Best Practices for Choosing Effective and Captivating Social Media Visuals

For both B2B and B2C brands, social media marketing has become an age-old tactic by now. And it’s no surprise. Despite working 8 hours a day and sleeping (hopefully) 8 hours, the average person still spends nearly two hours each day on social media, according to a study by Mediakix. But the social media landscape is changing—alot. Organic reach on Facebook is declining with changes to the Newsfeed, some of which are still rolling out. Twitter is struggling to retain their active users. Instagram is experimenting with long-form video content. LinkedIn is also investing in more video. Given these changes and regular updates, the best practices for each platform are constantly evolving. But what's one thing that isn't poised to change anytime soon? The importance of using eye-catching, compelling visual content to draw people in. Whether it’s YouTube, Snapchat, LinkedIn, or another social media platform, we know audiences consume content on those channels for a significant amount of time—they crave it. And if you want to make a positive impression, you have to go beyond ensuring proper image dimensions. You need make sure you're sharing the right visual content on the right platform. To help you paint your content in the best light on social media and help create a positive experience for your audience, we asked our own Social Strategist, Meg McDougall, to share some best practices for selecting the right social images and video for some of the major platforms. Here’s what she had to say.

LinkedIn Social Image and Video Best Practices

Think About Your Audience

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 562 million members and growing. But even though LinkedIn has a large audience of professionals, that doesn’t mean they exclusively want to engage in buttoned-up, stiff content. To make sure your pages, profiles, and articles are interesting and engaging for your audience, you need to know your audience really well. Do they like it when you show a little personality? Do they like more formal language or slang? Take a look at your LinkedIn Company Page analytics to see what types of content and messages your audience is engaging with to come up with a direction for your page.

Take Advantage of Video

Announced in 2017, LinkedIn added the ability for members and brands to create and share video content. This gives content creators, publishers, and brands more opportunities to engage and connect with their audiences. Plus, LinkedIn video has autoplay enabled, making it easy for your audience to watch your content. Speaking of video, all of your motion graphics should be published as a video .mp4 file, not a .GIF. Many browsers and social media platforms are disabling autoplay for GIFs and are instead converting them into click-to-play videos. Instead of relying on the social platform to convert the GIF for you, take control of how your motion graphic will appear by creating the graphic as a video file from the start.   Who’s doing it right? GE. Just take a look at one of their most recent posts (below). Their video on GE turbines has received 1,841 likes and 29 comments in less than 24 hours. As of July 10, just four days after posting, that count was up to 3,656 likes and 58 comments. The video also takes advantage of captioning to ensure that even with the audio off, audiences can still engage with and learn from their video.

LinkedIn Image Specifications

• Company Page Direct Uploads: 1200 x 627
• Image Previews From Link Posts: 436 x 228
• Personal Page Direct Uploads: 552 x 368
• Personal Page Cover Photo: 646 x 220
• Personal Page Image Previews From Link Posts: 520 x 272
• Article Featured Image: 520 x 272
• Article Cover Photo: 744 x 400
• Video: 16:9 or 1:1

Twitter Social Image and Video Best Practices

Keep Site Traffic in Mind

Eighty percent of Twitter’s traffic comes from mobile devices. However, check your audience data in Google Analytics to see if mobile or desktop is your top traffic source for Twitter. Whichever device comes out on top, you should tailor your social imagery accordingly.

Consider the Number of Images

Depending on how many images you upload and attach to a post and which device its viewed on, Twitter will display them in different sizes and orientations. As a result, it’s important to remember how many images you want to share and how they will be seen on mobile versus desktop as they look very different. Here’s how multiple images look on mobile from Buffer’s guide to social media image sizes: Image credit: Buffer And here’s how multiple images look on desktop: Image credit: Buffer

Stand Out With Something Creative

A single day’s worth of Tweets could fill a 10 million page book—there are a lot of tweets out there that are saturating feeds. Make sure your content stands out with a creative image, graphic, video, or motion graphic. For example, try making a custom image to add additional context to the image and capture more attention. Tools like Canva or Venngage make those custom images easy—just remember to make them the correct size or your design may get cropped off. Who’s doing it right? Wendy’s. Already killing the game with their witty brand voice on Twitter, they also make sure they stand out in news feeds with custom images, memes, video, and other media. For example, in the tweet below, Wendy’s makes a timely reference to Avengers: Infinity War while also taking a fun shot at their competition (McDonald’s). The end result is a tweet with viral potential and over 230,000 likes.

Twitter Image Specifications

Mobile Images: 1200 x 675 (16:9) Mobile Multiple Image Upload

• One Image, 2:1
• Two Images, 7:8
• Three Images, 7:8 & 4:7
• Four Images, 2:1

Desktop Images: 506 x 506 (1:1) Desktop Multiple Image Upload

• Two Images, 252 x 252 (1:1)
• Three Images, 337 x 337 (1:1)
• Four Images, 379 x 379 (1:1)

Video: 16:9 or 1:1

Facebook Social Image and Video Best Practices

Keep Videos Short and Sweet

More and more brands are creating more Facebook video as an average of 100 million hours of video are watched each day on the platform. Browsing through your own Facebook accounts, you’ll likely notice videos have taken over. Your eyes might be drawn to a video recipe from Tasty or a video from TechCrunch on the latest technology news. To create Facebook videos that drive the best results, create videos that are between 60 and 90 seconds long. In a study that analyzed 100 million Facebook videos, Buzzsumo found that videos between 60 and 90 seconds had the most engagement on Facebook. Image credit: Buzzsumo When it comes to Facebook video, it’s also worth noting that 85% of Facebook users watch videos without sound. Any narration or audio you include in the clip might not make it to a majority of your audience. To ensure that your message is communicated to your viewers who prefer silence, add captions or copy onto your Facebook videos. This way both types of viewers get the full impact of your content.

Support Multiple Traffic Objectives With Carousels

Oftentimes, social messages contain one link or call to action (CTA). However, Facebook is changing that with their new carousel page posts that can showcase multiple images, links, and headlines. As a collection of links and images, your Facebook followers can browse through your post to click on the link that’s most relevant to them. This makes carousels a great tool if you have a campaign with multiple landing pages or traffic objectives. Who’s doing it right? Skype. While carousels make a natural fit for promoting several or even one product, Skype went in a different direction. Instead of promoting one of their software products, Skype is using carousels to share and generate awareness for their work with The Young Actors Project.

Facebook Image Specifications

• Image Uploads: 476-wide
• Vertical Uploads: 476 x 714
• Video: 1:1 or 2:3
• Image Previews From Link Post: 476 x 249
• Carousel Images: 300 x 300
• Cover Photo: 820 x 312
• Link-less Image Ratio (Paid): 16:9 or 9:16
• Linked Image Ratio (Paid): 1200 x 628

Instagram Social Image and Video Best Practices

Don’t Be a Square

Instagram used to only allow images with a square, 1:1 aspect ratio. However, they now allow for both horizontal and vertical image content. This can be done in regular image uploads, but also in Instagram Stories. So, don’t feel like you have to keep your images in those tight, perfect boxes. Use whatever orientation and ratio works best for the image you want to share. Here's a great example courtesy of Buffer: Image credit: Buffer

Drive Conversions With Stories

Instagram has been known to marketers for making it a little harder to share links. On Instagram, URLs and links don’t work in the description of traditional image uploads. As a result, many brands use their profile bio to add in a URL and update it for each campaign. This is a good workaround, however, it requires a lot of additional clicks and steps from both audiences and social media marketers. Instagram Stories, however, offer a better solution. Through stories, accounts with over 10,000 followers can attach a link to your post that audiences can visit by swiping up. This makes it easy to drive traffic to your target pages and drive more conversions. Plus, your audience doesn’t have to leave the Instagram platform to view the link—they can stay directly within the Instagram interface. Don’t have 10,000 followers on Instagram? Getting your account verified will also do the trick. Who’s doing it right? Apple. Using Instagram Stories to tease their brand videos are captivating and engaging pieces of content. Taking advantage of both image and video, Apple knows how to pull people in and get them invested in a good story. To drive traffic to their objective pages, they’re also utilizing Instagram’s swipe up feature.

Instagram Image Specifications

• Square Image Upload: 1080 x 1080
• Vertical Image Upload: 1080 x 1350
• Horizontal Image Upload: 1080 x 566
• Video: 1:1 or 2:3
• Instagram Story: 1080 x 192

Size Up Your Social Campaigns

Social media is an important piece of any content distribution or promotion strategy. With each platform having a unique voice, purpose, and target audience for your brand, it’s important that you customize your social images and videos for each one. Whether that means customizing the image size, picking individual images for each platform, or creating a special video, the more you tailor your social imagery, the better. Need help finding the perfect image for your content? Read our guide on how to find and choose dynamic images.If you’re ready to dive into the world of video, make sure you’re creating the right videos with our guide to the different types video for B2B marketing and when to use them.

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Going beyond Marketing Segments: Q&A with Stanford’s David L. Jaffe

The struggle to rank is real.

 

Performing well in search engine results through search engine optimization requires a massive amount of research and planning – and even more hard work. It requires a person to scour over analytic data, to identify the right marketing segments, and to create an effective plan to reach and satisfy target audiences.

And inside all the marketing verbiage, it’s easy to lose track of the original goal. Sometimes you need a new perspective.

We had the pleasure of speaking with David L. Jaffe, a lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University about his course “Perspectives in Assistive Technology,” a class that designs solutions to benefit people with disabilities and older adults. His thoughts are especially poignant when it comes to marketing; to succeed, identifying a marketing segment for your product isn’t enough.

Search engines try to organize information and help their users. If you’re not sincerely attempting to help those very same people, you might find the process of ranking exceedingly difficult.

About David L. Jaffe

David L. Jaffe holds a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan and a MS degree in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University.

Dave was a Research Biomedical Engineer at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System’s Rehabilitation Research and Development Center. There his interests were designing, developing, testing, and bringing to market microcomputer-based devices for veterans with disabilities including communication, mobility, and information systems.

At Stanford, he teaches “Perspectives in Assistive Technology” and coaches students in other courses who are working on team projects related to
assistive technology. He can be reached via email at davejaffe@stanford.edu.

Could you describe your Stanford course, Perspectives in Assistive Technology, to those who aren’t familiar with it?

Perspectives in Assistive Technology (ENGR110/210) is a 10-week course that explores the design, development, and use of technology that benefits people with disabilities and older adults.

In this course, Stanford students from many disciplines and all years learn about disability, assistive technology, and rehabilitation engineering from guest lecturers including healthcare professionals, researchers, and people with disabilities (including students) and older adults. Other class sessions feature field trips to local facilities, a movie night, and an assistive technology fair.

Enrolled students have the opportunity to work on projects that benefit people with a disability, older adults, and their caregivers in the local
community. These projects typically address difficulties in performing tasks such as working, learning, moving, communicating, accessing products
(including computers), and other daily living activities including cooking, cleaning, creative expression, and pursuing happiness. Projects that explore design concepts that improve diagnosis, therapy, and rehabilitation are also pursued.

Projects typically address one individual’s challenges through the fabrication and testing of a functional prototype. However due to the short course duration, commercialization is not pursued.

More information about the course can be found at: http://engr110.stanford.edu

Do engineers have a unique method for problem-solving?

Each engineering problem-solving situation is somewhat different, depending on the problem itself: its purpose (student project, research question,
product manufacturing), goal(s), and time & money budgeted.

However, in general it is important to fully understand the problem by bringing together skilled team members and an individual those who would
benefit from the solution. A review of current technology and existing products is critical.

Next steps would include developing design criteria, identifying current technology which could be employed, and brainstorming possible solutions.

The design development phase consists of the fabrication, testing, analysis, and redesign of increasingly refined prototypes until the design goals are met (or time or money runs out).

How do you use that engineering design process in your Assistive Technology course?

The process employed in the course includes the above with emphasis on working closely with the project partner, a person with a disability or older
adult in the local community. Each student team is expected to meet with the instructor to make sure they are making progress toward the project goal and to provide suggestions.

Your class exposes students to new people, ideas, and problems. How important do you think that is to the process of considering and pursuing solutions to problems and challenges that people with disabilities and older adults experience?

It is supremely important to present student teams with real challenges affecting real people in the community. Much of students’ traditional class
experiences are limited to solving problem sets, examining case study descriptions, and considering made-up situations involving imaginary people. Community-based project courses like Perspectives in Assistive Technology give students a real-world experience to prepare them for their professional careers.

What are the skills that you’d most like to instill in your students?

An excellent question!

Several years ago, I realized there was a huge disconnect between what I learned as a student in the universities I attended and what I do now as a professional. In particular, no one told me how important it is for a prospective engineer to master writing and presentation skills. So, I decided
to promote professional skills to students in my course. I use assistive technology as a framework for introducing, exercising, and improving these skills: working in a team, working in the community, problem solving, following an engineering design process, employing critical thinking, and practicing report writing & project presentations communication skills.

I have done away with problem sets, quizzes, readings from text books, and exams – skills that students have already mastered and are much less
important on the job.

There’s a clear need for more recognition of and services supporting older adults and people who live with a disability. What are some common misconceptions that the public have of these groups?

One common misconception is considering people with disabilities and older adults as “groups” or “markets”. In reality, they are individuals, all different in their situations, abilities, life expectations, desires, and preferences.

Do we do enough as a society to include them?

I don’t think so. For example, I find it amazing that people with disabilities and older adults are rarely included in discussions of
diversity, despite their representation nationally (19% and 15% respectively). It is important to realize that everyone has something to
contribute – perhaps as a valued employee, a loving family member, an active community participant, or as a consumer.

What types of solutions do they need the most?

As I mentioned, people with disabilities and older adults are individuals – each with their own challenges. Some challenges might be lessened by an appropriate assistive technology device, others by financial, medical, social services, or educational support.

I noticed in your class notes that you provide resources to improve critical thinking for your students. How important is critical thinking to the process of addressing a problem or challenge experienced by a person with a disability or older adult?

Critical thinking, especially in engineering, can inform the design of good assistive technology solutions.

How important are they to Assistive Technology?

Critical thinking, good teamworking skills, as well as familiarity with the engineering design process are all key to creating suitable assistive technology solutions and useful products.

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Digital Marketing News: Smarty-Pants Speakers Drive Voice Search, YouTube’s Rejiggered Hashtags, & Google’s Word Count Wisdom

Report: Smart speaker ownership driving voice adoption on smartphones The popularity of voice search on smartphones has grown in part due to more Americans owning smart speakers, with a new NPR and Edison Research report revealing 18 percent now own so-called smart audio devices. Marketing Land Report: Facebook takes a back seat to Instagram as ad spend on the Facebook-owned app grows 177% New research data shows that Instagram had ad spending four times Facebook’s rate year-over-year during the second quarter of 2018, while YouTube's ad spend was nearly triple that of last year. Marketing Land Emojis Score With Mobile Users New study data shows that the use of emojis has resulted in a sizable boost of mobile e-mail open rates, with open rates boosted over 80 percent resulting in 363 percent revenue gains, but are digital marketers convinced? MediaPost YouTube Shows Searchable Hashtags Above Video Titles YouTube has begun showing searchable hashtags above the title of each video. The first three hashtags of a video’s description field have gained prominence with the change, offering new opportunities for YouTube marketers looking to optimize video findability. Search Engine Journal Google: Word Count Isn't Indicative Of Quality Google has indicated that written content isn’t ranked solely by word count numbers. Short or not-so-short, good writing is rarely tied to formulaic word counts, Google has hinted. Search Engine Roundtable Google releases AMP Stories v1.0 with new features, including an ads beta for DFP users Google has announced new features for developers using its AMP Stories format, including several monetization features and additional metadata attributes targeting digital marketers. Marketing Land Twitter Releases New 'Playbook for Agencies' Which Includes a Heap of Twitter Promotion Tips Twitter has published a new guide offering ad tips and more, in its agency playbook announced this week. The guide’s insight is applicable to a wide swath of digital marketing professionals. Social Media Today An update to referral source URLs for Google Images Google announced recently that it will soon implement a new referrer URL specific to Google Images. Digital marketers working with country-specific search queries also get specific new guidelines from Google. Google Webmaster Central Snapchat beefs up ad targeting in deal with Nielsen Segmented audience data is finally coming to Snapchat, as the firm recently announced a new partnership with Nielsen that brings some 30,000 segments to marketers using the firm's newest addition. AdAge Inside the Mating Rituals of Brands and Online Stars The New York Times examines influencer morality clauses and the rise of online stars from YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Twitch, and others, with newfound brand credibility often following. The New York Times ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: A lighthearted look at lifestyle brands by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist How Kit Kat managed to turn a viral tweet into a branded proposal — SEO Roundtable This Man Tried to Break the World Record for Paper Airplane Flight — Wired TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Lee Odden — Natural Language Generation: The Future of Content Management — e-Spirit
• Lee Odden — The Top 13 Content Marketing Influencers to follow in 2018 — JBH

What are some of your top influencer marketing news items for this week? Thanks for reading, and we hope you'll return next week for the latest digital marketing news, and in the meantime you can follow us at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news. Also, don't miss the full video summary on our TopRank Marketing TV YouTube Channel.

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Google Game Changers: 5 Recent Updates and How They Affect Marketers

Since the inception and rise of digital marketing, marketers have been keeping a watchful eye on Google — the ruler of the kingdom of search. From research project to technology giant, over the last two decades Google has cemented itself as the dominating force in internet search. And while there are other rising contenders in the space, as of June 2018, Google owned 72.21% of all desktop searches. And the domination continues if you look at mobile, with Google owning a whopping 90.20% of searches. Of course, Google's market (and marketing) domination isn't because of their speed to market in the late 90s, but rather the company's dedication and investment in evolving the platform. And some of the latest evolutionary tweaks and new features are hitting soon — or have just recently arrived. What are those changes and how will they affect your marketing plan? Below, we break down the latest and greatest game-changing updates from Google, what they mean for marketers, and how marketers can adapt.

#1 - HTTPS Warnings are In-Effect

While we’ve been talking about this for a while now (just see our Security as SEO post from August 2017), Google Chrome’s non-HTTPS pop-up warning went live in July 2018. Instead of serving non-HTTPS pages with just an information icon in the URL bar, Google will now serve users with a warning and potentially a pop-up alerting them that the website they’re on isn’t using a secure connection. Image credit: Google Of course, this shift towards site security isn’t new. In fact, back in January of 2016, Google announced that they were indexing HTTPS pages over HTTP pages, signaling to marketers that the security of your site will soon impact your rankings. The past algorithm changes coupled with the new warnings in Google Chrome means that leaving your site with an unsecure HTTP connection will likely cause traffic loss both organically and direct, as well as losing those hard-fought rankings. To make sure that your site doesn’t take a hit to traffic or rankings, make sure you’ve upgraded to HTTPS. As an extra measure, check Google Search Console’s Security Issues tool to check for other potential security threats.

The Key Takeaways

• What’s New: HTTPS warning and pop-up goes live in Google Chrome.
• What It Means: Organic traffic and rankings loss if your site is non-HTTPS.
• Next Steps: Double check that your site is secure and upgrade to HTTPS if necessary.

#2 - Need for Speed

Over the last several years, Google has altered its algorithm to prioritize the user experience. Back in 2010, Google announced that desktop page speed was a ranking factor as poor load times create a bad user experience, which is something we covered in an interview with former Developer Programs Tech Lead Maile Ohye. Their latest update, which went into effect July 9, 2018, continues that trend as the algorithm will also account for mobile page speed as well. But what pages are affected and how will it affect you? According to Google, only the slowest pages will be affected. And to help you see if that includes you, they’ve launched their PageSpeed Insights tool where you can see how fast your pages load on mobile and how you can improve your load times. With this new change, you need to make sure that your mobile page speed is up to par by entering your site URL into the PageSpeed Insights tool. Then, download your free report to see what improvements you can make to your site. For example, the report may recommend that you optimize or compress your images to reduce the data consumption needed to load the page. Or, the report may suggest that you leverage caching. Whatever suggestions are made, implement them as soon as possible to ensure that your mobile rankings don’t suffer.

The Key Takeaways

• What’s New: Google now uses mobile page speed as a ranking factor for mobile searches.
• What It Means: If you’re mobile pages have slow load times, your rankings could take a hit.
• Next Steps: Use the PageSpeed Insights tool from Google to test your mobile page speed. Then, make the suggested changes the tool recommends like compressing images, using fewer scripts, or leveraging caches.

#3 - No More AdWords

That’s right, AdWords is no more. Instead, Google is merging all of their advertising products under one brand umbrella: Google Ads. Why the change? Google says it’s to reduce the complexity associated with digital advertising. They want simpler products that make it easier to advertise on their platforms. And they’re rebranding shows their commitment to simplicity. Google Ads isn’t just a rebranding, though. They’ve also announced new products, all focused on automation, including:

1. Smart Campaigns (which we’ll explain more later)
2. Universal App Campaigns
3. Goal-Optimized Shopping Campaigns
4. Automated Bidding
5. Dynamic Search Ads

Through automation, Google hopes to introduce products that reduce the complex nature of digital advertising and instead create optimized ads with an easy user experience. When it comes to your own campaigns, log into the new Google Ads platform and explore their new product offerings that leverage features like automation and machine learning. If you’re feeling extra adventurous, test out one of those new product offerings to see if Google is successful in creating easy-to-use ads that produce hard-to-achieve results.

The Key Takeaways

• What’s New: Google AdWords is now Google Ads and has more automated products.
• What It Means: Automation means less time spent creating, managing, and optimizing your ad campaigns.  
• Next Steps: Try out one of Google Ads new products to see if their automation and machine learning algorithms are successful in generating results.

#4 - Introducing: Smart Campaigns

Paid search advertising is a complicated business. From ad creative and copy to setting the right bid and objective, there are a lot of moving parts that impact the effectiveness of your ads. Well, Google wants to change that. To continue their commitment to simplified digital advertising mentioned above, Google Ads is launching a new advertising type: Smart Campaigns. Smart Campaigns are automated ads that take care of ad creative and delivery based on the products, services, and goals that advertisers set. Through automation and machine learning Smart Campaigns will show ads to the right audiences using signals like behavior, location, devices, and others. If you’ve ever struggled with your paid search campaigns or they just suck up too much of your time, this news is music to your ears. An automated ad campaign with the ability to optimize on the fly means you can create your Smart Campaign, monitor the performance, and watch Google make optimizations on your behalf. And this new ad type works. Google’s Small Business Ads Lead, Kim Spalding, says that Smart Campaigns are three times more effective at reaching a target audience than AdWords Express campaigns. So, give Smart Campaigns a try. You just might find more success than with traditional Google Ads products. And as always, be thoughtful about your goals and KPIs to determine if Smart Campaigns works for your business. Furthermore, we’d never recommend “setting and forgetting.” You need to monitor and ensure that the automated suggestions being served up are a right fit for your product/service, industry, and audience.

The Key Takeaways

• What’s New: To simplify advertising, Google is launching fully automated Smart Campaigns.
• What It Means: Advertisers can reduce the amount of time they spend creating and optimizing ads and instead leverage an automated ad campaign.
• Next Steps: If you’re currently running any AdWords Express campaigns, consider a Smart Campaign instead. But remember you’ll need to monitor, not just set it and forget it, if you want to ensure the best results.

#5 - There’s More Data to Love

With GDPR in effect in the EU, Google and other software vendors have made changes to ensure their compliance (they also love letting us know that they’ve updated their privacy policy). But more importantly, GDPR stipulated new regulations around data retention, stating that companies cannot store data longer than necessary.   As a result, Google, Mixpanel, and other analytics tools updated the amount of data is tracked and saved on their platforms. And a few months ago Google updated their data retention controls to 14 months, 26 months, 38 months, and 50 months with no options lasting longer than 50 months. This is a big change as Google Analytics previously tracked data for the entire history of the site. Luckily, the latest announcement from Google is a data increase, not decrease. Previously, Google Search Console's search analytics only tracked the past 90 days. However, Google Data Studio (Google’s really cool and free dashboard builder), the search analytics API, and the Google Search Console beta now have 16 months of historical search analytics data. With more data to analyze, this update allows marketers to better track historical trends and patterns in their search rankings and performance. If you want to see your expanded search analytics data, the update is currently live in Google Data Studio, the search analytics API, and the beta Google Search Console Search Performance report. Not sure how to access the beta? Click on the link in the upper left-hand corner of the Google Search Console menu circled in red below:

The Key Takeaways

• What’s New: Google will soon let you see 16 months of search analytics data.
• What It Means: This new update makes it easier to see historical trends and patterns in your search rankings as there is more data to draw comparisons from.  
• Next Steps: Start seeing 16 months of search analytics data by creating a report in Google Data Studio or logging into the Google Search Console beta.

Up Your Google Game

With the most popular internet browsers and the No. 1 site in the world, marketers need to stay up to date on new updates in Google in order to make sure that their content, ads, and site are being served effectively. This latest round of updates means marketers need to make sure their sites are secure and load fast on mobile devices. In addition, Google has introduced new ad products and data to help you make the most of your digital advertising and search performance. For more digital marketing news, subscribe to our YouTube channel or visit our digital marketing news archive for weekly news updates.

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Trust in Marketing is at Risk. These CMOs and Marketing Influencers Share How to Fix

The average tenure of a CMO is under 4 years representing a crisis in confidence amongst business leadership when it comes to marketing. Expectations for marketing are higher than ever amongst business leaders and customers alike.

To advance the valuable contributions marketing can make from boosting short term sales to growing long term market share, it is important for marketers to build trust and influence. But there are challenges:

• A study from Fournaise Group that fond 73% of CEOs say “Marketers lack business credibility and the ability to generate sufficient growth and 80% of CEOs simply don’t trust marketers at all, while 91% do trust CIOs and CFOs.
• New research from Marketing Week reports only 30% consider marketing ‘very important’ at large B2B companies.
• Marketing as a career suffers some credibility issues as well. A global jobs poll by HubSpot ranked the most trustworthy jobs with Doctor ranking number one and near the bottom, just above Car Salesman and well below Barista, “Marketer”.
• Marketing’s credibility amongst customers has been affected by some of the challenges facing media platforms – from fake news to inappropriate content to measurement. We’ve all seen stats like this one from Nielsen where 92% of consumers trust peer recommendations over advertising.
• Within B2B, research from TrustRadius reports 58% of B2B buyers do not believe claims made by the vendors they most recently bought from.

Despite these challenges the reality is that well researched, planned and executed marketing delivers incredible value for businesses and their customers. Research from Forbes shows Marketing strategy and investments can contribute over 50% of enterprise value.

How can marketers do a better job at building trust with company executives and customers to inspire more confidence in marketing? This is a topic I presented on recently at the e4M TechManch conference in Mumbai, India. There I outlined 5 “secrets” to growing the influence of marketing which I’ll dig into more below. I also reached out to a mix of marketing executives to get their perspective on solving putting marketing back on the right track:

Simple answer. Honesty. I know it sounds trite but trust is earned and earned through honesty. As marketers and storytellers we often “spin” things to suit our needs. I think more honesty about the company you represent is the only way to succeed. People relate to flaws. It’s human. It’s honest. I’m not suggesting that we promote those, I’m suggesting we don’t hide them. Customers will find the truth regardless and then you’ll have broken the trust. Zappos is a good example. Transparency is written directly into the Zappos Family Core Values, in the statement, “Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication.”
Julie Roehm @jaroehm
Chief Experience Officer and CMO
ABRA

In today’s digital environment, marketers are at the forefront of business. As marketers, we are operating in a new paradigm that represents a tipping point and allows us to own the voice of the customer through insights and develop personalized experiences across every touch point. Through insight-driven marketing, we have the ability to anticipate new, unexplored business opportunities and bring this value to the c-suite.

Today’s consumer expects us to know them: how they think, how they act, and that we listen to their buying signals. Our biggest opportunity is to create an environment where we connect our customers seamlessly and consistently to our company’s purpose and values – whether they experiencing content on our website or in-product, at an event or in digital selling. Ultimately, this helps us to develop a strong pipeline of customer-first product innovation.

Ultimately, every major brand must become its own media publishing company.

No longer can we develop content in a linear way (e.g. build… then run). With the ever-changing dynamics of our industry with new digital platforms, marketers need to embrace an agile marketing mindset. The idea that we can Test. Learn. Change…. all of the time, not just in pilots. Core content should not take 6-8 months to develop; but rather, build core anchor content that can be atomized across every content distribution channel. Ultimately, every major brand must become its own media publishing company.
Kirsten Allegri Williams @kirstenallegriw
Vice President, Corporate Marketing
SAP Ariba

Trust, authority and credibility are earned as a result of programs developed and undertaken, with subsequent positive results. They are not just marketing programs, but must be contributing and supporting the company’s overall objectives. But, Marketers must protect their area of expertise. Everyone feels comfortable providing feedback to marketing programs, the onus is on the marketer to educate the “why”, but more importunately the “why not” when providing the feedback.
Kieran Hannon @kieranhannon
Chief Marketing Officer
Belkin International

Companies still view marketing primarily as a tactical, execution oriented discipline. This needs to change. Marketing has the most expansive view of how to drive growth.

Marketing has the most expansive view of how to drive growth.

Marketing needs to drive company-level corporate strategy and P&L decisions with a marketing mindset, not just an execution mindset.
Rishi Dave @RishiPDave
Past CMO
Dun & Bradstreet

In today’s worlds its all about the quality of A.I.R. you create; Authentic, Inspirational and Realistic marketing will win over your internal and external customers. For B2B marketers your best brand advocates are your employees. For B2C, your customers will accept nothing less than personalized perfection. Achieve both by creating AIR.
Jeanniey Mullen @jeannieymullen
Partner, Global Chief Marketing Officer
Mercer

Building credibility inside an organization is so important—alignment helps you get more effective results and also more budget!—but it’s not always so easy. The best way I’ve found get people onboard with your way of thinking is to do some marketing of your marketing. In other words, treat every relationship as if they were a customer.

Treat every relationship as if they were a customer.

What are the pain points for the people you’re working with and for? And how can you, through your job, help them solve these? Basically apply the golden rule of content marketing to your internal interactions: If you can provide value for someone, you develop trust.
Margaret Magnarelli @mmagnarelli
VP Marketing
Monster.com

There is no better time for marketing to gain credibility and trust. The field has shifted from a soft science to a programmatic science, making it more credible than ever before to quantify success with hard data. By showcasing sourced and influenced impact to designing compensation models for revenue success, not marketing success, we can transform the stature of marketing.
Chandar Pattabhiram @chandarp
CMO
Coupa Software

The best way to gain credibility is to speak plainly in the native tongue of your audience. Want credibility with consumers? Use layman’s terms. Want credibility with other executives within your company? Use business-focused outcomes and metrics. Save your marketing buzzwords for your next agency meeting or conference — and, even then, confirm you both mean the same thing when using those words
Michelle Killebrew @shellkillebrew
Head of Global Performance Marketing, DevOps & West Regional Marketing Leader
CA Technologies

Stop solving for a local maxima. Impressions, clicks, leads, etc. They provide tiny fractions of business value. Instead, solve for the global maxima. Because deeply caring about long-term customer joy and company impact is inherent in that quest, the yield curve for your influence and credibity will head up and to the right!
Avinash Kaushik @kaushik
Digital Marketing Evangelist
Google

Marketers have to constantly take a holistic approach to ensure that they keep the user at the core of everything they do. The focus has shifted from attention-grabbing messaging to finding the right message for every customer. It’s all about building depth in customer relationships.
Nandini Rathi @Nandini_M
CMO Betaout.com
Founder, ContentCloud

People have to cut the bullshit in their marketing.
Sander Arts @Sander1Arts
CMO
Arduino

The sweet spot for marketing is when they know the market so well, and so deeply, that they are able to share market perspectives and intel with the customer, and are acknowledged internally as the customers’ aide-de-camp or advocate. With this knowledge of the landscape and their own firms’ strengths, marketing can help customers navigate uncertainty, and possibly also generate demand. This is how marketing can become central to success, and gain customers’ trust and credibility.
Bianca Ghose @BiancaGhose
Chief Storyteller
Wipro

5 Ways to Grow Influence, Credibility and Trust in Marketing

1. Accelerate the Internal and External Credibility of Marketing

• Internally: Find out the primary business problems faced by your management team and connect your marketing to help solve those problems.
• Internally: Promote your marketing wins, engage stakeholders and measure based on business impact vs. KPIs.
• Externally: Become the “Best Answer” for your customers with personalized, compelling content experiences that include authentic, influential voices.

2. Double Down on Activating Customers

• “It’s time to double down on customers, as their voices, opinions and beliefs say much more about a brand than traditional advertising or marketing can.” (Peter Mühlmann, AdWeek)
• 78% of people who read online reviews find them reliable. (ReportLinker)
• Increasing customer retention by 5% can lead to a 25% to 95% increase in company profits. (Harvard Business Review)

3. Work with Influencers to Become Influential

• Identify: Connect with qualified, relevant influencers and find ways to collaborate on customer-focused content.
• Qualify: Validate influencers and their audiences on a regular basis to ensure quality experiences.
• Engage: Employ always-on listening and social engagement to “keep the love alive” with a VIP influencer community of collaborators & advocates.

4. Create a Content Collaboration Ecosystem

If you help others, including customers, employees, and your brand’s community become more influential through content collaboration, the brand and marketing will grow influence as well.

5. Optimize Measurement to Customer ROI

• Attract: Is your marketing reaching the right audience on the channels they’re influenced by?
• Engage: Is your marketing creating meaningful and satisfying experiences where they want them? Are you creating raving fans?
• Convert: Is your marketing inspiring action across the customer journey: awareness, consideration, purchase, advocacy. Does it deliver on revenue?

There’s a lot to be said about how effective a thing is by how well it is done. Poorly researched, planned, executed and measured marketing doesn’t add a lot of value to the customer experience or the business bottom line. On the other hand, strategic, authentic, data informed and empathetic, dynamic and accountable marketing serves both customers as well as the performance of the business.

I think everyone in the marketing world has an opportunity to take a step back from the information overload and pressures of output on a daily basis to be more thoughtful about the marketing they’re doing. Of course we have to think about the immediate impact of content, ads and campaigns but also about the overall value and impact of marketing on our customers, business and industry. Marketing done well with a clear why, measurement and purpose creates the kind of value that both customers and business leaders will trust, ensuring credibility and investment far into the future.

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© Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®, 2018. | Trust in Marketing is at Risk. These CMOs and Marketing Influencers Share How to Fix | http://www.toprankblog.com

The post Trust in Marketing is at Risk. These CMOs and Marketing Influencers Share How to Fix appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2018/07/trust-in-marketing-is-at-risk-these.html

Digital Marketing News: Twitter’s Bot Detox Fallout, Google’s Mobile Thumbs-Up, & Millennial’s Top Social IQ Factors

Report: Google’s mobile search results now show image thumbnails 45% of the time Mobile Google users see image thumbnails in nearly half the search results shown, according to new report data. Should marketers consider placing greater importance on thumb images? Search Engine Land Twitter’s bot purge welcomed by agency execs Twitter recently deleted millions of spam and inactive accounts in an effort to improve the platform. Does the move increase credibility among marketers and influencers? DigiDay Report: Social media sentiment not predictive of offline brand outcomes New research looks into online and offline brand conversations and their effect on consumer sentiment, plus the motivations that drive them. Marketing Land EU digital chief urges lawmakers to ease tough copyright stand The European Union’s top digital advisor has asked E.U. lawmakers to relax stringent proposed copyright reforms. A look at warding off potential losses in creative technology industries by re-visiting rules for the digital age. Reuters Millennials Want Brands With Values, But, Really, A Good Deal More New report data reveals what millennials admire in brands, and takes a look at a variety of the social IQ factors that drive the demographic. MediaPost Facebook says ‘tens of thousands’ of people opt in to take its user surveys every week Facebook has said that each week tens of thousands of users fill out feedback surveys offered by the platform. What can marketers learn from how Facebook gathers and uses survey feedback? Marketing Land ‘Father of modern marketing’ Philip Kotler on avoiding brand decay and preparing for disruption Long-time marketing author Philip Kotler, sometimes called the father of modern marketing, has shared new thoughts about brand decay, disruption, and how satisfying needs better than anyone else is still as relevant as ever. Marketing Week Facebook testing AR ads in the News Feed & new tool to help brands create video ads Facebook is trialing augmented reality (A.R.) news-feed ads, and has announced that mobile video ads are also getting several new features. Marketing Land Data shows people want serious long-form content — and brands need to take note New research data reveals that many are craving weightier content, and how marketers are successfully battling today’s massive competition for engagement. The Next Web Survey: Google, Facebook most influential New survey data shows the continuing power of advertising on Facebook and Google. The digital ad trends report also offers up online consumer trends data sets. BizReport ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: A lighthearted look at vanity metrics by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist How Kit Kat managed to turn a viral tweet into a branded proposal — The Drum Redheads finally get recognition with ginger emoji — The Next Web TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Lee Odden — Forward-Thinking B2B Marketers Partner With Influencers To Create Cross-Channel, Long-Term Campaigns — Demand Gen Report
• Ashley Zeckman and Lee Odden — How To Improve Content Amplification On The Cheap: Network — Heidi Cohen
• Lee Odden — Amp Up Your Marketing with this Summer Reading List — Christina Giordano
• Lee Odden — Tips to Take Your Social Media Business from Part Time to Full Time — Andrea Vahl
• Alexis Hall — Apply These 10 Cool Techniques to Increase Sales and Marketing ROI for your Small Business — Small Business Trends

What are some of your top influencer marketing news items for this week? Thanks for reading, and we hope you'll return next week for the latest digital marketing news, and in the meantime you can follow us at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news. Also, don't miss the full video summary on our TopRank Marketing TV YouTube Channel.

The post Digital Marketing News: Twitter’s Bot Detox Fallout, Google’s Mobile Thumbs-Up, & Millennial’s Top Social IQ Factors appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Article Source: http://bathseoexpert.blogspot.com/2018/07/digital-marketing-news-twitters-bot.html