Social Media

Who is an Influencer?

The best definition of an influencer is someone who has gained an engaged social media following by creating aspirational lifestyle based content. Influencers are also commonly referred to as content creators, bloggers, vloggers and key opinion leaders (KOLs).

Tips-
Idea/niche
What am I most passionate about?
What am I most knowledgeable about?
What could I happily create content for without making a dime?

Content strategy

Spend time thinking about how your audience might perceive that piece of content or message.

Target the right audience

Targeting the right people allows your business to explore new audiences. Influencers might differ for every brand and product as they are a contextual fit, but this is the most important factor to keep in mind when targeting the right influencers for your brand.

Meaningful captions

Make the first line eye-catching enough to encourage users to stop scrolling.
The second tip is to always end your captions with a CTA (call-to-action). CTA can be any kind of engagement activity that you may want your followers to engage into. Next is to make your caption easy to read. Keeping it simple is the key. Also, don’t forget to use some fun emojis.

Use relevant hashtags

To ensure better discovery, use better hashtags. People usually find content on Instagram by searching for or clicking on certain hashtags. Choose the most relevant and popular hashtags from the suggestions Instagram throws up. Various tools available online, like Hashtagify and Keyword Tool, can be used to find effective hashtags.

Be consistent

If you want to see growth on Instagram and stay top of mind with your followers, it is vital to be consistent. Initially try to post everyday. You may decrease the pace of posting when you gain a good amount of followers and you become sure that people are starting to recognize you as an influencer. Make sure you keep up with the events and festivals that are related to your niche.

Instagram stories have become a major thing and as an influencer you should not miss the opportunity to put stories and explore.

You never know what works for you best!

The factor that determines its importance is its users. Popular and influential on any social media platform.

Here are some TIPS to gain Instagram followers naturally

Account Optimization

Before you think of gaining more followers, first thing first is to set your instagram account right. By saying account, I mean the bio of your instagram handle.

Remember, two-thirds of Instagram business profile visits are from non-followers. They are more likely to hit a follow button but only if your bio and profile convince them to click. They won’t do so if your profile is unclear, incomplete, or unappealing.

Think of a name that you want your followers to remember you as. Also add a username by which people will search for you. Make the most of the 150 characters in your bio to convey your brand identity.

Don’t forget to add a link of your website/youtube/facebook page in your bio.

In a nutshell, while updating your instagram handle keep one question in mind- What kind of content can they expect?

Post Consistency

Be consistent in your posting even if it is just a few times per week. Pick a comfortable schedule for yourself. Learn to walk before you run. Don’t try to post extensively instead post at your pace and analyze.
When you post regularly, you consistently will start getting more followers as well as staying top of mind with your ideal clients.

Insta Grid

While thinking of increasing your followers, make sure that every post on your Instagram grid needs to be of high quality and visually engaging. Whenever anybody lands on your profile, the content should catch their attention at the moment. This way, they would want to see more of your posts and might hit the follow button.

Follow Trends- Instagram Reels

One of the new trends that’s going on Instagram is Reels. Reels videos are meant to be between 3-30-seconds of educational, inspirational or entertaining fun. For brands, Reels are a great way to educate their ideal clients on how they can help solve a pain point. Think of it as a 30-second mini-lesson. Teach on anything that could help your ideal customer but that still relates to your business in some way.

Lots of community members who are focused on creating Reels content right now are seeing a huge impact on their account reach.

Use Relevant Hashtags

For years hashtags have served as an essential tool for discovery and allowed us to extend our social reach.

Relevant hashtags can help people find your content after a search, or after clicking on a hashtag from another relevant post.

You have to find hashtags that people in your target audience are more likely to check. If a relevant connection is made, these users will be more likely to follow your account. Unique, branded hashtags are one way to group posts around hyper-relevant content to your brand and campaigns.

To know more about hashtags you may go through- What are Hashtags in Social media? How to use them?

Write Catchy Captions

Even though Instagram is a visual platform, writing compelling copies (caption) plays a big role in helping you get more reach and engagement.

While going through the profile, if the caption is more than 125 characters long, only two lines of the caption are visible. Users will have to tap “more” to read the whole thing. So, make sure your first two lines catch the attention in mere less than 5 seconds.

Ultimate Guide to Write Compelling Copies for Social Media will help you write better copies.

What is Copywriting?

Did you know, more than half of the people see your post by reading copies aka ‘captions’. Copywriting is the strategy of creating persuasive content for Marketing and Sales with the goal of generating conversions and sales. It involves the creation of text content to persuade readers to take some type of action related to your business’s sales process.

For instance, if you’re trying to sell a product, you’ll need to convince prospective customers that it’s worth buying.

Examples of copywriting include:
• PPC landing pages.
• PPC ads.
• Cost-per-mil (CPM) ads.
• Social media ads.
• Product pages.
• Website sales copy.
• Sales emails.
• Short Message Service (SMS) ads.

Why copywriting?

Copywriting is a way to communicate with an audience as it informs and helps readers to understand your key message. It builds a better brand image which reflects in the way of your writing.

You might not be aware but it also helps in boosting SEO which is why you’re advised to use better keywords.

Tips for good copywriting

1. Research

It takes a lot of research and dedication, in order to produce the best possible content, that is, a piece that is really relevant to the persona, capable of entertaining and educating them.

2. Target audience

A great start comes from knowing your audience so you can use language that appeals to them. It’s difficult to write effective ads if you don’t understand who you are writing them for. Get to know your audience in order to make your ad copy relatable. Leveraging consumer language is key when writing ads.

General audience influences to get you started may include:

Who you are writing for (Age, Gender, Location, Demographics).

How your audience thinks and perceives things (Drivers, Analytical, Expressive, Amiable).

What your audience wants or needs (Listen to them, Learn how they live, Ask questions, etc.).

3. Grammar

Grammar errors interrupt readers’ thoughts by forcing them to stop. Whether it’s a missing period at the end of a sentence or a dangling modifier, readers will likely stop to process the grammar error. Some readers may then abandon the content without reading the rest of it.

4. Catchy headlines

A headline that promises to fill a knowledge vacuum or that which solves a problem is so useful. One of the most valuable copywriting tips that any writer should consider is you only have a few seconds to catch your audience’s attention. This means that you need to work on your headline so there’s a reason for people to click on your content in search to visit and read more related to that content

5. Use facts

By adding relevant facts and statistics to your content, you provide a logical explanation and evidence supporting the wisdom of purchasing your product. You also establish yourself as knowledgeable, trustworthy, and as someone interested in your market.
People want to know how a product or service will benefit them. So, tell them. Use your ad copy to explain how the audience will benefit from purchasing what you are selling. Be as specific as possible. Successful ads are not about what your company can do; they explain how the customer will benefit. Take a customer-centric approach.

6. Storytelling

You can tie everything together by using your ads to tell a story. The story you tell should connect with your target audience on some level to be effective. People are more likely to resonate with a story than an ad filled with hard facts or hard sales tactics.

7. Relatable

• Create an emotional connection.
• Introduce a problem or an objective to meet.
• Communicate an obstacle to overcome.
• Offer a solution (your product or service).
• A call to action.

8. Use the right words

Using power words in conjunction with modals like ‘could,’ ‘would,’ and ‘should’ suggest that something must be done, bringing your reader to action. Words that indicate uncertainty like may, maybe, tried, perhaps, etc should be avoided.

Using an active voice as it’s both engaging and suggests movement. And, bring product descriptions to life by using colorful, expressive language rather than sticking to physical descriptions.

9. Keep it relevant- relevance serves right

One needs to focus on their readers when writing a copy. Think about your audience. What are they interested in? What language do they speak? Good copywriting employs SEO practices, but one of the great copywriting tips involves utilizing both SEO practices and user intent when crafting your copy.

They say beginnings are the hardest but so is consistency. Agreed? To talk about content writing you need the same. 

First things first, let’s get into some basics.

What is Content Writing? 

Content writing basically refers to creating content for a target audience. It is the process that involves planning, writing and editing web content, typically for digital marketing purposes. 

What is Content Marketing?

“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

In simple words it is a strategy used by brands to create web content that is delivered to their target audience through google. Content marketing is also practiced to keep up the SEO activity on search engines. 

You see, whatever you read on the internet has multiple reasons behind it. 

Why is Content Marketing Important?

It is used by many prominent organizations in the world, including P&G, Microsoft, etc. It’s also developed and executed by small businesses around the globe. Why? Because it works. 

The importance of content marketing is witnessed in 

• Increased sales
• Low budgeted
• Helps consumer make decisions

 The great thing about content marketing is that you don’t actually have to market it. Consumer seeks you out. From there the story of trust builds. 

Types of Content

There are various text forms that are consciously or unconsciously consumed by the brand’s target audience. Some of them are-

• Emails
• Website content
• Articles
• Press releases
• Newsletters
• Product description 
• Ebooks 
• Social Media posts
• Landing pages
• Keynote speeches
• Video scripts

Here’s the Guide to Better Writing

Content writing is something where people can get better with practice. Remember the first line about consistency? Writing content is not that easy and one needs a structure to write on. 

Start Reading

Why reading first? Reading in the language that you want to write helps your brain to unconsciously revise the words that you would put in your writing. It improves your memory in terms of language and increases your knowledge in terms of topic.

According to science, reading everyday improves your writing skills as it expands your vocabulary. Exposing yourself to publishing creates a great impact in your own writing and you may yourself observe the fluidity and cadence invariably influencing your work. 

Research

Research simply means having an extensive knowledge about the topic that you are planning to write about. Content writer not only curates content but keeps a deep understanding about the subjects. 

Keep a notepad ready while researching and jot down the points that you want to include in your write-up. While researching, make content clusters to help you with the structure of the piece of content. For example, if I want to write about newly launched Windows 11, I’ll make the cluster like

• Introduction
• What’s new in Windows 11
• Brief about previous versions of Windows
• Win 11, 7 and 10 Comparison
• Windows 11 update guide
• Conclusion 

Forming clusters help you to visualize and plan your content better and you end up giving a good amount of information to the reader. 

Keyword Research

Let’s not forget that we are writing for an online platform. If that online platform doesn’t show up on the search engine, all the efforts will go in vain. In order to not let that happen, keyword research is important. 

Keywords are the words or phrases that people type on search engines to find what they’re looking for. For example if you’d want to know about zumba classes, you’ll search by typing ‘zumba classes near me’. So, ‘zumba classes near me’ is a keyword. 

Keyword research is the process of discovering the keywords used by potential customers to find your products. You can then pick the most relevant keywords within your reach that have a good search volume. Infact, you should create a list of the most important and relevant keywords associated with your chosen topic. Then, you should prioritize the highest-value keywords by the keyword’s search volume, keyword difficulty, and average CPC. Keyword research is basically done for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) purposes which results in better ranking of the content write-up. 

Thought Clarity

You need to know what you want to write about. The above step of keyword research will help a lot in clearing your mind. Pick a topic and write all about it as well as topics that revolve around it. Keep this in mind when writing that you must tie your content back to the main point as much as possible. It is better to stick to a point in every topic and make sure that you don’t mix different ideas in one content piece. It will break the user’s flow of reading. 

Easy to read content grabs attention

Long texts can be difficult to read. Format your text such that it has 2-3 lines in each paragraph. 

Online readers tend to scan through content to find points that they are interested in, rather than plowing through a long article. Use bolded subheadings to separate your content into topics or ideas, so readers can easily find the concepts that interest them. 

Organizing your content this way also helps Google to index it so it gains a higher search position.

Fascinating Headlines

Headlines that turn heads are always a game changer. Your title’s primary purpose is to grab attention and summarize your idea. Apart from this, headlines should be valid to meet search guidelines to help Google assign a high search rank. 

Let’s take an example, you are scrolling over facebook and come across an article named ‘how to take care of your skin at home’ and the other article named ‘10 awesome quarantine skin care tips’.

Both the articles may contain the same type of knowledge and content but the latter seems more interesting. Similarly, your users will decide whether they want to read the full content or not just by the headline.  

Consistency is the key

Practice, Practice, Practice. First drafts are always a draft and need changes a lot of times. Point being, nobody writes perfectly at one go. Content writing is just like any other skill that needs time to develop. 

Follow the suggestions to write better. You can also find free tools online that analyze your content and give you tips on how to improve content writing skills.  

Let us know your strategy for content writing! 

Have you tried editing the photo from your Facebook Published Post?

Witnessed this issue?

Are you able to only edit text and not image?

When I was employed with different digital marketing agencies, I have witnessed an issue of getting a minor error on a published post but that wasn’t a challenge.

The challenge was to edit that published post without deleting it, and we don’t have any solution at that time. Even a few months back when a client asked for a revision on a published post, we had to delete it.

Now, when we delete the publish post we lose the reach, impressions, and engagement for that particular post.

But now it is possible!

You heard it right, now you can replace an image from Published Post without deleting it.

If you are not using this feature, because you know that you cannot replace images in a Facebook Published Post, then start using it today.

How to replace an image in a Published Post without deleting your post?

It is very simple, be it a group, a page or your profile, all you need to do is edit the post:

A. Replace Image from a Published Post on a Profile

Now if you want to delete the image, you can by just hovering and clicking the cross (x) and you can add new photos by clicking add (+).

B. Replace Image from a Published Post on a Page

Let’s check if it is working on Pages as well:

Yes, here it is working.

C. Replace Image from a Published Post in a Group

Now let’s give the last try to a Facebook Published Post in Facebook Group:

Important Points to Remember:

• This feature is still rolling out and may not be available to some Pages/Profiles. This feature is not available on the Digital Marketing Recipes Page.
• If you are not able to edit it then try to open the post in a separate tab with post URL and try to edit.
• According to Facebook, you cannot replace the photo in case you have published the post from a third-party app.
• This feature will not work in the case of Photo Album, but you can edit the Photo Album from the Photos section of your Profile/Page.

I don’t know when Facebook rolled out this feature, but I am sure it is still rolling out.

Do share this post if you were unaware of this feature & Please pardon me if you already know about this edit feature.

If you want to share anything about this feature, then you can comment below or you can join our Digital Marketing Community, below is the Link:

Join Our Community ➡️ Digital Marketing Recipes

At the end of February 2020, Facebook has released several tools to help creators on the platform. Two of them were Facebook Creator Studio App for Mobile and Facebook Live Producer, additionally, Facebook has launched the Messenger for Desktop this week.

Both the tools are intended to give more power to creators. In this post, I will be discussing Facebook’s Live Producer tool.

“Live is definitely exploding right now,” Fidji Simo, Head of the Facebook App

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-27/facebook-covid-19-response-product-roadmap-changes-livestreaming

What is Facebook’s Live Producer?

Facebook defines it as, Live Producer combines all of the features from the previous experience with a simplified view to help you be more in control of your live streams.

On 20th February 2020, Facebook introduced Live Producer in its Journalism Community.

Why Facebook Live Producer?

Check the statement of Fidji Simo, it will clarify why Facebook has introduced Live Producer from business point of view.

Head of the Facebook App, Fidji Simo stated in Bloomberg “Messaging and voice calls from Facebook’s Messenger and WhatsApp services have jumped more than 50% in some of the regions hit hardest by the response to COVID-19. The number of people in the U.S. watching livestreams on the Facebook Live video feature has increased by 50% since January”.

This statement make it very clear that Facebook is very serious about is “Facebook Live” Product. Facebook has promoted gaming on the platform, which can be attributed to why Facebook Live users have increased.

With Facebook’s Live Producer tool the platform will give more power to the users in going LIVE, on contrary to it in May 2019 after Christchurch Mosque attacks, Facebook announced several restrictions on the Facebook Live product.

What is the objective of Live Producer?

As stated earlier Facebook is taking “Facebook Live” seriously, here is an announcement that Facebook has made on the 20th of February 2020 in their official community for Journalists “News, Media & Publishing on Facebook”.

Just a reminder, you can also join our Facebook Community:

With Live Producer tool, Facebook wants to give a push to Live Videos and broadcasting on the platform.

Previously, broadcasting can primarily be done by Pages under publishing tools and with help of APIs users were able to live-stream in the groups and on their profile to some extent but it was limited and was quite a tedious task.

With this new tool, Facebook has improved the way you used to live-stream videos on the platform with some new options that you will love and now the live-streaming is far easier.

Can I broadcast LIVE on Facebook Profile & Facebook Groups?

As Facebook announced in the private community, the new Live Producer includes all the functionalities from previous version of Facebook Live dashboard and is now more reliable and easy to use.

With this new tool, you can easily broadcast the content on:

• Profiles
• Groups
• and obviously, Pages

Now let’s discuss about the usage of this new tool and how you can make your Live videos more engaging.

How to use Facebook Live Producer?

In the earlier version, if you have to broadcast any video on your Page, you used to follow the below step:

• Go to the Page
• Publishing Tools
• Video Library
• Go Live

And you used to see a screen similar to the below:

Let’s us take you into detail of how to use the Live Producer tool:

1: Access Live Producer

To access your Facebook Live Producer visit – https://www.facebook.com/live/producer/10217150286973234.

2: Set up your LIVE Post

A. Want to Go Live or Schedule Live Video

First of you have to decide, whether you want to go Live Now or wanted to Schedule it.

B. Where you want to Go Live?

Now the second step in setting up your LIVE post is to choose where you want to post the video?

1. You can share it on your Timeline
2. You can share it on your Page
3. You can share it on the groups you have joined

C. Enter Post Details

Enter your Video Title & Video description, that will be visible to your viewers.

D. Choose, if you Want to Crosspost the Live video

Then choose if you want do crosspost this video on any other pages. This option will not be available in case you want to go LIVE on your profile or any group.

E. Define Audience Settings

You can also choose your audience if you are going LIVE from a Page. You can choose the age group, with the options: 15+, 18+, 21+ & 25+ for now. You can also allow your LIVE to be telecasted on particular locations and you can also filter out the locations where you do not want to telecast your content.

F. Test Telecast

Now choose if you want to test this telecast, check if you want to. This is primarily used for Gaming.

If you want to go LIVE with other sources or if you want to broadcast any recorded video as LIVE then you need to set up the stream accordingly.

Facebook provides you three options for streaming the content i.e. Camera, Stream Keys & Paired Encoder.

3: Stream Setup

This option lets you choose, how you want to create your LIVE video. Let’s discuss each one of them:

A. Stream Keys

To use this option, you would need a specific app/software, called Streaming Softwares. Some suggested software are:

• OBS Studio
• Streamlabs OBS
• Nvidia Shadowplay
• Xsplit Gamecaster
• Player.me and many other

I use OBS Studio or Streamlabs OBS since both of them work on Macbook.

Now you need to insert these LIVE APIs in the software that you are using and choose the media source, it can be a web page, a video on your system, an image and again your system camera.

There are two options that you can see while using Stream Keys:

Use a Persistent Stream Key:

You can enable a persistent stream key if you want to continue to use the same stream key for each broadcast. To enable a persistent stream key (PSK) you can select the box in the settings box. This stream key can be used every time you go live. If you don’t use the Persistent Stream Key option, the stream key will change every-time you choose to go LIVE.

Use a Backup Steam:

You can choose to use a backup stream if you want to add a level of redundancy to your live stream. Clicking the box next to Use a Backup Stream will generate a Backup Stream Key that you can use with a backup encoder. If your first encoder fails during your broadcast this backup stream will take over. Once selected, it can not be unselected. (It will not affect your stream if you choose not to use it.)

We generally choose the Backup Stream option when we are broadcasting any even to be on the safer side. This option is available if you choose live-streaming via Paired Encoders.

B. Paired Encoders

To use this option you need to pair encoders, and to pair them you need to create Facebook App and your Facebook Live is managed accordingly.

C. Camera

If you choose the camera, you have limited options, as shown in below screenshot:

In Camera settings, firstly you have to choose your camera and microphone options. If you want to share your screen, then click ‘Share Screen’, a pop will open up, where you can choose to share your:

1. Entire screen
2. Application Window
3. or a Particular Tab

Some Common Stream Settings

You have some common stream settings in Live Producer, once you go LIVE, you cannot change these settings. They are:

Streaming Settings

a. End Live Video if stream stops: If you choose this option, your video will end as and when it stops receiving data and is usually not recommended if you have poor internet connectivity. If you choose Backup Stream option, then you cannot choose this option.

b. Allow embedding: This option allows you to embed your live video on your website.

c. Unpublish after Live Video Ends: If you have chosen this option then your video will not be visible publicly after your video ends. Although it will be visible to the admin of the Page.

View Settings

Allow viewers to rewind: This option allows your viewers to rewind the video, but please note that videos more than 8 hours cannot be rewound.

New Features on Live Producer

Stream Health

This is a new option, earlier Facebook used to show only event longs, but now it shows you the stream health on different parameters.

Obviously, Stream Health is visible once you go LIVE.

Polls

Live Producer lets you add Polls to the LIVE video. You can add more than 1 polls to a LIVE video, only 1 will be working at a time and the previous poll gets ended.

You can also show Poll results during the live stream.

Questions

With this Questions option, you can ask your Live viewers to ask questions. It actually opens a dialogue box, where users can directly enter their questions and you will see these questions in Live Producer Dashboard.

Video Clip

This option lets you create a clip that is actually a short video of the last 60 seconds of your LIVE video. This option helps you share the clip without interrupting the Live video.

Comments

Once a stream is initiated, the left-hand column will display your Live post’s comments, giving you the ability to moderate the discussion while also monitoring the live stream. A dropdown gives you the option to apply the following settings to more easily manage comments. More than one setting can be applied at a time. They are:

• Slow: Commenters can only comment once every 10 seconds.
• Discussion: Your chat will only show comments with at least 100 characters in them.
• Follower: Only your followers can comment.
• Restricted: Viewers must have accounts that are at least 2 weeks old to comment.
• Protected: Viewers must follow the streamer for at least 15 minutes before they can comment.

That’s all on Live Producer. I will keep updating this post as per the new updates and findings.

Now next time when you go LIVE try to implement these options to make more engaging LIVE Session.

If you have any questions, you can comment below or can join our Facebook Community, below is the link:

Join Our Community ➡️ Digital Marketing Recipes