours of YouTube videos uploaded each minute. The internet is full of content that’s constantly being created or shared.

We already know what is happening, but let’s dig a little deeper and get to the “why” of it. Why do people love sharing on social media? What’s the psychology behind it?

As luck would have it, a study by the New York Times Consumer Insight Group found the answer for us. Researchers concluded that there were five major reasons why people share on social media:

Entertainment

Perhaps this is the most obvious answer, but it was also the least common reason out of the five. Everyone loves a good dog video or a funny prank that they can laugh at and share with their friends. After all, what is the internet for if not entertainment?

Less than half of shares are motivated by entertainment or passion. Nevertheless, it does explain the tendency for funny YouTube videos to go viral as people want all their friends to see it.

Supporting a cause

It’s almost impossible to go onto social media and not see someone talking about a cause they are passionate about. The study found that 84% of respondents use social media to share their support for a social cause. Whether it’s fighting against immigration bans or police brutality, social media remains a powerful tool for expression.

A perfect example of this would be the Ice Bucket Challenge. Politicians, celebrities, athletes, and hundreds of others all participated in this viral challenge which helped raise over $130 million for various ALS organizations.

Self-Fulfillment

Related to the above point, many people share on social media to feel good about themselves. A simple click of a button can let all your Facebook friends know how they can best provide relief to hurricanes or donate to their local homeless shelter.

Sure, some might call it slacktivism, but it’s hard to overlook just how excellent social media is for raising awareness of important causes. It’s an easy way for people to make themselves feel better while fighting for a good and noble cause.

Expressing Yourself

The study found that 68% of respondents love sharing things that they feel helps them express who they are. Whether someone is showing the world their love of dogs or how excited they are for the latest blockbuster summer hit, there’s something that just feels good about expressing yourself. No places are as good at showing someone’s uniqueness as social media.

It only takes a few clicks to let the world know who you are and what you like. Many people don’t have the chance to divulge such details about themselves in the regular world, so social media provides a wonderful vehicle where they can truly be themselves without fear of judgment or restriction.

Friendship

This last point takes us to the social aspect of social media. More and more people are making new friends and connections online. It doesn’t matter if you’re finding your next hot date on Tinder or connecting with a potential new business partner on LinkedIn—social media and the internet has made meeting new people much easier than ever.

According to the study, 78% of respondents share on social media to keep in touch with old friends. It makes sense when you consider that the vast majority of Facebook friend lists are people that most users never keep in touch with. Sharing content allows them to reconnect with those who they haven’t talked to in a while and rekindle old friendships.

Conclusion

It’s impossible to deny the massive influence that social media has in our current day and age. The influence of companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram also allows brands to capitalize on new opportunities as they can reach people who are just casually scrolling through pages from the comfort of their phone.

Take a look at your content and ask how it plays in to one of these five psychological factors. You never know what sort of marketing strategies might arise after a little bit of introspection. And, if you’d like more access to invaluable online marketing strategies, check out my done-for-you system.

Increase Sales Using Pricing Strategies That Really Work

Today's Video discusses pricing strategies as an essential component of business and boosting sales. 

An important tip given is that the buyer prefers to have multiple options for a single product/service. Other ways to build buyer confidence are presented.

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Why Successful Bloggers Need to Do Guest Blogging

Everything you need to know about how guest blogging can be used to improve your business.


 Including what to include, how to present it, what to remember, how to “sell yourself”.

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How to Grow Your Email List Using Facebook

Description:
In this video, the role of social media is given credit for changing the world of internet marketing. With more and more subscribers on these platforms, specifically Facebook, entrepreneurs can follow some steps to ensure the success of their business venture.

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4 Surefire Ways To Liven Up Your PPC Ad Campaigns and Boost Your ROI

This video shows How 4 steps can increasing the ROI of any PPC adwords campaign. 

 This also disproves the notion that PPC ad campaigns are dead since it’s still an effective tool in generating high-converting traffic.

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6 Best Ways You Can Practice Internet Marketing for Customer Retention

This video will show you ways to keep customers with the use of internet marketing. 

Several solutions are laid out like setting up a mailing list, sending out reminder emails, how to deal with customer complaints among others. Putting these solutions into practice will help keep existing customers and build trust with new ones.

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What To Tweet And What Not To Tweet To Make That Connection

This video teaches you about specific steps to take to ensure an increasing Twitter customer base. 

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Up Your Traffic With 4 Easy Steps of Sharing Content

This video shows you ways to increase the likelihood of getting more content shares.

 First, it would be best to incorporate psychological triggers in their content. Next, he/she needs to check the layout and structure of the content, and if it is easy to share. The next step would be to add a featured image. Then the last step would be to remind people to share the content.

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6 Best Email Marketing Tools

In this video, I have for you a list of email marketing tools that are now considered the best. Each platform has different features which the user can choose from, according to his/her specific needs. Using at least one of these can definitely help anyone’s business to succeed.

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Make Cold Emails Work for You

Cold emailing is not as awkward as cold calling, but it still can be a frightening thing to do. A well-written cold email could be the key you need to get into contact with employers, celebrities, speakers, and just about anyone else you want to contact. 

You might be trying to reach out to one particular person you want to partner with or you might be trying to sell your product to two dozen people you met at a conference. Either way, cold emails are a fast and simple way of communication.

Unfortunately, it is often very difficult to find a way to get somebody to notice your email amongst dozens of other messages. Most people have countless spam emails in their inbox that they never read and they might disregard your email in the same way. Here are some tips you can use to make cold emails work for you:

Keep it Short and Sweet

 Busy people don’t have a lot of time and they’re not going to stick around to read an essay when they have 200 other messages to read. Make your headline direct and to the point. Avoid the fluff in your message and stick to the bare bones. You should be passionate, but avoid gloating too much over your love for the recipient’s work. The emails should be easy to read and respond to without the recipient having to dig up extra facts or ponder about what you were saying.

Establish Yourself

 If you met the person before, make sure to indicate that. If they don’t know who you are, you must establish your credibility. Tell them what you do or what organization you are from. You can show them sample of your work, if relevant, but avoid piling on too much detail. A quick and easy way to establish yourself without taking up too much space is by linking to your website or LinkedIn profile. These links will explain everything you need to so that you can save time and space.

Remember that there are certain elements of your personality that you want to shine through: your professionalism, your confidence, and your passion. It’s much easier to decide how to display these things when you are behind a computer screen rather than when you are meeting with someone in real life. Avoid generic messages and let your personality show.

Make it Personal

 You should know something about the person you are reaching out to. Personalize the message so that it meets their needs and expectations. People are far less willing to respond to what looks like a mass email sent to a dozen other people. Take the time to begin the email with the person’s name rather than “to whom it may concern.” If you are sending out a mass email, you can use certain software to automatically add the recipient’s name to the message.

See if you two have anything in common and use that to your leverage. Perhaps you picked them to speak at your conference because of their vast knowledge on biology. Maybe you reached out to them because you both graduated from San Francisco University.

You should also take into account who exactly this person is and why you decided to reach out to them. Let the person understand why you are reaching out to them and not anybody else and how they can benefit from it. Quite obviously, people are far more inclined to perform a favor if they can benefit from it in some sort of way.

Proofread

 Once you click “Send,” the message is gone forever so any mistakes you make will be loud and clear. Sure, you can always send another email with corrections, but that seems unprofessional. Proofreading doesn’t take that long and it always pays to double-check the details. Make sure that your letter to TechCrunch doesn’t say that you are writing to The Verge and make sure that any dates are accurate. You don’t want to send yesterday’s copy-pasted letter if it still has yesterday’s date on it.

Follow Up

 It’s true that the vast majority of cold emails will never receive a response, but it’s always good to follow up if you haven’t heard back from them in a week or so. In fact, the recipient might have just forgotten to get around to answering your email because it got lost in their inbox. Make sure that you mention the first email you sent them so that you don’t come across as a complete stranger.

Conclusion

 Getting someone to read a cold email is always a challenge since most people are natural adverse to opening up anything strange or unfamiliar. However, cold emails can become your business’s top way of reaching out to new clients, customers, and partners. If you want to find out more about how to utilize this, check out my done-for-you system.