Monday 30 April 2018

Is Twitter Worth Your Time? Here’s What New 2018 Data Says About Twitter for Marketing

Misinformation is spreading like wildfire.

On Twitter, it’s no different.

Numerous spam accounts and bots plague Twitter. They share false and misleading information, which has negatively impacted user experience.

The network is now working to correct some of these problems, but only time will tell with how the network will fare.

But if new 2018 data is accurate, then the future looks dim.

Researchers at MIT recently released a comprehensive study about “the spread of true and false news online,” which examined over a decade’s worth of data.

They discovered that misinformation reached 1,500 people six times faster than valid information.

This has marketers asking the question, “How do we counteract that?”

Some are even wondering, “Is Twitter worth using?”

To effectively use Twitter and see a return on your efforts, you need to understand how to best use the network for your long-term gain.

Twitter is much different now than it was when it first debuted in 2006. It is important for marketers to understand the network’s evolution as well as its current user ecosystem.

Despite these new revelations and the current state of misinformation, I’m going to show you how to get the most out of your Twitter marketing strategy in 2018.

But before deploying your 2018 strategy, you need to understand how Twitter has changed in recent months, so you don’t make the same mistakes you’ve likely made in the past.

How understanding Twitter’s current state can strengthen your business’s marketing strategy

I’m going to guess that Twitter plays some sort of role in your marketing strategy.

A recent study asked respondents, “Which social media platforms do you use to market your business?”

Not surprisingly, Twitter emerged as one of the top platforms.

twitter top platform to market business

But should it be?

Lately, Twitter has had its fair share of problems.

To start, there are bots.

A Twitter bot is “a software program that sends out automated posts on Twitter.”

Often, these automated posts are tweets. Other times, the bots will automatically respond to user messages that include specific phrases.

But is this really a problem? It certainly can be.

Although some bots can be helpful for your business objectives, there has been an influx of bots permeating through Twitter’s user base.

Now, there are a lot of them.

In fact, there are an estimated 48 million bots on Twitter, accounting for 15% of Twitter’s total users.

So how many people are actually on Twitter?

Well, at the time of publication, Twitter had 336 total monthly active users.

twitter monthly active users as of april 2018

Compared to other social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram, Twitter isn’t leading when it comes to monthly active users.

And if 15% of these users are actually bots, then that decreases the potential number of people you can market to even further.

Bots have started to impact Twitter’s user experience negatively, too.

Bots recently came under scrutiny for playing a part in spreading misinformation in the 2016 election.

Those who create bots can also program them to share spam.

A study from the Pew Research Center found that bots shared links directing traffic to sites across a variety of industries.

twitter automated accounts link sharing

They also found that “an estimated two-thirds of tweeted links to popular sites are posted by automated accounts – not human beings.”

How’s that for making your brand feel more “human?”

While Twitter is cracking down on bots, many are skeptical that this will help with the increase of misinformation plaguing the platform.

After all, bots aren’t the only reason for a poor Twitter user experience.

In the MIT study I mentioned earlier, they found that humans are more susceptible to spreading fake news than bots.

Twitter might be able to lower the influence of bots, but trying to prevent real people from spreading false information is much harder.

In another recent study, 51% of respondents felt that “the information environment will not be improved by changes designed to reduce the spread of lies and other misinformation online.”

So with the influx of bots, spread of misinformation, and stifled user growth, how should marketers approach their Twitter strategy?

Your strategy needs to evolve with the platform and take advantage of Twitter’s strengths while keeping in mind its weaknesses.

Here are five ways to tailor your Twitter strategy for results in 2018.

Use Twitter for quick, direct customer service interactions and resolutions

We’ve all been there.

You need a piece of information that you can’t find on a business’ website and don’t really want to call them.

“Oh, I’ll just tweet at them, because they’ll probably reply,” you think to yourself.

This is more common than you probably think.

Investing time and resources in your Twitter customer service strategy is important for the long-term growth of your business.

Sometimes, your customers need a bit of TLC. And this is where Twitter can shine.

In fact, 85% of Twitter users said that it’s important that businesses provide customer support on Twitter.

By being responsive on Twitter, you add a level of transparency to your business’ brand. Your business will seem more helpful and approachable.

And, Dove proves it.

In 2017, Dove focused on responding to more tweets which, in turn, resulted in an increase in positive sentiment from customers.

difference in answered tweets

Dove’s net positive sentiment was 41% in the last three months of 2016, and three months later, that sentiment score rose to 43%.

That’s a lot to gain with minimal effort.

You may be wondering, “But how do you provide optimal service through Twitter?”

It’s different for each company, but there are some specific strategies to maximize your responses.

Most companies direct public inquiries to their DMs if any sensitive information needs to be transferred.

southwest airlines dm us tweet

And, now since Twitter’s launch of the new Direct Message features, we’re seeing brands build a more personalized, one-on-one experiences for customers.

Like Patrón Tequila.

Patrón built the “Bot-Tender” — a chatbot “bartender” — that uses Patrón’s Direct Messages that serves up cocktail recommendations based on the consumer’s preferences.

patron tequila mixologist tweet

The “Bot-Tender” resulted in 39% of click-through rate to the website and 2.6% click-through rate using the direct message card.

In some instances, it might even make sense to gather additional information about your customers to better manage the issue. This could help you:

In some instances, you can even set up a chatbot to accept orders with a hashtag.

For example, Wingstop uses a bot to accept orders from people who Tweet ‘@Wingstop #Order’:

wingstop dm your order

Now, that’s an example of optimal customer experience that doesn’t rely on a wing and a prayer.

Also, depending on the size of their business or the number of customer inquiries a company receives, some even have specific accounts solely focused on helping customers.

For example, LinkedIn owns both the handles @LinkedIn and @LinkedInHelp.

Both channels exist for different objectives. @LinkedIn provides general updates, company news and announcements of features, while @LinkedInHelp focuses on customer support.

Both accounts are valuable for LinkedIn’s overarching Twitter strategy.

linkedin help twitter account

Private messages have become a popular way to resolve issues, so the platform has included a feature that enables you to include a “Send a private message” link on a tweet.

send a private message tweet

To do so, make sure your account is accepting direct messages from anyone. Begin by accessing your Settings tab.

settings tab in twitter

Click the “Privacy and Safety” tab on the left side.

privacy and safety twitter account

Check the box to “Receive Direct Messages from Anyone.”

receive direct messages from anyone

Find your TwitterID using TweeterID and add it to the end of this link in place of YourTwitterID:

https://twitter.com/messages/compose?recipient_id=YourTwitterID

Now, you can add that URL with your own TwitterID inserted into any tweet, and the “Send a private message” button will appear directing your customers into a private conversation.

Focus on sharing video content for higher engagement with your followers

Sharing video content on Twitter isn’t exactly new.

But over the past few years, Twitter has continuously worked to evolve how your video can be shared and the impact it can generate. (They’re even teasing a Snapchat sharing tool!)

The result? Users are eating it up.

Will you deliver?

If you don’t, it’ll be costly. The stats don’t lie; video views on Twitter have grown 220x what they were 12 months ago.

twitter video views growth

But can video cut through the clutter of misinformation on the platform?

Well compared to other forms of content, the answer is yes.

Buffer tested different post types across platforms and found a worthwhile revelation about to Twitter video reach.

Upon evaluating 200+ posts, Buffer found that Twitter video performs the best in terms of reach compared to posts with links, images, and GIFs.

And video on Twitter outperforms Facebook video reach by nearly 38%.

average video reach per post type

But how can you be sure the video is factual?

Well, there hasn’t been a full solution introduced yet, but to provide more transparency, Twitter is adding a view count to the corner of each video.

While not a major fix, it will still provide users with an understanding of how many have watched and how far it spread. This can help viewers assess the validity of the source.

But what constitutes as a view?

According to AdAge, “Twitter is holding to Media Rating Council standards […] —one view equals 2 seconds of play time with at least 50% of the video on the screen.”

twitter video view count

There’s a lot of video content on Twitter. Here’s how to make sure what you produce will be worthwhile:

And if you decide to use video content in the form of an ad, Twitter introduced Video Website Card a few months ago to help make your video ads more effective.

Twitter Video Website Card ads get results, too. They have a 2x higher click-through rate and “an average 60% increase in user retention” when compared to standard video ads.

Below is a comparison between a standard mobile ad on Twitter and one using the new video website card option. This is a standard mobile ad HP Business promoted:

hp business mobile ad on twitter

You can see that the video looks like a normal post. Upon clicking the video, it opens up in full-screen with the tweet copy underneath it.

Now, look at Credit Karma’s ad using the new video card feature.

credit karma twitter advertisement

credit karma max your refund

The promoted post includes a “tag” at the bottom of the video with a header and the website. And when the user clicks on the video to play full-screen, they get a new experience.

The video shifts up, and a web or landing page appears. The video will continue playing, allowing the user to interact with content on the page.

Network with influencers, leads, and potential partners to forge connections

Twitter is still a place for brands and users alike to reach influencers, celebrities, journalists, and thought-leaders directly.

But only if you can find who you are looking for.

In 2018, this has become a bit more challenging for two reasons: bots and the confusion surrounding verified accounts.

How to spot the bots

Let’s face it: your follower count is a vanity metric these days. Through the use of bots, you can add thousands of fake followers to your account.

President Trump and a countless number of other celebrities were even accused of using bots.

twitter audit report trump

If actual celebrities use these bots to amplify their influence, couldn’t ordinary people as well? The answer is yes.

A study exposed what was referred to as “the Star Wars botnet, which contains more than 350k bots that are centrally controlled by the same botmaster.”

Even worse, there is a whole industry behind the buying and selling of fake followers.

So where to go from here?

Well, there is TwitterAudit, a free service that allows you to input any Twitter handle. The tool will share a quality score and whether or not they see the account as real or fake.

twitteraudit

You should also pay close attention to the frequency of tweets on certain accounts.

The team at BuzzFeed News did an analysis of its own human editors’ Twitter data and the data of several bot-like accounts.

According to the Digital Forensics Research Lab (DFRL), tweeting 72 times a day is suspicious, and more than 144 tweets per day seems very suspicious.

The BuzzFeed News team discovered one bot was hitting 584 tweets in one day.

buzzfeed news twitter analysis

While their editor’s tweets looked more like this:

buzzfeed editor twitter analysis

Twitter bots are created to influence user behavior and perception. It’s important your brand is authentic, trustworthy, and human when engaging with users on Twitter.

Verified? The rise and fall of the blue checkmark

Originally, Twitter would add a blue checkmark to verify your account as a response to numerous impersonation attempts. Here is an example:

twitter Oprah verified

Twitter’s help page states that the badge is there to ensure the “account of public interest is authentic.”

Simple, right?

This is still the case, but the process is more open and now under scrutiny. In 2016, they announced an application process. In 2017, they suspended verification altogether.

With an application process, there still is much work to be done to ensure that the wrong accounts don’t get verified.

Twitter continues to monitor verified accounts, but not at a quick enough rate.

But what is incredibly important here is that the meaning of the blue checkmark is changing.

Twitter even teased that they want an open verification process, which could help combat misinformation on the platform.

If accounts — not just influencers and celebrities — were verified, you could be more confident that the information you were reading was from a person, rather than a bot.

Expand your network

Now that you’re able to evaluate the validity of your potential partners, all you need to do to find them. The best place to start is with Twitter’s Advanced Search.

To begin, start at https://twitter.com/search-advanced. You should arrive at a page that looks like this:

twitter advanced search fields

There are a few Advanced Search Strategies I’d like for you to consider when looking for partners or influencers. Let’s take a look at each category:

  • Words. Notice the difference between “all” and “any” of these words and use it to your advantage. “All” will limit the search, while “any” casts a wider net.
  • People. If you know who you are looking for but need to source a specific tweet from them, you can enter their account and the keyword you are looking for.
  • Places. This can be useful if your business is local, and you wanted to get a pulse on what people are saying about your product or industry in a specific city or community.
  • Dates. This helps you narrow the search if you want to perform social listening in a certain span of time. This is great for events or seasonal products/companies.

The results automatically default to Twitter’s “Top” option, but if you’re searching for a current pulse on a topic or looking to make connections, consider clicking the “Latest” or “People” option.

search options twitter

Share updates and business information with your audience in real-time

Twitter has always been a viable platform to share breaking news stories.

And even with the influx of misinformation, it still is. Why?

Abhinav Sharma, a Product Designer at Quora, attributes it to the following factors:

  • A critical mass of active users that can contribute content.
  • Low barrier-to-entry (you can very easily send a tweet and participate).
  • Retweets are streamlined and an easy way to share content.
  • Stories are succinct and easy-to-comprehend with the character limit.
  • Twitter supports popular, breaking stories with “trending topics.”

Twitter’s May 2017 update showcases the popularity of each tweet in real time, providing another transparent metric to help users evaluate the validity of the Tweet.

tweet popularity in timeline

In other words, the replies, retweets, and likes will no longer be static; you’ll see them increasing in real time.

You can also share more (280 characters to be exact) in a single tweet than ever before.

In a recent study, Twitter discovered that 9% accounts were hitting the maximum with 140 character tweets, while only 1% were hitting the limit with 280 characters.

number of tweets number of characters

But should you pack all those characters into a single tweet?

Research says yes.

Social Media Today reports that longer tweets actually lead to increased levels of engagement from your followers.

longer tweets bring more engagement

Now you can tell your story, share your updates, and still provide engaging content.

And if an expanded character count wasn’t enough for you, Twitter recently released a thread feature to allow for a longer narrative and more in-depth story.

boston marathon twitter thread

Threads are useful for events with a series of updates, a how-to with a series of steps, an interview with multiple questions, and a wide variety of other scenarios.

These new features will equip your brand to present valid and engaging information to your users in Twitter’s current ecosystem.

Conclusion

Let’s face it.

Twitter has had a rough few months.

Slowed growth. Bots. Fake news.

It seems everyone is the first to criticize the network.

As a marketer, you might be wondering, “Does it still play an integral of a role in my marketing strategy as it once did?”

Our answer: yes…but only if you know how to use it correctly and exploit the network’s key strengths.

By understanding Twitter’s strengths (and weaknesses), you can still use the network to drive long-term growth for your business.

After all, your customers are still on there. You should be too.

Twitter serves as a powerful medium to provide real-time updates and immediate customer service resolutions for your customers.
They are seeking direct and transparent information, which you can easily provide on Twitter.

They type of content you share can also affect your success. Video has emerged as a leading form of content on Twitter, and consumers are eating it up.

And remember, your customers aren’t the only ones on Twitter either.

Brands are using the platform to source leads, find partners, and network with influencers like never before.

The network has evolved, too.

With the right plan in place, you can make your Twitter marketing strategy an impactful part of your business’ marketing strategy.

What tactics will you use to evolve your Twitter strategy in 2018?

About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital.



from The Kissmetrics Marketing Blog https://blog.kissmetrics.com/is-twitter-worth-your-time/

The Future of Audience Selection: Where AI Can Take Your Campaigns

Where do you start when you’re building an audience for your campaigns? Job titles? Industries? Maybe company size?

There’s so much more that indicates a buyer’s likelihood of engagement. But in the modern era of marketing technology, segmentation has remained largely linear – defined by the obvious demographic criteria such as industry, company size, and yes, job title.

It’s left many marketers unable to overcome lackluster campaign results and wondering how best to maximize the success of each campaign they run.To better engage individuals with relevant content and personalized interactions, we also need to evolve how we select who receives our outreach in the first place.

We need to move from batching and blasting to AI-driven, lookalike audiences.

Last year, Marketo kicked off a multiyear alliance with Google Cloud, to migrate our entire infrastructure to the Google Cloud Platform. This means our customers can leverage big data analytics on a world-class cloud platform and deliver faster campaign performance to engage with billions of individuals in the moment, all with the security that our customers demand. Currently, the Marketo Engagement Platform manages nearly half a trillion of these interactions every year.

Introducing Marketo AudienceAI

This week, at the 2018 Marketing Nation Summit, Marketo is announcing new AI innovations that build on Google Cloud’s portfolio of machine learning technology, putting greater insights in the hands of the marketer faster. Those at Summit will get a sneak peak of Marketo AudienceAI, which will leverage Google Cloud machine learning to help to improve the speed, scale, and effectiveness of marketing campaigns on our Marketo Engagement PlatformTM.

Marketo AudienceAI uses the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to expand a marketer’s campaign reach beyond linear segmentation, to include individuals who are similar to those who have converted (lookalike audiences.) This will allow marketers to identify the right target audience, based on behaviors and patterns, that will increase the relevance, and deliver powerful benefits for organizations. Relevance leads to better conversions, revenue, and ROI, while delivering experiences that will resonate with buyers.

Six months ago, we debuted Marketo ContentAI, which applies machine learning to the content delivery process. It selects the next piece of content of interest to a customer, based on their previous choice, and can, for example, tell you the top 10 most interesting pieces for a particular audience. It does this in real-time, something that no human could possibly be able to do in weeks or even months. Plus, it learns as the customer continues to engage, getting more and more information about their preferences. This saves time, energy and more importantly, provides a more personalized and engaging experience for customers.

Marketo AudienceAI, which is still in development, will be designed to use the same concepts of audience selection, tapping into a marketer’s own data to find the next lookalike target audience.  In addition, this innovation supports Google AdWords Customer Match, allowing marketers to optimize your paid media spend and get a better ROI by targeting your Marketo contacts with personalized ads across Google Search, YouTube, and Gmail. Alternatively, marketers can expand reach by targeting similar audiences with personalized ads.

Underlying this technology is Marketo’s dedication to security. The Google Cloud Platform, with its intelligent and elastic infrastructure, provides performance and trusted security our customers require for real-time engagement on a global scale. Through our alliance with Google Cloud, engagement in the moment becomes a reality worldwide, and in a way where marketers have peace of mind that they’ll do it more securely.

At Marketo, we believe in purpose-built innovation, putting it in the hands of the marketer faster. In the Marketing Nation, there’s no need for data scientist expertise and IT resources to unlock the value of AI.

Welcome to a fearless, AI-driven marketing future.

For more information on our AI technologies visit marketo.com/ai.

The post The Future of Audience Selection: Where AI Can Take Your Campaigns appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.



from Marketo Marketing Blog https://blog.marketo.com/2018/04/future-audience-selection-ai-can-take-campaigns.html

Top 5 Behavioral Interview Questions to Ask in 2018

As an employer, there's no right way to host a job interview. But you can ask each candidate the right questions to learn the most important things about them.

Learning what makes a person qualified to work for you is difficult, especially if you have just a half-hour interview with them in a conference room. Because of this time crunch, you might feel compelled to race through the candidate's resume, asking them questions about each job title and bullet point they've written down from top to bottom.

But if you want know what makes the applicant valuable to you, it's important to get to know them beyond their written job application. The best way uncover this value is to ask behavioral interview questions.

The most informative answers to behavioral interview questions don't just describe how a candidate behaved, but also how this behavior benefited them and the business.

To help you develop your list of questions, we've put together five of the most effective behavioral interview questions you can ask your job candidates, and explained what an answer to each question can reveal about the interviewee.

Top Behavioral Interview Questions (and What You'll Learn by Asking Them)

1. 'Tell me about a mistake you made during a project or at a certain point in your career.'

Think of this behavioral question as a more specific way to ask an interviewee: "What are your greatest weaknesses?" By asking candidates this question, you can discover many important things about them that you wouldn't learn from their resume.

Listening to a candidate describe a mistake they once made can show you how much self-awareness they have. The best answers indicate both their thought process in making that mistake and what they learned from it. Just because it was a mistake doesn't mean the candidate was being negligent -- encourage them to explain their choice and what they'd do differently today.

2. 'Tell me about a success you're particularly proud of in your career and why it was a success.'

Similar to the question above, think of this one as a better way to ask an interviewee: "What are your greatest strengths?" Pitching a question the candidate might find flattering and fun to answer can empower them to come out of their shell during the interview.

This is what makes asking about their past success so useful -- you can uncover more intimate details about their professional growth and the types of assignments they thrive on. The best answers to this behavioral question won't just reveal the work a candidate is most comfortable with, but also why this work plays to their skills and if those skills would be of use to your company.

3. 'Describe a time you had a conflict with a coworker, and how you resolved it.'

Candidates who know how to diffuse issues with their colleagues help foster the healthy, nurturing culture your company needs in order to grow.

Asking about the applicant's experience resolving a conflict with a coworker can reveal how diplomatic they can be toward differing opinions among team members. Specifically, employers can learn two big pieces of information about a candidate from their answer to this question: how they view themselves in conflicts, and where the candidate ranks their priorities in relation to the other employees involved.

It's not important that you agree with the resolution the candidate came to. It's more important that you can determine how effective their resolution was at accommodating everybody's -- and ultimately, the business's -- needs.

4. 'Tell me something you had to learn very quickly but knew nothing about before.'

This behavioral question is a popular one among employers today. It's simply not realistic to expect candidates to already know your business or industry when they first walk through the door. What's important is how fast they can learn. Want to find out if your applicant can learn the skills needed in your industry? Ask them how they've done so for others in the past.

Employers can infer a lot about candidates as they explain their past experience with a challenging new concept. Not only will you find out what subjects a candidate isn't often exposed to, but you can also learn how confident they are in unfamiliar territory.

Did an applicant's answer impress you? Ask them a bonus follow-up question: "How would you explain this concept now to someone who isn't familiar with it?" The answer can give you deeper insight into the applicant's learning style, as well as any mentorship potential that would allow them to pass on their knowledge to other employees.

5. 'Tell me about a time you had multiple assignments with conflicting goals or deadlines, and how you completed each of them.'

At some point in our careers, we all inherit a workload whose contents pull us in different directions -- and yet, everything in this workload needs to get done. So, if it's such a normal experience, what are you really getting out of posing the question above to your interviewee?

When asking about a candidate's experience with conflicting assignments, the insight you're looking for isn't how many things they can handle at the same time. It's how efficient they are at completing it all.

Ultimately, answers to this question can tell you a story of creative problem solving, letting you in on effective approaches to time management that the candidate might be able to bring to your team.

While questions that focus on a candidate's resume can give you appropriate context around the experiences they've had, it's crucial that you incorporate these behavioral interview questions as well. Ask a few of the above questions in your next interview -- whether it's in person or over the phone -- and see how they help you come to a final hiring decision.



from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/behavioral-interview-questions

A Comprehensive Guide to Local SEO in 2018

Local search is powerful for small businesses: four out of five consumers use search to find local information, which means if your business isn’t optimized for local search, you could be missing out on 80% of your potential customers. In short, local SEO is critical if you want your business to stay relevant.

To help you optimize your business for local SEO, we’ve created a comprehensive guide, which will cover local SEO tools, local search best practices, how to optimize for Google My Business, and more. By the end of the guide, you’ll have a firm understanding on how to optimize your business to reach potential consumers who use local search to choose which products or services they’re going to buy.

Best Practice Local SEO Tactics

To thrive in local search, you need to do three things: optimize your Google My Business account, improve your on-page SEO by updating your website, and excel on the Wild Wild Web. While it might sound overwhelming, it’s entirely feasible to succeed in all three with some patience and perseverance. Stick with us, and we’ll explore each one in-depth.

Optimize for Google My Business

Google My Business has become the creme de la creme of local search -- since Google understandably feels most comfortable sharing content it can support and verify, Google My Business is their tool to help your business meet Google’s needs. If Google can verify your business as authentic, it will potentially reward your business with a coveted sidebar space in Google local search.

To ensure you’re optimized for Google My Business, you’ll want to create and verify a Google My Business page, use Google Posts within your account, encourage your customers to share reviews online, and respond authentically to reviews, specifying location. For example, “We appreciate your feedback on [product/service] in [city, state]. We value your input and look forward to working with you again. Thank you from the [full company name] team.”

To learn more about using Google My Business, check out our full post here.

Website Updates

Now that we’ve discussed optimizing your business for Google My Business, let’s take a look at five simple website updates to improve your local SEO.

1. Improve Internal Linking Structure 

Although external links pointing to your site are ideal (which I’ll discuss soon), adjusting your internal linking structure will also boost your SEO rankings.

Why does internal linking matter? It does the following:

  • Supports website navigation
  • Assists with information architecture and website hierarchy
  • Distributes page authority and ranking power among pages

If you want to improve your internal linking structure but aren’t sure where to start, check out Kissmetrics’ The Seven Commandments of Internal Linking for Top-Notch SEO.

2. Optimize URL, Title Tags, Headers, Meta Description, and Content

When it comes to content, every new blog post is a new indexed page for your site, a new page on which to target a geographic search phrase, and a new opportunity to get found in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Every time you write a piece of content, you need to optimize the content for search engines by using high-volume keywords in the URL, title, header, meta description, and body. If you're having trouble coming up with geo-targeted content, consider highlighting customer success stories and case studies.

3. Add Location Pages to your Website

If you have more than one brick and mortar location, create location pages. Location pages provide readers with your NAP, store hours, unique store descriptions, parking/transit information, promotions, testimonials from happy customers, and more. It's also important you avoid duplicating content across multiple location pages. For single location businesses, create a locally descriptive About Us page. You’ll get big time bonus points if you add a Google Map to your website on your respective location page(s).

4. Create Local Content

Google continues to get smarter, which means content creators are now able to truly write for users, not search engines. But while writing about general topics will attract a wide crowd, sometimes it’s more important to hone your focus and write about local or industry news to attract a local audience. Be the local authority for your industry by promoting local industry gatherings, news, employees, and other educational content on your blog. Think of top-of-the-funnel content that goes beyond what your business sells.

For example, if you're a local security company and you’re trying to attract businesses that are new to the area, create a helpful resource to get these businesses well-acquainted with your city. A map of local service providers or a calendar of city-wide events could both provide value for your persona and contain highly relevant on-page local signals.

5. Ensure your website is mobile-friendly

Local search and mobile search go hand in hand (nine out of ten smartphone users conduct local searches on their devices!). Some of the most common ways people will use your site in a mobile environment is to look up reviews, find directions to your location, and search for contact information. Make it easy for your prospects and customers by making your site mobile-friendly.

Engage with Directories and the Wild Wild Web

You’ve learned how to optimize your business for Google My Business and how to update your website for an internal SEO boost -- now, let’s take a look at how you can use NAP consistency, directories, and inbound links to take your business one step closer to that number one spot on local search.

Name, Address, Phone Consistency

You've got to make it easy for people and search engines to find you. To do this, set up your NAP, which stands for name, address, and phone number (with area code). This should be included as crawlable HTML text on your site. Avoid the common mistake of only including the NAP within an image -- images can’t be crawled from search engines like HTML text. The most common location for the NAP is in the footer or header of the site.

Optimize Online Directories and Citations

For United States companies, these four map data aggregators provide a large amount of the map data for Apple, Yelp, Bing, Google+ local, Trip Advisor, and more.

Consistency is key: verify that your citations are consistent and complete across these four data aggregators. Discrepancies like misspellings, abbreviations, lack of suite number or wrong phone number can be problematic. If Google can’t determine which information about your business is correct, it may not show your business at all in search results. Additionally, be sure to remove any duplicate listings you find. Bonus points for emphasizing a Chambers of Commerce membership in your community, which will garner you an external inbound link.

Get Inbound Links with Relevance and Authority

Inbound links are incredibly powerful opportunities to boost your local SEO -- every inbound link tells Google you’re a legitimate company, and inbound links can also raise your domain authority. Here are a few ways to get inbound links:

  • Sponsorships or Partnerships
  • Guest Blog Posting
  • Scholarships

Start with your own personal network, which may include the Chamber of Commerce, business improvement districts, licensing bureaus, trade associations, resellers, vendors, and/or manufacturers and other affiliates. Consider sponsoring a webinar or meet-up, hosting a community event, promoting something local you love, and building relationships with prominent people and influencers. Additionally, learn to feel comfortable reaching out to partners to see if they can feature you on their partner directory.

Be a guest blogger, talk to and about (positively, of course!) other people in your industry, and act as a resource provider for the community. If you're an active participant in community conversations, the buzz around you grows in the form of inbound links, social media growth, and media coverage.

Given that .edu links are the bee’s knees for domain authority, why not earn some links by featuring a scholarship in your geographic region? It should be relevant to your industry, send the right signals to your domain (given the backlinks from schools) … and make you feel good, too! Moz built up a solid guide on the steps to success for effective scholarship outreach.

Engage with Social Media and Add Posts to Google My Business

Google considers content shared on social media more important now than ever before. Now that you’ve carved out a beautiful Google My Business page, share the page on social media, further aligning social and search.

Local SEO Tools

Now that we’ve covered how to optimize your business for local SEO, let's explore some useful tools you can leverage to improve your ranking in the areas where it matters most.

1. Whitespark Local Citation Finder. A local citation is any online mention of the name, address, and phone number for a local business. Citations matter because they help surface local businesses in online search, and when local businesses actively manage their citations to ensure data accuracy, it promotes trust of these online listings. Whitespark knows this realm well -- really well. With a free starter version and a popular $24/month option, Whitespark offers local listing management, recommends where to list your business, examines your competition, and robustly builds and monitors your citation growth for better local search rankings.

2. Screaming Frog. This desktop program crawls websites' links, images, CSS, script and apps from an SEO perspective. Curious if you have any 404’s? Wondering about missing meta descriptions or H1’s? Screaming Frog will analyze up to 500 URLs for free and offers an unlimited paid version for $200/year.

2. Moz Local. Less expensive than most of its counterparts (starting at $99/year with a professional level of the service at $179/year), Moz Local will ensure your business listing has been verified on Google and Facebook, and distribute your listing across the search ecosystem. Additionally, Moz Local will collaborate with data aggregators to help push listings, ensuring your business gains visibility.

4. Ahrefs. Ahrefs helps with backlink checking, which is important as these links (which are directed toward your website) serve as an indicator of website authority. Ahrefs also offers competitor analysis, keyword research, and insight into the anchor text other websites use when backlinking to your site. This tool has a starter version at $99/month and a standard option at $179/month for more extensive tracking.

5. Buzzstream. Starting at $24/month with professional functionality at $299/month, BuzzStream facilitates earning local backlinks, which helps you identify and build relationships with local influencers by researching influencers, tracking conversations, and providing reporting insights into your outreach campaigns, team performance, and link placements.

What’s Next?

This Comprehensive Guide to Local SEO in 2018 is intended to drive your local success. While some of the tips are one-off activities where you can set it and forget it (e.g. making sure your NAP is clearly written on your site), other tasks, such as building reviews and publishing locally relevant content, is an activity your organization needs to do on an ongoing basis for long-term local SEO success. Keep both in mind as you work toward better online visibility and we look forward to seeing you on the first page of Google!



from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/local-seo

8 Types of CTAs you Should Be Using in Your YouTube Channel

Remember those speech bubbles that used to pop up at the start of almost every YouTube video years ago? They would instantly cover your screen, screaming “Subscribe to my channel!” or “Watch my next video!”, forcing you scurry over to your mouse and click exit on every bubble before they completely ruined the beginning of the video you were trying to watch.

Even though those omnipresent bubble CTAs could get on your nerves, YouTube decided not to get rid of them entirely. They knew how important CTAs were for channel managers to boost views, watch time, and subscriptions, so, over the years, they made a concerted effort to keep enhancing their call-to-action capabilities. Now, CTAs more seamlessly blend into videos, and provide a much better user experience.

YouTube CTAs can be a valuable way to drive viewers to your website and social media pages, so read on to learn about the eight types of YouTube CTAs that’ll not only boost your YouTube presence, but your entire presence online.

8 Types of CTAs you Should Be Using in Your YouTube Channel

1. Beginning of the Video CTA

According to KissMetrics, 20% of viewers bounce from videos that are only 1 minute long and 40% of viewers bounce from videos that are 2-3 minutes long. If a significant chunk of your viewers bounce from your video before they even reach the CTA, placing it at the beginning of the video and leaving it there until it ends could generate more clicks. People who usually bounce before your video ends will have a chance to click on it, and the people who watch the video all the way through, who are also most likely to complete your desired action, will have a chance to click on it too.

 

2. Suggest Another Video CTA

If your audience starts dedicating entire YouTube watch sessions to only your videos, your brand trust and affinity will skyrocket. This will also boost your videos’ watch time, which is significant factor in the YouTube ranking algorithm. To get your audience to keep watching your videos one after another, you should suggest related videos that they’re more likely to watch than the suggested videos YouTube’s autoplay function recommends.

Yes Theory does an excellent job of this. At the end of each of their videos, they prompt viewers to click on videos that are most relevant to the one they just watched, which has helped their channel garner over 128 million video views and 1.4 million subscribers.

3. Subscribe to Channel CTA

Subscribers are important to your channel because YouTube will send them notifications about your new videos and feature your videos on their homepage. This means they’ll see your videos more frequently, which will help you generate more views. Subscribers tend to watch your videos longer than non-subscribers too, so the more subscribers you have, the more watch time your videos will accumulate, and the more likely YouTube will rank them higher on search and feature them in the related section. YouTube also keeps track of the number of viewers who subscribe to your channel right after watching one of your videos. So if one of your videos attracts a lot of new subscribers, they’ll reward it with higher rankings and more features in the related section.

Business Insider does a great job of driving YouTube subscriptions by featuring an engaging CTA during their videos’ last 15 seconds, giving users ample time to subscribe.

 

4. Follow On Social Media CTA

If your audience likes watching your YouTube videos, they’ll probably enjoy consuming your content on social media too. By putting social media buttons in your videos, your most loyal YouTube subscribers could also turn into your most engaged social media followers.

Walt-Disney leveraged social media buttons by placing them at the end of Moana’s trailer on YouTube. This encouraged people to follow the movie on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr, allowing Walt-Disney to consistently push content about Moana to their new followers and generate more hype and awareness for the movie.

 

5. Lead Generation CTA

In addition to using blogs, social media, and email marketing to promote your top performing lead generation content, you can also attach them to your YouTube videos. These videos can either educate your viewers on the same subject matter as your lead generation content or they can preview it, like this HubSpot video below:

6. Drive to Website CTA

When college students are in the midst of a two hour YouTube binge fest, you can probably blame Jimmy Tatro for it. He’s built an incredibly loyal and engaged following by making hilarious videos that millennials everywhere can’t get enough of. One way he monetizes his channel’s popularity is by placing an end-of-video CTA that drives viewers to his clothing store, where he sells shirts that rep his YouTube channel, LifeAccordingToJimmy, and his YouTube show, The Real Bros of Simi Valley.

If you have a very loyal and engaged YouTube audience like Jimmy Tatro does, try guiding viewers to your product page after they watch your videos. When they’re hooked on them and love your brand, they’ll definitely be willing to support you.

 

7. Description CTA

If you don’t want to bombard your audience with pop-up CTAs during your video or if you run out of room to place CTAs on your end screen, you can use the description section of your videos to encourage viewers to take a desired action -- most people read descriptions before or after they watch a video.

Conor Maynard is a singer who uploads viral covers on YouTube, and he attracts subscribers, Spotify streams, and social followers by promoting his channel page, Spotify page, and social profiles in the description of his videos.

8. Auditory CTA

About a month ago, Backlinko analyzed 1.3 million YouTube search results and discovered a statistically significant correlation between comments and ranking. They also discovered when viewers share your videos on social media through YouTube’s own social buttons, they’ll boost your video rankings. Since YouTube uses video comments and social shares to gauge whether your video is high-quality, you should ask your viewers to share your video on social and spark debate in the comments by asking them to continue the conversation your video started.



from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/youtube-ctas

Friday 27 April 2018

Only 34% of UK Consumers Know What the GDPR Is [New Data]

The other day, a friend of mine said he recently received several strange emails from every online company with which he has an account.

"They're all notifying me that they're updating their privacy policies," he said. "It seems the Facebook thing has sent some shockwaves throughout companies all across the internet."

That "Facebook thing" was the ongoing fallout from a recent privacy scandal, in which it was revealed that the personal user data of 87 million users had been improperly obtained and used by consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.

Since then, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified in two congressional hearings. In the UK, parliament has questioned two key parties involved in the scandal this week. And now, rumors are circulating that Zuckerberg might testify again -- this time, before European Parliament in Brussels.

But that's not why my friend -- and many others -- received these emails. These emails are the result of the looming GDPR, and the confusion around it is widespread.

The Chaos and Confusion of the GDPR

About the GDPR

When I informed my friend that he was receiving the emails not because of Facebook privacy fallout, but rather because of the GDPR, his response was, "GDPR?"

For those who might share in that confusion -- and as I'll go on to explain, you're far from alone -- GDPR stands for General Data Privacy Regulation, a new EU Regulation that significantly enhances the protection of the personal data of EU citizens and increases the obligations on organizations who collect or process personal data. (You can read more about it here.)

Even if an organization is based in the U.S., if it controls or processes the data of EU citizens, the GDPR will apply -- which is why so many of them are updating their terms and policies, and subsequently notifying users.

In my line of work, I hear about the GDPR on a daily basis, often several times a day. But most people don't, as I learned when I shared this story with others. I learned that they, too, were a bit unfamiliar with the new regulation -- and the reason why they were receiving these notifications.

The Misunderstanding of Updated Terms Notifications

To be fair, there's been some mixed messaging within these various notifications from brands about their updated terms and policies. This one from Airbnb, for example, doesn't mention the GDPR:Airbnb email updating privacy policies related to the GDPR

However, this one from Etsy does mention the GDPR:

Etsy email updating privacy policies related to the GDPR

In fact, when I did a personal inventory of my own inbox, I found that there were only three brands (out of dozens) that even mentioned the GDPR within their notifications.

Within the U.S.

But being the data nerd that I am, I wanted to find out just how widespread this confusion is -- so, I ran a survey of 300 internet users in the U.S. to see how many were under the impression that these notifications were the result of the Facebook privacy scandal.

US_Do you think the Facebook privacy scandal is causing other organizations to update their terms

As the chart above indicates, nearly three-quarters of U.S. internet users believe that these notifications are the result of the fallout experienced Facebook.

But that didn't necessarily indicate that these consumers were unfamiliar with the GDPR. So, I ran another survey of 305 U.S. internet users to find out if they were familiar with the new EU regulation.

US_Without looking it up, do you know what the GDPR is

Evidently, two-thirds of U.S. consumers aren't familiar with the GDPR after all.

But that's somewhat understandable, as the new regulation applies to EU consumers, not U.S.-based ones. And for many of the latter, data privacy has become a more salient topic in the wake of a misuse of our personal Facebook data. Out of the 87 million users whose information was compromised, about 80% of them -- 70 million -- are based in the U.S.

Within the UK

That could explain why so many U.S. consumers are under the impression that these emails are a response to this turn of events from Facebook. But still, I wanted to find out if this was limited to this country alone, where the GDPR won't apply. 

I ran a third survey -- this time, of 305 internet users in the UK (where GDPR will apply until the UK leaves the EU in March 2019) to find out if they, too, thought these updated terms and policies were the result of Facebook's privacy scandal.

UK_Do you think the Facebook privacy scandal is causing other organizations to update their terms?

As it turns out, nearly the same percentage of UK internet users believe that these are the result of the fallout around Facebook as those in the U.S. do -- 72% versus the U.S.'s 74%.

But what about their knowledge of the GDPR? In a nation where the new regulation will apply, I thought, perhaps more consumers will be familiar with it. To find out, I ran a fourth, final survey of 300 UK internet users.

UK_Without looking it up, do you know what the GDPR is?

The numbers are slightly better here -- 39% of U.K. consumers are unfamiliar with the GDPR, versus 64% in the U.S.

What's Behind the Confusion?

The idea of over a third of consumers in a region where the regulation will apply not knowing what it is was perplexing, at a minimum.

It didn't exactly come as a surprise, however, as research conducted by HubSpot in February indicated that only 36% of marketers and businesses leaders in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland had even heard of the GDPR.

Artboard 4-1

But now, with the GDPR coming into force in less than a month -- why are consumers still so confused?

"Privacy Literacy is a core issue here," says HubSpot Marketing Fellow, Sam Mallikarjunan. "The Cambridge Analytica issue, for example, wasn't based off some technical exploit -- just a lack of privacy literacy. Your data and anecdotes are showing this very clearly."

But it's not exactly a new phenomenon. "Most of this is not technological -- it's literacy," he continues. "Just like we had to teach people to shred their bank statements, we need to teach people the basic ways in which your privacy can be abused."

As the days remaining until the GDPR comes into force continue to wind down, it will be interesting to see if the numbers change. And once the regulation does take effect, I plan to run similar surveys again, to determine to what extent consumers understand or are aware of it.

But we have a long way to go, Mallikarjunan says, until consumers have a vast understanding of how what they put online can be used -- and misused.

"If we decide that privacy is legitimately something that we're going to continue to value in our society -- which I would not say is a given," he explains, "then we need to invest in true privacy literacy with vigor."



from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/gdpr-data-confusion

Artificial Intelligence–the Next Frontier In Content Marketing

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are being used in all aspects of business and marketing. The technologies allow decision-makers to extract valuable insights from a large amount of data so businesses can stay on top of emerging trends.

In this blog, I’ll cover how you can leverage AI to help increase ROI and get better results.

What AI Can Do For Content Marketers

AI is an umbrella term to describe a suite of unique, but related, technologies that includes machine learning, deep learning, neural networks, natural language processing (NLP), and natural language generation (NLG). With the ability to process an enormous amount of unstructured data and decipher natural language, AI is used to extract insights and make recommendations based on previously established criteria.

It aids content marketers in discovering keywords, planning blog post topics, optimizing and personalizing content, implementing automation, testing landing pages, scheduling social shares, and reviewing analytics. AI has become an indispensable tool for data-driven marketers because we have more data than we know what to do with. The success of our efforts hinges upon the ability to extract the right insights from the data we already have, e.g., on our ecommerce, CRM, or DMP platforms.

Data based decisions Google example

Here are a few ways AI can be leveraged by content marketers:

Narrow the Content Discovery Gap

Producing content is just one part of content marketing. In order for the content to be effective, it needs to drive the right action from the right audience through content curation and maintenance. No wonder 67% of marketers indicate audience identification and targeting as their top priority. You can leverage AI to get your content discovered and acted upon by the right audiences using strategies such as capitalizing on local demand, gauging topic opportunity sizing, and determining consumer intent.

For example, AI tools can help discover characteristics of top-ranking content and offer real-time recommendations on how to improve content performance. In addition, you can use predictive intelligence to deliver content in the right format and through the right channel, that’ll be most useful and engaging for each individual along the various stages in the buyer’s journey. This capability allows marketers to fully leverage the power of personalization and marketing automation technologies to deliver targeted content to each prospect or customer and increase the ROI of their content marketing efforts.

Personalized Experiences Example Swirl Network

Create Content Of High Value

Most content creation efforts are educated guesswork: marketers make assumptions on what will be of great demand based on past information and their subjective understanding of the market. AI can guide marketers to craft content that’s of greater value to the audience by analyzing and strategizing pertinent keywords and schematics in real-time to enhance a piece of content’s discoverability and engagement.

You can use AI to identify trending topics by using algorithms to track conversations on the Internet, such as those occurring on social media and within published content, to help you stay ahead of the trends and create content that will lead the conversations. By removing the guesswork, more of your marketing budget can be optimized to create and promote relevant content that will attract the right audience and deliver the desired results.

Stay On Top Of Industry Changes With Smart Content

Content marketing best practices are evolving all the time thanks to the constantly changing SEO and social media algorithms, as well as consumer expectations and preferences. The use of AI solutions helps marketers quickly adapt to the ever-changing search landscape with the delivery of “smart content”—content that’s contextually appropriate and intelligently personalized to your customer’s needs.

The use of “smart content” tailored specifically to each prospect’s customer lifecycle stage, purchasing history, or browsing behavior means you can fully leverage the power of omnichannel marketing by delivering personalized communications through all touch points including website, email, social media, mobile app, and more.

Intelligently Automate Repetitive Tasks

To stay on top of search and marketing trends, you need to constantly evaluate and analyze a lot of data. Many of these repetitive and manual tasks can be automated using AI-powered marketing tools so you can plan, optimize, personalize, promote, measure, and analyze content and its performance.

Start by evaluating your current content marketing process and identifying tasks that can be automated with AI technologies to save time and money. For instance, the ability to identify the best topics and content format based on real-time data can free up your resources to focus on content creation. You’ll be able to keep your key strategic documents up-to-date and generate high-impact topics that will make outsourcing your content creation tasks much more cost-effective.

Maximize Opportunities To Leverage Insights From Your Data

Using the right data, you can extract the right insights to help predict outcomes, devise strategies, personalize content, and tell stories at scale. However, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to what the highest-impact insights are for your organization and content marketing needs.

The best way to maximize opportunities offered by your data is to work with internal stakeholders and owners of datasets to extract the most pertinent insights and strategize the appropriate actions.

Use the AI Capabilities Of Your Existing Marketing Platforms

Before you add new software to your arsenal, you should look at the AI capabilities of your existing tools. Many platforms are actively integrating AI into their existing offerings.

Leveraging the AI features in your current tools will not only give you a great starting point to familiarize yourself with the technology, but you’ll also be able to take advantage of the seamless integration that’ll allow you to get up and running faster and more cost-efficiently.

Conclusion

By 2018, 62% of enterprises are expected to be using AI technologies. As a marketer, it’s time to embrace artificial intelligence if you want to stay at the top of the curve, remain relevant, and continue to engage your audience in a meaningful and profitable way.

The post Artificial Intelligence–the Next Frontier In Content Marketing appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.



from Marketo Marketing Blog https://blog.marketo.com/2018/04/artificial-intelligence-next-frontier-content-marketing.html