The latest digital marketing headlines on the EDGE podcast features Site Strategics CEO Erin Sparks along with special guest Glenn Gaudet, CEO of GaggleAMP. Here’s the news roundup from Episode 317 of the award-winning EDGE of the Web:
Tips to Add Context and Drive Engagement to Your Social Media Content
From Casie Gillette on Search Engine Journal we have 3 tips to add context and drive engagement to your social media content. With social media engagement hovering below 0.1%, networks showing more ads than ever, and organic social visibility in a continuous decline, social media does not seem like the lucrative marketing channel it once was. What to do? 1) Go Beyond the Headline, 2) Make Better Use of Imagery, 3) Use Your Whitespace.
- Glenn Gaudet: There’s so much noise out there in social. If you dig into these 3 tips, what they’re really about is authenticity. Provide more content than a headline. Use great imagery that isn’t just a stock photo. You have to go further to cut through the noise than a superficial approach. You want people to trust your brand, and you have to be authentic to get that trust. People aren’t going to trust you with a stock photo, or things that are clearly just over-produced. Have an authentic conversation with people. Digital marketers have to spend a lot of time sourcing and creating content. What better way to make it authentic than using your own employees?
- Erin Sparks: It can all be “stock” content – the images, the writing, all of it. But customers can sniff that out.
- Glenn Gaudet: Marketers need to learn how to let people use their own voice. If you get your employees involved in the marketing of your business, they don’t want to just regurgitate copy written by marketers. They want to express themselves and their point of view in their own voice. And that’s authentic.
Facebook Ads Aren’t What They Used To Be
On Search Engine Land, Taylor Peterson reports on a recent SMX presentation by Susan Wenograd (our guest from EDGE episode 316) about how Facebook ads aren’t what they used to be, so it’s time for smarter social ad buying. In a flooded social landscape, Wenograd argues that the most successful brands will be the ones that integrate robust paid strategies and prioritize high-quality creative.
- Glenn Gaudet: Companies have to leverage their assets, right? If you’re looking for authenticity out of a brand, what better place to look than your subject matter experts? You have subject matter experts within your company, but marketing probably isn’t leveraging them as much as they could be. Sure, marketing might ask them to write a white paper or help marketing understand how something works, but there could be so much more to it than that. When your marketers see a great conversation happening out there, ask the subject matter experts to get involved in the conversation. And then all your employees could get involved in amplifying that conversation by sharing, re-tweeting, and so on.
Social Media Usage is Flat, Ad Spends Growing
Mary Meeker’s latest internet report, as covered by Amy Gesenhues on Marketing Land, reveals social media usage is flat globally while mobile ad spend continues to climb. Daily social media usage increased by just 1% year-over-year, according to the annual report.
- Erin Sparks: More than 50% of the population is now online. Between 2009 and 2018, the percentage of internet users has grown from 24% to 51%, more than doubling in just under 10 years. That’s 3.8 billion global internet users. But 63% of adults say they are trying to limit their personal smartphone use. So growth is stalling. Meanwhile, mobile ad spends keeps growing.
- Glenn Gaudet: I think the real question is whether or not your audience and your buyer are actually using social to gather information about their buying decisions. From that point of view, you can rest assured there’s probably some social network out there they are leveraging. And again, businesses could be empowering their employees to be both advocates and content creators.
Connect with Glenn Gaudet and GaggleAMP
Twitter: @gaggleamp (https://twitter.com/gaggleamp)
Facebook: @gaggleamp (https://www.facebook.com/gaggleamp)
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gaggleamp/
Website: https://www.gaggleamp.com
Blog: https://blog.gaggleamp.com
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