Digital Marketing

Every marketer has heard the adage “Content is King.” The idea behind is simple enough. If your content speaks for itself and helps people find the answers to what they’re looking for, then you’re set.

However, with the significant evolution that online marketing has gone through over the past decade or so, many now believe that perhaps content marketing isn’t as relevant in 2022 as it once was.

At first glance, this may appear to be true. Video is now the preferred medium of choice for both creators and audiences. Short-form video has seen explosive growth backed by the likes of TikTok and Instagram Reels.

With people accustomed to bite-sized videos providing them the information that they need, is the opportunity for doing content marketing with more substance gone for good?

That assumption couldn’t be further from the truth.

If people simply stopped searching for information online then Google, which is the world’s leading online search engine, would see a significant traffic decline.

That hasn’t materialized. In fact, searches continue to see rapid growth on the search engine, highlighting the fact that content marketing is far from over.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is a broad term that includes all forms of content, not just blog content. People who post videos on YouTube and other platforms are also content marketers, it’s just that they have a different platform that they prefer to use. However, these are still fairly recent additions to this strategy.

Blogs are still considered to be the primary form of content marketing. That’s basically how this aspect of online marketing got its start. Marketers and brands would create relevant blogs, articles, lists, and more to bring in as many people as they could who were searching for relevant terms on Google.

Why is blog content marketing so powerful?

Google remains one of the biggest traffic sources on the planet. If you’re able to get your blog ranked for high-traffic keywords, the search engine will send highly qualified traffic your way. That traffic will turn into leads and a percentage of those visitors would convert into customers.

This is one of the reasons why marketers focus so much on SEO or search engine optimization. It’s more of an art than a science, taking a piece of content and optimizing it so that it outranks the competition on Google. That’s also what makes it so powerful.

Even though the Google search results page has transformed into much more than just 10 blue links on every page, video content still doesn’t get as much visibility on the results page. You can’t get a TikTok video ranked in Google. The company does show limited results from YouTube, only because its parent company Alphabet also owns YouTube. Similarly, videos from Facebook can’t be ranked in Google.

Consider this for a moment. One of the world’s top sources for highly qualified traffic is effectively closed off to video content. This allows blog content to shine through as Google’s aim is to send people to websites that provide the information most relevant to their query.

The barrier of entry is much lower

Blog content writing doesn’t really require much investment right off the bat. This is why it’s such a great option for small businesses that have a very limited marketing budget. They will most likely already have a website. What they need to do is create a blog to go along with that website and they can then start posting content based on the products and services that they provide.

It’s not the same with other forms of content marketing, particularly video. People are used to seeing high-quality and well-produced videos on the internet now. The higher the quality, the more it’s likely to gain traction on platforms like YouTube.

Small businesses often don’t have the budget to hire professional presenters, acquire high-end camera equipment, and invest in powerful computers for processing and editing. It makes the cost prohibitive from the get-go even before the business can figure out whether their content direction is even going to yield any favorable results.

The simplicity remains unmatched

Another reason why blog content marketing remains a preferred option for small businesses is because it’s relatively simple compared to the other formats. Even a small business that has just one employee can execute this strategy without requiring much in equipment. In fact, most small business owners who are just starting out rely on this marketing strategy for precisely this reason.

What it simply requires is a great understanding of how the product or service that the business is providing helps make customers’ lives easier. Then it’s just a matter of explaining that through a series of posts and helpful articles that make potential customers understand the benefits of buying from that business.

This is something that can be done entirely by a single person. It’s even better for those who may not be comfortable putting themselves out there by creating video content. With blog content marketing, they’re able to remain in their comfort zones while also ensuring that their business has a good chance of expanding its visibility online.

Content marketing will thrive in 2022 and beyond

All those who made predictions of doom for blog content marketing have already been proven wrong. The numbers don’t lie. People still search for information online more than ever before. They’re actively looking for content that can help solve a problem that they’re facing or answer a question that they have.

Some of the world’s leading brands continue to invest heavily in their content marketing efforts for precisely this reason. There’s no reason why small businesses should give up on it just because it seems that video is the sort of content that tends to do very well online.

Content marketing is here to stay. It will thrive in 2022 and beyond, and the only thing that’s left for small business owners is to take the plunge so that they can start extracting its full potential.

Simply having a social media presence in today’s business world isn’t good enough.

The digital marketing landscape has evolved considerably over the past few years, and it’s more competitive than ever before. Brands are going head to head against each other to ensure that their messaging doesn’t just resonate with people online but also continues to retain their attention for as long as possible.

Accurate data is essential to figuring out how your social media efforts are performing so far and what changes need to be made in order to either reverse any decline in the performance or to achieve further growth.

Success on social media is no longer something that marketers can achieve by flying in the dark. What they require is precise data that enables them to make data-driven decisions.

The great thing about social media platforms is that they provide you with a wealth of data to track, measure, and analyze. However, it’s important to know which of those metrics matter the most and how to utilize that knowledge to make improvements to the campaign in order to achieve the desired results.

Important social media metrics in 2022

1. Follower growth

This is perhaps the simplest but one of the most important social media metrics. You need to keep a close eye on follower growth to see if your efforts are paying off and more people are essentially signing up to be regularly updated with whatever content you share.

This holds true for both organic growth and social media marketing campaigns that are focused entirely on increasing the follower count. If the numbers aren’t going up as quickly as you might have hoped, it would suggest that perhaps the campaign needs to be tweaked so that it can achieve a considerable ROI. Having a lot of followers on social media is also a sign to others who just come across your brand that it’s already viewed favorably by so many other people.

2. Impressions

Simply put, impressions are the number of times that users see your content. It’s pertinent to note that one user can result in multiple impressions. This metric isn’t a measure of how many users have seen your content. Rather, it measures the number of times your content has been seen by all users.

This is an important metric because it highlights your content’s ability to get views. If you have a good enough follower count but the impressions are low, chances are that the content isn’t gaining enough traction. Some changes may be required to the content strategy to increase the number of impressions.

3. Reach

Reach is another simple yet powerful metric. It lets you know the number of users who have seen your content. Even if a user sees your content multiple times, they’ll still be counted as one user. For example, if 1000 followers of a brand see their content many times, the brand’s reach remains 1000.

This metric makes it easier to figure out if your content is making its way to new users. Brands with low reach will need to improve their content strategies to ensure that whatever their posting has a better chance of surfacing for new users.

4. Engagement Rate

On any social media platform, engagement is the true representation of how frequently your followers choose to interact with your client. The engagement rate includes likes, comments, shares, and other interactions on content. Social media platforms provide more visibility to content that has a higher engagement rate.

A brand that has a significant number of followers but a low engagement rate runs the risk of appearing as if it has fake followers. If your content isn’t generating enough engagement, it may need to be fixed so that people who see it are inclined to either like it or leave a comment. This will give the content a greater chance of surfacing in front of users who may never have interacted with your brand in the past.

5. Bounce Rate

It’s not just about how many people you’re able to bring on your page. That’s just one piece of the puzzle. You also need to consider data on how users exit from the page. This data is crucial in figuring out whether structural changes need to be made to ensure that visitors stay on the page for as long as possible.

A higher bounce rate is a clear indication to marketers that the content isn’t resonating with the visitors and they’re quickly moving on to the next page. They simply don’t want to engage with the content after they visit the first page. With the insight gleaned from this data, changes can then be made as part of the efforts to bring down the bounce rate.

6. Cost Per Click

Running paid campaigns on social media is simple enough but do keep in mind that the costs can quickly spiral out of control if you’re not keeping a close eye on the data. For marketers that are running these campaigns, the cost per click is perhaps one of the most important metrics.

It tells them precisely how much money they’re spending for every click on one of their ads. A high cost per click clearly shows that their targeting isn’t right and the traffic isn’t converting. Bringing down the cost per click is essential to the long term success of campaigns. A campaign with a consistently high cost per click would likely struggle to even break even, let alone generate a decent return on investment.

The best online marketers are always data-driven

It has been proven time and time again that data-driven decisions are highly effective when it comes to social media. There’s no shortcut or easy way to extract the results that you’re after. It needs to be a conscious effort to comb through some of these important data points to figure out whether the strengths and weaknesses lie, so that accurate decisions can then be taken to achieve growth.

Many other important metrics also exist that when analyzed in conjunction with these highly important metrics will provide marketers with the perfect platform to launch highly optimized campaigns from.

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.

Marketing is essential for any business. You need to put your message in front of the desired audience in order to grow the business substantially.

Marketing has evolved significantly over the past few decades. Online or digital marketing in particular has revolutionized the way businesses reach out to prospects, nurture leads, and close sales.

At its core, online marketing is no different than placing an ad in a local newspaper or putting up a billboard. However, both of those options may either be too expensive for most small businesses or not targeted enough to generate a decent return on their investment.

That’s one of the benefits of digital marketing. It provides small businesses the opportunity to maximize their ROI while also leveraging the incredible targeting tools to precisely focus their campaigns on the right audiences.

It’s not uncommon for small business owners to feel overwhelmed by digital marketing, particularly if they don’t have any experience with it. After all, there are just too many digital platforms with different ad products. Don’t let that become a hurdle. Utilize these top 5 online marketing strategies to nail your messaging and increase brand awareness.

1.   Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization or SEO might seem like a buzzword that gets thrown around a lot but it’s a tried and tested strategy of increasing your presence online. It’s actually one of the most powerful ways that you can use to put your content in front of countless people online.

Whether they need to solve a problem, have a question or want to buy something, Google is the first website that billions of people visit. Over 99,000 searches are done by users on Google every single second. That’s over 8.5 billion searches every day.

Whatever your business offers to help make customers’ lives easier, leverage that to create content that answers the questions that they have. While many have claimed that SEO is dead in this day and age, that couldn’t be further from the truth. SEO remains one of the best marketing strategies online with boundless potential.

It’s also a great option for those small businesses that don’t want to invest heavily in online marketing activities. Content marketing-based SEO requires you to create articles, blogs, and other content that meets the intent of what searchers are looking for on Google. The results tend to come gradually, especially for new websites, but it’s still not impossible to rank at the top of Google’s search results in your industry.

2.   Affiliate Marketing

As a small business owner you probably can’t have a full time sales team with a significant budget dedicated to selling your products online. However, with affiliate marketing, you can effectively outsource this job to people who are willing to take on all of the risk in return for a commission of every sale that they generate.

That’s the beauty of affiliate marketing and why it’s a must for small business owners who can deploy it. Experienced affiliate marketers are great at creating content, running highly targeted ads, and leveraging every tool available on the leading social media networks to generate the most amount of leads for the lowest cost possible.

Offer them a generous commission and you’ll quickly have affiliates lining up to sell your product. This strategy suits small businesses because they take on none of the risk when setting up campaigns. It’s not their ad dollars on the line if the campaign fails to perform. Since affiliates only get paid when they make a sale, they try their hardest to bring the most qualified leads, and that will most likely result in a bump in sales.

3.   Provide Customer Support Through Social Media

Word travels fast on the internet and if you become known as the brand that provides quick and efficient customer support through its social media channels, you’ll not only see an increase in brand awareness but also in customer retention. Customers like to keep doing business with brands that they feel provide them with a good service. Social media is great for quick customer support.

After all, social media is where most customers turn to whenever they have a question or concern about a product. They’ll look up that company’s social media channels and reach out with a query. This is also easier for them, since they’re already actively using social media and don’t need to go out of their way to either fill out a form or visit another website just to seek redressal of their grievance.

For the most part, this proactive support offer to customers provides them with confidence in the brand. They’ll be more likely to recommend it to people in their circles, thus leading to increased awareness for your brand through word of mouth.

4.   Local Search

If your business has physical locations, local search is an online marketing strategy that you can utilize to significantly increase the footfall for it. Consider the fact that since 2011, “near me” searches on Google have increased 34 times. If you provide a service that people nearby will benefit from, deploy the local search strategy to win new customers.

This will require the use of Google my Business. Add information about your business on Google my Business, such as the website, contact information, opening times as well as information about products and services.

Ensure that you timely respond to reviews on your local business listing. People appreciate when brands are active on their listing, this gives them confidence and makes it more likely for them to convert into customers.

5.   Social Media Marketing

No online marketing strategy can be complete without social media marketing. Your brand needs to have a presence on leading social media platforms. That’s where customers are now discovering businesses and new products.

Be where your customers are to increase brand uplift. These platforms also provide exceptional ad products and targeting tools that can be utilized to create highly focused campaigns. While it might seem daunting to most small business owners, launching paid campaigns on social media networks isn’t that difficult. Most people get the hang of it with some trial and error.

With full control over ad budgets and how you’d like it to be spent, social media marketing campaigns give you incredible flexibility and control over ad campaigns.

Going online first is inevitable for small businesses now

You can choose to explore other marketing avenues for your small business, but remember, in this day and age any business that’s not focusing on online marketing is effectively leaving a lot of money on the table.

If other marketing avenues are working well for you, add digital marketing to the mix as well to further elevate the status of your brand, expand your message far and wide to bring in more customers.

It can be difficult to create and keep engagement with social media accounts because the algorithms make it tricky. When you invest money, effort, and time, you want to see results for your efforts. This means you will want to reach your goals on your social media platform.

With the right tips, your posts will appeal to more people and help you achieve your goals. The following tips will get you on the right track to boosting engagement and meeting your social media advertising objectives.

Why Does Social Media Engagement Matter?

You may not feel motivated to write more engaging social media posts if you don’t see the point of social media engagement. Simply put, the more engagement you get on social media, the more connected people will feel to your brand. This boosts customer loyalty. Higher engagement online can also help with your overall branding and name recognition. After all, someone liking or commenting on a post may be their friends’ first introduction to your brand.

Focus on Your Language

Learn how your audience likes to communicate. Develop this language so that your posts resonate with your audience. This helps build a connection and shows you understand your audience.

For example, if you create a senior-level post for LinkedIn, you won’t want to use it for new moms on Facebook. These two groups face different things, and their language is different because of this. Their phrasing, sense of humor, and their needs are often very different, so you should use specific language with each group.

Research

When you want your audience to engage with your posts, you need to make sure they make sense to your targeted group. Keep them relevant and your page will grow exponentially. Understand your audience and you will build better content. General demographic details are a great starting point, and from there, you can develop it further.

What are their needs? Do they have challenges and obstacles? To start, focus on one need and create posts that help to provide solutions for that one.

For a more emotional connection, consider adding success stories of clients who are satisfied or have been helped by you. This makes potential clients envision their own success through your help as well.

KISS – Keep It Simple & Short

Time is valuable and attention spans are increasingly short. Take the time to make sure your posts are written simply. An eighth-grade reading level is best. Use lists, bullets, and headings to help break the content up and keep it scannable.

You will want your writing to be succinct and easy to understand. Also, keep your paragraphs short, at just a few sentences. This makes it easier for people to read and engage with your content.

Positivity Engages

If you sound like Eeyore, you won’t have many people who want to engage with you. Your posts don’t need to be super sweet. However, keeping it positive makes a world of difference.

You want to build and keep excitement and inspiration. While sharing your opinion is great, attacking people and brands is harmful. Don’t engage in bullying and don’t criticize people or businesses publicly.

Develop a Voice

Developing a voice takes work, time, and consistently putting out content. Whether your voice is sarcastic, humorous, or authoritative, a definitive voice helps your readers recognize you. It also helps to build trust.

Use Videos & Images

The use of graphics, images, and videos helps move your story. Content that is visual engages more people. The phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words” is the truth. In fact, you can use an image or video to convey a complete message on your social media.

Bear in mind that video can help connect you with your audience on a better level. Video gets better responses from people. People often feel like they understand or know you better when video is involved.

Call to Action

Once your post is wrapped up, you should add a CTA or call to action. If you do not ask for business, you will never get it. If you don’t ask for action, it is also hard to get it, even when people enjoy your content.

A CTA can come in a variety of forms and has a range of purposes. Here are a few different ideas to get you started:

• Send clients to landing pages.
• Send your audience to your website.
• Ask for likes and shares.
• Ask for their experience, opinion, or something similar in the comments.
• Ask for connections on other social media platforms.
• Ask them to subscribe to emails and newsletters.

Conclusion

Boosting engagement on social media can take time and effort, but it is well worth it. It will expand your reach and add more touchpoints to your customer journey. Engaging social media posts should be well-researched, appeal to your target audience, follow your brand voice, and feature images and videos.

Sources:

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/7-social-media-content-writing-tips/555805/