Businesses are now having to incorporate an Instagram marketing strategy alongside other social media networks as a large segment of Instagram users are a potential buyer of the businesses product or service.
Instagram History
Instagram is a social media networking service allowing users to share photos and videos. The app was created in October 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger.
Mark Zuckerberg the CEO of Facebook saw the potential of Instagram and in April 2012 bought the company for $1 billion, with a user base of 30 million. The young start up company had 13 employees at the time with zero revenue coming in.
As of June 2018 Instagram has hit 1 billion users and is expected to amount $6 billion worth of advertising revenue in 2018, with some analysts predicting this number to increase to $20 billion by 2020.
Despite Facebooks recent setbacks regarding the public’s confidence in their privacy policy, data breaches, and fluctuating stock prices, advertisers haven’t shyed away from the platforms powerful influence it has on consumers.
There is an arms race between Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat as to how many minutes per day a user is spending on these social apps. In June 2018 new data from the online measurement company SimilarWeb was released.
“Instagram users in the U.S. spent nearly as much time in the Android app as Facebook users spent on their app.
On average, Instagram users spent 53 minutes per day with the Android app in June — just five minutes less than Facebook users spent with their app. Snapchat users spent 49.5 minutes in the Snap app, on average.”
Why a Business Should use Instagram Advertising
Instagram is currently the platform where specific businesses need to be found on when looking at paid search across the different social media platforms in regards to brand awareness, followers, engagement, driving business sales and generating leads. Instagram advertising has the potential to get your business ahead of your competitors.
“Instagramers look to be inspired, be creative, explore photos, videos and watch IGTV which includes content from brands and businesses on the social media network.
Instagram Audience
Interested in advertising your business on Instagram?
Our digital marketing team have a wealth of experience helping businesses with social media advertising in research, planning, creating original campaigns that deliver results for your business.
When it comes to local search marketing services pre internet one traditional way to search for a local service or product would be to reach for the yellow pages or local directory. Fast forward to today and for many people google is the default place to go to obtain information about services and products. One factor to help you increase local SERP for your website is to build local citations.
What is a Local Citation?
A local citation is any online mention of the name, address, postcode (NAP) and phone number for a local business. Citations can occur on local business directories, on websites and on social platforms. Citations help Internet users to discover local businesses and can also impact local search engine rankings. Local businesses can actively manage many citations to ensure data accuracy.
Citations can occur on:
Local generic business directories
Social and Review – oriented sites
Geo/Industry-Specific Niche Platforms
A business can look at building geographic and industry specific listing citations
An example citation directory of the restaurants industry in London
Across The Web
Local business citations can be built or earned by reaching out to a variety of publications such as blogs, news sites, maps, industry specific and government databases and accredited associations.
In addition to the essentional framework of a citation NAP name, address and postcode, citations can also include a number of other core features that enhance the user experience providing them with more information about the business.
The Most Important Citation Site Features
The state of Citations in 2018?
Local Search Experts
“The more prominent and consistent your business is online matters. When a search engine can see that you have more mentions than your competitors it only makes sense that this could affect the way the algorithm sees you as an entity. At the end of the day, getting citations done is a necessary evil. They are not as important as they were a few years ago, but the same thing holds true as it was back in the 90s. If you can get a link or a mention on a relevant website that your customers would care about, then go for it. The worst thing that can happen is you gain more traffic.” Ben Fisher
Google My Business (GMB)
Google has a specific feature when it comes to local search. Google my business is a free feature that make it easy for people to start building visibility in Google Search and Maps in your local community.
Core GMB listing Information
Business Name
For more information about Google My Business refer to the following article “Promote Your Business For Free With Google My Business Posts 2018″.
Our marketing department have a wealth of experience helping businesses improve their online presence through local marketing services.
The term voice search is a speech recognition technology that allows users to search by voice command by saying terms out loud to search the internet, or a portable device, rather than going to a search engine for example Google or Bing where the user has to type in a search term. In recent years we have seen the rise of smart phones and the applications they are using that effect our everyday lives personally and on a business level. Smart phones and smart speaker devices have driven a strong interest in voice search.
Smart Speaker Device Virtual Assistant
A smart speaker is a voice command device with an integrated virtual assistant.
What Are The Benefits Of A Smart Speaker?
A smart speaker offers the user an interactive handsfree experience, it is activated by a “hot word”. One of the first smart speaker devices is called Amazon Echo which was released to the U.S. public back in 2014, two years later it was launched in the U.K.
The virtual assistant integrated with Amazons smart devices is called Amazon Alexa. To activate the echo the hot word is “Alexa”. Alexa can answer your questions, follow your instructions and control your smart home devices. As of January 2018 there are 31 million Echo users in the U.S. If you are a fan of science fiction, Alexa was inspired by the computer voice of the infamous Starship Enterpise TV series originating back to the era of the 70’s.
Source: Canalys
Smart Speaker UK YouGov Poll
Smart speaker ownership among Britons has doubled in the last 6 months
What do Smart Speaker Owners Use Their Device For?
A Closer Look at Amazon Echo (2nd Generation)
The Features
“Amazon Echo connects to Alexa-a cloud-based voice service-to play music, make calls, set alarms and timers, ask questions, check your calendar, weather, traffic and sports scores, manage to-do and shopping lists, control compatible smart home devices, and more.
Just ask for a song, artist or genre from Amazon Music, Spotify, TuneIn and more. With multi-room music, you can play music on Echo devices in different rooms, available for Amazon Music, TuneIn and Spotify; Bluetooth not supported. Echo can also play audiobooks, radio stations, news briefings and more.
Call or message anyone hands-free who also has an Echo device or the Alexa App. Also, quickly connect to other Echo devices in your home using just your voice.
New speaker with Dolby processing that fills the room with immersive, 360° omnidirectional audio, and delivers crisp vocals, deep bass, and clear highs at louder volumes.
With seven microphones, beam-forming technology and noise cancellation, Echo hears you from any direction-even while music is playing.
Just ask Alexa to control your compatible smart lights, switches, TVs, thermostats and more
Alexa is always getting smarter and adding new features and skills. Just ask Alexa to request an Uber, order a pizza, get train times, and more.”
What Is an Alexa Skill?
Alexa is Amazon’s voice service and the brain behind tens of millions of devices like the Echo family of devices, Fire TV, Fire Tablet, and third-party products with built-in access to Alexa. Alexa provides capabilities, or skills, that enable customers to create a more personalized experience. There are now tens of thousands of cloud-based skills from brands like The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Universal Studios, and Uber as well as individual designers and developers.
Essential skills for your new Amazon Echo speaker
Google Home
This smart speaker device “Google home” series is integrated with “Google Assistant” as it tries to gain its market share behind Amazon Alexa its main competitor. As of January 2018 there were 14 million users of Google home in the U.S.
Google home has many similar functions to Amazon Alexa.
Various forms of both in-house and third-party services are integrated into Google Home, allowing users to speak voice commands to control interaction with them. Examples of supported services include Google Play Music, Spotify and iHeartRadio for audio, Netflix, YouTube and Google Photos for videos and photos, Google Calendar and Google Keep for tasks, and CNN, CNBC and The Wall Street Journal for news updates. New services are integrated on an ongoing basis.
Apple Home Pod
The Home Pod brings to the table outstanding sound quality integrated with Siri voice that is highly accurate which syncs with Apple Music. Apple Home Pod was released to the UK public in June 2018. The Home Pod initially received mixed reviews.
The Audio Technology Behind Home Pod
The Smart Speaker Privacy Debate
Firstly, internet users are now becoming more savvy understanding how their personal data is being used and stored. There has been an increase in ad-blocking on internet browsers.
We have seen more recently how social media network companies have been in front of U.S. congress and the E.U. parliament explaining how they handle and store their users data. A well-documented case was how Cambridge Analytica took advantage of Facebook members personal data.
The question is can users be confident in the big tech companies and the responsibilities they have to protect the individual. One can change the security and privacy settings for Amazon, Google and Apple smart speakers. Note it is worth reading the terms of service (privacy policies) for each manufacturer.
Voice search is becoming more common place and users will adapt in a positive way to embrace this technology as the digital lifestyle around us evolves in years to come.
Situated on the banks of the Deben, the Woodbridge Tide Mill has been harnessing the power of the river for over 800 years. Continuing to mill to this day, it is ranked as the number 1 thing to do in Woodbridge (TripAdvisor) and required an updateable website to entice and educate potential visitors.
Using the existing branding we incorporated a bright and bold website, that’s easy to navigate to make sure information is quickly found. Key information is available on every page, and details such as the Tide Mill Mouse and a flowing “swoosh” sets the design of the site apart.
The Tide Mill is a charity and receives little state funding, so the majority of upkeep costs are provided by the community and friends. We advised on using GoCardless which allows for cost effective regular repeat donations automatically, alleviating administration and complex paperwork. The site also invites people to be a volunteer, with milling roles through to PR and fund raising positions available.
Infotex have been delighted to support the Tide Mill, and look forward to many more years of milling and turning.
Why not take a look woodbridgetidemill.org.uk
Instagram have shaken up the social media and TV world by launching IGTV a new feature that allows users to post long form vertical videos with ease.
Prior to last week Instagram restricted the length of video you could upload depending on the post type:
IGTV allows videos as long as an hour long, enabling Instagramers, brands and influencers to create more engaging content. General accounts can post up to 10-minute long videos, however larger and verified accounts can upload videos of up to an hour.
IGTV can be accessed through Instagram or you can download the app separately.
Currently there are no ads on IGTV but it is likely that this is the direction it will head in. Brands therefore should be looking to utilise IGTV to create great content and partner with influencers.
Lele Pons, who has a whopping 25.2m Instagram followers, is planning to launch a new cooking show on IGTV, Gucci are sharing their fashion shows (https://www.instagram.com/tv/BkQOGu7hCRt) and Netflix posted an hour of Cole Sprouse eating a burger – and it has had over 750k views!
Think about the different features of Instagram and which feature best suits each piece of content. IGTV shouldn’t replace your stories. Stories are an opportunity to build brand personality – add annotations, make them fun and engaging without needing to invest too much resource into the creation.
IGTV also has great content analytics like Instagram itself. This will allow brands to analyse what content works best for them. ‘Audience Retention rate’ is a particularly useful metric giving a breakdown of the percentage of users who watched the video all the way to the end and you can see where in the video users drop off. All great learnings for content creation.
Instagram now has over 1 billion users – a great opportunity to reach your audience.
However, to cut through the mass of content you must invest in creative, inspiring videos. Don’t just make your videos longer because you can – use those extra seconds and minutes wisely. Instagramers will quickly tell you through comments, follows and analytics if your investment is delivering – and if it’s not go back to the drawing board, listen, plan and create.
Video isn’t the future it is now. Brands that do not embrace video as a media to engage with their target audience will get left behind.
More businesses in 2019 are including YouTube in their digital marketing strategy. The same marketing trend is occurring on other major social media networks – Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Linkedin.
Video content will account for 80% of all internet traffic by 2020. Video content gets up to 10x more reach and engagement compared to links and images
YouTube is increasing its international reach with a healthy audience due to the increased access to the internet for a number of reasons. Year on year first and developing world countries are spending billions of dollars in updating and building their national telecommunications infrastructure to increase broadband speed and reach.
The truth is that YouTube is the second largest social media platform after Facebook and it has broadly all the same generic features as other social media platforms and more:
Monthly active users:
YouTube Features
YouTube like all social media platforms can be used to link back to your site in numerous ways, helping to boost the traffic coming to your site as well as helping your SEO. YouTube videos are also indexed in the google search results
Let’s start with content. As with social media, you will need content for an audience to engage with. You have to create a “hook” at the start of the video. Your average viewer will decide to watch the video within the first 3-5 seconds due to the high volume of people watching video online and their short attention span.
70% of a videos performance will depend on how creative and authentic the content is.
Let’s start with content. As with social media, you will need something for an audience to engage with.
Where most people go wrong with YouTube content is that they try to make something that will go ‘viral’. In reality the chances of this happening are extremely slim. It is important to remember that just because you don’t have the biggest worldwide trending content doesn’t mean it isn’t attracting a new audience to your company.
Instead make something relevant. Whether it is a simple ‘how-to’ video, tutorials, unboxing, live streaming Q&A’s with your subscribers or something explaining your product or service, make sure that your brand comes across in a natural (and not too salesy) way.
Here are a few factors to consider when making your content:
YouTube can be a great place to advertise a product or service, it can persuade potential customers into buying your service over your competitors. So, make it something that stands out and get people engaged. Bring in you and your teams creativity or hire someone to help if you are not the creative type. Come up with something that will look great and get a relevant message across.
Like all of your content, your YouTube videos should reflect your business. So make sure that it has a clean professional look to it. It is worth investing some money and time into getting it right – you will still be spending a lot less than on a TV advert.
Once you have your content, there is more that you can do than just uploading it to YouTube. Here are few tips to get people to see the content you have created and use it to increase the traffic to your site.
Make sure that your videos are tagged to the right categories. YouTube does a great job of keeping its audience engaged, you will have probably noticed that you will be offered ‘related videos’ on the right-hand side of the page – take advantage of this. By making sure that your video is titled correctly and tagged to the right category your content can reach your target audience from similar videos they are already watching via related videos.
‘Favouriting’ other videos that align with your brand or product will mean that they show up on your channel, giving you a wider range of content on your channel homepage. Curating videos can be just as important as creating them so don’t be scared to share content from other brands that you align with.
The key objectives of creating content are to get people interested in your brand and onto your site. Your channel homepage can be linked back to the homepage of our site and the videos themselves.
Make sure that you have links in the description to lead potential customers back to site.
Annotations can also be added on top of the video at the end, again leading back to the site.
Make sure that if your video links to the relevant area of the site and not just the homepage. If the video is in reference to a certain product or service, make sure that it takes them directly to that page.
Your video shouldn’t just stay within YouTube. Post it on your website, share in on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, medium.com, Snapchat and Twitter, link to it from a newsletter – the more exposure it gets the more return you will get from it.
Now that you have content and few ideas for setting up your videos correctly we can move onto the bigger services that YouTube can offer your business.
YouTube offer a wide variety of advertising options including adverts after searches (similar to pay per click) and adverts before videos are played (pre-rolls). You can bid for YouTube keywords in the same way that you would bid on Google Adwords search network.
It is very easy to set up. All you will need is a video uploaded to YouTube, a Google Adwords account and then you are ready to launch your ad campaign.
Once you have everything set up you will be able to track your campaign with Adwords and the YouTube free analytics service, which lets you track the traffic your video gets as well as traffic generated from annotations.
If you want to learn more about getting started both YouTube and Google have produced fantastic guides for setting up your YouTube channel to help your business. If you would like to learn more about increasing your web presences don’t hesitate to give us a call on 01394 615 615 or email enquiries@infotex.co.uk
Family team Mark, Mardie and Robert Palmer together run East Anglia’s leading boutique portrait studio, Mark Palmer Photography. Mark opened his first studio in the 1980s in converted stables behind his grandparents’ business in Saxmundham, wanting to move away from dull staid portraiture and create images that he and Mardie wanted to hang on their walls. Mark Palmer Photography have been going from strength to strength and realised they needed to harness the power of digital marketing to capture a new audience and grow their business.
Mark Palmer Photography needed a responsive, easily editable website that could show off their beautiful work whilst at the same time reflecting them as a company. The new website needed to have a real simple design and layout to allow their imagery do the talking. It’s simple, crisp and guides the visitor through their processes seamlessly and encourages them to place an enquiry – which is exactly what any website should do.
We’re pretty proud of how it turned out, the client loves it and the feedback has been excellent.
Why not take a look www.markpalmerframlingham.co.uk
Thousands of digital marketers from around the world arrived for Brighton SEO with the knowledge they would have the privilege to learn and hear from the leading voices in the search marketing industry.
Again Kelvin Newman pulled off another successful and memorable search marketing conference.
It was great to meet, network and share ideas with digital marketing freelancers, executives, managers, CEO’s from agencies and passionate individuals who want to learn more about the industry and best business practices.
Of course, every year attendees love the goodies they get in their swag bags. Thanks to all the exhibitors and sponsors for their contributions.
There were many takeaways from the event, the overall trend is that SEO is still relevant more than ever and SEO will evolve over time adapting to new technologies, machine learning, A.I. and how humans will use the web in their daily personal and business life.
Chris from BrightLocal gave Infotex his summary of the days event:
“Every BrightonSEO is an invaluable source of knowledge and networking for the BrightLocal team, but this April’s conference was especially important for us. We’ve recently relocated to Brighton – and wanted to take this opportunity to really cement our position within the Brighton SEO community. It was great to sandwich the morning and afternoon sessions with a networking session – meeting loads of interesting digital marketers from Brighton, and further afield. We also made full use of having Greg Gifford in the UK – sending our newer recruits to his brilliant training session to brush up on local SEO (and 80s movies).
The sessions themselves were as interesting as ever – with a notable standout from Buzzsumo’s Steve Rayson and Brandwatch’s Giles Palmer exploring social sharing amid the content marketing boom.
It was also interesting to see reputation management gaining even more of the conference’s share of voice. We predict this will be one of the SEO trends most likely to grow in importance over the coming months.
A huge congrats to Kelvin for organising another excellent day – and making such a memorable entrance!”
Brightlocals chosen tweet of the day
SEMrush
One of the tools the digital marketing team at Infotex use is SEMrush who gave us the following comment about the conference “We loved it, and as usual, it was a treasury of knowledge and an opportunity to meet with wonderful people”
SEMrush have compiled a detailed slideshare that contains the main highlights of the days conference.
Link Research Tools
I picked up a signed copy of “Spagetti Code” by Christoph C Cemper the founder of linkresearchtools.com for our digital marketing team.
Socialpubli.com
Lucila Rios from socialpubli talked to Infotex about micro-influencers. From socialpubli’s web site they highlight the importance of micro-influencers.
“At SocialPubli.com, we believe that we are all influencers. Today, it’s not just people who have millions of followers who help to win over consumers. It has also been proven that micro-influencers, ordinary people, can be a very important component in a marketing strategy.”
Pinterest is often overlooked as a website to boost your SEO rankings when considering digital marketing strategies. Pinterest is usually regarded as an inspirational site for those interested in food, interior design and fashion, but it’s so much more. If you aren’t using Pinterest, you could be missing out on an opportunity. With over 150 million users that continue to grow, here is your guide to using Pinterest to boost your SEO.
As with all websites and social media platforms, the content you produce needs to be good-quality and tailored to your audience. It’s no different with Pinterest. The backbone of the site is sharing new and unique content regularly. The SERPs monitor how many times a piece of content is shared, liked or re-pinned, so share content that’s unique, relevant or interesting. Pinterest provides a perfect platform to share blog posts, images, or products to help enhance your marketing strategy.
It’s important to make sure your business name is in the account name and username, along with a strong description about your company. Remember to include a number of searchable keywords, but don’t sacrifice quality; make sure it reads well.
Backlinks are an invaluable piece of SEO because search engines generate where your page ranks by considering the number of backlinks that lead people to your website. The more times your pin is viewed, the higher the backlinks to your website. You can even boost your backlinks further by inserting links into the captions of your photos and posts so that another backlink is created each time someone re-pins your image.
The trick behind keywords is finding the balance between not over-using them and using them effectively. Embrace the power of the #hashtag and use keywords in all of the descriptions of your pins. This will help increase your exposure on the web. You should also make sure your images are saved under your chosen keyword. An image won’t rank for “image2320”, but has a higher chance if it’s saved as its exact description.
Take advantage of Pinterest in-house analytics to track and analyse your progress so you can change your strategy in the future if needed.
If you’re interested in SEO strategies for your web design, then get in touch with us and we’d be happy to discuss all things SEO with you.
Every business needs a website, but designing a good website is a complicated business which many people get wrong.
Here is a list of helpful hints to ensure that your web design is exactly what your business needs:
You need to keep your layout simple and uncluttered. If you don’t, your customers will feel overwhelmed and will quickly switch off from your message.
Yes, your brand might have a distinctive colour scheme, but don’t plaster fluorescent colours across your website. No one will stick around to read your site if the background hurts their eyes. This mistake is often compounded by font colours that make reading the text difficult.
Failing to provide a contact number and an email address, or making the information so difficult to find that it might as well not be there is a trap some surprisingly big companies fall into. Don’t let your business be one of them.
Thankfully, this trend seems to be dying out. Even if you have the most original jingle ever, your website is not the place to broadcast it. Adding music to your site makes it take longer to load and will usually irritate more customers than it amuses.
While the layout of your site will make perfect sense to you, test it on people not directly involved in your business before you go live. Your web design needs to make logical sense, or your customers will get bored and find someone else very quickly.
More and more people use their mobiles to access websites. If your site isn’t optimised to take advantage of this trend, your web design will be letting you down in a really big way.
If your website hasn’t been updated in years, then this needs to be looked at urgently. The internet is littered with websites for businesses which are no longer active and you absolutely must make certain that your web design doesn’t suggest your business is one of them.
For expert advice on your web design, contact us today.
If you’ve got a good idea for an offer you want to run and are thinking about launching a pay per click campaign, one thing you’re going to need to do is create an effective landing page. Without one, your PPC campaigns may fall flat meaning you could lose out on revenue. Effective landing pages put emphasis on good design and compelling content writing. Above all else, it needs to grab the visitor’s attention and compel them to complete a conversion.
If the purpose of your landing page is to get people to follow through on your offer, you need to make sure your landing page is as clutter-free as possible. Any unnecessary details will draw attention from your message. If the landing page’s sole goal is to make your visitors convert then do what it takes to make their journey to conversion as easy as possible. If, for example, they need to fill out a form, ensure that you don’t have fields that aren’t needed. Strip everything down to the key elements and make sure it’s aesthetically pleasing. Good use of colour and eye-catching images have a surprisingly big impact. Studies have shown that using reds and greens work well for increasing landing page conversions, but ensure there is a good contrast between the button colour and your background.
If you have been promoting your offer well, through PPC campaigns, social media, Google AdWords and more, it’s highly likely that you’ll be receiving traffic from plenty of sources. Think seriously about customising your landing page for different audiences. It’s possible that a customer that has come to the landing page through Facebook knows a lot less about your offer than someone who is responding to a link in your email marketing campaign.
If your pay per click advertisements are driving your landing page, you’ll want to make sure that your copy is consistent. Repeating language and phrases that are in your PPC ads on your landing page helps to reinforce your message and adds to customer confidence. You need to be making sure that your page matches the advertisements as closely as possible. If your advertisement is about a specific product such as a pair of trainers, don’t send them to the sports clothing section – send them directly to the product they’re interested in.
For more information about how to create an effective landing page, contact the friendly team at Infotex today.
Delivering engaging, innovative content for your business is hard work, especially when you’re trying to sell a product or service. When you hit a creative roadblock it can be hard to know where to start. We’ve come up with some great ideas to kickstart your social media campaign, increase user engagement and build those all-important followers.
If you’re marketing a product, why not encourage your followers to showcase it? Open up a photography or video contest asking people to capture your product with a relevant hashtag. You’ll get lots of user-generated content you can then reuse: perfect for highlighting a new product launch, branding update or special offer!
Giving your followers something extra can really aid in loyalty and engagement. How-to guides are popular, giving customers an insight into your processes and can help your followers engage with your offering on a deeper level. Ask them to share the results of their project once they finish.
Remember Boaty McBoatface? Everybody loves to have their say. If you’re launching something new, hold a Twitter vote to give followers a say on its colour, name or function. They’ll be invested in the new product ready for launch and you’ll gain valuable feedback from the people who really matter.
Trending hashtags are perfect to instantly grab the attention of a whole new audience. You might choose to share some images for #mondaymotivation, have your say on #internationalwomensday or take part in the Ice Bucket Challenge. A little bit of research and your brand visibility can improve in an instant.
If your content is still feeling old, jump on to a platform that’s new to you. Show people around your office with Vine or capture your processes on Instagram. Or have a go at a feature you’ve been avoiding. Facebook Live is perfect for connecting in a meaningful way with your followers. There are new audiences everywhere – all you have to do is reach out to them.
For help planning your social media campaigns, get in touch.
Discover how our team can help you on your journey.
Talk to us today