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5 Vanity Metrics You Should Pay Less Attention & What to Track Instead

In broad terms, anything you measure that doesn’t directly relate to customer acquisition, customer retention, or revenue are vanity metrics, and vanity metrics only exist to make you look/feel good.

10 Digital Marketing KPIs You Should Be Tracking for Better Performance

Have you any idea what makes your company’s marketing efforts a success? Clues why your company is not performing?  Why is your company doing well? Why is it not doing well?

Well, if you are not monitoring your marketing efforts, there is no way you will know if they are working or not, and that is where Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs, come into play! Using KPIs you can track and measure metrics that matter for your business growth.

Before digital marketing was introduced, a business could establish how a typical campaign was faring based on the number of new customers acquired and store visitors. However, the results rarely presented a precise calculation. But with the right KPIs, you determine your weak points and perform the much-needed improvements in your strategies for better results.

That said, here are a few things to know first before choosing and tracking your digital marketing KPI.

What is Digital Marketing KPIs?

KPIs are metrics or quantifiable measures used to assess the performance of a business’s marketing objectives. These metrics can be related to various aspects of your business ranging from sales to employee performance.

Digital marketing KPIs go hand in hand with your company’s digital marketing strategies regardless of whether it is lead generation, sales growth, brand awareness, or SEO strategy. Examples of these metrics include data on engagement rate, conversion rate, total revenue, sales revenue, website traffic, page conversion, SERP, and marketing qualified leads (MQL), among others. Any measurable value in your marketing strategy, one that is also actionable, constitutes a KPI.

KPIs come from Google Ads, Google Analytics, social media, and lead conversion tool, or even from your sales team.

Why Track Your Business’s KPIs?

In a marketing campaign, tracking your KPIs is the only way to know what is working and what is not. For example, if you make a profit from a particular campaign, but you cannot tell what generated that profit, that is, from which part of your strategy, then you will never know where you need to improve and where you should invest more. Your website traffic, for instance, could be driving all your qualified leads and your marketing team is busy dumping cash on unnecessary channels.

Thankfully, with today’s technology, you can track almost everything. Platforms such as Google Analytics and a ton of other third-party tools can help you determine the exact source of your revenue and or where your customers come from, your cost per lead, and how much acquiring a customer cost. They also enable you to know the marketing efforts that work best for your business. And with this knowledge, you can discard the marketing strategies that do not bring any value to your business and focus on the profitable ones.

How Do You Choose the Right KPIs to Track?

KPIs are not universal for every type of business. There is no one size fits all and the metrics that work for you will not necessarily work for another type of campaign or company. They are largely dependent on the set goals and as such, you need to look at your objectives and work from there. For example, if your lead tracking is done entirely through social media or newsletters, there is no need for face-to-face or phone call KPI monitoring.

However, keep in mind that regardless of the metrics you are looking to track, make sure that they meet the SMART criteria.  That is, they must be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Timely

In a nutshell, the KPIs you monitor should provide a specific result that you, as a marketer, can measure, identify when it is achieved, is relevant to your objectives, has a deadline or a timeframe applied to it.

Should You Track Everything?

While it is easy to track most KPIs using your website traffic, third-party metrics, or organic search, to name a few, it is also possible to track things that do not bring value to your business wasting your valuable time and resources.

Therefore, when choosing which KPIs to track, first determine the value it is going to give you. Will it give you any useful insights that will help your business improve? If it is something that you cannot act on or affect, then it is a vanity metric and is not worth monitoring.

For example, tracking Facebook likes or retweets and engagement on Twitter when you are not currently doing any social media campaign with a focus on getting more followers or increasing engagement is unnecessary. It is not an effective KPI.

The Most Important Digital Marketing KPIs

As already mentioned, the KPIs you should be monitoring largely depend on the nature of your business – your goals and the channels you are targeting. However, several KPIs apply to many companies. The most important ones are discussed below.

1.     Unique Website Visitors

Having a website is the most important aspect of digital marketing, and the unique website visitors are a valuable metric that determines whether you will generate revenue or not. Unique website visitors refer to the number of distinct individuals that visit a page or multiple pages on your website each time.

Unique visitors as a metric help you know the actual size of your audience. Also, if a user visits your website three times a day, and you have an ad on the website, it means that he or she will see the ad three times, and this is particularly ideal for companies that sell ad impressions.

Consequently, unique website visitors also help you understand your customer’s behaviour. For example, if a user keeps coming back to your website, it means the content on your web pages is relevant to them. If they do not come back, it means something is lacking, and this gives you a chance to rethink your strategies to provide them with useful content that captures their interest and translate that into future customers.

2.     Cost Per Lead [CPL]

CPL is a marketing metric used in lead generation to determine how much each lead costs your business. Simply put, it tells you the cost of bringing in a lead from your marketing efforts. Leads help you know which user or contact is a potential customer. It is usually the first step into establishing how your digital marketing is performing beyond simple reach from easy metrics such as the unique website visitors.

Cost per lead helps you fathom where your awareness efforts in marketing are most important. They inform you whether your campaigns are cost-effective or not in generating leads. They guide you on how much budget you require to acquire a specific set of leads for your business. Since leads are the starting point of your business’s sales, benchmarking and improving your cost per lead is a significant metric for improving your overall marketing efforts.

3.     Conversion Rate [CR]

In marketing, a conversion occurs when a customer completes a specific activity such as subscribing to your newsletter or buying your product. It can also be any action that meets a goal your business has. Conversion Rate, on the other hand, is a measure of how frequently a customer completes a certain set goal.

Conversion rate is an important metric that tells you if your marketing efforts are on track. They inform you of how effective your strategies are in terms of achieving the set goal. A higher Conversion Rate means more likelihood of people converting after seeing or encountering a piece of your content.

A higher CR also means reduced costs in terms of customer acquisition, which is a great way of saving you money. Consequently, the more the conversion, the better your website gets in Google rankings. Thus, if you want to make a big difference on your bottom line, make small but worthy changes to your website. Use Google Optimize with Google Analytics to test the different elements of your website to boost your revenue without necessarily inflating your costs.

4.     Lifetime Value [LTV]

Lifetime Value (or Customer Lifetime Value) refers to a metric used to measure the total amount of revenue you can expect from a particular customer for the entire period of their doing business with you.

A higher LTV is an indication that your business is doing good. It often signals a profit, and it guides you on how valuable different customers are to your business, which in turn helps you know where to allocate more resources. For example, you can determine the LTV of customers acquired through email or campaign ads and thereafter decide on the budget allocation for different marketing strategies.

5.     Return on Investment [ROI]

ROI refers to the amount of profit your business will earn from the amount of money spent on a particular investment or activity such as a marketing campaign. As a digital marketing metric, ROI helps you understand whether your business is profitable or not. It shows the activities – as well as the expenditure connected with them – that are creating profits and those that are not.

It is, therefore, a useful tool for planning marketing budgets. And while it is impossible to capture the total amount spent on marketing activity, say an ad campaign, it is important to utilize a consistent measure to ensure that your ROI is comparable across the other digital marketing activities.

6.     Cost Per Thousand [CPM]

Cost Per Thousand is used to measure the amount of money spent on each set of a thousand impressions. In other words, CPM is the cost per 1,000 views of a particular ad and is registered every time a customer clicks on the ad and loads it from a web page. CPM is different from pay-per-performance-based models where you pay depending on a specific activity such as clicks or sign-ups. With CPM, you are only paying for advertisement space. How the ad performs does not affect the cost, and, therefore, it is a good metric to use for ad campaigns.

CPM is an important tool that helps you determine the cost-effectiveness of different marketing strategies where the goal is to reach as many people as possible. One with the lowest value is the most efficient because it will only cost your business a few bucks to reach 1,000 customers.

7.     Click-Through Rate [CTR]

Click-Through Rate is another digital marketing metric that measures the number of clicks a particular content receives over the number of impressions it has. Simply defined, it is the percentage of users that click on a campaign after seeing it.

CTR is usually the simplest form of engagement rate since the only engagement being counted is one that matters the most, and that is clicks on a link. This metric tells you whether your website’s content is interesting enough to garner people’s attention and leading to them clicking on the link and being redirected to the website.

In Google Ads, CTR increases your Quality Score every time a user clicks on an ad, and when this happens, your ads are ranked at the top, which has other benefits such as more conversions and increased traffic.

8.     Bounce Rate

Bounce rate, in a nutshell, refers to the number of people who visit your website and exit it right away without carrying out any meaningful action. If the bounce rate on your website is high, it is an indication that there are flaws in your digital marketing strategies and it could be poor targeting, irrelevant traffic sources, weak landing pages, among others.

A user visiting and leaving your website also means they did not find what they were looking for, and the best way to ensure they spend some time on it is by analyzing your content and establishing what they are searching for. This way, you will create relevant content that will attract them.

9.     Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

Cost per acquisition (CPA) is almost all about revenue. It is a data analytic metric that kicks in once a contact becomes a paying customer. CPA gives you an idea of how much you will spend to get a customer to open his wallet.

Compared to the cost per click (CPC) metric, CPA is way more vital to ignore. CPC is ideal for paid campaigns, but what do you do when your CTRs in your pay-per-click campaign are up from the previous campaigns, but your CPC is low? Then when you track your revenue, you realize that you have only acquired five or six paying customers.

This means that your whole marketing spends on that channel added almost nothing to your bottom line. Your campaign metrics will look amazing, but your CPA will remain astronomical. As such, always measure the cost of acquisition to keep the big picture in focus.

10.  Customer Retention

Customer retention refers to the ability of a business to retain customers. As a metric, higher customer retention tells you that the value they are getting is greater than what they can find anywhere else. In short, it means they are highly satisfied.

This metric is significant as it measures the value communicated and delivered throughout your business. When you keep a customer, you will achieve a higher CLV, and when this happens, the value of the acquired customer is increased allowing you to spend more to find that one customer that is right for your business.

Shifting your focus to customer retention is an efficient way of digital marketing since you are selling to customers who have already expressed an interest in your product or service. These customers have already engaged with your brand, making it easy to capitalize on their experiences with your business.

That said, those are not the only KPIs your business should be tracking. Depending on where your business is on the digital marketing spectrum, you may or may not want to include these metrics in your analytics but doing so will guide you on where you need to invest more, better understand the strategies that are effective or not, and more efficient channels. Of course, there is a litany of other KPIs including social media engagement, organic search, quality score, among others, that you can include based on the nature of your marketing objectives. Nonetheless, all these metrics help you make rapid adjustments that guarantee a steady stream of leads and valuable customers.

Design-Nation Publishes ’20 Makers, 20 Objects’

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Want to know the one thing that every successful digital marketer does first to ensure they get the biggest return on their marketing budget? It’s simple: goal-setting. This is an absolutely essential practice for any digital marketer who knows how to execute their campaigns in a productive, cost-effective way. With a few. With a few simple tips, you can be doing the same in no time! In this blog, we’ll walk you through the first steps every savvy digital marketer takes to ensure that they’re on target to hit all their marketing objectives. Get ready for revenue! 

Remember: even if the channel you’re considering is all the rage right now, it might not fit your brand. Always make informed decisions that directly relate to your company. Otherwise, your message won’t be delivered to its intended audience and you’ll have wasted time, effort and money.

Know Your Goals

The first step is clearly identifying which goals you want to achieve. Get specific. Do you want to increase brand awareness? Are you all about locking in leads? Do you want to establish a strong network of influencers that can help you be discovered? How about pushing engagement on social media?

Get Specific

A useful tool for narrowing down your goals to ensure they’re viable is the SMART mnemonic. It’s important to get specific to understand exactly what you’re working towards, and help you break down the process of hitting your targets. This is exactly what this mnemonic helps you to achieve.

• Does the channel reach my intended audience?
• Is the channel sustainable and affordable within my company’s marketing budget?
• Will I be able to measure the success of the channel?
• Does the channel allow me to express my brand’s intended message?
• Do the channels I’m considering work together to convey my message?

Always Remember Your Goals!

Establishing a solid vision for your business is the first step to planning your digital marketing budget. Always keep your final goals in sight when organising anything for your company. When deciding which steps to take next in your business, ask yourself how they will help you achieve the goals you outlined in Step #1. This will ensure that you stay on track and prevent you from spending your budget on anything that won’t help you achieve.

Cum et essent similique. Inani propriae menandri sed in. Pericula expetendis has no,
quo populo forensibus contentiones et, nibh error in per.

Denis Robinson

As your budget progresses and evolves, continue referring to your SMART objectives. Stay focused and remember your goals – they will always inform what your next step will be!

9 Powerful Strategies to Increase Your Web Presence

Optimizing your web presence is an ongoing process that requires dedication and patience. Keep learning, keep testing, and you’ll dominate your industry.

5 Actionable Content Marketing Insights for Professional Firms & Consultants to Grow Traffic and Increase Brand Awareness

As I was doing some research into the digital services tax introduced in Kenya, I stumbled upon a realization: a distressing lack of up-to-date content on the issue. See, I naturally started my search on YouTube, then Google, but the information was scanty and most of it outdated or irrelevant to Kenya. I did eventually find something that gave me an idea, but I still don’t have the full picture — the information is simply not online. Maybe it was in the newspapers, but I haven’t bought one my entire life. Which leads me to my point:

Kenyan professional services firms are conspicuously absent online. I’m referring to Lawyers, Management Consultants, Accountants, Architects, Doctors, and the like. This is a truism that generally holds across the globe, but firms in developed countries seem to have awoken in the last few years. Yes, you may have a website and social presence, but for most firms those are just channels to inform the world what they do and how to get in touch.

And therein lies the opportunity.

With more and more people looking for information online, and with such few players providing it in a timely and relevant manner, the cake is anyone’s for the taking. Most of the information available is from news sources (if applicable), but very little from authoritative practitioners.

With regular content covering specific and relevant issues, you can in a relatively short time dominate search rankings for your industry and literally get millions of eyeballs landing on your website every month.

How do you do it?

CONTENT

And before you get on my case about how content is hard to create, take the time to do these 4 activities that should enable you generate at least 50 topic ideas:

1. FAQs

What are the most common questions that clients ask? Get at least 20 questions, and develop content that addresses them exhaustively. Some questions only need short answers, but others will require multiple articles in order to fully address the topic. This serves a double purpose in that it shortens your customer acquisition process since they’ll be searching for that exact information online, and since you offered such an informed answer, you’ll be the first person they’re inclined to hire because your expertise is evident.

2. Current Affairs

Keep an eye out on developments in your industry. Google Alerts is a nice way to keep abreast of topics that interest you. With each development, create content that seeks to inform the players that will be impacted in a simple and understandable manner. Most people don’t understand legalese, and others struggle with accounting — make it easy for them to understand and they’ll thank you immensely. The content can be in the form of blogs, podcasts, or even reaction videos to matters that you consider to be of great importance or that you feel passionate about.

3. Use Google Trends

Google Trends is a website by Google that analyzes the popularity of top search queries in Google Search across various regions and languages. The website uses graphs to compare the search volume of different queries over time.

Here’s a Google Trends analysis of the topic that inspired this article:

Clearly, now is the perfect time to publish information about the Kenya Finance Act 2020 since a lot of people are searching for it.

Apart from a bird’s eye view of users’ interest in a topic, Google Trends also provides other useful features such as related topics and related queries. If you treat these as suggestions for further content, you find that the process of generating topic ideas goes waaay faster.

4. Publicly publish top research findings

Yes, it sounds crazy to simply give away valuable information that you probably acquired at great cost and effort. However, that information locked away in a room somewhere serves a lot less people (and hence attracts less interest in your services) than it potentially could. This part requires a lot of discernment as to what you can afford to give, but I reiterate here as I always do about the power of giving free content.

If executed properly, this one tip alone can change your entire marketing focus and grow your business faster than you thought possible. I have noticed that the Big 4 Accounting Firms (particularly EY) tend to do this a lot. You don’t necessarily need a press conference to tell the world about your discoveries. Disseminating this information to the right people is how you unlock its value, and it serves as a really sweet lead magnet.

Content Format

From there, the question is, what medium to use to disseminate your information. Blogs are a nice way to start, but I like a multi-pronged approach. This depends on the resources available to every organisation, but ideally what you want to do is capture the content in multiple formats:

Follow up your blog with a podcast (film it too) where you discuss topical issues, like Valuetainment. Invite guests who are experts/authorities in their fields to talk on the podcast too. Post these videos on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Then condense the contents into an infographic that you can share on LinkedIn and other socials.

Give your most exclusive content to a select group of fans. Ideally, the best channel here is your email newsletter or paid subscribers, and this grows your list of leads for potential business. The best lead magnet is a PDF containing some very valuable information that you give them for free in exchange for them joining your email list.

Remember:

In the world of marketing, Content is still King 👑. The more useful and relevant, the better it is as a marketing tool. There is virtually no competition on the Kenyan front for any firm/consultant that wishes to grow the authority of their domain online, but this opportunity won’t last forever.

And if you need help designing your content marketing strategy, we are here to help 😊

Happy creating.

Surviving a Recession as a Social Media Marketing Agency/Consultant

Social media marketing agencies and consultants stand in a very unique position during this recession, and there is no reason why they shouldn’t survive this recession and even come out bigger.

How To Not Do Social Media Marketing

If you’ve been on LinkedIn long enough, you’ve received plenty of solicitous messages from new and potential connections. They usually look something like this: “Hello, we at XY Company offer the following services…”, “Hello, I recently graduated and am seeking a job at your company…”, and more recently, “Hello, promote me by subscribing to my channel…”.

If you’re like me, you give them a cursory glance: 2-5 seconds, then move on with your business… Until you open Instagram and see your friend’s business’ page spamming your timeline with posts “advertising” their products — you want to be a supportive friend, but it’s the third time in a week and it’s getting on your nerves now.

Why do these things grind our gears so much? These two examples highlight a phenomenon that takes shape in a myriad forms. Put simply, the problem with these people/businesses is that they try to take before they give. And our brains don’t like that — no one likes to be finessed. See, humans are inherently selfish — it’s a necessary element of self-preservation. When we encounter new opportunities, we think “Hmmm, what’s in it for me?” We analyse the benefit to us — even the most altruistic of humans still consider the benefit to them and/or those whom they are serving.

Knowing this, it honestly puzzles me why anyone would start a DM by talking about themselves. Do those DMs actually work? I’ve never sent one like that, so I don’t have the data. But I have done a series of sales-y posts for an eCommerce store, and I can freely tell you that they actually hurt your business.

If you give it away, they will come

No ones goes on social media to be sold to. We want to be entertained or informed, and being sold to is only a part of the experience, not the main draw. So if all you do is “sell” on your social media, that’s something you should correct with immediate effect.

What can you do instead?

It’s really simple: GIVE AWAY YOUR BEST CONTENT

Seriously. Stop asking so much from your connections or followers, and instead focus on improving their experience on the platform. LinkedIn is easy: inform more. If you are to DM someone, stop asking for them to open their wallets, but instead seek to educate them on how you can help them achieve their goals. It has to be organic as well. I am more likely to read something like this:

“Hello Felix, I read your article on the future of Kenyan agriculture and I had some thoughts, starting with how small-scale farmers can position themselves to take advantage of this opportunity…”

Give at least 3 times as much as you ask

The benefits of this approach are immense. Here’s a few examples who have used this strategy to great effect:

Oberlo: One of the most widely used Shopify plugins. Their Facebook page offers tons of insight into the world of eCommerce, and they’re constantly educating their followers about trends and changes in that sector via their YouTube.Tai Lopez and Gary Vaynurchuk: These two gentlemen have been able to create multi-million dollar marketing machines by giving away information for free. Information that some consultants would charge you an arm and leg for. I literally get excited whenever I receive an email from Tai’s newsletter. Think about that — how many of your email subscriptions do you look forward to hearing from? How many do you actually open? If you’ve never heard of either Tai or Gary, I dare you to look them up on YouTube and watch their videos for 20 minutes — you will learn at least 1 powerful thing.

Giving away your best content is a powerful strategy that’s used by countless businesses to reach their goals. From increasing loyalty to creating awareness and growing email lists, there’s so many opportunities for growth. It serves two purposes simultaneously: you build up a fan base, and you get to show that you’re actually an expert at what you do. See, your audience will try out the ideas you give. If they do work, you create a community of loyal fans who are always looking forward to your next post. And when you do ask something of them, they will respond with overwhelming positiveness.

It’s a known fact that most leads aren’t always ready to purchase, but who do you think your fans will approach when they need the services that you offer? Whom do you think they will refer to their friends? Think about the organic shares as well… the kind of authority you build. In the process, you also preemptively address a lot of the objections that your customers may have.

This is simply is the best marketing strategy in today’s world. It’s transactional: you give, give, give and give some more, then you ask. Most people do the opposite though — taking before they give — which is why they are also quite frustrated with their results.

If you are strategic and employ a long-term approach in your delivery, you can unlock a world of unexplored opportunity for your business.

How is your business educating the world? Are you giving away your best content? What free information are you giving away without expecting anything back? You’d be surprised how much profit you can realize by giving away valuable information for free.

4 Costly Facebook Advertising Mistakes You Might be Making

Most Facebook advertising failures stem from a failure to understand how the system actually works.

9 Social Media Marketing Tools Every Marketer has to Know

Social media marketing can be a daunting task.

Especially when you’re starting off.

At face value it looks easy, but it’s not until you’re in the thick of it when you realize all the teeny tiny details that make a difference require an investment in the form of time and energy. It can overwhelm you, leave you feeling out of your depth because these tasks require different skill sets and disciplines.

Here’s a few tools that will ensure that you don’t get bogged down by the minutiae when growing your social media presence:

1.    Buffer & Hootsuite

Over the last month, we have assessed the social media profiles of various small and medium sized companies. The most recurring problem the respondents have reported is that they find it hard to carve out the time daily to post on social media.

They feel that on top of doing their regular duties, growing their companies, meeting their targets, being parents, keeping their homes in order… they just don’t have enough time left in their day to craft good content for their social media. At least not regularly. Once in a while they’ll post up something well thought out, but on the most part it’s a quick update posted on irregular intervals.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Facebook has a feature that allows the admins of a page to schedule their posts. Buffer and Hootsuite enable someone to bring all their social media accounts on one dashboard and schedule their posts for later times. Just using one of the two apps reduces your workload by half.

The solution is quite simple. Instead of adding to your daily duties, I suggest you allot some time weekly – an hour or two – to plan out your posts for the week and queue them. Regular posting will increase your brand visibility, and the social media algorithms love users who feed them.

2.    Canva

Canva is a graphic design software that is an alternative to using stock photos. It’s a free tool that allows you to create designs and presentations with a strong visual impact. This tool contains dozens of social media marketing templates for making all sorts of designs that you may need: from posters, Twitter headers, website headers, Ad creative, blog images, YouTube thumbnails, all the way to business cards and fliers.

The best part of it is that despite deploying some pretty sophisticated functions, it still remains an obviously easy app to use. The interface is simple, and everything works the way you expect it to. You can edit a photo, edit the layout, add clip art, play around with text… it’s quite easy to use, and a lot cheaper than Photoshop. If you want to create conspicuous images that communicate, Canva will get the job done.

3.    Fiverr & Upwork

Say you need a logo for your website. Or you need to edit a video clip to use for your Facebook ad.

But you don’t know the first thing about video editing. And the only logo you ever designed was your signature.

The good news is you can tap into a vast database of freelancers through these two websites. You can reach professionals from all sorts of disciplines: copywriting, survey design, email marketing, web design, virtual assistants, ad managers, accountants, you name it! All starting from $5 in the case of Fiverr. And you pay once you’re pleased by the work done. Both platforms have got protection features for their users, mediation and friendly customer service to handle any issues that may arise.

By outsourcing certain tasks, these two toolswill help free up your time, allowing you to focus on working on your business instead of just working for it.

4.    MicroWorkers.com

Oh, this one’s a gem. And grossly under-priced. The workaround to most online marketing challenges.

What’s the simplest way to get real people to upvote you on Reddit/YouTube or to share your Facebook post? Why, pay them, of course.

MicroWorkers enables you to find people to do micro tasks for you on the internet, and it gives you control over the quality of the work done. You can assign people from specific countries only or exclude specific countries or regions. It allows you to collect proof of work before you approve payments to your workers. You post the task that you want done, select the number of workers you need, and set your budget.

And did I mention how cheap it is? One-click tasks like upvotes cost $0.09 per user. Retweets and Facebook shares start from $0.23. Every order has a minimum of 30 workers, and you can even set standards for eligibility such as the minimum number of followers required to do the task. $7 seems pretty cheap to boost your reach by 30x, don’t you think?

And it’s not just for social media. The site has powerful features that you can use for building backlinks, testing an app or service, generating traffic, and many other tools to cement your place on the internet.

5.    Telegram Messenger

For most people, Telegram is just another messaging service like WhatsApp but with cloud-based storage for your messages.

But we know better.

The most attractive feature of the app is its channels. Channels work a bit like WhatsApp groups, except only the admin can create content, and other than viewing content, the subscribers do not contribute anything, except maybe take part in the polls that admins may post. It’s really that simple. The beauty of it is that if your channel has interesting content, getting subscribers shouldn’t be hard. And good Telegram channels do blow up rather quickly. With such a personal connection with your audience, Telegram can help your business grow in bounds, as long as you keep on producing high quality content. Here’s a few of my favourite channels: t.me/googlefactss , t.me/bestmemes, t.me/WallpapersGram, t.me/WorldWideHipHop.

The other BIG thing that Telegram brings on board is engagement groups. Did you ever have one of those Instagram groups whose main purpose is to engage with each other’s posts? Engagement groups are like that on steroids. Instead of buying likes or followers, users use them to find real people who will engage with their content. The concept is simple: users post links to their Instagram posts, and other users engage with their IG posts.Every group has rules. For example, if you’re in a “dx20 L+C” group, then you have to like and comment on the last 20 posts in the group, before you can post a link to your Instagram post. Most of these groups are managed by bots (Telegram’s a jungle), and if you fail to give the required engagement you are penalized. Here’s a few groups so you can see how it works: t.me/Boostchatinfluencers, t.me/d8boost, t.me/BoostGramDx30

One thing I’ve noted is that the guys at Telegram have been working hard at this app, bringing in new features and pushing the limits with each new update. They’re regularly bringing in new exciting features, not just fancy social media tricks, but features that are useful for other aspects of your business such as reporting and receiving payments.

6.    Jarvee & Everliker

So, you’ve been reading our articles and have decided to start an Instagram account for your business. You’ve consistently posted content with a high VRIN score, but your notifications are as dry as the Sahara. You’ve asked your friends to shout out your new account, but you’re not getting your ideal kind of followers. You could buy followers, but we all know that doesn’t work…

Here’s a simple hack:

Look for influencers in your industry and follow them. Go through their posts and follow the users who engage with their content. Reciprocation is big on Instagram, so if your profile looks appealing enough, that should be enough to pull them into your ecosystem. Engaging with their content comes with two benefits: increased exposure for your brand, and an awareness of the latest trends. The later of which is crucial to surviving on social media. If you do this for 20-30 minutes daily your Insta is bound to skyrocket.

Or you can automate the whole process: Jarvee and Everliker enable you to target users by hashtags or accounts they follow. They can then follow them and like their posts, unfollow, etc. you just need to give the program your instructions.

A bit of caution: Don’t go crazy with the bots and follow and unfollow a thousand people per day; don’t use them to do something a single human isn’t capable of doing. The guys at Instagram won’t like that.

I should also point out that while engagement groups and bot accounts are a good way to get your brand in front of people, they’re just simple hacks and not a strategy to running a sustainable business. They’re good for getting some traction when starting off, but past some point they won’t be enough anymore. The sure way to grow a business online is by providing value and connecting with customers — never forget that.

6 Free Social Media Marketing Tips for the Hospitality Industry

It all starts from the website. Visitors of a hotel’s website are mostly looking to do three things: make a booking, find your address, or call the hotel. Ensure that these details are prominently displayed on the Homepage and all your social media profiles.