Author: Reginald Chan

Social media is still on a roll. More and more people are active users – around 70 percent of Americans use social media to communicate with one another and as of October 2021, about 57.6% of the world population are on social media. Because of this reach, what used to be an apparatus primarily for personal communication and to connect people to each other has now become a crucial marketing tool.

There are significant benefits to be gained from social media marketing, when it’s done right. If you’re still deliberating over whether or not it’s worth your time, here’s a short list of reasons that should help make up your mind:

It increases the awareness for your brand

Making people aware of your brand is essential to the success of your business. It’s brand awareness that turns people into customers who will avail of your products and services. Social media can help you not only by introducing you to its massive numbers of users, but also by providing you with a place to show who you are as a brand. It lets you post content that will interest your audience, using your own unique ‘voice’.

It helps you reach your target audience

With 4.48 billion people actively using social media, your potential customers are on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn right now. When you create a well-curated page on an appropriate platform, you have a high chance of reaching them. Moreover, social media can zero in on a specific group of people based on their demographics, location, interests, behavior, age group, gender and more. This way you can show your ads or promote your content to precisely the right audience.

It allows you to connect to your customers

Even though social media is widely used as a mass marketing tool, these platforms are still a place for more intimate interactions. When you share content on your business page, your audience can like, share, and comment on your posts. You can use this as an opportunity to talk directly to them. Communicating with your customers is the best way to nurture your relationship with them, which is vital in gaining their long-term loyalty. If you have loyal customers, they can help spread the word about your products and services to even more people just by sharing good reviews on their own platforms for their followers to see. With the help of a social listening insights technologies from tools such as Onclusive, monitoring conversations about your brand and about your competitors will help you shape your strategic decision-making.

It saves you money

Social media marketing is considerably more cost-effective than traditional methods of advertising. Once you learn and apply all the social media tips you can get from the Internet and marketing experts, you’ll be able to make social media marketing work for you without breaking the bank. Sponsored posts don’t cost as much as, say, national TV commercials, and you can get the most out of them if you add in a lot of organic activity like posting content and engagement with your audience.

It lets you know your progress

Social media analytics measure your posts and ads’ performance among many other factors. Posts that perform well usually attract a lot of views, comments, likes, and shares. When you know these numbers, you’ll know which type of content works best with your audience and you can plan your future posts accordingly. The same applies to paid advertisements. You can see if views of your ads resulted in website visits as well as sales, helping you focus on and invest in only the most effective campaigns.

Social media changed a lot of things for people around the world. It made communication easier. It made sharing information faster. Now, it makes buying goods and services more convenient. The top platforms have successfully integrated themselves into our lives and the trend isn’t showing any sign of waning anytime soon. 
One of the basic principles of advertising is to be where the people are. Right now, they are on social media. But, aside from your potential customers, you can also find and analyse your competitors. So, it’s time to up your game. Research how you can make social media marketing work for you. Learn which platforms will bring you closer to your target market. If you think it’s all too much, consider reaching out to professionals who can help you get started.

Videos reign supreme in this age of webinars, Instagram stories, Livestreams and YouTube. Every year, many content marketers recognize multiple compelling advantages of incorporating videos in their digital marketing campaigns. From boosting engagement to advertising a service or product, everyone loves hiring a Video Production Company.  And, such a company helps expand a brand’s reach on social media, besides giving you an impressive lead over your competitors. 

However, using videos in the business must be done in the proper manner. Since there are gazillions of video content to compete against, it is crucial to optimize it. This blog will tell you why videos are the most shareable, versatile, and appealing tools to reach your audience. 

Conveys messages clearly 

A picture can be worth a million words but believe it or not; videos are worth over a million words. In fact, as per some survey results, most viewers remember 98 percent of a message when they see videos compared to 10 percent when reading texts. 

Hence, communication’s real power is hidden in videos. If you want your customers to understand more sophisticated and complex messages, show them videos. They are a matchless medium to introduce new services and products. 

You do not have to go the extra mile to combine dozens of text blocks; instead, combining moving images with sound will leave a much stronger impression. Whatever you want to relay to your audience, videos will help you do that directly and quietly. Case in point, MOZ hosts weekly educational video series and educates people on all SEO-related things effortlessly. 

Attracts the mobile users 

Mobile and video go together like jelly and peanut butter. According to a recent study, 90 percent of consumers love to watch videos on their smartphones. This fact does not come as a surprise. Why? Because people are constantly on the go and lead hectic life, smartphone customers resort to videos of all kinds. 

According to Google, mobile users are 1.4 times more likely to view ads than those watching television. And, not just that, these users will share the videos once they are done watching, hence win-win!

Boost sales and conversion

The videos are visual and entertaining. Hence, they can help you make a lot of money. Today, more and more brands are implementing them in their marketing strategies for lead conversion. Some studies say the conversion rate multiplies by 80 percent if you have videos on your landing page. 

They also help with sales generation. Over 74 percent of users admitted that they went ahead and bought a product after an explainer video convinced them to purchase. Okay!  We are sure you are sold too! If you have a brand, videos are the content kinds that you must invest in because videos are one of our most dominant senses. 

Increase ROI

If you head to the video side, your ROI will increase. Over 89 percent of marketers think that video helps with good ROI. It does pay off in the future despite the process of video production being expensive and time-consuming. You can concentrate on explainer videos as they generate the most ROI. Over 95 percent of consumers discover services and products through them. 

It is available anywhere, anytime!

Video is not just engaging and adaptable. It is also relatively easy to consume, both on the go and at the desktop. With the rise of YouTube and Facebook as mobile platforms, people prefer watching videos on the go. Since 2013, consumption of mobile videos has shot up by a whopping 233%. 

After all, video content is accessible everywhere and appeals to even the laziest customers. We believe that hardly any marketing tool reaches such a massive client base, irrespective of the time. 

Conclusion 

With truckloads of pros, it is more than clear that videos are vital components of any marketing plan. From driving sales to gaining visibility on social media and increasing ROI, you as a brand must seriously consider launching videos into your marketing plans. However, we recommend developing the correct design, schedule, message, and tone so that viewers get introduced to the sales funnel without being viewed as repetitive and annoying.

Did you know that the younger generation mostly gets its news from social media platforms? We are talking about people aged 18 to 35. Rather than wait for the 7 o’clock news, they log onto Twitter and other social media platforms to catch up with news in real-time. Of course, this has caused a dip in traditional ad revenues. But do you know what has grown exponentially because of this trend? Twitter! Now, here is how you can take advantage of this change to better your brand:

Updating Your Profile

Is your profile ready? Before you even start tweeting and retweeting, you need to ensure that everything looks good on your end. Set up your bio and follow people with whom you share similar interests. Is this step necessary? Sure! When you tweet or retweet something that catches people’s eyes, the next step will be to follow the link to your profile. Users will want to know who you are and if you are worth a mention or a follow. So, imagine if they find a blank bio with nothing about who you are and what you stand for. Would they follow you? Would you follow such a person? Enhance your chances of success by cleaning your house before heading out to welcome visitors.

Getting an Audience

How many followers do you have on Twitter? Most new and even existing accounts have few followers. Of course, if you have not been very active in the space, it’s hard to attract a large enough audience. So, how about you buy cheap Twitter followers to get things started? It creates the illusion that you have something good to offer (after all, you have people following you!). You can then use these followers as a base to grow your content and attract more people. But how do you do this? Keep reading for more.

Setting Up Your KPIs

If you want to fail in your Twitter marketing, go in without a clear goal. You need to understand what you want out of the marketing. What do you want? Are you looking for more followers or networks? Do you want to get more leads or more traffic to your site? These are the metrics you will use to gauge if your content marketing has been successful. Figure out how often you will measure your metrics, e.g., every week or month. Then whenever the numbers don’t make sense, you can alter the strategy.

Deciding on a Voice

You are almost ready to start tweeting and retweeting. But before you do so, you need to be true to yourself. Why are you on Twitter? Twitter is awash with different voices- politically, economically, geographically, etc. It’s easy to get lost in this world that always has something to offer. To avoid getting caught up in all the noise and losing your voice, understand what you want to communicate on Twitter. For example, if you are on the platform to market your new music, you must ensure that you follow trends and hashtags relevant to it. While that does not mean you cannot entertain other angles, you should not lose your way. Else, you will not meet your KPIs, which will derail you from your goal.

Creating Content

Like all other social media platforms, you need to be authentic and entertaining/ educative to your audience. Again, you must connect with why you are on Twitter. For example, if you want to sell more bedding, how can you go about this? You could post videos on folding bedding, washing bedding, or even why good bedding is essential. Or you could post blog links or even website sales on your account. Don’t be afraid to veer off the salesy path, and instead, embrace a more entertaining way to sell your products and services. Given that you have a limit on how much you can say about your business, you should keep it short and fun. Also, do not forget to post high-quality pictures and videos. It makes a lot of difference.

Scheduling Your Content

We recommend that you post regularly on your account. Twitter is ever-changing, and what’s trending now will probably be history in a few hours. So, you need to keep it fresh with your followers. Otherwise, they could unfollow you and opt for companies churning out regular content. Of course, it’s hard to stay on top of content, especially if you have many other moving parts. How about scheduling your content? You can decide when the tweets will go out, ideally at least once every day. Consider investing in a marketing automation tool to help you send out tweets at the same time each day.

Gauging Your Content Performance

First, you’ll need to analyze your insights to see when your tweets perform best. There’s no such thing as the best time for tweeting. Some people’s tweets do well in the morning, others at noon and others in the evening. So, you need to understand what works for you by looking at your insights. Then you can schedule your content accordingly. Secondly, you need to look at how responsive people are to your tweets. Are they liking, commenting, or retweeting them? Which tweets have performed best? If you can find a pattern in the most popular tweets, you can create more like these to reach an even bigger audience.

Engaging With Followers

Twitter is a two-way street, and you cannot tweet without engaging with other people on the platform. It comes down to commenting on and retweeting what other people have posted on their accounts if it’s relevant to your niche. You should also reply to people who comment under your tweets, and in doing so, you can build a Twitter community. This online space might be what your business or brand needs to take off in this digital world. Don’t just post. Instead, interact with people, and you will get to know more about what they want to see on your account.

Using Hashtags

Do you want to be more visible on Twitter? Then you cannot escape using relevant hashtags to reach your target audience at the right time.

You barely need to reach into your pockets to actualize the strategies above, and yet, they have paid off for countless businesses. You, too, can be another Twitter marketing success story. Good luck!

Cyberattacks are on the rise these days and ill-intended actors don’t seem to hold back. We already know about big companies taking the hit, but there were also attacks on hospitals, healthcare institutions, and governmental facilities. Now, try and imagine how many of these attacks go unreported? 

It may be the pandemic – after all, the lockdowns forced everyone into remote work, whether they were ready or not. Plus, once things get back to normal, it is expected that around 58% of US workers will continue working remotely. 

On the other hand, we can also blame the fast advancement of new technologies. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are amazing tools that can be used to process massive amounts of data in a flash. Such power gives cybercriminals a serious advantage in identifying the most likely spots to hit.  

Regardless, it’s safe to say we are living in unprecedented times. Businesses have to navigate all sorts of risks and threats without having to look twice over the shoulder when using online tools that help keep things going. Still, that’s exactly what you have to do if you don’t want to have a data breach that may lead to corporate and individual ID theft cases. 

Here is why any business and organization must take ID theft extremely seriously:

#1: Business Reputation

Whether you have an online business or a brick-and-mortar store, your customers and leads will come and go based on the reviews they read and the rumors they hear. A brand’s reputation in the market is one of the most valuable assets a business can have, which is why it must be protected at all costs. 

If your database gets leaked and you are the victim of a corporation ID theft, you risk losing the good name of your brand in front of customers, business partners, and suppliers. 

Cybercriminals can use your accounts to:

• Harass partners by asking for loans, payments for items they didn’t order, information, and more
• Post injurious messages on social media channels
• Send annoying emails and messages to your customer base
• Withdraw considerable amounts of money from your bank accounts
• Place orders you cannot honor
• Sign contracts and close deals you wouldn’t have approved of

The list could easily go on, but the conclusion is that anyone who gets hold of your accounts owns your business. Is this something you are willing to risk?

#2: Smarter Attacks

As we already mentioned, advanced technologies help cybercriminals organize attacks that are more efficient and harder to detect. These examples of identity theft show just how much cybercriminals have advanced in their methods and techniques. 

If back in the days data was only available on paper, nowadays most businesses use cloud services or have an internal system of servers that can be accessed online. Plus, you can do almost anything online from paying bills and taxes to signing documents and having meetings. 

This opened a wide door for intruders who learned how to approach the most vulnerable link in an organization’s security system – the human factor. A Kaspersky study from a few years back showed that careless or uninformed staff are the second most likely cause of a serious security breach. Next, is human error. 

In conclusion, businesses must train their staff in basic cybersecurity measures if they want to have an efficient protection system. Plus, trained employees are more likely to follow the security protocols because they understand the risks.

#3: Protect Business Assets

Did you know that small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) are ideal targets for cyberattacks? 

This happens because they are not as keen to invest in an advanced security system (due to budget size). Plus, a business that’s just starting to grow is likely to have a few golden eggs hidden in its database. These golden eggs can be anything from a well-developed business plan to the documentation for a new invention. 

That’s why any business should have at least some type of security operations center. It may be an extra cost to your plan, but it’s worth it if you want to keep your assets away from prying eyes. 

In Conclusion

Corporate ID theft and any other form of cyberattack are extremely risky for a business nowadays. Overall, it’s best to take the path of caution and invest in a solid security system. Also, don’t forget to take care of your stuff as well.