Your Digital Marketing Expert

You may think that you need a high-quality camera to take photos for your business. The good news is that you don’t need to invest in a camera. As long as you have at least a mid-range smartphone, you can likely take very good pictures with it. If you have a high-end smartphone, there is no question about it. Your phone is more than capable of taking high-quality images that will catch your customers’ attention.

But saying you can use your smartphone to take photos for digital marketing is one thing. Doing so well can be intimidating. The following tips will help you overcome that intimidation and take great photos.

1. Clean the Lens

Before you do anything else, take a second to clean your smartphone’s lens. Given how much we use our smartphones, this is an essential step. You likely have fingerprints on your lens, and those can make images look fuzzy or soft. Or dirt may cause foggy streaks.

This is as simple as occasionally using a good lens cleaner. Then, use a soft cloth regularly to touch up the lens.

2. Set the Highest Resolution

Before you start taking the photos, go into the settings in your smartphone’s camera. Confirm that it is set to the highest resolution. This will give you the best-quality image and the most options for editing. The tip below about avoiding the zoom function serves a similar purpose.

3. Always Stabilize the Camera

Your hands may be steady, but it’s always best to stabilize your phone. This eliminates the risk of your hands shaking and causing small imperfections. The good news is that there are a lot of compact, affordable smartphone tripods. And if you don’t have another option, just prop it against a wall, water bottle, or another object.

4. Don’t Use Flash – Use Other Light Sources

Lighting is crucial for any photo, but you don’t want to rely on your phone’s flash. Ideally, you will never use the flash in your photos. Instead, you will add more lighting from another source. This is because the flash tends to deliver harsh lighting.

The best light source will always be natural light. But that isn’t always feasible. Indoor lights, another smartphone’s flashlight, or candles also make good options. Just make sure to position the light so you aren’t taking a picture right into it.

5. Stick to Simple Backgrounds

No matter the type of photo you are taking for digital marketing, try to stick to simple, soft, and neutral backgrounds. This is especially important for product photos. This may require changing your angle slightly to find a unique point of view, but it is worth it.

6. Try Different Angles

Speaking of angles, don’t always take photos of things that are directly in front of you. Experiment with taking photos from other angles. Depending on your goals and what you are photographing, you may want to bend down and shoot up or climb up higher and shoot down.

7. Use Portrait Mode Strategically

Depending on the background and the focus of your photo, consider using portrait mode. Given the name, it may seem like a no-brainer to use portrait mode when taking photos of people, such as employees for the About Us page or behind-the-scenes photos. But you can also use it for animals or even objects.

That is because portrait mode lets you focus on the subject within the foreground. It reduces the depth of field, making the object you focus on clear but everything else slightly blurry. This makes it a good option if you can’t use a simple background.

8. Use the Grids as Your Guides

Your smartphone will have the option to turn grids on or off. Turn them on whenever taking photos for your digital marketing. These grids will help with two things. First, they will help you make sure the photo is straight. Second, they will help you follow the rule of thirds, which brings us to the next tip.

9. Follow the Rule of Thirds

This photography rule says that the subject of your photo should not be centered in the frame. Instead, it should sit on the lines that divide the photo into thirds. This is where the grid lines come in handy. There will be two gridlines, each horizontally and vertically, dividing the image into thirds. Place the focus of your photograph on the line.

10. Avoid the Zoom

You may want to use the zoom feature on your smartphone camera but don’t. As you zoom in, the resolution of the photo decreases. This makes your photos look grainy and makes them harder to edit. So, if you need a close-up photo of something for your business, get close to the object in question.

11. Don’t Use Effects During Photography

Modern smartphone cameras have a lot of cool effects, such as black and white or various filters. While these look cool, they limit your options and can be applied later. It’s better to take a photo without any effects, as this lets you experiment with every single option available later on.

12. Adjust Your Exposure

Modern smartphones let you adjust many of the same settings that you would on a standalone camera, including exposure. Use this to your advantage if you understand how exposure affects images. On many phones, you don’t even need to do anything fancy. Just tapping the screen on the part of the image that you want to be sharp will automatically reset the focus with good exposure.

13. Edit in a Consistent Style

You want to edit your photos before using them for digital marketing. When you do so for the first time, decide what type of style you want. This is important as you should be consistent with your style across all your photos. This will help with your branding. For example, you may want to use the same filter on all your photos (but you don’t have to).

Conclusion

With the above tips, you will find yourself taking high-quality photos with your smartphone. Use them in all your digital marketing, from your website to social media to paid ads.

Google’s ranking algorithms have progressed significantly in the past few years. While it was possible to obtain high rankings for your content through strategic keyword placement and link building in the past, that’s no longer the case. They’re still crucial elements for any SEO strategy but Google now takes into account a lot more before deciding how to rank content on the results page.

In recent years, the internet search giant has made a considerable shift to give more weight to the intent of the search. The simple way to understand search intent is to put yourself in the users’ position. Consider all of the factors behind why they are making this search. Is it because they want to purchase a product or they just want to learn something about it? Are they trying to find a website or just a quick answer to a question?

Search intent also comes into play when trying to optimize your content for SERP features like featured snippets and local business listings. For example, if you own a plumbing business in Los Angeles, people searching for “plumbers in Los Angeles” might be shown your Google Business profile, if you have one. Google’s algorithm understands that the person who made this search wants to find a local plumber. They won’t be interested in general information about plumbers.

Once you truly understand how Google has been using the concept of search intent to improve its rankings and provide more accurate search results, it’s not that difficult to optimize your content so that it fulfills the intent with which your audience is using the search engine.

Understanding the different types of search intent

Google has divided search intent into four types. The brief explanation that follows should make it evident which type of search intent you should be optimizing your content for, depending on the nature of your business.

Informational Intent

If a person is seeking to find out information about any particular topic, Google’s algorithm will deem it to have informational intent. It could be something simple like “what is the capital of the United States” or complex like “what is the theory of relativity.”

Do bear in mind that not all queries that have informational intent will be posed as questions. For example, a person could search for “Einstein theory” or “Roger Federer age.” Google will then show content that is best optimized to answer these queries on the results page.

Navigational Intent

The consideration behind navigational intent is that the user must be looking for a specific website. They’re not searching for the unknown. They know precisely what website they want to visit, but just need a little help getting there.

A lot of people commonly just type out the name of a website they want to visit in Google as opposed to typing the entire URL themselves since it’s just easier. Queries with navigational intent might include things like “Mercedes Benz US website,” “Facebook login,” “Instagram Web,” etc.

Commercial Intent

A user is deemed to have commercial intent when they’re looking for information about products that they want to purchase. They need a little help deciding what they should buy. This may include reading reviews and comparisons of similar products from different manufacturers.

For example, a customer who wants to buy a phone may search for “iPhone 14 vs Galaxy S22.” Someone who’s in the market for a new car might search for “BMW X3 review,” etc.

Transactional Intent

A search with transactional intent represents customers who are further along in the sales funnel and are almost ready to make a purchase. They may have done the research and comparisons previously. Now, they want to go ahead and purchase the product.

The reason behind their transactional intent search may also be to find the best possible deal. A transactional intent search may include keywords such as “buy Apple Watch,” “macbook pro discount,” etc.

How to leverage search intent to improve rankings

A new approach to keyword research

Understanding your audience’s search intent is generally quite obvious from the keywords they use in Google. If you sell leather jackets, the keyword “buy leather jackets” is definitely one you should be optimizing for. Keep that in mind when doing keyword research for content optimization.

SEO research tools, you can take your pick from the many that are available, are worth investing into. They can provide detailed information about keywords and the volume of searches across different regions and even languages. Many of the top SEO tools also indicate the search intent alongside keyword suggestions, thus making it much easier for you to sort out the relevant keywords.

Create content based on search intent

It should have become evident by now that the search intent of your audience should make it clear how your content needs to be structured. If your audience primarily has informational intent, create detailed blog posts that sufficiently answer their queries.

A product page works if your visitors have transactional intent. The structure of the content and the layout of the page should make it easier for visitors to find what it is they’re looking for. This would signal to the algorithm that your content is relevant.

Capitalize on your competitors’ weaknesses

It’s possible that despite not being able to entirely fulfill the search intent, your competitors’ might be ranking higher than you due to low competition on any given keyword. If Google’s algorithms aren’t able to understand if that content truly meets the search intent, chances are that the ranking will see a lot of fluctuation.

It shows that Google isn’t confident in that content’s ability and thus this presents an opportunity for content that can check all of the boxes for that query. Utilize any of the widely used SEO research tools to find out such opportunities and create content that’s evidently better that what your competitor is ranking with, while taking particular care of satisfying the intent.

Search intent goes hand in hand with other SEO elements

Other SEO factors still remain important. Fulfilling search intent alone isn’t going to magically give top 5 rankings to all of your content. The various other ranking factors that Google weighs are still important, but search intent is an important part of that mix.

Ensure frequency of content, avoid repetition, and unnecessary keyword stuffing. By relying on SEO best practices with further optimization achieved through search intent, you give your content a much better chance of cutting through the clutter and reaching the top of the rankings.

Social media is crucial for brand marketing now more than ever before. It’s of particular importance during the holiday season when people are actively looking to purchase items for themselves and their loved ones. The holiday season is both an opportunity and a challenge for brands as the competition is fierce at this time of the year.

Ad rates tend to be at their highest during the holiday season. Brands have to spend more to reach their intended audiences since most, if not all, of their competitors are also in the same race on the same social networks. It’s simply not a question of who’s got the biggest social media marketing budget.

An effective social media marketing campaign is never just about the budget. There are several other factors that play a crucial role in ensuring that the campaign is able to hit all of its goals, and the brand is able to achieve its desired ROAS. There’s a lot that brands can do ahead of the holiday season to ensure that they’re in a great position to push when the time comes.

Don’t fly blind into the 2022 holiday sales season

While it might sound amazing to just go guns blazing with your social media strategy for this holiday season, it would be better to take some time and study data from previous years to understand what worked and what didn’t.

Dive into the previous year’s data to see which campaigns delivered the intended results or didn’t. See which platforms saw the highest engagement for your content and where was the highest ROI achieved. Think of this data as the basis of your game plan for the 2022 holiday sales push.

For instance, it will make a lot of things clear, such as the platform where your most engaged audience is, what content and creatives have resonated with the audiences before, what sort of content to avoid this year, how customers responded to any offers and promotions, etc.

Once you’ve answered these and the many other questions that will come up when you’re going through the previous data, it’s time to get started with the preparation for this year’s holiday season.

Optimize your social media ahead of the 2022 holiday season

Start creating hype about your holiday deals

Some of the biggest brands in the world follow this strategy. They get into the groove much earlier than the crunch time. It gives them the opportunity to warm up their audiences so that they can be targeted more effectively during those crucial weeks.

Amazon is the perfect example of this. The online e-commerce juggernaut has its own online shopping event called Prime Day. Weeks before the actual event takes place, Amazon runs teaser deals and promotions to get customers excited for the main event.

Take a similar approach and start creating hype about your holiday deals. Give people an idea of what they can expect from the promotions that will be offered during those weeks. Give them the opportunity to take advantage of early deals. If they start buying from you ahead of the holiday season, chances are they will return to see your holiday deals when the time comes.

Launch an engaging hashtag campaign

Now is the right time to start elevating your brand profile, even if a lot of people already know about it. Remember, people are bombarded with ads and promotions during the holiday season. They may not be able to recall your brand. It’s better to start an engaging hashtag campaign ahead of the holiday season just to remind the audience about the brand and also to introduce it to new people.

The possibilities are endless with a hashtag campaign. For example, you can create a unique hashtag that invites people to share their best holiday memories with your product. This is a great way to get the ball rolling on user generated content.

Customers will share their experiences and memories with the hashtag, leading to increased exposure for the brand and renewed interest among customers when the holidays come around.

Get your social media profiles into holiday mode

The brand assets that you use on your social media profiles are what create the first impression for your audience. Running promotions for the holiday season when all of the content on your website hasn’t been updated since the summer will not inspire confidence among those who come across your brand for the very first time.

Now is the right time to start updating those brand assets gradually. This will also ease the audience into the festive mode and they’ll essentially be informed that they can expect holiday deals and promotions from the brand in just a few short weeks.

Start by changing elements such as the profile and cover photos, perhaps add a festive touch to the bio as well. It sets the stage nicely for what’s to come.

Ask your customers how you can do better

Taking action on customer feedback is a great way to set yourself up for success. Is there anything that your customers felt let down by during the previous holiday sales season? Would they have wanted you to do something differently?

Now is the right time to reach out and engage with those customers through your social media profiles. Ask them for suggestions and feedback that you can incorporate into your 2022 holiday sales plan to ensure that customers get the best possible experience.

This will help build trust and improve the overall relationship with your customers ahead of the lucrative shopping season. If they see the brand they like making a genuine effort to improve based on their feedback, it’s quite likely that they will continue to support it. 

Adding new resources if required

More sales during the holiday season will result in an increase for customer support. The last thing you’d want to do is to leave people with a bad customer support experience when they’ve ordered something for a loved one and there has been a problem.

Given the mad rush that the holiday season tends to bring, adding new resources to the team is just as important as optimizing the entirety of your social media presence. Whether you need new customer service agents or community managers for your social media profiles, this is a necessary step.

Ensure that the people are in place and have been trained in accordance with your brand guidelines to ensure that they can provide excellent customer support during what is often one of the most stressful shopping periods for customers all year.

Take this momentum into the new year

Once you’ve got a good momentum going during the holiday sales season, there’s no point why it shouldn’t be carried into the new year. That provides its own set of opportunities to increase conversions through targeted campaigns and messaging.

The holiday sales push can be a tough nut to crack for brands, particularly smaller brands with limited budgets, but the incredible opportunity that it provides makes it well worth the effort. All it requires is a bit of creativity and consistency. Combine that with a product that customers are happy to spend their money on and you’ve got this in the bag.

Hosting a live Q&A on social media is an excellent way to connect with your client base and attract new clients. But to make the most of it, there are a few important things to bear in mind.

Benefits of Live Q&As

Before getting into tips to run a live Q&A successfully on social media, it’s important to understand why they matter. A live Q&A can deliver the following benefits for your small business:

• Boost engagement
• Expand your reach
• Improve your online presence

Choose the Platform Carefully

The first thing to do is decide what platform to host your live Q&A on. Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch are all popular options, but they are far from the only choices. Remember to use a channel that will let your audience interact with you via chats.

The key to making the right decision is to choose the social media channel that your customers are on. If you want to maximize engagement during the Q&A, opt for the platform where you have the most followers and where your audience is most active. Still, you could also try using a Q&A livestream to grow your audience on a lesser-used channel. In that case, you will need to make sure to advertise heavily on the channels your audience spends more time on.

Promote the Q&A

Speaking of promotion, make sure you announce and market your Q&A. Otherwise, potential and current clients may not even know you are hosting the online event. They may even find out about it when it’s too late and not be able to attend. Aside from informing your current customers, promoting the livestream also helps generate additional interest, growing your number of attendees.

Promote at Least a Few Weeks Early

Ideally, you want to announce your small business’s Q&A sessions at least a few weeks ahead of time. At the very least, aim for a week before the event. For the best results, you want to treat the Q&A like you would an actual onsite event, which merits announcing it earlier.

Highlight the Benefits

As you promote your Q&A, do so in a way that highlights how it benefits attendees. By providing value, you will move attendees along the customer journey. You will also find yourself better able to attract attendees.

Encourage Setting Up Notifications

As part of advertising your live Q&A, consider encouraging your audience to set up notifications. At the very least, you can instruct them to set up notifications for your livestream. But ideally, activating notifications for all of your activity is the best way for them to stay engaged in your brand.

Prepare for the Q&A

While there is a time and place for impromptu business live streams, being prepared for a Q&A communicates that you value your customers’ time. Of course, you want to be prepared without appearing too stiff and rehearsed. You need to be prepared enough to answer questions and control the conversation yet natural enough to sound authentic and keep the conversation flowing.

Make an Outline

Start by drafting an outline or a list of the primary points you want to cover. This ensures that all vital information is included in the Q&A.

Ask for Questions and Prepare Answers

When advertising your upcoming Q&A, encourage people to submit questions to you. This saves you the stress of having to choose a question and answer it on the fly. It also lets you choose questions to answer based on your goals. Preselecting questions to answer will also help you address the most common queries of your customer base.

Once you have your list of questions, you can adequately prepare answers. It’s best to prepare your answers in bullet points and not sentences. Doing so will make your responses sound natural and not rehearsed, and you will ensure that all important points are covered since they are listed down.

Come Up with Additional Questions

If your audience doesn’t submit a substantial number of questions before the Q&A, come up with a few yourself. If you need inspiration, think about the most common questions thrown at your customer support team. Once you identify potential questions, you can prepare your responses in advance.

By preparing for this, you ensure that you have enough content to fill your planned livestream. With an adequate amount of questions and answers, you decrease the chances of lulls or dead air in your live online event.

Choose a Moderator

While you don’t need a moderator for a successful livestream, it can be incredibly helpful for a Q&A. This is especially important if you plan on answering questions that your audience submits during the livestream. In that case, the moderator will be responsible for deciding which questions get answered.

Even if you have your audience submit questions ahead of time, the moderator can help ensure that multiple people don’t start talking at once. Moderators help you run your event smoothly.

Interact With Your Audience

While you want to prepare some answers to questions before the Q&A session, you also want to give the audience opportunities to interact with you. Without the interaction, you might as well show a pre-recorded video instead of doing a livestream.

A good method to keep your audience engaged is to interact with users as they join. You can mention specific names as you welcome them. When you answer questions asked by users, make your responses personalized and sincere.

Do a Tech Run

One of the worst things that can happen is for you to experience technical difficulties while you are live. This will reflect poorly on your brand. By testing your equipment and technical setup ahead of time, you avoid this kind of problem. Most social media platforms let you set livestreams to private, enabling you to test your live event without any viewers. During this tech run, confirm that all your equipment works properly, especially your camera and microphone. Doing so also lets you confirm that the lighting is good and that your internet connection is stable.

Record It

Don’t forget to record your livestream. This is a good practice for any livestream your small business does, as it lets you save the video onto your YouTube or social media page. The video can then turn into a reference for people who have common questions. You can even edit the video to shorter versions posted on social media, each addressing one question at a time.

Conclusion

A livestream Q&A will let you engage with your customers and create a sense of community. To maximize your chances of success, choose the channel that your audience prefers and promote the Q&A across all other channels. Prepare some questions and topics to cover ahead of time, but encourage interaction from the audience as well. Finally, be sure to record your livestream for valuable content you can reuse.

Sources:

https://www.business.com/articles/facebook-live-question-and-answer/

Live Q&A: what is and how to run a successful Q&A session

https://wistia.com/learn/marketing/live-question-and-answer-tips

https://www.socialtables.com/blog/attendee-engagement/qa-session/