B2C Instagram Best Practices

I attended an International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) luncheon earlier this week to learn about B2B Instagram best practices. I was a bit skeptical that Instagram can show ROI and measurable results with regard to B2B marketing.

In the end, I felt the speaker, Rochelle Coles of Sister Act Media, proved there are ways to utilize Instagram to engage B2C clients, but not as much for B2B clients. Much of her presentation seemed to focus on basic best practices for social media, but she did recommend Iconosquare for Instagram measurement, which was helpful. In all, Rochelle's shared 5 "proven strategies" for increasing Instagram followers and engagement, website traffic and sales - which can be used for most social media marketing:

1. Make the most of every opportunity on your profile. Visuals are incredibly important on Instagram, so be sure you have a profile photo that accurately represents your brand and is attractive to your target audience. The only space you can put a live link on Instagram is in your user bio, so make sure that you have a URL to your website, Facebook page, or LinkedIn profile so that people can find you and make a purchase. 
2. Post images that reflect what your target clients post. This applies to all social media channels, but it's a good thing to keep in mind. If your target clients are animal lovers, make sure that you are posting platform-appropriate content that appeals specifically to that interest.
3. Leverage your words to establish and reinforce your message. Be sure you're utilizing the brand voice in all company communication regardless of the platform. Additionally, write like a human. Consumers do not respond well to corporate speak on social media platforms.
4. Use video to connect. Digital marketing is becoming more and more about a complete user experience instead of just text or just images. When appropriate, post behind-the-scenes video, clips of ads, etc. on your Instagram feed.
5. Invest in current followers and proactively pursue new ones. Like images your followers post that resonate with your brand. A recipe for success is to spend five minutes a few times a day liking five images and commenting on three images for one user so that you come up prominently in that user's feed. This is a great tactic if you're trying to empower brand evangelists or get noticed by local media contacts.

5 Ways Small Businesses Can Boost Their Google Analytics

There has been a lot of talk about how Google's Hummingbird algorithm had changed Google Analytics over the last several months.  I can find a lot of high level conversations between industry gurus, but there hasn't been a whole lot of basic nuts and bolts that is easily understood by laypeople.  In fact, a friend of mine asked me just the other day if I could explain SEO and Google Analytics.

So what does Hummingbird mean to small businesses?  Hopefully not a whole lot if you're engaging in above the table, white hat SEO.  Hummingbird is meant to reward user-friendly, frequently visited websites.  How do you ensure your website meets those criteria?

1. Write engaging, helpful content that your readers can easily comprehend.  Regular Joes don't speak in tech-talk, they don't understand industry-specific acronyms, and they certainly can't handle pages with solid blocks of text.
2. Make sure your website structure makes sense.  Think about your website from a user's perspective.  What will they search to find each page?  From the landing pages, what questions will they have, and how can you provide clear links to that information? 
3. Links should go to pages, not photos, whenever possible.
4. Draft a strong call to action (CTA) on every page so that prospective clients know what you want them to do and how they should do it.
5. Put articles and white papers about your subject matter on your website.  It's better when you commission these documents yourself so they angle the products and services you want them to, but third party content will serve your purpose.  Customers trust white papers more than any other type of content.  If you position yourself in the same line as "unbiased" professionals, you're more likely to sway the masses.

B2B and B2C Digital Marketing

I dream of working on the B2C side of marketing some day.  I would love to engage with fans who are emotionally invested in a brand and act as ambassadors and evangelists. 

A huge portion of the social media strategy I studied during my training was based on B2C marketing, which is thought to be more successful and more profitable than B2C social media marketing.  For this reason, many businesses and marketers shy away from B2B social media.

B2B marketing is actually pretty neat.  I rarely have irate clients posting hateful messages on our social media platforms and there is a lot less engagement with our fan base in general making it much easier to manage the customer service part of social media marketing.  And the engagement I do see is very positive and insightful since I am posting thought provoking industry information and not photos of puppies and kittens.

I approach B2B marketing much the same way I approach B2C marketing - provide worthwhile, useful content to people who are interested in the same products, services, lifestyle, etc. as our target audience.

The major difference from B2C marketing, is that I see less impact when I offer discounts and purchase incentives.  I'm not saying those things are impossible, I just have to reach out to business owners and clients to make those offers worthwhile and not all of my fans business owners let alone clients.