Digital Marketing

Top 7 Trends in Social Media to Keep an Eye on in 2021

Introduction-

Despite many of the changes in online marketing over the last decade, trends in social media, as well as social media, in general, have indeed survived, and now have improved every year to maintain their position as one of the most potent marketing platforms available today.

The year 2020 has finally come to an end, which is a huge relief.

Have you ever considered how tough 2020 might have been without social media?

As social media sites add new features and update their algorithms, social media trends evolve as well.

These quick shifts provide a completely new set of challenges for businesses and social media marketers, who must continually evaluate their strategic approaches and change direction to include new types of information in their repertory.

Social media has never been more potent as a marketing tool, and it is certainly something to watch.

As a result, new social media trends emerge, grow, and evolve on a daily basis.

Your techniques open the door to talks by using social platforms to raise brand awareness. However, people and analytics change, and you must keep up with them.

Staying relevant by participating in the latest social media challenge or hashtag is a terrific way to stay current, and it’s critical that you keep up with the latest digital marketing trends.

So, let’s dive right in and look at the top seven latest trends in social media that you should be paying attention to in 2021.

Video That is Being Broadcast Live

By 2021, not only is Facebook Live a success, but other major platforms like Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn have also adopted comparable features.

The reason for the success of live-streaming is, it has such an impact on people that recorded videos just cannot match.

People can interact with the information in ways that they couldn’t if it was a pre-recorded video.

In the 2020, people have grown accustomed to being able to connect with businesses and live without ever leaving their homes, and this situation will continue to evolve in 2021.

As a result, live streaming will gain significant traction and should be included in your social media marketing approach.

People are currently enamored with video, particularly live video material, which looks very genuine.

Live streaming video provides a glimpse of something much more unfiltered, open, and trustworthy.

Provided all of the advantages of live streaming, this is not surprising why more than 40 % of marketers use it as part of their social media strategy.

As a Content-Format, Stories are a Good Fit

Stories foster a community spirit, encourage followers to return, and seem more genuine than a collection of heavily altered photographs.

Stories offer a variety of features such as the ability to add polls or ask questions, which helps marketers to gather insights from their viewers, building engagement through simple interactive content.

In the previous year, stories were the most popular content format, and they aren’t going away.

Marketers will need to get more structured and prepare for Stories as quality content.

Furthermore importantly, the video will become more popular as a Story format as it appears to outshine photographs.

Conversational Marketing

People use social media for more than just to make new acquaintances and chat with them.

It’s a location where people can express themselves, buy new items and services, leave reviews, and even contact your company.

Your clients, after all, need to contact your company on a frequent basis for one reason or another.

Users on social media can learn more about you if you communicate authentically.

And that opens up the possibility of customer involvement, in which you may learn more about your following.

Chatbots are better, faster, constantly available, and also more effective than bulky software applications of the past, thanks to modern technology

Chatbots are an unavoidable element of customer care, whether they’re providing 24/7 support or boosting human productivity.

Rather of relying on email and the false notion of a response “within 2 – 3 business days,” employ chatbots to stay up with the rising activity on social media networks.

Using Influencer Marketing 

Influencer marketing is not really a new concept, but it’s going to stay longer.

Consumers are skeptical of commercials and distrustful of anonymous corporate brands, which is why influencers work so successfully.

As a result, they are more likely to trust someone they know, even if the relationship is solely virtual.

Friends and family, acquaintances, and the customer reviews area of an e-commerce site are all examples of social evidence.

In any case, customers place a greater emphasis on it.

Influencer marketing may help you reach new audiences, raise brand recognition, and enhance marketing ROI.

It’s a lot less expensive than launching sponsored marketing campaigns, yet it still gets great results.

A Move To Social Commerce

Several social media networks are attempting to keep users on their platforms by reducing the barrier consumers encounter when transitioning from window shopping to purchasing intent.

We’re seeing more features and tools that assist quick and easy purchasing as the social media sector adapts to improve the customer experience.

For example, you may add product labels and enable simple checkout on Instagram even without exiting the site.

With the rise of social commerce, marketers will be able to construct shorter sales channels and provide customers with a seamless and speedy buyer’s journey, resulting in higher user satisfaction.

When you add social commerce, you have a customer journey that is simplified and shortened.

When your audience sees a product they like on social media, they don’t have to travel to the website to find it.

They may purchase it directly from the site, which is expected to minimize the number of transactions that are abandoned.

Reels & Short Video Content in High Demand.

Continued interaction on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat Stories material, as well as companies generating various short-form videos or reels.

Expect content to continue to gain traction as people’s attention spans on social media shorten and more individuals browse endlessly through feeds when bored at home.

A marketer should begin to think more deliberately about video strategy, particularly in terms of how long your videos should be and where they should be posted.

Using, Reels and YouTube Shorts to create short clips is the new trend, and every business should jump on board as soon as possible.

The Worth of the Content Will Outweighs the Quality of the Manufacturing.

In 2020, when many firms were forced to go totally remote, social networking and video marketers needed to design scalable production methods that could be done from home.

Since consumers started to connect with videos, live streams, and other social media content clearly created from home offices, marketers recognized that lower-quality material might still be engaging.

By utilizing user-generated content, a social media marketing strategy that is becoming increasingly dependent.

UGC seemed to be too good to be true.

You can get your viewers to work for you by employing some innovative techniques.

UGC serves as social validation, promoting your brand’s message, strengthening customer connections, and instilling trust in your target market.

In a world where people are increasingly socially isolated, social media has become the default communal place.

Social media users have rushed to it in pursuit of knowledge, amusement, and social interaction.

Consumers are spending more time on social media than ever before, and if you’d like to attract them, you must keep on top of the social media sphere

And to do so, you’ll need to stay current with the latest and best trends, which we’ve revealed to you.

The Emerging Trend of Voice Search / The Rise in Voice Search- What You Should Know?

Ever since the launch of the voice search feature by Google in the year 2002, voice search has come a long way in terms of technology, usability, and utility.

Voice search and AI (Artificial Intelligence) are playing a major role in this era of the digital marketing revolution that we are witnessing.

Instead of being typed in on a keyboard, a growing proportion of searches are being spoken nowadays.

Around 3.25 billion people are currently using voice-activated search and assistants globally.

Apple Siri, the first voice search assistant, was launched in April 2011, and since then we are surrounded by many more major names like Google Assistant (Google), Alexa (Amazon), Bixby (Samsung), and Cortana (Microsoft).

According to Forbes, It is estimated that 50 percent of all the searches across the internet will be voice-based in 2021. 

In this article, we will discuss the voice base search and its emerging trends.

Let’s Dive in.

Why is Voice Search Getting So Popular?

The voice search experience depends on the following factors: 

• The device
• the assistant 
• the type of question being asked.

Gone are the days of typing in the search query.

Almost 7 out of 10 people prefer to search by using voice-based assistants rather than typing.

Humans generally have the tendency of making their lives simpler and easier.

As typing is a tedious task for most of us, we prefer voice search any day and anytime.

With the advent of voice assistant devices and improvements in smartphone voice assistants, it has become super easy to give commands and get things done.

Voice search allows users to get things done instantly and efficiently and also allows them the opportunity to multitask.

Not just advanced features such as carrying out online purchases or controlling other smart home gadgets, its more popular usage remains the basic queries and information requests like checking the weather, playing music, or setting a reminder.

The most noteworthy and potential benefits of voice search have taken place for the disabled community, especially the visually impaired people.

It allows them to bypass the text-based functions which are quite inconvenient for them.

Improvement In Voice AI & Machine Learning

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies control and influence our internet searches and also our interaction with our smart devices.

According to a report by Google, around 72% of people who own voice-activated devices claimed that they used these devices as part of their daily routine.

Since the prevalence of AI base technology is increasing, the search algorithms to accommodate machine learning must keep evolving from time to time.

Mobility of Voice Search Devices Globally

Almost everyone owns a Smartphone nowadays and they know that voice search has become more mobile than ever.

Most of the searches are done using natural or conversational language.

Google’s voice search on smartphones is available in over 100 languages. The Voice Search feature is not just limited to smartphones or smart speakers, it is available on many different devices.

Use of Voice For Local & Hyperlocal Search

As per the recent stats, 58% of people were able to find local businesses using the voice search engine on their smartphones.

The searches for ‘near me businesses have also gone up.

If we compare, the mobile searches have surpassed the desktop searches in recent years which has significantly led to the growth of ‘Local Search’.

This certainly has led the local business vendors and marketers to fine-tune their SEO strategies in order to capitalize on the rise of hyperlocal searches.

How Voice Search Is Changing SEO?

With the rise in the trend of using voice search engines, the biggest challenge faced by Digital Marketers is to regularly fine-tune their SEO strategy to optimize for voice search. 

With an accuracy of 95%, the Google voice recognition feature is not the only platform working on the perfection of voice recognition in order to capitalize on voice search.

China has come up with its own speech recognition system, – iFlytek. With an accuracy of 98%, it not only translates English to Mandarin but Mandarin to many different languages. 

Moving forward any business which seeks to attract the most possible inbound traffic to their websites will have to implement Voice SEO.

According to Google, 65% of all voice search queries are delivered in a conversational manner.

The search engines are turning into answer engines as voice searches have resulted in increased web traffic and higher retention. 

The most important function of a voice search engine is to provide prompt and correct answers and not just a result to the user’s query and that’s why it has become all the more important for SEO and Digital Marketers to ensure the provision of credible information which can be easily processed by search engines in order to provide answers efficiently.

One can optimize for voice searches on their site in the following ways.

How To Optimize For Voice Search?

• The key is to use natural language with direct answers to specific questions.
• Schema markup and rich snippets can be used to help keep queries and answers organized in a way that is better understood by search engines. 
• It’s important for merchants to keep their Google My Business listing and eCommerce stores in proper order with up-to-date operating information since voice search is often used to conduct local searches.
• The content should be fresh and optimized and it should be ensured by the elimination of duplicate pages, obsolete contact information, and old operating hours.
• The appearance of voice search results is greatly influenced by the Domain Authority and traditional Search Rankings.

Conclusion

The voice search industry is expected to grow into a billion-dollar industry in the years to come.

Not only it’s advisable to invest in this and capitalize on the opportunity, but it is also imperative to use it in the best possible manner in order to generate profits and add significant value to the overall purpose of this technology.

Optimizing for voice search is not merely a market trend – it is a necessity.

Considering all the best practices and challenges, one must create a voice search strategy that not just delivers but is also calibrated to their unique business objectives.

Difference between Enterprise SEO vs. Traditional SEO

Enterprise (SEO) is a search engine optimization tool that differs in its methods and techniques from traditional SEO.

It helps large businesses with thousands of products increase revenue and drive more traffic to their sites.

One can define it as the tools and techniques that rank your website on the first page in SERPs and enhance the quantity and quality of traffic, organically. So, how do these two compare?

Let us find out the Enterprise SEO vs. Traditional SEO

What Is Enterprise SEO?

We can define enterprise SEO as one that improves the organic ranking of large companies that have thousands or maybe millions of pages on their website.

You cannot drive traffic to such a large-scale site with normal SEO. Specialized teams, tactics, and strategies are needed for that.

What is Traditional SEO?

Traditional or small business SEO is deployed for small websites having from a few pages to a few hundred.

Regular strategies are aimed at increasing the quantity & quality of traffic to the website through organic search.

How do you know when a website is an enterprise?

There are various different ways that analysts describe enterprise SEO. Some classify it according to the size of the site, some on the size of the organization, while others base it on the size of the business.

Whatever the parameter, the common thing is scale. When the scale of a website, a company, or its revenue (or all) is big, it qualifies as an enterprise site. The challenges are new and the stakes are very high.

The common things in such sites are:

• The website plays a pivotal role in the success of a business and its brand value.
• The site is maintained by a well-coordinated project team.
• The SEO consists of high-level automated tasks performed across thousands or millions of pages on the site.

For an expert, working on enterprise-level sites is a different ball game altogether. There is a complete shift in techniques, processes, and ways the project is handled.

For example, the SEO for companies like Apple, Amazon, or Walmart, which have thousands of product listings on their websites, differs in many ways from that of a site like Social Media Freaks, which is a focused digital marketing company.

Let us see a few parameters on which enterprise SEO differs from traditional.

Keyword Selection

Experts target short and high-competition keywords for enterprise SEO. Short-tail keywords typically consist of two or three head terms.

These 2-3 words broadly signify the industry and its niche, in that order. For example, Digital Marketing”.

Deploying short keywords makes the website attract a much bigger number of users. After that one can work on ranking it high.

Similarly, choose high-competition phrases for enterprise sites and not the low-competition ones.

For such sites, SEOs target a combination of two or three keywords. This drives heavy traffic to the site by making it easily searchable.

Traditional optimization for small businesses entails the usage of long-tail keywords with low competition.

That way they can make them rank with fewer keywords and standard SEO tools.

Financial Investment

From link building to data setup for product listings, enterprise SEO work is substantially on a large scale.

Search engine optimization is an essential requirement that works on driving searches, targeting and engaging customers, and creating value on the site.

Advanced technology and strategies need to be constantly implemented, mixed, and matched to get the desired outcome. There are visuals, content, a call to action, and finally sales.

To achieve all these targets, large companies need to invest in that scale too.

Collaborate with Several Teams to Keep Content Fresh

For a large business like amazon that centers around its website, the SEO team has to coordinate with many other teams in the organization.

You have to collaborate with various departments for press releases, new product launches, and new pages or purchase managers. You have to be on your toes to keep content fresh and ranking high.

Online Reputation Management

For bigger companies, bad news and negative press can rank higher up in searches. No amount of PR can remedy it when there are bulk searches performed in the enterprise’s name each month.

Only cutting-edge SEO strategies can push the positive ones on top.

Creating a positive brand image is crucial because people check reviews, social media, and Wikipedia profiles too before engaging with a product or company.

Enterprise SEO teams focus on breeding positive online reviews. It has the ability to notch up sales by up to 40%.

Automation

While talking about enterprise SEO, we are talking about thousands of pages and millions of products. For such large numbers, it is not possible to create optimized content manually.

It is just not practical. Periodically there are new products launched or mergers happening.

SEO experts apply automation tools and enable several tasks to trigger on schedule or stimulus.

Voice Search Optimization

For an enterprise site, the SEO must take voice search into account. Thousands of pages on a site means tons of products.

Most people nowadays use voice search while using a mobile phone.

Statistically speaking, at least 30% of searches consist of voice. While small businesses may do so, but ignoring voice search in enterprise SEO is just not done.

It is imperative (and visual search). It allows them to reach a wider audience and enhance their web presence.

Voice search optimization involves creating content that matches spoken words. Vocal language is much different from typed words, hence the keywords become long-tailed and more conversational.

Moreover, with the introduction of featured snippets, direct answers to queries also need to be optimized.

One has to study these snippets for all keywords and incorporate them into the website content. It increases the chances of the ranking manifold.

Final words

Performing SEO on enterprise sites is by no means as easy as the traditional one.

One is talking about analyzing and optimizing thousands of pages, competing with local companies with more focused SEO, building a brand image, and winning the game of keywords too.

No matter how challenging it may sound, it is achievable with advanced tools and hard work. An enterprise SEO expert can help businesses increase revenue.

Prepare Your E-commerce Store for Black Friday & Cyber Monday

Undoubtedly, Black Friday and Cyber Monday will be completely different for eCommerce stores in this COVID-19 year.

2020 has witnessed an astounding change in consumer behavior due to the pandemic. There has been an unprecedented rise in online shopping, equivalent to that of 10 years. Every holiday season, the deals become bigger, year after year, both online and offline. With social distancing still being followed, the current trends indicate that the eCommerce Black Friday sales are going to hit the roof. 

Start early and invest in digital marketing& website enhancement

As Black Friday bargain hunting begins earlier this year due to corona, E- Commerce stores in India will need to attract customers well in advance.

The first imperative of the e-commerce business is to be proactive in your response to the current happenings in the industry.

It is time to pull up your socks and make an online presence much before Black Friday.

Have a look at the following list of the prime changes & strategies you must implement.

Mobile Responsiveness

Black Friday or not, eCommerce has provided mobile users with a convenient way to shop, especially in COVID-19 times. Including me, 80% of smartphone users make a purchase on their phone, and nearly 40 percent of eCommerce buying happens on a mobile device. This year Google has altered its criteria for ranking.

If your website is a tad bit slow loading on phones, it is not going to rank on Google. To optimize your site for mobile users you need to take the following steps:

1. Implement AMP

AMP or an accelerated mobile page is a framework developed by Google along with Twitter.

It makes the pages lightweight and fast loading. The core technology simplifies HTML and follows CSS rules.

It requires effort, but it is possible to do it yourself too. (Search for the method online), based on whether your website is on WordPress or otherwise.  

If you have collaborated with a person or agency for your digital marketing, tell him to get going on this.       

2. Select a Responsive Template or Theme

Do not use a complicated theme. Instead, implement a responsive template that adapts to the user’s device automatically. Of course, you must have a mobile app in addition to a dynamic desktop version.

Boost your SEO- search engine optimization

This Black Friday and Cyber Monday there are going to be bulk searches for products and you want to drive all of them to you.

Polish your search engine optimization so that your site gets a high ranking on Google, and maximum traffic is diverted to your online store. The more effort you put into SEO, the more sales you get.

SEO optimizes the website, improves the content, formatting, backlinks, and more to score high on organic searches.

Your digital partner can help your store to increase your brand value and web presence.

Optimize your Site for Voice Search

Black Friday has eCommerce customers in a frenzy. According to the latest surveys, nearly 50% of users use voice to search for products for shopping. It is trending.

However, the spoken keywords are very different from the typed ones. Your web content must be enhanced to provide clear-cut answers. Restructure the content, use conversational language, and provide answers.

Email Campaigns & creating a pleasant post-purchase experience

Your relationship with your visitor (buyer or not) does not end after Black Friday or after the last time he purchased from you. Email marketing strategy is your vehicle for making a sale & building a valuable relationship with customers.

You have valuable data of registered email addresses in your hands. Email campaigns for Black FridayFCM are very effective and hit right on target.

It is one of the most reliable and profitable methods accounting for 23% of sales. You can send customized emails to users according to their purchase behavior.

However, make sure that your emails do not go to the spam folder. There are ways to send bulk emails and not get spammed. You can learn to do that on G suite or consult your digital partner.

Apply Online Marketing Strategies

Get going with an online marketing plan for the eCommerce Black Friday sale before it is too late.

You don’t want your competitors surging ahead, do you? Digital campaigns not only get customers into your store but also enhance their in-store experience! Powerful tools such as the following work much more than any other:

• Google ads,
• PPC
• Content marketing,
• Social media marketing
• Lead generation
• Drive website traffic.
• Referral marketing

Optimize your Checkout Page

All loaded carts must convert to a sale. Checkout page optimization simplifies the purchase and lowers the chances of shopping cart abandonment and bounce rate. 

You can use various tools (available online) to do that. You can add testimonials, trust customers, and make sign-up compulsory

If you are looking for cashing in on the huge opportunity created for eCommerce due to social distancing norms in the pandemic, now is the time.

Are you interested in a FREE Website Audit report? Enter your details below.

Don’t Compromise on Your Digital Marketing Budget in Covid19

“Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning how to dance in the rain.”

History tells us that black swan events like the COVID-19 pandemic have given birth to the emergence of new products, landmark inventions, and innovative companies.

Apple and xxx are the products of such events. On the other hand, are companies that lie low and wait it out. Which one do you wanna be? 

The most common reaction triggered by an economic crunch in such happenings is the cutting down on expenditure.

The primary practices are laying off workers and reducing marketing costs. However, this is exactly where you can go wrong & lower your chances of a bounce back. 

What is striking about the Corona pandemic is the fact that people are generally staying at home. No wonder this period has seen a substantial increase in the time that people spent online, especially on social media.

So why not strike when the metal is hot! Digital marketing provides many low-cost ways of promoting your business. Particularly when the more expensive option of advertising is out of reach, digital is the way to go.

Social media marketing, search, and content optimization are the best ways to keep in touch with your existing customers and target new ones.

Secondly, you get a breather to vamp up your SEO and emerge on top while the rabbits are sleeping!

Studies from previous recessions have clearly shown that companies who did not cut their marketing expenditure, bounced back stronger. In fact, they pumped more money into it.

However, they did shift their spending to alternative ways, specifically digital marketing. They do not view it as an expense but as an investment. How are you going to take the benefit of it? 

Let’s dive in.

Interaction on Social Media- No Distancing Required

In COVID-19 times, the internet is the only place that is not quarantined. Communicate with users in a way that reflects the challenges they are encountering.

Work from home, team management, employees’ health, maintaining social distance at workplaces, the challenges of frontline workers, etc. are the topics that are engaging the audience.

Maneuvering your digital campaign on this is bringing in users and customers in big numbers. Companies have revolved their content on software tools that make WFH productive and have gotten good leads and engagements.

During such recessional situations, marketers take advantage of the 3 important factors- emotion, trust in the brand, and value.

When you present your company as a pillar standing strong in an economic crisis, it increases the brand value manifold and builds trust in consumers’ minds about your credibility and solidarity.

Good for: Increasing brand value, engagement, awareness, and building a relationship of trust with consumers and prospective customers.

Email Marketing 

As we all know, a very targeted way of personal interaction surpassing all other ways of digital communication is email Marketing.

But in the COVID-19 times, email marketing makes a lot of sense because first, it is very cost-effective, and second, you now have time on your side-both yours and your customers. the benefits are phenomenal. 

You require an email list and start working on it right away. 

Social Media Freaks provide email-marketing services that suit your budget, and have high-quality engaging content along with a database of people you want to target.

Professional agencies make sure that the emails do not go into the spam folders and also the receivers don’t mark them as spam. 

Good for: getting new customers on board, cross-selling, keeping in touch

Change in Consumer Behavior- Digital Transformation

The positive side of COVID-19 is the real influence on digital behavior change. Digital Transformation is the buzzword not only for enterprises but also for consumers.

Middle to the high-ranking management of most organizations, including people from the 35 to 44 age bracket increased their internet usage by 11% while the younger lot showed an average rise of 5-7%.

Similarly, major platforms like Facebook (+18%), Instagram (+20%), and WhatsApp (+17%) have all observed rises in the number of sessions per week per user as per the Nielsen Report on COVID-19’s impact on the changing landscape in media.

Add this to higher smart TV & national OOT platforms usage stretching to record heights. During the tough Corona times, people have made palpable changes in their lifestyle in these tough times and concentrated on good light content.

Taking leverage from this unprecedented digital transformation is the smart manager with a futuristic view who decides to remain active digitally, because, as they say, out of sight, out of mind! With its basic investment, Social Media Freaks can devise an average digital marketing budget for your online marketing options.

Conclusion

While most companies would reduce expenditure in recessions, the companies who would bounce back harder are the ones who would not put cuts from where revenue pours in.

So, if you’re looking for smart ways to get your brand out there even in tough times and increase your sales, think no further! Adopt digital marketing like never before and Social Media Freaks would be happy to get you up and running.

Your Business and Social Media Influencers

Do you remember why you clicked on a particular video in your Facebook feed? 

How do you make a choice between which random posts you are going to like and share? 

It is because those posts have a popular face that you trust and tend to believe and follow.

You are the person these popular faces are targeting as a potential customer. Welcome to the world of Social Media Influencer marketing!

Prior to the arrival of social media on the scene, one of the preeminent ways for companies to create outstanding promotion campaigns for their business was celebrity endorsements.

Nothing boosts an advertisement more than putting up a familiar face on the merchandise. Although celebrity endorsement remains one of the favorite marketing tactics, the ways of attributing a famous person to a product or service have altered.

The advent and popularity of platforms like Facebook, Instagram & Twitter have given birth to a new breed of people called Social Media Influencers.

Smart digital marketing professionals are fervently utilizing these influential people to not only increase brand value but also to reach potential customers in numbers and places nobody could think of.

Not just being limited to celebrities, influencer marketing brings powerful commendation to the era of social media and content marketing.

Who is a Social Media Influencer?

The best social media influencer in India is an individual on a social medium who has gained credibility in a particular niche or industry. He or she holds access to and command over a wide audience and can influence them via their legitimacy and reach.

They have a following of millions. They create content on public platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, to support certain brands that collaborate with them.

They provide an exceptional opportunity to leverage their following to boost sales, leads, and revenue for your business.

It is a misconception that every influencer has celebrity status. We may divide them into 3 main categories:

1. Celebrities
2. Industry prodigies 
3. inspirational speakers 
4. Bloggers and content creators

How to Find the Right Influencer for Your Business

Would you like to take advice on good eating joints from M.S. Dhoni or Vir Sanghvi? Well, Dhoni might have been to the best of restaurants but Vir Sanghvi is a food connoisseur.

May it be any country or state, he has experienced all and documented most. Hence, he would most likely be your best bet. If you own a restaurant business, just think of Vir Sanghvi raving about the food and services of your brand on his social media handles.

What a transformation it can be for your restaurant!

After you shortlist a few options, the following are a few pointers for finalizing the right one before you jump the influencers’ wagon:

• Niche– Look for individuals in your niche or related. For example, if you deal with fashion accessories, a renowned beauty professional is relative too.
• Target audience- Make a rough sketch of your target customer based on gender, occupation, or location. Match this sketch with the influencer’s profile. 
• Type of content you want to market– Do you want to host an event with them or have them write a blog, shoot videos, or audios.
• Return on investment– It must be much more than that of your routine campaign to be worth the effort and money. 
• User’s reach– It’s all about numbers. Take into account the number of social media users they can touch. 
• Research- Do a little research of your own or ask the influencers for their detailed metrics and the brands they have worked with. 

If you find it hard to handle (it can be overwhelming indeed), the best option is to do it professionally via an expert digital marketing agency such as Social Media Freaks.

SMF can help you find the best one to engage with, and they also know the right way to make full use of, to get the highest advantage.

The Real Value in Influencer Marketing

Maybe you would not have thought it over, but online reviews and ratings play a vital role in your business’s digital reputation. At least 80% of people go through these reviews before making a purchase.

For you as a business, an influencer partnership would bring valuable high-profile reviews for your products. Before becoming a customer, the audience does not know you.

Today every customer is smart and internet-savvy. They base their opinions and decision-making on the ratings & reviews on websites like Amazon or Google.

 The influencer partnerships bring much-needed high-profile reviews on your business and the products offered. The influencer’s customers attach value to the suggestions that people who follow these individuals also view and buy your services. 

This type of value is rarely provided by other methods of advertising or marketing. Combine this with the reach and engagement this partnership offers and you have a winner in your hands!

SMI for your business brings a very high return on investment in terms of leads, sales, and ultimately, revenue

Add Social Media Influencers to Your Marketing Strategy

Either look after it yourself, or hire the services of professionals such as Social Media Freaks, but one must add SMI marketing to give a big boost to and improve your online presence, reputation, and business profile.

Do You Need SEO For Your Business?

If you are intrigued about this, this is just the right article for you. As a digital marketing professionals, we know that the right SEO can make a world of difference to a business online. In this blog, we will talk about

• What exactly is SEO,
• What is its importance
• What are the advantages
• Major requirements
• Why a business needs SEO
• Is SEO required only once
• Finding the right SEO firm

What is SEO

We all know that whenever people want to search for something on the internet, they type some words (called keywords) in the browser search. Based on these keywords, Google shows a number of results continuing to several pages.

96% of people stay on the first page and choose one of the options given. Only 4% of people continue to the second page. If we have a business, we want people to find it listed on the first page so that it drives traffic to our website or convert to sales. 

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a set of organic strategies and practices that make a business rank on the first page for a particular keyword.

If the website is pushed down to the second page or further, it has no usefulness because only 4% of people who search that keyword would reach there.

By organic, we mean the un-paid ways wherein we do not pay anything to Google to show our business on top.

There are nearly 200 factors that govern top ranking, but 20-30 are major factors that are usually looked at.

Why is SEO Important?

SEO is important for better searchability and visibility, but actually, it offers more real value than that. It can take a brand or a business to the next level. 

Just think like a user. You use Google to find some information, product, or service you need. If there were no SEO, how would you ever find websites, info, or a business you are looking for? Search results would be too manipulated and it would take forever to find sites that offer real value.

Through Search Engines, Google weighs the value that a website or an article is offering to the user and ranks them likewise. Everyone is looking for organic rankings and favorable experiences.

And Google’s engines have interpreted this to offer exactly that-a a positive user experience. a website that appeals to visitors correlates with high search engine rankings, so if your site meets these criteria, you’ll have a better chance at showing up in the results.

That is why SEO is important. It ensures that people on the internet do not have to spend more than a few seconds to find the info they want. This creates a sort of norm in browsing that is a very important part. 

Also, it keeps the rankings fair, pushes you on the first page, increases your worth, gets you more clicks, driving traffic to your site. On your page, it heightens the user experience too, making it more likely for customers to become repeat buyers.

What are the Advantages of SEO

The main advantage of SEO over ad campaigns is that it is organic. It increases the value of your site for the audiences. Competitors can spend huge sums of money to divert traffic towards terror business but with a low budget, Google ranks you high for what you are worth due to quality and user experience.

Ads can bring people on your site, but cannot retain them for long in the absence of professional optimization. Most SEO companies like Social Media Freaks also rope in SMO( social media optimization) to build social media links and citations.

So, wherever your target users go, you are present. Moreover, you save a lot of money and get genuine customers who are looking for the service that your business is providing. 

Major Requirements for SEO

There are three parts to SEO: keyword search, on-page, and off-page optimization. Without keywords, there is no SEO. For example, if you have a salon, how would I expect people to find me? I want them to type haircuts, salons, manicures, coloring, etc.

Whenever they type these words they must find my website there. So, what are the requirements to do that? Include these keywords in your site content, headings, name, etc. even when we do a Google ad, keyword analysis is important, the words on which you wanna rank. This is one part.

On-page entails everything you can regulate on your own website to improve your rankings. This refers to things like site speed, keyword presence, header text, and so on.

On the other hand, off-page SEO consists of anything done on other websites that may influence your rankings. Generally, this only refers to a citation, social signals, and backlinks.

These are both pretty technical. You have to hire the services of an SEO expert firm or individual.

In the beginning, it is recommended that you do a professional optimization of your website when it is being built or the first few months at least.

Nevertheless, there are certain attributes without which you cannot obtain a ranking.

Major Requirements 

1. An active website- regular content posting
2. Rich content – the content has value and builds trust
3. Hosting speed- should be high
4. Social presence- social media links and activity
5. Strong Backlinking
6. Good internal linking

Since SEO constitutes many ranking factors, the overall performance determines who comes out on top.

Why Your Business Needs SEO?

SEO for Your Business

Does every business require SEO or do some industries need it more than others? You may be wondering if investing time and effort in the process is all that important.

Well, the optimization needs of some websites might be different from the others, but the industry niche does not decide the do it or question. The factors responsible for any particular big or small enterprise are:-

• What stage of growth the business is
• What stage of growth the website is
• How are visitors are reacting to the website
• Which keywords the business needs to target for ranking
• How high is the competition for those keywords
• Whether or not any SEO has been done in the past
• Whether the site is facing a penalty from Google

Where the industry can have an impact is competition. If you deliver valuable information and optimized/categorized content, you make it easy for search engines to find and organize it, and therefore, give you higher rankings in searches.

The improved exposure drives a large number of visitors to your pages. It converts to higher sales and a large customer database.

The bottom line is if you have what the users want, SEO is a great tool for targeting the audiences.

Is SEO Required Only Once?

SEO Best Practices and Google algorithms keep changing. Monitoring and strategizing proactively to these changes can keep you ahead of your competitors.

Google makes thousands of algorithms changes every year. If you fall too far behind, it might become awfully hard to come back.

It is wonderful to have SEO campaigns applied on a brand’s website and its digital properties, but if it is a short-term commitment and one which is not reassessed over time, it will reach a low plateau from where it is difficult to rise.

SEO professionals make sure that you never fall behind.

Finding the Right SEO Firm

Having looked at the importance, need and, benefits of search engine optimization, the next step is to acquire a trusted SEO partner who works with you to implement solutions designed to help you reach more people and earn more revenue offline and online.

Usually, digital marketing companies like Social Media Freaks undertake these projects. They analyze your website, competitors, content and, then optimize the content, pages, links off-page, and so many other types of practices.

Today social media optimization is equally, if not more important than search optimization. SMF combines it with social profile marketing to attract and engage the target audiences.

They also provide Adword services, online reputation management, social media marketing, and, blog posting to keep websites active.  

Get your free website audit report by simply filling the form below.

Conclusion

Perceptions have become objective nowadays, and whatever is visible on the digital platforms, sells.

Whatever is not visible, does not exist. No matter what your niche is, whether your business is new or old, you need to make a web presence, a social media presence, and a heightened user experience for your targeted customers.

Otherwise, you stand to lose a digital battle in a tech-savvy world. For all this to happen, and get to the top of the search engine rankings.

why not give Social Media Freaks a call?

Because at SMF, we love the work you do.

We’d be happy to answer any questions you may have and demonstrate the entire process with a live online session.  

SEO for Candian Realtors and Booming Real Estate Market in Toronto

There is a popular saying that goes, “Innovate or die.” Modern business has become increasingly competitive, and the surest way to stay above this fierce competition is to be innovative.

With this current generation’s penchant for technology, technological innovation is rapidly becoming the best way to attract clients.

Recent research data shows that 44 percent of real estate buyers begin their home buying process online, while 95 percent use the internet at some point in the search process.

What is more, 94 percent of all search clicks go to natural search (with 75 percent of clicks going to the first page of results).   

The real estate market in Toronto is no exception. Toronto is known for being an online market, and hence, it has become most auspicious for realtors to capitalize on this situation.

Why SEO is Important for Realtors?

For the reasons mentioned above, search engine optimization (SEO) is imperative for realtors. Real estate buyers would want to get the best results when they use a search engine (SE) online and would most likely ditch an inefficient search engine for a better one.

Fully aware of this fact, search engines show search results in order of rank on the search engine’s results page (SERP). Thus, the initial realtor websites that appear on a search engine result page are those that are most relevant to an internet search.

Hence, to get traction to a realtor website and consequently land more and faster sales, realtor websites have to appear right at the top of a search engine result page, and this can be achieved through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). 

Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other top search engines do not disclose the algorithm they use to rank pages. However, the SEO experts like  ‘Social Media Freaks’ have carefully researched and continually improve our SEO optimization process to get realtor websites right at the top of a search engine result page. 

Simply put, SEO experts help get your realtor website to page 1 of a Search Engine Result Page (SERP).

How SEO works for Canadian Realtors?

Search engines scan a website to get an idea of what it is about, and hence it is vital to design your realtor’s website strategically.

Some certain keywords and phrases do the trick for websites because search engines use those keywords in providing relevant results for a search.

The overuse of keywords, technically known as “keyword stuffing, “is frowned upon by search engines like Google. To know which keywords to use, think about what home buyers type into a search engine when issuing a search query.

Appropriately use keywords since an egregious abuse of keywords on a website can lead to the website being blacklisted by search engines.

However, SEO experts like  ‘Social Media Freaks’know the appropriate way to go about it without affecting your rankings.

Is your website Google Responsive?

They optimize the user-friendliness of realtor websites because search engines employ them as factors in ranking websites. The user-friendliness of a website is vital because when clients click on the link to a realtor’s website, they need to get a good first impression.

A realtor’s website must have good speed and be mobile responsive. It has to resize to fit different devices and browser sizes automatically.

Over 80 percent of consumers shop from phones, and they need to receive a browsing experience similar to that of a personal computer.

A realtor website can be tested using Page Speed Insights and GT Metrix. A caching plug like Total Cache can also be used to enhance the user experience.

Get a free audit of your website by filling in the information below

Your Website Is Your Identity

Website content is the next vital website component to check. On a realtor’s website, the homepage must give consumers an excellent first impression.

It needs to be strategically designed for marketing the realtor and showing the realtor’s capabilities. It must showcase testimonials, awards, and highlight other qualities that give the realtor an edge over competitors.

The realtor’s focus on Toronto must be showcased using visuals like photos and videos to highlight the beauty of the city. Realtors must add high-quality pictures of themselves.

Niche MLS pages must also be optimized. These are the pages that have automated feeds showing realtors’ listings based on property types and prices.

Descriptions must be added to the listings for SEO purposes.

The communities in which the properties are located must also be described, and detailed pricing information is given. Quality photos of the community, whether widgets, shops, and other essential services in the areas can be added to show the realtor’s focus on the community.

Realtors can add notes on what Toronto means to them, being unique and genuine with their opinion.

ALT tags, keywords that describe images, must be added to all photos, making sure to relate photos to the content of the website. This helps direct traffic to a website when clients use image search.

Metatags should also be added to every page. Meta descriptions and meta keywords must be employed to accelerate SEO.

A resources page, a page that targets the satisfaction and ease of use of the website by consumers, must be added. Consumers must be guided, and their frequently asked questions answered on such pages.

On marketing of landing pages, new developments or buildings must be added using photos and videos. Realtors can connect with real estate developers for more details on new developments.

Consumers must be made aware of the realtor’s marketing process and the offers available to them. A realtor website must also have blog articles on real estate in Toronto.

Articles must be chronically arranged. This also helps with SEO.

Linking Social Media

Canadians spend a lot of time on social media. Realtor websites can get more traction to their websites by leaving links to their websites on their social media platforms.

Search engines look favorably high website clicks from social media platforms. Such inbound links increase SE rankings.

Realtors can also use Google -3- Pack to build a continuous stream of clients from organic searches to help with SEO.

Website domains must be kept short, simple, and easy-to-remember, coined around real estate and Toronto-related keywords and must be devoid of typos.

A domain that has been used for a long time should not be changed if possible because it may have gained a high rank over the period. A new domain might take time before reaching the same rank.

In case an old domain needs to be changed, 301 Redirects can be used to reduce the effect of the website’s SE ranking. 301 Redirects direct clients who visit your old website to your new website instead of them receiving a page error.

Finally, let us consider some other factors that are used by search engines in ranking websites. Dwell time is the average time a client spends before returning to the SERP.

Clients will only spend more time on a website if they find the relevant information they need easily and an engaging website. Users who do not find relevant information quickly return to the SERP, a situation termed Pogo-Sticking.

Pogo-Sticking reduces a realtor website’s SE rank. Bounce rate, the percentage of users who return to the SERP after visiting the first page of a website also negatively affects the SE rank of a website if high.

Importance of Backlinks and Interlinks

Last but not least, let us consider how Backlinks and Interlinks help with SEO.

Backlinks are links from other websites to a page on another website, while interlinks are links from a page on a website to another page on the same website or to another section on the same page of the website.

They both help increase the SE rank of the website. Having a blog on another person’s website, a guest blog with a link to a personal website also helps.

Some realtors have multiple websites and could leave links to their websites on all other websites.

A realtor’s presence on an agent review website, an agent comparison website, affiliate websites, media websites, and property portals also increase a realtor’s website SE ranking. 

Finally, realtors must ensure they get SSL security certificates for their websites to keep up with  SEO best practices.

Conclusion

All the above are ways to go about SEO. Search engines do not provide information on the algorithm used to determine SE ranks for websites.

Still, SEO experts like ‘Social Media Freaks’ do their best to discover them through experience and continued research.

The algorithms are quite fickle and technical and hence advisable for realtors to consult SEO experts like ‘Social Media Freaks’ to always stay on top of the Toronto real estate market competition.

10 Tips to Get More Traffic to your Website

1. Social Media: When you create a website, it is new and no one knows about it. So social media can be the easiest and most effective way to reach your website’s target visitors. In this case, if you have a good knowledge of Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and Reddit, you can easily divert visitors from these social media to your website. In the current context, no website can be in a very good position without social media. A teenager spends 9 hours a day on social media. Where an adult spends only 2 hrs a day. From this, it is understood how important social media is to increase the number of visitors to the website.
2. Search Engine Optimization: Search engine optimization (SEO) can be one of the main ways to increase visitors to any type of website, new or old. In search engines, we search by typing different keywords, we usually visit the first 2-3 websites from the websites that come first in the search results. The main function of search engine optimization (SEO) is to bring the website to the top of the search results. However, the scope of search engine optimization (SEO) is very large, before starting it needs to have a full idea about on-page, off-page, title and image optimization, keyword research, and backlinks.
3. Forum Posting / QnASite: Another great way to get visitors to a website is through forum postings and Q&A sites. People post on forums and question-answer sites asking for information. If you provide a link to your website with some information about what the visitor wants to know, the traffic from those sites will go to your site. However, care must be taken when answering on forum sites or question-answer sites that it is done in the right way.
4. Video Marketing: Video marketing can be another way to bring visitors to a website. By posting niche-related videos on video-sharing websites and sharing the link of the website in the description, the visitors of the website can be increased by sending the visitors from that video to their own website.
5. Blog Comment: Blog comments can be another great way to honor visitors to a website. You have to find out the related blogs and comment on the comment option and make the link of the site hyperlinked. As a result, the visitors of that blog will visit your website through that link.
6. Unique and Informative Content: One thing we all know about content is that content always plays an important role no matter what kind of website it is. Before writing content and publishing it on the site, make sure that the article is unique and informative. If the content is unique and informative, the visitors are more engaged on that site.
7. Loading Website Fast: A survey found that a visitor normally takes 3 seconds to visit a website. This means that if a site does not load within 3 seconds, the visitor is annoyed and refrains from visiting the site. So it is understood that website speed plays an important role in increasing visitors.
8. Increasing Hyperlinks / Internal Links: Hyperlink / Internal link is very important in any post. Let’s say you are writing an article about popular places in Thailand. But you have already written an article about street food in Thailand. If you want, you can tag the title of Street Food along with your main article. As a result, you will get visitors to the main content, as well as there will be a chance to visit the internally linked page.
9. Responsive or User-Friendly Site Design: Not all PCs, laptops, phones, and tablets have the same screen. Responsive means that the sites can load PCs, laptops, phones, and tablets all equally and there is no problem in receiving data. Before creating a website, you need to make sure that the site is responsive.
10. Comment Option and Quick Reply: If there is engagement in the comment section, the number of regular visitors to the website increases several times. For this, the comment section of the content option of the site has to be turned on. As a result, visitors ask different types of questions at different times. When the answers to these questions go to the author of the site, he replies. As a result, an email is sent to the questioner’s mail. As a result, even if you want to read the replay of the questioning author, you visit the website again.

Hope that the tips mentioned above will be helpful to get more traffic to your website.