Leading companies are focused on creating stronger customer experiences that span multiple channels and feel cohesive and meaningful to end-users. But many teams struggle to effectively combine legacy tools and emerging technologies required to build effective omnichannel experiences.
Autodesk partnered with ActionIQ to develop a future-proof stack that would empower a self-service approach to achieving superior omnichannel CX. Join this virtual session to learn how you can accelerate your approach to mastering omnichannel customer journeys.
Register today for “Is Your Marketing Stack Ready for Omnichannel CX?” presented by ActionIQ.
The post Accelerate customer journey automation with this CDP roadmap appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Reblogged 1 week ago from searchengineland.comIt’s never been more critical to make sure that your Google Ads aren’t burning through your budget.
The post Six Ways to Adjust Google Ads to Save Budget first appeared on PPC Hero.
Read more at PPCHero.com
Reblogged 1 week ago from www.ppchero.comFrom A/B testing to measuring and tracking, these Hero Conf London 2022 sessions will help you optimize your marketing strategy.
The post 9 PPC Strategies You’ll Learn at Hero Conf London 2022 first appeared on PPC Hero.
Read more at PPCHero.com
Reblogged 1 week ago from www.ppchero.comNot all traffic is equal. Businesses often forget that their site visits and success metrics aren’t just numbers – they are living, breathing people who are driven by behavior. By understanding and creating content to fit the different awareness stages of that “traffic”, you can not only draw more – but efficiently turn those clicks into conversions. After all, businesses aren’t built on visits alone.
This article will show you the three main awareness stages of online traffic, what type of content fits in these, and a method for auditing your existing content. Remember, every customer goes on a journey. This is about making sure you’re at the finish line when they’re ready to convert.
Now, bear with us, but answer this: would you try and sell roller skates to a newborn baby or its parents? A little extreme, yes, but sometimes these make the best examples. The point is that the baby may grow into someone that needs or wants a pair of roller skates, but they’re not at that stage yet.
Understanding the different stages your potential customers are at and how they’re searching for your products/services (both directly and indirectly) will give you the accuracy to target them better. These stages are awareness, consideration, and decision. Just knowing these won’t be enough, you need a balance.
A website that features content only suited to the first stage of awareness will struggle to convert, whereas a site only focused on conversions may struggle to get any traffic to convert in the first place.
Research and roleplay will help you massively here. To get in the head of your audience and understand what their journey looks like, you should be asking yourself “What would I do if…” at almost every corner.
To better explore these stages and how they apply to content, we’ll stick to one example for the next three sections. We’ll move on from the baby with the roller skates, and instead, focus on a hypothetical Manchester-based SME that sells hearing aids and is looking to grow its customer base.
This awareness stage is when the customer is just starting to realize they have a problem and that they need a solution. Before this stage, they may not have even realized that their issue could be fixed, or that it was an issue, to begin with. Good content at this stage plants seeds in their head that they don’t need to go on this way any longer.
With that in mind, you don’t want to overwhelm the reader here. Yes, they may now realize that they want a solution, but it’s exceedingly rare that a piece of content can tick all three boxes in one go. Those being – making them aware of the problem, helping them consider the options, and then decide to go with your option. That’s why we have different content for different stages.
In our example of the small business in Manchester that sells hearing aids, the content at this stage may look like this:
If we were writing content for this fictional company, we wouldn’t open these articles with “Now you’re here, view our huge sale on hearing aids!”. Instead, we’d relate to the problems the reader may be having. In fact, throughout all of these stages, your language should be empathetic, solution-focused, and relatable to the reader as much as possible.
Picture a woman in her 40s that has been playing guitar in a rock band since her youth. For her, not being able to hear the nuances of music would almost feel like having an oxygen supply cut off. She might be having some hearing issues, but her search might not start straight away with “hearing aids near me”. She’d try to learn about her issues, if they’re common and how they can be fixed. In these pages, we’d relate to hearing problems and ultimately (but without sounding too sales-y) suggest that hearing aids have helped millions of people by the end.
By writing content targeting this stage, you can be there right at the start of the consumer’s journey. While they will be more likely to convert at the end of that journey, a good content strategy is all about balance. This brings us to the next stage.
If the first stage is all about letting them know they have a problem, this is all about showing them how they can fix it. Here, the reader would actively be looking for a solution and considering their options.
While our hypothetical business may be experts at helping hearing loss, there are other ways to do so than just providing hearing aids. We can’t just assume that hearing aids are instantly the preferred option for every visitor. The challenge here is about balancing knowledge, empathy, and delivering content that is objective and genuinely useful to your consumer. However, while you educate your target audience about their options, you can add in smart CTAs that prompt the person towards a landing page that will drive revenue for your business – making this more a choice that your consumer made vs what you wanted to force down their throat.
Sticking to our example of that Manchester SME selling hearing aids, content at this stage may look like this:
As this is the middle stage, you’ll want to avoid leaning too much towards ‘awareness’ and too much towards ‘decision’. You won’t want to speak down to the reader and spend paragraphs explaining the very basics of hearing loss. You also won’t want to open up and ramble on about your great new sale on hearing aids.
Picture a scale, with ‘inform’ on the left and ‘sell’ on the right. You want this to be pretty evenly balanced, but leaning slightly to the left and on the side of ‘inform’.
Show the reader their options, and educate them on the solutions available. Then, if/when they decide that what you provide is the fix for them, they’re already on the right website! They just need a page where they can convert and make that final decision. That leads us on nicely to…
We mentioned before how awareness content gets you in front of the consumer at the start of their journey. While there’s a lot of value to being there at the starting line, it is content suited to this stage that turns clicks into customers.
That’s why pages here will move away from the blog/article format of the content suggested for the other stages. Instead, you want pages designed specifically for selling the reader on your product or service, with the option to convert right there.
For our hypothetical hearing aid business, the pages designed for this stage may look like:
These pages will be laser-focused on selling, while still informing the readers why your business is a better choice for them over all of your competitors. This means a huge focus on USPs.
In the case of our hypothetical hearing aid company, these may include free delivery, the lowest prices in Manchester, or even five years of free insurance. Your USPs should all be sung about on these decision-focused pages. Remember, at this point, they know they want whatever it is you’re selling, so you don’t need to go to great lengths to explain the very basics of your offerings. Just why your business is the best for them. Ensure to have some positive reviews scattered across these pages.
The content here should be easy to read, scannable, and supported by images if you think that’s something your audience is interested in (always look to see what competitors are doing).
Outside of the copy, for ecommerce businesses, the path to purchasing these products should be clear, with large buttons to show the user that this is where you can buy them. If you’re a lead generation business, then there should be plenty of CTAs (calls to action) to point the user to contact forms, phone numbers, or email addresses.
Like with any marketing or psychology model, there are variants of this with even more steps. However, if you boil it down, we believe that only three steps are necessary for most businesses. The important thing to remember is that the same user might not go through this entire journey on your website in one session. A balanced content strategy means that you can attract any potential customer at any stage, no matter where they are in their purchasing journey.
The danger of having an imbalance in your content strategy is that there might be plenty of blog posts around the first awareness stage, but users don’t realize that you can solve the problem they now realize they have. On the flip side, you could have most of your content focused on the final stage, but you may struggle to draw in the customers that don’t even realize they need you.
That’s why we recommend you run a content audit on your website to see how balanced your current output is. Create a table like the one below and add your existing content to it.
In the example here, we’ll use the ideas we used for our Manchester business:
Awareness Stage Content | Consideration Stage Content | Decision Stage Content |
Five common signs of hearing loss |
Six ways to help your hearing loss | Category pages showing off their best brands |
How to improve your hearing at concerts |
The five best hearing aids in the UK | Product pages where you can purchase hearing aids |
When to seek help with your hearing |
Why even teenagers should consider hearing aids | A service page to organize a hearing test (with a contact form) |
While mapping your pages to this, you should be able to easily identify where gaps are and then plan your content strategy around filling those in. ‘Mapping’ is a great term because all successful journeys involve a map.
If you’re just publishing random content with no overall purpose, you’re stumbling around in the dark and hoping you’ll land up where you want to go. A quality content strategy is all about understanding journies and being there for whatever step of it your customer is on.
Jack Bird is the Content Operations Lead at the Manchester-based SEO and digital marketing agency, Add People.
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The post Understanding the three awareness stages of your online audience appeared first on Search Engine Watch.
Reblogged 1 week ago from www.searchenginewatch.comTikTok has announced plans for a “contextual advertising solution” that will let advertisers get visibility next to the top 4% of content in TikTok’s For You feed.
What is TikTok Pulse. This is TikTok’s first exploration of an advertising revenue share program with creators, public figures and media publishers, the company said. Ad revenue will be split 50-50 with creators.
By advertising in Pulse, brands will appear among the top 4% of all videos of TikTok in 12 categories. These categories include:
Brand suitability. One concern for brands could be appearing alongside questionable content. Here’s what TikTok says it’s doing to ensure a safe environment for brands:
Eligibility requirements. Creators and publishers must have at least 100,000 TikTok followers.
When it will launch. Pulse will become open to U.S. advertisers in June. It will expand to more countries in the fall.
Why we care. TikTok has become a massive social platform that is hard for brands to ignore. This new program offers brands a way to get exposure alongside the top trending TikTok videos, which can get millions of views.
The post TikTok Pulse puts brands next to the top 4% of videos appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Reblogged 1 week ago from searchengineland.comThe post Giving Underperforming Posts a Second Chance with Updates appeared first on ProBlogger.
Photo by Jeffrey F Lin on Unsplash
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again….
Have you ever written a post that you thought would hit the spot with your readers, generate lots of interest and/or stimulate a great conversation and then find it fell flat on it’s face?
I have – in fact it happens all the time for a variety of reasons:
Many of these unsuccessful posts slide off the front page of a blog never to be seen or thought about again (by your readers or by you) – however, perhaps in time, they deserve a second chance. After all, you’ve put work into researching and writing them and with a second chance in the spotlight they could actually reach their potential and become more fruitful and rewarding to you as a blogger.
Over the last few weeks I’ve experimented on a number of occasions with giving old posts that I felt hadn’t lived up to their potential a second chance. I’ve done this in a few different ways with varying degrees of success but wanted to share the method that was most successful for me (as well as a few others at the end of this post).
The most successful of my experiments with giving old posts a second chance have been reposting them on the front page of a blog with updates.
I did this a few days back with a post on DPS on Slow Sync Flash. The previous version of the post had been posted back in January when my readership was considerably smaller than it currently is (ie most of my current readers wouldn’t have seen it before) and while it had been moderately successful in terms of generating comments I was never completely satisfied with the post (in terms of what I’d written and/or the traffic it got).
So I updated the post with a few tweaks that made it more useful, attractive and relevant and reposted it at the top of my blog (simply by changing the posting date in WordPress). I also included a note that it was an updated post at the end of the post.
IMPORTANT NOTE – I am able to do this at DPS because I have a permalink structure that does not include dates (ie it is just the BlogName/PostName not BlogName/Date/PostName as it is here at ProBlogger. if you have dates in your permalink structure you shouldn’t use this method as you’ll end up with a new URL for the post which can mean you lose any SEO ranking your previous version of the post had.
The results of this updated repost were significant with a front page appearance on Digg, large StumbleUpon traffic, being featured on the front page of Delicious and link ups from many blogs including a few authoritative ones.
The advantage of this method is that the post not only gets a second chance in the spotlight – but because it’s an established post with some Search Engine Ranking – the combination of the content being updated and new comments being added (Search Engines like fresh content), the appearance on your front page and the extra links that the post might generate means that the post will build it’s SEO authority.
The danger of this approach is that if you do it too often with posts that most of your readers will have seen before you run the risk of them becoming disillusioned with you. I don’t have a problem with updating old posts to make them more relevant and useful – but some of your readers might get a bit sick of reading the same old stuff if you do it too often.
This approach works best on evergreen or timeless posts – particularly ‘how to’ or ‘tips’ posts.
The reposted update is something that has worked very well for me on a number of occasions. However there are other ways to give an older post a second chance including:
So do you update posts? If so how do you do it and have you had any success with doing so?
This post itself is an update from the original article published May 11, 2007 and updated May 5, 2022.
The post Giving Underperforming Posts a Second Chance with Updates appeared first on ProBlogger.
Want to make your brand more visible to your target audience – so you can attract and convert more customers? Who doesn’t! But to get there, you may need to revaluate the ecommerce marketing strategies available to you.
The industry is constantly evolving which means you need dynamic ecommerce marketing ideas to ensure that you always achieve the best ROI (return on investment) on your ecommerce marketing campaigns.
Global retail ecommerce sales are currently estimated at about $5695 billion, and anyone who wants a piece of that needs to have a great ecommerce strategy.
A quick search online will show you that there are tons of marketing strategies to choose from. However, some are more effective than others. If you don’t want to waste your time trying to find out what works and what doesn’t, simply follow the tips outlined below. These are tested and proven to be the best and most effective ecommerce marketing strategies to help you crush your goals.
Email marketing has been proven to provide ample benefits for ecommerce. There are tons of different email marketing strategies that are perfect for ecommerce businesses. However, regardless of the type of strategy you choose, emails will help you reach your target customers directly in their inboxes which gives you the opportunity to nurture leads and increase your sales.
Use your emails to:
… and much more.
Just make sure that you use the right email tools. This will not only make your work easier, allowing you to automate much of your tasks, but it will also ensure high deliverability rates so your emails are read by your recipients as opposed to landing up in their spam folders.
Here are a few more best practices for your ecommerce email marketing strategy:
One thing ecommerce business owners know is that the industry is fiercely competitive. Regardless of the types of products you sell, make sure you produce rich, relevant SEO-optimized content as a way to differentiate yourself from all the rest and attract your target customers to your site.
Have a strategy in place for regularly publishing high-quality search-engine optimized content on your ecommerce website to engage current customers and attract new ones to your brand.
High-quality content promotes a great user experience on your site. But when you optimize your ecommerce content for search engines with relevant keywords, it also helps to put you front and center when users are searching for products like yours online.
Most marketers use SEO competitor analysis tools as well. These tools show where their competitors’ content strategy andwhich of their pages rank for the most keywords. Good SEO tools also make to easy to find less competitive terms that can bring ina decent amount of search volume for less work than more competitive terms.
Here are some additional tips for making the most of your ecommerce SEO strategy:
Encourage customers to post videos like reviews or testimonial videos or images of themselves using your products or interacting with your brand. You can then use this content on your site or as part of your social media marketing strategy. Just make sure that you copyright your logo before using it on any images, videos, on-site, in emails, or anywhere else.
Next on our list of essential ecommerce marketing strategies is website optimization. Your website layout plays a huge role in the number of conversions you achieve on your ecommerce site.
There are a variety of factors that you should test out and optimize according to how they perform with your target audience.
For example, you can test out your website’s language, layout, and placement of different conversion elements, such as your checkout page, banners, calls to action, etc.
Put yourself in your customers’ shoes to determine what kind of experience they have when they visit your website.
You can also use a conversion optimization tool that has heatmap features to help you see patterns in user behavior on your ecommerce site.
For example, you can use the movement heatmap to see which are the most attractive parts of your site. You may find that customers spend the majority of the time on one specific area of the page while they completely ignore another part.
This will help you determine what works and what needs optimization, and in such a case, you might consider moving your conversion elements to the areas that receive more attention in order to increase your click-through rates.
The most important thing you can do is to use the best website builder for your particular needs. Just make sure the website builder you select includes ecommerce functionality, SEO tools, a variety of web design features, customizable templates, features to increase conversions, and email marketing, and social media marketing integrations
Another powerful ecommerce marketing strategy social media marketing. It can be hard to track, but overall social media works so well because it’s a very personal and public way of communicating with your industry, market, and customers. It also comes with a ton of additional benefits, such as:
…and much more.
To save time, you can use social media marketing tools to automate some of your work.
A well-designed social media ecommerce marketing strategy will allow you to use different social media accounts to achieve different objectives for your campaigns.
The best part is that you’ll not only be able to diversify your efforts and abilities, but also create a rich presence for your company online and be able to cater to your customers’ needs in more effective ways.
If you can define a clear strategy for your social media work and be consistent in your efforts, over time, you’ll find it easier to increase brand recognition, build trust with your audience, and ultimately grow your business.
Here are a few best practices for building an effective social strategy:
PPC for ecommerce isn’t a new concept, but not everyone is doing it the right way. You need a strategy that allows you to maximize returns on your investment, and in order to create one, you first need to get the following three things right:
Your ad should be targeted at the right segment of people to make it more likely that you’ll get the conversions you want. The last thing you want is someone clicking on your ad only to discover that what you’re offering is not at all what they need.
Make sure to include a relevant and compelling offer that will entice your target customers to take the desired action (i.e. click on your ad).
Once someone clicks on the ad, the landing page should be a seamless continuation of the ad, with the sole aim of delivering what was promised to the visitor as a reward for clicking on the ad. You can then guide your visitor through the conversion funnel.
The bottom line is your landing page must be well designed according to current best practices so you can maintain the interest of your visitor – and with these basic elements in place, you’re well on your way to building a successful pay-per-click campaign.
There you have it. Five highly effective ecommerce marketing strategies that still work in 2022, and that you can implement right away.
Which of these strategies do you think will move the needle for your ecommerce business? Share your thoughts below!
The post 5 Essential Ecommerce Marketing Strategies for 2022 appeared first on AWeber.
Ready to tackle the biggest social media challenges?
If you’ve been struggling to grow your brand’s social presence, you’re definitely not alone.
Competition is fierce across industries right now. Couple that with a new wave of networks and higher expectations from your followers.
Food for thought: 71% of consumers are spending more time on social media. This activity shows the importance of building your own presence while also standing out from competitors.
In this guide, we break down eight of the most common social media marketing challenges that brands are facing today. For each hurdle, we’ll hook you up with actionable next steps that can help.
It’s no secret that organic engagement on social media has been on a downward trend.
More users and brands on a network means that you’re quite literally competing for the attention of customers and followers. After all, there are only so many interactions to “go around.”
And while the phenomenon of falling engagement was primarily a problem on Facebook and Twitter, the trend is impacting brands on Instagram as well.
In fact, recent research from Rival IQ notes that Instagram engagement rates have plummeted 30% YoY.
We’ll bite: overcoming algorithms is one of the toughest challenges of social media marketing. If you’re not running paid promotions alongside organic content, earning reach and interactions can be an uphill battle. That said, it’s not an impossible fight.
Feel like you don’t have much of a share of voice?
As noted earlier, most industries are crowded with competition. Look no further than the beauty space as evidence, brimming with brands and advocates eager to show off products in action.
From legacy brands to established players in your industry, staking your claim as an up-and-coming company is a tall order.
Our advice? Focus first on establishing your own identity and community versus obsessing over others’. It’s easy to get stuck comparing follower counts and engagements but doing you or your followers any favors.
Remember: a smaller, thriving community is more valuable than vanity metrics.
Messages. Notifications. Content deadlines. The list goes on and on.
If you’re trying to build a presence across multiple platforms, lost productivity is probably one of your biggest social media challenges.
Having a multi-platform presence involves cross-posting and responding to comments across channels, however, doing so without a strategy in place is a recipe for burnout.
There’s only so much time in the day that’s why its crucial to allocate your time without sacrificing customer relationships or ruining your own schedule.
This is where tools like Sprout’s Smart Inbox come in handy, allowing you to consolidate and collaborate across channels in one place.
Social media isn’t a “shiny new toy” anymore.
That said, some stakeholders or higher-ups might not see the immediate value of investing in social as a priority channel.
From lead generation to nurturing customers and beyond, the role of social in winning new business is actually well-documented. Heck, 4 of the 5 most budgeted-for marketing priorities for 2022 are related directly to social media.
Making a business case for social media is a common challenge associated with social media marketing but it shouldn’t have to be.
Although justifying social media to your boss might involve factors beyond your control (think: budget, personnel), tying your organization’s presence to business practices, the bottom line and performance should be a priority. Doing so not only helps cement the importance of your role but also helps earn future buy-in from colleagues and higher-ups.
Piggybacking on the point above, the importance of buy-in across your organization is key to growing on social media.
Despite the power of collaborations between departments like PR, product or demand gen, we’ve seen firsthand how many teams sadly stay siloed. The graph below shows the teams that social marketers interact with the most.
Sharing your data and insights shouldn’t be a burden and doesn’t have to be a time-consuming process. In fact, doing so is worthwhile for empowering yourself and your colleagues.
That’s because collaboration goes hand in hand with creating better campaigns and lessening second-guessing.
For example, consider how your sales team or product team sees the ongoing impact of your content marketing and social presence. With their insights, you can spend more time on activities that help your customers and win over prospects.
Coming up with fresh content ideas is among the most common social media challenges and perhaps the most frustrating.
That’s because your social media presence never really stops growing. Whether a campaign falls flat or earns a ton of attention from followers, you’re still expected to follow up and keep the good content flowing.
Social media success stories like Duolingo on TikTok represent a great example of how creative content can take your brand to new heights.
Again, you can’t obsess over what your competitors or legacy brands are doing. Creativity often comes in waves and the same rings true for social marketers. We recommend being proactive about coming up with ideas through strategic, ongoing brainstorming.
Social media has become a go-to channel for customer service and support.
Likewise, it’s a popular place to keep your customers in the loop in case of a crisis or hiccup with your product or service.
However, simply pushing out announcements isn’t enough if you want to keep your customers happy.
Beyond interacting with customers and leads, speeding up your response time is a must-do for keeping customers happy. Swift responses are met positively.
In short, brands need to consider how they respond to questions, call-outs and everything in-between if they want to maintain a positive online reputation.
Let’s say you’re stuck when it comes to what you “should” be doing on social.
Perhaps you feel like your brand is just on autopilot.
This is something that calls for an actual social media marketing strategy instead of posting “just because.” It never hurts to go back to basics to assess the big-picture purpose of your presence to guide it in the future.
Building an impactful social presence doesn’t happen by accident.
If you’re hitting roadblocks or don’t know what to do next, don’t panic. It happens!
What matters is that you have a proactive plan to keep your presence moving forward. Addressing the social media challenges above isn’t something you can afford to shy away from.
The good news? We have free social media templates to improve your strategy and make the struggles above a thing of the past.
The post 8 of the toughest social media marketing challenges (and how to overcome them) appeared first on Sprout Social.
Totally new to the concept of TikTok challenges?
Challenges are a cornerstone of TikTok and represent some of the platform’s most popular videos. From the dance-offs to make-up hacks and beyond, TikTok creators aren’t shy about answering the call to create content.
Heck, TikTok hashtag challenges like the #OldTownRoadChallenge or Chipotle’s #GuacDance boasts over a billion views each.
Perfect for building awareness and encouraging awesome user-generated content, brands are rightfully scrambling to find TikTok hashtags for their own challenges.
But getting engagement for a challenge doesn’t happen by accident.
Below we break down TikTok challenges work and the best practices for brands looking to leverage them.
Challenges on TikTok are campaigns (or trends) that invite people to create their own videos based on performing a specific task. These tasks might include:
Hashtags make these trends and the content created for them more visible and easier to find. Although some TikTok challenges are totally organic (like the #OldTownRoadChallenge), others represent branded promotions (like #GuacDance).
Below are some notable TikTok challenge campaigns that highlight what challenges look like and the kind of engagement they can drive:
Let’s look at a snapshot of the various types of challenges on TikTok and how they’re different.
Branded challenges are challenge-based campaigns created by a brand. Typically, brands partner with creators to promote these types of challenges to drive awareness for both the promotion’s hashtag and the challenge itself.
Community challenges are totally organic, usually stemming from a viral trend or question that’s been buzzing on TikTok. These challenges aren’t tied to a specific brand or product.
Similarly, community challenges are more niche and speak to a smaller set of creators versus the entirety of TikTok. The #3MinuteMakeupChallenge is a good example of this.
According to recent data from TikTok, hashtag usage and categorization have grown by more than 150% since 2021. TikTok communities (think: beauty, fashion, fitness, gaming) all have their own sets of unique challenges and respective audiences.
Uncovering trending community challenges often means spending time engaging with your target audience and customers. Unfortunately, TikTok’s native search leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to finding challenges.
Although community challenges are organic, many of them do involve the usage of products or shout-outs to brands. For example, plenty of beauty brands got mentioned last summer when the Farrah Fawcett Flip was trending.
Hashtag challenge ads are a TikTok ad format that serves as a takeover of the platform’s discovery page. Reserved for big box brands, these hashtags are denoted by the “sponsored” label but otherwise look like they’re organic.
The most common goal of these challenge-based tags is encouraging user-generated content. Below is a straightforward but effective example via Calvin Klein’s #OnlyInMyCalvins challenge.
If you’re skeptical about whether TikTok challenges are worth it, we get it.
That said, there’s a reason why challenge hashtags have become a staple of using TikTok for business.
Granted you have the appropriate audience to participate in a challenge, below’s a breakdown of the potential benefits.
Want to engage your audience, introduce yourself to new customers and get some valuable user-generated content at the same time? Challenges can make it happen.
That’s because hashtag challenges serve as a natural call-and-response between you and your audience. Coupled with an incentive (think: a contest, reposting), challenges represent a powerful motivator to get people posting about your brand.
Sure, some industries like beauty and fashion lend themselves to challenges more than others. That said, products and brands go viral on TikTok all the time. Look no further than the 10+ billion views on #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt for evidence.
It’s no secret that competition is fierce on TikTok as the platform rapidly expands its audience.
The more people you have talking about you, the better. According to TikTok themselves, branded hashtag challenges can drive “unparalleled” awareness and engagement.
Why? Because challenges put your brand front in center in the feeds of creators. Given that “everyday” accounts typically earn more reach than branded accounts, participating in a challenge is more likely to get more eyes on your brand. This explains why many of the branded TikTok challenges noted above center around partnerships with creators and influencers.
Recent social media demographics highlight TikTok’s younger audience versus competing platforms.
Speaking to Gen Z and the younger crowd means speaking their language. Most TikTok hashtag challenges are playful, fun and don’t feel like traditional promotions.
Translation? Rather than stick to stuffier ads and promos, challenges allow you to do something unique and relevant for your TikTok audience.
Keeping up with TikTok trends can be tough how quickly content moves on the platform.
That said, hopping on trends (and trending audio) is one of the best ways to engage the TikTok community at large. Trending challenges create a sense of immediacy as participants want their video to shine while a trend is still timely.
To wrap things up, here are some tips for brands that are serious about getting on board with TikTok hashtag challenges.
Notice that most of the branded hashtags mentioned above come from big brands and household names.
While earning millions of views on a challenge tag is possible, it’s definitely not the norm. Earning that sort of reach requires either a massive built-in audience or partnerships with influencers.
That’s why it makes more sense for up-and-coming brands to piggyback on existing challenges or trends themselves.
For example, a beauty brand is better off encouraging customers to shout them out in their #3MinuteMakeupChallenge video versus trying to build a trend from the ground up.
If you’re eager to participate in an existing challenge:
If you’re set on starting your own challenge:
Since TikTok has relatively small character limits your tag should be short, sweet and stylish.
Branded hashtag campaigns like #GuacDance and #InMyDenims are great examples of challenge tags. Make your challenge can’t-miss by pointing to it in your TikTok bio and content strategy.
Keep in mind that your challenge tag should be campaign-specific and not a general branded hashtag. The more subtle your hashtag is about being branded, the better.
Hashtag challenges are an awesome way to engage the TikTok community and grow your brand awareness.
Because challenges represent the best of what TikTok has to offer brands — entertaining, authentic content that gets people talking.
If you have a branded hashtag or challenge in mind, make sure you go through the steps so your tag earns the attention it deserves.
Need help in that department? Check out our guide to hashtag campaigns to learn the best practices for expanding your campaign’s reach.
The post TikTok challenges: what they are and why they’re great for brands appeared first on Sprout Social.
I know what you’re thinking: “I’m pretty sure I understand the benefits of tagging on social media”.
The thing is, what we’re talking about has nothing to do with mentions or the @ symbol. We’re talking about Tagging—a game-changing Sprout feature that can demystify the performance of both your inbound and outbound social content.
Tags help social marketers group and categorize posts for flexible reporting on content, creative and campaigns. Customers across industries use them to unlock key performance insights and move their strategies forward. Even our own social team relies on a robust tagging structure to report on over 50 specific types of content across networks.
If you’re new to Tagging, we’re here to show you the ropes. And who better to help than Sprout’s social team? They’ll give you a peek behind the curtain so you can build your tagging foundation with confidence.
Tags are used to categorize content, but not all tags work the same way. Think of “Tags” as an umbrella term to describe the overall concept of labeling posts. There are two subcategories of Tags that exist to help marketers report at a more granular level:
To understand what this looks like in practice, let’s look at a hypothetical example. Say our social team is running a campaign to promote an event. They want to learn which content types generate the most buzz on social. To track this, we could create a “Sprout Event” Campaign tag and a series of Labels for each content type (static image, animation, video, etc).
When it’s time to analyze, our social team can turn to Sprout’s Tag Performance Report, which includes tag, profile and message type filters. Our team uses these filters to compare performance between and within tags to identify trends, message volume, themes and post-level engagement.
Now that you understand the basics of tagging, it’s time to get into how Sprout uses Tags. Our social team constantly audits our approach to yield more specific insights. Here are their three most common Tag use cases:
Social content planning is anything but random. Everything we post aligns to overarching themes that we decide on during our content ideation process. Sprout’s Social Media Strategists, Olivia Jepson and Jonathan Zuluaga, use outbound tags to understand how well those themes perform with Sprout’s audience.
Tags are one of the most powerful tools we have. They’re incredibly helpful for both day-to-day strategy decisions and reporting. They elevate how we’re able to see and analyze data.
Jonathan Zuluaga
Social Media Strategist, Sprout Social
“We use outbound Tags to understand how often we’re posting specific content categories,” says Zuluaga. “At the end of the month, we use these to understand how often posting a certain type of content impacts performance.”
Tracking post volume empowers our social team to refine their strategy throughout the quarter. If they notice a certain content theme is outperforming another, they use this information to readjust post volumes to ensure we’re meeting our goals.
Jepson and Zuluaga recently used tags to dig into Sprout’s Twitter performance. “We were concerned we might be sharing too much third-party content,” says Zuluaga. “Using the Tag Performance Report, we were able to compare the amount of posts featuring third-party content to those that feature Insights articles. Then, we reviewed how each Tag performed month-over-month. From there, we were able to make strategic pivots as needed.”
On average, over 3,000 messages come through Sprout’s Smart Inbox each month. On an individual level, these messages may seem like simple engagement opportunities. But when you look at them collectively, they hold vital details on audience interests, concerns and wins. Inbound message tagging allows the Sprout team to parse through that information for insights that strengthen our marketing efforts and investments.
“Inbound tags help us track trends in engagement,” says Zuluaga. “We have a lot of labels that help us track everything from customer wins to product feedback.”
Inbound tags also help our social team differentiate between the messages that need replies and the ones that don’t. For example, many people use Sprout’s $Cashtag in stock market updates that don’t necessarily require any direct engagement from the Sprout handle. To solve this, Jepson leaned on another underrated Sprout feature.
“We created an automated rule that instantly adds a stock-specific tag to any $SPT-related content,” says Jepson. “That way, when we’re in the Sprout Inbox to engage with followers, we can filter those messages out.”
Automated Tags are the secret to creating a cleaner, faster approach to managing your Smart Inbox. You can apply them to specific keywords, phrases or message types so you can limit distractions and focus on current priorities.
At Sprout, our social media campaigns fuel our overarching marketing-wide initiatives. Our team goals ladder up to department goals, and those department goals ladder up to business goals. Campaign tags provide Jepson and Zuluaga with the flexibility needed to report on what matters most to each marketing team.
“The filters available in the Tag Report allow us to narrow in on metrics that align with the goals of the greater initiative,” says Jepson. “Campaign Tags can apply to both outbound and inbound messages, allowing us to zoom out to the bigger picture. We report on our performance and how people responded to the campaign beyond standard post-level data.”
Not all campaigns have a set end date. You may have seen our three-minute webinar series on LinkedIn or our trendspotting Reels on Instagram. These are evergreen content formats that our team constantly repurposes to support new content.
Jepson and Zuluaga use Labels to track the performance of these ongoing campaigns to determine which topics work best for the format. “It’s also useful when we’re trying out something new,” says Jepson. “Because the data is tracked automatically, we can focus on content creation as opposed to manual work.”
With tagging, the options are limitless. To develop your own structure, you need a clear idea of what you want to track. What burning questions do you have about your social strategy? Do you know what types of content are making the biggest impact on your followers? What do your fans want to know more about? You can answer all these questions and more with Sprout Social.
If you want more tagging inspiration, you can check out Grammarly’s strategy here. They use Tags to deliver product insights to their entire organization. Get their tips and learn how Tags can help you do the same.
The post Sprout on Sprout: 3 use cases for Tagging appeared first on Sprout Social.