Tag Archives: brand visibility

Role of #Hashtags in Social Media and Search

Hashtags are a new way of search and find in social media platforms. It’s become so popular that most of us use it in our personal profiles to generate more visibility to our content. Etymologically it is the combination of two words hash (the symbol #) and tag, and does nothing more than tagging your content to a word or word combination preceded by a ‘#’ symbol. Hashtags makes it easier to find and follow discussions about people, topics, events, locations, promotions and more.

How it Works?

Hashtags are used in social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+, Vine etc. Hashtags act just like an index to your content or post. Whenever someone searches for a hashtag, the posts which are tagged with the same will get popped up, resulting better visibility and search. Social media marketers use hashtags to make their content go viral. Some of the notable ever-trending hashtags are #fashion, #follow, #love etc. Hashtags are widely used in branding, event promotions and even in political sarcasms.

How to Use Hashtags for Social Media Marketing

Be Specific With Your Hashtag

Choosing a specific hashtag will help you connect with your targeted audience. The more specific your hashtag, the more targeted your audience will be, leading to better engagement. If you target espresso coffee drinkers, hashtaging with espresso will earn more specific audience than hashtaging with coffee.

Cater Hashtags to the Social Media it is Used

Do your research before tagging in different social media. Although hashtags serve the same purpose in various social media, usage differs slightly in all. Twitter uses hashtags based on a conversation or an event currently trending. Instagram uses a specific hashtag that describes the picture you have posted.

Come Up with Unbranded Hashtags

Your business hashtag do not have to mention your brand name, but should clearly tell about the service provided. If yours is a recognized brand you could even create your own hashtag and ask supporters to use it. One example is the hashtag by Nescafe – #itallstarts – which reminds people of their famous brand quote, It all starts with a Nescafe.

Avoid Long Hashtags

Use hashtags that are short and easier to remember. Your hashtag should be searchable and should be easier to type in. A very long hashtag like #ChocolateLoversInBangalore may not be typed in by many people; instead you can use #ChocoLoversBLR or an even simpler one. The whole purpose of a hashtag is to make things easier to find and engage rather than complicating.

Avoid Overusing Hashtags

Hashtags should be used according to the engagement required which is based on your targeted audience. Hashtaging all words are not advisable as it may generate false audience who may not actually need your service.

It is also to be remembered that hashtags can also backfire. Your consumers can easily use your hashtags to complaint against your service faults or to write a bad review. Hence choosing a hashtag should always comply with your service and should be done wisely.

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Visual Marketing Statistics You Need – 2016

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Over the last few years, digital marketing has taken the Internet by storm. And, one of the most important aspects of online marketing is visual content, which impacts sales and consumer decisions, the most. The creation of apt and powerful visual content is among the top priority for marketers in the coming years.

Visual content can be of various types – images, audio, video, and many more. Not all visual content suits all brands or businesses. It is very important to research on the type of visual content that will make your brand successful and move ahead with a proper visual content strategy to maximize ROI. Creation of the right visual content is a tedious task and might go through several iterations. We have seen many examples of visual content campaigns failing due to lack of market insight and proper analysis. Visual marketing is cost sensitive, hence budget also plays an important role.

Visual Marketing Statistics You Need - 2016

With more and more businesses moving online, marketers need to adapt to new visual marketing trends to keep up with the competition. Since, visual content is a creative sector and appeals more the emotional quotient of consumers, it has to be crisp, clear, precise and up-to-date to be effective.

Here are some of the visual marketing statistics, which worked in the last year and marketers need to be aware of, for successful campaigns in the future.

These are a few important statistics as per HubSpot:
  • Coloured images increase the willingness of a viewer to read by 80%.
  • People can recollect 65% of the information after 3 days, if it has an image.
  • Content with relevant images get 94% more views than those with irrelevant images.
  • Online shoppers who watch videos are likely to purchase 1.81X more than non-viewers.
  • Mobile Marketing has increased by 44%.
  • In the second quarter of 2015, mobile phones and tablets combined for 49% of video ad impressions.
  • 9% of marketers feel that video content fetches the best ROI.
  • Infographics are liked and shared 3X times more than normal content.
  • People follow instructions with text and illustrations 323% better than without these.
  • Visual content is 40X more likely to be shared than regular text.
  • Facebook posts with images are 2.3X more engagement than those without images.
  • 46% of marketers say photography is critical to their current marketing and storytelling strategies.

According to Digiday and Chute, around 20.3% of marketers feel that visual content is 3X more effective than text content. According to Moz, posts with videos are likely to attract 3X more links than text-only posts and statistics from Invodo tell that people are 85% more likely to purchase a product after they view a product video.

How are marketers using the information?
  • 34% of marketers consider visual content as their most important asset.
  • 65% of senior marketing executives feel that visual content is most important in communicating their brand.
  • 39% of marketers feel that more budget should be going towards the creation of visual assets.
  • 73% of B2C content creators will prioritize creating more engaging content by 2016, while 55% of them will prioritize creating visual content.
  • 60% of marketers feel that there will be an increase in the use of Infographic in 2016.
  • Visual content budget increased by 3 to 5% in 2015 and it will likely to increase by the same figure in 2016.
  • 5% feel that lack of time and skilled staff is the biggest challenge in creating effective visual content.
  • 49% feel that over a quarter of a day is spent on visual content; more than creating, managing, distributing and reporting takes more time.

There are more of these insightful statistics in the links provided. As we see that, visual marketing is the growing trend and will keep influencing business growth and sustainability. So, keep a track on these market trends and keep evolving to be able to deliver the best on the web.

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Social Media Spam – Rules for Marketers

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Social Media has taken over our lives like a storm. Almost, everybody is on social media, where they share a lot of information. It is not just individuals, but Companies run their business too on social media. Since, there is a huge repository of data available on social media, which can be accessed by anyone from anywhere, and sometimes duplicated too, it is very important to safeguard one’s private information from online thefts, threats and plagiarism. This is important for management of online reputation, brand identity and customer interactions.

As mentioned above, social media is full of business and personal information. Owing to its wide spread reach and accessibility, social media is also vulnerable due to Social Media Spam. Fake accounts, links and malicious information are the most common types of social media spams, which have plagued the Internet today. According to a study by Nexgate, during the first half of 2013, there was a growth of 355% of social spam on a typical social media account and it has been growing ever since.

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What is Social Media Spam?

Social Media Spam is unwanted content on the social media or websites, along with user-generated content. It can be fake reviews, hate speeches, unparliamenraty comments, malicious links, insults, bulk data and similar things. Spammers can use fake profiles to attack Companies, brands and individuals. Research shows that they generally use more than one social media accounts to spam others. It has been found that they can have as many as 20 different accounts and fake profiles for spamming, at a time. Fake accounts usually, tend to post high volumes of data, unlike real accounts.

What are the types of Social Media Spam?

There can be different types of social spam. Some of the major types of spams has been briefly discussed below:

Malicious Links

These links can harm a person’s profile or their device by downloading malware, which can access and steal personal information. These can also be the cause of virus attacks.

Fake Reviews

These are reviews from people, who have never used a product or service. Some Companies pay people to write positive reviews about their products and services.

Bulk messages

These are sent to a huge number of people within a very short span of time. This can also lead to download of malware and advertising to direct the user to a site. This makes a topic trending so that you start believing in it.

Unwanted content

This is spreading content like insults, hate speeches, false advertising to genuine users. Bots are often used to generate and send messages to new and existing users.

Clickbaiting and Lifejacking

Clickbaiting is basically a phenomena, where a headline is made so sensational that users will be tempted to click on it. But, when they reach the original site, there is either no content or something different than the headline. This is done to generate online revenue.

Lifejacking is posting a Facebook status or message on their wall without the knowledge of the user. They might think that they are just visiting the site, but when they click, it triggers a process in the background to share something, which you are not aware of.

What are the rules for marketers to deal with Social Media Spam?

Though, social spam is inevitable, there are ways to stop it and mitigate the damages with spam removal technologies and automated content scrutiny and moderation. Marketers need to be extra careful with their information on the social networks. The following guidelines might help them to deal effectively with social spam:

Focus on a niche:

Marketers should understand that a bit of social spam is unavoidable. Hence, rather than focussing on a huge number of accounts, they need to focus on reliable ones. They should encourage those who provide full and complete information. Keep a track on incomplete accounts and get rid of them.

Connect with real people:

Connect with people, who are genuine and transparent about their identity. Have a clear idea on who you are dealing with and identify your real followers. They can become your real prospects and can be your brand ambassadors too.

Engage effectively:

Know what your audience is looking for. Share the right mix of content, which helps you to effectively connect and interact with your customers, such that it has the potential to convert them as prospects. The kind of engagement also ensures that these trusted fans take your brand forward to their trusted groups.

Be honest with yourself:

Whenever you are calculating your success scale on social media, do not consider every click or every follower because some might be spam, yet others might be inactive accounts. So, take time to understand the true size of your audience.

Track inactive as prospective accounts:

Not all inactive accounts are spams or they will never contribute to your online presence. Think about how you can track those who matter, but might not be that verbose on the social media. These accounts can turn out to be your real prospects, who watch silently and make their decision.

As the Internet, social media and its users, are growing, so are the threats and people, who can harm your reputation and your business. So, it is very important to secure information as much as possible. If you ought to be in the public domain, you need to take necessary precautions from spammers and ensure your brand image is safe and sound.

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