July 2022 - SV Digital

Top 10 Popular Social Media Platforms for Business

Posted on July 29, 2022April 19, 2023 by Shreoshe Ghosh

More than half of the world population (58.4%) now uses social media as per a study published by Datareportal in 2022. In addition, some more significant milestones have been achieved this year in the field of social media, such as 2X growth of social media users year-over-year, the rise of social commerce, and immense growth of social platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok.

Looking at all these stats, one thing is evident – no matter what social media platform you invest in for your business, you’ll have a high chance of connecting with your target audience.

People are no longer on social media for networking purposes; they use this communication medium to discover brands, explore their offerings and make purchase decisions. 71% of people with a positive purchase experience with a brand on social media are likely to recommend it to friends and family.

Social media is one of the most inexpensive marketing tools for businesses today, yet its benefits are multifold. Firstly, it can give your brand the right exposure and improve brand visibility. Second, this platform can be used to promote your products and services and third, it can generate leads for your business and boost conversions.

However, with the increasing number of social media sites today, it can be challenging to establish your business’s presence everywhere. Still, there are certain sites where you ought to build your presence and connect with your customers.

In this post, we’ll explore the top social media sites or platforms for businesses in 2022 and find out how they can help businesses grow.

1. Facebook

Launched In: 2004

CEO: Mark Zuckerberg

Headquarters: Menlo Park, California, US

Monthly Active Users: 2.91 billion

Facebook is now Meta Inc. and owns Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. Meta is short for Metaverse, a network of 3D virtual worlds focused on building connections, growing virtual communities and helping businesses grow online. Facebook has helped people connect and is now moving beyond 2D screens and venturing into AR and VR to bring a revolutionary and immersive social experience.

Out of all social media platforms available today, Facebook has one of the most advanced social advertising platforms that help businesses promote their products and services. It allows you to target your ads based on user location, age, gender, interests, relationship status, buying behavior and more.

However, organic post engagement is not entirely dead on Facebook. If you are a small business owner who is not looking to invest in ads immediately. In that case, you can focus on creating engaging and meaningful posts and promote them on your business page and similar Facebook groups for free. You may not see quick results, but maintaining consistency over time can give fruitful results.

The versatility of the platform and its users make it a top marketing channel for several small to large businesses. Some of the leading industries on the platform include automotive, consumer goods, ecommerce, entertainment, finance, telecommunications and retail.

2. YouTube

Launched In: 2005

CEO: Susan Wojcicki

Headquarters: San Bruno, California, US

Monthly Active Users: 2.2 billion

YouTube continues to be the second most popular social media platform of 2022 and the top video social network. YouTube is often called the second-largest search network after its parent company, Google. If your business utilizes videos in its marketing strategy, it should have its presence on the platform.

YouTube has a versatile user base, much like Facebook and covers all genres from travel, beauty, and food to gaming, tech and DIY tutorials. Video content is gaining popularity as the most sought-after format since it is easy to understand and keeps users engaged.

Creating a YouTube channel for your business and uploading videos on it is free, but if you want a better reach and earn more customers from the platform, consider investing in YouTube ads. For YouTube ads, you can control the goal or objective you want to set, be it gaining more views on your videos, getting more subscribers to your channel, increasing website visits, etc.

3. WhatsApp

Launched In: 2009

CEO: Will Cathcart

Headquarters: Menlo Park, California, US

Monthly Active Users: 2.44 billion

Whatsapp is still the most popular social messaging app, beating Facebook messenger. The heavy-encrypted app is not the most obvious choice for most brands looking out for social media marketing.

But it’s worth a try, considering that WhatsApp messages have a 98% open rate compared to only 20% for email messages. Also, sending messages on Whatsapp is free of cost, unlike SMS. WhatsApp has a huge potential to serve as one of the primary platforms for customer service and retention.

4. Instagram

Launched In: 2010

Head: Adam Mosseri

Headquarters: Menlo Park, California, US

Monthly Active Users: 2 billion

Instagram is a thriving social media platform for influencers, coaches and product owners. With the introduction of shoppable posts on Instagram in 2018, product-based businesses can expect higher than ever ROI. Not only is it great news for B2C businesses, but also B2Bs.

Instagram is widely used by the younger generation, primarily by audiences under 35. So, if your business is targeted at that age demographics, it could be a great platform to use for your business marketing. Because Instagram has all the similar paid benefits as Facebook, you can run very targeted ads here and get leads for your business.

If you lack the advertising budget, Instagram can still help you grow organically by sharing interesting content through your account. You can share images, videos, reels, and interviews, collaborate with influencers for product promotions, carry out cross-promotional activities with other brands, and much more.

5. TikTok

Launched In: 2016

CEO: Shou Zi Chew

Headquarters: Culver City, US

Monthly Active Users: 1.39 billion

TikTok claims to be the leading platform for short mobile videos. It is a comparatively new social media platform but has seen tremendous growth in a short time. Within a year of its launch, it became one of the fastest-growing apps worldwide.

It is ideal if you want to connect with Gen Z. The platform allows users to create short videos between 15 to 60 seconds. As a brand, your objective on this platform should be to get the users to purchase your products. You can build a community of followers who will engage with your content beyond viewing. If this community shares your content on their account, it increases the number of views for you. You can also cross-post your TikTok videos on other platforms, such as Instagram Reels.

You can also go live on TikTok to connect with your followers, create videos on what is trending on the platform, and remix videos with your followers or influencers. Besides organic marketing efforts, you can also run ads on TikTok to promote your brand and its products.

6. Snapchat

Launched In: 2011

CEO: Evan Spiegel

Headquarters: Santa Monica, California, United States

Monthly Active Users: 530 million

If your target demographic is the younger generation, then Snapchat should be one of the social media platforms you should be marketing at. The most active users on the platforms are 13-year-olds who spend more than 30 minutes per day on the app.

Snapchat is an incredible platform to market your products with the help of user-generated content, behind-the-scenes videos, influencer collaborations, sponsoring lenses and geo-filters and running snap ads. Snap ads are ten-second long full-screen videos with vertical alignment where you can add CTAs according to your conversion goals.

7. Reddit

Launched In: 2005

CEO: Steve Huffman

Headquarters: San Francisco, California, United States

Monthly Active Users: 430 million

According to rankings by Alexa, Reddit is one of the top 20 most-visited sites worldwide and is the powerhouse of online communities, with approximately 2.8 million of them.

On Reddit, you can find subreddits on every topic imaginable, making it the right fit for a wide range of businesses to dive into the discussions and add some value. Reddit is meant to share content that other users can find helpful. Take the time to participate in discussions related to your business niche, answer questions and share other valuable insights.

However, you must be careful about what you say on the platform. Too much self-promotion may not be a good idea to try here, as users can quickly call you out for not adding actual value to the conversation thread.

8. Pinterest

Launched In: 2010

CEO: Bill Ready

Headquarters: San Francisco, California, United States

Monthly Active Users: 433 million

Pinterest is an image-sharing social networking site where users can discover and save information using images, tiny clips and gifs. If your business sells visually stunning products or anything that has to do with many images, Pinterest can be one of your top social media platforms for marketing it.

It should also be noted that 60% of Pinterest users are females. So you can use this to your benefit to promote your products. Some of the most popular pins on Pinterest are from food, travel, decor, wedding, workout and DIY niches.

Since most users browse Pinterest on mobile, ensure that the image you pin has a 2:3 aspect ratio. Additionally, whatever image you choose to pin from your business account should be of the highest quality. You must also consider adding your brand logo to the pins and ensure that each of your pins links to proper URLs and doesn’t end up in 404 errors.

For experimenting further, you can also share gifs, short videos and carousel images in pins. To keep up with the platform’s purpose, you can also post certain tutorials besides sharing your product images. You can also advertise on Pinterest and reach out to a broader audience by targeting specific keywords and audience demographics such as age, gender, interests, location and so on.

When marketing on Pinterest, ensure that your account is set up as a business instead of an individual. A business account on the platform will give you access to Pinterest analytics to monitor your reach, run a wide variety of ads and set up a shop tab through which people can visit your website for purchase.

9. Twitter

Launched In: 2006

CEO: Parag Agarwal

Headquarters: San Francisco, California, United States

Monthly Active Users: 217 million

Twitter is a microblogging site and is quite popular with brands in sports, politics, entertainment, and tech niches. On Twitter, brands can deliver personalized and informative tweets to hone their voices.

If you’re on Twitter, you can keep an eye out for trending news and discussions related to your niche. This will allow you to tweet on trending topics, use trending hashtags and join active conversations. It is also an excellent platform for collaborating with influencers and celebrities to endorse your products or services and promote a lot of user-generated content.

To encourage your followers to engage with your brands, you can run polls on Twitter and ask them to be a part of your brand’s necessary decision-making process. Tapping into trending and seasonal topics is one of the best ways to be ahead on Twitter. Moreover, you can run paid ads on Twitter to increase your reach more quickly and effectively.

10. LinkedIn

Launched In: 2003

CEO: Ryan Roslansky

Headquarters: Sunnyvale, California, United States

Monthly Active Users: 89.7 million

LinkedIn is an employment-oriented online networking site widely used by professionals worldwide. LinkedIn allows you to network with professionals from the same or different industries, share job insights, post job vacancies and much more.

LinkedIn marketing works equally well for B2C and B2B companies. When on LinkedIn, create your company page and share all posts and updates. This will help people to follow your page easily and get regular updates. You need to share insightful information in your LinkedIn posts, such as your company growth report or sales report for a specific period and share them using relevant hashtags.

LinkedIn advertising is a very advanced lead generation strategy. You can create targeted ads to show on LinkedIn to your preferred audience or send sponsored InMail to your prospective leads. You can also join relevant groups on LinkedIn or create one to connect with like-minded individuals and help your business reach more people.

Bonus: Facebook Messenger

Facebook Messenger is very much a part of Facebook, but you have to download the Facebook Messenger app separately while browsing it on your mobile. We’ve mentioned Facebook Messenger separately because it provides a handful of extra features outside Facebook.

You can send direct messages to someone on the app with Facebook Messenger. This is something that you can use to your advantage. Facebook offers advertising campaigns that are specifically developed for Facebook Messenger.

With this feature, when someone clicks on your ad, they will be prompted to start a chat with your business page. Once someone reaches your page that way, you can take the conversation forward and try to convert them. This is a good option for businesses that work on a lead-generation model.

Besides, you can also craft customized messages for your Facebook business page so that when someone reaches out to you, they get an automated reply. Such instant replies can build trust in people and encourage them to shop from you.

Conclusion

Individuals of all ages are widely using social media. So, businesses need to be present on them. However, not every social media platform may help businesses with their marketing efforts. Therefore, choosing the best social media sites per your business goals and objectives is essential.

Hopefully, this article has helped you zero down on the best social media platform for your business. Let us know your business’s social media mix in the comments.

7 Biggest Social Media Marketing Myths Debunked Now

Posted on July 25, 2022April 5, 2023 by Shreoshe Ghosh

Social media is a great marketing channel for anybody who wants to promote their business online. With billions of people using social media worldwide, it’s one of the best places to hunt for business leads. However, like any other marketing channel, there are several myths about social media marketing.

To unleash the full potential of social media, you must know to differentiate between facts and myths. It’s 2022, and the digital landscape is changing rapidly; if you don’t keep yourself updated with the latest trends and let go of redundant practices, it may hamper your marketing efforts.

So, without further ado, let’s deep dive into debunking the top seven social media marketing myths of 2022.

1. You Should be Omnipresent on Social Media

Social media presence is significant for a business’s success. However, it doesn’t mean you must be present on every social media platform. You should only focus on the platforms where most of your target audience is. Knowing what you want to achieve for your business through social media can help you shortlist the best platforms.

When you’re only on those social media platforms that matter to your business the most, it saves you time, money, effort and resources. You also get to engage well with your audience and build stronger relationships.

2. It’s Okay to Post the Same Content Across All Platforms

Ideally, repurposing one content for multiple platforms can save you time, but think logically, would you ever rant on Pinterest or share your vacation stories on LinkedIn? No, right? This is because the type of content that works on each platform varies greatly.

Pinterest is more about sharing DIY images, inspiration posts and anything that speaks images. In contrast, LinkedIn is more of a professional networking platform where people are more interested in knowing what’s happening in your professional life than in your personal life.

Therefore, if anybody tells you that you can create a single type of content on social media and publish it across all social media platforms, it is nothing more than a myth. You should first take the time to understand what type of content works best on each platform and then decide on the format. You should also customize the tone and emotion of the content according to the social media platform you’re writing for.

3. Hashtags Are a Must For Every Post

It’s 2022, and hashtags are not as cool as they once were. Once hashtags thrived on Twitter and Instagram to promote content and help followers to reach them. Hashtags were meant for users to search and filter relevant content, but they became more cumbersome as people and brands started using the wrong hashtags for their posts.

In addition, some spammers and bots target popular hashtags in irrelevant posts making it more difficult. Therefore, adding hashtags to every post in 2022 doesn’t serve the purpose it was meant to. So even if you use them, limit it to 2-3 hashtags per post and ensure they are relevant to your content.

You should instead focus on creating fresh and interactive content on social media and try posting consistently to increase the engagement rate. Nothing works better than posting quality content on your business’s social media handles that are not limited to promoting your products and services.

4. Platforms Like TikTok and Snapchat Shouldn’t Be Taken Seriously

If you don’t know already, the world is quickly shifting to short videos because they’re entertaining and easy to follow. Everybody is busy watching or making videos on YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels.

TikTok and Snapchat are two social media platforms that primarily let users create and share short videos and clips. Therefore, it’d be wrong to say that these channels are not profitable enough for businesses to market their products.

These platforms can help you collaborate with influencers and promote products. In addition, you can also run branded ads on these platforms and get leads for your business, create sponsored lenses/filters, feature user-generated content, share behind-the-scenes stories and do much more.

5. Social Media is Only For the Young

If you run a business that is not exclusively for youths and think social media marketing is a waste, then you’re wrong. The pandemic has brought many people to social media, especially the older generation, who have recently started realizing the potential of different social media platforms.

From helping people to find hospital beds to getting groceries and medicines delivered to remote corners of the world and spreading COVID awareness to everyone, social media has played an important role. So if you’re missing out on social media marketing, thinking it might not be the right place to market your business, you are doing it wrong.

Social media is one of the best platforms to connect and sell your products to people of all ages. It is also beneficial to foster good customer relationships and provide better assistance to queries and feedback.

6. It’s Okay to Get Started on Social Media Without a Plan

Being casual about your social media is one of the biggest mistakes you can make if you are a brand. So you should start your journey with a plan to promote your business effectively. It means you should have a social media strategy and a dedicated team to execute it.

Without a proper plan, your content will not be conversion-focused, and you won’t be able to target the right audience. Therefore, it is important to create a proper content strategy to decide your target market, what topics to share, which audience to target and when to post your content on your social media platforms.

Some brands replicate what their competitors are doing, but it may not be the right solution for your business. Every business has different objectives, followers and needs; hence you should customize your social media marketing strategy accordingly

7. Social Media is Completely Free

Social media is free, and you can do many things on this platform without spending a penny. This is why small businesses should use social media to promote themselves. However, although social media is free, you need to spend a lot of time and effort creating and promoting content.

As your business grows and your competition gets fierce, organic content promotion may not always bring you the best results. This is when you need to invest in paid marketing efforts on social media, such as paid ads and sponsored posts. This will give you a significant boost in reach and visibility, which is nearly impossible to achieve through organic means.

Wrapping Up

Setting an effective social media strategy is not an easy task. Researching and developing a solid one takes a lot of time and effort. Now that we have debunked these social media myths, you should better understand how social media marketing works. If you need help with social media marketing, contact us at SV Digital.

Instagram’s New Reels Features

Posted on July 22, 2022January 3, 2023 by Adithya Kumar

We all love a well-thought-out reel; Instagram just introduced a few features that will make sharing and creating a reel more enjoyable. This also means creators have more opportunities to drive up their engagement numbers. These new updates include introducing new creative tools on the platform, which will drive engagement on your reels and modify how your video would be shared.

The new features available to you today are enhanced remixes, new templates, and automatic conversions of video posts to reels. They also now offer creators the opportunity to boost their reels through ads. Let us explore these fascinating new updates in detail.

Enhanced Remixes

The options you had to react to video reels from other creators have been broadened. Instagram has modified the remix feature on reels. This means that you will be able to remix public photos from another account and record your reaction to them as a reel. The remix layout has also been changed where you can choose from different options that include green screen, split screen and picture-in-picture reaction.

This gives creators the ability to add their reactions after the original video. Before this feature, users had to have the original clip and the reaction playing simultaneously on the same screen.

New Templates

Creating a reel has become much easier with preloaded audios and clips available to you on the platform. These templates allow you to add any photos or clips directly into the reel without any hassle of using a third-party app to edit them. A new dual template was also unveiled that adds a feature where you can take a video with your front and back camera simultaneously. To find these templates, click on the camera icon in the reel tab.

Video Conversion To Reels

Instagram will now convert all videos under 15 mins into reels. Don’t worry; this only applies to videos you will be making now. All videos created before the update will stay in the standard video format. The video and reels tabs will be combined into one tab as well, which will be reflected in the coming weeks when this update is launched.

Boosting Reels As Ads

Brands and businesses can turn their reels into ads by boosting them on the platform. This feature is aimed to help drive user engagement and increase views on your content. The conditions for this boosting are that the content must be original, less than a minute and has to be recorded in a specific format which is a 9:16 (vertical) aspect ratio.

Once you have posted your reel, you can boost it by viewing it and clicking on the Boost Post tab. By boosting your reels, you can access engagement insights explicitly for advertisements. Any boosted reel will appear in the main feed, stories, reel tabs and the explore page.

These new features bring a whole new creative angle to making reels and give creators more artistic freedom when making reels. But don’t just read about the feature; get on the app and start experimenting.

Top 9 Benefits of Social Media for Businesses

Posted on July 22, 2022January 3, 2023 by Adithya Kumar

There used to be a time when social media was a young person’s game, and it was called a fad that would fade away. Coming to today’s business environment, we can safely say social media is one of the fastest-growing forms of marketing. This communication medium has increased in popularity over the years, and many marketers have recognized its true potential. Just look at the statistics.

According to Hootsuite, there are around 4.2 billion active social media users and 5.2 billion mobile phone users. Social media can be accessed by anyone and at any given time. With these numbers, any business would benefit significantly by tapping into this vast market and using it to their advantage. If you’re still skeptical about the potential of social media, this blog will put your mind at ease. So let’s dive straight into it.

These are the following reasons why social media is essential for your business:

1. Brand awareness

As mentioned before, nearly half the world’s population is on social media. This is a significant opportunity for any brand to use the platform to get their message out. The number of potential customers partnered with the features available to you on different platforms makes this a vital investment for any brand planning to grow. It is sometimes assumed that a business can be hard to find amongst the sea of brands, influencers and icons on social media, but that is not the case.

Instagram reported that nearly 83% of its users found new products and services on the platform. So the key is to find the best way to communicate with your audience and grab their attention.

2. Cost Effective

All social media platforms allow anyone to make an account for free, and you do not have to pay to post your content to its enormous audience. This makes the platform a vital element of any marketing strategy for a business. For example, you might see posts that are paid for promotion. This is a smaller investment than the cost of other avenues of paid marketing promotion. With a larger marketing budget, you can allocate more funding to other elements of your marketing strategy.

This would happen while you reap the return on investment from social media at affordable costs. Even if you decide to use paid social media advertising, you can significantly increase your conversion rates and ROI by experimenting with the platform’s advertising parameters. Experimenting and seeing what works for you on social media will save you time and money in the long run.

3. Customer Communication

Social media has allowed consumers to contact a business without making a call directly, assuming that the business of your choosing is on social media. Businesses can now get valued feedback, reviews and even complaints in real-time through the platform. In the past, waiting on call while you were being transferred was challenging for customers. This tried their patience and trust in the brand.

Today, a consumer has one of the simplest, most convenient and most reliable ways to communicate with a business. Similarly, businesses can now contact their customers via social media and even host live events on the platform which consumers can interact with.

4. Website Traffic

A website is the best place to have customers land when you want to improve the sales of a business. Social media gives you the ability to direct users to your website. There are different ways you can achieve this. For example, you could post excellent content which grabs attention and then link your website. This would allow consumers to click on the link to your website through a post or blog.

You could also participate in social media chats to interact with users and share your expertise, leading them to your website. The key is to focus on assisting users with solutions and less on self-promotion. An important tip is to put your website address on all your social media accounts so consumers can find it more easily.

5. Knowing Your Competition

Consumers are not the only people using social media. You can find your competition there as well. As you post content to create brand awareness and attract customers, so does your competition. However, this does not come across threat but more like a learning opportunity. The idea is to see what your competitors are doing, how they are doing it and why they are doing it.

The end goal for all businesses is to create a product or service that covers all the bases of what a consumer wants. When you learn from your competition and improve, that’s when consumers would pick your brand over the rest. Social media is the perfect way to track your competition and make accurate decisions on your business strategy.

6. Brand Authority

When a business is seen posting content on their accounts, replying to customer queries and listening to their audience, consumers view this as a credible brand. By keeping up with customer communication via social media, you show social media users that the business values its audience above everything else. This translates to satisfied customers voicing their opinion about the brand, product, or service. This is usually shared through social media as well.

When several customers follow this suit, it creates a sense of trust in front of potential customers who see these interactions. Ideally, word of mouth from consumers about their positive purchase experience with your brand is a form of advertising. This is where every brand would like to be.

7. Lead Generation

Social media allows its users to show interest in brands in a convenient and detachable way. Generating leads is a significant element in any business’s marketing strategy. So much so that many social media platforms offer advertising services you can pay for to collect leads. For example, Facebook allows its users to create Facebook Lead Ads to reach audiences that share an interest in the product or service you’re selling.

Once the interest is shown, the potential customer can learn more about the brand through a couple clicks on the ad. But, as we had mentioned earlier, you do not require a significant investment to put out these kinds of ads, but you indeed will have great returns.

8. Learn About Your Customer

As we have seen, many active social media users exist. This means that countless people are accessing these platforms, and their behavior is observed. Social media platforms collect enormous amounts of data about their users in real-time. As a business or brand, you can access this data anytime.

Each platform offers user analytics. This feature allows you to go through demographic data about users who are interacting with your brands, even those who just visited your account partially. Knowing what your audience is like helps you create a better and more efficient social media marketing strategy.

9. Targeted Advertising

Previously, we discussed how social media is a cost-effective way to promote your business. The platform allows you to deliver quality content to users through your account. Along with this, social media platforms also have marketing tools that allow you to target the perfect audience for your brand and let you manage your budget more efficiently.

This targeting tool uses data that the platform has collected. Once you can access it, you can reach consumers that match the right demographic, geography, language and buying behavior. The targeting is so precise that you can curate your ad text for different groups of consumers, depending on your goal. The pay model works so that you only pay for the exact users you want to reach and nothing more.

These benefits should guide you to venture deeper into social media. If you’re starting, not to worry. Everyone was right where you were, and you have numerous resources like this blog to help you navigate each platform. Social media is the future of marketing for many industries and will be around for a long time. The best your brand can do is to understand how it works and utilize it to the fullest.

Google Launches Three Ad Creation Tools

Posted on July 21, 2022January 3, 2023 by Adithya Kumar

Google is constantly striving to make your user experience immaculate; they have introduced three new features that allow advertisers and advertising teams to create & collaborate while still being on Google’s ad platform. Let’s dive straight into these new introductions.

Asset Storage and Organization

The first new tool is asset storage and organization. There is an issue observed by Google concerned with multiple team members trying to access images and videos simultaneously. This seemed to be very unproductive, but Google thought of a solution. The new Asset Library can be a portal to upload, share and download assets from past or present campaigns. This would act as a visual first database.

Currently, you can access this library with Max Performance, Discovery App, Local and Display campaigns. Google has included some extensions as well. This library is easy to use when you want to create or edit a campaign, just click on the library and pick any suitable asset you want.

Create Video Ads for YouTube

The second tool is the ability to create video ads on Youtube. Earlier on in the week, there was a launch of the new Creative Ads Studio. This introduction aimed to allow users to create videos and display ads on a new platform. Advertisers will now be able to create video ads on Youtube now.

What is unique about this feature is that the templates you have access to are designed explicitly for Youtube. This move was to improve results on ads. Google has also suggested that you test these new templates on your current ads.

Voice-Over Audio

Finally, the third tool which was released is voice-over audio. Google observed that videos with the voice-over feature embedded in them tended to perform better with audiences. So, they decided to introduce their own voice-over feature on their platform. This can be accessed through the video creation tool.

The way this feature works is that it is integrated with Google’s voice-to-text technology. The asset library would be the perfect place to find this feature. You can choose between various languages, including English, Filipino, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Malaysian, Mandarin, Spanish and Swedish.

These new features will surely improve the user experience of creators on Google’s platform. What would be suggested is to take your time and test out each feature. This will give you a better understanding of how they work and how they will give your content the added advantage.

All Advertisers Can Now Use Google Ads Creative Studio

Posted on July 19, 2022January 3, 2023 by Adithya Kumar

Advertisers can now catch a break with the cost-effective Google Ads Studio. Let us explain to anyone who doesn’t know what this studio is. Google Ads Studio is a tool that assists you in creating exceptional ads at any variation.

This studio used to be in its beta phase, but now it’s available. Usually, ads at this scale would require a large amount of financing from a business. So you have to pick between a simple ad within your budget or an expensive, highly tailored ad with precise targeting. This studio was introduced to help any business have a choice between both and not just have to settle for one.

You might wonder how this studio works, especially if it has all these features. The Google Ads Studio allows you to make hundreds of versions of the same ad or video. You can cater your ads to different audiences based on geography, language and backgrounds.

Google simply does the process by explaining it themselves. According to them, “Simply tell us what element of the ad creative — like a product image, superimposed text or sound — you want to set as ‘swappable’ and provide different versions of that element based on a set of rules you create. The rules include the audiences you want to reach or contexts you want to match.”

Check out this video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAAkrAa2ExM

In summary, you must provide the right creative element for your ad, and Google will take care of the rest. You also can’t forget who you want to target, so you need to mention it. You can now share your work on multiple platforms, including Google ads, Video 360 and Campaign Manager 360. This would have to be shared directly from Google Ads Studio. This studio is now a consolidated library of creative assets waiting for you to pick and share along several accounts. The beta version of this studio was such a success as you had well reputable corporations using it to test their new products.

For example, General Motors used the beta Google Ads Studio to showcase their brand new vehicle and increase their brand awareness. When you look at the benchmarks that were set in the industry, this studio is a significant leap for any business. Going back to the example, the studio reduces the cost of creating the ad for General Motors by 36%. It increased their brand searches by 56% and reduced cost per view by 32%. Currently, the studio is compatible with video ads but will soon add options for display ad capabilities.

Advertising just got more streamlined and affordable for you and your business. Take a look at the Google Ads Studio, and do not be worried about experimenting. Find the right ad for you and let Google promote it to your audience.

Instagram Introduces In-Chat Payment Feature

Posted on July 19, 2022January 3, 2023 by Adithya Kumar

We all know and love Instagram for its ability as a platform to allow users to communicate with each other, upload excellent content and also advertise their products there. Recently Instagram has introduced a payment feature on its platform. This feature allows buyers and sellers to communicate with each other directly. For example, you can now get payment requests or collect them on the platform and even track your order in Instagram chat.

The feature is called “Payment In Chat.” This simplifies the process of buying and selling on the platform. If you find a verified business on Instagram, you can purchase products from them through direct messages with the brand. Meta announced the feature’s aim: “We want to help people start conversations with businesses they care about and help them find and buy products they love in an easy, seamless experience, right from the chat thread.”

Meta also highlighted a statistic, which indicated that around one billion users direct message businesses weekly across the social media company’s platform. The kind of interactions observed are conversations with brands, browsing of products, customer support and story replies.

The payment portal that will be available to you is called MetaPay. The traditional payment process would have buyers shifting from page to page and from one website to the other. This new payment portal streamlines the process where you just have to make a couple of clicks to complete your purchase. Security is a vital part of this process, and Meta has several protection protocols to safeguard your data and money. You can now message a brand, view their products, and purchase them on the same message thread.

This is a relief for businesses that operate on these social media platforms because it makes the customer journey a lot easier and simplified. Users will find the payment portal more manageable, which could also increase the business’s sales. If you are new to this landscape, Meta shops are there to assist you. This feature lets you create an online store on both Facebook and Instagram. You do not have to leave Instagram to conduct business activities between your brand and customers. This should be taken with caution, as you should keep an eye out for fraudulent businesses and hackers that might misuse the feature.

This feature opens up a whole new avenue for small businesses trying to grow. It makes their purchasing experience a lot more seamless and gives users more control over where they are being directed. Instagram will monitor this feature and ensure that all its users are secure when purchasing products. If you haven’t already tried the portal, now is your chance.

9 Effective LinkedIn Marketing Strategies for B2B Businesses

Posted on July 19, 2022January 3, 2023 by Shreoshe Ghosh

LinkedIn is one of the most sought-after platforms for networking and growing your business. This social networking platform can be an invaluable part of your social media marketing strategy, especially if you are into B2B business. It helps you establish important connections, promote brand awareness, and generate valuable leads for your B2B business.

LinkedIn networking isn’t limited to professionals like recruiters and job-seekers but can also be a great tool to grow your business. However, hard-selling on LinkedIn is not appreciated, so crafting an exclusive marketing strategy for this platform is essential.

In this post, we’ll explore some of the effective LinkedIn marketing strategies for B2B businesses and learn how they can be implemented correctly to help them grow.

1. Turn Your Company Page Into a Lead Generation Page

If you want to generate leads from LinkedIn, you have to set the stage for capturing them since they won’t come to your B2B business automatically. The best way to do this is to turn your company page on the platform into a lead generation page.

Generally, your company page on LinkedIn will contain basic information about your company and a link to your company website. You can structure your company page in such a way that it elicits a conversion action. This conversion action is a click-through to your website, either in your recent updates or company description.

The first step is to choose an image for the LinkedIn page header that clearly tells what your business has to offer. The purpose of the header image is to generate interest in your prospective leads and get them to read more about your business.

Next, you need to create a compelling pitch about your business. The tone of the content should be conversational and engaging. For example, instead of telling how many offices you have opened in the last 12 months, you should focus on sharing how many businesses you have helped or what makes your B2B business different from your competitors. That’s the information your prospective leads may want to read.

The first two lines of your company description on the LinkedIn page should be a stunner because that’s what people can see when they land there without having to click “See More.”

Finally, you must focus on making your recent updates section clickable and conversion-focused. Let’s be honest, the probability of people coming to your LinkedIn profile and going through all the information there is low, which is why you need to maintain an active and engaging feed.

You have to post content that’s directly aimed at your target audience. For example, you can post blog updates, important links, media coverage news, infographics, case studies and more. Remember to add a call-to-action to every post to encourage click-through.

2. Develop a Showcase Page

Showcase Pages are a feature offered by LinkedIn where you can promote individual brands that are extensions of your company. Once you create a Showcase page, it will be listed under the “Affiliated Pages” of your main LinkedIn page.

Showcase pages are custom-made for B2B companies to help them generate leads. Although Showcase pages have the same posting options and analytics as your LinkedIn page, it still differs from the latter since your Showcase page gets a larger header image space, more above-the-fold posts and places to link back to your company page.

Showcase pages are a great way to capture more targeted leads for your business and spread the brand name further. To make your Showcase page powerful and effective, make it conversion-focused like your main company page and keep the page’s name short to avoid being truncated.

3. Use Advanced Search

The above techniques mentioned in this post focus on getting your leads to your business, AKA inbound techniques. Now, we’ll see how to reach out to your leads on LinkedIn. The platform’s advanced search feature helps you identify the people you want to target for your business.

To do this, go to LinkedIn’s header menu, click on the search people icon and choose the advanced option. In advanced people search, you can filter the search results by industry, location, current company, school, profile language, and more.

The bigger your personal network is, the better the chances of finding the right prospects for your business. Although LinkedIn’s advanced search includes the entire search network, the best leads will come from your connection at the first, second and third levels.

4. Save Searches

When you run a highly targeted search, you will want to save it. Saved searches help you to maintain progress in your prospect hunting. From your advanced search, look for the saved search option in the upper right corner of the page.

You can create up to three saved searches for free on LinkedIn. When doing so, you also set up alerts for each search criteria. This is a great way to find prospective B2B leads for your business at a granular level and market your products to them.

5. Claim Your Custom URL

Every business should ensure that its LinkedIn page URL is customized to include its business name. This is especially important for B2B businesses where your prospectus might want to know more about your business before getting into any business conversation. By ensuring that your LinkedIn page URL has your business name, you make it easier for other businesses to find you and do their own research about your business.

6. Search Groups

Another great way to find B2B leads for your business is to search for groups. With more than 20,0000 LinkedIn groups present at the moment, you are sure to find multiple groups in your niche. All you need to do is find them, join and maintain a certain activity level in these groups to nurture leads.

You can simply perform a group search on the platform. Group searches do not have elaborate filters as people or company searches, but you can still filter groups based on language, category and relationship level.

When you look for groups, ensure that it is highly relevant to your target audience and are active in nature. LinkedIn ranks groups as per their activity level, so you can see the activity level of each group before you decide to join them. You can select groups that say “Very Active.”

Another critical factor to consider while joining LinkedIn groups is the group size. Since LinkedIn allows you to be a part of 50 groups, it is wise to go for medium-sized groups and avoid those with very few or huge members to avoid not being noticed.

7. Start Your Own Groups

LinkedIn groups offer a plethora of networking opportunities. If you want to unleash more incredible benefits from LinkedIn groups, create one yourself. When you become the owner and moderator of an active group, you gain recognition in the industry.

To create a group, go to the “Groups” section in the sidebar, click on “See All,” and “Create a New Group.” Then, add the necessary details and invite people who can be potential business leads to join and interact there.

8. Publish Content

LinkedIn offers a professional content publishing platform called Pulse, where industry leaders and business experts can share news, insights and other important information. When you publish content on Pulse, everyone in your network will be notified, and it is possible to share the content you publish on Pulse to other social media platforms too. You can also publish content on Pulse as an individual or a company.

By creating quality content, you can raise awareness about your business and establish your authority as a thought leader in your industry. Since LinkedIn Pulse puts forth your content within your network, it is an effective inbound marketing strategy to draw user attention to what you offer and boost the chances of generating leads for your B2B businesses.

9. LinkedIn Ads For Lead Generation

You can boost your LinkedIn performance by buying ads. The LinkedIn pre-filled lead generation form can help you collect quality leads for your B2B business by displaying your ads only to your preferred audience. The ads you can buy on LinkedIn include sponsored content, where you can boost the visibility of your post much more than what you could’ve boosted organically.

You can run LinkedIn text ads where your company ads appear on various LinkedIn pages, profile pages, search results pages and group pages. You can also try sponsored InMail to send personalized messages to people on LinkedIn.

Conclusion

LinkedIn offers a massive opportunity for B2B business marketing. However, lacking the proper knowledge about the platform could restrict you from utilizing its potential to your advantage. So, when you’re on LinkedIn next, try exploring the features explained here to drive leads for your B2B business.

13 Most Interactive & Engaging Web Design Trends

Posted on July 15, 2022June 27, 2023 by Shreoshe Ghosh

Web designing is a constantly evolving field. Over the years, web designing has become more than just a means to declutter your website and make it appear professional. With technological advancements, the field of web design has seen immersive and groundbreaking design trends that have fueled the success of several websites.

Initially, web design used to focus on the user experience for desktop browsers, but in recent years, it has shifted its focus to mobile and tablet browsers since most users browse websites from these devices. A good web design should not only please the eyes but also reflect a brand’s values and promotes easy accessibility and seamless navigation.

If you’re looking to design a successful website, you must be familiar with these 13 latest web design trends in 2022.

1. Complex Gradients

Gradients are color transitions where one color blends into another. Gradients can come in monotone, duotone or multicolor. Complex gradients aren’t exactly a fresh design trend, but they are regularly used in web designing to add depth to flat designs.

Gradient designs made a remarkable comeback in 2018 with Instagram’s gradient logo, and since then, it has been setting up a new creative benchmark. Gradients can create an illusion of movement while keeping the overall design of a page minimal. They are versatile and can be part of any design element, from logos to texts and more.

There are many gradient generator tools that you can use to decide on the color scheme or take the help of the Adobe Color Wheel to pick shades that match the vibe of the web page.

2. Scrollytelling

Scrollytelling is also known as narrative visualization. It is a series of visual elements woven together and arranged chronologically to present a story or message to the visitors. Just like you’d read a book at your own pace, this web design trend allows you to navigate through a website and control the flow of information as per your choice.

Scrollytelling allows transition between different visual and styling elements such as alternate texts, animated effects, interactive background and sizing changes. These visual effects captivate the users and keep them engaged until the end. This design trend is apt for long-form journalism, brand storytelling and product pages.

Scroll-based interaction is simple and spares the readers from second-guessing what to click, swipe or press to read the entire content. The dynamic interplay of text, images, videos and sound gives Scrollytelling content an engaging flavor.

In addition to the conventional and intuitive vertical navigation, Scrollytelling also works wonders on a side scroll layout. This is especially useful to showcase portfolios, online galleries, catalogs, images and more.

3. Neo-Brutalism

Neo-brutalism is inspired by brutalism, an architectural movement of the 50s that emphasized raw and exposed materials. Digital brutalism is characterized by plain backgrounds, asymmetric page layouts, untreated images and default computer fonts. But in 2022, digital brutalism has transformed into a less extreme version known as neo-brutalism.

This style incorporates the essence of digital brutalism and pairs it with minimalism resulting in something substantial, bold and striking. Neo-brutalism brings much relief from the traditional layout concepts and plays around with super-high contrasts, purposefully clashing colors and quirky typography.

Neo-brutalism is an apparent yet subtle rebellion against the standard norms of web designing. It is one of the best approaches to a great user experience, mainly because it breaks the monotony of standard design practices. This design trend is apt for brands that want their products to amuse or entertain users and stand out from the rest. It is also a fantastic trend to be adapted by art and design sites that want to break the monotony.

4. Memphis Design

Memphis design is a web design trend that originated in the 80s but is making a comeback in 2022. Bright colored shapes and lines characterize it. This design combines circles and triangles with black and white graphic patterns. Alternatively, scattered shapes can be directly placed behind the subject, creating a burst of abstract colors.

Memphis is more than just a design trend; it challenges the norm and signifies uniqueness and creativity. It encourages boldness in design and reminds us how whimsical elements can bring a great sense of styling to your web pages. Designers who don’t want to use flashy graphics in their entire design can opt for miniature Memphis design, where a small dose of the design trend can add the much-needed kick to the overall look and feel of a webpage.

5. Visible Borders

Although websites are designed on a strict grid and arranged together seamlessly with the code, they are made to look natural by omitting those grids and borders to create an impression that they are neatly floating in space. However, when left visible, borders can create a clear-cut layout and separate different sections of the page. This helps in an easy browsing experience.

Adding simple borders and frames to your web page can distinguish one section from another and make room for more content without the clutter. It also saves users the guesswork of where to head next on a web page.

2022 is all about implementing visible borders as a part of the latest web design trends. The line weight is something graphic designers can play with to match the theme of the page. Fine lines reflect a minimalist and sophisticated vibe, while chunkier borders are playful and unconventional. Both thick and thin borders complement muted color palettes and bold typefaces.

6. Handmade Graphics

As 2022 brings you a host of technologically-advanced design trends, it’s easy to miss out on the sense of personality you can achieve with handmade graphics. DIY graphics are rising as brands try to incorporate relatable interfaces into their websites.

Handmade graphics can include doodles, hand-painted sketches, handmade cutouts and more. This web design trend is meant to bridge the gap between digital and traditional designs and offer a real-world experience to the users.

Handmade graphic design works well with websites selling eco-friendly products, sites running environmental-friendly campaigns, and those offering innovative products and services. Imperfect hand-crafted designs can bring much-needed change from vector illustrations and add a sense of organic human touch to your web pages.

7. Maximalism

Maximalism believes in “the more, the merrier.” The motto of a maximalist design is to put in as many elements as you can into a page plus something extra. Flashy texts, bold images, bursts of colors and anything that speaks extravaganza in web designing can be incorporated into the realm of maximalism.

While maximalism can be an easy pass for most designers due to an overwhelming amount of elements added together, it can be an approachable design trend for those who can correctly tune and refine different page elements to create harmony.

Maximalism welcomes not only a bold and contrasting mix of colors but also typography styles. In contrast to minimalism, it plays around with the complexity of design elements by experimenting with layering, clashing patterns and more, leaving a greater scope of spontaneity, which makes this design trend a hit among youth culture like fashion brands, teen magazines, photography agencies, etc.

8. Typographic Hero Image

If you believe in the saying- first impression is the last impression, this design trend of 2022 is sure to impress you! The top part of a page, known as the “hero” section, is a crucial part of your web page. It is the first thing your visitors see, and if it fails to impress them, there is less probability of them scrolling down further to explore the rest of the page.

In the last few years, the hero section of a page mainly consisted of eye-catching images. However, this year, it’s different. The hero section in 2022 is all about oversized typography. Usage of big, bold and thick typography in single solid colors sans images and videos is the trend now. They can quickly grab attention and are a style that can blend well with other design elements.

The typographic hero image showcases how creative typography can work as a standalone design element and present essential messages in a captivating way. This style can work wonders for news portals to highlight the top news of the day or any breaking news headline.

9. Off-the-Grid

A grid is one of the most important tools for a designer. It helps you decide the placement of your texts, images, animations and videos on a page. Thankfully, with lots of experimentation happening in web design, designers are now challenging conventional design theories.

Going off the grid is unconventional yet a welcome move from the known website layouts. Off-the-grid designs can bring life to a web page when combined with large typographic, dim-lit images, soft color transitions and a hint of minimalism. Off-grid layouts allow designers to develop unique yet engaging page arrangements and allow businesses to distinguish themselves from their competitors. This design trend works well for fashion, photography, and art businesses.

A distinct styling element of off-grid design is making page elements overlap. If you are not confident about the overlapping designs, you can break your page elements into containers. These are grids of different sizes containing different elements such as texts, images and videos and organized in blocks throughout the page. However, when experimenting with off-grid designing, it is essential to mind the whitespace to emphasize important elements of the page.

10. Imagery Multilayers

For the last few years, designers have focused mostly on minimalistic designs that promote clean interfaces. Working with visually complex designs is something that many designers avoid to make web pages more receptive to users. However, it is good to see some designers breaking the norm and stepping up their designing game by taking up complex elements and playing around with them. One such example is the use of imagery multilayers.

Imagery multilayering is the usage of images in different layers. These images tend to be wide-angled and easy to understand to set the context of the page’s content. The right combination of photos, illustrations and animations can offer a visually cohesive experience to the users and get them to spend more time on a website. The imagery multilayer design is ideal for sites that want to put out plenty of information in a limited space.

However, you must be careful about choosing visuals for this web design trend. Images that can fade easily without losing their essence can be utilized for multilayering. You also need to avoid clutter by trying not to assimilate several images together in layers. Imagery multilayer as a web design trend will work well for an array of businesses when used thoughtfully.

11. Subtle Parallax Effect

The Parallax effect as a web design trend has been around for a while. In the Parallax effect, the website foreground moves faster than its background, creating a 3D effect and offering an immersive browsing experience to the users. However, the classic Parallax effect had seen a slow death a few years after its inception, especially when designers began to overuse it in not-so-good ways. Sites, where the parallax effect was executed, saw poor website usability paired with the slow website loading speed and endless scrolling.

So what makes it worth mentioning in 2022? Well, this year, we get to see a toned-down version of the parallax effect being used by many designers. There is less usage of heavy design elements that make sites slow and hard to scroll, and there is more focus on simplicity.

Modern parallax focuses on smoother transitions which make it appear that an image gently glides onto another. Another way to utilize this trend is to divide an entire page into 3-5 sections and run the parallax effect in sync with the reveal scrolling effect for a fantastic browsing experience. There are plenty of other ways to use the subtle parallax effect alone or in combination with other web design trends. The actual usability will depend on the web page you are working on and its contents.

12. Web-based Scavenger Hunts

Scavenger hunts for web work best for contest pages and game-based websites. It can be used to unveil a product launch, a new video release or to make an exciting announcement. Using this design trend, you can daisy-chain different pages and add password protection that will stop visitors from accessing other website pages until they solve a problem or answer a question on the existing page.

Several creative ways exist to set a scavenger hunt and reveal prompts to help users move from start to finish. You can use the power of web design to create an engaging scavenger hunt. You can play around with word-based riddles, decode a cipher or ask users to find hidden clues or clickable elements on a page. You must provide subtle hints and workarounds to help them find the answers.

13. Glassmorphism

Glassmorphism is a technique where you combine blur effect with transparency to impart a frosted glass-like texture to the web design. Glassmorphism is a relatively new web design technique that saw a rise in 2020. It works by creating a veiled layer of transparency that is achieved through a mix of opacity, layering and blur value.

Blurring is the critical aspect of glassmorphism and is tricky to get right. The background image in glassmorphism should appear as if it is being viewed through an out-of-focus lens. If you make the blurring effect too light, there is a chance that the background image can bleed through. For a safe bet, adding borders around the elements of glassmorphism can help add definition.

The background color also plays a vital role in determining how the glassmorphism effect can turn out. Background colors can’t be too simple and dull, or the effect won’t be visible. Vibrant colors can bring out the essence of glassmorphism by creating a contrast that makes the effect stand out. Glassmorphism is a versatile web design trend that any website can adapt.

Conclusion

Web designing is fascinating, with new trends being introduced now and then. While every web design trend may not gain popularity, each is a humble attempt to break the conventional design styles or modify them to bring a unique and noteworthy experience for the audience. How you incorporate them into a website depends on your creative outlook and the type of website you are designing.

Which web design trends do you think will sustain in the long run, and which trend will fade away with time? Let us know in the comments.

You Can Now Remove Unwanted Mentions on Twitter

Posted on July 12, 2022January 3, 2023 by Adithya Kumar

Some of us are too familiar with being tagged in negative threads or posts. Twitter hears the frustration from users and is now introducing a feature that can ease all that unnecessary stress. An unmentioning feature is now active on the platform. This allows users to untag themselves from unwanted conversations. This is handy for users who want to distance themselves from potentially harmful or unrelatable tweets.

Before this update, users would find themselves powerless to unwanted tagging. The most that could be done was muting the conversation or reporting it. Twitter will now remove the link to the user’s account and deter other users from mentioning that account in the same conversation. This is a relief for users who regularly deal with this issue.

You are probably wondering how it works; let’s break it down. When you use the unmentioining feature, it accomplishes three things. The first is it removes the link to your account from the original tweet, which includes the replies. The second being it stops other users from mentioning an untagged user in the same conversation again. Finally, the conversation notifications would be disabled for you, so you will not be reminded of them again.

To enable this feature, you will have to follow three easy steps:

Tap the three-dot menu at the top right of the tweet
Select “leave this conversation.”
Confirm your decision, and it will be done

You have now successfully removed all your tags from the conversation. This is a progressive step towards giving users more abilities with how they edit and modify their tweets. This feature has been in Twitter’s pipeline for some time now.

As early as June 2021, this feature was previewed by Twitter and had been undergoing extensive testing and development. The final version of this feature has been said to have been scaled down from the previewed version. The addition of the feature which was talked about before was the ability to stop mentioning users that you don’t follow as well.

Currently, you can only unmention yourself once you have been mentioned, but you cannot stop users from mentioning you in the first place.

Month: July 2022

Google Launches Three Ad Creation Tools

Asset Storage and Organization

Create Video Ads for YouTube

Voice-Over Audio

All Advertisers Can Now Use Google Ads Creative Studio

You Can Now Remove Unwanted Mentions on Twitter

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