Brian Meert's Blog, page 65

How to Use Stock Photos for Facebook Ads

SEPT. 10, 2020

Panos Sakalakis / Unsplash

Yes, many of you may have cringed at the words “stock photos,” but truthfully they are a blessing in disguise for many marketers. When used correctly, they can bring your ads to life.

What Are Stock Photos?

Stock photos refer to a collection of images supplied for public use. Rather than hiring a photographer for customized shoots, marketers use these readily available images for various commercial projects.

Stock photographs are priced differently, depending on the resource you use. Fortunately, plenty of sites, such as Unsplash and Pexels, offer free stock photos that help you if you’re running low on your budget. There are also paid services that sell photos on a per picture and per bundle basis.

Are Stock Photos Legal to Use?

Avoid legal issues by checking the license of each image you download. Stock photos come with varying licenses that allow for commercial use and modification. If you’re looking for stock photographs to use in your Facebook ads, you will likely find yourself dealing with these three licenses:

Royalty-Free License – The most common and popularly used is the royalty-free license. With this license, you only have to pay a one-time flat fee, which will allow you to download the photo as many times as you want for a project of your choice. On the downside, royalty-free licenses are non-exclusive. This means you may find other marketers using the same image for their ad campaigns.

Rights Managed – The rights managed agreement is a one-time charge for the use of a photo. This license can be negotiated according to the project’s time frame. For example, you pay a specific rate to use the image for your Facebook ad. However, you will have to pay additional royalties if you want to expand its usage to other digital marketing platforms.

Extended Licenses – Similar to the rights managed license, the extended agreement allows commercial use by paying a specified fee. It also enables you to use the images for resale products, such as printing on mugs or t-shirts.

When using stock photos, you must carefully read the terms and conditions of each license. Ignoring them can often result in the termination of your Facebook ad and even a costly lawsuit. Moreover, be aware that specific sites require attribution to the photographer, so make sure to carefully adhere to them.

Are Stock Photos Effective for Marketing?

Facebook advertising is tough, and it keeps getting tougher with each passing day, as more marketers realize its potential. The stock photo industry, too, is competitive, flooded with generic- and unrealistic-looking photographs. There is no shortage of cliché images, and using them to target a growing user base on Facebook may not be a profitable solution. In fact, a study shows 63% of consumers find repeated and generic brand messages a nuisance. Since Facebook’s ad guidelines include the 20% text rule (text must not take up more than 20% of the image), you must make the photo do most of the talking.

The good news: Authentic-looking stock photos are there and can be as effective as you want them to be. The key is to carefully select images that resonate well with your audience.

How to Choose the Best Stock Photos for Facebook Ads

Keep in mind the tips below when choosing stock photos for your Facebook ads. 

Look for Candid Images

Kaiser Permanente Thrive / Facebook Ad Library

If you’ve scoured a stock photo website, you’ve probably seen pictures of a woman laughing alone with a salad bowl or a family (with kids) posing for the camera during dinner. As mentioned earlier, the biggest problem with stock photos is the inauthentic portrayal of people. When searching for stock photos, look for those that don’t appear staged. Remember, humans relate well with other humans, and images with genuine emotions will help your brand get the message across more effectively.

Aim for Relevance

This should go without saying, but look for pictures relevant to your ad’s marketing message — not just something that looks pretty. For example, adding a picture of a milkshake for your accounting ad or displaying a dog’s image to market a finance software is not the best move. Adding pictures that are not relevant to your product or service will confuse your audience. Ultimately, this will reduce their trust in your brand and negatively impact their purchase decision.

Here is a great example of a relevant image. Domino’s uses a close-up of pizza to promote its $5.99 deal.

 Domino’s Pizza / Facebook Ad Library

Focus on the Audience

Is your product catered toward millennials? Then showing an image of a middle-age person will not resonate with your target audience. Don’t just use the first image you see. Instead, thoroughly think  about your audience to target them effectively and to make your marketing campaign successful. 

Princess Polly does a great job of featuring its target audience. In this ad, the millennial- and women-focused clothing retailer features a young model in her 20s — exactly the type of person the brand’s target audience relates to. 

Princess Polly / Facebook Ad Library

Choose High-Quality Images

Some stock photos are bad. Blurry subjects, dark lightning, or colors that don’t transition well with the overall layout are just examples of images that lack quality. Even if you’re low on your budget, don’t choose an image of a lower caliber. Numerous stock photo sites offer images ranging from free to a couple of dollars per piece. Depending on your budget, dig a little deeper into those sites for high-resolution and high-quality pictures. Anything less can harm your advertising campaign.

Use Fresh Images

Instead of the most popular ones, go for images that are fresh and the least-used. Most stock photo sites give you the option to filter search results with keywords. Do an in-depth search to find images that are most suitable for your content. You can also check how many times an image has been used by dragging it into the Google Image Search taskbar. This will show you if other sites are using the same image or not.

Look for Photos to “Un-Stock”

Most stock photos allow modification. This means you can crop, resize, add texts or overlays, and even change the contrast of the pictures to adapt to your ad. There are several great tools available to help you with your images, such as Snagit and Photoshop. Don’t forget to check with the stock photo site to ensure editing is allowed.

Test Your Ads

Stock photo sites usually leave you spoiled for choices with their endless database of images. Because of their wide availability, you don’t have to limit yourself to one image per ad. Experiment with your pictures and use two to three visual variations for one ad. Keep the text the same for all ads and run them simultaneously. Track results to see how one ad performs against the other.

Final Thoughts

The best way to make stock photos work is to make them not look like stock photos. With the help of these tips and a little effort, you can easily customize your stock photos and use them in your Facebook ads without hesitation.

Facebook Will Pay You to Deactivate Your Account Before Election Day

SEPT. 9, 2020

Igal Ness /Unsplash

As part of its research efforts, Facebook is paying users to deactivate their Facebook and Instagram accounts before the U.S. election. 

In a screenshot posted by Washington Post’s Elizabeth Dwoskin, the social media company is sending select users a survey that asks how much they would want to be compensated for deactivating their accounts. The amount ranges from $10 to $120. 

So Facebook is now going to pay people to deactivate their IG and FB accounts before Election Day. It’s part of the research experiment announced Monday but WOW. This notice went out this week. pic.twitter.com/tV7DAw8F5I

— Elizabeth Dwoskin (@lizzadwoskin) September 3, 2020

Participants will either have to deactivate their accounts for one week or six weeks. Facebook’s pay structure depends on how long they are willing to go without social media. These are the options offered in the survey:

$10 for 1 week or $60 for 6 weeks
$15 for 1 week or $90 for 6 weeks
$20 for 1 week or $120 for 6 weeks

The study begins in late September, when participants will be required to deactivate their accounts. Users will not have the ability to choose which time frame they will participate in — Facebook will decide whether they will deactivate for a week or longer. 

A spokesperson for Facebook confirmed that the social media company will compensate users for their participation in the study.

“Anyone who chooses to opt in – whether it’s completing surveys or deactivating FB or IG for a period of time – will be compensated. This is fairly standard for this type of academic research,” says Liz Bourgeois in a Tweet. 

Anyone who chooses to opt in – whether it’s completing surveys or deactivating FB or IG for a period of time – will be compensated. This is fairly standard for this type of academic research. More here: https://t.co/uw4B8XhsYY

— Liz Bourgeois (@Liz_Shepherd) September 3, 2020

The study is part of Facebook’s research into the effects of social media on elections. 

“To continue to amplify all that is good for democracy on social media, and mitigate against that which is not, we need more objective, dispassionate, empirically grounded research,” Facebook says in the blog post announcing the study. “That’s why today we are announcing a new research partnership to better understand the impact of Facebook and Instagram on key political attitudes and behaviors during the US 2020 elections.”

Back in 2016, Facebook was criticized for allowing fake ads and politically divisive content from Russia to proliferate on its platform. Intelligence agencies believe these fake ads and content interfered with the U.S. election. 

By Anne Felicitas, editor

What to Post on Instagram: 6 Content Ideas for Brands

SEP. 2, 2020

Charles Deluvio / Unsplash

With more than 500 million users visiting Instagram daily, it’s no surprise that many brands leverage the platform to promote their businesses. But what if all the ideas have been exhausted, and you don’t know what to post? This article provides six options for Instagram content that will generate interest around your brand.

Failure Stories

We all have flaws, and projecting an image of perpetual perfection is no longer a trend, especially in the celebrity and influencer industry. Tell followers about your failures: It reminds them that no one is perfect, that we make mistakes. This, consequently, humanizes your brand.

However, be careful with the type of failure stories you share. This does not mean talking about angry customer calls. Rather, share a minor mistake. For example, if you’re an advertising specialist, share your experience of creating unsuccessful ad campaigns and the lessons you learned that improved performance.

When sharing failure stories, it is important to demonstrate the solution. At the end of the story, focus on how you got out of the situation. This will build confidence in your brand and deliver value to followers. By pointing out a failure without solving it, you run the risk of appearing incompetent.

Remember, there should be no errors in your copy. Avoid typos, and if necessary, use writing tools such as Pro Essay Writer or ProWritinGaid, so you can correct errors that undermine your message.

Influencer Posts

According to the data, companies earn $5.20 for every $1 spent on marketing influence. Whenever public figures use your product, encourage them to share a post on their pages. This is a great way to gain audience recognition. After all, influencer marketing is a powerful tool for building brand awareness, social proof, and customer trust. Find reliable influencers known among your audience and work with them periodically.

In this example, KitKat works with Monika Pundziute to promote its green tea matcha flavor.

KitKat / Instagram

If you want to increase brand awareness, then you need to take care of your company’s corporate identity. If you don’t have a memorable logo, it’s time to fix that. The bottom line is the more users see your brand, the more trust it builds. Therefore, it is so important to create a logo as soon as possible and work on recognition.

Live Streams

Live streaming is the best way to get closer to your subscribers. Share something useful to generate engagement. For example, if you manage a cosmetics brand, show how to apply your product correctly or show unconventional uses. To get the best effect from this type of content, it is necessary to conduct such broadcasts periodically, so you can win the attention and love of your followers, who will look forward to your next broadcast.

In this example, Converse goes live on Instagram. After the broadcast, Converse posted the video on its feed, where it will remain permanently for all followers — even those who missed the live stream — to see. 

Converse / Instagram

UGC Reposts

This is a technique that should be in the sleeve of every brand manager who wants to increase reach: user-generated content. UGC presents two benefits. First, people whose photos you publish will be pleased, and they will be more likely to tell their friends about it. This may result in a chain reaction: Your followers’ friends and family may want to create their own content. Second, using UGC builds trust around your brand. It acts as material confirmation. According to research, 82% of buyers are more positive about a company after seeing user-generated content.

The easiest way to get people to share photos with your product is to give an incentive. For example, offer a discount on their next purchase. In this example from Nyx, the cosmetics brand reposts content from a customer who is showcasing her makeup skills. 

Nyx Cosmetics / Instagram

Customer Feedback

Are you constantly receiving feedback from your customers? Make it an additional tool for building trust. It can be photos, videos, or screenshots of messages. Any option is suitable. The main thing is to demonstrate the benefits of using your product. According to studies, 63% of users more often make purchases from a brand that has reviews from other customers. Add significance to your words and let your customers feel safe and relaxed, having received confirmation that you can be trusted.

Here, Hana Cure Effect features before-and-after posts from customers on its Instagram account:

Hana Cure Effect / Instagram

Guides

Share useful content that will simplify the life of your audience. Product usage guides are something that they will definitely be interested in. For example, if your brand released a new cream, show followers how to apply it correctly: what movements, on which areas of the skin, at what time, how often, and with which products can be combined. This will not only potentially attract new followers but also increase sales.

In this example, MaxiGlide provides a how-to guide for curling hair on its Instagram post. 

MaxiGlide / Instagram

Conclusion

The ideas outlined here will diversify your Instagram feed. To generate new posts while maintaining a steady publishing rhythm, plan ahead and schedule content by managing a content calendar. The more value you give, the more followers you receive. In fact, you might just end up doubling your Instagram followers if you implement the right strategy. 

How to Edit Instagram Photos for a Better-Looking Feed

AUG. 31, 2020

Photos and videos are posted on Instagram each day. You’ll need a beautiful feed and striking photos to stand out from everyone else. 

Fortunately, you don’t need an expensive camera or a professional photo editor to capture great Instagram photos. You have what you need in the small yet powerful machine in your hands — your smartphone. Remember, an engaging Instagram post comprises a quality photo and smart editing. 

Learn how to edit photos on Instagram with our easy-to-follow guide below,  providing tips for both in app and third-party photo editor, Instasize.

How to Edit Photos on Instagram
Step 1: Start with a high-quality photo

A great Instagram post begins with a great shot. No amount of editing can save a badly taken photo. You don’t need a DSLR. Simply use the camera built into your smartphone.

Taking good photos requires the basic principles of composition and lighting. Here are three  easy tips to take great photos on your phone:

Avoid using flash and make use of natural light for brighter and richer photos.
For scenic photographs, shoot at the right time of the day or during what photographers call the golden hour. This is the time shortly before sunrise or after sunset when there is warm natural light. 
Follow the rule of thirds for a well-balanced image. Divide your image into a three-by-three grid and align the subject in the photo with the grid lines to capture the eye of the audience. 

You can add an automatic grid to your camera by turning on the Grid feature in your camera settings. 

Step 2: Upload your photo to Instagram

Once you have a great photograph to work with, open your Instagram app and upload the photo.

Click on the plus sign on the bottom of your screen, and you will be redirected to the “All Photos” album of your camera roll. You can switch to your “Favorites” or other curated albums by clicking on the drop-down arrow at the top of the screen to easily locate photos. 

Instagram automatically resizes your photo into a square. If you want to post the photo in its original width, click on the expand button on the bottom-left corner of the photo. 

Step 3: Select a filter

Now, the editing begins! Filters are like condiments: They each have a unique flavor that adds something new to the dish. Take a methodical approach when selecting filters. Try out each and note which catches your eye and works best with your photo.

Do note that each filter has its own personality and changes the look and feel of your photograph. To give you a head start, check out the five most popular Instagram filters based on a global study of 40 million Instagram users.

Clarendon adds light to lighter areas and dark to dark areas. This makes the color in your photo stand out and pop off the screen. It’s an all-purpose filter that works on both selfies and landscape pictures. 

Juno intensifies the red and yellow hues of your photo with a rich, deep tone. Use Juno to add contrast to city photographs. 

Gingham sends your photos down a nostalgia trip. This filter washes out darker shots and adds more exposure to brighter shots for a vintage effect. 

Lark increases exposure and warmth while desaturating the reds and purples of your photograph. The result is a brighter and cooler photograph that is easy on the eyes. Lark is a good option for outdoor and landscape photos. 

Valencia brings out the intensity of even dull photography by adding warmth to the colors of your photo. It’s the ideal filter for nature shots. 

Instead of scrolling through every filter available, reorder your Instagram filters by selecting the “Manage” options. Put your favorite filters on top. 

Step 4: Adjust the Lux

What is Lux? If you’ve edited a photo on Instagram before, you’ve most likely played around with Lux. This feature tempers the contrast and exposure of your photos to make them vibrant and burst off the screen. Once you’ve added a filter, adjust the Lux setting by clicking the wand icon at the top of your screen.

Adjust intensity of the Lux from 0 to 100 by moving the scale from left to right. You can see the effect of Lux in the photo above.

Step 5: Use Instagram’s simple editing tools

Next, open Instagram’s editing tools by clicking the “edit” button on the lower right side of the screen. From here, you can modify settings including brightness, contrast, structure, warmth, saturation, highlights, shadow, and sharpness. 

A comprehensive strategy is to go through each setting and adjust the photo to your liking. To adjust, simply slide the scale from left to right to increase the effect of each setting until it hits the sweet spot.

Step 6: Edit an album of photos

Instagram allows you to upload up to 10 photos in a single post. To do this, tap on the album icon when selecting the photos you want to edit to add more than one.

 

Then, tap on the Venn diagram icon in order to edit each photo individually. If you don’t, the edits you make on your first photo will be applied to the whole album

Step 7: Post to Instagram or save it for later

If your photo is good to go, write your caption, include hashtags, and tag relevant accounts. Click “share” on the upper right hand corner to send this to the feed of your Instagram followers. 

You can also download the photo after editing by clicking the “download” button on the editing screen if you’re just looking to get a head start on your photos.

How to Edit Instagram Photos Using a Specialized Photo Editor

Now that you know how to edit on the Instagram app, use a specialized photo editor, such as Instasize, to generate a picture-perfect post.

Instasize is a photo- and video-editing toolkit with an arsenal of features. Develop a signature look for your brand or create artwork for a follow-worthy Instagram. Find out how easy it is to use Instasize in the demo below. 

Step 1: Choose a great photo

First things first, always start with a well-shot photo, using the tips mentioned at the beginning of the article. Upload your photo by tapping the plus sign button at the bottom of the screen.

Step 2: Crop your photo

Once your photo is uploaded to Instasize editor, you can crop it. Simply pinch the screen with your fingers to increase and decrease the size of the photo. 

 

 

Instasize has automatic crop options for different social media sizes, which include Instagram Stories, Landscape, Portrait and even for Facebook and Twitter photos. This saves time and ensures your photo is the perfect size for each social media channel.

Step 3: Pick a filter

A great filter is critical to your photo’s success. Instasize has more than 130 premium filters to change the style and tone of your image. Based on your picture, Instasize even recommends which filters will work best.

Instead of rifling through each and every filter, you can select whether you want your photos to be warm, cool, or black and white. Instasize has a plethora of options to choose from! To organize filters, click on the “manage” option to select your favorites. 

Simply tick the “heart” button to select the filters you use most often and “hide” those you don’t plan to use. You can even reorder their position by dragging them to your preferred placement. 

Step 4: Adjust photo settings

Similar to Instagram’s editor, you can play around with the photo’s brightness, contrast, saturation, and other settings. 

Instasize takes editing to a whole new level, particularly for selfies and groufies, with its “retouch” feature, which can smooth skin and whiten teeth. 

Step 5: Add texts and borders

To finish off your photo, add text by clicking the “A” button to communicate a message or place a title. You can customize text with more than 25 popular font options and play with the variety of colors.

Let your photo pop off the screen by adding a border. Click on the square icon and open Instasize’s gallery of more than 80 borders. Select from ready-made patterns, bold colors, or even create your own design by uploading photos. We recommend selecting a pattern that contrasts with your photo to further highlight your image. You can select the collage option to post multiple pictures in one go. 

Step 6: Post your photo to Instagram

Once you’ve created an Instagram-worthy photo, tap the “Instagram” button to post it directly on your feed. You can even share your artwork directly to Facebook or Twitter by clicking the “share” button. If you simply want to store the photo and post it at another time, click “save to camera roll.”

These are just the basics of what you can achieve with Instasize. You can download Instasize on the App Store or Google Play Store. The Standard version is free to use and the Premium version is $4.99/month. 

Go Forth and Edit Your Photos

Instagram’s in-app editing tools and Instasize are just two of the many photo-editing apps you can use. The trick is to try out different tools online and experiment with settings and filters to discover your signature style. From there, build an eye-catching Instagram presence and grow your following.

Apple’s iOS 14 Update Will Affect Facebook Ad Targeting: Here’s What to Do

AUG. 28, 2020

Tobias Dziuba / Pexels

Back in June, Apple announced a slew of updates with the roll out of iOS 14. Among the changes include stronger privacy settings, which require apps to ask permission before collecting and sharing data. 

This update will affect Facebook advertisers’ ad campaigns, in particular, ads placed on the Audience Network. According to an announcement by Facebook, iOS 14 will impact advertisers’ ability to accurately target and measure Audience Network ads, which will result in decreased monetization. 

Anticipating Apple’s new software, Facebook is working on a few tweaks to the advertising platform, which includes no longer collecting identifier for advertisers (IDFA) for its family of apps on iOS14. Although, this decision may change once the social media company receives more guidance from Apple. 

Facebook will also release an updated version of the SDK that supports iOS 14 and may no longer offer Audience Network ads to iOS 14 devices, depending on how things go.

To prepare for this change, Facebook recommends the following actions:

Update to the latest version of the SDK that supports Apple’s SKAdNetwork API, which limits the data available to businesses for running and measuring campaigns. 
Use non-IDFA match methods, such as adopting Facebook Login or using Advanced Matching to share hashed customer contact information.
Create a new ad account using a new account creation experience that will launch in early September.

By Anne Felicitas

How to Use Google Alerts to Grow Your Business

AUG. 28, 2020

Morning Brew /Unsplash

Google Alerts is a notification system that informs you when certain keywords are being searched for or mentioned on various sites. An extremely popular tool among businesses, it helps you monitor the presence of your brand on the internet, collect backlinks, and find the best content ideas. It is absolutely free and easy to set up. Here’s how to do it. 

How to Set Up Google Alerts

Click this link: google.com/alerts.
Choose the term that you want to track, for example, “content marketing.”
Click “Show options” underneath and choose how often you get notifications. The following options are available: as it happens, once a day, or once a week.
Choose a source. You can leave it “automatic” if you don’t know what sources to list.
Choose the target language and region that you are interested in.
State your preference on how many results you want to get.
Enter the email that you want your alerts to be delivered to.
Click on “Create Alert,” and that’s it.

As you can see, Google Alerts does not require a deep knowledge of IT. The system is quite intuitive, perfect for beginners. 

However, Google Alerts can be completely useless if you don’t know the benefits you can get from it. Here are four ways you can use this tool to grow your business.

4 Ways Google Alerts Helps Grow Your Business

 

1. Monitor Brand Mentions

Brand monitoring is critical when it comes to analyzing your brand image. You may think that you create this image by putting a certain idea of what your brand is about: You use a specific tone of voice on all communication channels and promote ideas that you want customers to associate with your brand. 

Sure, you’re part of creating the brand image, however, customers create your brand image, too. They talk about your business on social media or with friends and family and write tons of reviews on different sites. If you try to create an image of trustworthiness but your customers claim that they never got their products, your brand image is already flawed. 

In order to see and fix the bad things people say about your brand, set up Google Alerts. As soon as your brand is mentioned somewhere, you will get a notification. Read what people have to say, and if they are not satisfied, try to find out what went wrong, solve the issue with an angry reviewer, and get your brand image back to what you want it to be. It’s very important that you answer the dissatisfaction of your customer as politely as possible. People will definitely judge the way you respond to criticism. 

Experts from Ivory Research reported that brand monitoring has also helped the company gain valuable feedback to better understand the needs of its audience. You start to realize what you should change or modify in your product so that people will not talk badly about your brand again.

2. Watch Out for Your Competitors

Businesses often think about their competitors as an enemy, someone that they should be completely different from in order to be the best. There is logic in it, indeed. A competitor can take over your customers. However, there is a better approach than trying to be completely different from the rival.

If your competitors are successful in a certain niche, it means they are doing something right. You might want to find out what they are doing in order to implement their strategy to your existing ones and get the best profit possible. If you see that your competitors suddenly start to grow rapidly, maybe it’s the new tactics they are using. Google Alerts can help you to find out which ones. 

Google Alerts is a great tool to learn whether or not your competitors are investing in guest posting or other types of links. If they do a guest post, take a look at which sites. If their content is relevant to these sites, yours can be relevant, too.

However, remember that it’s acceptable to learn new ways of growing, but it’s completely unethical to copy their content, brand slogan, or design for ads and social media campaigns.

3. Measure Content Quality

Content quality is crucial for SEO. After the new Google update rolled out, it’s clear that keywords and backlinks are nothing compared to high-quality content. Google states that the main focus is on creating the best content, which has the following characteristics:

original information, research, report, or analysis
original point of view and valuable insights
Descriptive and helpful headlines
Shareable, can be referenced in a book or magazine

Google Alerts will help you find out whether Google’s algorithm values your content. While setting up alerts and choosing how many results you want to get, you have two options: only the best results and all results. You should set it to high-quality content only or a mix of everything. If your content appears as the best results, congrats, you’re doing great!

4. Catch Spam Comments

You expect readers to share their thoughts on your article or get involved in a heated discussion that will give you valuable insights into their understanding of your content. You open the comments section, and there they are —  spam comments.

There are many bots that automatically share off-topic and hideously written comments under your blog posts. Usually, they are trying to promote another website or service, adding links to third-party sources. Spam is not only irritating, but it also harms your business. 

Unsuspecting visitors will follow the link and end up on a trashy website that steals their information or shows inappropriate content. Consequently, they don’t only think about this site badly but about yours, as well. If you don’t control spam and let your visitors be tricked, you either don’t care about your audience or your brand is not yet developed enough to be in charge of spam comments.

Search engines may also mark you as unsafe because of the comments linking to websites that distribute malware and viruses. Thus, you may rank very poorly in search results.

In order to avoid such bad scenarios, use Google Alerts. There are words that hackers tend to use often: online dating, gambling, viagra, betting, porn. Put those words into the system and get an immediate notification if these words appear on your website. Clean the comments section as soon as possible.

Google Alerts is a helpful tool that can grow your business — if used correctly. The advice outlined here will help you improve your brand image, scout the competition, and increase revenue.

What You Can Learn from the Top 10 Ecommerce Trends in 2020

AUG. 26. 2020

Image source: Pixabay

With every news cycle dominated by politics and the pandemic, it’s easy to miss big ecommerce updates regarding technology and social media. Consider these developments, for instance:

E-retail revenues are projected to reach $6.54 trillion in 2022.
COVID-19 has massively accelerated the growth of ecommerce, with total online spending hitting $82.5 billion, up 77% year-over-year, according to Adobe. 

This is what Vivek Pandya, Adobe’s digital insights manager, has to say about this skyrocketing growth in a Forbes article:

“According to our data, it would’ve taken between 4 and 6 years to get to the levels that we saw in May if the growth continued at the same levels it was at for the past few years. We typically don’t expect to see surges at this level at any time outside of the holiday season. For context, last year’s holiday season drove $142.5 billion dollars from November 1st to December 31st, and that was a 13% year-over-year increase.”

Here’s the long and short of it: The ecommerce sector is constantly changing, depending on how users shop, how brands are marketing themselves, and what new technology is being used to drive a seamless shopping experience, like AI chatbots. So let’s round up the year 2020 and see what big changes drove ecommerce sales to jump by 18% in the U.S.

1.  Ecommerce Is Growing During COVID-19 

One sector that is growing during COVID-19 is the ecommerce sector, and understandably so. People are unwilling to venture out and buy. Online shopping, coupled with the comfort of home delivery, has empowered users to take care of themselves at the click of a button. Clearly, ecommerce is growing from strength to strength, even when we’re in the thick of a global pandemic:

According to research by CC Insights, U.S. retailers’ online year-over-year revenue growth increased 68% as of April.
U.S. and Canadian ecommerce orders witnessed a staggering 129% year-over-year growth as of April 21 and a 146% growth in all online orders.

Key takeaway: COVID-19 may forever change the way customers shop online, and you need to keep track of every little change in users’ shopping behavior if you wish to stay ahead of the competition in the post-COVID era.

2. Google Is Fast Emerging as an Online Marketplace

Tech giant Google needs no introduction, but did you know that you should optimize your ecommerce offerings for Google Shopping? Yes, you read that right. You can leverage this feature and reach a wider target audience for a fee. Here’s how it works: Google Shopping Listings, also known as Product Listing Ads, places your products on top of Google’s SERPs (search engine results pages).

Image source: Google search results

This allows you to network with and reach a more universal target audience that will genuinely be interested in buying your products. The ads can include all important data, such as reviews, discounts and deals, and pricing.

If you’re wondering why you should use this service, consider the infographic below, which demonstrates Google’s shopping growth.

Image source: Adwords Robot

All in all, you can think of Google Shopping as an impactful sales channel and an effective SEO hack for your ecommerce brand.

Key takeaway: Google may be the gold standard for online search, but it is fast emerging as the best place for smart advertising. You could think of it as an online marketplace that you can use to leverage greater profits, sales, and widespread recognition.

3. Customers Are Shopping on Social Media Channels

Data by Absolunet shows the importance of social media in ecommerce:

87% of ecommerce shoppers believe social media influences their shopping decisions. 
1 in 4 business owners is selling through Facebook. 
40% of merchants use social media to generate sales. 
30% of consumers say they would make purchases directly through social media platforms.

Social media platforms have evolved from being mere “like”-churning machines to a convenient platform that allows users to shop directly for products, thanks to embedded links. Take Instagram’s new feature Checkout with Instagram:



How does this help? Brands will longer need to direct customers to a website to buy products. They can simply check out of Instagram and engage in a single-click buying experience. 

Key takeaway: Making your online shopping experience quick and seamless can turn out to be the game-changer your brand needs.  

4. AR and VR Create an Immersive Experience

Often considered as immersive technology, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are driving deeper context into the customer experience. For instance, customers can “try on” a watch or “move around” furniture. 

Take a look at the NikePlus augmented reality tool, which self-corrects wrong shoe sizes.

Image source: Nike

Samantha Wolfe, founder of PitchFWD, sums up the benefits of using immersive technology in a Forbes article:

“When it comes to working in XR [extended reality], marketers need to start to dimensionalize their thinking. It’s no longer about a conversation between customers and brands, but instead, marketers are given an interactive, 360-degree palette to create meaningful digital customer experiences.”

Key takeaway: Digital innovations such as AR and VR are increasingly being used by brands to address key customer pain points, innovate interactions with users on social media (think: Snapchat filters), and bring to life creative, high quality, 3D, and 360-degree shopping experiences.

5. Customized Products Are in for the Long Run

Customization has been key for big and small brands alike for some time now. Global brands such as Amazon and Walmart are cashing in on this integral feature to deliver stellar customer experiences. For example, Amazon’s Recommendation Engine uses deep learning to offer hyper-personalized recommendations and relevant suggestions to buyers on things they’re most likely to buy.

Image source: Amazon

The point here is this: Brands need to invest in technology that can help them analyze users’ real-time behavior and then tailor products accordingly. 

Key takeaway: For a unique and personalized experience, you can use quizzes or surveys to understand user behavior and customize your products or services.

6. Customers Favor Flexible Payment Options

Alternative payment methods (APM) are shaping the future of ecommerce. Luckily, there are many options for customers today. For instance, digital wallets and online banking are becoming more and more mainstream. Plus, there are a plethora of social payment options available today, including Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Facebook Payments, and Twitter Buy. 

There’s another interesting feature that deserves a special mention: Amazon’s Prime Wardrobe, which makes shopping more convenient, user-friendly, and hassle-free:

Image source: Amazon

This is an indirect form of payment beneficial to customers. Customers can select between three to eight items for free delivery with no upfront charge. Once they get the order, they typically have seven days to decide what they wish to keep or return. The best part? The company gives a resealable bag and prepaid label so returns are quick and painless.

7. Brands and Customers Are Becoming More Environment-Conscious

Data claims that 33% of consumers believe brands are responsible for the environment. The environment-conscious customer of today wishes to engage with brands that are reducing carbon footprint. In fact, a lot of ecommerce brands are driving a deeper relationship with customers by using environment-friendliness as a shared interest. For example, the brand Toms has a page on its website dedicated to detailing the sustainable steps it’s taking to become more environmentally conscious.

Image source: Toms

Key takeaway: If you wish to connect with your customers on a more meaningful level, you need to communicate your brand’s ethos and culture in the most transparent and authentic way possible.

8. Artificial Intelligence Is Here to Stay

Ask ecommerce experts, and they’ll tell you that the biggest roadblocks in this sector are accurate customer segmentation and correct identification of buying patterns based on customers’ past shopping history. This is where AI-powered tools work their magic to create personalized recommendations for every customer. Sifting through mountain’s worth of data (user search queries, shopping cart issues, buying behavior, demographics) is a time-consuming and costly affair. The use of AI makes the process quick, simple, and effective. Here are some benefits ecommerce brands can leverage by using AI:

They can create customer-centric searches that offer users relevant solutions. Case in point: Pinterest’s new feature, which uses image recognition software. Users can select the photograph of any item online then ask Pinterest to surface similar items:

Image source: Linnworks

They can retarget potential customers with smart technology. Ecommerce companies are now using facial recognition to capture a potential customer’s growing interest in a particular item in a physical store. This information is captured and will be used the next time the user walks in.

Key takeaway: AI-powered ecommerce solutions are driving sales while enhancing the customer experience in equal measure. If you wish to scale your operations and personalize your customer experience at the same time, AI is the way to go.

9. Influencer Marketing Is Driving Sales

If you love Instagram, you’ll know that influencer marketing is all the rage now, and for good reason. These influencers have a very strong sway on their target audience. In fact, 70% of teens trust influencers more than they trust celebrities. Plus, four in ten millennial subscribers say their favorite influencers understand them better than their friends. Saving the best for last: Forty-nine percent of consumers rely on influencer recommendations.

If you wish to connect, build trust, and understand your users, influencer marketing is the way to go. Identifying appropriate influencers in your niche on various social media platforms is the first step toward pursuing this marketing strategy. Additionally, you must ensure all of your influencer-related communication is upfront and clear so as not to mislead customers in any way.

Key takeaway: Influencer marketing has emerged as the next big thing in ecommerce marketing. This makes sense as people trust micro-influencers for their authenticity and genuine interest in the offering at hand.

10. Live Chat Is Providing a Much-Needed Personal Touch

At this point, it’s worth mentioning that ecommerce brands should definitely look at ramping up their virtual customer-service game. This is where using Acquire’s live chat can be of great assistance: twenty-four-seven bot availability, the ability to connect with website visitors in an instant, qualifying quality leads, and real-time customer support. The benefits are manifold.

Image source: Econsultancy

Key takeaway: AI-powered live chat tools are emerging as every ecommerce brand’s best friend. From the customer’s point of view, they act as a handy virtual guides assisting users and answering queries. From the business perspective, they can help automate routine tasks and help take off some of the workload. 

Closing Thoughts

As you can see, the ecommerce sector is constantly growing, as the user’s needs evolve and as emerging technological innovations keep disrupting the space. Brands need to find a healthy balance between their own offerings, their customer’s personalized demands, and the use of immersive technology to stay afloat in the current business climate and ahead of the competition in the post-COVID world.

By Ashwini Dave

How to Develop a Social Media Strategy for Educational Institutions

AUG. 24, 2020

Wonderlane / Unsplash

Today, more and more schools are discovering ways to use social media to meet multiple goals. Learning institutions are turning to their social channels to spread information faster, create and nurture a sense of community, and generate awareness on course offerings and campaigns. This article gives you a glimpse of the social media landscape as it pertains to the education sector and provides tips on how you can boost your brand through the platform. 

Benefits of Social Media on the Education Sector

Social media offers schools and teachers ways to facilitate learning and capture students’ interest. Because many students, as well as their parents, are already on social media and quite adept at using the platform, educators who maximize social media are able to bring the classroom closer to their pupils and their guardians.

For example, teachers can create Facebook groups dedicated to posting homework and important announcements. They can also use Pinterest to display students’ artwork and projects. These accounts can be accessible not just to students but also to parents. That way, parents can stay updated on their children’s schooling and interact with teachers and other parents.

 

Source: Elearninginfographics.com

Key Statistics on Social Media and Education

Below are a few statistics to show social media’s reach among teens and U.S. adults.

The majority of adults in the U.S., regardless of educational background, are on social media. Also, more than three-quarters of individuals who finished college are on social networks.
96% of students with internet access are using social media.
Among 7th to 12th graders, 75 percent have a social media profile.
More than half (73 percent) of 13- to 17-year-olds are checking social media at least daily. 

Source: Common Sense Education

Given social media’s popularity among the school-age population and adults, educational institutions that maximize these platforms can potentially reach a much broader population. 

Crafting an Effective Social Media Strategy for the Education Sector

Learning institutions can use social media networks for a broad range of goals, from getting more leads to providing better support to spreading word about important achievements and events. Below are tips to help your school create an effective social media strategy.

1. Set Measurable Goals

Develop specific measurable goals for what you want to achieve through your social media campaign. For instance, if you’re hoping to generate leads, specify how many leads you want to have within a specific time period. If you’re unsure where to start, below are some common social media goals you can adapt for your school.

Source: Hootsuite

Next, do a social media audit to identify where you are versus where you want to go. List down all the social media accounts you have. Look at your social media analytics to understand the level of engagement you’re getting on each platform. 

Be sure to gather data related to the goals you’ve set. If you want to increase leads, find out how many leads you’ve generated through your social networking sites in the past months. This will serve as your baseline data and help you determine whether or not your social media strategies are working.

After determining where you are, study your competitors’ online strategy. Find out what keywords they’re using and which channels they’re on. Determine the types of content they’re publishing on their accounts and which of these generate the most likes, shares, and comments.

2. Prepare a Social Media Style Guide

Whether you work for a small school or a university, taking time to organize a style guide will generate multiple benefits for your institution. Here are a few:

Consistency: You are able to use a consistent tone and voice in your published posts, which then contributes to the strength of your brand image.
Coordination: This is especially important if you have several staff handling social media management or your departments are maintaining their own social accounts. Having a guide keeps everyone on the same page on what to do, what to avoid, and how to engage with users.
Maintaining quality: Clarifying posting standards empowers your departments to maintain the quality of published posts.

Here are some items to include as you create or improve your school’s style guide: 

Official social media profiles
Naming conventions
Guidelines for profile information, cover, and header images
Brand colors
Hashtags
Rules for images, graphics, video posts, and user-generated content
Handling comments, inquiries, and competitor interactions
Guides for each social media network
Post format
Crediting sources

3. Choose Appropriate Platforms for Your Campaigns

Social media channels have different user demographics. Before launching your campaign, consider the networks your target audience is more likely to use. For example, if you want to increase awareness about a new postgraduate course, focus on channels your ideal enrollees may be using often. If you’re targeting professionals, consider advertising on LinkedIn, scheduling related posts on your school’s alumni pages, or crafting a Facebook marketing strategy, targeting individuals with related interests. 

4. Incorporate Live Streaming and Student-Generated Content

Providing users with different ways to engage with your school can increase awareness of your programs and nurture a sense of community while adding more traffic to your social media channels. 

Live streaming, for instance, allows potential students and their parents to glimpse campus life. Meanwhile, streaming-specific events allow parents, students, and alumni who cannot be physically present during these activities to participate and stay updated no matter where they may be.

Allowing student-generated content and stories diversify your social media posts. Potential enrollees may find these posts more relatable, allowing them to see themselves being in your school. Featuring students may also increase traffic to your accounts, as these individuals and their families or friends may share these posts to their contacts.

5. Diversify Your Social Media Posts

Variety drives engagement. When creating your content calendar, go beyond words and images. Include video clips, newsletters, user-generated content, or even virtual tours. You can also add interactive content, such as quizzes, polls, and contests.

6. Be Responsive

Having an active social media presence goes beyond publishing posts regularly. To keep people engaged, you need to make sure your teams are responding to comments and inquiries in a timely manner. Being swift is especially essential for managing negative comments and false information that can hurt your school’s reputation.

7. Provide Career-Planning Resources

Students are often at a loss when it comes to what they want to do or who they wish to be. Learning institutions can take advantage of social media to provide more guidance to current students, prospective enrollees, and even alumni who may want to explore other careers. 

Schools can use social media to share information on high-demand skills in specific industries. They can also provide more resources on different careers as they relate to specific college courses or learning tracks.

8. Use Data to Improve Your Strategies

Social media campaigns don’t end with implementing strategies. You need to know whether you’ve achieved, or even exceeded, the goals you’ve set. 

There is so much you can learn from your social media analytics, such as the types of posts that generated the highest shares and reactions. Knowing this information can help you improve future campaigns by doing more of what worked and focusing your resources on platforms that generated the highest results.

Making Social Media Work for Educational Institutions

Social media channels have provided schools with additional avenues for connecting with students, parents, and alumni and showcasing what they have to offer. Nurturing these relationships, in turn, helps maintain and strengthen their loyalty to their alma mater. 

For these reasons, schools and educators must continuously improve their social media strategy and treat it as an essential component of their promotions and communication plans.

By Aaron Chichioco

Instagram Rolls Out Suggested Posts — Here’s How to Get Rid of It

AUG. 20, 2020

If you scrolled through your feed today, you may have noticed this change: 

 

 

Yes, Instagram rolled out Suggested Posts, which injects content from accounts you don’t follow — but you might like — straight into your feed. 

This is how it works: You scroll through your feed until the “You’re All Caught Up” message appears, a signal that you’ve seen all posts from followed accounts. Suggested Posts appears right underneath, showing content the algorithm believes you’ll like based on your activities (the accounts you follow, the posts you’ve liked).

This update, understandably, can be annoying if you don’t care much about posts from people you don’t follow. In fact, it can be a little invasive. 

If you want to get rid of suggested posts and return to your normal feed, click the triangle button from the upper-right corner. 

Here’s the catch: This isn’t a permanent solution. Suggested Posts will still appear each time you reach the end of your feed, and alas, there’s not much you can do about it. This Instagram Help article delivers the bad news: “You won’t be able to hide Suggested Posts.”

Rather than grumbling about the update, penning hate Tweets at Instagram, you can tailor suggested content to your taste by clicking the three-dotted icon on each post then tapping “Not Interested.” Your preferences will be reflected on the next round of suggested posts that appear on your feed. 

Note: Marking every single suggested post as “not interested” will not stop suggested content from appearing on your feed, but nice try. 

If it’s any consolation, at least Instagram didn’t roll this out to Direct messages, a test spotted in 2019. 

By Anne Felicitas, editor

How to Handle Negative Comments on Social Media Following These 5 Effective Examples

AUG. 19, 2020

Bench Accounting / Unsplash

If you run a business that is active on social media, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll receive a negative comment sooner or later. Whether or not you feel the negativity is justified, you’ll need a plan in place to respond. 

Many brands completely ignoring negative comments — this is a big mistake. It signals disrespect to the customer, which negatively impacts others’ perception of your brand, too. 

The only response worse than no response is to delete negative comments. Deleting a comment from a disgruntled customer often fans the flames and makes the situation worse. There are exceptions, such as if the comment is offensive, profanity-laden, violent, or threatening. But in most cases, you should resist the temptation to delete. 

Every now and then, you’ll see amazing brand responses to negative social media comments. Let’s look at a few of them and consider what we can learn from their examples.

Show Empathy 

According to Psychology Today, empathy is defined as “the ability to recognize, understand, and share the thoughts and feelings of another person.” People have a basic need to be heard and understood. Therefore, when you receive a complaint, it’s essential to empathize with how the customer is feeling. 

Empathy is one of the simplest and most effective ways to diffuse anger, frustration, or annoyance so that you can find a suitable solution. Here’s a fantastic example from Starbucks: 

It’s worth mentioning that empathy is not only reserved for major problems. It can also go a long way with issues that may seem relatively trivial, such as the above customer who couldn’t get her favorite drink due to an item being out of stock. 

Notice how the customer service representative validates the customer’s feelings by saying “how frustrating” before explaining how she intends to address the problem. The representative signing off by name also makes the exchange feel more personal. 

An empathic, personalized response shows that the brand cares about customers, and in many cases, that is all that’s needed to get them back on your side. 

Acknowledge the Error

We’re all human, and no business can expect to get things right every single time. What matters is not perfection but owning up to it when you make a mistake.

Stitch Fix is a clothing subscription delivery service that makes a point of responding to every review on social media, positive or negative. This customer was unhappy with the content of her delivery and felt that the stylist had not understood her requirements: 

Notice the personalized language in the response “we’d love another chance to get to know you.” This type of reply shows care and the willingness to adapt to get it right next time. Acknowledging that you failed to live up to expectations on this occasion humanizes your brand and goes a long way toward defusing the customer’s annoyance. 

In addition, thanking the customer for bringing the issue to the comdpany’s attention shows respect. Customer feedback is valuable, even when it isn’t positive. By valuing your customers’ opinions, you increase the odds that they will give you another chance.

Finally, offering the customer two options (fixing the problem or canceling the account) puts Stitch Fix back in control. 

Stand by Your Values

You don’t have to agree with negative comments, and there are occasions when you shouldn’t.

A UK Post Office employee known simply as Courtney went viral in June this year with her eviscerating responses to bigoted comments on Twitter. The organization ran a Pride Month campaign, showcasing the achievements of its LGBTQ+ staff. Among the many positive responses were a handful of negative and even hateful ones. 

The social media team, led by Courtney, pulled no punches in standing up for colleagues and equal rights:

 

Values are at the heart of your brand identity. Whether you’re speaking up for LGBTQ rights, gender equality, environmental issues, or something else entirely, don’t be afraid to hold your ground when it matters. 

The Post Office’s responses during its Pride Month campaign is a perfect example of how to push back against hateful comments without becoming aggressive in return. 

Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously

People love pointing out brands’ mistakes on their social media accounts. If you accidentally missed a typo, made a spelling mistake, or forgot to correct a grammatical error in a post, you can guarantee that your followers will be quick to gleefully point it out.

Indian fashion company Allen Solly mistakenly announced on a billboard that a new product was “comming soon [sic].” A follower snapped a picture and put it on Twitter, pointing out the spelling mistake. The brand’s response was swift and hilarious:

The company owned up to its mistake without making too big a deal of an ultimately harmless typo while adding a dash of humor into the mix. By implying the old-fashioned school punishment of writing lines, the brand makes fun of itself and gives its audience a smile. Notice the use of the winking-face emoji to indicate a shared joke. 

Although you must take larger issues seriously, small mistakes are often best handled with playful irreverence. Showing that you don’t take yourself overly seriously can endear you to your customer base. A simple “oops, our bad, thanks for letting us know” would have been fine, but nowhere near as memorable. 

You can avoid getting called out for embarrassing spelling errors by using a spelling and grammar checker before you hit “publish.” But if you do let one slip through the net, following Allen Solly’s example will keep you in your customers’ good books.

Give a Gesture of Goodwill

Depending on what your business does, it won’t always be possible or appropriate to respond to negative feedback by giving the customer something for free. But if you are able to, a gesture of goodwill achieves two things: 

It repairs the relationship with customers by showing that you care about their feedback and experience. 
A freebie makes it more likely that they will return, giving you the opportunity to show that their bad experience was a one-off and that you can do better. 

Check out this example from London restaurant Yolk:

Yolk does four things in this short exchange: apologizes, explains how the problem happened, offers a freebie as a gesture of goodwill, and shows that the company values the feedback. 

If you want a disgruntled customer to give you a second chance, the best way to get them back through your doors is to give them an incentive. In the long run, the cost of keeping a customer happy through a gesture of goodwill is far outweighed by the lifetime value of the customer. 

You might be wondering if you should make these offers privately to prevent an influx of complaints from people looking for freebies. It’s true that a very small number of unscrupulous people will make bogus complaints just to get free stuff, but these people are in the minority. 

By publicly offering a gesture of goodwill in the face of a complaint, you show your customers that you really care about offering an amazing experience, and that is worth far more than the occasional cost of giving something away. 

Handling Negative Social Media Comments Like a Pro

There’s definitely an art to handling negative social media comments in the right way. It’s a difficult balancing act because there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Different brands, customer bases, and problems will all require different responses. 

Whatever methods of handling negative comments you choose, make sure your brand’s voice and values are front and center. How do you want your customers to perceive you? Does the response you’re about to give enhance that desired perception? If not, approach the negative comment in a different way. 

Nobody enjoys getting negative comments on social media or anywhere else, but they are an occasional part of doing business. Presumably you want your brand to be seen as honest, trustworthy, and customer-focused. Ignoring or deleting negative comments will have the opposite effect, so resist the temptation no matter how strong it is. 

With inspiration from these examples, a strong sense of your brand’s voice and values, and a dash of creativity, you’ll soon be handling those negative comments like a pro. 

Good luck! 

Written by Jess Amy Dixon