Influencer Or Imposter? A Quick Guide To Influencer Marketing

Tweet This <div _ngcontent-c30="" innerhtml=" In short, influencers should be reliable sources of information.“> <div _ngcontent-c30="" innerhtml=" “influence and audience aren’t the same thing.”“> <div _ngcontent-c23="" innerhtml=" Co-written with&nbsp;freelance&nbsp;Megan Leung Co-written with freelance Megan Leung First there were influencers. Then came micro-influencers. What next? Nano-influencers? As the trend carries on and brands get a whiff of influencer marketing, one question haunts many: What makes someone a so-called influencer? The Cambridge Dictionary defines influencer as “a person or group that has the ability to influence the behavior or opinions of others.” By and large, this isn’t a new thing. For centuries we’ve had philosophers, artists and activists. They were the influencers of the past. Today, nearly anyone with access to the Internet is claiming to be an influencer. Just add water (in the form of followers) and wait for lucrative corporate sponsorships to roll in: cha-ching! But there’s more to influence than audience size. Here’s a shortlist of what brands should look for before sealing deals with influencers. 1. Professional background and knowledge It’s common practice for businesses to screen potential employees. Influencers shouldn’t be an exception. It’s imperative for brands and businesses to look into an influencer’s education, professional history, industrial acumen, creative competence and likability. Mickael Romaniello, mobile developer at 2WAO Limited, shares that an influencer to him is a person with “high knowledge of their professional field.” Someone who isn’t only able to attract positive attention but also “someone whose experiences people can learn from.” Influencer knowledge and experience can be tested through interviews or informal chats. Their online profiles and credentials should always be verified and brands can benefit from seeing them as service providers rather than audience hunter-gatherers. 2. Ability to produce and improve creative output Bringing influencers on board mean employing additional creatives in the marketing team. They...

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source https://andlocal.org/influencer-or-imposter-a-quick-guide-to-influencer-marketing/

How to Outperform Sites Ranking Above You on Search Engines

That latest post took days to develop. It’s instructive and inspiring and educational and entertaining. Easily, one of your best yet. But you come to check your traffic data only to find that you’re ranking 70th in the SERPs. In other words, you ain’t gettin no traffic anytime soon. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Unless some crazy person is actually clicking seven pages deep on Google. Which they aren’t. All of that hard work, research, and effort got you almost nothing in return. Meanwhile, your competitors are ranking in the top ten results, even though their content isn’t as long or thorough. Why? Because of Google. But really, the most likely answer is time and links. Your post is new, so it’s going to take some time. Knowing this, that doesn’t mean you can sit around and expect it to be on the first page without doing work. Thinking that your new post will gain thousands of links on its own is foolish. Outperforming your competitors on search engines isn’t an easy, one-off task. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. In fact, if you implement a few of these tactics, it’s likely that (in time) you will. Why? Because your competitors are comfortable. They think the rankings won’t ever change. You, on the other hand, are grinding to get ahead. Here’s how you can outperform sites ranking above you on search engines. The Top Two Ranking Factors, Straight From Google When Google RankBrain was announced in 2015 on Bloomberg, it was made known that RankBrain was the third most important ranking factor. But that was all they said. What about the first and second ranking factors? We got almost nothing for an entire year. In 2016, we got some clear information (for once) from Google. In a Q&A with Andrey Lipattsev, a...

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source https://andlocal.org/how-to-outperform-sites-ranking-above-you-on-search-engines/

6 free tools for boosting your SEO keyword strategy

  Keywords are essential for inbound marketing. The thing is, it’s not easy finding the right keywords without help. A lot of online tools require you to pay a monthly or annual subscription, but there are perfectly good free alternatives out there, and it’s those we’re going to focus on. After all, what small business has good money to burn? Start with why, not what Before you start your search, make sure you know why you’re searching. Is it: For finding the right keywords for a blog idea you already have? Or Do you want to find the keywords that your audience might be searching to give you inspiration for what to write about in your content marketing? The six free tools for finding the right keywords that we explore in this post can be used for either, but before you hit the web, look within your own company for answers first. Who knows best? Think about it: who knows best what your customers are looking for? Your customers! Of course, it isn’t practical to ask every one of your customers what they commonly search for (although maybe ask a couple of your best), but there is another option: talk to your team. Your sales team will – hopefully – have kept notes from their discovery calls with your clients. These notes will include the pain points clients were dealing with when they found your company. Your customer service department also regularly talks with your clients. Ask them what the most common questions are and see if you can turn them into blog posts. Addressing these issues matches the last stage of the inbound marketing methodology: delight. Being intuitive and working out what your customers want before they have to ask for it is a sure-fire way to build their trust....

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source https://andlocal.org/6-free-tools-for-boosting-your-seo-keyword-strategy/

When SEO isn’t your SEO problem

If you’ve been doing SEO for any length of time, you’ve undoubtedly experienced your fair share of failures. And in many cases, frustratingly, the SEO program itself was not the issue. While I’ve discussed meta topics such as management challenges, getting executive buy-in, and the need for flexibility in the past, I haven’t directly addressed the question, “What do you do if SEO isn’t your SEO problem?” As search marketers, we work our tails off analyzing data, search results, client websites and more, with the goal of providing recommendations that will move the needle. Unfortunately, the best recommendations in the world don’t matter if they aren’t implemented — and therein lies one of the biggest challenges of SEO. Let’s look at a few common obstacles that can hinder an SEO program’s progress and discuss how we can overcome them. Just following up We’ve all been there: You’ve sent one, two, three emails and still have heard nothing back. How can you possibly get anything done if the client won’t even answer your emails? It’s not a simple solution. People are busy; they have other priorities, and it’s our job to ensure our clients understand the importance and value of the program. If a contact goes silent, there are a few options we can try. Pick up the phone Your clients are busy people, and many of them probably receive dozens or even hundreds of emails per day. That’s a lot of messages to sort through! While it can be frustrating to not receive a response, it’s possible your contact has more important emails to get through. Pick up the phone. It’s so simple, yet we often forgot to do it. In the age of technology, everyone is emailing and texting. Talking to someone can go a long way. Use an email tracker If your...

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source https://andlocal.org/when-seo-isnt-your-seo-problem/

Brand Authority as an SEO Ranking Factor #SEMrushchat

In last week’s #SEMrushchat, we talked about an exceptionally important topic: how brand authority interacts with SEO as a ranking factor, since we just released our newest study: the 17 most prominent Google ranking factors. We invited expert, Jennifer Slegg – founder & editor of The SEM Post, speaker, and author of Understanding Google Panda Algo Guide. Along with her and our other guests, we focused on questions like how to identify a good brand authority, how authority influences rankings, and how PR and SEO can, and should, interact. Here is what they had to say:  Q1. How do you identify a good brand authority? What are the main metrics you would use? There are three factors that come into play: expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. Expertise is your knowledge level and the value you can provide on any given subject. Expertise is your knowledge level and the value you can provide on any given subject. Your authority is how established your brand is, both in your industry and online. Trustworthiness is how much customers and industry peers trust that you, your content, and your products and services are all top-notch. When it comes to measuring these factors, there are a number of metrics to look at in order to get the full picture, all of which can individually strengthen your search rank. Often times, branded search volume increases as a brand becomes better known. Once upon a time, people didn't include words such as "Amazon" "eBay" or even "Pinterest" in their Google/Bing/etc searches. #semrushchat — Jennifer Slegg (@jenstar) November 15, 2017 There are several ways to measure this. The first is branded search volume, or how many people are searching for you by name. Instead of searching for “sneakers,” for example, someone might search for “Nike sneakers” due to the...

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source https://andlocal.org/brand-authority-as-an-seo-ranking-factor-semrushchat/

Approaching e-commerce investments in the age of Amazon

With Amazon as the 800-pound gorilla, many of my fellow investors choose to ignore e-commerce altogether. In fact, the industry hit recent lows in a number of deals and investments. But as Bonobos’ $310 million acquisition by Walmart and Stitch Fix’s IPO demonstrate, there are still plenty of exciting opportunities in this space for investors. In my ongoing hunt for investment opportunities, I recently came across a brand that had garnered significant traction without raising a lot of capital. This traction, however, was across traditional retail channels, not the channel that mattered most to me as a venture investor — e-commerce. Why do I value this direct to consumer channel so highly? For one, e-commerce margins are better (in the 80 percent range versus as low as 50 percent in traditional retail). But it also offers the potential for scale that retail simply can’t match. My grandfather grew his textiles business methodically, one merchant and store at a time — something I greatly admired as a child, given the grit and hustle he put into closing each sale. However, today, with the help of Facebook ads, viral videos like Dollar Shave Club’s classic ad, influencer and celebrity-driven endorsements, sales can boom overnight. People have been shopping online for more than two decades, and we have seen a number of iconic brands originate online. Behind many of these brands are successful venture investors, such as Forerunner Ventures (Warby Parker, Glossier, Bonobos) and Maveron (Everlane, Madison Reed), as well as amazing entrepreneurs and marketers like Kal Vepuri, Divya Gugnani and Rohan Oza, who “just get” consumer branding. They know how to make something cool, at an affordable price point, and how to position their companies for big M&A when the time comes. As these investors and individuals know, billion-dollar acquisitions come from scaling...

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source https://andlocal.org/approaching-e-commerce-investments-in-the-age-of-amazon/

How to Target Specialized Audiences With Facebook Ads : Social Media Examiner

Do you want to improve the ROI of your Facebook ads and Instagram campaigns? Wondering how to reach specialized audiences with Facebook ad targeting? In this article, you’ll learn how to create six refined target audiences for your Facebook and Instagram campaigns. How to Target Specialized Audiences With Facebook Ads by Aleh Barysevich on Social Media Examiner. How to Create Target Audiences in the Facebook Ads Manager There are two ways to create target audiences for your Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns in the updated Ads Manager. You can create audiences on the fly as you set up ad campaigns in the Audience section of the ad set. You can also create audiences by going to the Audiences page of the Ads Manager. If you use Business Manager, you’ll find the Audiences page in the same location. Certain audiences (such as those created from your website visitors and customer email list) will take longer to process than others, so it’s a good idea to create them in advance of when you need them for your campaign. This will give Facebook enough time to create the audience so it’s ready when you launch your campaign. Here’s how to get started creating custom, saved, and lookalike audiences. #1: Create a Saved Audience of Your Ideal Customer Demographics Do you know the demographics of your top customers? If so, you can use that information to create a saved audience to use in your Facebook and Instagram campaigns to reach people who are likely to buy your products or services. To create a saved audience for the first time, click the Create a Saved Audience button on the Audiences page. If you’ve created audiences in the past, click Create Audience and select Saved Audience from the drop-down menu. On the following page, you’ll see...

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source https://andlocal.org/how-to-target-specialized-audiences-with-facebook-ads-social-media-examiner/