Category: Social Media

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Six Strategies for Successful Community Building

A brand community is only as valuable as the work you put into it or provide. Meaning you can’t expect the community to do the work for you at all times. You must put work into it first to gain the amazing benefits brand communities return. Strong communities share your messages across many different avenues, starting with their closest friends and family, ultimately increasing your brand awareness, recognition, and credibility.

 

Here are six community building strategies to learn and how they can grow your business:

 

  1. Incorporate Customer Feedback – When you receive any feedback from a customer, whether email, in the community, or otherwise, use that information in the community. If it’s positive feedback, call out the customer in the group and thank them. How you respond to negative feedback demonstrates how you will make it better or change something you do. This shows your customers you are listening.

 

  1. Respond to Product Reviews – If someone gives you a review, don’t just ignore it. Instead, respond to it by thanking them, providing even more greatness, or if it’s not as good as you’d like, make it right by being understanding and letting them know you are here for them.

 

  1. Embrace User-Generated Content – The remarkable thing about building a community is the user-generated content that can be used and put to use. For example, you can ask for advice in a group about something relevant, compile it, and then make a blog post about it.

 

  1. Host Online and Offline Events – You can also start hosting events once you have a captive audience in the community or group. Events are great ways to bring your community even closer and get to know your audience even more. The wonderful thing is you can do events online or offline as long as your particular community is interested.

 

  1. Develop a Members’ Affiliate Program – One way to get your audience in the community engaged is to let them earn money or prizes promoting your products, services, and community by setting up an affiliate or referral plan.

Six Tips to Improving your Social Media Story Content

  1. Create and Share Valuable and Unique Content – Most importantly, use your community to create and share valuable content that stands out from the crowd. The more tuned in to your community, the easier this becomes.

 

Be sure to incorporate these strategies as you grow your own brand community if you want to reap as many benefits as possible. Again, the more valuable information or resources you provide or add to the community, the more they are willing to return. If they go to bed tonight having enjoyed the interaction in your community, they will be back tomorrow, which means you need to ensure something more is there for them tomorrow.

 

 

 

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The Three Google Web Story Tools to Know About

Google web stories is a feature that allows you to publish content in a different format than your blog that is highly attractive and shareable to mobile users. This format is similar to what you see on popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. It uses video, graphics, text, and other features to tell a story that your audience is interested in or needs through a more attractive and engaging format to your audience.

 

Using features that attract more mobile users is more crucial than ever, as nearly seventy percent of those using the internet to shop use their smartphones. What’s even more important is that the Google Discovery feature, where your stories will be placed, attracts around eight hundred million views every single month. To use this feature, you must be aware of the tools required to get it going. Let’s look at some.

 

The following are the three Google web story tools to know about and important tips on how to use each:

 

Web Stories for WordPress

 

This is the main plugin to use that started the launch of Google web stories. This plugin offers a unique editing interface, tools, and templates to create powerful and beautiful stories — making it your best bet if you want to get maximum value out of your stories. Of course, if you have a WordPress blog, this will work better since it’s designed to work with self-hosted WordPress (WordPress.org). However, since it is a Google product, you will likely have success using this feature. Third-party options can still make things better and easier to use, especially as time goes on.

 

MakeStories

 

This third-party tool takes Google’s Web Stories technology to the next level and makes it easier to use. It also provides more tools to host your stories, turn your stories into Instagram style carousels on your website, and offer a workspace to design and collaborate with your team.

 

Newsroom AI

 

Another powerful Web Stories tool that builds on a more immersive and intimate experience with your audience. Newsroom offers a freestyle functionality web story builder that lets you add shapes, media, or text layers however you want. Newsroom also gives access to over three hundred million Getty Images to upscale your content with free images and use the advanced publish settings to Connect to Google Discover to get more views.

 

Get to know each of these different Google web story tools to find the one that works best for you. While many of these 3rd Party tools are useful, it is always a good idea to learn the one that was developed first to get the most out of this new feature, as it is likely to be the most compatible. However, it is only natural for more tools and resources to become more beneficial and valuable as time goes on.

 

 

 

 

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Six Tips to Improving your Social Media Story Content

Just because most social media stories only last for twenty-four hours doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take the time to create a detailed content plan. Your social media story content relies on it to keep your brand image, message, and value consistent and audience engaged. Avoid confusing and boring your audience with lackluster or a hard sales-like approach on your social media stories.

 

Here are six tips to help improve your social media story content to increase your engagement and other important business conversions:

 

Be Personable and Less Formal

 

A mix of informal and formal content is the best approach when it comes to stories. However, lean more on the less formal side and use your website, YouTube channel, and other platforms or platform features for more professional content. Viewers want to get to know you and what you really stand for. They want to know you are real and honest. Due to the short time limit and engaging features social media stories have to offer. This is a great tool to do that.

 

Avoid Generic or Reposted Content

 

Don’t use your stories to simply repost content without making it more unique or different in some way. There is nothing wrong with repurposing, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t change it up somehow. This also includes using generic templates or limiting the variety of content you share with your viewers.

 

Get Your Audience Involved

 

Always have your audience at the top of your priority list when making stories and other social media content. While increasing your income is highly crucial to your business, you can’t get that without your target audience or a product that actually benefits them. So the more you keep them at the center of your focus, the better your content will be, and the more your products or services will improve.

 

Less is More

 

Don’t over-explain, use too much text or overcrowd your image or video with too many emojis. This can easily confuse your viewers, make them leave, or repeat the slide too many times, which can become a hassle.

 

Use Both Images and Video

 

Again, adding variety to your content with different images, videos, and templates or formats is important. This is how you keep your audience interested during the full length of the story and after.

 

Incorporate Audio and Captions

 

Audio and captions are a simple way to change your content while sharing key information with your audience. For example, many of those on Instagram don’t view stories with sound on, meaning if you talk, they will miss out. Captions are your way to capitalize fully on your target audience.

 

Keep these six social media improvement tips in mind when creating your next social media story content plan to ensure it achieves the business goals and objectives you need to succeed. Don’t post lackluster or invaluable content only because you believe the tool is useful and need to keep a consistent schedule. In order to gain the benefits, the content needs to be valuable to your audience too.

Six Instagram Influencer Marketing Tips

 

 

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Six Instagram Story Hacks to Use for Business

Just about everything you do on this platform relies on your use and understanding of the benefits and power stories provide. However, due to Instagram’s popularity, it can be hard to stand out against the competition to make a real impact and keep your audience interested and engaged.

 

Here are six Instagram story hacks to use for your business to provide your target audience maximum value and turn them into repeat visitors and customers:

 

Utilize and understand All Editing Features

 

Take the time to get to know how to use every single editing or other features Instagram has to offer. Instagram wants to keep people on their platform and provide you the tools to keep your customers there through these features. So the more time you take to learn it, the better you can take advantage of their benefits.

 

Create Progression Posts

 

Again, a goal for Instagram and you are to keep people active and engaged. If you want your viewers to stay around, create stories with slides or frames that work together to tell a full story instead of using single posts. In order words, don’t just share one story with a short frame of your product. Include extra details such as how to use it too.

 

Host Live Q&As or Other Events

 

Get your audience involved even more by answering their questions or showing off your products live. Q & As offers a fabulous way to build your community and advance brand awareness while answering many of your viewers’ or customers’ questions.

 

Take Advantage of Instagram Highlights and Shopping Feature

 

These two features are must-haves to get the most benefits from this platform. This is how you can make your stories last longer than twenty-four hours so your viewers can continue to receive the value if they were not there while it was live. It also provides you tools to add your brand colors to increase your brand awareness.

 

Mention Other Accounts

 

Account shoutouts are a professional way to increase your exposure and build the community with your niche or industry. The best trait to have as a business owner is generosity. The more you give and share to others, the more likely you are to receive more back. Additionally, when you post a shoutout, their audience will see your content, while your audience will likely view their content—a win for both businesses.

Use Tools and Pre-Schedule Your Content

 

Tools are important in order to keep up with the constant action required on Instagram. Of course, the amount you post depends on your target audience’s schedule, your niche, and what kind you want to create for your stories. However, the fact is still clear that frequently posting throughout the day is key to staying at the top of the newsfeed and better grab your audience’s attention.

 

As you can see, taking advantage of each and every feature the platform has to offer is the key to creating engaging and interesting content. The more features and tools you use, the more value it provides, keeping you at the top of your audience’s mind and preventing your competition from taking the lead. Add each of these ideas to your social media content plan to add the variety, consistency, and engagement you need to be successful.

 

Four Fun Ways to Use Instagram Stories Polls and Questions

 

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Five Tools to Automate Your Social Media Stories

Due to the high-value social media stories and other content brought to companies, third-party solutions and products emerged. These solutions were designed to make it easier for brands or businesses to take full advantage of the benefits social media marketing brings without breaking the bank or taking up too much time.

 

Many things in social media require constant work and are quite tedious. Not something any one person can do sustainably to see results or achieve your goals with social media – making it that much more important to take advantage of these tools to automate certain portions of your social media content plan or make it easier and faster to produce high-quality content.

 

The following are five tools to help automate your social media stories:

 

Hootsuite

 

Hootsuite offers a thirty-day free trial to get started. With Hootsuite, scheduling all your social media content ahead of time across many different platforms will save you more time and free you from frustration. Then, view what your customers or audience thinks, access image access to make regular posts, or evaluate your personalized insights to see what is working all in one easy-to-use interface.

 

SocialPilot

 

Never run out of content ideas with SocialPilot’s unlimited keyword search tool. Discover trending content, create it and schedule it ahead of time to automate your social media marketing. View all your social media comments, posts, and messages easily from your Facebook pages or groups all in one place organized for better communication. SocialPilot works with many of the popular platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

 

CoSchedule

 

A marketing calendar allows you to see all of your projects from different platforms in one area that you can share and work on with a team. It can be easy to get lost in communication and make your social media stories inconsistent or disorganized if you can’t properly work with your team or keep your project all in one place. Don’t let your content projects be scattered between emails, spreadsheets, or cloud storage.

 

Sprout Social

 

Get to know your audience better with Sprout Social, a tool that gives you the knowledge and information you need to create better social media stories or content for your target audience. Real connections make purchases, and that’s what this tool helps you do by understanding their needs and then doing the work to create a plan that meets them. They also provide tools that help you publish content, manage your workflows, influencer engagement, and view analytics.

 

PostPlanner

 

Automatically post your content and keep up with your daily posting schedule with PostPlanner. A tool that allows you to set your posting schedule, republish content with one click, or tailor your post to maximize your reach. It also has a feature that filters through Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit to provide the best or most trendy topics and ideas to create more stories or social media posts that convert.

 

Give each of these tools a try to see which one provides the most value to your brand and overall objective. The idea is to free up your time so you can use it where it matters most. For example, create engaging, interactive, and highly valuable and beneficial content for your followers or paying customers. In addition, using these tools can help you automate the process and plan ahead to get the most impact from your social media stories and other content.

 

Schedule Your Daily Activities Based on Your Goals

 

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Common Social Media Story Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

The best way to know how to use a certain feature correctly is to learn what not to do first. This is done by understanding some of the most common mistakes many do when first using social media stories to market and advertise their business. While social media stories and the other features it provides can offer your business many benefits, learn how it works so your efforts will not be wasted.

 

Here are four of the most common social media story mistakes and what to do to avoid them:

 

Inconsistent Schedule and Posting Time

 

Social media is attractive due to the high amounts of communication and its movement and speed at which that communication can be found and digested. However, it is constant and never-ending — making it almost addicting as humans love to socialize. This means you need to find a schedule that keeps you consistent and always engaged. Of course, this will be different depending on the platform you use, but most stories only last for around twenty-four hours, which means at least once a day is vital at minimum.

 

Ignoring Audience Interaction and Engagement

 

Stories are about engagement and audience interaction. Don’t use this feature to post the same content you do everywhere else and ignore your audience. Get them involved, ask them questions, get their feedback, and always provide maximum value in exchange for their time.

 

Cross Promoting or Over Prompting

 

Repurposing is a great idea, but not for your stories. You always want to be more creative and transform the idea into something better and different to keep your audience attached or interested. Posting the same boring content on all platforms will likely disinterest them, making them head over to your competition as you no longer provide any value.

 

Poor Branding and Overall Message

 

Always plan your content to ensure your goals and company values are clear and obvious. If you don’t take the time to plan, you may inadvertently send the wrong message. Take advantage of the features, such as changing your font and colors to match your branding and using the Highlights section offered by Facebook and Instagram. A consistent message and branding statistically translate into more revenue for businesses. This is because your communication is clear, making it easier for you to create products or content your target audience needs and enjoys.

 

Don’t be caught making these same social media story mistakes. Start your social media story content plan off right by avoiding these common mistakes and taking advantage of the tips provided above. Being aware of these common mistakes gives you the tools you need to be one step ahead of your competition and offer better value and high-quality content to your target audience.

 

 

 

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Why You Should Be Using Google Web Stories Right Now

Did you know there is a relatively new way to increase traffic to your WordPress blog? Through Google Web Stories, you now have another way to make it to the top of the Google search results page. They even appear on the Google Discover page, the home page of Google’s smartphone application that shares personalized content based on your search results or other habits on your phone.

 

Web stories are bite-size pieces of information of current blog posts, new announcements, or other important information you want to share from your blog or website. When viewers watch, they can then be sent to your blog with a link displayed at the bottom—giving you another way to engage new potential customers and increase your exposure and awareness on the internet.

 

Here are four more important reasons why your business should be taking advantage of Google Web stories right now:

 

To Boost Your SEO

 

By far, the most important benefit to creating Web Stories includes ranking higher on Google’s search result page. This is how you get more traffic, fast. In fact, it is said that most people don’t even make it past the first page or the tenth listing. Meaning you really want to make it to the top of the page when your target audience searches an important keyword.

 

To Have Full Ownership and Control of Content

 

After SEO, the next most important benefit to Google web stories includes your ownership and control of the content yourself. When you use platforms such as Instagram and Facebook stories, you don’t completely own the content, even if you are the original owner. Meaning, with Google web stories, you have more control, freedom, and less potential to lose your content.

 

To Create More Unique and Highly Shareable Content

 

Google Web stories are attractive, engaging, and fully customizable content — giving you yet another avenue to create content that your audience appreciates and wants to share with their friends or family and further increasing your exposure and audience.

 

To Add an Additional Revenue Stream

 

With the Web Stories for WordPress plugin, it is easy to monetize them with native ads that Google AdSense runs. Adding links directly to a landing or sales landing page is also easy to do with their editing tools.

 

As you can see, Google Web Stories is a feature you will want to take advantage of if you run a blog or website. It allows you to create immersive and engaging content that you have full ownership and control over while increasing your traffic, revenue, and exposure as a brand or business.

 

 

 

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How to Monetize Your Google Web Stories

By far, one of the main benefits of using Google web stories is the ability to monetize it through your own content, branded content directly, and now native ads with Google AdSense. Meaning you now have another way to repurpose your content, increase your blog or website traffic while increasing your revenue in many different ways.

 

The following are the different ways you can monetize your Google web stories and tips on how to optimize them:

 

Native Ads

 

These are full-screen and immersive ads that play before, during, or after your stories. They are easy to turn on and connect with your Google AdSense account. Follow these steps to get your stories to monetize through Google using the Web Stories for WordPress plugin:

 

  • Step One: Select “Settings” from The Plugins Page After Downloading Plugin
  • Step Two: Locate “Monetization”
  • Step Three: Follow Steps to Connect Site Kit and Activate Google AdSense
  • Step Four: Select “Google AdSense” or “Google Ad Manage” from Drop Down Menu and continue following the Instructions.

 

Video and Click or View More Ads

 

You don’t need to monetize your stories with Google AdSense to make money. You can use stories and make your own promotional videos or even sponsor a story. The option to add a link should be included in all your stories and their frames to increase your potential sales as well.

 

In other words, any story you create can be turned into a well-designed advertisement from you or an approved brand rather than Google – giving you more control over what you share as well as more potential for revenue as you can charge more for your work. Google AdSense is generated automatically and set by them per their terms. However, both of them together can create a powerful monetization tool for your website. Unless you want complete control, there is no reason not to do both.

 

Be sure to follow these monetization tips to fully take advantage of the benefits Google Web Stories can bring to your blog or website. Not only can you monetize through your own links or sponsored post, but you can also include fully immersive ads generated and paid out by Google itself — increasing your revenue and overall success as an online business owner or influencer. Overall, these monetization tips should encourage you to add Google Web Stories to your online content marketing strategy today.

 

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Four Tips to Optimizing your Google Web Stories

To increase your blog traffic or beat out your competition, you need to add Google web stories to your content marketing plan. These stories are the new way to attract mobile users on the Google Discovery page or utilize the Google search engine.

 

When you search a keyword through Google’s search engine, a carousel appears below the search with stories from different blogs or websites. To view, simply click and tap to view each page of the story. As you can clearly see, these stories give you another opportunity to make it to the top of the Google search results page.

 

4 tips to optimize your Google Web stories for max conversions:

 

Include High-Quality Videos and Images

 

Keep your video size under 4MB, no larger than 720 pixels, and ten seconds in length. Images used should be 900 pixels by 1200 pixels. Fill in the alt text of your images, and don’t use GIFs.

 

Create a Solid Narrative, Theme, and Fill in SEO

 

Never cut off the viewer or expect them to finish the content on another page. Create a full story that educates and inspires them to continue instead. Be sure to keep the length of each of your stories between five and thirty pages. Add a title to your story but limit the text to forty characters. Each page you make should have a max of two hundred characters or less but keep in mind that they only last fifteen seconds. The more text you have in one frame, the more distracting it can be.

 

Test Your Stories Using the Google Web Stories Test Tool

 

By adding your story’s link to this tool, you can be sure you filled in all the required information to create a valid web story. Missing information such as your cover image and publisher logo will prevent your story from being recommended or shared by Google. Using this quick and easy tool ensures the work you put into creating Web Stories is worth it.

 

Don’t Share Content That Isn’t Yours

 

A final tip to note is only to post content you created to your stories. Google will not share content that is not by the publisher; you, which means if you want to share other people’s content, use Instagram, Facebook, or Snapchat instead or ask your audience to submit new content directly to you. This way, you can have full ownership of the content you share on your blog and with Google Web Stories.

Optimizing your Google web stories is vital if you want to get the most benefits out of this new feature. These stories provide a more attractive, creative, and immersive way to market and advertise your products, services, or content to your target audience while increasing your traffic and potential revenue.

 

 

 

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Five Tips to Creating Your First Google Web Story

Before you publish your first Google web story, it is essential you understand the basics first. Google requires certain information and criteria to produce quality content worth sharing with its audience on its Discovery page or the Google search engine results page.

 

Google web stories offer your blog or website a new way to generate more traffic and revenue through a creative, powerful, and immersive storytelling format. They are much different from regular social media stories. You are the owner of all the content and the host – giving you more control, ownership, customization, and ways to increase your revenue than other platforms with the story feature.

 

Here are five tips to keep in mind when creating your first Google web story:

 

Think 10 to 15 Second Hooks

 

Each Web story slide lasts about ten to fifteen seconds, depending on how you set it. Meaning that the information you share in each frame, even if you create a full thirty pages, should be easily and quickly digested. It is unlikely many will go back too many times to re-read stories as it can be tedious. Of course, that should never be your goal when creating stories in the first place. The point of stories is to make it even easier for your target audience to take in your information.

 

Animate and Choose a Theme

 

Stories are more entertaining and easier to digest when they have a consistent theme and proper animations. Animations keep your viewers interested, and themes keep your brand image clear and focused.

 

Keep Titles and Story Lengths Short

 

Google stories that are between five and thirty frames perform the best. However, it highly depends on your niche and the type of content you create. Title lengths should be around ten characters long but no more than forty.

 

Include an Attractive and Compelling Cover Image

 

Before creating a valid google web story, you must add in your cover image and publisher logo. Be sure your cover image is highly attractive and makes your viewers want to click. Your cover image is no different than the image that appears before your blog post link or YouTube thumbnail. However, the more compelling it is, the more likely someone will click on it. Use images with a good resolution of 900 pixels by 1200 pixels.

Include Relevant Links

 

Always include a relevant link to your story. In fact, this needs to be done in order to create a valid web story. Again, the main function of Google web stories is to increase your website traffic. If there is no link, it’ll be hard for your viewers to reach you. They will be more likely to click off.

 

To maximize your reach and potential with Google web stories, following these tips is a must. These tips, along with the checklist the plugin provides, are required to properly communicate and build an effective story that converts to more revenue or increased traffic.