by Fronetics | Aug 16, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Data/Analytics, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
The latest social media statistics show growth of Instagram, more metrics for ROI, social messaging bots, and video content.
One thing that always holds true with social media platforms: they are constantly changing. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have used 2018 to continue this trend of continual growth and improvement.
[bctt tweet=”One thing that always holds true with social media platforms: they are constantly changing. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have used 2018 to continue this trend of continual growth and improvement.” username=”Fronetics”]
It’s important with all the changes to take a pause and analyze where these changes are taking us. Simple data can point us to the latest trends and show us where social media is heading.
Social Media Examiner’s 10th annual study, 2018 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, surveyed more than 5,700 marketers from across the world in a variety of industries to see how social media is changing. It offers a really comprehensive view of what’s going on in social media in our industry and beyond.
“This industry report also shows you how marketers’ organic activities have changed and what their future plans are with organic and paid social media,” write the report’s authors.
Here are 10 social media statistics from the report that reflect where social media is headed and what B2B marketers need to be paying attention to.
Infographic: 10 social media statistics for B2B marketers 2018
(Made with Canva)
Still want more?
I really recommend reading the 44-page report in its entirety from Social Media Examiner. There are pages and pages of interesting social media statistics that offer valuable insight into how marketers from all industries are using social media.
The report also shows how social media has changed in the last few years and even more rapidly in the past few months. With messaging bots and video content on the horizon, it’s hard not to wonder where social media will take us next.
What social media statistics are most interesting to you?
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by Fronetics | Jul 31, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
Also in social media news July 2018: Instagram publishes a creator handbook with tips and tricks, YouTube features searchable hashtags, and Facebook debuts funded news shows.
Summer is half over and big box stores are already stocking their shelves with back to school supplies. While families are trying to sneak in their last trips before school, social media platforms are doing anything but going on a vacation.
LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are increasing updates and adding new features to keep their users happy while posting videos and pictures from their travels. But these updates and new features don’t just benefit personal users. Businesses are being positively impacted as well.
Social media platforms are continuing to add content kits, and even detailed guides, to help advertisers increase brand awareness and user reach. From paid spotlight ads to new creative tools, it’s becoming easier for companies to create interactive and engaging content with a few clicks on a computer.
[bctt tweet=”From paid spotlight ads to new creative tools, it’s becoming easier for companies to create interactive and engaging content with a few clicks on a computer.” username=”Fronetics”]
Here’s what’s been happening in July with your favorite social media platforms and how business are gaining more and more options for reaching new audiences.
Here’s your social media news for July 2018.
LinkedIn introduces new updates to LinkedIn Messenger
Along with some new updates to its news feed, LinkedIn made improvements this month to its messenger features. These features now include the ability to send attachments, incorporate images from screenshots, and start a group chat on the mobile version of LinkedIn messaging. LinkedIn says these updates will help professional conversations take on new formats — either more professional or more chat-like, depending on the needs of the user.
Facebook adds new creative tools for advertisers
Facebook introduced a new suite of creative tools for advertisers in its Ads Manager app that will make it easier for creators to build content from their mobile devices. Facebook writes, “These new creative tools allow you to create and edit ad images directly from the Ads Manager app, saving time and effort.” The suite also allows creators to fully customize ad templates and color filters to further branding opportunities for companies and improve the quality of ads within the app.
YouTube introduces searchable hashtags above video titles
YouTube has introduced a new way of displaying hashtags on its app — directly above the title of a video. Android Police states these hashtags are “clickable and will bring up a results page with other videos tagged with the same hashtag.” This new feature is currently only available in the U.S. but will give users greater access to video content by having hashtags prominently displayed above video titles.
Facebook debuts funded news shows
Anderson Cooper is headed to Facebook. On July 16, the social media platform debuted its first funded news show, including programming from ABC News, CNN, Fox News, and Univision. These programs will appear in a section of the Facebook Watch tab. “This section will feature news videos from national and local news Pages, and just like other sections in Watch, will be personalized based on the publishers you follow and what friends are watching,” writes Facebook’s blog.
Twitter testing promoted spotlight ads
Twitter is testing a new paid advertising option, Promoted Trend Spotlight Ads. These ads will allow advertisers to create a display banner at the top of the Explore feed for the first two times a user visits that day, before settling back into the Trends list. If approved, the new ad option will actually demote organic content pushing paid spotlight ads to the top of users’ feeds. Be on the lookout for the first trial ads coming from Disney in the new few weeks.
Facebook adds archive ability to Stories
Back in May, TechCrunch reported that Facebook was testing the ability to archive Stories, allowing users to save video clips after they expire to watch later or re-share on social media. Now other sources are reporting this update is becoming available to new users. Brands using Facebook Stories are particularly interested in this new feature, which would allow potential customers the ability to reference their content when making purchasing decisions.
Instagram publishes creator handbook
Questions about how to best promote your content on Instagram? Now we all have the answers. Instagram just published a 50-page Creator Handbook that covers tutorials, tips and tricks, suggested apps, and tools for creating and editing video. The guidebook, originally shared by Matt Navarra from the Next Web, will be extremely useful to brands looking to take their content to the next level, adding new features and editing capabilities.
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by Fronetics | Jul 26, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
Social messaging apps have taken over the way consumers are interacting with brands. Their increasing popularity means your business needs to embrace this new trend.
No one can deny the reach of social networks. After all, Facebook has over 2 billion active users. But as marketers, we’re noticing that consumers are moving away from social networks and welcoming the popularity of messaging apps with open arms.
Social media is constantly changing, and every new app gives users a new way to engage with family, friends, and brands. With the shift toward messaging apps, your target audience is making the leap, so your business needs to as well.
Messaging apps have a strong appeal: personalized engagement. Brands are able to make a one-on-one connection with every potential customer that comes in contact with their app pages. This is an opportunity you cannot miss!
Companies reaping the messaging app benefits
Yoox Net-a-Porter, a UK-based ecommerce firm with U.S. operations, made the switch to messaging apps after the brand discovered that many of its customers preferred WhatsApp for product details and suggestions and purchases. WhatsApp easily integrated with its order management system and is currently being tested as the company’s shipping notification system.
“Realizing that consumers increasingly prefer to receive information via personal messaging services rather than email, we have been working with WhatsApp to improve the way we use the WhatsApp service with great results so far,” writes Yoox Net-a-Porter on its blog.
And Yoox Net-a-Porter isn’t the only brand making the switch. WhatsApp, a social messaging platform owned by Facebook, reported 1.5 billion active users and over 60 billion messages sent per day at the end of 2017. These numbers, continuing to grow at a staggering rate, make it hard to ignore that brands need to be investing their marketing time and dollars in messaging apps.
[bctt tweet=”WhatsApp, a social messaging platform owned by Facebook, reported 1.5 billion active users and over 60 billion messages sent per day at the end of 2017. ” username=”Fronetics”]
In our latest video, Kettie Laky, our social media director, discusses why social messaging apps are becoming so popular and the top four apps your brand should become familiar with.
Video: Top 4 social messaging apps your brand needs to be using
Takeaway
As with any new marketing effort, trial and error are a big part of the equation. In order to get the most from your time (and budget!), make sure you’re utilizing the best messaging app for your brand. Before committing to an app, ask these important questions:
- Who is my target audience?
- How will the app add value to my target audiences?
- How do I want to deliver my content?
- Do I want to use more than one app?
- How frequently will I be marketing on the app?
These questions can help you find the social messaging apps that will work best for your marketing campaign and start connecting with customers in a more personalized way. These apps making sharing valuable content easier than ever.
What social messaging apps has your business tried?
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by Fronetics | Jul 25, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain
Here are 4 components of an effective lead-nurturing campaign that will entice your potential customers and have them moving down the sales funnel.
Your content marketing objectives really come down to one basic goal: to generate a high number of quality leads. These leads will help drive tomorrow’s revenue and increase sales. In fact, 85% of B2B marketers say lead generation is their most important content marketing goal.
[bctt tweet=” 85% of B2B marketers say lead generation is their most important content marketing goal.” username=”Fronetics”]
As more and more buyers discover brands before they are ready to purchase, an essential function of any marketing department is lead nurturing. That is, moving leads through the sales funnel by leveraging what’s known about their needs and online behavior.
Marketo, a marketing software company, describes lead nurturing as being “personalized, adaptive, and able to listen and react to buyer behavior in real time.”
We know that marketers need to focus their lead nurturing strategy on multi-channel engagement. This includes utilizing email, social media, blogs, and video to interact with potential customers. A multi-channel lead nurturing strategy is essential for companies looking to optimize their user experience and bring in high-quality leads.
With so many variables contributing to a productive lead-generation campaign, it can be challenging to pinpoint what differentiates a successful campaign from a mediocre one. Here are four tools that will help you deliver a series of targeted messages across multiple touch points and platforms to help solidify your lead-nurturing strategy and increase your quality leads.
4 building blocks of an effective lead-nurturing campaign
(Made with Canva)
Takeaway
Successful lead nurturing is really about utilizing all the tools at your disposal to meaningfully connect with your leads in order to build trust and establish credibility. Using these four key points, marketers can start building on their lead-generation efforts as they guide potential customers on their journey to becoming a client.
And don’t forget: Asking for the right information is key! If you want to nurture high-quality leads, you need to make sure you’re capturing relevant, helpful information along the sales journey.
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by Fronetics | Jul 23, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain
Part four in our series on effective lead generation walks you through how to create a form that converts leads, getting you the information you need without driving prospects away.
Welcome to the last installment of our series on effective lead generation and nurturing. Now that you know how to:
- Create and package a valuable offer
- Add calls-to-action that work
- Design a landing page that converts
So, what’s next? The final step in the lead generation process, and one that’s too often overlooked and undervalued, is designing a form that gets you the information you need.
It’s all in your form
When prospects get to your landing page, they’ve indicated that they’re interested in your offer. Ideally, what they find on your landing page has reaffirmed their interest. Now it’s time for them to provide you with what you’re looking for in return for the value you’re offering them: their contact information.
The information you glean from your prospects will feed into your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or other lead management database. This means that you should essentially be retrofitting your form based on your email segmentation criteria. In other words, you want to get just the right information from your prospects that will allow you to tailor your lead nurturing to best suit their needs and interests.
[bctt tweet=”An effective form strikes the delicate balance between acquiring all the necessary information and keeping the willingness and attention of your visitors.” username=”Fronetics”]
Your head might be filling with visions of long and comprehensive questionnaires — not so fast. If you make your form too long or involved, prospects will abandon it out of impatience and frustration, or feel that you are exploiting them for more time or information than they’re willing to provide. An effective form strikes the delicate balance between acquiring all the necessary information and keeping the willingness and attention of your visitors.
3 characteristics of forms that convert leads
For this last and crucial step in your lead generation strategy, it’s all about capturing leads. So, what makes for an effective form?
1. Find the length that works for you.
Conventional wisdom would have you believe that the shorter your form the more leads you’ll get, whereas the longer the form, the better quality (though fewer) leads you’ll get. But that’s a bit of a simplistic and defeatist way of looking at it.
We think you can have your cake and eat it, too. The key is to design your form with your email segmentation criteria in mind.
Ask as few questions beyond the basics as possible to get you precisely the information you need. Your goal is richness of information, as opposed to lengthy, detailed questions. For more, check out HubSpot’s guide to creating a form.
2. Don’t frighten them away.
It may seem counterintuitive, but you should avoid using the word “submit” on your form. Nobody likes the idea of “submitting” their information.
Instead, use a phrase that demonstrates that your prospect is about to get something that they want by supplying their information. For example, “Get it free,” or, “Download now,” emphasizes what the prospect will receive, rather than what they will be giving.
3. Protect their privacy.
In the current climate, we’re all thinking more and more about how our data gets collected and shared. Make sure your prospects know that you’ll be a good steward of the information they provide you.
Add a privacy message or link to your privacy policy, indicating that their email or contact information won’t be shared or sold.
Creating forms that convert leads is the final step — though one of the most crucial — in effectively turning website visitors into prospects. If you can manage to create a valuable offer, entice visitors with a call-to-action, convince them to convert on a landing page, then present a form that encourages them to complete it (rather than drives them away), then you’ve done your job as a marketer.
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by Fronetics | Jul 19, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain
In part three of our series on effective lead generation and nurturing, we walk you through the components of effective landing pages that convert visitors to leads.
If you’ve been keeping up with our four-part series on effective lead generation, you should be up to speed on creating a valuable offer and a call-to-action that works. The next step in a finely tuned lead generation process is a landing page that converts.
Why does my offer need a landing page?
[bctt tweet=”Landing pages are crucial, and brands miss out on opportunities when they fail to optimize them. According to HubSpot, marketers see an average 10% conversion rate on landing pages — that represents a huge amount of missed opportunities.” username=”Fronetics”]
Landing pages are crucial, and brands miss out on big opportunities when they fail to optimize them. In fact, according to HubSpot, marketers have seen an average 10% conversion rate on landing pages — that represents a huge amount of missed opportunities. Brands that have it right, those that focus on designing for conversions, reap the benefits in big ways.
Your primary objective for a landing page is to get visitors to submit their contact information in exchange for the offer. At this point in the process, your potential customer has already engaged with your call-to-action, meaning he or she is interested in your offer. When they get to your landing page, everything they find there should affirm their choice to and assure them that the content they are about to download is going to be relevant, interesting, and valuable.
Designing landing pages that convert
So what are the hallmarks of a great landing page? Starting with the basics, your landing page should briefly, simply, and clearly describe the benefits of your offer. It’s important that there be as few distractions as possible. For example, make sure the page doesn’t have a top navigation menu. Bonus points for including ways to share your offer on social media.
Additionally, you should make sure that your landing page doesn’t include links to other things on your website, as they can distract the lead and perhaps send them somewhere else on your website where they can find the information you’re presenting in your offer.
As you design your landing page, keep this checklist in mind:
- Is it clean, organized, and clearly presented?
- Is there any ambiguity about where or how leads should enter their information?
- Does it describe the benefits of my offer?
- Is it free of extraneous or distracting content or links?
- Is it mobile-friendly?
- Does it contain easy ways to share on social media?
If you follow these tips for landing pages that convert visitors to leads, we’re confident you’ll start to see an uptick in your website conversion rate almost immediately.
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