The best strategy and tips for growing your Instagram reach and engagement

I’m going to start this off with an assumption: that we all want more followers, more reach, and more engagement on Instagram. Because, well…why wouldn’t you? More followers and more engagement mean better results overall for your business – and perhaps, even more sales as a result. [si_guide_block id="82119" title="Download FREE Resource – 10 common social media marketing mistakes guide" description="Our actionable guide to avoiding common social media marketing mistakes to help you avoid the pitfalls that limit engagement with your target audience."/] The ‘trick’ to creating a winning Instagram growth strategy is to, quite simply, actually create a strategy – and stick to it. Forget posting just for the sake of it. In this blog, I’m going to give you best tips that will help you improve your Instagram growth strategy: from how to use hashtags strategically…

How to integrate Email and Facebook to achieve marketing success

Despite the infamous belief that email is dead, any other marketing channel is unable to boast of the tremendous 3800% ROI that email keeps bringing to those who practice this marketing channel in a proper way. Analyzing from where the rumors about the dying email usually arrive, the social media come to mind as a logical assumption. Indeed, many may recognize the social media as a direct and more powerful competitor of email. Such a misconception is grounded in the fundamental confusion of different roles both channels play in communication with customers. Is the effective fusion instead of confusion possible in order to benefit from both marketing tools? Yes, it is definitely possible after the “labor division” of email and socials is comprehended.

Email and Facebook - not twins but brothers

Comparing email with Facebook, for instance, every marketer should clearly understand that…

Chart of the Day: What is digital strategy?How many in business simply see digital as equalling IT?

Helping businesses create and implement digital marketing strategies is one of our main aims at Smart Insights. While it's straightforward for us as marketers to define digital marketing strategy in terms of different digital communications to support goals of increasing online leads and sales, defining digital strategy is more difficult. The reason is that for many business managers 'digital' is still often simply taken to mean 'technology' or IT. I was reminded of this limited understanding of 'digital' in the wider business when reviewing this PwC report on organizational Digital IQ, now in its 10th year. In this report survey, respondents are IT managers, CIOs and general business managers. This visual shows how businesses struggle to define 'digital' in a consistent way. When asked to select from one definition of digital, these were the…

25 of the best and the worst Christmas adverts from 2017, with reviews from the Smart Insights team

The battle for the most popular Christmas advert is underway. It has been reported that UK companies will spend an estimated £5.6bn on marketing in the run-up to Christmas. While prime television spots alone are expected to attract a spend of £1.3bn. From Tescos to John Lewis we cover the best and the worst of Christmas adverts for 2017.

Marks & Spencer

Marks and Spencer have used a well-known character, Paddington bear, as part of their Christmas advert this year. They have launched a fully integrated campaign using the hashtag, #LoveTheBear, accompanied by its own paw emoji. The campaigns' aim according to M&S’s Marketing Director, Patrick Bousquet-Chavanne was: 'We have to break through that mood of the nation, which is why the campaign plays into something much warmer and more heartfelt. As we see every year,…

Pinterest is a platform for sharing visual content. So, to expand awareness and reach of your brand, the quality of your visual content is the key to success on Pinterest.

Pinterest is for creative marketers! By making sure your content is imaginative, eye-catching, interesting and useful, you will be able to reach out to expand your audience and keep them interested. In this article, there are some basics of managing integration with other channels and SEO that we will cover at the foundation of expanding reach. A few headline statistics about Pinterest: 70 million users from the US 80 million users outside of the US 81% of Pinterest users are actually Females 40% of New Signups are Men; 60% New Signups are Women. Median age of a Pinterest user is 40, however majority of active pinners are below 40 There are over 75 billion ideas on Pinterest 87% of Pinners have purchased a product…

10 CEOs share sales and marketing alignment tips through Account-Based Marketing

Sales and marketing alignment is one of the secrets to the success of any business. According to a recent study published by Celsius International, companies with sales and marketing teams that are aligned with each other have a 67% success rate in closing sales. Additionally, having an aligned sales and marketing team can help your business generate revenue 32% times faster than those that don't have an alignment.

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Despite the fact that companies recognize the need for sales and marketing alignment, the reality is that a lot of B2B companies struggle with this. In fact, 90% of B2B marketers admitted that aligning with the company's sales team…

Chart of the Day: Importance of video in digital marketing

As marketers find newer, more creative ways to attract audiences, video usage is becoming a key scope of interest for revenue growth. Video is no longer considered a niche skill or category when trying to expand the types of content that your company can produce. The costs and skills required for video production have gone down tremendously in the past years, making it a highly efficient way of communicating your brand’s story. Alongside the power of visuals, videos can also be used to create an engaging narrative that not only draws the audience in but also helps build relationships with your consumers and prospects. “The State of Video Marketing 2017” study reported that for the fourth consecutive year, over 90% of participants have said that video is becoming more and more important as a form of marketing content. …

Effective experiential campaigns produce ongoing engagement between customer and brand, and social media is a key component in fortifying long-term consumer loyalty

If there’s one thing Millennials have taught us, it’s that people no longer want to view content passively. They want to engage moment to moment, creating their own content and enjoying intimate interactions with their favorite personalities. In short, they crave experiences.

Instagram reacted by launching its Stories feature in 2016, offering a way for people to share their experience with a more seamless alternative to Snapchat’s popular story feature. The two companies have been battling it out since then, though a 2017 study found Instagram is currently the preferred platform for popular influencers.

 

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How to hire an amazing editor and save your brand from embarrassing gaffes and find your content groove

In today's fast-moving world of internet publishing, speed often wins over accuracy. While it may seem we're all getting more lenient with typos, misspellings, and obvious grammatical mistakes, the truth is that our mistakes are still noticed. Individual customer impressions matter, and, if the mistakes go viral, they could have a more amplified negative brand effect than ever before. Just ask the poor brands that ended up on this unfortunate countdown list full of "eggregious" mistakes "thier" surely not proud of. Hiring an editor brings about a host of benefits, including a reduction in writing and grammatical mistakes and an increase in high-quality content. Most brands and agencies don’t have an editor, but how many can say they haven’t missed spelling or grammatical errors? It’s not a 'nice' to have; it’s a must-have. [si_guide_block id="85104" title="Download…

Chart of the Day: Retail searches will surpass 60% mobile this year

A recent report by Marler Haley shows sale and Black Friday statistics for search trends in the UK, detailing the rise in mobile searches and the implications for retailers – both B2C and B2B. For peak UK retail related searches in November and December 2017, the use of mobile to conduct these searches will surpass 60%, showing how important a mobile-first strategy is for retailers. However, the study also suggests that a mobile-first approach isn’t as vital for B2B retailers, where mobile search trends vary between 10-30% and show a much slower growth.

Mobile-first for B2C

The findings, published by Marler Haley suggest that UK mobile search trends for consumer-related searches ‘sale’ and ‘Black Friday’ will surpass 60% by the end of the…