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It seems that TikTok came out of nowhere and quickly established itself as a bonafide social network. To do that in a surprisingly amount of time in what happens to be a very competitive market is certainly deserving of praise.

TikTok has a major advantage that incumbents like Facebook don’t: a primarily younger demographic. In the US, Gen-Z is the dominant audience on TikTok, whereas Facebook is finding it difficult to retain young users on its platform.

For most marketers, though, TikTok still remains a mystery. While TikTok has built out its ad suite to compete with the incumbents, there isn’t as much widespread acceptability when you compare it to Facebook Ads or Google Ads. That’s not to say that the value isn’t there. On the contrary, TikTok can be a great source of highly targeted traffic, provided that it’s done right.

The platform continues to improve its offerings to provide features that can be utilized to increase views and engagement. Playlists on TikTok are one such feature. They’ve been around since last year and are a great way to instantly boost views on videos, thereby leading to an increase in engagement.

How playlists work and who can make them on TikTok

Tiktok announced the launch of its playlists feature in 2021. As the name suggests, it enables users to categorize their videos in an easily playable format, so that viewers can seamlessly see some of their best work without having to dig through their profile. TikTok puts playlists on the user’s profile above their pinned and recently posted videos.

Sounds like a feature that should be available to every TikTok user, right? Sadly, that isn’t the case at this point in time. The TikTok playlists feature is only available for select content creators at this point in time. How do you know if you can create a playlist on TikTok? You’ll see an option to create one in the Video tab of your profile.

It’s not known for sure what requirements there are for a user to meet before this feature is enabled for them. Perhaps TikTok is doing a phased roll out of this feature, so eventually it should be possible for all TikTok users to create playlists.

The benefits of creating playlists on TikTok

If you’re among the lucky users who have been given access to this feature, it’s time that you considered the benefits of creating TikTok playlists. 

Prime placement for your best content

TikTok’s For You page is built with the idea helping users discover new creators. The app actively sends people your way who may never have seen your content before. You’d definitely want them to see your best work first so that they stick around and become an engaged follower.

When someone comes across your video and opens your profile, the playlists will be front and center. It presents you the perfect opportunity to make the best first impression with your content. A playlist with some of your best work will ensure that these new visitors appreciate your work and become part of your audience.

Significant increase in watch time

Watch time is one of the most important metrics for video content creators. It tells them precisely how long their content is able to keep the viewer’s attention. Higher watch times mean that the viewers are appreciating the content and are happy to stick around for more.

Playlists on TikTok provide users with the ability to increase their watch time. By offering curated selections of their content, they can keep viewers engaged and entertained for longer, thereby increasing watch time and also establishing a stronger connection with the audience which would translate into more engagement with all of their content.

Help viewers find what they’re looking for

If you create episodic content on TikTok, viewers would want to have all of the related videos available for seamless viewing. For example, if you create videos about cooking and knitting, someone who is only interested in your recipes may not want to watch any content about knitting.

By creating separate playlists for the topics that you create content on, you can help viewers find what they’re looking for with relative ease. This creates a good first impression and the fact that you made the process easier for them will encourage them to continue engaging with your content in the long run.

Best practices for TikTok playlists

The playlists that you create on TikTok should have a structure that helps viewers understand what they’re watching and what they can expect from the videos coming up ahead. This is of particular importance for brand accounts as not all viewers will likely be interested in all of your products or services.

It’s important to remember that great playlists tell a story. They aren’t just a random collection of videos thrown together. They’re meant to weave a complex fabric made up of your best content that captures the viewer’s attention and keeps them coming back for more.

A great way to start your playlists is by adding an intro video. It serves as an introduction to the content that the viewer is about to experience. The intro should be catchy and engaging so that they’re naturally intrigued to follow along and check out the rest of your content.

Social media users have a notoriously low attention span. If your videos are excessively long or appear to be in the rambling territory, chances are your viewers won’t view more than a couple of videos and probably won’t return. It’s vital to keep content length in check so that the message you want to convey is sent across in a concise manner that also retains the viewer’s attention.

Lastly, audience engagement is always the most important part of any social media activity. People who watch your playlists will leave comments on the videos, some with suggestions and some likely with criticism. Take time to engage with all of them as viewers appreciate when creators make an effort to connect with their audiences.

Playlists are crucial to success on TikTok in the long term

It’s evident that playlists on TikTok have a big role in ensuring success on the platform and also increasing views. Once people enjoy the content that your playlists provide them, they are more likely to go through your profile and follow you.

Think of playlists as another funnel to bring traffic to your main profile. If they find content that they’re interested in, they’ll want to follow you so that they can keep seeing your content. This will lead to an increase in video views across the board, providing you with continued success on one of the largest social media networks in the world right now.

You know that having a blog on your small business website is a smart idea. After all, it helps with SEO and positions you as an industry expert. However, coming up with blog topics can be incredibly challenging. While you will likely be able to generate a dozen or more topics off the top of your head, you’ll eventually hit a roadblock.

Luckily, there are plenty of great resources available. These give you enough ideas for your blog posts for the foreseeable future.

Do an Online Search for Topics

A simple starting point is to search online. Just enter the term “[Industry] blog topics.” You will likely find numerous lists with dozens of ideas. These topics will range from industry-specific blog posts, such as news stories in your industry. You will also find general topics, such as telling your brand story.

Share Industry News

News stories in your industry will also make for an excellent source for blog topics. The key here is to focus on stories that are newsworthy to your audience. For instance, if you are a clothing store, you could find news stories about celebrity outfits or fashion trends. Or if you are a pharmacy, you could share stories about new medicines and breakthroughs in the field.

Use Content Tools

Don’t overlook the usefulness of content tools to help you come up with topics. There are various tools that will generate topics for you based on keywords. You can also use content tools to determine what keywords you should focus on. From there, you can create blog posts that revolve around those keywords.

Ask Your Customers

Part of your goal with your blog is to appeal to your customers and provide the information they need. You want them to see you as their go-to source for answers. Given that, it makes perfect sense that you ask them what they would like you to write about.

You can do so by sending out a quick survey. You can even ask a few questions about potential topics or categories of topics along with another survey that you send out. For the best results, keep the survey short, sticking to about five to ten questions. To make it even simpler, stick to multiple choice or checkboxes when crafting your survey. Just add a space for optional comments.

Look for Common Online Searches

In addition to asking your customers what they want to know more about, you can try to figure out what people are looking for online. Type in a keyword or phrase for your industry or business and look at Google’s “People Also Ask” section. You can also check the “related searches” section. Both of these are excellent sources for topics.

Look at Online Forums

Yet another option to determine the questions your audience wants answered is to look at forums. While forums are less popular than they have been in the past, there are still plenty of online communities and forums to get inspiration from. Some options include Reddit and Quora.

Check Comments on Blogs, Posts, Photos, and More

Comments are also a good source of topics your audience is interested in. These can include comments on nearly any topic under the sun. If there’s a comment on a recent blog post asking about a related topic, use it as an idea. Browse through your posts and photos on social media. Topics people commonly mention in the comments section give you a picture of the kind of content that would engage your target audience.

Ask Your Team

Your team can provide great ideas for blog ideas. Maybe they have a special interest within your industry that they could write about. Or perhaps the frequently asked questions from clients would make good topics for blog posts.

Get Ideas from Other Blogs

A simple and effective way to find good blog topics that attract attention is to look at blogs of competitors in your industry. Ideally, find a few companies in your industry that have really good blogs and keep them bookmarked for easy reference. Whenever you need inspiration, you can easily visit their blogs to get ideas for your own blog topics.

Just remember that you need to churn out original work. If you see a topic you like, read what other blogs have written about the same topic. Combine all the information from multiple resources and add your own personal touch based on your industry knowledge.

Get Ideas From Your Business

A long list of blog topics can come from within your business. Depending on how you use these ideas, you get an endless list of potential topics as your company grows. Some topics can easily lead to dozens of posts. For example, you could have a separate post interviewing each member of your staff. Some other ideas can include:

• Different aspects of your company story
• Interviews with staff members
• Interviews/testimonials of clients
• Introductions to products and services
• Announcements of new products
• Upcoming expansions
• Any other company news

Convert Other Types of Content Into Blogs

Your small business likely creates multiple types of content as part of your marketing efforts. In addition to blogs, you likely have video marketing and social media posts. Get in the habit of reusing content. You can take a popular video and turn it into a blog post or turn a blog post with a lot of comments into a video. If one of your social media posts gets a lot of engagement, see if you can turn it into a full-length blog post.

Incorporate Local Events

Small businesses tend to be closely connected with their communities. So, it makes sense to include the occasional blog post about your community. Use your blog to write about upcoming community events that are somehow related to your industry. You may opt to interview community members that are involved in the events. A good example of this is when a business like a gym interviews local college athletes for a blog post.

Write Down All Your Ideas

Some great ideas for blog topics can come up in the most random moments. Get in the habit of jotting down your ideas when they come to mind. Even if you already have a lineup of next month’s set of headlines, keeping a record of all your ideas ensures you never run out of interesting and relevant blog topics.

Conclusion

With these tips, you will find yourself with a never-ending supply of blog topics. All you have to do is write engaging and compelling content, making sure you post your blogs strategically to maximize their impact.

Sources:

https://targetmarket.com/2017/03/how-to-find-the-best-blog-topics-for-your-industry/

https://ghost.org/resources/great-blog-post-ideas/

Much like the rest of them, LinkedIn is a social media network, but its core purpose is fundamentally different from that of something like Facebook or TikTok. LinkedIn started out as a way for professionals to connect with each other. Since its acquisition by Microsoft, it has grown into a bona fide behemoth and now presents marketers with an incredible B2B marketing opportunity.

LinkedIn is so much more than a job search engine. While it’s a great way to look for open positions and to reach out to recruiters, it’s now also the place where thought leaders and industry veterans share their views and where companies set forward their vision. It’s important for B2B organizations to now have a presence on this professional social network. It will provide them with great networking and business opportunities.

LinkedIn is also great for content marketing but what might work on other social networks isn’t necessarily going to work here. Marketers need to take a slightly different approach in their ideas for LinkedIn content marketing.

Here are a few that will set you up for success nicely in 2022.

1.    Prioritize thought leadership content

Thought leadership content tends to perform very well on LinkedIn since the audience is highly receptive to opinions and views from the leaders of the industry. Businesses can capitalize on this trend to share content that can include research, whitepapers, case studies, and more to lead the conversation on topics that concern the industry.

It can be a bit challenging since it’s entirely possible that some may not agree with your opinions or conclusions. However, that’s just a part of the process and ultimately it does lead to higher engagement on posts, which is always good when it comes to posts on social media networks.

2.    Capitalize on Poll Posts

Poll Posts are now performing very well on LinkedIn and the social network itself is heavily promoting them. These posts do what the name suggests, enable you to create a poll that others can participate in.

The post is then shared widely and surfaces prominently in the LinkedIn Feed. Companies can use Poll Posts on LinkedIn to understand customer sentiment about their products and services. They can also utilize them to receive feedback and suggestions about how they can improve the products and services that they provide.

3.    Leverage employee engagement for posts

On all social networks, the engagement rate dictates the reach of a post. If there’s high engagement on a particular post, the algorithm views this as a signal to show the post to more people. That’s how it works on LinkedIn as well.

Organizations can rely on their employees to engage with their B2B content posts on LinkedIn as a way to increase the engagement. This will help improve the reach of the posts while also making it appear more credible and trustworthy to the readers.

4.    Use company page for lead generation

LinkedIn can be a great source to generate leads for your business. You can bring in more leads by utilizing your company page as a lead generation page. So instead of maintaining a page that simply provides some information about the business, develop the page as a pipeline for leads to filter through.

This would require structuring the page in a way that leads to people clicking through to your website. The best way to do this is to use header images that advertise your main offerings, writing a great pitch as a company description, and making sure that all of the recent updates on your page are optimized for a conversion action.

5.    Create groups for more effective networking

Groups on LinkedIn are a great way to create networking opportunities and to reach out to other businesses that may have a need for your products and services. One of the easiest and most effective ways to take advantage of this is to create your own group on LinkedIn. Owning or moderating a well regarded group also leads to widespread recognition in your industry.

The key is to ensure that all of the content and conversations that the organization posts in the group that it owns are informative in nature and not try to sell too hard. The content should be genuinely helpful and provide a solution to problems that other businesses face. Only then would leads start to pour in from the group.

6.    Promote your business using a Showcase page

If your business has multiple brands, you can use a Showcase page on LinkedIn to promote each individual brand. They are a great way to compartmentalize the traffic that lands on your LinkedIn page, since it ensures that only the most relevant information is shown to the visitors, despite there being multiple brands under your organization’s umbrella.

Every Showcase page has its own header image, updates posts that are shown above the fold, and plenty of opportunities to link back to your website. These characteristics go a long way in promoting conversion actions that visitors can take.

7.    Share engaging video content

Social media loves video content and LinkedIn is no different. Posts with videos see higher engagement rates on the professional social network. It’s a great medium to talk about the business, share its vision and goals while also providing viewers with essential information about how your products and services can help them.

The script for these videos can be structured in a way that helps increase conversions to your website, ensuring that the traffic that consumes this content has a much greater chance of clicking through.

Why you shouldn’t be ignoring LinkedIn for B2B marketing

LinkedIn often tends to get ignored since most businesses would much rather focus their energies on behemoths like Facebook and Instagram. However, you may not find the quality of leads that you can on LinkedIn. It hosts a highly qualified and engaged audience that’s looking for content from organizations in industries that they’re involved in.

This traffic is ripe for conversion and it only requires a bit of effort to provide them with the information that they seek to win conversions from those leads. The formula for success on LinkedIn may be different compared to other social networks, but it’s well worth the effort.

What comes to your mind when you think of SEO?

For most, the answer is a combination of content marketing and keywords.

To say that this is a narrow view of SEO, particularly in 2022, wouldn’t entirely be inaccurate.

While it’s true that conventional SEO is still as important today as it was many, many years ago, there’s another element that businesses should focus on, one that has significant potential to bring in a lot more customers.

Interestingly, it has little to do with the number of blogs you’re writing or the content you’re creating to target featured snippets on the results page.

It requires a hyperlocal focus, with the idea being that you should be paying particular attention to customers that are in the vicinity of your premises.

Local SEO: What is it?

The optimizations you make to your website in order to increase traffic and brand awareness for your business from local search is basically how you’d define local SEO in a nutshell. This is done to target customers in a specific neighborhood, city or even region.

The idea here is to get high up in the ratings for local search results that include the Map Pack/Local Pack from Google.

Why local SEO has become so important

There has been a significant change in the way Google ranks websites in response to queries. It’s not just about the keywords in the queries that users are typing. Google’s algorithm has become a lot better at figuring out the intent behind what the user is searching for.

User intent is a major ranking factor. Businesses can capitalize on that to ensure that their business appears in front of people who are searching for products and services in their area.

Consider this: 46% of all searches on Google include local intent. This means that a vast majority of people are now searching for information on Google that pertains to their locality.

The conversion metrics are even more impressive. 80% of all local searches end up in a conversion. Queries that include the keywords “near me” have surged more than 500% in the past few years, highlighting yet again that people are now searching for information related to their area more than ever before.

Best practices to improve your local SEO

Create your Google My Business profile

A Google My Business profile is one of the most important elements of a well-rounded local SEO strategy. The reason behind it is that Google is most confident about sharing information that it can verify, and the company individually verifies all businesses that create this profile.

Start by creating and verifying your Google My Business profile.

You can then use Google Posts within your account and also encourage customers to share reviews online. This also ensures that you can provide Google with accurate information about your business, including opening hours, contact details, description of services, and more.

Leverage the Google Map Pack

Often referred to as the Google 3-Pack, the Map Pack is shown at the very top of the search results page for queries that have a local intent. This pack highlights three businesses that Google feels are the most appropriate match for the query.

Given that these businesses are positioned even above the very first search results, they get a lot of visibility and a lot of clicks.

The goal for every business should be to win a place in the 3-Pack. This will require some optimization efforts on your part.

Help Google understand what your business is about so that it can display it prominently in response to local search queries. Use keywords that include words and phrases relevant to your business.

Build local citations

This is kind of like backlinking but for local businesses. Even though much has changed in the SEO realm, backlinking has remained a solid strategy. As long as you can find relevant high-quality backlinks to your website, chances are that Google will begin to view it favorably and rank the content higher.

It operates a similar method for local businesses.

Google looks at local citations as a ranking factor. A local citation is anywhere the name, address, and phone number information of your business appears online. This is usually via local listings on online business directories such as Bing Places, Yelp, and Facebook.

The more citations, the higher the chance that Google will rank you in the 3-Pack.

Create content for a local audience

If content marketing is part of your digital marketing efforts, ensure that you’re also creating content with a local focus. The idea with content marketing has always been to write in a broader sense to attract as many people as possible.

While you should still be doing that, content with a local focus will further improve your website’s rankings when someone in Google puts in a query with a local intent.

This will enable you to effectively become the local authority on the subject matter. You can bring in more visitors to the website through educational content that solves a problem that people in your area have.

Once they see helpful content, and considering that they’re actively looking for a service, the chances of them converting become significantly higher.

Make Local SEO a pillar of your online marketing strategy

Online marketing isn’t easy these days. There are plenty of different online platforms and each has its own benefits. If you’re chasing after audiences across these different platforms, it can soon become overwhelming.

Local SEO is unique in the sense that it requires little active upkeep but can deliver tangible, long-lasting results when done right.

There are already people who are searching for a solution – so make it easy for them to find it!

All it takes is just putting in some focused effort with local SEO to ensure that it’s your business that Google recommends.