22 Oct 2020

Sticky Post By Edgar Guillen Posted in headlines, blog writing, Content Marketing Permalink

Marketing Updates With Motion Ave

Sticky Post By Edgar Guillen On October 22, 2020

Once again, welcome to our newest edition of Marketing Updates with Motion Ave. Much of the news this week focused on shopping through online social media platforms, as well as some new Twitter and Instagram features. Read on to learn more about how such adjustments could affect your business and social media strategies!

Google Will Make Shopping Ads Free Worldwide

Google will expand free shopping ads to countries in Europe, Asia, and Latin America in mid-October, following its April 2020 rollout in the US. This allows retailers to run free listings in the Shopping Tab. The decision was made due to the effects of the pandemic, as free shopping ads benefit both merchants and consumers. They’re a great opportunity for sellers to connect with customers, as more people move to online shopping. Yet there are still advantages to paid shopping ads; they’ll continue to appear in ad slots above the free listings in the Shopping Tab.

Learn more about the benefits of Google’s free shopping ads and how to get set up at:

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-makes-shopping-ads-free-worldwide/382665/

Twitter Expands Access to Voice Tweets

In June, Twitter added the option to integrate audio clips into tweets but the decision lost momentum because 1) audio clips don’t seemingly add value, and 2) it could cut deaf or hard-of-hearing Twitter users out of the conversation. Given this feedback, audio tweets are currently available to more iOS users. The company also reaffirmed its commitment to add auto-captions for voice tweets, increasing accessibility and expanding context and understanding across the app. Audio messages in DMs are currently being tested in Brazil.

Would audio tweets add value to your Twitter approach from a marketing perspective? It is an option to consider if you want to incorporate new and unique strategies into your outreach plan.

To discover more, read the entire article:

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/twitter-expands-access-to-voice-tweets-re-affirms-plans-for-auto-captions/586182/

Instagram Brings Shopping to IGTV and Reels

As e-commerce grows, Instagram has expanded its global shopping capabilities on IGTV, its live streaming service, and will be testing the strategy on Reels later this year. IGTV viewers can purchase items directly through Instagram or via the seller’s website. With the holiday season quickly approaching, this decision could allow IG’s parent company Facebook to seize virtual opportunities and better compete against platforms like TikTok. Increased e-commerce is also important for Instagram, as it could easily become an essential feature. The platform’s main risk is deprecating the user experience in favor of more services for advertisers.

Interested in additional information? Click here:

https://www.marketingdive.com/news/instagram-brings-shopping-to-reels-igtv-as-commerce-commands-social-spotli/586400/

Instagram Adds New Features to Celebrate Turning 10!

To celebrate its first decade, Instagram incorporated a few new elements into its platform. The Stories Map provides a private look at where you’ve posted your past three years of Stories as long as they had a location sticker. IG also added the option of variable icons, made popular by the iOS-14-inspired trend of customized home-screens. Users can choose from a range of icons that better suit their custom theme. In addition, IGTV’s shopping features were updated and Reels video clips are competing with TikTok’s immense success. Other interesting stats include:

900 million emoji reactions are sent within the app each day;
KPOP is the #1 most-discussed music genre among IG users; and,

The average user sends 3 times more DMs than comments.

How will Instagram evolve over the next decade? One thing’s for sure – IG and other social media platforms have changed how we interact, so it’ll be interesting to see where it takes us!

Read all about it here:

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/instagram-releases-new-features-to-celebrate-its-10th-birthday-including-s/586497/

This week’s news included some major changes, some of which might impact your business in the near future! We hope that you’ve found this information interesting and relevant! We’ll return after a short break with more cutting-edge marketing news in our next edition of Marketing Updates with Motion Ave. See you soon!

21 Sep 2020

Sticky Post By Edgar Guillen Posted in headlines, blog writing, Content Marketing Permalink

Marketing Updates With Motion Ave

Sticky Post By Edgar Guillen On September 21, 2020

Welcome to a new edition of Marketing Updates With Motion Ave. This week, almost all of our attention is focused on ad headlines, with new additions, limitations, and updates! Read on to find out more!

Facebook Limits How Many Ads a Fan Page Can Run

In order to improve the ads’ performance, Facebook will limit the amount of ads that fan pages can run. Ultimately, this will depend on the page size and the monthly budget spent on advertising. This measure was taken to prevent ads from being delivered less frequently.

Follow this link to learn more about this change: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/facebook-announces-new-limits-on-how-many-ads-pages-can-run-concurrently/584943/

Facebook Tests Its New Email Marketing Tool

Several months ago, Facebook announced that it would be testing a new email marketing tool. Recently, various new details about this new feature have come to light. The new tool will also follow GDPR subscriber list regulations and it will not allow the use of email addresses taken from user contact information on Facebook profiles.

Want to know more? Click here: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/facebook-email-marketing-test

Google Combines “Custom Intent” and “Custom Affinity”

Google announces a change in its “custom intent” and “custom affinity” audience types. From now on these two options will be included under a single umbrella called “custom audiences.” To access this audience, advertisers will have to go to the Audiences section at the Campaign or Ad Group level.

Interested in more information? Learn more about this new audience here: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-combines-custom-affinity-and-custom-intent-into-custom-audiences/380906/

Microsoft Ads Integrates LinkedIn Ads Targeting

Microsoft Advertising, which offers pay-per-click advertising on Bing and Yahoo, will finally integrate LinkedIn targeting into its search ads. This new option will provide a more precise type of targeting for businesses that are still struggling to pinpoint their objective audience.

Discover what countries will offer this option: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/breaking-microsoft-ads-integrates-linkedin-ads-targeting/379987/

Ads, ads, and more ads here at Marketing Updates With Motion Ave! After such a full week of advertising, we need a break. We look forward to seeing you in our next edition with more marketing news!

06 Mar 2020

Sticky Post By M. Valentina Villegas Posted in headlines, blog writing, Content Marketing Permalink

Marketing Updates With Motion Ave

Sticky Post By M. Valentina Villegas On March 6, 2020

Welcome back to a new edition of Marketing Updates With Motion Ave! Today we’ll show you what’s new in LinkedIn, Snapchat, Google and… the Coronavirus. Read on to find out more!

No Ads To Bad Medicine On Facebook

Facebook has begun offering unlimited free ad space to the World Health Organization to cultivate the spread of accurate, useful public health information about the ongoing coronavirus epidemic. Simultaneously, a blanket ban has been instituted on any ads including unsubstantiated information or commercial claims such as cures or treatments for the virus.

Stay healthy on Facebook here: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/04/coronavirus-facebook-offers-free-ads-to-who-will-remove-flase-claims.html

It’s like Stories, But For Work

LinkedIn is rolling out its Stories lookalike feature, offering companies a new conversation format to showcase company events and share engagement content. Does LinkedIn’s community want the platform to look more like Instagram, encouraging more visual, less information-rich content? Does it matter? We’ll find out!

Get your pieces of flair here: https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/27/21156247/linkedin-testing-instagram-stories-feature-social-network-resumes-why

Swipe Up To Call Ads Arrive In Snapchat US

Snapchat expands its “Swipe Up” options with “Swipe Up to Call,” a feature already available in Middle East markets. Although voice calls are increasingly less popular, this feature will allow specific businesses to expand their prospect lists and conversions.

Want to talk? Click here: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/snapchat-launches-swipe-up-to-call-ads-in-the-us/572567/

Google Updates Its Ads Mobile App

Google updates the Ads mobile app with new features. From now on, it will display account and campaign-level optimization scores and recommendations to improve it. You’ll also be able to create notifications that will let you know when your optimization score changes, which will allow you to always be up to date with recommendations and improvements.

Discover more new features here: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-ads-mobile-app-updated-with-new-features-and-dark-mode/353032/#close

That’s some of the biggest news in digital marketing this week! To keep up, don’t forget to follow us on our social networks and read our blog: Marketing Updates With Motion Ave!

08 Nov 2019

Sticky Post By Edgar Guillen Posted in headlines, blog writing, Content Marketing Permalink

Marketing Updates With Motion Ave

Sticky Post By Edgar Guillen On November 8, 2019

Welcome to another issue of Marketing Updates With Motion Ave. This week was all about Facebook- with plenty of controversy at no extra charge! While a little less busy, Twitter also made big headlines with a simple move. Read it all now!

Facebook Wants You To NOTICE THEIR NEW LOGO

Big. Powerful. Changes color. Hanging around everywhere. Capturing and devouring everything it meets. No, it isn’t a giant cuttlefish, though your confusion is understandable. It’s FACEBOOK.

FACEBOOK has updated its logo to represent its new outlook as the company that owns most of the places the world pays attention to. The new logo, already being decried as jarring and off-brand, will be displayed in a different color on each of FACEBOOK’s new holdings: green for WhatsApp From FACEBOOK, Pink for Instagram from FACEBOOK, and blue for FACEBOOK from FACEBOOK.

If there’s one thing we know, it’s that shouting and constantly changing your image is a great way to get people’s attention and show what a nice guy you are.

Embrace change here: https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/4/20947854/facebook-new-logo-design-change-parent-company-instagram-whatsapp

Twitter Refuses To Take Someone’s Money, Saves Democracy

Arguably some of the biggest news this week was Twitter’s announcement banning all political ads. While political messages, images, and content will continue to exist across 99.380245% of the platform, they must generate reach on their own through following and retweeting, like everything else- no more purchasing mandatory slices of users attention.

The ban applies to all ads featuring candidates in political campaigns as well as those advocating legislation on major issues, such as climate change and healthcare. How “major” an issue? What about ads that don’t directly name candidates?

So. To be clear: Twitter allows no ads containing any political action. FACEBOOK allows any and all political ads. Everyone is outraged at both.

Democracy in action. The system works, you guys!

Join the debate here: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/twitter-bans-all-political-ads-in-response-to-concerns-around-misinformatio/566259/

https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/02/twitters-political-ads-ban-is-a-distraction-from-the-real-problem-with-platforms/

FACEBOOK Won’t Judge Your Politics, But It Might Judge Your Grammar

The newest evolution of FACEBOOK’s responsive ads includes the ability to supply several versions of copy, headlines, and post descriptions for a single ad- and, just as it already does for images, FACEBOOK’s algorithm will determine which text combination will bring the best results.

This next step for responsive ads ultimately gives FACEBOOK full control of every element of your ad (though, to be fair, you don’t HAVE to create responsive ads). This illustrates a bigger philosophical point in the FACEBOOK landscape- sure, you’re giving up your ability to make decisions about anything, but someone’s doing your most difficult work for you, and there’s memes to read.

Find out more here: https://marketingland.com/responsive-ads-come-to-facebook-with-multiple-text-optimization-270013

FACEBOOK Changes Video Ad Metrics

No more 10-Second Video Views counts (or related metrics). FACEBOOK has swapped this out for what’s intended to be a more useful measure of activity, ThruPlays: the number of times your video has been played completely or up to 15 seconds.

Oh. And a bunch of metrics have been renamed, like “Video Watches At 25%” is now “Video Plays at 25%” to reflect that people might be clickfarming, I mean distracted.

Go to the tape here: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/facebook-announces-changes-to-ad-metrics-including-removal-of-10-second-vi/566382/

FACEBOOK Saves Marketers From Themselves With New Ad Limits

Starting mid next year, FACEBOOK will limit the number of ads a page can run. To prepare advertisers for this drastic change, FACEBOOK has launched the new Ad Volume API that allows you to see how many ads are running on a page, and how many are in review.

FACEBOOK assures everyone that having too many ads can harm advertisers’ performance. The logic is that if you have a large volume of ads, fewer come out of the learning phase and a lot of budget is spent before the system updates the ad performance.

It’s very nice of FACEBOOK to be so responsible with our money.

Want to know more? Click here: https://marketingland.com/facebook-to-limit-number-of-ads-pages-can-run-simultaneously-270449

Need a break from hearing about FACEBOOK? Take a week! We’ll be back with more Marketing Updates With Motion Ave featuring news on everyone’s favorite gigantic social media conglomerate!

14 Mar 2019

Sticky Post By Alejandra Vasquez Posted in chatbots, customer service, Uncategorized Permalink

5 Ways You Can Use Chatbots In Your Marketing Strategy And Get The Most Out Of It

Sticky Post By Alejandra Vasquez On March 14, 2019

Marketing trends are constantly changing: we’ve seen the boom of email marketing, Facebook and Instagram Ads.

Now… it’s the age of chatbots!

Why? Today’s marketing is all about customer experience (or CX)- and chatbots are the perfect tool to improve your customers’ CX.

The rising demand for a personalized CX has made chatbots a natural choice; they’re changing the way industries offer their products or service to the market. Chatbots offer a low-cost solution for 24/7 customer service, and when properly deployed, will be adaptive to each visitor’s needs.

Every industry is embracing the utility of chatbots, and the growth continues:

Chatbots can reduce up to 30% of the company’s costs for communication with customers according to research done by Business Insider Intelligence.
Gartner forecasts that by 2020, over 85% of customer interactions will be handled without needing a human.

Just like any AI application, chatbots are only as good as their programming. Fortunately, chatbots are becoming more advanced, intuitive to build, and user-friendly every day- you can create multiple sets of triggers for your bot to engage a visitor, and even learn from your customers (depending on how advanced your chatbot’s AI is). In most cases, chatbots are easy to customize for your CX needs- and you don’t have to be a coder to do it.

Because of their high level of customization, chatbots can be deployed for a wider variety of purposes than you might imagine- anything from Q&A to account servicing to sales.

Here are a few ways you can start using chatbots in your marketing strategy.

1. Conversational Marketing:

Conversational marketing is engaging an audience (website visitors) to gather feedback, then using this information to personalize customers’ buying cycles and generally improve your CX.

Chatbots save you the time otherwise spent giving visitors the same answers over and over, and clarifying product information without filling your website with walls of text. You’ll need to set up your chatbot’s responses to the most common inquiries- here are some ways to get started:

a. List the questions your customers usually ask when visiting your website- and the best answers. This will be the foundation of your bot’s knowledge base.

b. If you don’t have a lot of information from your customers yet, that’s ok too- have your team go through your website’s buying steps and craft questions and answers of the steps where they got lost, or things weren’t clear. Asking people uninvolved in the design process of the site is best, as they’re “naive” users, just like your visitors will be. Everyone responds to a UX differently- this is where diversity in your site testing is essential!

c. After putting your bot to work, don’t forget to do constant rounds of optimization- this by far, is the most important step. It’ll help you improve your conversational marketing strategy, and it’ll also help gather valuable feedback on how your visitors live their experience on your website.

Here’s one example from the Australia Open 2018 for instance:

Source: Chatbots Life

2. Share Important News

Chatbots have something to offer during your entire lead cycle: Acquire, Qualify and Convert. But don’t wait until you have a lead on the hook to start harnessing their power- chatbots are also a great way to share important news regarding your business!

We’re all sick of receiving 500 emails a day with promotions, news, and messages from multiple brands. Chatbots are a better way to approach your website visitors, and to share things that matter to our brand.

Think about a webinar for instance (and I’m speaking from experience) – I absolutely love webinars, but I often miss emails inviting me to ones I care about because I get so much spam every day.

On the other hand, if I visit your website, and I get a friendly message (presented in a very human way) from a chatbot about a super-awesome new webinar next week, inviting me to subscribe and add the event to my calendar on the spot, I’m very likely to do it!

Chatbots are a great way to approach your visitors without being too invasive. If properly executed, this tactic will do wonders for you and your brand!

For example:

Source: MaestroQA

Bots can be used in this way to effectively share promotions, new collections, or news your audience should know- while simultaneously building your database! It’s a win-win for both you and your audience.

3. 24/7 Support and Sales

Need I say more? Chatbots give you a 24/7 sales cycle! You’ll never miss sales opportunities- every visitor to your site can get the product or sales support to make their decision IMMEDIATELY.

Source: Chatbots Magazine

Chatbots can be programmed to offer specific products to specific website visitors and even offer other product suggestions. In other cases, bots can suggest great complimentary products to visitors who’ve already purchased something- think of the “you may also like..” feature usually appearing at the bottom of a sale page, this time presented in a more timely, social, personal manner!

4. Get your chatbot to qualify your leads

If you’re in the B2B business, bringing your chatbot to quality prospects is the best way to go. If you’re familiar with Intercom, you probably know they’re the perfect example of how to qualify a lead.

Once you go on their website and browse for a few seconds you get the following message from their chatbot:

Source: Intercom

Notice how the chatbot provides all the meaningful responses to drive the conversation forward as choices, rather than a text box- this is a powerful way to use chatbots to drive visitor behavior in meaningful directions.

As a visitor answers the chatbot’s questions, it’s qualifying them as a lead- and handing the information to the sales team, if they represent an ideal customer profile.

Source: Intercom

5. Increase Your Database By Providing The Right Content Offers

Does content marketing drive your traffic? Your chatbot can help you build a large database by providing similar content offers to what your audience is currently reading.

The real magic is when your chatbot can offer website visitors a downloadable item (such as a PDF or ebook) or even a link to one of your videos similar to the topic they’re reading. Best of all, you can set your chatbot to start a conversation with the user, offer the relevant content, AND ask for their email in return. You’ve built your database and helped your visitor with even more useful content- completely hands-off!

As you can see, chatbots can do so much for you and your visitors- and their power and versatility is only increasing. They’re easy to set up and one of the most cost-effective CX solutions out there.

Have you started implementing a chatbot strategy for your business? If so, what are the strategies that have worked out the best? Share your opinion in the comment below!

Last, but not least: Don’t forget to make your chatbot sound human!

References:

https://neilpatel.com/blog/bots-digital-marketing-strategy/

www.intercom.com

https://chatbotslife.com/conversational-marketing-guide-2b381a5731da

24 Jan 2019

Sticky Post By Ana Cristina Posted in Content Marketing, Content Marketing, Content Strategy, 2017, Video, E-mail Marketing, Buyer Personas, Uncategorized Permalink

The Recipe for Creating Awesome Buyer Personas [Infographic]

Sticky Post By Ana Cristina On January 24, 2019

Buyer Personas are a crucial component of every digital marketing strategy; they’re essential to better understanding your target market and tailoring your content and products to their needs.

All of this translates into reaching the right people to drive traffic, generate leads, and close deals. But how do you create fantastic personas?

Creating good Buyer Personas doesn’t seem like an easy task, but crafting them well is like cooking a perfect meal: get the right ingredients, follow the recipe, and voilà. We’d like to share our recipe for awesome Buyer Personas for every business.

Sources:

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/buyer-persona-research
https://marketinginsidergroup.com/demand-generation/what-to-include-in-a-buyer-persona-infographic/
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/build-buyer-personas
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/buyer-persona-questions
Singlegrain: How to develop Buyer Persona
Singlegrain: Science building Buyer Persona

18 Jan 2019

Sticky Post By Ana Cristina Posted in Instagram Marketing, Digital Marketing, trends, Instagram, marketing goals, 2019 With 1 Comment Permalink

8 Secrets to Creating Killer Facebook Ads

Sticky Post By Ana Cristina On January 18, 2019 With 1 Comment

With over 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook has become a place where businesses can connect with potential customers and grow their base significantly- but if you’re building a brand, posting on their Fan Pages alone is not enough. To reach your audience and get results, you need to advertise on Facebook Ads, and you need to do it right.

Users are bombarded with ads every day, and there’s a lot of competition for their attention. To rise above the rest, here’s eight secrets to creating killer Facebook Ads that successful brands use to optimize campaigns and spend advertising budgets wisely- you should master them, too.

1. Consistency

MailChimp is a perfect example of campaign consistency: their ads are simple, with a touch of humor, and reliably styled. Their ads stand out in a sea of content with their bright, yellow images and short copy.

2. Humor

Humor makes an experience emotional and memorable- employ it in your Facebook Ads to increase engagement and connection. Loosen up your language and use humor to spice up your message.

3. Seasonality

Some brands adapt their ads for holidays like Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Halloween, as well as seasonally, often to coincide with a change in product offerings. Seasonal messaging is essential; it lets you relate to your audience’s mood and current interests, and provides context for special promotions.

4. Urgency

Creating a sense of urgency is a time-honored ad technique, and it’s just as effective in the fast-paced context of Facebook Ads. Phrases like “before they’re gone,” “before it’s too late,” “sales end,” are some of the phrases you could try in your copy to make consumers think they will miss a great opportunity if they don’t act fast.

5. Targeted Messaging

Targeted messaging means speaking directly to your primary audience: using language that directly addresses specific concerns or values. This is extremely effective, but takes work: brands need to identify the pain points and goals of their target audience before writing their copy. The message has to be personal, and feel uniquely relevant to your primary audience, while still broad enough not to alienate potential leads.

Personalization is a must when you’re writing targeted Facebook ads.

6. Education

Another interesting way of using Facebook Ads is to communicate an informative, useful message to your audience, based on their needs, interests, and struggles. This technique attracts your target audience and invites them to digest your content while getting to know you as an industry leader and generating trust.

In many ways this is the heart of content marketing: audiences are receiving something valuable from you in exchange for building trust and, if the information is behind a form, creating leads or valuable research data.

7. Authority

Authority, in this case, means backing the claims of your brand with trusted entities like individuals and organizations. Authority builds credibility, whether the source is an influencer, celebrity, or industry leader. Other good examples are displaying awards or special recognition your brand or products have gained, or statistics of consumer preference for your brand over a competitor.

Testimonials are another fantastic way to generate authority. By quoting well-respected industry leaders willing to speak about your brand, you can show recognition. Haven’t got any? Don’t worry- honest, well-crafted statements from real, “normal” users that your audience can relate to are also extremely effective.

8. Localizing

Localizing is a broader form of personalization where copy and images relate specifically to a narrowly-targeted region where the ad will be shown. As with personalization, it raises credibility by causing audiences to feel that copy directly relates to their specific interests.

The most important secret? Mix and match. Combine humor with personalization, with consistency, and more. Create the perfect ad by always following your brand’s values and personality- but don’t be afraid to try something new.

It’s time to get creative. Build Facebook advertising campaigns with fantastic ads!

Want some help? Get in touch with us. We’re passionate about great advertising, creative content, fun design, and helping people succeed in telling their brand’s story.

Sources:

https://www.curaytor.com/25-facebook-ads?utm_source=zest.is&utm_medium=referral&utm_term=zst.5c17d64f00e71&zi=cymM5kUJ514

10 Nov 2016

Sticky Post By Samuel Klein Posted in Uncategorized Permalink

Five Lessons From Legendary Horror Movies for Content Marketers

Sticky Post By Samuel Klein On November 10, 2016

horror movies content marketing content creation motion ave

Halloween season is just behind us. As a celebration of all things scary, everyone knows that a good Halloween party would be incomplete without a horror movie marathon on Netflix. Every year, we see an influx of horror movies, ready to keep us on the edge of our seats. However, few of them end up becoming long term classics. Watching House of Wax at midnight may cause more laughters than jitters, whereas watching The Exorcist could give you nightmares for weeks.

What does this have to do with content marketing? Quite a bit. As it becomes more and more prevalent, marketers are scrambling trying to find a way to stand out amongst the noise. In doing so, they risk forgetting the essential elements and may end up with a wilting strategy execution. This ends up being very costly in terms of sales, and also in terms of client engagement.

As we hide under the blankets, eating the discounted candy, there are some interesting lessons epic horror films can give us content marketers.

The Power of a Well-Executed Good Story

It’s not only about creating a good premise, but also about developing it properly. A content strategy, just like a movie plot, is as good as the work behind its execution.We have read movie critics and horror aficionados moan when a movie adaptation fails to live up to the hype, claiming that under another director or actor, it would’ve been better. If you have a great content strategy, and you love it, prove it by putting your best team in charge of bring it to life.

Keep the main goal in mind

And, yes, the main goal when we watch a horror movie is to be scared, at least for normal people. In our case, what’s our goal for each piece of content or for the entire strategy? Lead generation? Engagement? Loyalty? Once you have the answer to this question, then you can create content with this in mind.

In the same tune of scary feelings, don’t forget the emotional goal we want to achieve with our audience: make them happy, pull at their heartstrings, bring positive memories or food for thought. The only worse thing than a horror movie that makes us laugh, is one that makes us feel indifferent.

…but don’t forget the power of the unexpected

If done well, the plot twist is the jolt of energy that separate great movies from the rest. Classic horror films used this resource wonderfully: in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Norman Bates impersonating his mother, for example. Think about what can you offer your audience that would be out of the norm, but could be well received. Maybe a surprise Live cast, a freebie or a timely current events comment

Shock is not enough

Yes, the standard horror movie features a good dose of fake blood here and there, but it should be done with a purpose. Overdoing it in the shock department can, at best, make the movie seem forced and laughable, and at worse, make us too sick to go on.

In a similar vein, making content for the sake of being viral or controversial is a gamble that brands seldom win. As we’ve said before, customers are smart and are moving away from clickbait and the like. Focus on offering quality over quantity, and the engagement will come.

Attention to detail

A melody, a small trinket, an easter egg are some elements that can give a scene a darker tone. Would the great white shark from Jaws make us feel as uneasy without its accompanying tune? Probably not. Even in a fast-paced world, where messages have a short life span, taking care of details is key.

In conclusion

The horror movie genre has evolved a lot from the days of Nosferatu, and it will continue to do so in the future. However, technology and the latest strange creature won’t be enough to scare us without the basic points that make a horror story amazing. In the same vein, content marketing will continue to grow as new mediums and trends appear, but it will only succeed if it remains faithful to its essence.

20 Sep 2016

Sticky Post By Samuel Klein Posted in Uncategorized Permalink

Let Go of These 5 Content Marketing Myths

Sticky Post By Samuel Klein On September 20, 2016

content marketing myths social media blogging content calendar

“Don’t wear white after Labor Day” is one of the most prevalent fashion myths that is still resounding today. There is no reason why it’s such a preposterous sin to do so, other than the possibility of a rainy day (to avoid stains and see-through surprises). But many fashionistas keep spreading it and obeying it faithfully.

Every industry has its own set of hard to kill myths. Content marketing isn’t the exception, and it’s dangerous. Creating and executing our strategy through old, debunked rules will make our product look old and debunked. Customers are smart and are harder to bait with old-school methods.

Here are five of the most prevalent content marketing myths and how to ditch them once and for all.

Your website is enough

A website is just part of a good digital marketing strategy. Telling people who you are and what you do is not enough to get potential customers to find you. In the highly competitive world we live in right now, brands need to offer a reason to click on their link instead of on the other one before or after theirs. Content marketing, SEO and inbound marketing tools are must-haves for today’s websites if they want to get visits from current and future customers.

You have to be in all social media channels

As I write this sentence, there are 209 social networking websites listed in Wikipedia. I bet that by the time you are reading this other sentence, at least two more have appeared. It’s simply not possible, or even necessary, to waste your efforts by being in every channel.

We have to be where our audience is. We don’t even have to be in The Big Four (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat) if our audience isn’t there. Study your customers’ social media habits and be sure to be there when they’re connected.

You have to go viral or bust

Viral, that little word that makes us content marketers go crazy. What was previously associated with terrible things (from the flu to any big pandemic), is now one of the most desired traits for marketers.

I have some news for you: viral isn’t necessarily a good thing.

The key for highly shared content (I like this one better) is to create things that people are genuinely interested in, with no hidden motive, only because they want to educate, entertain or create bonds. We have all seen cases of brands creating something just to cash in on the virality, trying too hard, and getting terrible feedback from it.

The main goal of creating content isn’t fast fame and a short-lived peak of visits, it’s to keep people coming back to your site because they like what you do.

Post all the time, or you will be forgotten

Posting frequency is essential to be seen by your audience. You can’t expect to share one update per month and wait for the RT’s to come out of thin air. But, this doesn’t mean that you have to shower your audience’s timeline with new posts every five minutes. This will definitely lead you to their spam folder.

Look at your analytics and search for trends in your audience. If there’s a big influx on Tuesday at 9a.m., by all means, post at that time to increase the odds that you will be seen. Platforms like Buffer even suggest the best time to share your content, and encourage you to schedule your content at that time.

You can write about anything

This one gets both a yes and a no. Not every topic, in its pure form, is suitable for every brand. Let’s say you have a mobile tech site, and you’re secretly passionate about puppy and kitten cams because baby animals are cute, and people love clicking on them. Maybe writing about pets is boring for your audience; but how about a roundup of cases featuring pets? Or an article about the best tech for your dog? As long as we don’t lose the focus of our main strategy and it doesn’t look forced, you can take elements from almost anything and apply them to your brand.

However, it’s important to determine which subjects are off-limits to avoid harmful controversy and the wrong type of attention. Some current events, such as politics and religion, may be too heavy for most brands. Steer clear from them.

In conclusion

Whether you’re implementing your first content marketing strategy, or you’ve already had some experience, it’s important to review your perspective and make sure that you’re not making mistakes based on outdated rules. Taking calculated risks and focusing on the audience are key factors for content marketing success, so we invite you to get out of your marketing comfort zone and go all in.

19 Aug 2016

Sticky Post By Samuel Klein Posted in Uncategorized Permalink

How to Avoid the Pitfalls of Clickbait

Sticky Post By Samuel Klein On August 19, 2016

We’ve all been there: scrolling through our social media feed, we see an article with the headline “You won’t believe what happened to this couple…” or “TRUMP DID IT AGAIN, his craziest statement yet!”, or our favorite vlogger releases a new video titled “Big Announcement!! We’re so Excited!!”. 99.9% of the times, the actual content left us deflated and underfed.

Yes, it’s clickbait. Just as fish are attracted to a cute-colored bait or moving worm, we find it hard to resist clicking on these enticing headlines, as part of our social media routine. Unfortunately, more clickbait in our news feed means there’s less space for content that actually matters. Facebook knows this and recently announced they’re implementing a new system to detect clickbait-like posts and reduce their appearance on users’ news feed.

What makes clickbait so popular?

It’s simple: curiosity! We experience this when we channel-surf without anything in mind and end up watching a random program in a foreign channel, or when we fall down the well known Wikipedia k-hole. Maybe we’re waiting in line in our lunch break, or just relaxing at home, phone in hand, an article pops up and we click it, tempted by the headline.

Many sites live and thrive on offering clickbait, which makes it harder for genuine content to be seen by our target audiences. What’s worse, some marketers might feel tempted to copy these sites, only focusing on getting more visits to their brands’ sites and higher SEO ranks. However, the end result will be cheap content that will be ineffective in the long run, generate the wrong type of conversations and lead to poor sales and lack of loyalty.

How can marketers stop from falling into this trap?

Creating and spreading shareable content, such as blog posts, are the most important duties within content marketing. However, this doesn’t mean we must rely on cheap tricks to get our audience’s attention and get easy, empty shares. Below, we share some tips to generate good content, no bait needed:

Don’t Deceive the Audience: Deceit is a cardinal sin in marketing. Maybe playing with it in a headline sounds less dangerous than blatant false advertising, but it plants the seed of distrust in your audience, and they may turn away in the long term. Setting the wrong expectations or omitting crucial information are examples of deceitful headlines.

Thou shalt not steal: Pablo Picasso once said “Good artists copy, but great artists steal”, but blatantly using other people’s posts for your own clickbait purposes isn’t well received. Know how to separate between curating other people’s content, and sharing it with proper credit, and coping ad litteram other people’s Reddit post because of writer’s block.

Substance over style: Fun pictures and bullet points can’t make up for terribly written content. Fun content doesn’t have to be cheesy, just as educational content doesn’t have to be bland. Take time to build content that’s worth sharing, and engagement will rise in the long term.

On Facebook’s press release about their strategy on clickbait, they referred to a guide on their Best Practices section, on how to attract audiences without the use of clickbait. It can serve as a guide for content writers to generate better headlines and witness good arguments against the use of digital bait.

In conclusion

With millions upon millions of new content being shared every day, marketers work hard to ensure theirs isn’t lost in the noise and reaches its intended audience. Even though taking shortcuts with clickbait might seem like the easy way into our audience’s feeds, it reduces the brand’s credibility and ends up having the opposite effect of what we intended. There are much better ways to catch our target’s attention and gain their trust.

Tell us in the comments, do you agree with Facebook’s attack on clickbait?