5 Ways to Run Social Media Contest

5 Ways to Run Social Media Contest

Social media contests are the most trending activity on social media. In a way we can say that contest is one of the most emerging way to increase footfall on your social media platform. Running a social media contest is a new way which boost up your business, also it increase list of subscribers, get new twitter and facebook followers plus one can get more re-tweets and likes on the page and can create a fun experience in the process. In this blog, we are sharing 5 recommendations, choices for you to consider, and options to keep in mind when you’re running or going to run a social media contest for your own business.

-           Know what you want

Are you trying to get newsletter subscriptions, expose certain products, gain brand recognition, or drive up Facebook fans? Knowing what your goals are will guide the process.

-          Choose the type of contest
     
      Sweepstakes contests are the easiest to enter, with the lowest barrier of entry. Photo or video contests with fan votes get the most engagement. Caption contests or quiz contests are other options. Winners can be randomly selected, picked by you or a panel of judges you select, or voted on by other readers.

-          Decide how long the Contest will Run

If you’re running a photo or video contest, stretch contests out longer by having several rounds of voting. Even if you don’t have a huge budget but just want to spur some engagement, you can also do a flash contest. These contests – often one-day contests done every week or two – brings small bursts of engagement without emptying your marketing budget.

-          Choose a Platform

Decide whether you want the contest to run on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Choose one and stick to it, though you can still cross-promote your contest on other social networks. Want an all-encompassing campaign? Popular options for contests include Rafflecopter, Offerpop, Votigo, PunchTab, PromoSimple and Giveaway Tool. Many have free trial plans or versions that are free for up to a specified number of entries. Some have forms and templates.

-          Create a plan for Artwork

Depending on which platform you use, you may need to set aside some time and resources to create artwork for the contest. Some images need to be customized for different platforms.

5 Social Media Engagement Tactics

5 Social Media Engagement Tactics

Nowadays, we all are living into an era of social media. As we all know, social media is one of the most powerful tool which help one to increase its social media presence and gives exposure to your brand. It’s so simple to promote your brand over social media all it take is social media engagement. One can simply tell this to its readers by following simple steps. This blog describes 5 social media engagement tactics for improving and increasing your engagement with your followers.

-          Post Frequently and Consistently

The key to successful social media marketing is to post often. The more you post, the more engagement you will likely have. Most companies around the globe have a social media presence of some type. It is easy to go unnoticed among the crowd if a company doesn’t stay active by posting new and meaningful content both frequently and consistently. If you expect people to engage with you, then you need to maintain your presence by posting frequently. Since posting on social media multiple times a day is a little difficult, why not make it easier for yourself? You can use a tool to help you to post on multiple social media platforms in advance.

-          Create and Join Groups and Forums

The roles of forums and groups in social media have increased dramatically in recent times. Numbers of forums, communities, and groups on social media are increasing at a high rate and are expected to continue to do so. There are over 2 million groups on LinkedIn alone and that number only increases when we include the groups on Facebook and other social networking sites. The key for marketers to succeed in these forums and groups is to join a conversation rather than starting it. Instead of promoting products or creating a large group, which gets difficult to control, it’s important to create a relatively small but active group.

-          Q&A Sessions

The key to making any social media marketing campaign successful is to engage the audience. The more engagement, the more buzz is created which helps a company to keep its name in the forefront of the mind of the customer. Question and answer sessions allow a company to have a conversation with their audience and to identify their audience’s views about its products and services. There are many Q&A websites that a company can use. A company should have its presence on all of these popular websites in order to answer customer’s queries and ask customers questions. For example, Amazon has answered a total of 238 questions on Answers.com. There are many people who have a lot of questions which need answers and having access to Q&A websites can provide the best solution for addressing an issue.

-          Use Social Media Tools

Technology helps to do everything in a better way and social media marketing is no exception. The use of different social media tools not only improves a company’s social media performance but can also help a company analyze their performance. There are various tools which can help a company to automate its social media presence and make its usage more effective. Using these tools ensures that social media strategies and tactics.

-          Conduct Polls and Surveys

Polls and surveys have been important ways to generate information about audiences for years. They allow a company to not only generate meaningful information but also to engage the audience. As a marketer, if you want to attract more audience with less effort, try using a survey.  Pizza Hut India recently rolled out the following simple poll asking the audience to name a pizza. This not only engaged the audience, but also provided them with an opportunity. 

5 Ways to Maintain Your SEO Rankings after Reaching the Top

5 Ways to Maintain Your SEO Rankings after Reaching the Top

If you are going through this blog, you’re probably on the way to your success. Your website has achieved the desired number one spot in the search results for its targeted keyword. Now, when people type in what you want them to type in, the first thing they see is your website. Yes, it must feel really good, but does it mean that your job ends here? Certainly not! Even if you have reached the top, you must maintain your SEO rankings and this still requires a lot of work.

Your rankings will always require attention and this is exactly why we have decided to provide you with 5 useful tips about maintaining them at the top.

-          Google Analytics

Use Google analytics intelligence events to track the visitors on your website. If you have a website and are ranked number one, you surely know about Google Analytics. However, you may have heard of this tool but only the most experienced marketers know everything it offers. Google Analytics has a feature called Intelligence Events. This feature will allow you to monitor the changes that occur in your analytics and will virtually alert you if your traffic has changed. Additionally, Intelligence Events has the ability to let you specify your own alerts. Now you get the chance to configure a program to notify you if your revenue changes.

-          Internal Linking 

When you lead your website to the top, you must have spent a lot of time on internal linking. Now you probably have a post or two that are ranked extremely high for some particular keyword and this is why you have to link to your content yourself. When doing this, make sure that you don’t overdo it. Google tends to see overabundance of links as an unnatural thing and may penalize you for it. The best strategy to use is the one that seems most natural. This is why you should use every chance to link back to the post in the number one position when producing new content but remember to mix the anchor text in order to not use the same word or the same phrase when linking back.

-          Maintain Speed

Always maintain the speed of rankings it inversely depends on site speed (Check your site speed here) and you already know it. A part of the reasons why you are so high in the SEO list is undeniably the speed of your site. But, as you get on a higher level, your site is growing too and more and more plug-in, content and widgets are added to it. Do not lose the top spot by overwhelming your website and slowing it down. Make sure that the technology you are using is caching in order to prevent reloads and help speed up site load times. Also, your images have to be optimized for websites. Use Photoshop to save images that are optimized. If you want to get information about the speed of your site, use Google Analytics and the Google page speed tool. This can also provide you with some advice on how to speed up your site.

-          Optimize  Title and Description

When on the top, make sure that no one brings you down. Make sure that your link is more clickable than those of your competition and do this by analyzing your click-through-rate. There is a tool to help you do this and its name is Google Webmasters. If you notice that the CTR for a certain keyword is dropping, there is a chance that your rank will drop too. This is why you optimize your title and the meta description.

-          Focus on Generated Content

Focus on user-generated content User-generated content is the content that appears in the forms of reviews and feedback. Try to encourage this because it builds loyalty to your site and people tend to re-visit a site they started a discussion on.

5 Social Media Campaign Ideas for 2017

5 Social Media Campaign Ideas for 2017

These days’ social media marketers can influence sentiments of anyone very easily as its having a good reach all across the globe. When we talk about the social media campaigns, one should always make sure that developing a trust and validity thing with the client is the most important work which needs to be follow. Also,

being a social media marketer or an agency you must inject creativity, innovation, and uniqueness while planning a social media campaign.

Let’s start with exploring few of the most impeccable ideas for crafting unmatched social media campaigns. Come up with a brilliant campaign to draw more users and convert them into customers for your business.

1.       Promote a Social Cause 

In order to produce some incredible user engagement with your social media campaign, you must focus on designing the one idea that promotes a social cause. This kind of campaign lets the target audience engaged with your brand by running one of its kind contest and you are also capable of fulfilling a noble cause like charity or funding for a non-profit organization. You can browse the web and you’ll get “N” number of ideas by NGO’s who have used this strategy and boosted their marketing presence.

2.        Start Seasonal Fan Contest

Launching a seasonal fan contest campaign can do wonders for your marketing plan. It not only gives ready-made content, in fact, it brings tremendous user engagement and brand exposure. When you encourage your social media followers (whether on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram) to participate in the campaign using your brand based hashtag, it automatically leverages on boosted engagement. It builds credibility and loyalty of audience with your brand.

3.       Giveaway Announcements

If you want to invoke a new enthusiasm in your followers, start a comment giveaway contest. It will charge them up and will boost engagement on your page. This opportunity compels fans to get engaged with your brand. Moreover, in order to find out the right answers, they will also visit the website. So, there will be an increased traffic to the site as well.

4.       Campaigns With Blend Of Emotions

You can do this by creating lovely videos having an emotional touch or photos, pins, tweets etc. Like one of the most renowned brand Burberry had done a few years back with their social media campaign ‘From London with Love’. The campaign was crafted telling a story of a young couple falling in love. And the brand did a wonderful job by designing an amazing and emotional video. The campaign got viral and the video received millions of views on YouTube.

5.       Video Based Campaign 

The video is the top most shareable content form on Social Media. And when it comes to social media campaigns, the best ones include video-based campaigns in some way. Include the fun filled or informative videos that audience may find interesting to be shared. Many brands use this strategy in promoting their brand and to take it reach on the next level.

5 Social Media Marketing Tips to be Ignored

By now, most organizations have recognized the potential of social media to grow their business and generate new interactions. Maybe they’ve even set up accounts, started posting, and are waiting for the leads to roll in.

But what happens when they don’t? How do you know if you’re “doing” social media right, or have meandered off the protocol path into ineffective territory? Relax. There’s no formula for social media success, or an ultimate guide to running a great campaign. However, there are an abundance of “social media experts” out there who offer advice that may actually do more damage than good to your strategy. While they may be well-intentioned, here are five social media marketing tips to ignore. 

 

1. Create an account on every social media network, and focus on XYZ

Unless you enjoy self-inflicted pain, do not attempt to maintain a presence on every social media network known to man. Spreading yourself too thin will only result in annoyed fans and wasted time. Instead, research your audience and determine where they’re most likely to hang out. Is it on Facebook? Twitter? LinkedIn? YouTube? Once you’ve narrowed this down, feel free to experiment. If you’re not seeing interaction from users, the network may not be your niche. Target a few sites that are the best fit for your business.

2. You don’t need SEO if you’re using social media

Wrong! Over the last year, we’ve heard a great deal about the substantial effects of social media on your search engine optimization efforts. While this is true and social media posts do generate more web traffic and leads, it isn’t a replacement for a solid SEO strategy. In fact, it’s just an example of two marketing techniques working better when combined. Social media posts now show in search results, social media engagement influences search rankings, and SEO can drive more people to your social profiles. However, both must operate together to achieve the results you need to grow business.

3. Don’t get personal

What? Getting personal is the fun part. Social media gives you a chance to share your personality and humanize your brand. Users want to connect with your business when they can interact and engage, not when they see a logo or automated message. Yes, including business content is ok, and you always want to maintain a professional image. However, it’s a good idea to mix sales related content with fun, quirky, genuine content that is vibrant and original. Maybe it’s a funny office video, a shout out for an employee’s birthday, or an Instagram photo of the view from your desk. Getting personal will get you further with followers.

4. Ignore negative comments

If someone said something negative or critical of your brand, it’s out there for the world to see. That includes the user’s network and anyone searching for information about your company. By not responding to negative comments, a small issue can quickly spiral out of control for lack of attention. Admit mistakes when necessary, and share how you’re going to address any issues. A simple, genuine response can even turn an upset customer into a promoter of your business.

5. Social media is 100% free

There’s typically no cost associated with setting up an account on a social media network. However, there’s no point in setting up a profile if you’re not going to actively monitor and engage with it. All of that takes people’s time, which we know isn’t free. To be effective in social media, you need to invest in human resources, often found at a marketing agency like Midwest Marketing. The brands that are most effective on social media are also paying for marketing analytics software so they can measure ROI and improve their strategies. To be effective, you need to invest in some resources.