Hosting Facebook Contests | Top Tips For More User Engagement

With more than two billion users and 70 million Business Pages, to say that there’s a lot of activity on Facebook is truly an understatement. The amount of time people spend on social media, in general, has increased due to the convenience brought on by mobile innovation.

“Teens now spend up to nine hours a day on social platforms, while 30% of all time spent online is now allocated to social media interaction. And the majority of that time is on mobile – 60% of social media time spent is facilitated by a mobile device. Brands are jumping into social media with social media ad spend expected to reach $36 billion in 2017,” this is according to a post by Evan Asano.

Given these numbers, how can your brand stand out from the crowd?

Why Invest Time In Facebook Contests?

Content marketers say interactive content such as polls, contests, and quizzes grabs readers’ attention more effectively than static content, or those that are plain and one-dimensional read. Which is why it isn’t surprising at all that many SEO marketers invest in interactive content.

On Facebook, an engaging Facebook contest can be an effective way to capture attention and support the business goals. But before you start checking out what type of promo should you try, take note of these important rules.

The Don’ts of Hosting a Contest on Facebook

• Don’t run a contest on your personal Timeline since only business pages can be used for any type of contest.
• Don’t encourage sharing the contest to gain extra entries since using “friend connections” to administer contests is prohibited on the site.
• “Tag your friends in this post to enter” is specifically prohibited. Facebook is clear about this rule.

The Do’s of Running a Successful Facebook Contest

• Be sure to comply with all applicable laws and regulations, it has to be legal.
• Make it clear that you are offering the contest, and that it is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with your website.

For an in-depth explanation on Facebook Pages Terms, read through their site article.

Best Ideas And Example Guide

Here are some of the best ideas that have worked for many brands on the site. Take time to learn about them before running a promotional offer!

Photo Caption

It’s a simple but equally effective method. Start by choose a compelling photo or graphic that supports your business goals (brand awareness or increase in following, for example). Then, encourage people to post a caption idea in the comments. Picking the winners can be done by you, or stipulate whichever entry gets the most Likes wins.

Like or Comment to Win

Whether it’s ‘Like to Win’, Comment to Win’, or ‘Like and Comment to Win’, this type of contest is among the easiest promo to run. And since they’re so easy to enter, this type of contest can elicit a lot of fan participation. Simply share a photo, video, or link to set the dice rolling. Don’t forget to state the rules in every post, what the prize is, and a clear call to action.

Knowledge-Testing Question or Trivia

By asking the audience to answer a relevant question, you can gauge their level of knowledge or understanding about your industry or product. This is especially helpful when talking to potential customers about your product or service offers in the future. It’s also a good way to direct those people to your website who may have never visited before. And trivia questions can be used to highlight the features or benefits of your product.

User-Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) is exactly as is, the content is generated by users. Then offer a prize to fans who post great photos or other content. Using this type of contest largely helps in generating engagement on your Page, and it gives you a rich supply of material to re-post yourself over time, which is like hitting two birds with one stone.

By acquainting yourself with the different kinds of promos, offers, contests, and other audience-engaging stunts, you got more marketing tools up in your sleeve which you can make use of anytime, in any occasion or purpose.

Hosting Facebook Contests | Top Tips For More User Engagement

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What Is Content Curation And Why Should Brands Start Doing It?

Have you ever reposted a quote you saw on your feed? Or used a line from a recent read to represent your mood for the day? What about quoting from a movie you watched recently? We’re all guilty of sharing someone else’s lines or a portion of some post when updating our own social media status at least once. Heck, it’s pretty much the essence of social media!

This is a habit practiced by many to express their thoughts, to say what’s on their mind but couldn’t put into words, or to simply stay relevant in social media. This act is so commonly done not everyone realizes its true impact. Why so? Because experts call this practice content curation.

What Is Content Curation?

While content marketing is about getting material out to strengthen your brand, curation is about finding something that stands out online instead of creating something new. This strategy could help you lessen the amount of time you spend creating posts from scratch. Constantly coming up with new things to write about, while still keeping up with the demands of a business, takes a lot of creative juice… and sometimes one might not have enough time to do so.

But Why Do Brands Need To Start Curating?

• It lessens the work. When you’re too occupied with SEO marketing strategies for your business, you might not have the time to make enough fresh content to do the subject justice.
• It adds fresh variation. When you talk about a subject, that’s one thing. But to quote from someone else… then yet some other person… now you have a very valid point substantiated by others. Now you really look like an expert!
• It shows that you’re involved. If you post the latest trends in the industry from time to time, it could show your engagement is at a deeper level. It gives you and your business a sense of relevancy to the latest news within the industry.
• It paves way to better connections. Curating the content of bigger names could help you connect with the leaders in your industry, which means bigger opportunity for more connections. It could also trigger conversation with your social media audience in general.

How To Effectively Curate

First, you’ll need to figure out the topics you want to search for, and once you find the right material, decide what you want to share. Start asking questions like: Is it relevant to my brand? Is the source trustworthy? Will it offer fresh and unique ideas to the readers? Is it entertaining or engaging?

Keep these question in mind when finding the right content to share in your social account or blog post. Also, think about the so-called ‘Social Media Rule of Thirds’ – One third of what you share should be brand promotion, one third should be curated content, and the remaining one third should be about the conversations that are happening on social.

What Is Content Curation And Why Brands Should Start Doing It

Consider These Best Practices and Start Curating Like a Pro

• Read. Watch. Listen. Out of the many things you can find online, make sure to check and validate them before sharing.
• Relevancy. Even if it’s most talked about on social, if it’s irrelevant to your brand, skip it. Look through the next material.
• Trustworthiness. Only use materials that are from trusted sources. There’s no way around it.
• Personalize. Though the content isn’t yours, add a personal touch to it. Tell the audience how it might interest them.
• Prioritize. The most important of all, ensure that the material is either interesting, entertaining, or useful to your audience. It won’t work if it doesn’t catch your audiences’ attention.
• Credit. Put credit to where credit is due. Don’t forget to mention the source and tag them in the post whenever possible.

Check out this list of tools before you curate you next post.

Curating content is a fresh way to bring in ideas similar to your brand’s philosophy. It might seem like taking the time to go find curatable content wouldn’t be worth the effort, but as you can see, the amount of benefits both you and your audience receives clearly makes it worth it.

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10 Awesome Free Stock Photo Sites Worth Checking Out

Going online is the probably the easiest way to look for visual content you need to post on your website. With just a few clicks, in a short time span you can find the just the right stock pictures for your post. Choose from thousands of pictures readily downloadable from iStock Photo and other major photo sites as beautiful as all of them are, not all of them however, are free.

But did you know that there are two major types of stock photographs you can find online? Let’s go get to know them, shall we?

Rights Managed (RM) Stock Photography. Though we’re talking about stock photographs, there will be a lot of factors going into the price of this type of image. The final price will depend on factors like usage, duration of the campaign, media, location, print run, size, exclusivity, and industry type. For this reason, RM photos cost more, but are often of higher quality.

Royalty-Free (RF) Stock Photography. Royalty-free doesn’t mean completely cost-free. It simply means the pictures don’t have ongoing royalty fees and can be purchased for a one-time, fixed price. These can be used multiple times, however, there are usually limits to the number of times these image can be reproduced.

Sites That Offer Free Stock Photos

Fortunately, there are several noteworthy sites out there where you can find high-quality images that are free to use when creating your next post or improving your SEO marketing campaign. These sites offer an array of different images that could be perfect for your next post.

1. Gratisography

Photographer Ryan McGuire has a quirky style when taking shots. His images are high-resolution and ready for use anytime. The site is well-organized in a number of categories such as nature, objects, people, urban, animals, etc.

2. Pixabay

There are over 490,000 images and videos for both personal and commercial use available in Pixabay. Every picture is royalty-free and is covered under Creative Commons, which means they can be modified and commercially used either in print or online.

3. IM Free

IM Free is a very interesting stored images website. The visuals are a curated collection of different categories from Flickr, all for commercial use. The pictures which are royalty-free organized by themes such as technology, education, and nature. The site also provides templates, button makers, icons, and so much more.

4. Unsplash

Via an email subscription and on their website, Unsplash offers 10 new photos every 10 days. All photos are licensed under Creative Commons Zero which means the copying, modification, distribution, and use of the photos are totally free.

5. Picjumbo

Picjumbo is a popular resource for social media images with over 5,427,891 downloads since it launched in 2013. It offers over 600 high resolution photos or a downloadable pack that includes all images as well as three Photoshop mockups in exchange for a donation of $10.

6. Stockvault

There are over 35,000 royalty-free images, graphics, and designs from photographers, designers, and students around the world hosted in this website. In the Free Stock Photos tab, anyone has access to a huge library of photos to use on social media.

7. Morguefile

Created in 1996, Morguefile offers photographs to be used in creative projects. The website isn’t strict on giving credit to the photographers or artists when their images are being used. It’s a great resource for all types of online posts.

8. Fancycrave

Fancycrave aims to provide emotionally driven images that tell a story. Two new images from professional photographers are loaded in the website everyday. It’s easy to navigate and they are known for stocking colorful and vibrant nature images.

9. RawPixel

RawPixel is known for having the most diverse collection of pictures around the web. They are trying to change the face of stock photography by starting the world face project that aims to photograph people from every nation in the world.

10. New Old Stock

Ever need a vintage photo and just struggle looking for them online? This is a great site that has curated hundreds of public domain vintage photographs that, to their knowledge, is free of royalties or copyrights.

9 Awesome Free Stock Photo Sites Worth Checking Out

You may also check these other free stock photography sites:

• StockSnap
• Startup Stock Photos
• Splitshire
• Life of Pix
• Pexels
• Jay Mantri
• ISO Republic

You can also check this page for more tips on finding the right image for your content.

So as you can see, running into any mental blocks when trying to come up with the perfect photo for your post or newsletter won’t be a problem any more! Bookmark this page so you always have it as a resource to thousands of free-to-use images online!

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5 Great Reasons Why Images Can Boost Your Posts

In an age where snapping captivating photos can happen in a millisecond, images now hold the ace card in terms of engaging viewers. People are drawn to look at images of other people online as much as they love taking photos of themselves. Stilled moments caught on a digital camera and displayed online are seen by SEO marketers as one of the most powerful tools to engage target audiences.

Based on the latest statistic, “Top brands on Instagram are seeing a per-follower engagement rate of 4.21% which is 58 times higher than on Facebook and 120 times higher than on Twitter.”

Another statistic post shows us that:

• 74% of social media marketers use visual assets in their social media marketing, ahead of blogs (68%) and videos (60%).
• 37% of marketers said visual marketing was the most important form of content for their business, second only to blogging (38%).
• When people hear information, they’re likely to remember only 10% of that information three days later. However, if a relevant image is paired with that same information, people retained 65% of the information three days later.

These numbers are proof that visually captivating images can boost your posts. But what makes them so effective?

Why Are Images So Effective in Marketing?

#1 They Create Brighter, More Appealing Posts

A picture compels viewers to read and creates a positive first impression about the post. When your page is just a block of boring text, it appears dull and lifeless, and visitors will mostly likely just leave the website without reading a word. Visually attractive posts give a sense of connection with the readers. And that connection is what you need to engage your audience, either through liking or sharing the post, or by following your site.

#2 They Create Better Page Structure

It’s easier to divide a whole block of text into several sections with the use of pictures. Divided texts with visually stunning pictures are far more inviting and relaxing to read versus a plain looking blog. Too much text to read scares people away. It gives a sense of intense reading which is less interesting (or uninteresting at all) to visitors.

#3 They Give a Sense of Having Longer Posts

There are some posts that do not need a lot of writing, and some are far more informative with the use of images. This is especially true for social media sites like Instagram and Pinterest. If a post is titled “15 Kitchen Designs For Your New Home”, wouldn’t it make more sense if you show a gallery of unique kitchen designs than paint the pictures with words then expect the readers to have a creative mind? It’s just too much work for you and especially for most readers.

For more tips on effective Instagram marketing, check out this page.

#4 They Simplify Complex Information

If your topics are mostly technical with heavy use of jargon, bare words are usually not enough, especially for non-tech-savvy users. Or if you love writing about rare animals or plants, adding photos of these rare species help readers understand the complexity of the information you’re throwing at them. As much as possible, simplify the information through informative visuals.

#5 They Give Better Social Media Exposure

When users scroll through their mobile phones, only a few of them will pay attention to posts without images. Images also win more space for your post in a long list of content feed, thus your post don’t get lost so easily. Also, there are users who are fond of sharing a page when they feel a special connection to it, even without actually reading what it’s about. To this day, social media is just dull without interesting visuals so make sure yours stand out!

5 Valid Reasons Why Images Can Boost Your Posts

Additional Reasons To Add Pictures

If the first 5 reasons weren’t enough, images:

• Support your statements.
• Help create memorable stories.
• Increase your chances of better ranking in search engines.
• And images make your pages look more professional.

Today when we post, share, tweet things all day long, images do speak a thousand words, share a thousand feelings, evoke a thousand emotions. Make sure you help your audience connect with you by always including at least one image in every post you make.

 

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The Key Ingredients To A Powerful Social Video Content

Marketing videos were perceived to be the next big thing in social marketing, but that’s already a thing of the past. Social videos have now taken social media platforms into a different wavelength, reaching far more audiences than a regular block of informative content, and engaging more viewers to like, share or repost brand-initiated videos.

According to Wyzowl 2016 statistics:

• 88% of businesses say that video is an important part of their marketing strategy
• 76% of businesses that used videos believe that it provides a good ROI
• 93% of businesses who use videos believe that it has increased user understanding of their product or service.
• 72% of businesses who used video believe that it has improved the conversion rate of their website.
• 36% of businesses believe that they’ve received less support queries as a result.
• 62% of businesses believe that video has increased the amount of organic traffic they receive.

This trend has progressed rapidly and will reach higher lengths in the years to come. Undoubtedly, it is one of the newest additions to your promotion tool kit. But you might still have doubts regarding the effectiveness of this type of marketing. Is it really worth your time to promote your business through this means? Will it be as effective for you own business, as it did for competitors?

4 Of The Best Ingredients For A Content-Rich Video

Short 60 Seconds

Nearly two-thirds of consumers prefer to watch videos under 60 seconds. Attention spans are short and you want to keep viewers engaged, therefore keeping yours in between 30 and 90 seconds long is ideal. Here’s a few ways to ensure you hold the audience’s attention:

• Keep the word count to a minimum if your video includes text. Viewers should be watching what it’s about not reading through it.
• Use numbered lists or bullets to keep people engaged. This helps make the content easy to follow.
• Get the right pacing. Not too slow, not too fast.

Optimize Based On The Platform Needs

The goal is to deliver the best experience. Where will you post the video? Facebook? Instagram? Or YouTube? Will it be viewed in a laptop or on mobile phones? Here’s how you can nail it.

• Consider mobile views first. 65% of video views happen on mobile devices, so think mobile first.
• Assume people watch without sound. Make the content speak for itself without the need for sounds.
• Use the recommended aspect ratio or the square aspect ratio (1:1) since this size is compatible with most platform.

Descriptive Texts or Subtitles

Silent viewers make up most of the viewers, since most of these people are on the move, in public places, or in areas where loud sounds can be considered a nuisance. Here’s how you can make a silent 60-seconds short video:

• Subtitles matter. Without sounds, subtitles will help viewers follow your content without listening to it.
• Include description. Users must know the context of the video to give them more reason to watch it. Or if they need to watch it with the sound on.

Clear Call To Action Sets Things In Motion

Call To Action or CTA ensures that engagement doesn’t stop after the video is over. It guides viewers to the next step, whether to go to the homepage, the product landing page, or the Contact Us page. Here’s how to create an effective CTA:

• Use actionable terms. The audience should know what to do after taking in the content. Use terms like learn more, find out, or discover.
• Put out a clear value proposition. If you want viewers to take the bait, give them something to valuable.
• No business jargon. Keep it simple, straightforward, and actionable.

The Key Ingredients To A Powerful Social Video Content

Like most SEO marketing campaigns, combining all these effective ingredients and you’re on your way to brewing an engaging, actionable content.

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3 Signs That Tell You Need Multiple Social Marketing Accounts

Managing multiple social media accounts for marketing, lead generation, and traffic drive may be a strenuous job. Jumping from one account to another can be tiresome and there will come a time where an internet marketer gets tired of jumping between tools. In this post, we will discuss the Pros and Cons in managing multiple pages, and why having more might be necessary for your business.

The Pros and Cons Of Social Media Marketing

All internet marketing efforts do not necessarily lead to success, often times it is a trial and error method to test out which tactics work in generating leads from the targeted audience. Now, find out the advantages and disadvantages of having multiple accounts for your business campaigns.

Advantages

Grouped Audiences. By using different pages, you can talk to various types of audiences. There’s no need to limit your content to maintain a balance so you can reach out to everyone. This is especially helpful to businesses that service both the company and the customers.

Specific Topics. There are brands that tackle different topics. Take National Geographic as an example. Nat Geo is one account, and then it has sub pages like Nat Geo Wild and Nat Geo People, which discusses different topics to different target audience. While all of the branch accounts feed into the parent account’s posts, audiences are still given the freedom to follow their preferred topic.

Location-Specific Service. Multi-location companies which serve unique needs in their individual local store may find multiple social accounts easier to manage.

Disadvantages

Customer Confusion. There is a big risk of dividing your audiences instead of embracing a bulk number of potential leads. Multiple accounts may confuse visitors, specifically, which account should they follow? The main business page or the account they care about?

Additional Work. If you lack the resources to handle the extra work brought by different accounts, then this is definitely not suited for your marketing needs.

For additional marketing tips, visit www.neovora.com/

Do You Really Need More Than One Social Media Account?

Whether you’re a one man team, a group of marketers, or an agency; consider these signs that might prompt you to create more accounts for the business.

#1 Customer Support Invades Your Feed

An online analysis shows that Millennials are most likely to voice out their concern on social platforms. Approximately 59% of Millennials say they’d use social to address an issue, and the remaining 51% say in-person interactions as their most likely choice. Moreover, a study shows that 42 percent of consumers complaining in online platforms expect 60 minute response time.

If your feed is mostly about customer support or if you find that addressing complaints and issues is taking up the majority of your account’s post, you may benefit from starting a separate support account.

#2 Essential Automated Posts

Automated posts, for followers and users, often equate to shadiness and unworthy of trust. This can be damaging to a brand’s image in so many different levels. But there are instances when automated posts can come helpful. This is generally true for topics like technical updates, weather alerts or content curation.

There are accounts solely intended for server updates and service statuses. What’s important is it will be made clear what the account is for and a link to the customer support, or the main account will be included in the bio. This will give users a clear idea which account to check for updates and where to go when in need of customer assistance.

#3 Multiple Departments or Locations

Brands, service businesses, and companies or institutions that have multiple departments, or operate in multiple locations, can benefit from having separate social accounts. The audience is given the liberty to follow the page that serves their interest and will have access to the right information. It’s also ideal for promoting better targeted ads.

A localized site is often perceived to generate more leads, drawing local customers in. This is why Google is adamant in localizing searches for the sole purpose of providing convenience and better search results to every user.

There are many reasons to consider when adding new social accounts into your list. In the end, you want to make sure you’re doing this for the right reason, and not because your competitor is doing it. Once you’ve made the decision, plan it out thoroughly and leave a little margin for error. For similar informative blogs, visit the Neovora homepage.

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5 Social Media Marketing Habits To Drop

Social media is a fast growing, fast moving platform. What’s hot on Monday morning could become old and irrelevant Thursday night. The attention given to a viral post today could be directed to another tomorrow.

The Time website listed viral videos with the most views in 2016. Number two on the list was Piko Taro’s Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen. Who didn’t feel the urge to dance along the upbeat instrumentals and repetitive lyrics? Who hasn’t watched the 12-year old Ukelele player, Grace VanderWaal, who got a golden buzzer on her America’s Got Talent audition? Or Adele’s Carpool Karaoke who showcased her legendary vocals while driving through the English streets?

The fame these videos gained lasted for several days, or up until the next viral video came out. Given how fleeting this kind of fame is, as a marketing strategist for your brand, how can you trigger a lasting interest in your target audience? Or rather, what you shouldn’t be doing on social media that could potentially scare away leads.

What You Might Be Doing Wrong

Let’s look at what you could avoid doing when you start the engine on your ultimate marketing strategy.

Avoid jumping on every trend.

Many brands often jump into trending topics and popular memes to stay relevant or force themselves into a conversation. Just because it’s popular and people are talking about it doesn’t always mean people will want to hear from you on the topic, especially if it isn’t relevant to your brand or service. It could turn people off and your marketing efforts will fall flat. Always ask yourself this: Is what I’m sharing really relevant to my brand?

Don’t ignore active and responsive audience.

Although social platforms are a great promotional tool, it isn’t just a place where you can promote the best qualities of your business. It’s a social networking platform that encourages a two-way conversation. Use it instead to interact with your followers while promoting your brand. Allocate time for audience engagement, encourage them to share a feedback, and initiate discussions about your business and their experience.

Social accounts shouldn’t be set to ‘private’.

There are still businesses these days who keep private social accounts to secure a brand handle. But people won’t be able to find you this way. Just because they aren’t following you online, it doesn’t mean they aren’t searching you up on Google to see what your social media activity is all about. Plus, private accounts may convey several things – lazy staff, shady transactions, or negative feedback?

Visit the Neovora page for more tips on social marketing.

Automated ‘thank you’ messages sound distant.

Automated messages are a thing of the past. It can come off as impersonal and distant, like getting a marketing email you don’t want in your inbox. And, no one wants to talk to a robot, it doesn’t feel real. People nowadays are always glued to their mobile phones, socializing with the world through the internet. It only takes a seconds to send a quick reply, react to a post or share a post. You can show the same courtesy by sending an actual ‘thank you’ message.

Too many hashtags is a crowd.

Because users can easily find your brand through hashtags, which is especially true in platforms like Instagram and Twitter, one might tend to overuse this marketing effort excessively. Excessive hashtags can give a spammy vibe or cause confusion if you’re using ones that are irrelevant to your post. This could potentially lead to an increase in the wrong kind of followers – mostly robots or people only interested in being followed back. A good move is to have your followers focus on what you’re saying instead of what you’re ‘hashtagging’.

5 Social Media Marketing Habits You Should Stop Doing

There really is no firm rule on the Dos and Don’ts of social media marketing. Although keeping in mind these five habits to drop when outlining your next content, chances of putting out a more effective post is higher, plus the potential for a better response from your audience is greater. Now, start improving those posts and become more effective!

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How To Create A Pinterest Infographic That Bring In Results

Infographics have become a highly effective tool for many brands to promote their business, product line, services, and other general information they want to throw out there for the public to read and take interest in. They are a great means to disseminate information simply because the important points are given emphasis through a compact and concise compilation of information.

For several years now, Infographics have been popular on Pinterest and they continue to drive massive shares and traffic back to websites and blogs.

If this is a social media marketing channel you want for your business, learn how to create effective Infographics that actually bring in results. Is there a specific formula to creating a visually stunning and equally effective informative visual graphics? What should be included in the post?

5 Effective Components That Actually Works

Sophia Bernazzani wrote: “According to BuzzSumo, articles with an image once every 75-100 words got double the number of social shares as articles with fewer images. More specifically, infographics are shared three times more than other types of content.”

Additionally, she said, “images are the second most popular type of content among viewers of all ages. Furthermore, research shows that website visitors pay attention to information-carrying images more than images that are simply page decoration.”

Now, here are the components for creating an effective infographic:

1. Choose a Popular Topic

The topic of your infographic matters. It really does! Travel and food images do extremely well on Pinterest, given the huge number of users interested in these industries. In Google, there are about 13 million searches on Pinterest for food and about 12 million for travel. And the number of searches in these industries grows each day. However, just because you picked a popular topic doesn’t mean your content will become popular instantly. It has to offer more than just a popular topic. It must have something (or several things) that someone would read and share.

2. Either Be Fun, Challenging, or Informative

An infographic has a clear angle: it’s either to make the audience laugh, answer their questions, help them achieve something, or perhaps, improve their habits. The most common reactions triggered by popular and frequently shared infographics are:

• Funny or Cute – the content made the reader laugh or giggle.
• Challenging – the data presented gave an “I need to do something” feel.
• Useful – it’s informative and useful.
• Motivational – it can motivate the reader to achieve something.
• Interesting – it offers new information and learning.
• Surprising – the content gives a pleasant surprise factor, or something totally unexpected.

3. Simple Informational Infographics Always Work

Aside from selecting a popular topic that will pull people in, your graphic should also make information easy to digest. Users don’t want to get lost into a complex presentation of graphs and charts. Here are a few ways to present simple but informative texts:

• Make a list. A List infographic uses bullet points or number to organize information. They are an easy read and quick to understand.
• Timeline. This is best when outlining events, showing a process, or telling a story.
• Step by step. Closely similar to a List but it’s more on outlining a process which is perfect for DIYs, workout steps, cookbooks, and how-to’s.
• Simple statistics. Although it may contain graphs or charts, it mainly focuses on the key numbers of the statistics with big visuals like icons or logos.

4. Appropriate Fonts Matter

One of the biggest mistakes in creating infographics is using the wrong font. This is especially true for mobile users. If the text font is too difficult to read, people will skip and scroll over the next post. These days, the serif fonts are widely used. Although, this choice is subjective and may not work for all types of information. Choose one that fits the theme of your infographic. Visit http://neovora.com for more marketing tips.

5. Stick To The Brighter Colors

Using the right color is a powerful design element because it helps you convey emotion, add contrast to the design, and create themes. But using the wrong ones can dilute the visuals of the idea you want to convey. For starters, yellow or red shades are a good way to go, but make sure that they’re applicable and sensible to the topic. Greens and oranges are healthy colors, and blues are great for building trust.

Leverage As Many Different Media As You Can To Capture Market Share

Presenting your brand as an authority is critical when building a loyal following. We do this by teaching through various means and channels, especially using vibrant, educational infographics. They aren’t so difficult to make if you follow some guidelines, and if you do them right, your market reach can expand further than you thought possible!

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Boost Your Marketing Creativity With These Top YouTube Tips

YouTube is the one of the largest video sharing and streaming platform in the internet world where millions of videos are being shared every day, by every one, from every where. Viewership of this platform is in the millions each day, and is often the starting point of media assets (and other media content uploaded on the site) to become popular or go viral.

In a statistic post, it shows how wide is its user engagement and audience reach. The statistic shows how influential this platform is and how it has become a part of the everyday lives of its users looking to relax and wind down. Here are a few fun facts about YouTube you shouldn’t miss:

• The total number of people who use YouTube – 1,300,000,000.
• 300 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute!
• Almost 5 billion videos are watched on Youtube every single day.
• It gets over 30 million visitors per day.
• More than half of the views come from mobile devices.
• 6 out of 10 people prefer online video platforms to live TV.
• The total number of hours of video watched each month – 3.25 billion.

How YouTube Boosts Your Creativity

In many ways than one, we all have different platforms to choose from to maximize our marketing efforts. Yet considering the hours spent in video streaming (mostly by mobile users), you shouldn’t miss the chance to test your creativity and how you can persuade audiences to watch your content and possibly subscribe to your channel.

1. Use Keywords To Capture Traffic

Much like the most common SEO marketing strategies, when it comes to YouTube keyword research the process is focused on finding alternative terms to include into the title and description. Although keywords matter in searches, it shouldn’t be the focus of your content. It should help enhance your content.

There are great options powered by Google Suggest to mine keywords. There’s also a useful WordPress plugin that will generate keyword ideas based on Google Auto-Complete right inside your post editing dashboard. Additionally, this plugin can help you come up with video content ideas while composing an article. Learn more about keyword traffic by reading a few of the recent  Neovora blog posts.

2. Create an Eye-Catching Design

Internet users, and especially mobile users, have very little patience. They take less than 2 second to decide if your content is worth waiting for it to load. Therefore, it’s critical that every video design be unique, an attention-grabber, and most specially, it should be interestingly fun. The point here is to not just create likable videos, you also have to aim for more clicks to earn engagement. Fortunately, there are many online resources which make this easier with video creation and editing sites, most of which have free or trial versions.

3. Analyze the Competition

Competition analysis is necessary in any content marketing campaign. By knowing your competition, what works for them, how their campaign differ from yours, and what they do effectively to promote brand awareness and engage viewers. You can also gain content ideas from competitor videos for your next posts, and it wouldn’t hurt to take note of their media assets that aren’t selling to the target audience. http://neovora.com offers more helpful tips on competition analysis.

And don’t forget about the native tools within the your YouTube account that you can use to boost your creativeness. Here are a few you can definitely use:

The Analytics feature – You can monitor the performance of your channel with up-to-date reports and metrics in Analytics. Useful data is available in different reports such as Watch time, Traffic sources, and Demographics.

The Series Playlists – “A series playlist allows you to mark your playlist as an official set of videos that should be viewed together. Adding a video to a series playlist allows other videos in the playlist to be featured and recommended when someone is viewing a video in the series playlist. YouTube may use this information to modify how the videos are presented or discovered,” – taken from the YouTube Help page.

The post Boost Your Marketing Creativity With These Top YouTube Tips appeared first on Neovora.

How Instagram Stories Can Help Increase Audience Reach

How can an Instagram feature which disappears after 24 hours can help increase your audience reach? How can you reach more people when your marketing content just lasts for a day? How will this initiative help introduce your business to new prospects?

“If the Instagram feed has become a place for only the most polished, pre-produced photos and video, then Stories could be a way to add some authenticity to the content that appears in the feed. With Stories, brands have a chance to take their followers on a journey and tell the story behind the posts in their feed. This technique could be used by brands of all sizes and industries too. Imagine seeing a brand new post from Nike featuring a well-known athlete pop up in your Instagram feed, and then being able to go behind the scenes with that athlete directly afterward or even see some exclusive footage of the shoot in their story,” says Ash Read on his recent post.

How Businesses Can Benefit From IG Stories

Instagram Stories is one of those channels that is equally attractive to both regular users and businesses. Whether it’s about sharing fun, lighthearted content, to drive sales traffic, or promote a marketing campaign; it offers fair exposure to your followers, plus a window to maximize this opportunity to increase reach, and eventually customer engagement.

Stories will most likely become an integral part of Instagram. Given that there is high willingness from users to engage and a format that demands user attention, it has:

• High engagement rate with 150 million daily users actively using it. About 15-25% of people who see a Story link will likely swipe up.
• No competition since it takes up a full mobile screen. You’ll have the viewer’s full attention without anything above or below your post to tempt them. And it plays continuously.

You can find more social marketing tips from the most recent Neovora blogs. Now let’s tackle how this feature can benefit your brand.

When Users Create UCG

Encourage viewers to create user-generated content (UGC), which they will share on their own profile, while adding your recommended hashtag. To achieve remarkable results from this strategy, the first Story should be a summary of what the users would like to see. Then share multiple examples of customer images with with your brand in it, while the last slide should contain a call-to-action (CTA) for user to share and create their own content, plus a reminder to attach your brand hashtag.

 

Hashtag Stickers Work

Recently, Instagram released two types of Stickers – hashtag stickers and location stickers. You will be needing a branded hashtag for your business to make this work. Including your brand hashtag in a Story sticker will help you achieve an increase in reach and brand awareness. It encourages viewers to share their own UGC with your branded hashtag.

Users can then click on the hashtag, see all the posts, including yours. That’s an extra boost to your content. When your Story gets featured in the discover section and users click on your hashtag, this will offer stronger introduction to your brand which could lead to them checking out more of your posts and a possible follow.

The post How Instagram Stories Can Help Increase Audience Reach appeared first on Neovora.

4 Social Media Marketing Mistakes You Should Avoid At All Costs

4 Critical Social Media Marketing Mistakes You Shouldn’t Be Making

While social media is changing and providing more conversion opportunities for businesses, not all marketing efforts work. It has been established by online marketers that not all tactics considered as traffic drivers work for every service or product. In fact, media marketers throughout the course of their career have had marketing fails.

A few of the epic social media marketing fails earlier this year have been listed down by entrepreneur.com. The list includes:

United Airlines – The company hasn’t been having a good year. Things started when passengers took (and shared) video of a man being forcibly dragged off a plane by security when he was randomly selected — and declined — to forfeit his seat for airline maintenance workers.

Dove – In its ongoing effort to redefine popular beauty standards, Dove made a controversial move to reshape its shampoo bottles to reflect different body types. To many women, this indirectly confirmed that there was a “best” or “right” body type, after all. The question raised was, Do you choose the bottle that matches your body type?

Adidas – This fail boiled down to a simple – and probably innocent – but very poor choice of words. After this year’s Boston marathon, the company tweeted out, “Congrats, you survived the Boston Marathon!” inadvertently recalling imagery of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

Learn From These Mistakes

The successful growth of any business shouldn’t rely solely on a specific set of strategies. Like most businesses making a name online, pay attention to your metric and determine the best time your target audience is mostly actively engaged with you. Also, it’s important to avoid making these four mistakes or you might lose more prospects rather than gaining leads:

1. Don’t invest time on multiple social media platforms.

Every additional platform your business adds equates to spending additional time, thus requiring more effort from you to promote customer engagement. To prevent yourself from committing this mistake, first determine which site gives you more leverage when posting your business and non-business related posts.

Also, not all of these platforms can help you maximize your audience reach. Some just don’t have the enough number of the active target audience.

2. Don’t post the same content across multiple business pages.

Tailored content increases reach and engagement. In every social media website, page navigation varies as well as the different expectations active users have. A good example is when using hashtags. On Instagram, hashtags are effective in catching and directing attention to a post whereas on Facebook, it doesn’t have the same effect.

Avoid posting the same content. Try to add variation like changing the title, altering the description, or changing the angle or focus of your post. The more unique it becomes, the more fitting it becomes to your chosen social media site.

3. Don’t just share your own posts.

Content curation is one effective means to promote your brand. Too many or too frequent posts to your own brand or product can come off as annoying to some users, which might trigger disinterest and unfollows. Try to follow the 80/20 rule: 80% of your posts should share relevant, educational, helpful, and useful information from the rest of the world… while only 20% should be brand-oriented. Neovora has found out that by posting content from other sources in the same industry, the fan base actually increased as well as the audience reach.

Content from authority sites or businesses increase awareness of your own brand, and following to your page or subscription to your site. Visit www.neovora.com/ to learn more about business branding and promotion.

4. Always respond quickly to questions and comments.

Prospects want a reply to their question right away. When they take the time to type in a question or comment, it means you have something of interest to them. But without a quick response, they can easily move on to the next business that offers a similar or the same product or service. According to research:

• 75% of people are likely to share a good experience on their own profile,
• 70% of people are more likely to use the brand’s product or service,
• 65% of people have more brand loyalty,
• 25% of people are less likely to go to a competitor.

People who reach out to a brand for customer service expect a reply within 60 minutes. Providing informative replies to every question is also an effective way to let your prospects and customers know they are important to your company.

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Engage Twitter Audience With These Effective Boosting Tactics

How do you increase your visibility, your followers, and your sales? How can you reach your target audience without having to create a lot of content or relying on a content marketing team? How can you promote your business through unforced, natural-looking posts in social media?

Kris Ruby, the CEO of Ruby Media Group (a public relations and social media agency), wrote in her blog that according to studies, 72% of Twitter users are more likely to convert into buyers from businesses they follow compared to businesses they do not. But with only 140 characters to tantalize the viewer’s attention, Twitter requires more skills in establishing your company as an industry leader.

This is why learning the different tactics to help increase audience engagement is a weapon you must wield effectively before starting your Twitter campaign, or on any social media platform for that matter. Before we break down three of the most effective tactics there are today, let’s tap into how customer engagement is calculated.

How The Interactions Are Measured

From a post by Ana Gotter, she wrote: “Twitter Analytics can provide most of the reporting that you need. You can find your analytics by clicking on your profile picture in the right-hand corner and selecting ‘Analytics’ in the drop down. Under Twitter’s Analytics, you can see data on your:

• Number of impressions over a 28 day period.
• Your engagement rate over a 28 day period (which divides your number of engagement by your impressions).
• Which of your tweets got the most engagement.
• What types of engagement you’re getting (you can find this by clicking on specific tweets).
• Your average number of link clicks, retweets, likes, and replies a day.
• The number of video views your videos have gotten (this is still in beta).
• Conversion tracking, which will track interaction and responses to your Twitter Ads.”

Once you have these numbers on your computer screen you can begin to select which tactics will mostly help you ignite customer interaction that would certainly lead to sales conversion. Here are three of the top sales tactics we use at www.neovora.com/, try them out and see for yourself:

1. Hashtags Never Grow Old

Twitter didn’t invent the pound sign, or the ‘hashtag’ icon which became popular and is widely used today. It has been proven that using a hashtag can double user engagement rate, which also helps users to easily find trending topics on the site. This icon is also a great way for anyone to join in a conversation that is already happening or to simply organize a conversation like a Twitter chat. Here’s a few tips on creating a good hashtag:

• Aim for a something memorable, unique, and relevant to the content.
• Use no more than two tags per post. Studies show more than 2 can actually drop your engagement by an average of 17%
• Always use one when participating in Twitter chats.

2. Pin Tweets To Boost Top Posts

Is there a way to keep one tweet at the top of your profile for as long as you need to? Well, of course yes! Pin an important or informative tweet for your followers to see. It’s very simple and easy yet the boosting effect is a smashing hit. Just click the “…” icon on the tweet you want to pin and select “Pin to your profile page.” Neovora has several blogs that can help you promote your brand on social media. Or check out these tips:

• Select and pin a tweet with an eye catching image to boost retweet by 35%.
• Add a strong call-to-action line since this will serve as an advertisement on your profile, which is totally free.
• And by adding a URL in the pinned tweet, you’ll get 86% more engagement.

3. Emoticons Are Cute

A plain block of text, no matter how short it is, can look boring and uninteresting. Consider breaking up the texts with emoticons. These colorful variety of characters and symbols shows playfulness which can give your brand a bit of personality. Some statistics show that emoticons can boost the comment and share rate of your posts. It can also help increase favorites up to 57%.

The post Engage Twitter Audience With These Effective Boosting Tactics appeared first on Neovora.

Top 3 Twitter Engagement Tactics To Boost Brand Exposure

What is “Twitter Engagement”? Well, it’s a process wherein someone engages with your post, which can be accomplished in multiple ways like favoriting, retweeting, and responding to your tweet, or clicking through the link on your post. One statistic show that 15% of users will mostly likely unfollow a brand within three weeks if  it hasn’t made enough and solid effort to keep users engaged early on.

Additionally, posts with images are 34% more likely to get retweeted compared to those that don’t contain images. And character count also has a huge factor in customer engagement. Did you know that a hashtag with 11 or more characters have 117% chance of getting retweeted than hashtags with 6-10 characters. This statistic alone is a sure-fire proof that this platform can help bring in more engaged users into your business.

How To Boost Brand Exposure

Before we dig into the engagement tactics to boost your business, it’s important to know how Twitter Engagement is calculated. When measuring your engagement results, there are four main elements that are considered and added together in a given report period. These are the:

• Replies (counted when your handle is used at the beginning of a reply),
• Retweets (when a follower shares your post),
• Mentions (when a user includes your handle in a post), and
• Likes (when a user clicks the heart icon).

So, how do you get favorable numbers for all four elements? Here’s how…

Memes and GIFs To Show Personality

Adding memes and GIFs occasionally will help turn a plain text into a fun and interesting post that makes it harder for viewers to scroll past. It is one way of showing your company’s personality while initiating customer engagement. It’s also now a popular marketing strategy for many top companies. Here are a few tips to maximize the results using this tactic:

1.Use real-life pictures of employees within the company. Compared to memes found floating around the internet, employee pictures give a personal feel and helps build the story behind your brand.
2.GIFs are great at promoting special offers and events.
3.Use the correct sizing for both media and add a witty or catchy caption.

Post Standalone Graphics

Standalone graphics are images that provides information to audiences without the need to link to a page or site for support. It can offer bits of information about your product or brand, plus a popular quote or statement from a well-known personality. Standalone graphics has been proven to increase retweets by 19%. At Neovora, we have a list of marketing tactics for different social media platforms.

Here’s how you can achieve remarkable results using graphical posts:

1.Use a graphic text that provides quick but easily understandable information.
2.Take small pieces of information from your blogs to add into your graphic.
3.Use tools like Canva (or outsource the job) to create the content.

 

Share Content From Other Sources

Did you know that sharing the content of others is one of the best ways to show flexibility? It’s one way of letting your audience know that your posts aren’t all about your business, and that you value the work of others enough to share it on your feed. This tactics is content curation, and 82% of marketers curate content. It gives your followers a wider range of content material and better viewing experience. To make this tactic work, you need to:

1. Find the best content, one that you enjoy and one with a topic that your audience often talks about. Find something that is informative and helpful.
2. Share content from influencers. Choose content from the leaders in your industry to help establish a connection with them and with your target market. We recently shared a post on how to do this… click here to learn more.
3. Plan out the materials you want to curate for consistency.

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5 Easy Ways to Increase Facebook Engagement

Increase Facebook User Engagement In 5 Easy Ways

Facebook is a social media platform we here at Neovora use for ourselves each day. It’s not just for users who are into sharing daily activities with the public and keeping tabs on people in their feeds; it’s also for businesses looking to reach targeted audience and increase brand exposure. It’s a place where businesses can act as a regular user but with a bigger campaign plan to accomplish bigger marketing goals.

Many users have different ways of engaging to a certain post (in the form of likes, comments, or shares), all depending on the content and the type of update posted on a wall. According to a Zephoria study statistic, in every one minute there are: 510,000 comments, 293,000 statuses update, and 136,000 photos upload.

What does these numbers implicate? This is a clear evidence that there are a lot of engaged and active users on the site, but at the same time the information competition is huge. Whether your posts will get the attention it needs, it will depend on how creative your ideas are.

User Engagement: Taking It A Notch Higher

By knowing how to ignite engagement from your followers, existing customers, and overall visitors, you might hit those target numbers sooner than expected. So it pays to know which marketing strategy can help you convince users to tap the like, share, or comment button. You can start by using these simple template posts.

“Fill in the blank. My [activity] must-have is ________.”

This type of post will help people think about upcoming events. And while it stimulates them to think about what they would do, it’s also a great way to get them to talk about your product or service. The trick is to use an activity that is relevant to the service or brand you’re trying to promote such as Friday night outs, weekend camping trips, food blogging, etc.

It is important to focus on what you wish to accomplish when using this template. Here are a few examples:

Fill in the blank. “My Saturday evening must-have is _______.”
Fill in the blank. “My camping trip must-have is _______.”

Like vs Share Option

A “Like” vs “Share” option is an easier way for users to voice their opinion about your post by engaging with your brand. Basically, the two opposing sides give people two competing options. It acts as a social proof of the number of people participating, which encourages others to join in, and ultimately shows which option is winning.

To accomplish this, create an image with two sides, preferably a mash-up of images, each with descriptive titles, and the most important of all, an overlay graphic that reads “Like vs Share”. Don’t forget to add a short description that reinforces how viewers can participate, then wait for the instantaneous reaction from your visitors. Visit www.neovora.com for more tips on effective social media marketing.

Caption This!

This template is 95% visual and 5% text – very simple and fun. This is often effective with images or Vines (short-format videos) that only needs two words, “Caption This!” The visuals can be about anything – funny pictures of animals, toddler moments, awe-inspiring landscapes and scenery, or crazy human moments.

When using this type of approach, take into consideration the kind of emotion you want to stir within every person who would see the post. It can be funny in general, puzzling, shocking, or inspiring. Choose visuals that could strike anyone at first glance which could trigger them to engage with it.

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