Say goodbye to wannabe influencers, fake likes and spammy comments
Getting likes and comments have become more important than ever, due to the rise of social media influencers. Without large followings or the substantial amount of likes per post, they are no longer influential to their followers or brands.
Instagram has been shutting down third-party sites and apps like Instagress, InstaPlus, and PeerBoost. Apps such as these have been violating Instagram’s Community Guidelines and Terms of Use.
Hundreds of apps are still out there for you to download and increase your following by paying for likes. Often they function by charging for likes or for every post you like you gain coins to spend on more likes.
Although likes can be a good indicator of whether or not a user is popular, don't be fooled. These apps help…
3 essential social media measurement questions, answered
Do Likes, Comments and Shares have value?
Numbers of likes, comments, shares are often dismissed as vanity metrics that lack real business impact. That’s true to an extent, but don’t be fooled! For some organisations - especially in B2B marketing - these metrics can be strong indicators of success or failure.
Most organisations just need to put these metrics into context, i.e. analyse their engagement rate and benchmark over time, or against competitors. And, of course, not all engagements are equal – Facebook comments, shares and tags, for example, are worth far more than Likes - as they drive stories in the newsfeed and can also act as valuable recommendations.
How should we approach reach/impressions and engagement rate?
Most of us want to know many people we reached and how many of those engaged with our content. But these metrics also offer a valuable quality check on…
Mapping the customer journey more accurately using surveys
In today’s highly competitive market, where product quality is not sufficient to get ahead, customer service becomes a key part of a company’s strategy. Consequently, the organization which successfully maintains the best relationship with its customers manages the best returns in terms of income.
As a result, companies have placed a new focus on understanding their customers in order to better their service, product or image. One of the main tools they use is the customer journey map.
A customer journey map, usually represented in a graphic and visual manner, is an interpretation of the entire experience that an individual has with a company, product or brand over time.
Mapping Out the Journey
Mapping out the interactions and experiences a customer has with a certain brand or product is only half the work that a customer journey map involves. After identifying all of the stages, from the…
Use tools that predict conversations before they happen — then leverage the information to create meaningful conversations
It’s becoming clear that the future of marketing will be built around conversations. Technology, after all, has made everything somewhat social. But with the all-powerful consumer controlling conversations, how do brands get a word in edgewise?
The answer can be summed up in one word: analytics.
There’s an expectation that your brand, like every other brand, has gathered enough information about your customers that you not only know who they are and what they need but also how to speak to them — and in a way, they like to be spoken to, no less.
But many brands miss the mark. Instead of using analytics to learn, experiment, and develop all aspects of business, they get wrapped up in measuring the minutiae. They view analytics as just a means to discuss performance, which can cause them to…
Be proactive not reactive: Five simple steps to protect your brand reputation from future cyber attacks
On Friday 12th May, a global coordinated ransomware 'attack' began, affecting thousands of large and small private and public sector businesses. The attacks most high-profile victim, the NHS, suffered incredibly by way of operational business functionality, but also by way of business reputation.
Cybersecurity firm Secarma are warning businesses, large and small, that prevention is key to avoiding future attacks, and according to research from the Kaspersky Lab, 90% of businesses underestimate the threat of malware to their business continuity and brand reputation. A cyber attack on a business can be hugely detrimental to the longevity of that business.
According to IBM, small and mid-sized organisations are hit by 62% of all cyber-attacks, and unfortunately, the US' National Cyber Security Alliance reported that 60% of small businesses are unable to sustain their…
A case study in how to reduce the time spent preparing and deploying brand emails.
Most ecommerce retailers run a permutation of some or all of the following platforms and systems; ecommerce software, CMS, CRM and each of them store valuable data about their customers or products. This data can and should be leveraged in your marketing endeavors. Today, we’ll let you know how fashion retailer Brandshop did just that using the ExpertSender platform.
Brandshop is a Russian multi-channel (online and offline) fashion retailer that sells a wide range of products from over 100 world famous brands, including clothing, accessories, footwear, and beauty products.
Problem: Brandshop wanted to save their marketing team some serious time in the email creative creation process. They wanted to find a way to make use of their extensive website content library within their email campaigns to drive sales…
Optimize the forms on your website to maximize your revenue opportunities
Usability Testing forms a massive part of the User Experience Research we carry out, so naturally, we observe a lot of forms being filled out!
With the amount of time we all spend form filling online you'd think that creating an easy-to-use form would be a 'piece of cake'. Sadly, it's not and there are plenty of substandard forms out there preventing users from getting what they want.
Here are six mistakes that you can avoid to ensure your forms contribute to a positive experience for your customer’s, rather than hindering them from making a purchase (let’s be honest, no one wants that!).
1. Think before you ask
Customers see the data they enter online as an exchange - they give you information and you give them what they want. But if that balance is off and it's not clear why you need the…
A short tutorial and example showing how to track your email marketing campaigns by tagging links in your email with Google Analytics
I was prompted to write this how-to post since some email marketers I speak to during Email Marketing training courses, use Google Analytics, but weren't aware it can be used for email tracking "beyond the click". This means that as well as getting reporting in your email marketing system on opens and clicks for your sends, you can also isolate visits from email in your Google Analytics to see which pages are viewed and whether visitors convert.To set this up email tracking you will need to tag your email with 'Google Analytics campaign tracking codes as explained later with the example in this article.
Once you're using tracking, Google Analytics segments can be used to isolate visitors referred from email to understand their preferences and behaviours. This really helps prove the value of…
Localization means more than just translation, you must adapt to meet your audience's needs
Selling to a worldwide audience at first might seem like the ideal way to increase your profits, but if you don’t get your messaging right you could end up talking your way out of increased revenue.
Retail E-commerce sales reached 7.4% of all retail sales in 2016, and is set to continue rising for the foreseeable future. It is predicted to increase to over $4 trillion by 2020, making up 15% of all retail spending globally; much of this percentage comes from international sales. Currently the UK holds the highest percentage of online shoppers at 15.4% of all retail sales, followed by China (13.8%), Norway (11.5%) and Finland (10.8%), and the leading destination for those sales is the United States, followed by China, the UK and Germany. By 2020, nearly…
A how-to guide for campaign reporting with examples
One of the most important (but often overlooked) aspects of digital marketing is setting up your analytics properly. It’s a little bit technical but easy to do once you understand a few simple steps and see why it’s so important.
Being able to track where your visitors are coming from is a valuable opportunity to improve your engagement and your ROI during the campaign. Additionally, when you benchmark your campaign performance you will be able to improve your campaigns in the future, and budget more effectively. It’s worth investing a little time in analytics!
In this post, we’ll show you how to use Google Analytics to track visits to your website or landing page. This is the critical first step in being able to understand how your campaign is performing.
Once you can accurately see where your visitors are coming from, you’ll be able to build more…
