E-Strategies Week of August 8, 2016
5 Low-Cost Ways to Personalize When You’re Bootstrapping Content
Let’s start with the bad news first. It’s tougher than ever to get content noticed.
Changes to Google search results pages have further obscured content organically, especially on competitive commercial searches. Meanwhile, paid search costs per click (CPCs) are at all-time highs in established markets.
Organic reach in social media? It’s pretty much dead. Half of all content gets zero shares, and less than 0.1 percent is shared more than 1,000 times.
Additionally, the typical internet marketing conversion rate is less than one percent.
Content personalization has become a big concern. A recent report co-authored by PwC found that 94 percent of marketers believe delivering personalization is critical or important to reaching customers.
Yet recent polls by Forrester, Rapt Media, and others have found content personalization to also be the biggest challenge for marketers. In my experience, one common problem that marketers face in implementing it is budget.
Content personalization may be an advanced marketing strategy, but there are plenty of affordable ways to do it. Here are five easy tips to get started today:
Start up entrepreneurs never have as much money as they’d like to have in the bank. I mean, really, it’s every entrepreneurs dream to build a business and then magically have people flock to it. Unfortunately, this couldn’t be further from the truth.Not sure if it was the recent ‘Back to the Future Day’ or that 2015 is quickly coming to an end, but we have been very interested in the future lately. Specifically, the future of social media marketing. After several failed attempts to construct a time machine, we decided to do the next best thing: reach out to the smartest minds in the digital marketing industry.
We asked them one simple question:
What is your boldest prediction for the future of social media marketing?
The predictions we received were so good that for just a second we actually felt like we were in the future. So, if you are ready, go ahead and step into the future of social media marketing as predicted by the experts.
Instagram For Business
Last month, we announced new Instagram Business Tools to help companies better understand their followers and grow their businesses. The tools are currently rolling out gradually in the US, New Zealand and Australia, and will be available in all countries throughout the coming months.
With the new tools, companies of any size can be recognized with a business profile, get insights about followers and posts, and promote posts to drive business objectives-all within the Instagram mobile app. That means customers can see valuable information in your profile-like your business address or contact info. And you can get actionable information about which posts perform best, which days of the week and times are best to post and the demographic breakdown of your followers. You can also promote any posts you’ve shared, and include a button like Learn More, to reach new customers in your target audience.
Watch the video above to learn how to set up your business account. Or read step-by-step instructions on how to create a business profile, how to use insights and how to promote your posts. You can also read more information about Instagram business tools at the Advertiser Help Center, or take a Blueprint eLearning course.
Want a Simpler, Less Stressful Life?
Make These 10 Small Changes
Humans used to suffer from scarcity. These days lots of us in America suffer from overabundance. There’s just too much in our lives, we feel — too much stuff, too much information, too many worries.
If you want confirmation of this, look no further than the runaway success of Marie Kondo’s de-cluttering manual The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. According to the WSJ, the author’s name has even become a verb, a sure sign that she’s become a cultural phenomenon.
But you don’t need to read a whole book to get started on the project of simplifying and de-stressing your life. Question-and-answer site Quora recently rounded up tons of free advice on the subject when users offered dozens of thoughtful responses to someone asked “How can I make my life simpler?” Here are a few of the great tips that emerged.
Five Strategies for Leading a High-Impact Team
Nobody sets out to lead an ineffective team. In fact, leaders agonize over fostering teams that work well together and deliver smart solutions time and time again-the kind of teams that, in Leigh Thompson’s words, “go through the various storms, the successes, the failures, and keep coming out alive.”
The only problem? Many of the strategies leaders have adopted to improve teamwork, while well-intentioned, are not all that effective. Thompson, a professor of management and organizations at Kellogg and an expert on teamwork, clears up five popular misconceptions. In the process, she offers a roadmap for building and maintaining teams that are creative, efficient, and high-impact.
Finding the right book can change your life, or in this case, your social media strategy. Below is a list of 15 books we feel will help you become a better social media marketer.