Category Archives: Social Media Marketing

How to Find Quality Images for Your Content

Blogging, Copywriting, Social Media Marketing, Web Design, , , ,

Quality Images for contentPhotos give customers a rich impression of your business, and articles with photos in them are 47 percent more likely to be clicked on, reports content creation agency Curata. Not only do compelling photos encourage engagement, they aid in SEO efforts, since photos may be tagged with keywords and show up in search results. Photos are essential for a company’s SEO strategy, writes SEO agency AudienceBloom CEO Jayson DeMars. Besides supporting written or filmed content, photos tell stories. Great photographers combine technical proficiency, style and vision to creatively illustrate ideas, according to a digital photography school. Whatever your budget, there are things you can do to ensure you only use quality images for your content.

Rule of Thirds

While outsourcing to professionals is ideal, if you shoot photos in house, there are things you can do to make the pictures look professional. Spanish business photographer Alexandro Lacadena Gomez suggests you are conscious of the rule of thirds; imagine an image is divided into nine parts with two horizontal and vertical lines spaced equally, and put your subject where the lines intersect, since that is where people’s eyes naturally gravitate.

Show Perspective

If you’re photographing a product, shoot it from all angles to show off all features. For other subjects, shoot from multiple angles to show unique perspectives. Use black or white for your background to make your product pop, and light the product from all sides. Be mindful of your white balance setting to ensure white backgrounds don’t appear yellowish or brownish, according to blog.cx.com. Consider diversity when using models.

Composition

Once you’re familiar with composition, you’ll be surprised how universal most of the tips are. You’ll find the way to make a photo look professional, according to photographymad.com, instead of a snapshot:

  • Place your main subject off center
  • Think about the way you place your leading lines: straight, diagonal, radial, zigzag, curvy, etc.
  • Work with symmetry and patterns
  • Consider photographing from above, ground level, close up, far away, from the side, etc. for a unique perspective
  • Keep the background simple
  • Give depth through a background, middle ground and foreground

Cropping and Editing

After shots are taken, crop photos to optimize them if needed. Photos may be edited later for color, for elimination of red eye, and for exposure — most basic computer editing programs, such as Apple iPhoto, have these features built in.

Learn.columbia.edu has a photo resolution and size guide, which recommends photos for the web be at least 600 pixels wide with a 72 DPI resolution and a file size of 20-200K. To embed photos into your website, use a free popular uploader such as Picasa or Flickr, according to Practical Ecommerce, since your Web platform may have photo limitations.

Portrait Lighting

Photographer Bill Hurter’s book, “The Best of Photographic Lighting,” states there are five basic portrait lighting setups:

  • Paramount, butterfly or glamour lighting: produces symmetrical shadows beneath the subjects nose
  • Loop lighting: great for people with oval-shaped faces
  • Rembrandt lighting: the shadowed cheek of the subject has a small, triangular highlight
  • Split lighting: occurs when the key light illuminates half of the face
  • Profile lighting: used when the subject’s head is turned 90 degrees from the camera lens

Inexpensive Photography Resources

Using royalty-free photography can give you many quality photos for free through sites such as SXC.hu or Flickr. Examine the photographer’s terms to ensure you’re using the photos legally, suggests Search Engine Journal.

During the photography process, relax and breathe, Phoenix-based photographer Maria Vassett told Phoenix People. She encouraged photographers to follow their creative sides and inspirations when shooting.

By Peter Marino, owner of reelWebDesign.com, a complete content marketing company in NYC.

Create Online & Offline Branding Strategies That Support Each Other

Copywriting, Reputation, SEO, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing

Branding both online and offlineTo keep up with their competitors, companies should be cognizant of the power of offline branding. Even online merchants use offline branding, whether it’s in the form of multi-million dollar advertising campaigns or through word-of-mouth from employees. “Branding strategies are more than just a company’s image; it encompasses the experience you want people to have when interacting with your organization,” says Jody Bivens, art director at UPBrand, a firm that helps companies to hone their brand visibility. “It is important to keep your branding consistent so people ‪have the same experience with your company every time. That means the look, feel and tone of your brand’s voice – both digitally and in the physical world – should reflect what you want your company to stand for.” Continue reading for tips on how to build on and manage your company’s brand reputation and align your offline and online advertising.

Types of Offline Brands

Analyze your audience, and determine what offline brand types are most effective for converting new customers, as well as reinforcing relationships with current ones. If your target market is not Internet savvy, consider talk radio ads. Print campaigns, billboards, television commercials, and vehicle wraps may work for businesses with large budgets. Business cards can be modified to fit your brand as well. If your brand prides itself on innovation, you could use plastic cards to convey a unique sensibility. Eco-friendly brands could print business cards on recycled or seed paper.

Other areas of offline branding to show consistency with online branding include stationery, annual reports, brochures, direct mail, and trade show banners. Grassroots advertising and word-of-mouth promotion can also help a company’s brand. Make sure your employees understand your brand’s mission and can effectively convey it to clients and prospects.

Brand Guidelines

Establish your brand’s guidelines and make sure your message is consistent across the board, to ensure continuity in all forms of advertising. Create a brand guideline handbook and send copies to your employees. Dean Marsden, video marketer at Koozai, a digital marketing firm, says this handbook should include the following:

  • A brand overview.
  • A logo visual guide with correct and incorrect logo usage example.
  • Brand colors for all forms of advertising.
  • A copywriting guide with tone of voice and correct brand name format.
  • A glossary of terms related to your brand.

If you use an outside ad agency, keep them updated with any changes in this handbook, so they will consistently know what the goal of your brand is. That way advertisements will reflect well on your brand and target the right consumers. Perfecting your brand’s tone of voice in its communication is vital and can only come with consistency.

Think about what makes your company stand out from the competition, and try describing your brand as a consumer, to glean insights, writes MailChimp content strategist Kate Kiefer Lee. She also suggests teams brainstorm, and use emotional responses to guide a brand’s tone.

By Peter Marino, owner of reelWebDesign.com, a complete digital marketing company in NYC.

An Insight into Facebook PPC Ads for Better Facebook Advertising Management

Facebook Marketing, PPC, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing, , , ,

Facebook arketingWritten by our guest blogger Sarmista Aun

Facebook PPC ads are a great tool for brand promotion but Facebook advertising management is not easy. You have to be a Facebook deciphering expert to effectively utilize PPC ads.

Social media is a great place for business promotion and there is no doubt that Facebook is the best platform of them all. In fact, it’s one of the three biggest PPC players in the world. It’s true that social media analytics tools don’t provide enough data but once you examine the paid Facebook ads, you can learn a lot of valuable things.

To understand the various aspects of Facebook PPC and its analysis, I am going to use SEMrush Facebook statistics and other resources.

Domains Vs. Apps Vs. Groups – Instead of consumer products and services, advertisers like to endorse groups and apps on the world’s biggest social media. Out of 100%, 58% of ads are about domains, 39% are about groups and 3% are about apps. That means 42% of total ads don’t even let you leave Facebook. The PPC publishers consider it as a semi closed platform and prefer to give ads that have the ability to keep users inside the social media site. In fact, though the group ads are only 39%, they receive 56% of total clicks. So, if you want to provide Facebook advertising management as a service, tell your clients that they must create a fan page before starting the ad campaign.

Countries – 50% of the total pay per click ads are given by ten countries. USA, UK and Germany are ranked at number 1, 2 and 3 which is quite predictable but the surprising thing is that Indonesia and Philippines also figure in top 10.

However, according to Alexa stats, India is the second country, not UK. Other ad data experts say that UK consumes 6.1% of the total ad market and the reason is the difference between financial conditions. India may have a population of one billion but UK has a far better economy and steady growth. Therefore, more and more marketers in UK are focusing on Facebook PPC ads.

Top advertisers by domains – Some of the top advertisement agencies are Adobe AdLens and Kenshoo. On the other hand, the biggest independent advertiser is Samsung as they maintain 5.8 percent of the top 20 expenditure for ads. It’s a sensible move considering their current battle with Apple. The last member of the top advertiser list is AirBnB.

Top Advertising Apps – Facebook users are primarily Gen-Y audience and they don’t want serious content. They are mainly gamers and gamblers. That is why, you will find that the top 20 advertisement apps are games and the only exception is the app. The most popular games belong to either poker or casino segment. If US government ever decides to legalize online gambling, the social media giant will make millions of dollars every day.

How some brands accommodate PPC – Let’s take a look at some of the major retail brands. Walmart is highly active on the world’s biggest social media network and they have given more or less 6500 ads in the last 3 months.

On the other hand, Amazon doesn’t spend a single penny for FB PPC. It seems that they don’t consider the gamers and gamblers as their potential customers. Besides, the brand is so popular all over the world that they don’t need to tell people what they sell.

EBay follows a completely different strategy. Their Facebook ad management team targets India, Thailand and Russia based customers and gives ad for consumers in those countries but they seldom spend anything to attract USA customers.

The aforementioned data proves one thing. Facebook may offer Pay per Click and Pay Per View ad options but it’s not a core ad service as AdWords. It’s not a sales tool. Marketers use it for branding and general recognition but not for increasing sales.

Trends – When the world’s leading social media site launched its share in the US stock exchange, the outcome was dissatisfactory. Some investors even thought that the social media giant cheated them as the stock price hit rock bottom soon after the launch. The bad effect of share prices also affected the number of ads and mainly USA based advertisers stayed away from the social media giant.

Facebook is here to stay no matter how their share performs in the stock exchange. The company is ruling the PPC market and when it comes to brand enhancement, they have no competition.

 

Author: Sarmista Aun is a pay per click campaign specialist. She provides expert guidance on social media advertising and each metric of a PPC campaign. She is a professional blogger and has written numerous articles on internet marketing, social media and web design.

What is Facebook Graph Search? What’s New for Marketers?

Facebook Marketing, PPC, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing

Facebook GraphThe Digital Age has brought about whole new ways of doing things that would’ve never been possible before the Internet. As with most technological advances, the advent of the World Wide Web and social media websites has had a profound impact on the way people do business. No longer are the old advertising methods of billboards and newspapers considered the best marketing a company can get, and even in areas such as social media marketing, there is still constant evolution. The latest progression in this arena is the new Graph Search on Facebook, and marketers who don’t know about it soon will.

What is Facebook Graph Search?

The Graph Search on Facebook is the newest way for people to find things that they’re interested in. Everyone has seen the normal “search” function at the top of each Facebook page, but the Graph goes far beyond this. The Graph Search allows people to find things by using their common language. If a person wants to find restaurants that their friends have visited, they could simply type in “Restaurants my friends have eaten at.” This new feature, of course, goes much further.

The connections that people can make through Graph Search are all encompassing. A search of “friends who work at my company and enjoy hiking,” for instance, would immediately search a person’s network and return exactly what the user is looking for. Anyone who has ever marketed on Facebook knows what type of potential this could have. Instead of hoping that a fan will share a business’s, band’s or anything other Facebook page or post with their friends, these entities can now easily be found by their fans’ connections without said fan having to do anything.

The Repercussions of Graph Search

There’s no doubt that the Graph Search will have an effect on the marketing world, but most fail to realize just how big of an effect. Advertising Age, for instance, released a review entitled “How Facebook’s Graph Search Will Dethrone Google Search.” Facebook obviously has the edge on the aforementioned search terms (ie. bands my friends like), but the fireworks really start when Facebook cannot make sense of a specific search term.

Whenever a person enters a search term that Graph Search cannot process, it automatically provides search results from Bing, one of Google’s fiercest competitors. Experts expect that advertising dollars will slowly start to leave Google and go to Facebook, and this is especially expected in lifestyle and local arenas since those are the things people will often be looking for when using the Graph (ie. local services, restaurants and things to do).

How does Graph Search stack up in Social Media Marketing?

Many marketers may find it hard to look past their current social media marketing techniques and move on to Facebook Graph. This is understandable, but the feeling will eventually subside when they begin to realize how Graph Search stacks up against other marketing methods. A promoted post, for instance, may be slightly targeted, but it’s still going to show to many people who just don’t care while the price remains the same.

Facebook pay per click (PPC) ads are another way of advertising that Graph Search has a distinct advantage over. PPC ads are great since Facebook will only charge a person when their ad actually gets clicked. Anyone who has used this method of advertising, however, knows that the company with the deepest pockets gets the best marketing. PPC ads end up going to the highest bidder. For companies who are focusing on popular keywords and are facing off against larger companies, the bids of these clickable ads can quickly push them out of the market. When it comes to a promoted post or PPC ad, Graph Search is cheaper (free) and more targeted.

Facebook has been on the forefront of advancements in the business world numerous times over the past few years. It seems as if with their new Graph Search, they will likely continue this tradition. Every business owner, micropreneur, entrepreneur and anyone else who has a need to market will definitely need to promote their venture in as many ways as possible. As the Graph Search grows in size and popularity, however, the use of pay per click ads will likely start to show diminishing returns so get on the graph while its climbing!

Peter Marino always stays on top of the latest trends in the digital marketing world and is available for social media marketing and management.