#I considered doing a google form for rankings but The People like polls and google form maybe means doxxing myself through my gmail so. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

seoplassy · 1 month

Text

Boost Your Business With Digital Marketing

In today's Boost Your Business With Digital Marketing, leveraging the power of online marketing is essential for businesses of all sizes to stay competitive and reach their target audience effectively. Whether you're a small startup or a well-established company like Plassey Technologies, implementing strategic digital marketing initiatives can significantly Boost Your Business With Digital Marketing for visibility, engagement, and ultimately, your bottom line. In this comprehensive guide, we'll explore key questions surrounding digital marketing and provide actionable insights to help you elevate your business to new heights.

1. What are the most effective digital marketing strategies for small businesses?

For small businesses looking to make a big impact without breaking the bank, there are several cost-effective digital marketing strategies to consider. One highly effective approach is to harness the power of content marketing. By creating valuable and engaging content that resonates with your target audience, you can attract organic traffic to your website and establish your brand as a trusted authority in your industry.

Additionally, social media marketing offers a cost-effective way to connect with your audience on platforms they already frequent. By sharing compelling content, engaging with your followers, and running targeted ad campaigns, you can expand your reach and drive more leads and sales for your business.

2. How can I use social media to promote my business online?

Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn provide valuable opportunities for businesses to connect with their target audience, build brand awareness, and drive website traffic. To effectively promote your business on social media, it's essential to develop a comprehensive strategy that aligns with your overall marketing goals.

Start by identifying which social media platforms your target audience is most active on, and then create engaging content tailored to each platform's unique audience and format. Whether it's sharing behind-the-scenes glimpses of your company culture on Instagram, posting informative articles on LinkedIn, or running interactive polls and contests on Twitter, the key is to provide value and foster meaningful interactions with your followers.

3. What are the benefits of investing in digital advertising for my business?

Digital advertising offers numerous benefits for businesses looking to reach a wider audience and drive targeted traffic to their website. Unlike traditional advertising methods, digital advertising allows you to precisely target your ads to specific demographics, interests, and behaviors, ensuring that your message reaches the right people at the right time.

Platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads provide powerful targeting options and robust analytics tools that allow you to track the performance of your ads in real-time. By monitoring key metrics such as click-through rates, conversion rates, and return on investment (ROI), you can optimize your ad campaigns for maximum effectiveness and drive tangible results for your business.

4. How do I create a successful email marketing campaign to reach my target audience?

Email marketing remains one of the most effective digital marketing channels for reaching and engaging with your target audience. To create a successful email marketing campaign, start by building a quality email list comprised of subscribers who have opted in to receive communications from your business.

Next, craft compelling email content that provides value to your subscribers, whether it's in the form of informative newsletters, promotional offers, or exclusive discounts. Personalization is key to driving engagement, so use segmentation and dynamic content to tailor your emails to each recipient's interests and preferences.

5. What are some ways to optimize my website for better search engine rankings?

Search engine optimization (SEO) plays a critical role in helping your website rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) and attract organic traffic. To optimize your website for better search engine rankings, start by conducting keyword research to identify the terms and phrases your target audience is searching for.

Next, optimize your website's on-page elements, including title tags, meta descriptions, and headers, to incorporate your target keywords and improve relevancy. Additionally, focus on creating high-quality, relevant content that addresses the needs and interests of your target audience, and earn backlinks from reputable websites to boost your site's authority in the eyes of search engines.

6. How can I track the effectiveness of my digital marketing efforts?

Tracking the effectiveness of your digital marketing efforts is crucial for identifying what's working well and where there's room for improvement. One of the most valuable tools for tracking digital marketing performance is Google Analytics, which provides valuable insights into website traffic, user behavior, and conversion metrics.

By setting up goals and conversion tracking in Google Analytics, you can track important actions such as form submissions, purchases, and sign-ups, and attribute them to specific marketing channels and campaigns. Armed with this data, you can make informed decisions about where to allocate your marketing budget and resources for maximum impact.

7. Are there any free or low-cost tools available to help with digital marketing?

Yes, there are several free and low-cost tools available to help businesses streamline their digital marketing efforts and achieve better results. For example, Hootsuite and Buffer offer free versions of their social media management platforms, allowing you to schedule posts, track mentions, and analyze performance across multiple social media channels.

Similarly, tools like Mailchimp and Sendinblue offer free email marketing plans with basic features, making it easy to create and send professional-looking email campaigns to your subscribers. And for businesses looking to improve their SEO, tools like Moz's Keyword Explorer and Google's Keyword Planner provide valuable insights into keyword competitiveness and search volume.

8. What are the latest trends in digital marketing that I should be aware of?

The digital marketing landscape is constantly evolving, with new trends and technologies emerging all the time. One trend that's gaining traction is the rise of video marketing, with platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube becoming increasingly popular among consumers.

Another trend to watch is the growing importance of voice search optimization, as more and more people use voice-activated devices like smart speakers and virtual assistants to search for information online. By optimizing your website and content for voice search queries, you can ensure that your business remains visible and accessible to voice search users.

9. How can I use content marketing to attract more customers to my business?

Content marketing is a powerful strategy for attracting and engaging with potential customers at every stage of the buyer's journey. By creating and sharing valuable, relevant content that addresses the needs and interests of your target audience, you can establish your brand as a trusted authority in your industry and drive meaningful interactions with your prospects.

To effectively use content marketing to attract more customers to your business, start by identifying your target audience and understanding their pain points and challenges. Then, create high-quality content that provides solutions to those problems, whether it's in the form of blog posts, videos, infographics, or ebooks. By consistently delivering valuable content that resonates with your audience, you can build trust, foster loyalty, and ultimately, drive more sales for your business.

10. Are there any digital marketing courses or resources that can help me learn and improve my skills?

Yes, there are numerous digital marketing courses and resources available to help you learn and improve your skills in this ever-changing field. Platforms like Coursera, Udemy, and LinkedIn Learning offer a wide range of online courses taught by industry experts, covering topics such as social media marketing, search engine optimization, email marketing, and more.

Additionally, there are many blogs, podcasts, and online communities dedicated to digital marketing where you can stay up-to-date on the latest trends and best practices. Whether you're a beginner looking to build a solid foundation in digital marketing or an experienced professional seeking to expand your knowledge and expertise, there's no shortage of resources available to help you succeed.

Conclusion

In conclusion, digital marketing offers a wealth of opportunities for businesses to reach and engage with their target audience in meaningful ways. By implementing strategic digital marketing initiatives, such as content marketing, social media marketing, and email marketing, you can effectively boost your business's visibility, attract more customers, and drive sustainable growth. Whether you're a small startup or a well-established company like Plassey Technologies, embracing the power of digital marketing is key to staying ahead of the competition and achieving your business goals. So don't wait any longer – start implementing these digital marketing strategies today and watch your business soar to new heights!

#boost your business with digital marketing

0 notes

binniesthighs · 3 years

Text

eehee here it is the long awaited results of my chaotic ass survey about our hornies it’s so long holy heck, but I have seperated it into a couple sections to make sense of it all (omg if you read all of it lemme give you a kith teehee) ahhhh lol its SO nerdy haha but i hope that ya enjoy nonetheless! ✨

In this essay, I will....(hahah jk jk this is just all for fun)

1. Demographics Analysis

2. Polls on Fic Content

3. Member Specific Analysis

4. Deep Dive into the Juicy Questions (Confessions)

5. General Thoughts and Conclusion

6. Cute shit that ya’ll said that made me giggle

*Unpopular opinions will be made into their own post to give them ample space and analysis!

Other Notes:

Out of 100 individuals surveyed, 44 were readers, 2 were only writers, and 54 were both readers and writers.

Statistical significance can be effected by sampling, selection, and response bias (yeah i took a stats class teehee) and personal biases

All the the opinions and other analysis presented by me (Ro/binniesthighs) are purely my own oponion and are not factual. you are entitled to interpret all of this information however you like! Anything that i analyze is not definitive!

while this survey is mostly about stay smutblr, i hope that it can also maybe serve as a template for other fandoms as well with the more general questions! this is a survey for everyone!

i’d love to hear about what you think about anything presented in this analysis! feel free to send me an ask or comment! reposting is permitted within tumblr or on other platforms if proper credit is given! ❤️ (uwu hehe if you could please help me spread this i would appreciate it so much! i worked really hard on her 🥺)

1. Demographics Analysis:

Gender Identities of those Surveyed

~My thoughts: this really came as no surprise to me considering how the majority of kpop fans (especially boy group fans) identify as female! Seeing as I am a Stray Kids/Seventeen blog (both of them boy groups) it makes sense to me that my readers would mostly identify as female!

Another important thing to note (from a writer standpoint at least) is the wide array of identities that we still have present within the general audience of stay smut blur (SSB)! I’ll get into this later when i discuss favorite pairings to read, however i think that this gives us one more reason to write for a diverse audience of readers who can identify with different types of self-insert fics!

Top Five:

Female (81%)

Non-binary/gender non-conforming (13%)

Changes by the day (6%)

Male (4%)

Demiboy/Demigirl (3%)

Sexual Orientation of those Surveyed

Other identities mentioned:

????, unlabeled, aromatic bisexual, bicurious, demisexual, “just liking who i like”, experimenting, heteroflexible, sapiosexual, depends day by day, “i just like anyone”

~My thoughts: okkkkk i see us gays of SSB 😏 these demographics were really exciting for me to see! i think that it’s super cool that we have such representation across the board when it comes to sexual orientations present in our community! As someone who personally identifies as pan, this was super comforting to see that there are so many others like me in this little space of the internet! I think it’s safe to say at least from my lil survey that all the bi cuties out here own SSB 💗💜💙

From a literal standpoint, it also makes sense to me that heterosexuality is strongly present as well considering that often the pairs that we read are male idol x female reader so this is the perfect niche!

Top Five:

Bisexual (40.8%)

Heterosexual (26.5)

Pansexual (17.3%)

Queer (7.1%)

Asexual (4.1%)

Stay Creators!!

~My thoughts: this one i was THRILLED at seeing oml hahaha and i was so interested to see that this was nearly an even split!

I think that there’s something to be said about how sometimes we can take our hobbies: (movies, videogames, books, kpop, anime etc)--all things which we really like in totally normal and healthy ways but also kinda like....get hornies about them too? if that makes sense? for example, i have a friend who really likes certain video games/characters from these games as a fan and he’s shared with me that he also doesn’t mind watching porn containing those same characters! (ahahah ya all know what i mean don’t even lie haha)

what this question proved to me as that there are stays out there who practice “being a stay/being a stay creator” who also are interested in the more...horny side of this hobby/interest 😂

what is even more interesting to me is who i wonder if i’ve have consumed any of ya’ll’s content while you have consumed mine??? this i am DYING to know aha but it think its best for all of us to stay anonymous teehee ;)

either way, good on ya for doing what ya do!! you are so so treasured in this community too!! <3

2. Polls on Fic Content (a long section lol)

Favorite Pairing to Read

*other options selected were rankings of favorite pairings so i just added each of them as an entry to the respective category mentioned.

Top Five:

Idol x female reader (69%)

Idol x gender neutral reader (19%)

Idol x reader x Idol (poly r/ship) (14%)

Idol x reader, Idol x reader (threesome, not much interaction between the two idols) (8%)

~My thoughts: once again, this category was pretty self explanatory to me considering that the majority of readers are female identifying, so it would make sense that they would prefer to read smut that aligns with their identity! This is also super present anyway of SSB as i do feel like the majority of writing pieces that I do come along are idol x female reader, and most authors too often disclaim that they are the most comfortable writing this type of pairing as well.

What’s signficant as well is the interest in reading fics with gender neutral reader self inserts as well! this is my personal philosophy when it comes to writing (specifically with requests) but i think that writing gn!reader is always the safest bet to go as to not make assumptions about readers! for writers i think that seeing this 19% is something important to take into consideration!

An outlier to me with this demographic was the “poly r-ship” poll garnering a notable 14% in comparison to the idol x idol option which got 10 less votes (4%). what is a little confusing to me about this is how poly r/ships often (but not always) contain idol x idol content, however there is discrepancy with the amount of readers outright saying that they enjoy reading it alone. I’ll get into poly fics later with the unpopular opinions section--however i wanted to plant the seed here hehe. One other caveat to this is the fact that on SSB i feel like idol x idol content is really in the minority and is much more present on a platform like AO3 so this could be another explaination!

What is kinda cute to me is the fact that readers do really like poly r-ship dynamics more than a threesome (as i defined it, “with less interaction”) so this makes me feel like we are all saps for the fluff that comes with poly r-ship fics ;)

Favorite Kind of Smut to Read

male idol smut (67%)

i read both! (female and male idol smut) (25%)

depends on my mood (7%)

female idol smut (1%)

~My thoughts: Again, this is super expected to me as well considering the above statistics. Since i am a skz blog (a boy group) --as are my moots-- it really makes sense that those who filled out this survey would be into male idol smut!

what was cool for me to see as well was the number of readers who also read female idol smut as well as male idol smut! personally, i more predominately a fan of boy groups compared to the amount of girl group content that I consume (note: i do also consume gg content). because of this, i think that its really up to personal preferences and the content that you consume that can be reflective of the smut content that you consume as well and ya know, whoever gets your hornies going ;)

Favorite Genres...Ranked!

*so this was my fault lol i totally formatted this question poorly in google forms so i’ll try to summarize the most popular rankings with my words haha

*bc of the way that i miffed it (lol) i wasn’t able to get exact measurements, but rough ones!

Top Five:

Smut, fluff, angst

smut n’ fluff (with specific emphasis angst is not desired)

smut, angst, fluff,

fluff, smut, angst,

angst, fluff, smut

~My thoughts: by far, the most popular ranking that i saw was as follows: smut, fluff, angst. i saw this sososos many times haha also...ya’ll got really creative with your rankings and it made me giggle hehe. So! seeing as this is stay smutblr haha makes total sense that the three most popular rankings that we have were lead by smut! since we’re here for the hornies, i totally get this.

as for the “smut n’ fluff” or “fluffy smut” category, there was a decent amount of readers that expressed that this mixture is their fave! i’m kinda looping this with the “mixture” option that i also provided for this question since this was the most popular mixture that i was able to observe along with angst + smut. interestingly, i saw a couple mentions of “hurt/comfort” fics with this question too so this went well with this preference. as for number three on this list, we dip into that smut + angst category that I just mentioned as well. there were several individuals who said that they really really enjoy reading smut with angst!

lastly we get to the four and five on the list: four being fluff, smut and angst. i think this category can also properly represent the folx who tend to like more fluffy fics over the smutty ones, but that can also have suggestive themes too! in five, we have angst, fluff and smut which also is representative of another theme that i saw: as far as plot goes, several people mentioned that they liked fics that start with angst, get fluffier, and then end up in smut, so i think that this could be easily compared!

*there were also several readers who simply said “all of them” or opted not to rank, (lol me) so this really shows the variability in results!

Cute stuff ya’ll said (kind of out of context too LOL)

“... hehE I HOPE THIS MAKES SENSE.”

“...I KNOW IT [my ranking] LOOKS TERRIBLY SPECIFIC AND IM SO SORRY and I guess the better way to describe that was one that has all 3 with a happy ending lol my b my b.”

“ ...it just depends on the mood my dude.”

“... (the smut doesn’t have to be soft i just want the relationship to be soft and i want aftercare and general affection).”

“(but almost no angst oops)”

“angst honestly makes me so sad.”

“... but long fics with angst and slow burn smut/fluff is just WOW.”

“ my favourite thing is when it's fluffy smut tbh with a little bit of angsty backstory. that is *chefs kiss*”

“(I'm a sucker for good angsty fics but I cant seem to find them???)”

“Smut, Fluff, Angst (I tend to be a bit of a purist so no mixture here).”

“(i can't read pure angst lol) “

“(I love how much plot there is in angsty fics but I personally can't read anything without a happy ending, i just can't take it)”

“ i literally couldn't rank them bc my mood is always changing lmaooo.”

“ smut, fluff, angst. i know what i’m about.”

Favorite Length of Fics

Top Five:

5k-8k words (27%)

2k-4k words (25%)

1k-2k words (20%)

10k-20k words (15%)

20k words (12%)

~My thoughts: this one was super helpful for me to see!! and writers i hope that this is helpful for you too! as someone who tends to rambles (lol) it was very comforting for me to see that long-ish fics are actually preferred! what is really cool about this data too is that it is all super well balanced for the most part and nearly edqual in some parts! how i see this, i think that when it comes to preferences of length, its really reader specific so anyone could like anything! this goes into a little bit the slow burn question that i asked as well too, but it’s really cool to see that when readers do read, they kinda like something to sink their teeth into!

i wanted to look into how long it takes you to read these words, and it appears that on average, a 5-8k fic can take someone 30 mins to read whereas a 2-4k fic takes about 15mins! idk if this says something about attention spans, but as a writer it warms my heart to know that you’re willing to spend 30 minutes of your time reading something that i wrote! 🥺

another thing i wanted to bring up is the “hard and fast” smut readers--those who like to get straight to the point, get right to business and to the juice! they are also a decently large group too! as for readers who like a nice long fic or a chaptered fic, they are super close in numbers! from this, it’s safe for me to assume that maybe those who like reading longer fics are more inclined to strap in for the long haul with chaptered fics too!

Favorite AUs to Read

*the top category that got cut off (thank you google forms lol) is friends to lovers! the one that says “...love” at 48% is enemies to lovers, and the one that has a blanked out title at 35% is strangers to lovers!

Top Five:

friends to lovers (65%)

enemies to lovers (48%)

high school/college au (40%)

roommates/neighbors to lovers (38%)

strangers to lovers (35%)

Other AUs mentioned by you!

office au, royal au, vampire au, fake date, idol au, slice of life, boarding school au, childhood friends, soulmate au

~My thoughts: ok ok so this was RAD to see! i often wonder myself the kinds of aus that my readers would like to see so this was really helpful! circling back on how readers tend to favor fluff n’ smut (friends to lovers) and angst n’ smut (enemies to lovers) i think that we’re seeing some more themes here teehee.

i like to think that since most of us are of the college age, the college au is super relatable therefore we really like to read it! not to mention that college and high school au’s are super duper cute as well! this is also relatable to the roommates/neighbors to lovers category which is also relatable to us who may or may not have experienced having a roommate or crush on the cutie next door ;) as a couple readers mentioned, they liked more “slice of life” au’s--which both of these categories fall into! i think we as readers like scenarios that feel the most real to us, bc they are the easiest to insert ourselves into :)

fantasy and thriller, action, more “fiction” tropes are in the minority, however i think that this can be for the exact same reason as i mentioned above where readers like more relatable scenarios.

Opinions on Slow Burn Fics

~My thoughts: during polling of this category, this pie cart stayed basically the same the whole time!! that was pretty cute to see! the important take aways from this survey for me is the fact that slow burn fics are generally really loved! again, lol as someone who writes big ol’ long slow burn fics this made me feel a lot better hahaha basically, the general consensus is that slow burn fics are welcome most of the time, however some readers might need to invest a little more time into them! this is also very easily comparable to the above statistics on the length of fics preferred (longer ones being the ones more popular) so here’s a lil more supporting evidence!

3. Member Specific Analysis

Bias Survey

Top Five:

Chan (19%)

Changbin (18%)

Hyunjin (16%)

Jisung (15%)

Minho (14%)

~My thoughts: ok ok ok so this is where it starts getting JUICY hehe (also i apologize once more for making you pick LOL)

the reason why i asked this question was because i wanted to see if there was a correlation with biases and if there was a probability that members who had more people biasing them (or popularity I guess) were more likely to be read more in smut fics! AND I WAS RIGHT haha isn’t this so fkn cool??? (see more in the next section!)

for comparison, i went to kprofiles to see their little survey on bias popularity and their top five.

Kprofiles Top Five:

Hyunjin (15%)

Felix (14%)

Chan (12%)

Minho (11%)

Jisung (11%)

SO oh my god my nerd brain is loosing it over this REE so, what i should note that is those who took this survey on my blog are likely generally different based off of the fact that they are here to read smut specifically, rather than the general holistic popularity survey. It is for this reason that we see Felix much higher on this list and Changbin much lower too (as we know Felix is really well known generally and globally and there are *generally* fewer Bin biased fans). What was really interesting to see what that with Hyunjin, Chan, Jisung and Minho, they still all stayed within the top five! Soooo what i’m saying is.... all of you Hyunjin, Chan, Jisung and Minho fans really must like your smut 😏 and I think that it’s safe to assume that the majority of hard stans come from these four members too ooP (and of course our Binnie too! ;) i see all of ya’ll 👀)

Members That Get Our Hornies Going

~My thoughts: AHH DOESN’T THIS LOOK SO SATISFYING? I’M SO PROUD OF HER!!!

First off, i would like to acknowledge the all mighty power of Bang Christopher Chan for pooling this most hornies god DAMN while i kind of expected this, it is also evidenced in the fics that i write! recently i’ve been tracking the number of notes that my Chan hard thoughts get in comparison to other members and the differences are usually ASTRONOMICAL. He is most def the most popular member for smut for several different reasons, lowkey bc i think that it’s kind of part of his brand?? hahaha if ya know what i mean?

As for preference from Minho on, we can see a super obvious trend that as age order decreases, we get less and less interest for reading for the member. I’m fairly inclined to believe that this has to do with the fact that most often fans (especially fans older than skz) have a harder time seeing the younger members in a sexual way, so the lack of interest totally makes sense here! As referenced above too, we found that the oldest five members (Chan --> Jisung) are the favorites for smut reading which we can see here as well when the numbers really drop after Felix (Felix coming in at 6th place on my “popularity” survey).

Bc of these statistics, i do really feel like as a reader, i tend to see much, much more fics involving our top five! As for Seungmin and Jeongin, I’ve also seen people state that they do not read or write content for these two members bc they do not feel as comfortable, so this can also explain the lack of content. Also as we have heard many times, Jeongin is a bit of a hot topic lol within the SSB community, so this makes sense that his readership would be low as well.

4. Deep Dive into the Juicy Questions (aka confessions)

Is the fact that you read smut a seggsy secret?

~My thoughts: JUICE TIME JUICE TIME

Before I say anything, i wanted to tell you all how all of the juicy questions were totally optional, but i got 100% participation for every single one of them which if find HILARIOUS i guess you all are just as curious as i am?? ;)

So! for this question, we have an overwhelming amount of readers who said that only their closest friends know which is so cute to me! i love how we can trust our friends with this hehe. i also fall into this category bc like, it’s lowkey kinda fun to talk about? maybe also the fact that i run a smut acct makes me care a little less about it all hahah

secondly, we have the rather large group of people who said that they wouldn’t dare to tell anyone which is also sooo cute haha idk how to explain it but this was the category that i started out in too until i found the right people! But i totally get ya, reading smut--especially-- kpop smut-- can be embarrassing or cringey to share (not to mention that it is somewhat morally grey LOL) so this is really understandable!

also my fkn hats off to all of you who said that you didn’t care about who knows that you read smut. here, you dropped this: 👑 you’re much braver than i could ever be.

When you read smut, do you really feel the hornies?

~My thoughts: ok, so this one to me was also very interesting for me to see as well! (also if you get uncomfy reading about personal masturbation habits you can skip this one lol)

the reason why i asked this question was because i wanted to see if people “get off” by reading smut (whether reading it turns you on, or if you choose to use it for “material” to get off on however this might look, might be more of a mental simulation without any real like, physical getting off) candidly, I use smut to get myself off every once and a while, so i wanted to see who else might be in the same group! since becoming a writer however, i read much less and reading it doesn’t hit the same when i was just a reader bc i have a different perspective of being the one writing the smut so i look at it more analytically--i digress.

it was exciting (teehee get the pun?) for me to see that others also “get off” on smut too--and that they are the majority! teehee it is an honor for me to provide you with the hornies LOL. at the same time, we still have a large group in the “don’t take to seriously” category which was interesting to me too! i can’t speak for these readers, but i interpreted these kind of readers to be the kind who read smut to imagine the scenes and are like “hm, that’s hot, i like thinking about this.” but it doesn’t extend much outside of these thoughts.

What is the most popular position pairing we like to read?

*smaller slices of the pie represent multiple favorites which i also seperated back into the categories corresponding to get the best count into what was the most preferred.

Actual Breakdown:

dom!idol // sub!reader (51 votes)

switch!idol // switch!reader (32 votes)

subidol! // dom!reader (11 votes)

all of the above (5 votes)

depends on my mood (2 votes)

~My thoughts: i feel as if there is a bit of a conflict between which position really is “the best” and while we really can’t know the answer to this question since everyone has different preferences, we can at least find out which one is the most popular to be consumed!

again, going off of the content that I also see as a reader, i see TONS of dom!idol fics, like, left and right. also, if i may come for all of our necks, 👀 but...there’s really something to be said about the fact that the majority of readers are female and historically and socially, women are typically socialized to be submissive, so i can see why this would be why we would favor this among fics--this is even further evidenced by the fact that male idol smut is also preferred, thus further perpetuating the fact that women have been socialized to be submissive to men specifically. i’m not saying that this is the end all be all reason that this trend is present, but i merely offer it as a possible explaination. this is a much larger sociological conversation, but i think that this trend also showed itself in the types of smut that readers seek out as well--according to demographics.

sub!idol fics are few and far in-between, and i think that this can also be for the exact same reason as i talked about above!

When you read smut, do you pick faves to read for?

~My thoughts: what’s cool about this question is the fact that the “half and half” nature of it also resembles what we saw in the section for favorite members to read! As we see in that chart, 41 out of 100 people said that they read everyone, similar to this question where 48 out of 100 people said that they read for everyone. What this proves to me once more is that when it comes for reading fics, there's a 50/50 chance that the reader will look at, and read it based off of who it is about alone. This is a really powerful statistic, meaning that the members who that a writer might write for really dictates their readership! At the same time, it’s super comforting to know that regardless of what you as a writer might write, there’s always someone out there who is willing to read it! (as evidenced by the 52% of people who read for anyone! this is still a large number)

Readers: Do you only use Tumblr for smut?

~My thoughts: when i first started out reading smut, i was in the “i just look up skz smut” group LOL so i wanted to see again if there was anyone like me--which there is! This was more of my interest in seeing if some people view tumblr as “their smut dealer” AHA so that my initial motivation. I was surprised to see that this is not the case! out of 100 readers, 39 of them have their own non-smut blogs and the second largest group of 26 people use tumblr for smut exclusively.

idk why, but when thinking of this question, it really got me thinking back to the question where i asked if reading smut is a seggsy secret, and there was the group of people who said that it is for them--i’m assuming that these people might be part of the group have non-smut blogs and read on the side teehee.

at the same time, there is a combined 40 people who said that they use tumblr for smut purposes only which makes sense to me, as those who filled out my survey are readers of my smut blog if you catch my drift haha

Writers: Do you read smut, or just write it?

*56 responses correlate with those polled who identified as writers/both as mentioned above

~My thoughts: this survey is really really cute for me to see bc it means that there is a whole support network or writers out there reading, supporting and here to hype other writers work!! if anything, as a writer because it takes so much time to write, it can become hard to find time to read, hence the “when i have time option lollll (*cough cough* me LOL) thank you all for your honesty with this question!

5. General Thoughts and Conclusion

Survey on Exposure

~My thoughts: i kinda wanna close off this survey by getting on my soapbox for a sec lol. At least for me, the most common ways that readers found my blog were: looking up a tag, and from a repost. i think that this really goes to show the power of exposure and certain tactics that you can use to increate readership of your account! new readers, if you’re reading this and you’re just starting out, tagging your stuff is so so important!

also, as i have said and so so, many other content creators have said countless times before, reposting is so crucial and it takes little to no effort to repost a creators work so that it might reach others! as a writers, we spend hours, and i mean hours creating content, editing, drafting, creating headers all out own time to publish something that we are proud of and for you to enjoy! it means the world to authors when you reblog their work and even more when you give feedback too because this is our passion! we write for free in the middle of our busy lives so the validation makes it all worth it!!

Conclusion

~phew! so that’s it! once again, i wanted to thank you all from the bottom of my heart from participating in this lil study! i really hope that it is helpful to writers and readers alike! i wanna give ya all the biiiiiigest Ro huggies!! 💕💕

as i mentioned above, the answers for the unpopular opinions will be made into their own post bc there is a ton of them and i didn’t want to clutter up this doc lol

don’t ya ever forget that you are important, loved, and special! happy hornies my cuties ;)

~R 🌹

6. Cute shit that ya’ll said that made me giggle (and hopefully makes you giggle too)

~you all are the light of my life!! each of these comments brought me so much happiness and i love you all so fkn much for that!! also, to those of you who said, “Ro date me” PLZ haha i will date you too!!! too all of the super sweet comments about my writing, thank you so so very much and thank you for reading! it means so much to me!! to all of the i love yous, ahhhh i love you toooooo 💕

“I DUNNO IM BAD AT FUNNY STUFF BUT KNOCK KNOCK I GUESS? -whos there

-ro who

Me, in chan voice: RObber ducky you're the one

yeah...

yeah

bYE”

“ I didn’t know changbin’s thighs were of such importance until I saw your username but now?? 👀 I am looking respectfully.”

“ every time chan doesn’t reply to my bubble message i hold my breath and try to die💆‍♀️”

“ here are my favorite emoji combos: 😐☝️ 😫🖐️ 😂🤏 (i use that one when i get a dick pick and it's rlly small but the person thinks its big-) “

“ you are EVIL for making me choose just ONE bias OT8 EXISTS OK!?”

“ I hope this survey provides you with a lot of useful feedback! -sincerely a big tiddie committee member (you know the one)” [hehe yes i do hai M ;)]

“ chan’s tiddies... that’s it.”

“jeogiyo noona hokshi namjachingu isseoyo?“

“ Jeongin is appropriately baby bread because his face is puffy in the morning so it's kinda like yeast rising 👉👉 “

“ someone needs to tell hyunjin to put some vaseline or something on his cuticles like I love him a lot but his recent live made me scream sir your cuticles are hanging on for dear life please I'm literally begging you “

“ I squeal whenever I get a notification from you and my family think I’m secretly dating someone. It’s nice knowing that they think I can get someone during a pandemic 😁 “ [this one had me SENT]

“i hope ur dreams are blessed with skz thighs.”

“ HS Bin supremacy!!”

“Sta”

“Ro(ses) are red, violets are blue - DaVinci painted Mona, cause he couldn't find you :') “

“✨ dInG dOnG ✨ “

“You're doing God's work as a changbin stan xD “ [thank you so much aHA]

“damn gorl, are you a wifi signal? cause i’m tryna connect 🤔🥴✌🏾 “

“Good luck with your survey! I hope you get a big response! You know what else is big..?

Chan's feet. (I'm sorry, that was my attempt to make you giggle but I'm clearly not a comedian)”

“What's the internal temperature of a taun taun? Luke warm! (Haha sorry star wars joke) “

“egg“

“just because you’re garbage, doesn’t mean you can’t do great things. It’s called garbage can, not garbage cannot <3 “

“Soft-Dom Minho Agenda is the best agenda. I have spoken. Sincerely yours, Javi (@itsapapisongo) “ [this is the way javi]

“Bang chan daddy supremacy”

“ro, ro, ro your boat gently down skz’ dick hell yea.” [this also had me SENT]

“stay smut writers should take “maknae on top” literally“

“idk man i’m just vibing. hope ur day is going well. (changbin voice) da DA da”

Fin.

~🌹~

Bunch of (Ro)ses!

@minaamhh @dazzlehoseok @synnocence @jjewibeans @hyunsluvv @unexceptional-h @bobawithchaitea @lechanters @sailorhyunjinz @silencefavarchive @lunarskzzz @yourdaddychan @bubblelixie @spnobsessedmemes @chaangbin @lmhmins @eunaeiekim

#PHEW #haha this was so fun!!#binniesthighs helpdesk #skz smut #stray kids smut #kpop smut #bang chan smut #lee minho smut #changbin smut #hyunjin smut #han jisung smut #felix smut #seungmin smut #jeongin smut

54 notes · View notes

nummero123 · 3 years

Text

YouTube SEO: How to Optimize Videos for Search on YouTube

Inbound marketing was a novel concept just a decade ago.

Marketers discovered that they couldn't simply publish a large amount of material.

It had to be of excellent quality and optimized in ways that made it as discoverable as possible via search engines.

Previously, that content was primarily limited to the written word.

That is no longer the case.

A comprehensive content strategy nowadays comprises textual content such as blogs and e-books.

As well as media such as podcasts, visual assets, and videos.

That last aspect, video, is still growing in popularity. According to the 2018 State of Inbound study.

45 percent of marketers plan to invest more on YouTube this year.

More than any other marketing channel accessible to them.

But how exactly does YouTube SEO work?

What actions must you take to improve your YouTube channel for search?

We've listed some of the most important advice and tools below.

1. Rename your video file using a target keyword.

YouTube SEO Tips

You'll utilize an SEO tool to first pick keywords you'd like your video to focus on, just as you would when optimizing written material.

When you've identified a keyword, the first place you should put it is in your video file.

Before you even upload it to YouTube.

Why?

YouTube cannot "see" your video to determine its relevance to your target keyword.

And, as you'll see in the tips below,

there are only so many places you can safely enter this keyword on your video's watching page once it's uploaded.

However, YouTube can read the file name of your film as well as all of the coding that comes with it.

With that in mind, replace the "business ad 003FINAL.mov" file name with your chosen keyword (don't be embarrassed.

We've all been there during post-production).

If your keyword is "house painting tips,".

For example, the file name of your video should be "house-painting-tips"

Followed by the video file format you like (MOV, MP4, and WMV are some of the most common that are compatible with YouTube).

2. Insert your keyword naturally in the video title.

When we look for videos, one of the first things that catch our attention is the title.

Because the title is frequently what determines whether or not a visitor will click to watch your video.

It should not only be engaging but also clear and simple.

Although your keyword is important in your video title.

It also helps if the title is closely related to what the viewer is looking for.

According to Back-linko research, videos with an exact keyword match in the title have only a marginal advantage over those that don't.

As a result, while "adding your target keyword in your title may help you rank for that term,"

Report author Brian Dean writes,

"the association between keyword-rich video titles and rankings" isn't always significant.

Nonetheless, optimizing your title for this keyword is a good idea as long as it fits naturally within a title that tells people exactly what they're about to see.

3. Optimize your video description.

First and foremost:

The official character restriction for YouTube video descriptions is 1,000 characters, according to Google.

While it is acceptable to use all of that space, keep in mind that your audience came here to watch a video, not to read an essay.

If you prefer to create a longer description.

Keep in mind that YouTube only displays the top two or three lines of text.

Which amounts to approximately 100 characters.

Following that, visitors must click "see more" to see the complete description.

As a result, we recommend starting the description with the most important information, such as CTAs or important links.

In terms of video optimization, it doesn't harm to provide a transcript of the video.

Especially for people who have to watch it without sound.

However, Backlinko's research discovered no correlation between optimized descriptions for a specific keyword and rankings for that term.

4. Tag your video with popular keywords that relate to your topic.

The official Creator Academy on YouTube recommends utilizing tags to let people know what your video is about.

But you're not only informing your audience; you're also informing YouTube.

Dean explains that tags are used by the platform to "understand the content and context of your video."

As a result, YouTube can figure out how to correlate your video with similar videos, thus broadening the exposure of your material.

However, choose your tags cautiously.

Use an irrelevant tag if you believe it would increase your views.

Google may penalize you for doing so.

Similar to your description, begin with the most significant keywords.

Containing a healthy mix of common and long-tail keywords.

5. Categorize your video.

After you've uploaded a video, you can categorize it in "Advanced settings."

Choosing a category is another approach to categorize your video.

With similar content on YouTube so that it ends up in different playlists and reaches more people who identify with your target audience.

It may not be as simple as it appears. Indeed, YouTube's Creator Academy.

Recommends that marketers go through a thorough procedure to decide which category their video fits in.

According to the book, it's useful to "think about what works well for each category" you're considering by answering questions like:

Who are the most successful creators in the category? What are they well-known for, and what do they excel at?

Are there any similarities in the audiences of similar channels within a specific category?

Do the videos in a related category have characteristics such as production value, length, or format?

6. Upload a custom thumbnail image for your video's result link.

When visitors scroll through a list of video results, they will see your video thumbnail as the primary picture.

That thumbnail, along with the video's title, conveys a signal to the viewer about the video's content.

Thus it can influence the number of clicks and views your video obtains.

While you can always use one of YouTube's pre-generated thumbnails.

We strongly advise you to post a personalized thumbnail.

According to the Creator Academy, "90 percent of the highest performing videos on YouTube have personalized thumbnails,"

and they recommend using pictures that are 1280x720 pixels (indicating a 16:9 ratio) and saved as 2MB or smaller.jpg,.gif,.bmp, or.png files.

If you adhere to those guidelines.

You may assist to ensure that your thumbnail displays in the same excellent quality across multiple viewing platforms.

It's vital to know that to upload a custom thumbnail image, your YouTube account must confirm.

To do so, go to youtube.com/verify and follow the instructions there.

7. Use an SRT File to add subtitles & closed captions.

Subtitles and closed captions, like most of the other content we've addressed here.

Can help with YouTube search optimization by emphasizing essential keywords.

You must upload a valid text transcript or timed subtitles file to add subtitles or closed captions to your video.

You can also directly insert the text for a video such that it auto-syncs with the video for the former.

Subtitles added similarly; however, you can limit the amount of text displayed.

To access either, go to your video manager and select "Videos" from the "Video Manager" menu.

Locate the video to which you wish to add subtitles or closed captioning, and then click the drop-down arrow next to the edit button.

Then select "Subtitles/CC." You may then choose whether to add subtitles or closed captioning.

8. Add Cards and End Screens to increase your YouTube channel's viewership.

Cards

Have you ever seen a small white.

Circular icon with an I in the centre appear in the corner of a video, or a translucent bar of text inviting you to subscribe?

Cards are "preformatted notifications that appear on the desktop.

And mobile that you can set up to promote your brand and other videos on your channel,"

According to Creator Academy.

A single video can have up to five cards, and there are six different types:

Channel cards that link viewers to a different channel.

Donation cards to stimulate fundraising for charitable groups in the United States.

You can use fan funding to encourage your viewers to contribute to the creation of your video content.

Link cards, which connect readers to an external site, an authorized crowd-funding website, or an authorized item sale platform.

Poll cards, which ask viewers a question and allow them to vote on a response.

Video or playlist cards that lead to more similar YouTube content.\

End Screens

End screens provide comparable information as cards, but as you might expect.

They don't appear until a film has finished and are a bit more graphically detailed.

There are a variety of thorough instructions for adding end screens based on the sort of platform you want to design them for.

As well as the varied forms of content permitted by YouTube.

It's worth noting that YouTube is always testing end screens to improve the viewing experience,

so "your end screen, as specified by you, may not show" at times.

Take these considerations into mind when deciding whether to use cards or end screens.

These criteria may appear intricate and time-consuming.

But keep in mind that the number of time individuals spend watching YouTube on their television has more than doubled year over year.

There is an audience to discovered there, and optimizing for YouTube increases your chances of being discovered.

Now, the majority of the SEO strategies above rely on you successfully picking a keyword and advertising your video.

And not all of those suggestions can implemented solely through YouTube.

Consider using any of the tools listed below to optimize your video for search to get the most bang for your budget.

YouTube SEO Tools

Ahrefs Keywords Explorer

Ahrefs is a complete SEO software that allows you to track a website's position.

Estimate organic traffic from each phrase, and analyze keywords for which you might wish to develop new content.

Keywords Explorer is a famous Ahrefs function.

That allows you to check up multiple details about a keyword you're interested in.

And, as shown in the screenshot above, you may narrow down your term results by the search engine, including YouTube.

Ahrefs Keywords Explorer displays the monthly search volume for a term.

The number of clicks obtained by videos ranking for that phrase, related keywords, and more.

Canva

You may be familiar with Canva as a design template for producing various types of cards, images, logos, and more.

It just so happens that this well-known product includes a Thumbnail Creator designed just for YouTube videos.

As mentioned in the preceding guidelines,

thumbnail graphics are essential for marketing your content in YouTube search results and attracting visitors to click on your video.

Using Canva's Thumbnail Creator, you can generate the ideal preview image for your video in the 1280 x 720-pixel dimensions required by YouTube.

vidIQ Vision

This is a Chrome extension that you can get from Chrome's web store by clicking the link above.

It will help you examine how and why specific YouTube videos do so well.

This includes the tags a video has optimized for, its average view time, and even the rate at which that video is getting traffic.

The vidIQ tool then generates an SEO "score"

that you can use to develop content that matches (or outperforms) the results you now see on YouTube.

TubeBuddy

TubeBuddy is a video platform that manages the creation, development, and advertising of your YouTube material.

It has an automatic language translator (which helps you rank for non-English keywords).

A keyword explorer, tag suggestions, a rank tracker for your published videos, and other features.

Conclusion

A great YouTube channel begins with strong material, regardless of the SEO advice or tool you use.

When your viewers find you, make sure they have something high-quality and relevant to watch.

You can also contact Nummero, the best website development company in Bangalore.

#YouTube SEO #digital marketing agency

0 notes

loadresort790 · 3 years

Text

Chat Box Blogger Widget

Chat Box Widget

Chat Box Html Widget

Best Widgets For Blogger

Youtube Widget For Blogger

Chat Box Blogger Widget Extension

The Chat app is just one example of a library of apps that are easy to install with step-by-step instructions, or use the Blogger Chat embed code. Check out all of the options in the POWR app library or consider subscribing to POWR Business which gives you the full access to the entire suite, including the Chat app!

Widgets are a handy, easy and simple way to add some flare to your blog. Whether you'd like to display the number of currently online visitors to your site or simply the weather report for Los Angeles, you can do it with widgets. We've assembled a list of 50 useful or simply cool widgets for your pleasure. And remember, the first rule of widgetizing your blog is - don't overdo it!

MyBlogLog's Recent Readers - this widget can easily be called a hit amongst blog owners; its popularity even managed to convince Yahoo into buying MyBlogLog. The widget lets you see the avatars of recent visitors to your blog, provided they're also members of MyBlogLog.

Chat Box Widget

Create your custom Live Chat widget for the website in only 60 seconds. Try a quick demo for shaping Live Chat Box by Elfsight for free. Adding a chat box widget to your blog is an easy way to build community on your site and keep your visitors coming back. It’s so easy we can do it in less than a minute. We’ll use Chatroll live communities to create a chat box widget, customize it, and add it to your Blogger layout. Here’s a screenshot of a Blogger blog with a chat box. Applying a Cincopa widget for Blogger allows you to captivate your readers' audience by creating a spectacular presentation with only one click of a button. Moreover, every modification or update you made by you in your media files, is automatically updated in your post. Always at Your Service!

Mashable - get the latest social networking news from this very site.

Flickr Flash Photo Stream Badge - display images from your Flickr profile with a handy Flash photo stream.

Preview Anywhere - see a live preview of outgoing links in a small popup which activates on mouseover. Some find this annoying, while others might find it useful.

Twitter Badge - if your life is so interesting that everyone must know what you're up to all the time, then a Twitter badge is the ideal counterpart to your blog. It'll proudly displays your recent tweets.

Digg News - display the latest Digg links on your blog. Themeable and fully customizable.

FEEDJIT - real time traffic data directly in your blog's sidebar.

LineBuzz - inline comments for your blog. Very handy for blogs with frequent lively discussions.

Flixn - display a stream directly from your webcam, so your blog visitors can always see what you're up to.

3Jam - lets your visitors send messages to your mobile phone, without them knowing your phone number.

Game of thrones map 1080p. Game of Thrones Map Wallpaper HD is the perfect high-resolution movie poster image with size this wallpaper is 559.88 KB and image resolution 1920x1080 pixel. Enter the world of Game of Thrones with official maps of the Seven Kingdoms and interactive family trees that capture the rich backgrounds of the characters and locations featured in the HBO series. Explore interactive family trees, the map of #Westeros.

Jaxtr - with Jaxtr, your visitors can actually call you to your mobile phone; again, your number stays private.

LinkedInABox - show off your LinkedIn profile. Perfect for personal blogs.

Box Widget - enable visitors to use box.net's online storage directly on your web site.

Price of gas - displaying gas prices on your blog might seem unnecessary to some, but it's cool if you have a traffic/travel related blog.

iBegin Weather Widget - Display weather information in your sidebar. Just like with Price of Gas, works great with travel-related blogs.

ClockLink - display time in various time zones with these nifty Flash clocks.

Film Loops - display the latest loops from your FilmLoops account.

Daily Painters - display paintings from famous painters on your blog.

WhoLinked - show your visitors which sites have recently linked to your web site. Works with all major blog platforms.

Criteo AutoRoll - displays links to blogs similar to your blog.

Bitty Browser - embed a cute, fully functional mini web browser to your blog.

Leafletter - create a mini website and embed it into your blog.

WikiSeek - search Wikipedia with this simple widget.

FeedCount - show off the number of visitors to your blog with this handy little button.

Technorati Link Count - display the number of links your website has from one of the biggest blog authorities - Technorati.

MyPageRank - another good way to show how 'big' your blog is is to show off your Google PageRank.

CheckPageRank - in addition to showing your PageRank, this widget also shows your Alexa ranking.

BlinkxIt - embed a link to related videos directly into your website.

Skype button - display your Skype online/offline status on your blog.

RockYou Horoscope - not something I would personally use, but some people are into horoscope. Hell, most people are into horoscope. Anyway, this widget shows horoscope (doh!) and does it in a nicely designed colorful box.

del.icio.us Tagometer - display how many times have del.icio.us users saved your page.

del.icio.us Linkrolls - this badge shows your latest bookmarks from del.icio.us.

Timelines - need to create a timeline? Seek no further. This widget makes it really easy.

PollDaddy - PollDaddy lets you create beautiful polls in no time, and display them at your blog.

Vizu - another poll-making widget, compatible with all major blog platforms.

AnswerTips - display definitions from Answers.com for various terms on your blog. The definitions are shown in bubbles which are activated on doubleclick.

AnswerBoxes - give your visitors a chance to enter a term themselves, and get a definition from Answers.com

Now Playing - if you got to share your current playlist contents with the world, Sigamp will do the trick. Works with most popular music players, including Foobar, Winamp, iTunes and others.

BuzzBoost - display headlines from your RSS feed on any website.

LibraryThing - show off the latest books you've been reading.

Plaxo Address Book - let your most faithful visitors access their address books direclty from your site.

AuctionAds - a widget that displays auctioned items on eBay, and gives you a percentage of the price paid when sometimes buys an item.

Dungeon masters guide 5e pdf free download. aStore - similar to AuctionAds, only for Amazon. Create a mini-store on your site and receive profit when someone buys an item through your store.

Plazes - show your current location on a Plazes map.

Stockalicious - track your portfolio with this widget, and share it with others. Let everyone know how much money you've lost.

Chat Box Html Widget

Yahoo! For Good - create a charity badge and ask for donations for a worthy cause.

Giftspace - your friends never know what to buy you for birthday? Let them know what you really want with this nifty widget.

Best Widgets For Blogger

MixMap - see where are the visitors to your MySpace profile from on a map.

Google Map Widget - display a searchable Google Map on your website.

Google Video Search - add a video search form and selected videos to your web site.

Youtube Widget For Blogger

Odeo player - display an Odeo player for and podcast right there in your sidebar.

Chat Box Blogger Widget Extension

See also:

0 notes

asfeedin · 4 years

Text

The Top 3 Reasons Consumers Read Blogs in 2020 [New Research]

In 2020, there’s no question of whether or not blogs generate leads.

In fact, marketers who prioritize blogging as a marketing strategy report 13-times the ROI of companies that don’t.

However, many marketers still worry that blogging’s effectiveness could be losing steam.

Fears that “blogging is dead” haven’t been eased by research. Recently, when we polled over 300 people to ask them how often they read blogs, roughly 40% said “never.” This followed HubSpot’s 2020 State of Marketing Report, which revealed that blogging fell from the first to third-most-common content strategy between 2018 and 2020.

But, before you get wrapped up in all the negative data, it’s important to remember that blogging is still incredibly valuable to marketers — but the way you approach blogging matters more than ever. And, while our past survey found that 40% of people never read blogs, it conversely revealed that 60% of consumers read this content regularly.

The truth is, blogging is alive and well. You’ll just need to work a tiny bit harder to persuade people to read your content in 2020.

So, what’s one way to get into a consumer’s head and figure out how to motivate them to read your blog? Performing another survey.

Rather than asking more than 300 people, “Do you read blogs?”, I launched a second Lucid survey that more deeply asked, “Why do you most commonly read blog posts?”

In the survey, which asked participants to select the most common reason that they consume blog content, answer options included, “To learn how to do something new,” “To be entertained,” “To learn more about products or brands,” and “To learn about news and trends in my job industry.”

With the number of leads that business blogs are known to generate, you might assume that a large chunk of people read blogs to learn about brands or products. But, actually, you might be surprised — and a little concerned — by the highest and lowest-ranking reasons for blog readership:

In fact, only four percent of consumers say they read blogs to learn about brands or products.

According to the results of the survey, more people are actually driven to read blogs that teach them how to do something new. While 34% selected this reasoning, 20% said they read blogs to be entertained, while 12% read blogs to learn about news or trends in their job industry.

Additionally, 9% said they’re driven to read blogs for all of the reasons given.

Data Source: Luc.id

What exactly do the results above mean?

To win over blog readers, you’ll need to create content that provides some type of informative value or entertainment, rather than purely using your blog to discuss your brand or product.

In this blog post, I’ll walk you through the top three reasons why the general consumer population is driven to read blogs. I’ll also show you how to create blog content that fulfills your reader’s needs while still subtly spreading brand awareness.

3 Reasons People Read Blogs

1. People read blogs to learn something new.

By far, the most common reason that people will read a blog post is to learn something new. This result doesn’t surprise me at all.

Why? Posts that include guides, step-by-step processes, tutorial videos, or fast-facts often gain a large amount of search traffic. This is because people are looking up instructions for how to do things on Google every day.

Even when posts aren’t informing people of how to do something on a granular level, blogs that discuss complex topics such as studies, trends, or topics people are less familiar with can pique a person’s curiosity.

Psychologically, people crave new information similarly to how they crave food. As a blogger, you can harness this to create content that both piques curiosity, while discussing topics related to your brand, service, or products.

For example, on the Marketing Blog, we might show our readers how to publish an Instagram Story. By doing this, marketers or social media users who want to learn how to do this could find our content in search or on social media and read it to learn how to create this content.

On a broader scope, our blog might create multiple pieces of content that discuss a trend from multiple angles. For example, when the app TikTok emerged, we wrote a few blog posts to answer common marketer questions like, “What is TikTok?”, “How do brands market themselves on TikTok?”, or “How do you leverage influencer marketing on TikTok?”

Aside from helping our readers, guide or trend-related blogs allow us to highlight the level of research and knowledge we’ve gained as marketers. This could also demonstrate to a prospect that HubSpot is a credible company that sells quality products within the marketing industry.

2. People read blogs to be entertained.

While people crave knowledge, they also like to be entertained. Each day, people might read blogs that tell interesting stories, make them laugh, or intrigue them in some other way.

But, as a business blogger, You might be asking yourself, “How can I entertain my readers while still keeping my blog professional?”

The truth is, when you think creatively, there are a number of ways you can entertain your audience while still staying on brand.

For example, you could create a fun infographic or photo post about a viral trend in your industry, While your readers might not be willing to invest in this viral trend, the imagery and information about the trend might entertain them. In one of our posts, we highlighted funny memes that marketers used in their actual campaigns.

Alternatively, you could also create a fun, but informative, video or podcast to go with your blog post. With this added layer of content, you could dive deeper into discussing a viral marketing trend, or interview an industry expert that people in your field follow. While this might not be “entertaining” for people outside of your industry, it might be more interesting than the average blogs people in your field might be reading.

Here’s an example of a blog post that combines text and video for a better reader experience:

3. People read blogs to learn about trends related to their job industry.

While people might not be interested in reading blogs that specifically discuss your product or brand, they could be more intrigued by a blog that discusses an industry your product is affiliated with.

While the poll result noted in the introduction came from general consumers with mixed professional backgrounds, it’s likely that those in the workforce will read a blog if it educates them or provides them with valuable information about their industry.

One example of a brand that discovered how industry experts read its industry-themed blog is American Scientist. Recently, the science blog conducted a study to learn about what motivated its blog readers to visit its site. They found that the average reader was either highly educated in science and technology or was actively working in STEM fields.

American Scientist also discovered that these readers, who already had some expertise on the topic, weren’t interested in general science news. They were actually interested in reading the American Scientist blog for specific “nuggets” of new scientific information, studies, or findings.

From the above study, and what we’ve learned when developing HubSpot’s Marketing, Sales, and Service blogs, industry experts or professionals will read blogs to learn something more specific about their industry. Here’s an example of one of our own high-performing blog posts where an industry thought leader discusses the ins and outs of organic growth.

To zone in on your particular industry, experiment with tactics like thought leadership, similarly to the post noted above. You can additionally write about news or trends related to your field. For example, here’s a post where we discussed how a third-party cookie phaseout could impact marketers.

Creating Content That Fulfills Multiple Reader Needs

So, how do you create engaging content that pulls in audiences with all different reading motivations while still spreading brand awareness about your product or service? Consider publishing blog posts that combine industry trends, how-tos, and entertainment. After all, nine percent of the survey recipients polled above said they read blogs for all of the reasons on the list I gave.

Here are two examples of how you can create content that fulfills the interests of multiple groups of blog readers.

Teach your readers how to do something in your industry.

At the HubSpot Blog, each of our posts teaches readers about something specific. For example, the post you’re currently reading highlights the research we’ve done about how people read blogs and shows you how to leverage these results.

In other posts, we’ll also inform marketers by giving them a step-by-step guide to a marketing tactic or examples of how brands leverage promotional trends. Regardless of what we write about, we’re always trying to teach readers something valuable.

When you create content that educates people about strategies related to your industry, it’s also easier to subtly discuss your product in a way that doesn’t seem shameless of over promotional.

For example, when we’re discussing a strategy that HubSpot can help with, we might subtly link readers to a tool or resource we offer that can help them. Here’s an example of a HubSpot mention in a post about form building tools:

We also like to include free offers related to our content at the end of each blog post. When we do this, a reader can learn more about the topic we’ve just taught them about. And, when they fill out a simple form requesting the free resource, they can choose whether or not they’d like to be contacted about one of our products. This allows the reader to feel like they are receiving valuable information without being forced to learn about our products.

Even when you don’t specifically acknowledge a product, an industry blog focused on informing readers can show off your company’s level of expertise. When your brand is seen as highly knowledgeable about your industry, readers might think that your products were also created by your staff of industry experts.

Entertain industry readers while still informing them.

Even though an industry blog will likely target company employees or leaders, this doesn’t mean your content can’t be informative and entertaining. For example, you can use videos, GIFs, imagery, or interactive blog assets to add to your content while keeping it interesting for the reader.

For example, you could consider embedding a trivia or personality quiz related to your industry, as we did in this blog post:

On occasion, you could also create a fun, suitable for work posts that your industry readers can relate to. For example, here’s a Service Blog post where we highlight GIFs related to working on a customer service floor:

Entertaining blog content on an industry blog can similarly show off your expertise. But, importantly, this content also allows your reader to relate to your brand on a more human level.

Building an Effective Blog Strategy

While it can be great to run with one successful content type, the blogs with the most credibility and quickest growth often have a mix of content that entertains or informs readers, makes them aware of brands or products, or teaches them something new. And, with 9% of consumers in the poll above saying that they’ll read blogs for “all” reasons listed, there’s a good chance that a mix will intrigue and fulfill the reading needs of multiple different groups.

To learn more about how to drive internet users to your blog, check out this post. For tips on how to be a blogger, check out this post with advice from our own blog team.

Source link

Tags: 2020, 3, Blogs, Consumers, Read, Reasons, research, Top

from WordPress https://ift.tt/3bSRsEJ via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress #Asfeed.in #asfeed #asfeedin #asfeed blog

0 notes

whydisignuponthisgodforsakensite · 7 years

Note

First of all, props to you for creating the Kazer bracket! Have you been considering this for a while, or did the idea come to you by chance? A+ on the selections, too. Filling out my bracket helped me remember why I fell in love with them in the first place, so thank you for that! :) (I say this as someone who never used to root for players outside my own team, but those two wore me down :P)

Thank you! :)

This specific idea was a very last-minute thing. :P On Sunday, I was putting a bunch of my likes into my queue; most posts were about the jersey bet, and I wrote a comment about how this was such a great moment for the fandom. Then that made me think about how fandom would rank this moment compared to all of the other moments. On the spot I decided I wanted to find out and looked into different options for creating a bracket poll online. I looked into a couple of different sites but decided Google Forms was probably the easiest choice.

I had been thinking of ranking some 1988 moments for a bit (I’ve got a tag “candidate for top 10 cellies”) but that was more a personal thing and this was the first time I considered a fandom poll. (Or however much of the fandom ends up seeing it. :P)

Honestly if I had taken the time to think about it (instead of getting super excited and wanting to do it right away haha) I would have reflected about it a bit more and probably chosen 128 moments. But after putting together the poll (it took a few hours to think of moments - with some good suggestions from people, find images/gifs - and I’ll still make a post to give credit/sources - and make most of the text posts) I just wanted to release it into the wild. :P

Some people have messaged me about moments I missed, so what might happen after “The Ultimate 1988 Moment” is selected is to have another bracket challenge (probably with 32 moments..unless people have more ideas and we can reach another 64?). The winner of the second poll will then be pitted against “The Ultimate 1988 Moment” as a challenger to see whether it can knock it off its throne. :)

Also you’re welcome. :) It also helped remind me and raised my spirits a bit. :) So you were part of the hockey fandom for another team but saw Kazer on your dash a lot and they convinced you to ship them? ;)

#Jonathan Toews #Patrick Kane #Kazer #favourite moments #Anonymous

16 notes · View notes

laurelkrugerr · 4 years

Text

[POLL] Why Aren’t More Local SEOs Investing in Spam Removal?

Fighting Google My Business spam is one of the most effective ways to climb rankings in local SEO Company, but is the uptake as common among agencies as local SEO Company experts?

From just a quick glance at local SEO Twitter, you’d think that spam fighting is what dominates many local SEOs’ working days. But our Local Search Industry Survey showed that, on the contrary, just a third of local marketers offer GMB spam fighting as a service.

Meanwhile, in stark contrast, our Expert Google My Business survey showed that, second only to reviews, spam fighting is one of the most important tasks to prioritize in 2020, with 65% of experts vouching for it, while just 11% of agencies said the same thing.

These two drastically opposing statistics got us thinking: why aren’t more agencies investing in spam removal?

That’s why we took matters into our own hands and polled our trusty audience to find out more.

In total, we looked at the data from 513 respondents – 64% of which manage local SEO Company for a client’s business, while 36% look after their own local SEO Company. For the purposes of this poll, we’ll be separating these respondents into agencies and local businesses.

First, we’ll dive into local businesses (but you can skip ahead to agencies here).

Local Businesses and Spam fighting

Do local businesses spend time reporting their competitors’ spam on Google My Business?

The vast majority of local businesses don’t spend time reporting competitors’ spam on Google My Business, with 73% telling us that this wasn’t a tactic they used. Bearing in mind these are BrightLocal users, who might be a little more local SEO Company-savvy than a typical local business, we were surprised that this tactic wasn’t encompassed by more respondents.

Are local businesses missing a trick by not knowing to look out for (potentially less obvious) types of spam, such as keyword stuffing, fake businesses, and duplicate listings? If you want to start fighting spam, you’ll first want to get familiar with the different types of spam on Google My Business.

What holds local businesses back from providing spam removal services?

When asked what was holding them back from reporting GMB spam, a whopping 54% of respondents claimed that they don’t know how to get spam removed in the first place. Although this number may be surprising, it’s not unexpected that many people don’t know how to remove spam on GMB. After all, the process could certainly be simpler. What kind of spam should you use the redressal form for? Does suggesting an edit count as reporting spam? When should you contact GMB directly? (For those wanting to get more immediate answers to these questions, you may want to check out Joy Hawkins’ Q&A on spam fighting).

Meanwhile, coming in a (not so close) second place, local businesses reported that spam isn’t an issue for their business. But with spam being increasingly prevalent in local searches, it’s hard to believe that so many businesses would not be affected at all. Again, this may come back to the fact that many businesses don’t know what is considered spam. For example, keyword stuffing might be hard to spot as spam, and in fact, some local businesses may even be tempted to incorporate tactics like this themselves.

At the end of the day, unless you’re well versed in the GMB guidelines, it may be hard to identify listings that are benefiting from breaking the rules. And with so many tasks to juggle day-to-day, for many local businesses, it can be challenging to find the time to stay clued up on the guidelines.

Agencies and Spam fighting

Do agencies spend time reporting their competitors’ spam on Google My Business?

Similarly to local businesses, only 35% of agencies are making use of spam removal, and only half of these provide spam fighting for all of their clients.

This near-equal split between the 35% would certainly make sense, as GMB spam affects some industries more than others (just take a look at garage door spam on Twitter for a shining example of this). If you’re not sure whether or not to fight spam for your clients, it’s probably worth taking a look at other industry-related searches to see just how prevalent it is.

Overwhelmingly, though, 64% of agencies are not providing spam fighting services at all. You might think that agencies would be more familiar with the process of spam removal than local businesses, but is that the case? In the next section, we take a look at why agencies aren’t offering spam removal.

What holds agencies back from providing spam removal services?

The primary reason for agencies to not provide spam fighting services is simply that they don’t know how to do it, with 53% of respondents citing this reason.

This is, however, closely followed by not being able to prove value to clients. We know that it can be hard to show clients the benefits of individual local SEO Company tactics, so endeavor to keep a clear log of your spam fighting efforts, including when you report spam to Google, and when (fingers crossed!) any updates go live. Where possible, try to show clients real-world examples of where fighting spam has positively impacted other businesses.

Naturally, spam fighting can take time, with marketers needing to keep a close eye on their competitors’ listings to spot any changes that may affect customers’ decisions.

In fact, 7% of poll respondents told us that the slow nature of the spam removal process was holding them back from fighting spam. Given that many marketers have just a set number of hours to spend on each client, could this slow process be discouraging some marketers from choosing to tackle spam?

What do agencies find to be the hardest thing about GMB spam removal?

For the 35% that do offer spam removal, we wanted to know what the hardest part of the process is. Here, we’ve grouped together a few of the most common responses by topic:

Google’s Communication

No feedback from redressals.

Google isn’t clear or consistent about the reasons for the suspensions. It’s a very tedious task to try and understand what they feel is wrong sometimes.

The fact that you don’t get any feedback from Google. You don’t know if a remittance form has been reviewed, if a business has been removed, or why it wasn’t removed.

Response Time

The time it takes to wait for a reply from Google.

Google’s lack of response.

Obtaining a response from Google.

Tracking Success and Success Rates

The removal rate is low.

It doesn’t take effect that quickly. Lots of my clients’ competitors are spamming the sh*t out of Google and it’s quite frustrating.

Keeping up with it. I can get someone removed or get their name updated to remove spammy keyword stuffing but they can then turn around and either create a new listing or rename after the name has been changed.

Determining What is Spam

Figuring out what category to choose as to why spam should be removed.

Deciding what’s spam and what isn’t.

Knowing how to report different types of spam since Google prefers different methods for different types.

Scaling Spam Removal

Spam removal is very difficult to scale. There are a lot of pieces to spam removal (finding spam, confirming what is spam and what is just a bad UX, documenting cases, reporting to Google, etc.) and almost none of them can be scaled effectively (at least not that I’ve seen).

Fighting spam is a very manual process.

Conclusion

Although spam removal can be a successful ranking tactic, the vast majority of agencies and local businesses don’t know how to report Google My Business spam, and as such do not do it. For those that do take the time to report spam, it can prove a time-intensive and fruitless task.

Regardless, it’s a task that, when undertaken properly, can prove very successful to climb local search rankings.

And while spam fighting won’t be necessary for every business or industry, (so it does make sense that not every business or agency would be doing it), we would expect the numbers to be slightly higher in these results.

In 2020, Google My Business spam seems more present than ever, and online chatter about spam seems to increase day by day. So if we can urge you to do one thing, it would be to invest in learning more about spam removal — types of GMB spam, removing it, and seeing results.

Do you fight spam for your or your client’s business? Tell us why or why not in the comments below!

The post [POLL] Why Aren’t More Local SEOs Investing in Spam Removal? appeared first on BrightLocal.

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/poll-why-arent-more-local-seos-investing-in-spam-removal/ source https://scpie1.blogspot.com/2020/05/poll-why-arent-more-local-seos.html

0 notes

riichardwilson · 4 years

Text

[POLL] Why Aren’t More Local SEOs Investing in Spam Removal?

Fighting Google My Business spam is one of the most effective ways to climb rankings in local SEO Company, but is the uptake as common among agencies as local SEO Company experts?

These two drastically opposing statistics got us thinking: why aren’t more agencies investing in spam removal?

That’s why we took matters into our own hands and polled our trusty audience to find out more.

First, we’ll dive into local businesses (but you can skip ahead to agencies here).

Local Businesses and Spam fighting

Do local businesses spend time reporting their competitors’ spam on Google My Business?

What holds local businesses back from providing spam removal services?

Agencies and Spam fighting

Do agencies spend time reporting their competitors’ spam on Google My Business?

Similarly to local businesses, only 35% of agencies are making use of spam removal, and only half of these provide spam fighting for all of their clients.

What holds agencies back from providing spam removal services?

The primary reason for agencies to not provide spam fighting services is simply that they don’t know how to do it, with 53% of respondents citing this reason.

Naturally, spam fighting can take time, with marketers needing to keep a close eye on their competitors’ listings to spot any changes that may affect customers’ decisions.

What do agencies find to be the hardest thing about GMB spam removal?

For the 35% that do offer spam removal, we wanted to know what the hardest part of the process is. Here, we’ve grouped together a few of the most common responses by topic:

Google’s Communication

No feedback from redressals.

Google isn’t clear or consistent about the reasons for the suspensions. It’s a very tedious task to try and understand what they feel is wrong sometimes.

The fact that you don’t get any feedback from Google. You don’t know if a remittance form has been reviewed, if a business has been removed, or why it wasn’t removed.

Response Time

The time it takes to wait for a reply from Google.

Google’s lack of response.

Obtaining a response from Google.

Tracking Success and Success Rates

The removal rate is low.

It doesn’t take effect that quickly. Lots of my clients’ competitors are spamming the sh*t out of Google and it’s quite frustrating.

Determining What is Spam

Figuring out what category to choose as to why spam should be removed.

Deciding what’s spam and what isn’t.

Knowing how to report different types of spam since Google prefers different methods for different types.

Scaling Spam Removal

Fighting spam is a very manual process.

Conclusion

Regardless, it’s a task that, when undertaken properly, can prove very successful to climb local search rankings.

Do you fight spam for your or your client’s business? Tell us why or why not in the comments below!

The post [POLL] Why Aren’t More Local SEOs Investing in Spam Removal? appeared first on BrightLocal.

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/poll-why-arent-more-local-seos-investing-in-spam-removal/ source https://scpie.tumblr.com/post/618583931733884928

0 notes

scpie · 4 years

Text

[POLL] Why Aren’t More Local SEOs Investing in Spam Removal?

Fighting Google My Business spam is one of the most effective ways to climb rankings in local SEO Company, but is the uptake as common among agencies as local SEO Company experts?

These two drastically opposing statistics got us thinking: why aren’t more agencies investing in spam removal?

That’s why we took matters into our own hands and polled our trusty audience to find out more.

First, we’ll dive into local businesses (but you can skip ahead to agencies here).

Local Businesses and Spam fighting

Do local businesses spend time reporting their competitors’ spam on Google My Business?

What holds local businesses back from providing spam removal services?

Agencies and Spam fighting

Do agencies spend time reporting their competitors’ spam on Google My Business?

Similarly to local businesses, only 35% of agencies are making use of spam removal, and only half of these provide spam fighting for all of their clients.

What holds agencies back from providing spam removal services?

The primary reason for agencies to not provide spam fighting services is simply that they don’t know how to do it, with 53% of respondents citing this reason.

Naturally, spam fighting can take time, with marketers needing to keep a close eye on their competitors’ listings to spot any changes that may affect customers’ decisions.

What do agencies find to be the hardest thing about GMB spam removal?

For the 35% that do offer spam removal, we wanted to know what the hardest part of the process is. Here, we’ve grouped together a few of the most common responses by topic:

Google’s Communication

No feedback from redressals.

Google isn’t clear or consistent about the reasons for the suspensions. It’s a very tedious task to try and understand what they feel is wrong sometimes.

The fact that you don’t get any feedback from Google. You don’t know if a remittance form has been reviewed, if a business has been removed, or why it wasn’t removed.

Response Time

The time it takes to wait for a reply from Google.

Google’s lack of response.

Obtaining a response from Google.

Tracking Success and Success Rates

The removal rate is low.

It doesn’t take effect that quickly. Lots of my clients’ competitors are spamming the sh*t out of Google and it’s quite frustrating.

Determining What is Spam

Figuring out what category to choose as to why spam should be removed.

Deciding what’s spam and what isn’t.

Knowing how to report different types of spam since Google prefers different methods for different types.

Scaling Spam Removal

Fighting spam is a very manual process.

Conclusion

Regardless, it’s a task that, when undertaken properly, can prove very successful to climb local search rankings.

Do you fight spam for your or your client’s business? Tell us why or why not in the comments below!

The post [POLL] Why Aren’t More Local SEOs Investing in Spam Removal? appeared first on BrightLocal.

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/poll-why-arent-more-local-seos-investing-in-spam-removal/

0 notes

kadobeclothing · 4 years

Text

45 Emerging Technology Stats to Know in 2020

As a writer who loves covering emerging technology and human being, I’m surrounded by technology.

Each morning, I wake up to my Amazon Echo’s alarm and ask Alexa about the weather. On my train ride home from work, I’m taking Snapchat selfies using AR filters. When I get to my house, I ask Alexa to turn the lights to a specific hue. Then I ask my smart TV to launch Netflix or play a basic VR game on my Google Cardboard. Before bed, I might check my fitness levels with a smart scale or use my toothbrush’s app to figure out what areas of my mouth I’m missing.

It’s safe to say that I’m a big fan of emerging media, technology, and innovation. As an individual, this technology is already impacting my life. As a marketer, I’m curious to see how brands could leverage smart technology. I’m not the only one who recognizes emerging technology as something that could completely change today’s marketing world. In fact, a Deloitte study found that a growing number of private companies are more heavily prioritizing emerging technology and hiring talent in their annual budgets. At the moment, a few buzzy topics include augmented and virtual reality, general and voice-based artificial intelligence, and smart home devices. And, with the dawn of 5G — a cloud-based high-speed wireless network — tech innovation won’t be slowing down anytime soon. In fact, a Deloitte study notes that many marketing firms are ramping up their information technology processes because of it. With all the technologies out there, it’s hard to cut through online chatter and determine which innovations are mostly just hype and which might actually change the way we market. While many of the major emerging technologies are getting more accessible, you could also still be wondering, “Which might be worth investing in for my industry specifically?” For example, if you run a B2B firm, you might realize augmented reality isn’t a practical technology to research. But, at the same time, you might look into AI software or services that can help your team work more efficiently or learn more about customers. To give you a bird’s eye view of some of the most buzzed-about innovations that could impact marketers in the near or distant future, I’ve collected 45 stats related to four types of emerging technology. Augmented and Virtual Reality For years, researchers have hypothesized that virtual reality, which provides viewers a completely immersive and interactive 360-degree visual experience, will hold the best opportunities in gaming, entertainment, and academic industries. Meanwhile, experts have also thought that augmented reality, a partially immersive but still interactive experience, will thrive in the world of branding and marketing. We have already seen these AR and VR predictions come to fruition as the gaming industry continues to announce games for VR headsets and brands have used AR to allow customers to preview products — such as furniture — in their own homes. Here are 14 stats that demonstrate the growth and opportunities of AR and VR. The AR/VR market is currently estimated at $1.6 billion (IDC) In 2019, 42.9 million people in the US used a VR product, and 68.7 million people used an AR once monthly. (eMarketer) Seven in ten media planners want to add AR to their strategies in the future. (Vibrant Media) In a 2018 study based in the U.K. and U.S., 90% of participants knew what VR was while only 65% were aware of what AR was. (GlobalWebIndex) 42% of people who use a VR headset at least monthly say they used a mid-range device such as the Google Daydream or Samsung Gear VR. (GlobalWebIndex) In 2018, 88% of companies with budgets between $100 million and $1 billion were already experimenting with different forms of AR. (Deloitte) A quarter of VR users believe it has a strong potential for brands and marketers. (GlobalWebIndex) While 43% of people who report using VR headsets once monthly say they own their own device, 35% of once-monthly VR users say they use a family or friend’s device. (GlobalWebIndex) 71% of consumers would prefer to shop at stores with an AR experience (Lumus Vision) 64% of consumers say VR has the most potential in gaming, while 52% recognize its potential in Film and TV. (GlobalWebIndex)

Image Source: GlobalWebIndex In 2018 mobile VR made $3 billion globally, in part due to purchases related to the mobile app Pokemon Go. (Digi-Capital) It’s estimated that AR platforms such as mobile and AR glasses-related apps will hit 2.5 billion installs in 2023. (Digi-Capital) Meanwhile, VR platforms are expected to see 30 million installs across devices by 2023 (Digi-Capital) Snapchat’s Q3 2019 Earnings Report notes that over 600,000 AR Lenses have been created through the company’s Lens Studio, This increased from 500,000 at the end of Q2. (Snap Inc.) Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence is so prevalent in 2019 that many of us don’t even notice all the ways we interact with it on a given day. In fact, all of the other technologies on this list require some type of AI algorithm to work smoothly. If you’re less familiar with AI, here are 12 stats to keep in mind: Over 37% of organizations have implemented artificial intelligence in some form. The number of industries that have implemented it has grown by 270% since 2015 (Gartner) In a 2019 ranking of the top 10 emerging technologies, the World Economic Forum noted, “social robots” as number two. (World Economic Forum) It’s estimated that 80% of emerging technologies will involve AI by 2021 (Gartner) 40% of marketing and sales teams say that machine learning and data science-based AI will be a crucial part of their future strategies (2019 Data Science and Machine Learning Market Study) It’s estimated that AI-based analytics and marketing software will give the average data analyst back one-third of their time, which could then be used for bigger projects or other tasks. (Gartner) At 2018’s F8 summit, covered by VentureBeat, Facebook said there were more than 300,000 chatbots on Facebook Messenger. (VentureBeat) The percentage of businesses that offer chatbots could grow to 80% in 2020. (HubSpot) 63% of businesses say they will consider AI in the near future due to pressures related to reducing costs. (BCG and MIT Sloan School of Business) The facial recognition market is estimated to grow by 20% in 2020. (VisionGain) There’s only a 1.4% chance that a marketing manager’s role will be taken over by artificial intelligence. (HubSpot) It’s estimated that this year, customers will be able to manage 85% of their enterprise relationships without working with humans. (Gartner) Online mentions of automation have increased by 70% year over year. (Adobe) Voice Assistants and Smart Speakers While voice assistants are technically a segment of AI, they’ve become so prominent in the emerging media world that they deserve their own section of stats. Over 46% of people use voice assistants. (Pew Research Center) More than 36% of consumers own a smart speaker. (Adobe) Of those who own a smart speaker, 54% say their voice assistant can easily understand them when they speak. (Adobe) Nearly 112 million people in the U.S. use a voice assistant once monthly across devices. (eMarketer) Roughly 34% of people who don’t own a smart speaker are interested in purchasing one. (GlobalWebIndex) According to a 2018 poll conducted by HubSpot via Lucid Software, 52% of consumers say they’ve used a voice assistant solely on their phone. (HubSpot)

Data Source: Lucid Software Millennials are the heaviest users of voice assistants, but usage is growing across age groups. (eMarketer) In a late-2018 test where the Amazon, Google, and Apple voice assistants were asked 800 questions each, all understood over 99% to 100% of the questions. (Loup Ventures) In the study noted in the above bullet, Google was named the “smartest” voice assistant because it answered more than 86% of the questions correctly. (Loup Ventures)

Image Source: Loup Ventures In Q2 of 2019, Amazon shipped 6.6 million of its smart speakers, maintaining the lead over competitors like Google. (Canalys) Amazon Alexa, the voice assistant associated with Amazon Echo smart speakers, now has over 100,000 Skills globally. (Voicebot.ai) By 2023, digital voice ecommerce is expected to triple to an $80 billion industry. (Juniper Research) Between August 2018 and February 2019, smart speaker ownership increased by 4% (Adobe)

Source: Adobe Smart Devices and Appliances While you may not realize the significance that smart appliances and devices could have on marketing, this is something that I and my colleagues have been paying close attention to. Although this space is still young, it’s already seemingly providing interesting opportunities to bigger brands. As you can imagine, devices like smart TVs could provide great potential for content marketing and branded media, However, a more unique example of an appliance that could provide brand potential is the smart refrigerator. “I’m excited to see how a smart fridge that can tell me when my avocados are about to spoil can be leveraged by a brand to give me information that might serve me in that particular information, says Amanda Zantal-Wiener, a senior content strategist who creates content for HubSpot that covers news and trends. But, Zantal-Weiner’s excitement doesn’t end at smart-home appliances. She’s also fascinated by the world of smart cars “Until we start to see self-driving cars on the road, the idea of connected cars can also be used to help me do more than mindlessly scroll through my phone when I’m using a ride-hailing service, by serving as a distribution channel for real-time, relevant information during that trip. Everything is connected, and I’m excited to see which brands are able to adapt to that earlier on in a way that actually helps customers,” Zantal-Wiener explains. While the smart appliance space is still fairly nascent and harder to report on statistically at the moment, here are a few interesting stats that highlight why you should keep these technologies on your radar. According to a Fluent Survey, 55% of internet users already own some type of smart device. (Fluent) The same survey found that the most common device was a smart television, which 38% of participants owned. The next most commonly owned devices were lighting (17%), thermostats (16%) and security systems (14%), and kitchen appliances (7%). (Fluent) 31% of people ages 18 to 34 and 38% of people over 35 say that their main purchasing concern related to smart appliances is cost. (Fluent) Consumers over the age of 35 are more worried about hacking and data security on smart appliances than 18 to 34-year-olds. (Fluent)

Image Source: eMarketer The average cost of a smart-home device is expected to drop by 52% by 2023 (Juniper Research) In 2018, 70% of TVs sold globally were smart TVs. (Statista) Navigating the Future of Marketing Yes, creating voice assistant skills, leveraging AI, and building branded AR/VR experiences might be pretty inaccessible and costly to your company right now and in the near future. But, if you want to continue to innovate your brand, or be a competitive marketer in the far future, you’ll want to keep up with how technology and marketing possibilities are evolving. By keeping up with marketing innovation news, you’ll be more prepared to adopt new technologies when they are accessible in the future. For some detailed guides on emerging technologies that could or are already impacting brands, check out blog posts on artificial intelligence, voice technology, Snapchat, smart devices, and chatbots, and video game marketing — which can leverage of few of the technologies noted above.

Source link

source https://www.kadobeclothing.store/45-emerging-technology-stats-to-know-in-2020/

0 notes

moversdevelopment · 5 years

Text

Benefits of interactive content marketing for movers

Dynamic as it is, marketing requires plenty of adaptation and innovation. You need to continuously test out new ways to attract customers and generate new leads. And for the development of moving companies, this is an essential step. After all, when you have a type of service that does not focus on frequent use, you need to ensure a continuous flow of new customers. One of the ways to accomplish this is through the practice of interactive content marketing strategies. And to help you explore this subject further, I will go into the details.

We start from defining interactive marketing

Surveys and polls are your typical example of interactive content methods.

The very definition of this type of marketing presents its main advantage. Interactive marketing provides a way to communicate with your target customers one-on-one. It is a tactic that enables the user to adjust and respond to the real-time behavior of the target customer. And as a result of this, people can interact with your brand, thus boosting its influence.

What would be typical examples of interactive marketing?

Contests

Quizzes, polls, and surveys

Videos and email marketing

Calculators

Interactive Infographics

Messenger bots

These are just typical examples that you can come across when it comes to interactive content marketing. If you use them properly, you can shorten the sales process and optimize it.

7 upsides of using interactive content marketing

The gain here is that interactive marketing offers leads a unique experience. So, let’s get into the seven advantages of interactive marketing.

#1. Boosts user engagement

A simple chatbot can triple the user engagement and experience on your website.

When you implement the use of interactive content marketing on your website, you give users a reason to spend more time on your website. And this is a plus in terms of boosting user experience, not to mention differentiating yourself from the competition. But what are the ways in which this approach helps your user engagement efforts?

Interactive content marketing appeals to all your senses. You read the content while analyzing the images, filling out forms, watching and listening to videos, following well-designed CTAs, etc. All these conversion elements come together into one whole.

The content you provide interacts with users, calling them to take action, which is thrilling and exciting.

You can offer people a real-time user experience, which helps them get quick and straightforward answers to their inquiries.

#2. It helps your conversion rate

The digital marketing world is a dynamic environment, always changing. Hence, movers need to go past the old-school ways of gathering leads and evolve their efforts. Generic signup forms and popups don’t really work anymore. You need to look past this and truly take the time to explore trending ways to generate leads for moving companies. That step is your ticket to surpassing your competitors and stepping into that next stage of developing your moving company brand.

And with interactive content marketing, this is just what you get. For moving companies, in particular, this best conveys through the combination of content and software. That is how we came to the introduction of moving estimate apps. You have online moving quote forms that can offer customers the chance to input information and calculate the cost of their relocation easily.

#3. Improve the quality of your leads

Interactive marketing makes it much easier to generate the type of leads best suited for movers. The call to action it requires from users can easily weed out any weak leads that are not quite sure whether or not they need your services or products. That is another advantage of the moving company software mentioned above. So long as people are willing to stick around long enough to fill out the form, chances are they are interested in converting to customers.

The goal here is to engage people without boring them with questions and procedures. So, you need to make the entire experience enjoyable for them. Focus your efforts on getting the most essential information out of them in a subtle yet exciting way. For example, a lot of companies opt for a multi-step form with a simple yet practical design and approach.

#4. Going viral becomes much easier

The potential for going viral is much higher with interactive content.

I wrote last week about the importance of aligning your social media and SEO strategies. Interactive content marketing fits into this formula perfectly. Why is that? Because it creates a lot of potential for social media sharing, which can launch your brand in no time. Consider a reward program for users willing to share your interactive content, to increase your website traffic and the overall number of users.

That is why the use of quizzes, polls, and online contests is so widespread among social media users. Everybody prefers them miles before having to sift through a long article or form.

#5. It enhances customer feedback

As you know, having good reviews online is a vital factor for any business that wants to succeed. It’s become a necessary pre-condition for making a sale of any magnitude. In fact, research shows that over 84 percent of online users trust online reviews as much as friends. Without those reviews, you are as good as floating in the middle of the ocean and waiting for someone to come and rescue you.

Interactive content marketing provides you with more customer reviews and user feedback.

However, with interactive content marketing on your side, you can secure a constant flow of reviews from users. It’s all about making the process of leaving a comment painless and straightforward. And you can do that with the introduction of tactics such as short polls and surveys. So long as the entire process is fast and immediate, people will be less inclined to refuse it.

Trust us when we tell you that this is something you want to invest in. After all, gathering real-time feedback from customers benefits you in more ways than one:

It helps you improve your services/products;

You can adjust your outreach accordingly;

It wins you important social elements such as stats and testimonials;

It helps your social media efforts;

With them, you can build your brand.

#6. Interactive content marketing enables personalization

With billions of online users and visitors, it’s hard not to feel like just another number in an endless code. However, when you provide customers with more personal and intimate experience, you open the door towards a close and personalized relationship. With interactive content, you recognize the consumer as a unique individual with their own goals, needs, and issues. And the more data you have on your target audience, the better equipped you are to answer them.

Through the use of polls, surveys, quizzes, moving quote estimates, etc., you give customers the voice they so desperately yearn for.

#7. Last but not least – it benefits your SEO efforts

With the use of interactive content marketing, your SEO strategy becomes stronger.

Interactive content fits perfectly into white-hat SEO strategies. The possibilities are endless, creating more shareable links and attracting more attention. With the increase in inbound links towards your website and social media shares, your content will contribute to your moving company SEO tactics. As a result, your website gains value, which also boosts its online ranking in the eyes of Google and other search engines.

Another great feature of interactive content marketing is that you can embed it on websites. In comparison to your regular static content, this type of content simply calls out for link building. And when you consider the sheer amount of shares and online attention that you can gather here, you can already see how this can contribute to the increase of your customer base. After all, interactive content trumps static one, keeping the users more engaged and focus on your website.

The conclusion

At the end of the day, the fact remains that you need to adapt if you want to stay in the online game. The expectations of customers are constantly changing, which is something that search engine algorithms recognize and implement in their ranking of different websites. And your only option here is to pursue the modern marketing of today and use it to shape the marketing of tomorrow. As complex and confusing as all this might seem, it’s really not.

The appeal and efficiency of interactive content marketing carry plenty of advantages, seven of which we touched upon today. As time passes, this number will only grow, as well as the impact of it all. With a simple decision to tap into interactive marketing, you can answer current trends and customer needs and match them with your moving company goals. And that is something that carries a lot of influence today – the ability to diversify your marketing efforts and stand out from the rest of your competitors.

That is something that consumer and businesses alike can appreciate and get on board with. So, stop wasting time and start filling the void that online users present.

The post Benefits of interactive content marketing for movers appeared first on Movers Development.

from Benefits of interactive content marketing for movers

#Benefits of interactive content marketing for movers

0 notes

onlinemarketingcourses · 5 years

Text

The rise (and further rise) of Google My Business spam

Back in 2017, Google proudly told the world that it had eradicated 70 percent of all fake Google Maps listings in the two years prior. They put this down to innovations in machine learning and new business verification techniques.

Two years on, and it seems the machines are today wearing dunce caps and verification is just not working. How else do you explain Google My Business listings like these slipping through the net?

Here are today’s rejected edits: #stopcraponthemap pic.twitter.com/a2vQAJ1rgo

— Brandon Schmidt (@brandonschmidt) March 11, 2019

You’ll note that not only are these spammy, keyword-stuffed business names but that the supposedly trusted Local Guides trying to suggest edits to report them are having their edits rejected. We’ll come on to that in a little bit, but for now let’s take a look at how we got here.

GMB is the new local business home page, social network and feedback channel, conversion path, and…

Over the last couple of years, Google has been going all-in on expanding the functionality and potential use of its Google My Business profiles, elements of which appear in the Knowledge Graph, in Google Maps, and in the Local 3-pack.

Due to this increased use and visibility, and new social features like the introduction of a ‘Follow’ button for Google Maps users and ever-more-prominent Google Posts, consumers are being driven to consider a business’ GMB profile as a single source of truth, even over and above the local business website.

Because of this, GMB has become a wedge driven between consumers and businesses. Searchers can no longer get a first impression of a business created and tailored by the business itself. That first impression now belongs to Google, and for better or worse, search marketers have to make exceptionally good use of the wide range of available GMB features to ensure that their businesses or clients can stand out against their competitors.

With GMB now such a critical part of the consumer’s journey, it’s inevitable that people would seek to take advantage of weaknesses in the system in order to benefit their businesses’ positions. Thus we have Google My Business spam, and with it no end of keyword-stuffed business names, fake listings, fake reviews, and more.

The real impact of Google My Business spam

You might easily dismiss it as a non-issue, but whereas other instances of spam can be easily filtered out using technology, no such filter exists for GMB, and so spam on this platform can have far-reaching impacts.

These impacts have been well-documented in a recent BrightLocal poll that focused specifically on GMB spam. 77 percent of respondents felt that GMB spam made it harder to deliver good rankings for their own businesses or their clients.

Still not convinced it’s an issue? Imagine it this way: you’re a local SEO professional following every bit of best practice under the sun to optimize a website for the right search terms, to feed GMB the right data, and to generate great reviews. You put hours into this work and finally rank well for the required local search terms.

And then you look up the business one day and you see these…

4 fake spam results, 3 don’t have a website listed. #stopcraponthemap pic.twitter.com/BnCgU88qNG

— Jason Brown (@keyserholiday) March 8, 2019

GMB spam isn’t just unfair, it risks damaging the reputations of Google My Business as a trustworthy source of information as well as the many industries which seem to be more likely to take part in GMB spam, like auto repair, locksmiths, garage door contractors, and (though they really should know better) legal professionals.

And although GMB spam isn’t a new problem, it seems to be getting more prevalent. The aforementioned poll asked how listings spam had grown in the previous year.

Fifty-nine percent believed it had increased, and 25 percent of them said it had increased significantly. So the question I find myself asking today isn’t just why is there so much GMB spam it’s “why is there so much now?”

Who you gonna call…?

For a time, Google Gold Product Experts and spam-fighters like Joy Hawkins, Ben Fisher, Jason Brown, and countless others, gave their free time over to helping business owners report spam for removal in the (soon-to-be-defunct for reasons I’ll come to) Spam and Policy board in the Google Advertiser Community Forum. Sure, you could tweet @GoogleMyBiz or message them on Facebook, but this was a great way to add plenty of detail around a spam report and engage with someone who really cared, one on one.

Then Google took over.

For reasons I’m not personally privy to (but would love to hear your theories about in the comments below), Google made the decision to close the GMB Spam forum and instead encourage people who discover spam to report it via a new online form, stating simply:

“We’ll close the Spam board on this community, so please use the new form to report spam-related issues.”

“Complaints submitted through this form will be reviewed in accordance with our guidelines for representing businesses on Google Maps.”

As sad as I was to see the forum close, I rather foolishly believed that this was a sign that Google was going to finally take spam seriously, writing on the BrightLocal blog at the time,

“This week Google finally took a big step towards acknowledging the damage GMB spam does to consumers and businesses alike.”

What a fool I was. I thought that having human staff at the other end of these complaints showed Google was starting to care more, and that the use of a standardized form meant that the process of actioning complaints would be simpler.

Sadly, right now it seems I was wrong. Just follow the popular #StopCrapOnTheMap thread on Twitter and you’ll see an even more steady stream of Local Guides and spam-fighters sharing sadly comic examples of particularly egregious and obvious cases of GMB spam.

Even before this new wellspring of spam, Joy Hawkins spoke on an InsideLocal webinar about the efficacy of making ‘suggested edits’ to spammy GMB profiles (now one of the only recourses for Local Guides trying to fight spam), saying:

“I think it works less and less. It used to work a lot better when Map Maker was around because peers could review your edits, but we’re seeing suggested edits being less useful in most cases. Google’s turnaround time is about 3-4 months, we’ve been finding.”

So we already have a case where:

Google My Business is critical to business success

People are taking advantage of its weaknesses

Google has made efforts to make the spam-fighters toothless

Spam still works, and “the situation is getting worse, not better” (as Joy Hawkins again testifies below)

Looking today, 20-30% of the listings ranking for a personal injury lawyer term in a major city were fake. The situation is getting worse, not better. #StopCrapOnTheMap

— Joy Hawkins (@JoyanneHawkins) March 11, 2019

Then lots and lots of Local Guides started having their accounts suspended for no apparent reason…

Nice job @localguides – 6 years of MapMaker and your program, Level 10 with over 100k edits, only to end up like this… pic.twitter.com/6bMzn0FGLj

— Michael W. Jones (@MJonesOTSC) March 7, 2019

The above is a particularly bad example of Local Guides being stripped of their accounts without reason. While Google’s aim might have been to automatically delete the accounts of Local Guides behaving dubiously (a noble aim, I’d add), when dedicated Local Guides are unceremoniously removed from the program without warning, one has to question Google’s overarching approach to spam removal.

As always, this all comes with the customary silence from Google.

So what can we do about it?

Although the above might come as depressing reading, I must stress that the vigilance of good SEOs trying to do right by their local business clients is very heartening to see, so there is hope.

Google might be clumsily breaking the tools in our spam-fighting arsenal, but we’ll always have heroes like Dave DiGregorio (below) to thank for helping to spread the word about other, clever ways to identify spam:

Great little tip: Looking for spam listings on Maps? Use the search operator ‘allintitle’ to find them easily

Ex: ‘allintitle:car accident lawyer’ https://t.co/gbsTt4i9jt

This will find GMB listings with ‘car accident lawyer’ in the title – which we know, are most likely spam pic.twitter.com/gYcvM9Mby7

— Dave DiGregorio (@deegs20) March 13, 2019

In the meantime, keep building up those Local Guide levels, keep suggesting edits, keep filling out Google’s “Business Redressal Complaint Form,” keep reporting spam to GMB Twitter and Facebook and stay positive.

I still have faith that one day, once Google realize that the issue is damaging trust in their products (and, obviously, stopping business from advertising with them), they’ll invest in far better technology to finally #StopCrapOnTheMap.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Jamie Pitman is Head of Content at local SEO tool provider BrightLocal. He’s been working in Digital Marketing for nearly ten years and has specialized in SEO, content marketing and social media, managing successful marketing projects for clients and employers alike. Over this time he’s blogged his heart out, writing over 300 posts on a wide variety of digital marketing topics for various businesses and publications.

Source link

0 notes

oblivionspeakk · 5 years

Text

Is SEO DOA as a core marketing strategy?

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Ron Springer is overhauling his company's website and is spending a big chunk of his marketing budget to help boost its search engine ranking. He had no idea he might be throwing his money away on an outdated strategy. A Google search page is seen through the spectacles of a computer user in Leicester, central England July 20, 2007. REUTERS/Darren Staples "If search engine isn't what gets you up to the top of the list, what is?" said Springer, who runs boutique event planning firm Esprit Productions in Libertyville, Illinois. "We designed it with search engine totally in mind." Entrepreneurs like Springer may want to reconsider pouring money into search engine optimization (SEO) as their primary marketing strategy, according to Chris Dixon, who recently penned a controversial blog (bit.ly/gjIzMJ), titled: "SEO is no longer a viable marketing strategy for startups". "I SEO Blog9T talk to a lot of startups and almost none that I know of post-2008 have gained significant traction through SEO," wrote Dixon, the co-founder of online startup Hunch, who has invested in numerous startups, including Skype and Foursquare. Dixon was immediately taken to task by defenders of SEO, the popular means of boosting an organization's presence in Internet searches with keywords and relevant Web links. Among them was Dave McClure, a prominent angel investor and founding partner of the Silicon Valley tech incubator 500 Startups. "I'm contrarian because SEO works. SEO obviously matters," said McClure, adding it generates "huge amounts of monetization on the Web, huge amounts of traffic - organically and paid." SEO NO "MAGIC POTION" Many technology experts don't buy Dixon's argument, but most, including McClure, concede that SEO must be viewed as part of a more comprehensive strategy that gives increased weight to newly emerging platforms. They also point out that higher standards for quality are making effective SEO even more time-consuming than ever before, adding to the difficulty faced by startups with limited resources at their disposal. "I'm not saying you can't make progress with SEO," said Ryan Evans, who runs the Chicago-based online marketing company Rand Media Group. "But I think there's a lot of people out there selling SEO as a magic potion and if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." To illustrate an increasingly balanced approach among Internet promoters, Evans cited the tagline for online marketing conference SES (Search Engine Strategies), which bills itself as: "the leading search and social marketing event." "SEO has become less of a technical exercise done in a vacuum," said Evans, who uses a combination of SEO, public relations, pay per click, email and social media to gain momentum for clients. An integrated approach is certainly the thinking behind HubSpot, a software platform that helps small businesses use and measure a variety of Web-based marketing techniques - blogging, social media, content management and email - to help generate qualified business leads. Founder Dharmesh Shah said his company, itself a startup, draws two of every 10 visitors by way of Facebook and Twitter. Despite that he remains a strong proponent of SEO. "The big reason SEO is still important to small business is simple: people are still using search engines, especially Google, with great frequency," said Shah, another critic on Dixon's blog. "And unlike other channels to reach customers, connecting to users searching is worth more, because there is active intent." BLACK HAT BE GONE Shah maintains the playing field for small companies deploying SEO has leveled off in recent months. Quality standards have improved, making it harder to throw big bucks at the process by creating server farms and using other questionable, so-called "black hat" tactics. "In the early days of search engine optimization you had some rough and unsavory charters that were doing all manner of unpleasant things to try and game the system," Shah said, adding the emphasis now is on creating relevant, original content and an engaging online Blog9T experience. "Now Google and all the search engines have gotten much better about (detecting) that." That may be one of the reasons why small businesses are increasingly relying on SEO. According to a survey by email marketing company Constant Contact, 29 percent of small businesses were engaged in some form of SEO. An additional 13 percent had plans to employ SEO within six months, according to the survey, which polled nearly 3,800 small companies in March. Dixon, who said his column has been "widely misunderstood" to be against SEO in general, believes it should be used to augment a marketing campaign and "should not be core to a startup's business plan." However, he is not as optimistic as Shah about the decrease of black hat practices, despite Google's best efforts, and in his blog insisted there are "many billions of dollars and tens of thousands of people working to game SEO." In this atmosphere, startups that produce high-quality content will be hard pressed to appear high up in search engine results, argued Dixon. "Until that changes," he wrote in his blog, "startups - who generally have small teams, small budgets, and the scruples to avoid black-hat tactics - should no longer consider SEO a viable marketing strategy."

0 notes

sempiternalsandpitturtle · 5 years

Text

How accurate were our 2018 content marketing predictions?

In January 2018 we asked our experts what they thought would happen in the world of content marketing over the following 12 months.

So what actually came true in the end? Let’s find out.

Prediction 1 – Content will fulfill more than one purpose

Did it come true? Yes!

We predicted that 2018 would see the ‘perfectisation’ of content – that is, content would be created to fill as many functions as possible instead of the typical one or two (functions like going viral on social, ranking in search, etc.).

Thanks to developments like the following, we can say this is definitely true:

Mobile page speeds became a ranking factor this year, meaning SEO content also has to be mobile-optimised.

Smart speaker adoption rates grew further (Edison Research says 5 per cent of Aussies now own a smart speaker), increasing the importance of voice search SEO.

Google experimented with “zero results” pages for certain queries, which showed only featured snippets – no links – reinforcing the importance of ranking in this position.

In short content marketers can no longer put all their eggs in one basket.

Prediction 2 – There will be closer alignment between content marketing and marketing automation

Did it come true? Hard to say

Our second guess was that marketing automation would take greater hold in Australasia’s mid-market businesses.

There’s definitely growth in the area – Hubspot’s revenue grew for three quarters in a row this year – but it’s unclear whether there was a breakout in adoption rates. It seems like more of a consistent growth, although we’ll see more data as 2019 rolls around and the big research agencies look backwards.

youtube

Prediction 3 – Decision makers will become more strict on aligning business goals to marketing

Did it come true? We think so

Next, we predicted that companies in the region would try harder to align their marketing activities with wider business goals – bringing sales and marketing a little closer. Indeed, last year the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) noted only 19 per cent of marketers believed their business metrics aligned with marketing work.

Well, there’s a lot more alignment than that now – says Hubspot data. Its State of Inbound 2018 report shows 47 per cent of businesses believe their marketing and sales teams are generally aligned, with teams in Australia/NZ having some of the highest alignment rates.

Sales and marketing are vital partners in a business and the more they are aligned, the smarter your organisation can work. It’s great to see this happening!

Prediction 4 – Machine learning will start to impact content writing

Did it come true? Not as much as we predicted

Machine learning was predicted to impact the content world in greater force.

There’s been no breakout adoption of AI in content production as far as we’ve seen, but there are a lot of examples of growth. The machine learning industry is expanding rapidly – with a compound annual growth rate of 44 per cent between 2017 and 2024, according to a Zion Market Research prediction – and it now features heavily in analytics and marketing automation.

But as for robots that write content? While companies like Forbes are using AI to create specific types of report, it’s still very early days. Watch this space, though, because it’s coming.

Prediction 5 – There will be an increase in small marketing automation companies offering niche services

Did it come true? Yes

We reckoned there’d be a growth in smaller companies offering marketing automation services the big players can’t do as efficiently.

There’s definitely innovation happening in this space, in line with machine learning growth as we outlined before. Except a lot of the startup action is happening outside of the typical centres like the US or UK. We’ve seen new companies forming in the Czech Republic (Roivenue) and the Philippines (Smartech).

It’s very exciting to see what’s happening overseas. The more tools we have to play with, the better the results we can achieve.

Prediction 6 – 2018 will be the year of VR

Did it come true? Big time

VR and its cousin AR (augmented reality) are exploding. Statista projections saw the market size almost double from US$14.1 million to $27 million 2017-18, and expects that to balloon to a staggering $209.2 million by 2022.

As for VR in marketing, there are so many awesome examples of this available right now. Hubspot put together a fascinating list that you should check out some time – you’ll see VR isn’t really being used ‘casually’ right now, as one might use, say, a blog article. But for campaigns and big 10x content pieces, it’s still fresh enough to be astounding – and that’s what 10x marketing is all about.

youtube

Prediction 7 – There will be more voice strategies in 2018

Did it come true? Definitely

We’ve already covered this prediction so you know where this point is going. Smart speaker usage is up and, as added proof, a Bright Local study found that 58 per cent of consumers have used voice to find a local business within the past 12 months.

If you aren’t considering voice SEO in your current strategy, it’s not too late to start.

Prediction 8 – More businesses will use a documented content strategy

Did it come true? Yes, but not to the magnitude we predicted

We predicted that more businesses than ever – as many as 75 per cent of them – would be using a documented content strategy by end-of-year 2018.

Well, there’s been an uptick but not to that scale: CMI polling showed the average number of B2B businesses using a documented strategy rose from 37 per cent to 39 per cent 2018-19. For specific respondents who rate their marketing efforts as highly successful, the number of documented strategies rose from 62 to 65 per cent.

So there’s still some work to be done on this front, but it’s good to see positive change – even if only slight.

Many thanks to Step Change for including our research! If you're interested in our latest findings going into 2019, you can check out our latest report. https://t.co/5gNxE9yi2c

— Content Marketing Institute (@CMIContent) November 5, 2018

Prediction 9 – Reporting benchmarks will change

Did it come true? Yes

We guessed that marketers would need to rethink what ‘good’ organic results mean. Facebook has made it harder for businesses to reach customers organically, and Google continues to push its featured snippets over blue links – going so far as to offer multiple snippets on some pages.

Whether you can say that this is a 2018 issue is up for debate, but SEOs definitely have to think more creatively when it comes to gaining and determining results. How do you keep site visitors high when reach and click throughs are down?

The debate is ongoing.

Prediction 10 – Content marketing will become even more personalised

Did it come true? Yes, but not at scale

This is another of those trends we’ve seen sparking over the past few years and growing in 2018. We predicted that personalised experiences would be more important in content marketing than ever before.

Like VR, personalisation is happening in the marketing space but not quite at the scale it will likely reach in the future. The rise of AI and machine learning means there are more options for personalisation – tuning what customers see on your website to their data profile, for example – but mostly personalised content is being used for specific major campaigns. Think about Coke bottles with your name on them.

The small-scale versions of personalisation are interactive quizzes and drip campaigns. In the former, someone takes part in your interactive landing page and the data they generate directs them to content suitable to their needs. In the latter, only the users who are interacting with your content see more of it further down the funnel. Either way generates less spam, and more meaningful experiences.

Prediction 11 – We’ll see more interactive content in 2018

Did it come true? Yes, but no great leaps

I myself predicted there’d be more interactive content in 2018. We’ve covered parts of this already so we can confirm that while there were no great leaps, there have been big steps.

Two major developments this year were from Apple and Facebook, both announcing 360-degree photo features: Apple users with the latest device can now take 360-degree selfies, and Facebook Messenger users can now share those with each other via the app.

Add that to growth in VR and it’s clear that interactive content is an undeniable ‘next big thing’.

Prediction 12 – 2018 is the year search engines understand non-HTML formats

Did it come true? Hard to say

This is a tricky one. If you look at it like, “Does Google see images as though it were using Vision API or some other image processor” – the answer is no, that’s not a part of search yet.

However, Google and other platforms increasingly value non-HTML formats (images, PDFs, videos etc.) because, while they might not fully understand what they’re seeing, they know that we humans value them. So they are a major part of search, contributing heavily to rankings.

One day Google will be sophisticated enough to watch videos and see images like we do, but that time isn’t here. However, non-HTML content has high value and is a must-have for all contemporary content.

Prediction 13 – Vine 2 will both emerge and fall

Did this come true? Spot on

At the end of 2017, Vine 2 was teased by its original creator Dom Hoffman.

In May 2018, Vine 2 was postponed indefinitely. What a wild ride.

PLOT TWIST: In November 2018 another new app – Byte – was announced by Hoffman that seems to be a Vine replacement. More on this story as it develops.

our new looping video app is called byte. launching spring 2019 pic.twitter.com/C3FMvkcIwc

— dom hofmann (@dhof) November 8, 2018

Prediction 14 – Short-form content will make a comeback

Did it come true? To a degree

With people’s free time shrinking and digital content competition only expanding, we predicted that short-form content would make a comeback.

This is another hard one because there was no real leap, but a definite growth in parts of the industry. Short-form articles will likely never be relevant again, but other short-form content – videos in particular – are becoming easier and cheaper to create, meaning their use is gaining popularity.

As for proof, check this out: A 2018 VidYard report found that 75 per cent of videos published in the past 12 months were less than two minutes long.

Are you creating videos for your business?

Prediction 15 – Personalised content will be geared to whomever is visiting the website

Did this come true? Some of it

We guessed that websites would start tailoring content to individual users, and content itself would increasingly focus on specific stages of the sales funnel instead of targeting a very broad audience.

We’ve covered the personalised website prediction earlier in this article – it’s not happening at scale, but will likely increase as data becomes easier and faster to access.

As for targeting different sales stages, this is happening right now and is very easy to do! In fact, if you’re interesting in tuning content to your own customer funnel, check out our article from earlier in the year titled “How to repurpose content for different stages of the sales funnel”. It’s a great starting point.

from http://bit.ly/2zVQ17B

#content marketing

0 notes