Content Marketing Archives - Page 3 of 8

How to Use Visual Content in Your Marketing

In the world of digital marketing, visual content is:

Images
Videos
Charts & Graphs

You use visual content in marketing by selecting and designing it to enhance the communication of your message – and we know how critical that message can be to the success of your enterprise.

Using visual content and imagery in marketing should be a practice in helping every possible customer or client understand what your business offers, how it can help him or her, and how he or she can get it.

Learn how to maximize the effectiveness of your imagery with our visual content marketing strategies.

Don’t Fear Images

Our brains process visual content and text in two contrasting ways. Though it may not seem like it, parsing the meaning of language is a work-heavy procedure, especially when compared to the brain power necessary to find meaning in an image.

We figure out images an impressive 600,000 times faster than we figure out text. They also evoke stronger emotional responses and elicit action more often than pure text. We tend to only read about 20% of the text on a webpage – but with the help of images, we can understand large concepts and remember them more easily than we would by reading about them.

Imagine the concept of the Leverage Marketing team giving you the gift of free marketing knowledge. We’ve wrapped it up in a blog and we’re handing it to you, here and now, obligation-free and with the hope that you’ll use it to better your business. How would you represent that concept?

Mouse-over below to see our version of the concept.

hands holding purple gift box for free marketing knowledge concept

The way to engage with images is by assigning a purpose to each image. Every photo or illustration you choose to use should be able to drive home a point and leave a lasting impression. Creating custom images is the best way to ensure that there is meaning behind each image, but if you don’t have the resources to do so, then don’t be afraid to invest the time necessary to search for and acquire only the most relevant images.

There are four common types of images we use in visual content marketing:

Standard Images

These are the images you see pasted into pages and blogs to enhance the consumer experience. They can range from memes to photographs and tell a part of the story that can’t be communicated through text alone.

Icons

Icons are miniaturized, simplified versions of full-sized images. An icon is a representative or symbol of something. In much the same way that an image represents an idea from text, an icon represents an idea from an image.

Screenshots

To make it easier to describe complex computer issues or processes, smart marketers use screenshots. These are still grabs from your computer screen that share with the viewer everything viewable to you on your monitor – or, with a little editing, the parts that you want the viewer to see.

Infographics

Infographics are the capstones of images. They combine the features and storytelling power of different types of images to create a fully-realized graphics and marketing experience. Often, they also include text to ensure that viewers have access to the complete body of information.

Tips for Using Images and Graphics in Your Visual Content Marketing Strategy

There’s more to beginning to use images than just including them in your next content piece. Try these tips to make sure your images are helping you reach your marketing goals:

Don’t treat images like filler content – If you start adding non-relevant images just for fun, you’ll quickly raise your page’s load time too high with content that doesn’t contribute to your message… and probably confuses your viewer.
Be careful of file size – 200 kilobytes should be your absolute maximum, with few exceptions, but you should aim to keep almost all of your images 100 kilobytes or below to keep load times rock-bottom.
Tie in image appearance – A rowdy mix of illustration styles and random photos, with and without borders, and with wildly varying color schemes and value ranges is a heavy burden on your professional credibility. Use your brand’s colors as a base for your images. Pick a category, such as photos or illustrations, along with a consistent style, such as flat design or matte painting, for reliable results.

Did you notice that most of our graphics use our brand colors? That’s how you pull your imagery together!

Start Making Videos

You can’t stop video from becoming more and more relevant. Most of what you consume on social media is now either images or video – text has taken a seat way, way behind visual media.

Generation Z youth, born between 1995 and 2012, now spend about 10 hours a day online between all of their available devices. 70% of this demographic watch over two hours of videos on YouTube alone every day.

If you want to capture their attention (and the attention of those outside the Gen Z demographic) then you have to start making and outreaching videos now. But beware – producing video is so much more than talking into a phone camera.

Record, edit, and post videos like these to start driving website visits and page views:

Weekly broadcasts
Influencer interviews
Testimonials
Customer service videos

Think of creative ways to use the videos – we’ve suggested some unique video ideas before that you might want to check out. You can:

Add videos to blogs
Post videos on your social media channels
Share videos with influencers
Use videos to enhance service & product exploration

Make and Use a YouTube Account

Google is the most widely used search engine, and they already own YouTube. It’s a win-win to create a YouTube account to host your videos, because Google has the greatest access and integration with its own service.

If you let Google-owned YouTube host your videos, you’re much more likely to rank highly for your target keywords in organic search – and that’s a smart visual content marketing strategy. Just don’t forget to embed your YouTube videos in relevant areas on your site and social media channels.

Integrate Charts & Graphs When Possible

Build ‘em in Excel, Piktochart, Canva, or Adobe Illustrator – whatever creative program you have access to, use it to create visually appealing graphs and charts.

You can embed Google Trends graphs directly into your content.

OR you can build your own Excel charts – and they actually look all right!

Seeing an astounding statistic in text is one thing, but watching bars and lines rise and fall gives you a physical sensation of the impact of statistics, a power tool in visual content marketing. In marketing, graphs and charts drive home information as well as emotion – and can sometimes call your audience to action.

Tailor Your Visual Content Marketing Strategy Directly to Your Audience

If you’re selling to millennials, push video on social media. If you’re targeting 30-50 year old professionals, employ engaging infographics and interviews with influential industry leaders. Each demographic consumes in a different way, but they all have one thing in common:

Everyone consumes visual content.

Leverage Marketing provides visual content marketing services from strategy to execution. Connect with us today and get moving on a graphics and marketing plan to increase traffic and qualified leads!

Writing Great Content for SEO: Your Questions Answered

September 20, 2017/1 Comment/in Content Marketing, SEO /by Bob Kehoe

Let’s be honest: running a business is hard work. With all the things you’re juggling, The LAST thing you want to worry about is how Google is reading your site. That’s Google’s problem, right?

Unfortunately, throwing your offerings up on the World Wide Web and crossing your fingers isn’t going to cut it, which you probably know if you’re reading this article. You’re going to have to take some specific actions to drive traffic to your site.

Adding content to your site is one of those specific actions. But how does one even begin to create content that makes sense to search engine, sells to customers, and doesn’t ruin the user experience of your site?

Luckily, our team at Leverage Marketing has helped more than a few sites build out content that boosts search engine optimization efforts and helps businesses communicate their brand voice effectively. We’ve collected some of the common questions we are asked about SEO-optimized content so you don’t have to be in the dark.

Why Do I Need Content for SEO?

The answer is simpler than you think. Basically, search engines (like customers) need to know what you’re offering – you’re not going to rank #1 on Google if Google can’t tell what you’re selling. Thanks to this little bit of reasoning, when you search for “computer monitor”, you don’t have to weed through 20 pages of lawnmowers and blenders to find a site that sells computer monitors. Seems really obvious, right? That’s why we need words on websites – Google reads words just like you and me.

Here’s a fun fact: Google has begun to understand not only the words we type into the search bar, but the context and meaning of searches as well. In other words, Google is learning what the searcher’s intent is when they type in a query. That’s a big reason why it’s important to create great content, instead of just slapping a bunch of keywords onto a page. Google is trying to understand your site in the way your customers do, and Google, like your customers, demands high-quality content.

How Much Content Do I Need Per Page for SEO?

There’s no true one-size-fits-all answer to this question. To help search engines figure out what your site is all about, you’ve got to give them something substantial to work with. That means on all the major (and sometimes minor) pages of your site, you should consider having some decent content for Google to dig its robot claws into.

There’s a good way to figure out how long your content really needs to be. Ask yourself these questions:

What does the reader need to gain/learn/acknowledge from this page?
What questions might potential readers have when getting to this page? What if this is the first page on your site they see – is there enough info for them here?
What unique information can you offer on this page to give your reader a richer experience?

Once you’ve told the reader what they need to know, answered their questions before they have a chance to ask them, and offered all the information that makes the user experience on your site great, that’s probably a good stopping place.

Really try to get inside your user’s head here. You may assume that everyone knows all the basics about waffle makers, and that they don’t need to be informed of the differences between non-stick and stainless steel when they visit your product category page, but that just isn’t true for every single visitor – some people are looking for info that you should be providing. And don’t forget to tell them why they should buy from your site instead of your competitors’, or what your free shipping deal is, or how they can join your loyalty club for 15% off. There is almost always a reason and a way to add valuable content to a page – and if there isn’t, you might want to consider why that page even needs to exist.

Finally, remember that you are adding content for your users, not for search engines. Sure, adding good content will help your site’s performance, but that’s because Google and the other search engines are seeking out sites that best fit searchers’ queries. If your site ranks #1 for a keyword but your users aren’t finding what they need and are bouncing back to the search results page, you can safely bet that you won’t stay in that #1 spot for long.

What Are Some SEO Content Best Practices?

When you’re creating content for your site, keep in mind a few things that will improve both your user’s experience and your rankings:

Do: Add a few keywords. What does your user type into Google when looking for this page? You’ll want that phrase in your content, too.
Don’t: Participate in “keyword stuffing.” If your content is unreadable because it has so many keywords stuffed into it, you’re going to provoke the ire of search engines, who correctly read this practice as spam.
Do: Put at least some of your content near the top of the page. You want your content to be one of the first things a search engine (or a user) reads.
Don’t: Put ALL of your content at the top of the page. Don’t sacrifice your user experience for SEO – make sure your users can find what they’re looking for.
Do: Make sure your content is readable and accessible to all users. Choose easily-readable fonts and font colors, and take advantage of features such as the alt attribute for photos, so that every user can understand your site.
Don’t: Stick your content in places where search engines can’t get to it. Search engines often struggle to read text within images and JavaScript.

Can I Do SEO Without Content?

Sure, knock yourself out. But just know that your results aren’t going to be anywhere near as great as they’d be by implementing a supporting on-page SEO effort.

Off-page SEO tactics, such as link building (gaining links from other reputable sites on the web), are certainly very important to growing your site’s authority, visibility, and ranking over time. However, only performing link building efforts while leaving your site sparse on content is sort of like going to a Halloween party as one member of a group costume. Sure, going to the party as a salt shaker is fine, but the costume makes a lot more sense with another person going as a pepper shaker. So yeah, you might see results from link-building alone, but if you want to really get the most out of your efforts, just tell Google what you’re selling.

What About Hidden SEO Content?

I get it – you don’t want to mess up the aesthetic of your site with a bunch of boring words. Why can’t you just make all those words the same color as your background or stick them somewhere in your code where your users don’t see them but search engines do?

Short answer: don’t even think about it. Search engines view this kind of behavior as spammy and deceptive, so it won’t give you the long-term rankings boost you’re looking for. It will probably even earn you a big demotion that buries your site on the 25^th page of Google. Fun stuff!

And really? You have no way to work in content that offers a better experience for your users in any part of the page? If your site isn’t designed to incorporate content or inform users… what’s the point?

Still stuck on how to make SEO content work for your brand and your site? The Leverage Marketing team has all the savvy to help both users and search engine bots fall in love with your site. Check out our Content Marketing offerings, or just sign up for our newsletter for a regular dose of digital marketing knowledge.

8 Things to Look for in Your Content Marketing Agency

September 18, 2017/5 Comments/in Content Marketing /by Leverage Marketing

Hiring a content marketing agency requires a lot of trust. You’re partnering with marketers who are going to create content on behalf of your business, and you need to feel confident that those marketers will do your brand justice. To find a team of content specialists you trust with your brand voice, look for the following eight qualities.

Experience Across a Variety of Industries

There are advantages to working with a content marketing agency that focuses on one industry. The agency will already be deeply familiar with the industry, and it won’t take long to bring them up to speed with your business. However, there’s also a risk that the agency will fall into a rut of producing the same type of content over and over again, never distinguishing your company from your competitors.

On the other hand, content teams that have worked with a wide variety of clients have demonstrated an ability to adapt their tone and strategy as needed. They’re more likely to bring a fresh perspective to your marketing and may present ideas you’ve never considered.

To find out if the content marketing agency you’re vetting is versatile, check their website for testimonials or case studies from other clients. Ask to see samples of their work for several different industries. If their samples include a variety of content types, such as infographics and videos, that’s even better.

A Team of Avid Researchers

The content writers you hire need to unabashedly love doing research. They may not know a lot about your industry at the beginning of the engagement, but they should work to get so familiar with your business that they’re basically an extension of your in-house team. In addition to becoming well-acquainted with your products or services, they also need to research your audience thoroughly. They should uncover audience insights to help them create content that resonates with the right people at the right time.

The Ability to Harness Your Brand Voice

A good content specialist will master your brand voice so that all content from your company sounds consistent. They may familiarize themselves with your brand voice by reading existing content you’ve provided and by interviewing members of your team. They should be good at asking questions that elicit insightful answers from your team and other interview subjects. Additionally, they need to be good listeners. They should be able to distill what you and your team have told them into a clear brand story.

Finely-Tuned Communication Skills

The last thing you want is a content marketing agency that drops off the map once you begin an engagement, resurfacing once a month to deliver content assets without comment. Even if you like the idea of a hands-off approach, you probably still want to know that you can reach your content team when you have an idea to share and that they’ll factor your ideas into their strategy.

When you interview content specialists, ask them how often they will meet with you and what kind of response time you can expect from them if you reach out between meetings. Find out what kind of collaboration tools they use so that you can exchange ideas.

An Enthusiasm for Teaching—and Learning

Is your agency so enthusiastic about content marketing that they want to share what they’ve learned with the world? Look at the content they’ve produced for their own business—are they keeping up with trends in digital marketing and making sure their audience stays informed? Evidence of this might include a regularly updated blog with well-researched posts, a video library, downloadable white papers, or webinars.

Commitment to the Full Content Marketing Process

If all you’re looking for is someone to write content for your business, you could hire a freelancer or two. If, however, you want content that meaningfully contributes to your business goals, you should work with an agency that performs market research, develops a strategy, produces content that aligns with that strategy, and then promotes the content to maximize its impact. Your agency needs to understand that content marketing doesn’t just mean churning out a few blog posts and calling it a day.

Collaboration Across Departments

Content marketing shouldn’t exist in a silo. In many cases, your content strategy can be enhanced with search engine optimization, social media marketing, and paid search—and your agency should make recommendations when your business can benefit from multiple services. Ideally, your content writers should have experience with SEO and should know how to tailor their content to both readers and search engines.

Tracking and Reporting Capabilities

Your agency should never produce content just for the sake of it: they must follow a strategy that aligns with your marketing goals. They need to look at more than just vanity metrics like page views; they should be able to show you how their efforts tie into downloads, purchases, lead generation, and other conversion metrics that matter to your bottom line. Your content team should also be transparent. Make sure they can walk you through how they measure results and what different metrics mean.

Are you currently vetting content marketing agencies? We’re biased, of course, but we think you should contact Leverage to learn more about our content marketing services. We’d love to talk to you about how we can grow your business with high-quality content.

Biggest User Experience Problems with Ecommerce Sites

September 11, 2017/0 Comments/in Content Marketing, Social Media, Video, Web Design /by Bob Kehoe

This post was originally published in early 2017, but we’ve updated it with new information to reflect current trends in ecommerce user experience design.

Designing an ecommerce user experience that pleases the customer is hard. Besides creating a gratifying ecommerce layout design, you need to craft a seamless experience from landing page to purchase. We’ve created a list some of the common failings ecommerce sites fall into–and your site should attempt to avoid. By focusing on your ecommerce UX and avoiding these pitfalls, you can succeed.

Limited and Missing Product Info

Website users want straightforward information. They want sufficient details that explain what your product is and how it can help them. Your ecommerce site should have multiple pictures of each of your products from various angles, presented excitingly. Don’t use stock images either; customers prefer images you’ve created or photographs that were taken expressly for your product. Follow this advice, and you can be successful on your site, and have images ready for Google’s Shopping Platform, newsletters, and more.

Lack of Mobile Optimization

It’s impossible to ignore mobile–it’s growing and becoming a larger segment of ecommerce activity each year. People shop from their phones and tablets a significant amount of the time, especially around the holidays. Your ecommerce website should be responsive and easy-to-use on mobile, with large buttons and a simple checkout process. Developing your site for mobile can lead to increased conversions and draw in new customers.

Long or Confusing Checkout Process

A quick check out process is integral to the success of your ecommerce site. If your check out takes too long and isn’t smooth, it can dissuade buyers and lead to abandoned carts. A one-page checkout, with multiple options for payment–including the option to sign in with Google, Amazon, or PayPal can increase your conversion–and success.

Bad Site Search

You hopefully already have a site search function for your ecommerce site–but how well does it work? It should include filters and advanced functionality to help your customers find what they need. Give them options to search by category or feature. Purchasing and enabling quality software will make the search process easy and functional for your customers.

Missing Contact Information

This piece of advice is simple–don’t hide your contact information. You should provide multiple forms of communication: phone, email, chat; the best methods for your ecommerce website. The more expensive the products you’re selling, the more easily reachable you should be. Place this information prominently in your header or footer and include easy links to a contact us page.

Engaging Content: Videos, Etc.

To create a successful ecommerce site, you need to engage your buyers. That means creating exciting content for them to watch or read, including videos, infographics, case studies, and original information about your products. Your content should enhance the user experience, explain your products, and reinforce why your company is the right choice for the customer.

Poor Social Sharing Buttons

Social media is a vital aspect of ecommerce and ignoring it can be the downfall of any ecommerce site. A successful ecommerce site allows customers to share items they wish to or have purchased. Social sharing can result in additional conversions, and by making this process easy, you can increase your web presence as well.

Creating a seamless user experience for your ecommerce customers is one of the keys to your success. Avoiding these pitfalls and focusing on ecommerce UX design will ensure your product shines and customers return to your site and recommend you to others. By following these ecommerce UX best practices, you can see increased conversions and higher revenue over time.

If you’re looking for some help with the user experience on your ecommerce site, Leverage is here to help you. We have experience working with ecommerce businesses and can tailor an approach to your company. Contact us today to learn more about our services and how we can help you.

Enhance Your Ecommerce Marketing Strategy with Leverage Learning

August 16, 2017/0 Comments/in Branding, Content Marketing, PPC, SEO, Social Media, Web Design /by Leverage Marketing

95% of Americans make an online purchase at least once a year, and 80% have made at least one online purchase in the past month. And, as the Washington Post recently put it, about a third of consumers now buy something online at least as often as they take out the trash (once a week). As online shopping becomes increasingly popular, it may seem like there’s never been a better time to own an ecommerce business.

However, growth-focused ecommerce businesses still face plenty of challenges, especially when it comes to attracting shoppers (who may be inclined to start their search on Amazon) and converting those shoppers into paying customers.

Build Your Ecommerce Marketing Knowledge

At Leverage Marketing, we want to help online businesses address these challenges with actionable ecommerce marketing ideas. We’ve been doing this for years with our digital marketing services, and now we’re taking what we’ve learned and sharing it in a free educational email series called Leverage Learning: Ecommerce.

The goal of Leverage Learning: Ecommerce is to help online business owners find digital marketing ideas to reach more customers and increase sales. The series is broken into 11 lessons on the following subjects:

Branding
Search Engine Optimization
UX Web Design
Content Marketing
Influencer Marketing
Facebook and Instagram Marketing
Paid Search Advertising
Email Marketing
Online Customer Service
Mobile Marketing
Measuring Success in Google Analytics

When you subscribe, you’ll receive a new email lesson twice a week until you’ve received the full series. The emails offer best practices for ecommerce marketing, quick tips that business owners can implement right away, and recommendations for free or low-cost tools to streamline marketing efforts.

If you’re ready to use digital marketing to drive sales for your ecommerce business, you can subscribe to our Leverage Learning: Ecommerce series by clicking here.

And if you enjoy this series, stay tuned: we’ll be releasing our Leverage Learning: Content Marketing series next!

As always, we’d love for you to contact us if you have any questions about our Leverage Learning series or the digital marketing services we offer!

Mobile Shopping: The New Norm

August 15, 2017/0 Comments/in Content Marketing, News, Satellite Marketing, SEO /by Bob Kehoe

We originally published this post back in 2016. Since a lot can change in the online marketing landscape in a year, we’ve updated it for 2017.

Throughout the last decade, mobile and online shopping has been on the rise, pushing brick-and-mortar businesses to compete harder for their share of consumers’ dollars. During the 2017 holiday season, eMarketer expects ecommerce sales to grow 15.8%, with total retail growth limited to 2%. The National Retail Federation (NRF) believes overall retail growth will be around 3.7-4.2% in 2017, while online retail will grow 8-12% alone. It’s clear that mobile shopping on smartphones and tablets, rather than brick and mortar shopping, is the new norm.

In the United States, consumers are increasingly using their smartphones more hours during the day for shopping, social media, and other activities. Mobile ad spending is on the rise, as marketers realize they need to target mobile consumers even more than through traditional advertising avenues. As mobile data and the online shopping industry grow, vendors and retailers will need to come up with innovative ways to target consumers.

As fewer consumers purchase laptops or rely on them as a primary device, tablets and smartphones will increasingly become the primary devices for purchasing, with 31 million US Internet users only using a mobile device to go online in 2016.

Amazon and Walmart

Comparing two retail giants—Amazon and Walmart—shows the chasm widening between online and brick-and-mortar sales. Amazon posted $82.7 billion in sales for the last 12 months, while Walmart, with its massive physical presence, only posted $12.5 billion. With ecommerce juggernauts like Amazon driving more sales through programs like Amazon Prime, online sales will continue to eclipse traditional brick-and-mortar options, and the online shopping industry will grow.

Both these companies are working hard to break into each other’s markets, with Walmart strengthening its ecommerce skills and Amazon its brick-and-mortar abilities. Walmart has purchased Amazon, however, announced its intention to purchase organic food giant Whole Foods and has been opening up retail bookstores in NYC and other locations. These two massive companies make it clear that ecommerce is the future, but brick-and-mortar isn’t dead either.

Demographics: Who Shops Mobile?

New data shows that younger buyers, especially those with smartphones, are more likely to use mobile devices for shopping compared to older consumers. In a 2016 Bronto survey of over 1000 people, 65% of adults ages 18-24 say they use their smartphones for shopping, as do 63% of those ages 25-34, and 58% of those aged 35-44, with the numbers dropping significantly as age increases. 35-44-year-old people are more likely to purchase on tablets, with younger consumers not using those devices as frequently. As age increases over 44, these numbers decline.

What these statistics suggest is that most mobile commerce growth is driven by the 18-34-year-old segment of the population, with less push from older American adults. As an increasing number of millennials accrue wealth and enter the workforce, mobile sales will continue to grow and overtake online sales from computers and eventually brick-and-mortar entirely.

Online shopping growth, especially on mobile, is a force that will only increase as the conveniences of shopping from your home and online-only deals eclipse any advantages brick-and-mortar stores retain. Millennial shoppers are pushing this evolution, and the next generation will only further it.

Conclusion

Consumer trends suggest that mobile sales are the new norm. Mobile devices, especially smartphones, are convenient to use and able to fit in your pocket, and retailers are providing seamless app experiences for purchasing on their platforms. Tablets are also a significant part of this growth, to a lesser extent, among adults in the 35-44-year old range.

Mobile commerce growth is inevitable, and it will overtake brick-and-mortar. The only question is when. With giants like Amazon reporting close to $100 billion in annual sales and growing, retailers and advertisers must pursue solutions to engage with mobile consumers in innovative ways. While brick and mortar stores are still relevant for the foreseeable future, Walmart and similar large retailers must continue to adapt to stay in business.

At Leverage Marketing, we employ pioneering techniques to further your company’s digital marketing efforts We can help your ecommerce business create a mobile-friendly design that adapts to smartphone and tablet design. Learn more about our web design services and contact us today.

The Secret to Creating Viral Content

July 19, 2017/2 Comments/in Content Marketing /by Bob Kehoe

What is Viral Content?

In today’s content marketing landscape, writing viral content for your company is integral to your success. But what is viral content? It’s a word bandied about so frequently, but what truly makes content stick, and circulate rapidly from one web user to another? Viral content is compelling, and it comes in many forms. Viral content spreads across social networks like a virus, as people continuously share it with their friends.

A piece of viral content possesses those traits that demand to be shared: specifically, it should be impactful. Neil Patel summarizes Aristotle’s concept of the three principles of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. A viral piece of content should either:

Contain some form of ethical petition
Appeal to your audience’s emotions
Possess a request that is justifiable and logical

Creating viral content means arousing emotions in your readers, giving useful advice, and often striking a positive note. However, viral content isn’t a simple concept. While there are techniques for how to write viral content, it can be difficult to predict whether a piece of content will take off or not. However, there are steps you can take to increase your chances of having widely-shared brand content. Our guide will walk you through viral content marketing: how it works, how to create it, how to tap into your readers’ emotions, and more. Learn how virality works and the secret to creating it for your company.

What Makes Content Go Viral?

How do content creators across the Internet manage to create viral content? This question has frequently been asked in the past, and Berger and Milkman performed a study in 2015, analyzing hundreds of New York Times articles for virality. They found that:

In general, positive content is more viral than negative content.
Positive content that arouses surprise, amusement and awe is more commonly shared than other types of positive content
Negative content that evokes anger and anxiety is more frequently shared.
People share content for many reasons, including as a chance to raise their social status, to get something back, and to help other people

These results about viral content are still relevant today. People share content because it brings out emotions in them and they want to allow others to experience the same feelings. Viral content marketing is about producing content that challenges the norm, which captivates and persuades.

If you want to get people to share your content socially, you want to arouse their emotions, either positively or negatively. The more stimulated they are, the more likely they are to share your content. Content that doesn’t inspire emotional provocation, or inspires low arousal, such as sadness, doesn’t have the same viral potential.

How Can I Create Viral Content?

Now comes the most crucial step: applying viral content creation to your business. How do you write viral content that connects with readers? There are several important steps to consider when beginning to create content:

Determine the best medium for your content. What topic are you covering, and who is the intended audience? Is the content piece best suited for a video, infographic, or article format? While most viral content is still written, videos, infographics, and new alternative content formats are breaking into audience’s minds. Experimenting with the latest content types can be a boon, yielding additional shares on social media.
Headlines are vital—test your article title in tools like to determine the best title for your piece of viral content
Understand the importance of visual content. Whether you’re creating a video, written piece, or infographic, images are vital to the virality of your content. Choose them carefully, creating original graphics if necessary.
Gather as much data as possible from your site and social media accounts. The more you post, the better you’ll be able to ascertain which post types are popular and determine trends you can use in the future. Creating viral content is about knowing what your customers enjoy reading, watching, or listening to.
Build links in intelligent ways. Develop relationships with popular websites, and your content will get linked back to. This process can help boost virality.
Write about practical topics. While viral content marketing that taps into high emotions is talked about most often, practicality is another essential element of viral content. People love sharing an article about something they need in their life, something helpful or necessary.

Creating viral content is all about utilizing your customers’ emotion potential, determining what they’ll best enjoy and share with their friends and coworkers. Follow these tips, and you can be on your way to becoming an expert in viral content marketing.

The Leverage Marketing content team knows all about creating viral content. Learn more about our content marketing services and find out what Leverage can do for you. Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date on the latest in digital marketing.

Does B2B Influencer Marketing Make Sense?

June 27, 2017/0 Comments/in Branding, Content Marketing, Social Media /by Leverage Marketing

Influencer marketing—the practice of partnering with influential individuals to communicate a brand message—is hardly a new concept for B2C companies. In fact, back in the 1760s, the pottery company founder Josiah Wedgwood was using endorsements from painters, architects, and even royalty to promote his products. There’s centuries’ worth of evidence that influencer marketing can be an effective tool for B2C brands, but what about B2B companies?

If you own a B2B company, you might be under the impression that because you’re targeting a narrower audience than your B2C peers, influencer marketing just isn’t worth it. However, B2B influencer marketing can be incredibly effective, as long as you’re working with the niche B2B influencers that your target buyers follow.

How Influencer Marketing Can Benefit B2B Brands

B2B influencer marketing example from American Express

Collaborating with niche influencers—including industry analysts, conference speakers, and other thought leaders—can help you:

Humanize Your Brand

While you may be selling your products or services to businesses, it’s important to remember that it’s still people who are doing the buying. And those people aren’t likely to connect with your brand if you hide behind dry industry jargon and generic lists of product features. B2B influencers give your brand a human face and inject personality into your message, helping you appeal to your target audience and stand out from competitors.

Capture the Attention of Difficult-to-Reach Leads

One of the biggest challenges in B2B marketing is capturing high-quality leads at the right time. Industry influencers who align with your brand can reach a highly-targeted audience at different stages of the buyer’s journey, and with the right message, they can nudge those audience members towards your business.

Build Trust

When you invest in influencer marketing for B2B, you’re making an investment in your brand’s reputation. B2B influencers have dedicated a lot of time and effort to build trust with their audience, and when they make a recommendation, their audience listens. If you find an influencer who believes in your product or services, you’ll earn the trust of their followers.

3 Standout B2B Influencer Marketing Examples

Hopefully, you’re starting to see how powerful B2B influencer marketing can be. If you’re still unconvinced, check out these examples of B2B influencer marketing campaigns that had a major impact:

GE’s Instagram Series Takes Flight

General Electric was ahead of the curb with B2B influencer marketing: way back in 2013, they invited six influential Instagram photographers to tour and document their newest aviation facility. The company also shared an Instagram post inviting six aviation fans to join them on the tour by posting a sentence about why they were the biggest GE #avgeek. In less than 24 hours, the post got over 1,000 likes and over 130 comments.

Since this initial campaign, GE has launched their #GEInstaWalk series on Instagram. They now regularly invite some of Instagram’s best photographers and biggest tech aficionados to tour and take pictures of their cutting-edge facilities.

American Express Shares Design Tips with SMBs

American Express wants to appeal to small business owners, and one way they do this is by teaming up with experts who can address the pain points small business owners often experience. As part of their Love My Store campaign, they partnered with HGTV Design Star winner Emily Henderson to make a series of videos about in-store design. In the videos, Henderson visited different stores and offered the owners advice on using design and signage to attract more customers. American Express also invited small business owners to post photos of their storefront with the hashtag #LoveMyStoreAmexContest for a chance to win a one-on-one consultation with Henderson.

SAP Captures an Online Audience with Influencer Interviews

SAP, an enterprise software company, decided to use B2B influencer marketing to get more mileage out of Sapphire, their annual user conference. The company identified authors, academics, and independent business consultants who could speak on topics that appealed to SAP product users, and then invited those influencers to participate in interviews at the Sapphire conference. SAP used Facebook Live to broadcast these interviews, extending their conference content to over 80,000 people who didn’t attend. In addition to sharing their videos on Facebook, they also leveraged the interviews to create blog content.

Ways Your Company Can Use Influencer Marketing

expert roundup influencer marketing example

Example of expert roundup blog post from American Webmasters Association

It’s not just big brands like American Express and GE that can benefit from using B2B influencer marketing. Here are a few ways B2B companies of any size can start working with niche influencers:

Collaborate on a whitepaper. You could ask an influencer to co-author a whitepaper or eBook, but if the influencer you want to work with doesn’t have the time for such an extensive project, they could simply contribute several “Expert Tips.”
Write an “expert round-up” blog post. These blog posts often pose one question (e.g. How has social media marketing changed your business?) and collect responses from several industry insiders. If you curate this type of piece, ask the experts who contribute to help extend the post’s reach by sharing it with their social networks.
Invite an influencer to co-host a webinar. Attract more participants to your next webinar by inviting an influencer your audience respects to co-host. Not only will working with an influencer boost your authority, it will also add an interesting perspective to the webinar that you might not have gotten otherwise.
Write a guest post for an influencer’s blog (or vice versa). In some cases, an influencer might be willing to write a guest post for your blog in exchange for you contributing a post to theirs.
Conduct an interview with an industry expert. You could conduct the interview over the phone or email if the expert is remote, but if they’re in the same city, see if you can do a video interview. This will give you visually appealing content to share on your site and social media.

Remember, there are many different ways you can work with B2B influencers, but none of these strategies will be fully effective if the influencer’s message doesn’t align with your brand. Do your research: instead of just chasing the influencers with the most fans or followers, look for micro-influencers who resonate with your target audience.

Introduction to Content Marketing

May 31, 2017/0 Comments/in Content Marketing /by Bob Kehoe

Content marketing is the creation and distribution of media to consumers on the internet.

It is a practice that aims to:

Improve the quality of content available online
Help audiences find the products, services, and expertise for which they are looking
Help products, services, and expertise find their appropriate audiences
Improve the visibility of websites in major search engines

Content encompasses an astounding variety of consumable media, and disseminating that media through marketing requires knowledge of every digital marketing channel available.

Google Trends data shows us that content marketing sharply rose in importance around 2012 and has been steadily increasing since 2014.

It’s intimidating to increase your visibility as a website or business owner in today’s online world. But by building your understanding of content marketing from the basics, you can boost your ability to unite your marketing efforts and bring your content to the audiences who seek it.

The Meaning of “Content”

Content is anything that is consumable on the internet.

Any complete piece of media that you find on the internet can be considered digital content. There’s a long list of media that we call content, which means a content creator’s job requires an unusual breadth of skills. Some of the most common content pieces you’ll find include:

Pages	Graphics	Publications	Videos
Blogs	Featured Images	Whitepapers	Explainer Videos
Landing Pages	Infographics	eBooks	Commercials
News Articles	Motion Graphics	Press Releases	Social Media Videos
Ad Copy	Animations	Manuals/Guides	How-To Videos

Surprisingly, the list doesn’t end there. Businesses may ask content creators to go beyond the normal scope of content creation to make highly customized pieces of content. Custom content may use less popular media such as audio or print, or could combine popular media in unique ways.

However, it’s easier to think of the most common content as a part of the four main categories:

Pages

icon for visual content explanation Text-based pieces of content that focus on providing information and value to consumers and search engines.

Graphics

rightword arm example of leverage custom graphics Visual media designed to enhance the user experience and allow information to be consumed faster and easier than information contained in text.

Publications

purple book with leverage logo for publications example Advanced and thorough pieces of long-form content that provide top-level expertise on a topic or topics.

Videos

video rounded corner cutout with trees and mountain Moving images that improve the consumability of information by providing it through visual and auditory channels.

Once a content creator makes a piece of content, it needs a home. In most cases, that home will be the creator’s or his or her client’s website. From there, the content needs to reach the world, which requires effective content marketing.

The Meaning of “Content Marketing”

Content marketing is the science of creating and distributing content to the appropriate audience.

We defined it earlier, but the alternative definition above may be easier to digest. As a process that requires lots of experimentation, social aptitude, professional courtesy, technical knowledge, analytical ability, and financial management, content marketing is a far less tangible concept than content.

But that doesn’t mean it’s out of reach. Like content, understanding content marketing on a basic level enables webmasters, business owners, and marketers to change the direction and scope of the practice.

Content marketing is just a collection of approaches for the dissemination of content to which each marketer can apply his or her style and expertise. The most common approaches to content marketing include:

Search Engine Optimization

The SEO approach is built into quality content; that is, the easiest way to get your content to those who need it is to write thorough content with valuable information that search engines will pick up and rank highly.

Email Outreach

Outreach by email is the process of sharing content with interested parties by writing an email to those parties and attaching a link or document for sharing. You can use this method to solicit guest posts or to get your content on popular, well-ranking websites.

Social Outreach

Social outreach is the act of sharing content on popular social media channels; it can be done organically by using available free sharing tools, or it can be done using paid advertising now available on most social media platforms.

Influencer Marketing

The influencer marketing approach uses manual or automated outreach to influential men and women who can promote your content to their followers. Influencers hold sway over their audiences and, when they endorse a product or service, have a significant impact on its success.

Content Distribution Platforms

Paid content distribution platforms use a pay-per-click approach to present your content to audiences who see sponsored links to your content on websites with similar content. You pay for impressions or clicks, but you get massive traffic – as long as you offer quality content.

Each approach requires the marketer to build a new set of skills. But following the mastery of each approach, the potential for content to reach new audiences increases substantially.

How to Get Started with Content Marketing

You can’t begin marketing content without first creating it. But to begin creating valuable content, you have to have a brand that backs it.

Branding

Before you dive into content creation, start with branding.

Find out who your competitors are targeting and consider how you can appeal better to that audience and others.
Think of adjectives that describe your persona or that of your company and stick to those adjectives when representing yourself or your organization.
Record and use hard brand guidelines as a point from which you can jump off, but be ready to allow your brand to evolve.

Your brand guidelines will direct the topics your content covers, how those topics appeal to consumers, and what channels you can use to distribute your content.

Creation

Your branded business can begin content creation with or without a dedicated marketing team, but it requires a significant time commitment to accomplish.

Some of the most common and effective content published regularly on today’s websites includes:

Service & Product Pages – Pages that describe in detail a service or product offered by you or your company.
Blogs – Articles written to share information that does not have a direct marketing approach.
Graphics – Visual media that shares information or acts as an advertisement for you or your business.

As long as you have a computer available, content creation is inherently free except for the hours required to complete it. Start creating content today and publish it on your website or social media channels to garner organic traffic and build your audience.

Your marketing experts at Leverage Marketing know how to build content from the ground up and take it to the audiences that are searching for it. Let us know if you need a hand in your content creation or marketing, or learn more from our content marketing service page (one of our countless pieces of valuable content)!

How to Use Instagram to Promote Your Brand

May 19, 2017/1 Comment/in Content Marketing, Social Media /by Bob Kehoe

There’s no question that Instagram has become a juggernaut in the social media landscape. Since Facebook acquired the platform for almost $1 billion in 2012, Instagram has surged in popularity, skyrocketing in daily active users and monetizing itself through branded hashtags, integrated ads, and more. Using Instagram as a marketing tool can enhance your brand’s success, connect you with your fans, and bolster your online presence.

Why Instagram?

You may be asking, “Why use Instagram?” If your company or brand is already successful on Facebook or other social media channels, utilizing Instagram may seem redundant or unnecessary. But marketing on Instagram allows you to interact with an age group younger than Facebook and other platforms and provides a personalized experience for your audience. Marketing with Instagram can give your followers and fans a behind-the-scenes look at your business or brand, providing them with easy opportunities to engage.

However, only 36% of online marketers use Instagram, compared to 93% of whom who use Facebook. While Instagram isn’t right for every brand, it’s worth looking into whether using Instagram as a marketing tool could be beneficial for your business.

It only takes a quick look at Instagram’s demographics to see why the service could be essential to your business. Over 25% of Internet users were using the platform in 2015, with over 50% using it in the key demographic of 18-29-year-old people. Instagram users engage with the platform in a way other social media platforms dream about—with 4.2 billion likes on posts daily, as well 95 million photos and videos shared daily. When you use Instagram for brand marketing, you can achieve engagement rates much higher than Facebook, Twitter, and other social media.

While more women than men use Instagram, people of all genders like, share, and post on Instagram—from taking food photos to live videos. Marketing on Instagram means communicating with your followers and understanding what they want. By setting specific goals for your Instagram marketing, such as increasing follower count, improving your images and videos, or deriving additional revenue, you can leverage Instagram for success.

How Can I Succeed on Instagram?

Using Instagram for marketing effectively requires using the tools available. With the right tools for success, your brand or company can leverage Instagram to increase sales, visibility, and your connection with customers. Here are some of the most crucial elements:

Consistency and Frequency- Publish often, but not too often. The rate will depend on your brand, but it may be daily, or even 2-3 times a day. Whatever frequency leads to optimal engagement is what you should aim for—and stick to that. Being consistent with your posting will help establish credibility and allow you to keep to a schedule.
Understanding Your Audience/Followers– Know who follows you. You want to develop the right content, be it Instagram Stories, photos, or videos, that appeals to your audience and shows that you get Specificity may require building out buyer personas for Instagram to understand better who your followers are and could be in the future.
A Strong Vision and Strategy- Develop a plan for how you want your company Instagram to feel. There should be a distinct vision for your posts—a clear goal for what you’re communicating to your followers, which can be aided by…
A Clear Visual Style- Everything from a consistent font to a color palette to filters used for your colors should be defined for your Instagram. Create a simple visual style guide for company images to help yourself and anyone else who manages the account—perhaps go through this process with an in-house graphic designer or consultant.

By using these tools, you’ll be on the right path to success with Instagram. Other useful tools include Instagram scheduling apps, repurposing content from other platforms, and utilizing contests and giveaways to engender additional interaction with your followers.

What Kind of Content Should I Post on Instagram?

So now that you understand why you should use Instagram and how you can succeed on the platform, you might be wondering, “What kind of content I should post?” The easy answer, especially for B2C companies, is to post photos of their product, but that simply won’t get the level of engagement you want. Instagram is all about engagement, so here are some techniques for driving followers to interact with your brand:

Behind-the-Scenes Content- Use videos or sets of photos to show your fans what it’s like at your company. Whether your business is B2B or B2C, this helps create trust with customers and can be a fun way to provide an inside look into how your business operates. Like Snapchat, Instagram videos don’t require professional polish—they should look clean but don’t need extensive editing.
User-Generated Content and Customer Stories– Utilizing content produced by people who love your product or company—who are as passionate about your brand as you are—can resonate with your audience. Use Instagram to ask for user-generated content, offering a reward in the form of a gift card or another prize.
Hashtag Strategy- Develop a hashtag strategy for your content. Use relevant and related hashtags to your company and content for your posts to connect with other Instagram accounts and gain followers. Using Instagram hashtags may seem complicated, but it doesn’t have to be.
Be Fun, Light-Hearted, and Educational- Instagram is an exciting platform—there are so many ways to produce and edit content and reach your audience. Experimenting with different media and techniques with A/B testing and educating your followers about your brand will lead you to the right content to produce.

Marketing on Instagram for Your Brand

No matter what type of company you have, Instagram is a viable candidate for marketing today. Companies as diverse as Nike and Ben & Jerry’s have active Instagram presences, utilizing photos and videos to increase their brand visibility and connect with customers. By following Leverage’s Instagram marketing tips, you can develop a strategy for including it in your social media marketing.

Let the social media experts at Leverage help you get started marketing on Instagram today. Contact us to learn about our social media marketing services and what we can do for your company