Jan. 20, 2021

In this modern era, digital advertising is one of the most effective ways to launch, grow, and scale any business online. But just because you run an ad on Facebook or Google doesn’t mean that it will automatically drive your business to success. It’s a little more complicated than that.

The key to a successful digital advertising campaign is understanding the people you want to target with it. You need to know how they go from being completely unaware of a brand to actively recommending it to their network of friends and family.

Knowing these things gives you an insight into how to conduct your advertising in a way that will drive results, conversions, and sales. And the best way to do this is to map out your customer’s value journey.

The customer journey is a step-by-step process that draws prospects in and converts them into loyal customers. It provides invaluable information that allows you to customize your digital marketing efforts for every stage of your customer’s journey into buying your products. This enables you to lead your prospects and customers, making sure that they move seamlessly and swiftly through each stage and convert.

In this article, we will discuss how following the customer journey can help you build effective digital advertising campaigns!

Follow the Customer Journey for Effective Digital Marketing

Aware Stage

The first stage in the customer journey is to let people know who you are, what you do, and what you have to offer. Creating awareness is very important because if people don’t know you exist, they can’t buy from you. Simple as that!

Here are some of the different ways that your target audience could become aware of your company:

• A pregnant woman sees a Facebook Ad for a new maternity clothing brand on Facebook
• A gym rat searches Google for the nearest gym in the area
• A student who is about to go to college watches a YouTube video of an influencer talking about the essentials that a freshman student should have

There are many ways to get your brand in front of your potential customers. But it’s important to find out which platforms your target audience is spending most of their time online. Is it on YouTube? Instagram? Facebook? Knowing the best platforms to reach out to your target audience allows you to capture more leads.

Here are the different ways you can build brand awareness:

• Paid Ads (Search or Social Media)
• Social Media Marketing
• Search Engine Optimization
• Influencer Marketing
• Content Marketing

Interest Stage

At this stage, people are getting interested in what you have to offer! Your goal is to get people to interact with your brand and get them to consume content that encourages them to like your brand. To do this, it’s best to invest in publishing high-quality content your target audience can relate to. Remember, you don’t want to pressure them into making a purchase or anything more.

Here are some other ways on how you can get your audience to interact with your brand:

• Hold a contest on Instagram to encourage engagement from your audience
• Create a YouTube video about what goes on behind the scenes when sourcing or making your products
• Create sharable content that your target audience can relate to
• Educate your audience on the pros and cons of your products or services through infographics or video content
• Use social media to show your audience how you live your values, like supporting a worthy cause
• Reply to comments on your blog posts and use a chatbot to cater to inquiries immediately

Constant interaction helps build and strengthen your relationship with your prospects and customers. It also encourages customer loyalty, which is essential to expand your customer base.

Consideration Stage

By this stage, your prospects already know who you are and have interacted with your brand to some degree. They’re now ready to speak with a salesperson. So, your next objective is to take the relationship to the next level and get your target audience to take action.

Today, people are constantly flooded with information from many different companies. Just because they read one blog from you or watched a video on your channel, doesn’t mean they’ll buy from you or even remember you.

To get people to consider working with you, you need to offer something they can’t refuse. It can be free content, exclusive discounts, free products, or whatever it may be. Other businesses’ tactics is that they create a valuable offer in exchange for enlisting in their newsletter.

Here’s an example:

Somewhere in your blog post (where it’s appropriate and relevant), insert a call-to-action that says “Subscribe to Get a Free Sample of Our Best Selling Product.”

Conversion Stage

A lot of businesses skip the first three stages and immediately jump into selling their products or services to people. It usually ends up in disappointment because of the following reasons:

1. Lack of awareness: When people are not familiar with a brand, they often hesitate into buying their products or services
2. Lack of understanding: Your target audience should be able to understand the benefits of your products or services to convince them to buy your products
3. Lack of perceived value: It’s important to create a perceived value that can be associate solely with your brand to convince people why they should purchase your products or services

But when you follow the steps in order, you’ll see that people are more likely to buy from you.

Here are some examples that real businesses use to convert prospects:

• HubSpot offers free courses that users can access once they fill out a form
• Bed Bath & Beyond offers a 20% discount to first-time subscribers
• Trello offers a free version of its tool to capture leads and drive free users to go premium over time

Post-Purchase Stage

The post-purchase stage is all about turning your customer into loyal customers. The customer journey allows you to create a unique and personalized experience for your audience at every step of their journey into buying your products.

When you get this right, people will keep coming back for the experience that comes along when buying your products or services. This can encourage them to make more purchases – and bigger purchases – over time.

You can run social media ads to remind your customers about you and to keep in touch with them. You can also use email marketing to send them exclusive discounts during their birthdays or holidays. Customer retention is the key to growing your customer base. Your goal in this stage is to keep your customers happy and to develop a relationship with them that will encourage them to remain loyal to your brand.

The post 5 Ways the Customer Journey Can Help You Build Effective Digital Advertising Campaigns appeared first on UF CJC Online Master's.

March 1, 2021

Since the launch of MySpace back in 2004, social media has positioned itself as an opportunity to interact with others regardless of physical or geographical barriers. From finding new information to finding the love of your life, social media goes beyond interpersonal relationships and can be used as a tool for companies to interact with their stakeholders. Brands across the globe are in constant need of communicators as innovative as the social media platforms they manage. Though finding a job in social media might seem like a daunting task, we gathered UF CJC Online alumni who are now industry experts to ask for their insight into how to make social media your career. 

Be Authentic 

When you think back on the early stages of social media and advertising, there was a large emphasis on perfection. Social media advertisements featured models who heightened the meaning of the word beauty and photoshop was a leading contributor to any magazine cover across the globe. With the rise of mental health awareness as well as a common understanding of the unrealistic beauty standards shown in advertising, there has been a distinct shift towards authenticity. 

American Eagle Advertisement from 2006

Kassie Meiler, founder and director of social media communications for Goat Social Media, took note of this shift when brands such as American Eagle began to highlight natural beauty and realistic body types. “They’re featuring real women of all sizes and all races where maybe four years ago it looked very picture-perfect,” says Meiler. Taking this into account, smaller brands are no longer placed to the high standard set by major corporations. “I think it makes all brands a little more attainable. They don’t have to compete with Coca-Cola or Nike, they can do their own thing and still stand out and still be part of the world on social media,” Meiler continues. Keeping this in mind, work to be more authentic in your social media content. Whether it’s on your company’s account or your own, content that isn’t picture perfect will often perform better while showcasing the character of your brand.

2020 American Eagle Advertisement

Understand the Importance of Your Personal Brand 

As a communicator, you must take your understanding of the industry and apply it to marketing your personal brand. When looking for jobs in the field, using your knowledge to your advantage is crucial in showcasing your skill sets. During her time in the UF CJC Online master’s program, Meiler had the opportunity to take a course on personal branding. With this, she learned the importance of your online persona. “Everything you do is pretty much your walking resume. Everything you do online everybody talks about,” explains Meiler. When it comes to landing a job in the social media field, this is a crucial mindset to have before posting anything that might tarnish your personal brand. For Meiler, most of her clients are the result of referrals from former clients and even individuals she has never worked with who trust her personal brand. “I really try to be a thought leader in social media. So people think when they have a question or they need an expert – ‘Let’s ask Kassie.’” said Meiler. 

Your resume outlines your past
Your online presence builds your future

— Brianne Fleming (@brianne2k) January 25, 2021

Stay on Top of the Trends 

Though it all started with MySpace, social media is an ever-changing field. It seems that each week one platform releases new features while another platform appears. From Vine to TikTok, each platform serves a unique purpose for a brand’s communication function. When it comes to making the most of your brand’s social media, it is an absolute necessity to stay up to date with the current trends. In doing so, you’re not only showing that your brand is aware of what’s going on online, but you’re also ensuring that the content your audience sees isn’t based on an outdated process and will stand out on their news feed. 

According to Meiler, an upcoming trend in social media that seems to be here to stay is an emphasis on video and audio content. “Video content is huge. The algorithms favor it…It could just be raw footage and it’s still favored and it’s still doing extremely well on social media. And I think that’s still going to continue to be the trend,” explains Meiler. When it comes to audio, Meiler has noticed an increase in podcasts listeners and believes this marks the beginning of a new emphasis on audio content. “With the growth of podcasts and Spotify and all of these exclusive deals. I think it’s just going to keep continuing to grow individual creators. And kind of have less of a focus on celebrities and less of a focus on influencers and more of a focus on everyday people. And I think audio will help that as well,” she explains. Since it launched in March 2020, Clubhouse has set itself apart from traditional social media platforms with its sole focus on audio. With exclusive members including Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerburg, Clubhouse allows users to choose from numerous audio chat rooms with varying topics of discussion. Though members must receive an invitation in order to join in on the fun, the rapid popularity of the platform highlights a shift from traditional content to a focus on audio and video. 

A fellow social media manager and UF CJC Online master’s alumni, Ashley Andrews, couldn’t agree more with Meiler’s forecast for the future of social media. When it comes to which platform seems to dominate the rest, Andrews does not doubt that Instagram is becoming the leader of the social media pack. “You need to be on Instagram. It is the easiest platform to grow on. All of the features, live videos, Reels, Instagram TV and the shop feature, there’s so much. Instagram is the go-to place for any online small business, in my opinion,” says Andrews. 

Know Your Audience 

Before posting any piece of content to your brand’s social media channels, it’s most important that you ask yourself if the content is right for your audience. If you’re posting a TikTok in the hopes of communicating with your target audience of men and women ages 65 and older, you’re not meeting your audience where they are. 

Andrews echoes this sentiment with “It’s not just posting, every post needs to communicate to them [your audience]… If you’re marketing to everyone, you’re essentially marketing to no one.” In her coursework for her Social Media specialization, Andrews learned the importance of understanding her target audience. From creating audience personas to researching characteristics of your target age demographic, being able to break down your audience’s mindset will allow you to create better messaging towards them. “When you actually get into that mindset of what they do and what they don’t like, you’ll be able to market to them flawlessly,” states Andrews.

With the social media landscape constantly changing, it might feel difficult to keep up, especially if you’re looking to find a career in the field. But it’s crucial to stay engaged, keep your head up and stay up to date with social media trends and best practices while also working to further your personal brand and knowledge of the field.

The post How to Make Social Media Your Career appeared first on UF CJC Online Master's.

October 1, 2020

As many nonprofit fundraisers have come to realize, social media is becoming more important when asking for a gift. For most donors, visiting your Facebook or other social platforms is the first step in considering whether or not to donate to your organization. It’s crucial to set your organization up for success with a well-crafted social media presence. 

To several organizations, simply having an account on social media is a benchmark for success. However, maintaining a consistent posting schedule, sharing engaging content and providing value to your online following can open your organization to more giving opportunities. 

When creating social media posts on behalf of your organization, keep in mind it’s okay if you aren’t a social media guru! Allow your passion for your nonprofit to shine through in your posts. Just in case you’re still unsure of taking over your organization’s social media, here are a few general best practices to follow that will create an authentic online following that’s willing to reach into their wallets.

Keep your Followers Engaged

The organization’s mission is what attracts individuals to follow your accounts, but it’s your content that keeps them there. Creating engaging content to share on your social channels is vital to your organization’s social media presence. 

• • Hold creative contests for your followers. Invite your followers to enter a contest through liking, commenting or captioning a post to win swag. Not only are you keeping your followers engaged, but their activity on your content is being shared with their network and possibly increasing your following. 

• Include visuals with every post. To help your message stand out to followers, include an engaging picture, video or graphic with every post. Several platforms, such as Canva, offer free and easy to use graphic design software that will take your content to the next level. 
• Respond to your fans. It’s common for followers and fans of your organization to comment and share your content. Rather than leaving them hanging, respond! Even a simple “Thank you for your support!” shows your followers that they matter and that you recognize their engagement. 

Be Transparent and True to Your Mission

Social media exists to provide your fans with behind the scenes insight into your nonprofit that they might not typically see. Use your social platforms as an opportunity to showcase the secret sauce of your organization. Highlight staff members, volunteers and board members. Provide value in following your social media that will set your organization apart as a leader in your subsector.

Don’t Be Afraid to Have Some Fun!

Use your social media as a reflection of your organization’s personality. Use funny hashtags, participate in internet challenges and make your organization stand out! In 2017, zoos across the nation partook in a #CuteAnimalTweetOff by sharing their most adorable animals on their social media. The hashtag quickly went viral on Twitter, bringing tons of publicity to participating zoos. 

I got here as fast as I could… #cuteanimaltweetoff pic.twitter.com/wPWHHoPaS1

— Los Angeles Zoo & Botanical Gardens (@LAZoo) January 25, 2017

Connect Data to Organizational Goals

One final social media best practice for those in the nonprofit sector is to connect data to your organization’s goals. Take note of any increase in followers, likes, comments or shares and see if there is any correlation to an increase in gifts. Keep track of how long an individual follows your organization before donating. These types of insights can demonstrate what is working well for your nonprofit when it comes to social media and what content seems to fall short. A great way to begin accessing your social media analytics is through Facebook Audience Insights. This analytics platform is built into Facebook and allows page admins to see reach, engagement, likes, page views, actions on page and more. 

Though social media can be daunting to many, it’s a great tool to gain an online following for your organization. It can be easy to get caught up in the number of likes and followers, but I can assure you, as long as you provide value, keep your followers engaged and track your progress, your organization will gain loyal followers willing to financially help your organization when they can.

The post How to Maximize Your Nonprofit’s Social Media for Online Giving appeared first on UF CJC Online Master's.

August 27, 2020

By now you’ve likely heard of the social media app taking the world by storm – TikTok. Even with the uncertain future of the app in mind, TikTok has highlighted the power of earned media, a type of media published by an outside third party about a specific brand or product.

The app’s “For You Page” offers curated content specific to each user’s interests, previously liked videos, accounts followed and more. Because users frequently see content from creators they aren’t following, the platform gives anyone the chance to go viral. For users who use the platform to share their favorite products and recent purchases, the fact that they aren’t being compensated to promote the product gives them a level of authenticity many influencers lack. 

Since companies aren’t paying for this content or creating it themselves, it falls into the category of earned media. As one of the most trusted and hardest to obtain types of media, earned media is leading to the rise and fall of many brands on TikTok. From skincare to LED light strips, earned media generated on TikTok are causing products to sell out across the nation. 

One example of this phenomenon is how one user’s video spurred the sale of 52,000 units of The Ordinary’s AHA 30% + BHA 2% Peeling Solution. In late January, TikTok user @kaelynwhitee posted a video documenting her skin transformation from using the weekly peel serum. Kaelyn’s video includes before and after pictures of her skin demonstrating how much the product helped with acne and scarring. 

Product Review on Sephora

To date, Kae’s video has amassed over 637,000 likes and one million views. According to InStyle, a representative for the beauty brand attributed Kae’s TikTok to the sale of 52,000 units of the serum in two weeks. 

As shown by Kae’s viral video, earned media doesn’t have to come directly from news outlets to make an impact on your brand. In fact, earned media can be even more powerful when coming from someone similar to yourself. According to HubSpot Research, 57% of individuals in the U.S. trust their friends and family most when they discover a new product or company. 

For brands looking to increase their earned media, it’s important to acknowledge the role of social media. Regardless of which social networking platform, users frequently build a sense of trust with one another when it comes to which brands to buy from, explaining the rise in influencer marketing. Outside of maintaining an active social media presence, there are a few best practices to follow for increased earned media opportunities. 

Create an Experience Worth Sharing

During every stage of the marketing funnel, customers are observing your brand and making unconscious notes about their experience. Enhance their experience from start to finish with engaging targeted ads, social media content worth sharing and a product worth purchasing over the rest. Consumers notice everything from messaging to packaging, so give them a meaningful experience worthy of sharing on social media.  

Build Relationships with your Customers

Social media was built on the preface of building relationships with users across the globe. For companies looking to make an impression on their consumers, it’s crucial to engage with them on social media. Show your customers that you care about them by replying to comments, answering direct messages and asking for their input on your brand and products. Doing so demonstrates your commitment to their experience and gives them a positive impression of your organization that they are more willing to share with others. 

Though earned media is seemingly out of your brand’s control, it is entirely possible to position yourself for more earned media opportunities. TikTok serves as a reminder for communications professionals to look outside of influencer marketing and take a step towards creating an experience that everyone will want to promote, not just those being paid to do so.

The post TikTok Revived Earned Media – and How to Do the Same for your Brand appeared first on UF CJC Online Master's.

Have you ever flipped through your Instagram story feed and noticed a story that looks exceptional? You ask yourself “how did that person do that?” It turns out you don’t have to be a social media master to craft next-level Instagram stories; there are free apps that can help you improve your Insta Story game.

Instagram stories have become increasingly popular with social media users. Many say that they have become just as popular as Snapchat stories but for a different reason. The appeal of using the story option on Instagram is the creative leeway it gives its users. There is so much you can do with your Instagram stories including the ability to decorate your post with digital drawing tools or thousands of GIFS. You can do a lot to make your Instagram stories stand out on the app itself, but there is even more that you can do for your Instagram story posts using external applications. Whether you are looking to step up your personal Instagram or aiming to get more impressions for a company/brand, check out the following apps that I use when crafting Instagram stories.

StoryArt – templates galore!

StoryArt is an app that offers several templates that you can customize with your own photos and then put on your Insta Stories. Once you insert your photos into the template, you can also write captions on it using the app. There are several font/color/size options available.

The app is free to download; however, some templates are locked and need to be purchased through the app. Templates give your story posts a unique, clean look that will be sure to catch the attention of your story viewers.

StoryArt is only available in the iTunes App store.

PicsArt – cool stickers, unique edits, collages – oh my!

PicsArt is a useful app that offers a wide variety of picture editing tools and an endless collection of stickers. The most important feature of this tool is the ‘Insta story size’ option which allows you to use a crop tool to adjust it to the correct Instagram story size. Do this by selecting the photo>tools>crop>story.

Although Instagram offers thousands of GIFs to decorate your Insta Story posts, adding these elements to your posts can sometimes reduce the quality of the image. Stickers do not reduce image quality, however, Instagram does not have a wide selection of stickers to choose from. Most of the PicsArt stickers are free, but some require that you upgrade to PicsArt Gold.

PicsArt also has overlays that you can add to your pictures. I find myself using the eraser tool often to elevate my posts. Typically, I will put an overlay or stickers on the picture before using the eraser tool to clear up the main focus of the image. This gives your photos unique backgrounds and an overall eye-catching look. For the picture below, I used a watercolor overlay and placed the fall leaves sticker around the photo. Then, I erased the effects from the main focus of the photo, which is the coffee.

PicsArt also has a collage creator, which is perfect for mood boards, birthday shout-outs, or even multiple photos in one story post. What I like about this app’s collage creator is that users can create a freestyle collage that gives the option to cut out images and place them freely just like when I used to cut out fashion magazines and paste collages together. It also gives you access to stickers and text to add to your collage. Always remember to change the size of what you are creating to cater to the Instagram story format. In any PicsArt collage mode you use background>ratio>story.

PicsArt is available in both the iTunes App store and Google Play store.

Spark Post – make your Insta stories come to life!

Spark Post is an app created by Adobe that offers unique editing features I have yet to find in any other app.

Impress your Instagram followers by incorporating graphic design into your Instagram Story posts. Spark Post lets you animate the captions on your stories using effects. They can fade in, slide in and change size. You can also edit the caption using glows, shadows, various fonts and colors via a built-in color palette creator. The app also allows you to apply effects to a photo to zoom, pan, grey, focus, color and fill. As always, make sure you are selecting the correct sizing to fit the Instagram story.

Spark Post is available in both the iTunes App store and Google Play store.

Canva – make your own awesome story templates!

Canva is an app that gives users a lot of creative leeway in designing content for social media. To use this app for your Instagram stories, choose a template from the Instagram Story section or start with a blank Instagram Story-sized page. Once you have chosen a template, there are millions of backgrounds, fonts and graphics to choose from to customize an Instagram story template. Use Canva to create a unique, eye-catching look for your viewers.

Canva is great to use when creating flyers and promotional content that is sized perfectly for your Instagram stories. Below is a student spotlight I created for UF CJC Online’s Instagram story using this app.

Canva is available in both the iTunes App store and Google Play store.

You are ready!

I know you will find these apps as helpful and useful as I do! All the apps I mentioned above are free to download and easy to use. My last tip to experiment with these apps: try to utilize more than one for a single story post. For example, use StoryArt for the template, save your creation and open it in PicsArt to add stickers. You’ll be surprised at the endless creativity available at your fingertips!

Also, keep in mind that these apps aren’t just for your Insta Story posts. Feel free to use these apps to make eye-catching edits for your other social media or your Instagram feed.

If you enjoyed this blog post, be on the lookout for more of my posts about tools, tricks and tips for social media.

Follow @ufcjconline on Instagram to see these techniques in action!

UF CJC Online offers a graduate certificate and a master’s degree specializing in social media. For more information, check out onlinemasters.jou.ufl.edu/social-media/.

Find Nicole Cruz on Instagram

The post Apps that will make your Instagram Stories POP appeared first on UF CJC Online Master's.

By Angel Burns

Yes, you have heard of it, but do you use it? Do you use it for business? Besides making pretty collections of pictures, how can you market your brand with it?
Pinterest is one of the main social media platforms today, but less familiar to most than Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram and SnapChat. Still it is the 6th most popular according to DreamGrow (November, 2017), and an expected growing platform as 2018 Social Media Marketing Trends show its increase as personalized content.
Because it is a lesser-used platform, Pinterest could be your green pasture to till for fresh leads.
Let’s look at what it is, how it works, and finally, how it can work for your business interests.
First comes appreciating its appeal, reviewing its capabilities, then comes the strategy.

Did you know?

Deciding to market on Pinterest means considering its demographics. According to Pinterest stats (Omnicore, 2018):
• over 30% of all U.S. social media users are Pinterest users
• 81% of users are FEMALE (although 40% of new signups are male)
• 67% users are under 40
• MILLENNIALS use Pinterest as much as Instagram
• Pinterest generates over 5% of all website referral traffic
• 80% of users access it from mobile devices
• 2/3 of all pins represent brands and products
• 93% of active pinners use it for purchase planning
• 87% have bought something because of Pinterest!

Just take a moment to let those numbers sink in. This is a huge captive market!

Another important Omnicore statistic shows that most users have healthy incomes: half earn over $50K per year, and 10% make over $125 per year. This may qualify your target market too.
If this gets your urge to sell going, let’s understand how the platform works.

The basics:

Pinterest began in March 2010 and is headquartered in San Francisco. It charming history by cofounders Ben Silbermann, Evan Sharp and Paul Sciarra has turned them into billionaires.
Pinterest is a scrapbooking platform that allows users to clip, or “pin,” found images to a collection, or “board,” for later review. The boards can be shared publicly or with followers, and each image can also direct viewers to websites, for more information or purchase.
Available as a mobile app as well as a desktop application, the first step is to create a profile for business.
Pinning can begin by browsing Pinterest by subject or simply exploring, clicking on images to add to your own boards. These can be named and groups according to topic, and hidden for privacy. From there they can be shared.
Brands will want to create their own pins to populate their boards, and test engagement by subtopic and image.
The biggest draw to using Pinterest, particularly for product sales, is with BUYABLE PINS. With this feature, viewers can not only save favorite pins but swipe up to see an item’s price and drop it into a shopping cart right from the platform!
Note that sellers must get approved by Pinterest to have buyable pins, and then it takes about a week for their board to activate. You must have a Pinterest business account to be considered, but good news: these are FREE and offer analytics.

Here’s how to set this all up:

• Business accounts: https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7552-pinterest-business-guide.html
• Buyable pins: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-business/how-setup-buyable-pins-sell-products-direct-pinterest

Also, sellers can advertise these pins with featured paid ads known as Promoted Pins, to get more viewing. Expand reach, without annoying potential customers with distracting intrusive ads. Choosing pins to promote should involve some strategic considerations.

Now, sellers can connect with influencers to create campaigns using Promoted Pins:

Consider the three types of Promoted Pin Campaigns: Traffic, Engagement and Awareness.

Since most customers access Pinterest on mobile devices in addition to computers, they can use Apple Pay or a credit card to complete the transaction. The best part is that sellers don’t lose a cut of the sale to Pinterest: they get to keep the whole amount! Zounds! I mean, $$$$!

Brand examples:

There are brand success stories to emulate.

These are favorites that may be familiar: Six consumer brands with picture-perfect Pinterest strategies

It’s always good to see how other successfully gain followers and create engagement. Check out some top Influencer boards to learn from. Notice how compelling imagery is used to share links and consistency creates expert curator status upon the best pinners.

Not all are static product shots. There are advice tips, quotes, how-tos, detailed and behind-the-scenes angles of events; anything to serve as inspiration. Consider ideas that SELL.

Links shared can be to blog posts, to websites to build email marketing lists, or best of all, e-commerce shops for processing sales directly.

Strategy:

Source: https://goo.gl/images/pXiDik

Anna Bennett is a Pinterest Marketing Expert, chosen by Pinterest itself as an Elite Business coach. Using Pinterest to rank number one on Google, she offers marketing and coaching services (https://www.whiteglovesocialmedia.com/pinterest-marketing-for-business/), plus is the author of the Pinterest Marketing for Business Master Course and How to Become a Pinterest Account Manager. She lives by the motto: “Those on the top of the mountain did not fall there.”

Here’s Bennett’s illustrious advice:

“It is very important to realize that Pinterest is not a social media website like Facebook, it is a search engine like Google. People go on Pinterest to plan, look for solutions or look for things to buy.

Therefore, it is vital to identify who your target audience is and what their needs & problems are. Ask yourself “am I creating content that connects with my target audience by helping them achieve their goals or solve one or more of their most pressing problems?’”

So, she is saying to become customer outcome-focused, so your pins will be relevant. Also, since Pinterest is a search engine, keywords are vital to being found.

Here’s an in-depth article on keywording: Pinterest Search – 11 Smart Places to Use Keywords for Better SEO

Keep in mind places Pinterest utilizes keywords: username, profile/business name (the one customers are most familiar with) and About section. Choosing the correct category is important too.

New features to integrate:

Bennett explains the Pinterest LENS:

“The visual lens is a camera located on the right side of the Pinterest Search bar on your mobile device. When you take a picture using the visual lens Pinterest will then show you other ideas inspired by the picture you took. Visual searches on their (Pinterest) platform have increased 74% year-over-year.”

Imagine…with so many using their mobile phone as a camera, it is becoming a primary search tool and a better one, for showing not just products, but ideas how to use them. *HINT, HINT!

Bennett continues with a caution:
“A second thing, according to Pinterest is that the advertising is going to be less and less about keywords or interests to target. Instead, it’ll be about using visual signals behind the scenes to create more useful, relevant and results-driven advertising.”

Anna forecasts this as, “very powerful for verticals like home decor and fashion.”

Leveraging Pinterest for best engagement and brand awareness:

The first step is having quality pins that people want to save and share.

• Canva is a FREE software tool, that helps with content-creation. It available as an app on iTunes, making professional looking pins with stock images, graphics, templates and free icons with a drag-and-drop method that lets you use your own images too.(Now you won’t need to hire a graphic designer!)

Engagement depends on frequent consistent posts, and luckily there are scheduling tools to help with that. The top ones are:

• Tailwind
• ViralTag
• Hootsuite
• Buffer
• Boardbooster This one creates secret boards that no one can see or access, but your collected pins on one board can then be individually scheduled to a public board. It’s free for the first 100 scheduled pins and then either plans start at $5/month to schedule 500. You can loop pins to re-pin old ones to the same board, while automatically deleting lesser performing ones. Especially helpful is testing for broken links and duplicates, to improve pin quality.

With so many tools to automate the process, and a burgeoning market interest, Pinterest could be the next big thing for marketing your brand. Pin and profit!

Source: https://goo.gl/images/QePnoY

About the Author: Angel Burns is a photographic artist and film producer, from Los Angeles. She holds a B.A. degree in Advertising & Public Relations, and is pursuing a Master of Arts in Mass Communication at the University of Florida. In her free time, she can be found cheering for her two performing daughters, or roaming the globe.

Other recommended readings:

Pin Your Way To Success: How Pinterest Is Changing The Game For Marketers

Why You Need To Know Your Audience

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