Josh McCoy - Express Writers

How Using The LinkedIn Publishing Platform Can Impact Your Business (With Pros & Cons)

December 31, 2020August 12, 2015 by Josh McCoy

Alecs is the Client Accounts Manager at Express Writers and has years of copywriting and journalism under her belt. LinkedIn is among the most popular social media outlets available today because of the unique premise it presents to its users, including the ever-growing LinkedIn publishing platform. On LinkedIn, you are judged not on what you look like, but on what your accomplishments are. It’s one of the most useful social networking sites for large companies and HR departments looking for the next big star. It’s even better as a tool for getting content out to the masses while ensuring that it’s still accredited to you. LinkedIn lends itself to the publication of long form content because it’s a site made up of readers, thinkers and doers. People who plan before they act. The more information they have the easier it is for them to make a decision. However, as LinkedIn grows, publishing on this godsend of a platform might not have the same sort of impact it once did. Examining the Positive Side of Placing Content on The LinkedIn Publishing Platform LinkedIn serves as the single best way to get in touch with professionals in a particular field. Because of the interactive style of long form posts that the social media network allows on its publication platform, you can engage in discussion very easily with other members of the same industry or field. From a professional’s perspective, this can only lead to good things. Differing opinions can stimulate debate and can lead to getting new insight on something that they thought they knew inside out. The wide reach of the platform combined with the type of users you are getting access to makes it ideal for a young professional trying to get noticed in his or her field of choice. 3 Key Benefits of Being On The LinkedIn Publishing Platform Publishing long form content on LinkedIn benefits the user by: 1. Relevant Outreach Recently, LinkedIn announced that it crossed a million members publishing on their platform. When compared with other social media networking sites, one million sounds like a small number. However, if you consider that the people on this social networking site is made up of decision makers (about 45% of LinkedIn is in upper management) that number starts looking a lot larger. Since LinkedIn opened its long form publishing platform to users in February 2014, over 130,000 posts per week are made utilizing the site’s publishing platform. That’s quite an accomplishment for a little over a year of service. This is a testament to the volume of experience that the LinkedIn community has to share with the wider world, and make no mistake, the users really love sharing their insights. 2. Equal Reach Regardless of Station What makes LinkedIn’s platform such a roaring success? Unlike other blogging sites where you would need to find people to read your work, usually in response to you reading theirs and leaving feedback, LinkedIn’s community usually starts the ball rolling for you. It’s the kind of publishing platform where even the smallest voice has the same potential outreach as the largest. With a user base of over 364 million total movers and shakers of industry plugged into the social network, it makes it much more likely that people who count will see what you post. For an ambitious person, publication on LinkedIn gives them far more potential for their work than any other type of social network. 3. Ideal for Starting Discussion Because of the blog-type nature of LinkedIn posts, industry professionals can chime in with things that are presented in a publication that they agree with and point out the items that strike them as odd. The rapport that it can generate is what LinkedIn was aiming for when they developed the platform to be like this. The Executive Editor of LinkedIn Daniel Roth is noted as saying that LinkedIn’s publishing platform was meant to be a tool to turn insight into conversation. Based on how many relevant conversations it has started over a number of fields, it is safe to assume that they accomplished their goal. The Downside of Publishing on LinkedIn: 2 Main Points It’s not all roses in this part of the social media world, however. It may seem as though LinkedIn’s publication platform makes it ever so easy to get a ready audience for your posts. At the start of its availability for all users, long form posts usually guaranteed a pretty large reach. However, as time went on the amount of people it reached started dropping drastically until December 2014 when outreach seemed to come to a screeching halt. What could have caused this is anyone’s guess, but there are a few good estimations as to what may have affected the number of people being able to view individual posts, such as: 1. Rise in Competition More and more users started publishing long form posts that grabbed the attention of readers and because of this the total audience would be split among the writers with the best posts. This would have been a factor if the quality of all posts were kept the same. As content producers, we should know that being able to maintain the quality of your own posts over the space of a month can be difficult, not to mention the posts of hundreds of individuals. While this might be an easy method of explaining away the massive drop in interaction for some users, it seems as though it’s too simple a solution for such a complex problem. 2. LinkedIn Pulse LinkedIn likes taking care of its users. That’s why it developed LinkedIn Pulse, as a method of showcasing the best in long form publications from the user base. Before Pulse came along you were just as likely to get your content seen as a user that has a higher quality post. However, because of Pulse, those users would generally be highlighted more and far more users would read their posts as opposed to yours, provided theirs is of … Read more

Using A Content Combination Strategy To Maximize Your Content Marketing

December 31, 2020August 11, 2015 by Josh McCoy

Alecs is a Client Accounts Manager at Express Writers. Peanut butter would never be the same without jelly. In like sense, combined strategies make for a much richer experience. In your daily life, I’m sure you can come up with at least five things without even thinking too hard about them that work well together. The same goes for content marketing. Some things just function better together and work towards accomplishing an overall goal. The strengths of one particular type of marketing covers the weaknesses of another. Just like a well-prepared team, using content marketing methods that overlap make for a much better overall experience. The Power & Synergy of A Content Combination Strategy Content combination strategy is the plan by which you make these individual content management strategies work as a team. What the strategy does is figure out which individual strategies cover the most amount of exposure for your target demographic. From there you can develop distribution plans for each of those vehicles of exposure. Thus, if your initial exposure medium was blogging but you saw a need for outreach on social media and print media, then you would incorporate those types of marketing into your overall marketing plan. Using a content combination strategy allows you to adjust your content to suit. Blogs are great for long-form content but if you operate on social media, for example, those users tend to favor images over long form narrative content. Combining the content you produce and matching it to the relevant medium for distribution allows you to increase your outreach and develop more high quality content that will encourage users to come visit your page. Understanding Content Synergy Dynamics Some things just work very well together. Take, for example, email marketing alongside offering a free e-book to readers. Email marketing by itself can be a hit and miss affair. Some users actively avoid ending up on mailing lists. However, when combined with the prospect of a free e-book, email subscriptions soar. People always enjoy the thought of something for nothing and that’s why free e-book marketing tends to net far more email subscriptions than any other type of strategy. The combination of these strategies sees the utilization of the email address as the object you need to obtain. With an active email address you can add the user to your email list and send them good content and information that they can use to better their lives, interspersing it with offers for products they may be interested in. In order to ensure that the email is active, you send them a copy of your e-book that they want, opting in to your mailing list to get it. It’s a novel idea that balances the user’s greed with an entry point for marketing to the customer at a later date. Not all content pairs are as synergistic as that one. Modern methods of social media make it easy for interaction to take place and utilizing it in tandem with a product that a company offers in order to win free merchandise is something many small businesses have adopted. This sees the use of a widespread media outlet and user generated content alongside free marketing in terms of the product being visible on the user’s picture which is then shared and liked in order for them to win the prize. Extending Effectiveness and Outreach Most content marketers run blogs. It’s their major source of production and distribution of content. The problem with blogs is that they are usually limited to a particular location in the hierarchy of modern media. Blogs are considered places where people go to share ideas and discuss things at length. On the opposite end of the perception spectrum is social media. Social media serves as the place where people go to interact with their friends and close acquaintances. It’s here that the majority of consumers exist. The numbers show that worldwide, there are over two billion users on social media. How many of those do you think take time to visit a blog? The answer is quite a lot, depending on it shows up on their feed. Blogs and websites have realized that utilizing social media in tandem with their regular posts can lead to an increase in their popularity and overall positive KPI’s. Social media networks like Facebook make it easy to create pages that are linked officially to blogs so that users can benefit from their massive user base when creating content. Sometimes, it works the other way around. Some Facebook pages have become so popular that they’ve forced their owners to build blogs around them in order to capitalize on their success. A good example of this is SciBabe on Facebook. Originally a page made to rant against the anti-science point of view of the popular Food Babe page, the owner eventually expanded it into an entire website dedicated to fighting misinformation on social media (a noble pursuit, but ultimately futile). Research in Multiple Formats: How to Appeal to a Wider Audience Content marketers already know the power of infographics. They are among the most popular ways of spreading information to people in a single, easy to share image. Infographics themselves sometimes represents a compilation of work from various research outlets. Statistics and facts are gathered and put into cool, flashy graphical representations to make the facts fun to read and easy to internalize for later use. The infographic is the modern successor to an older type of research distribution material, the white paper. Although infographics are the new kid on the block, white papers still have quite a bit of a following. Older copywriters have told me about the days when they would be tasked with creating white papers that were a couple dozen pages long from information given to them by a particular company. What a white paper is, for those of us who grew up in the digital age, is a report that is written to offer factual information on a … Read more

How To Cope With Facebook’s Newsfeed Change & Updates

December 31, 2020August 7, 2015 by Josh McCoy

The social media scene is dynamic. Updates to, as they put it, “improve user experience” are affecting businesses especially those who produce poor-quality content more than ever. Just what are these changes and how will they impact your Facebook’s newsfeed? And, subsequently, your Facebook strategy and business? I am going to take a look and show you how you can still work effectively with the recent Facebook change. Facebook Changed, Again It seems like we can’t go a month or so without hearing about a major change whether on Google, or a leading social channel like Facebook. Even the average user can tell social networks’ update frequencies through their smartphone alerts. In the latest release from Facebook, we are noticing that the social media giant is living up to the promise of making users’ Timelines more oriented for them, with the recent Facebook’s newsfeed update. Many people wondered just how Facebook would do this because the company constantly seems to make choices that go against that. However, there are now major changes to your timeline, which helps you see exactly what you want. You can do three new things to help improve your newsfeed, making it more interesting and engaging. Users can select which friends and brands they want to see first, who to follow and unfollow, and discover new content based on past interactions. This is great for the normal Facebook user, helping them see exactly what they want to, but this provides some fear for businesses. What Is This Change & What Does it Mean for Your Business? Just what is this change? Well, as you saw above, it is simply about giving people the control over their own Timelines and newsfeeds. In addition, Facebook’s newsfeed is making sure to tailor new pages to fit what users have looked at and interacted with already. For example, if you follow and interact with book related Facebook pages, Facebook will tailor the new pages to fit the bookish theme. What does this mean for your business? Per Hubspot, organic reach has steadily been declining on the social channel, which is definitely a major stressor for marketers. This means that, even more so, you are going to need to focus on creating excellent, engaging Facebook content for your clients. You will also need to make sure you work hard to establish connections and relationships with followers, fans, and customers to ensure they will continue to see your posts. If you already have that standing, then you should consider encouraging people to select your brand for the “See First” feature, helping you continue reaching out. How Can You Get Customers to See Your Content First? Are you looking for the magic ingredient to get clients to see your content first? One of the best ways is to ask your clients to select the “See First” option. You might be surprised at how many people will willingly do that simply because you asked nicely. If you don’t have a lot of Facebook interaction yet, however, you will need to focus on upping the interaction through content before asking people to select that option. As I mentioned above, you are going to need to focus on content, instead of the number of posts you make. In addition, you need to focus on knowing your audience and creating things they will want to see. Always share your top content on Facebook, and to stay on people’s “See First” list, make sure you don’t overwhelm them with too much content in a day. Your Ads Can Still Be Seen, but There’s a Catch Facebook will tailor the newsfeed to fit a person’s interest based off of what he or she has selected to see “first.” This could impact your ads and which ones they see, making it harder for some people to see your ads. However, this doesn’t mean you should give up on Facebook ads completely. They can still come in handy, and if you are writing social content that appeals to your readers, the chances are high that you’ll be able to be one of the 300 or so posts a person sees in a day. If your budget is small for advertising, then don’t fret. You can still get reach by making awesome content and encouraging your existing clients to share it. Work on creating shareable content for Facebook and include things like images and videos to help bring about more shares for your content. 3 Major Strategies To Help You Improve Your Facebook Strategy With this change, it is important to look at your Facebook strategy and improve it to help your reach and to encourage users to put you on their “See First” list. Shehan Peruma from HubSpot gives some excellent marketing strategies for Facebook that can definitely help your strategy. Let’s look at a few of these ideas. 1. Re-Evaluate Your Strategy and Run Analytics Tests This is a great chance to re-evaluate your current Facebook strategy to see how you can improve it with the latest changes. Run some analytics tests to help with this evaluation, and never hesitate to ask your clients for their input. 2. Focus More On Content Creation and Curation Don’t focus too hard on getting people to see your content; that will come along after focusing on the importance of content creation and curation. Work to create original, great content your clients will enjoy, and always find great outside sources to share on your Facebook, as well. 3. Always Respond to Anyone Who Comments As you can see, keeping up a business-client relationship will be important with this new Facebook change. A great way to help build a relationship is to respond to anyone who comments on your Facebook posts. Facebook is Still as Important as Ever Just because Facebook’s newsfeed made another change, doesn’t mean it is losing its relevancy. It is still as important as it has ever been, making it a vital aspect of any social media strategy. Don’t give … Read more

How to Create A Strategy for Deploying Content to Improve Your Site’s Ranking & Visibility

December 31, 2020August 6, 2015 by Josh McCoy

Annie is a Content Manager at Express Writers. Developing a content strategy can easily seem like it can be a futile exercise. Many people don’t have a clue about where to start when it comes to putting together a detailed plan for what their content should do and what sort of demographic it should be aimed at. The truth of the matter is that overthinking content marketing can be dangerous. Instead of focusing on the minor details, what you should be aiming for is to see the big picture. It’s only through that you will actually be able to experience the true power of content marketing the way it was meant to be used. The Blank Slate Theory & Your Content Strategy As artist Joe Madureira says, a blank slate is as exciting as it is daunting. What we propose to do through a blank slate comparison is to see how a company starting from no website or content marketing strategy can utilize the tools of developing a content strategy to be successful. In this fictionalized case study we will be utilizing a two-phase plan for the creation of a detailed content strategy that can be used to improve a website’s ranking and visibility. Methodology Behind Our Experiment Utilizing a free tool like Google Analytics allows us to easily track the key performance indicators (KPI’s) that we’re interested in. Indicators such as number of visitors and unique visitors over time allow us to gauge the success of our content marketing strategy. If we want to be more specific we can set up funnels in Google Analytics in order to track clicks from what content leads to which page to determine the most popular content for attracting users. The numbers from Google Analytics will be our guide to how well our content strategy is doing, just like in real life. Content Strategy Phase One: The Basics There are a handful of things that a basic content strategy should have in place as a jumping off point. These form the framework for your future content production and also aids in your SEO compatibility and your search rank score. These things are the very basics but even though they seem to be unnecessary at the start, they are a powerful means of attracting traffic and formulating leads. The basic start for a website’s content strategy comes from incorporating these key elements: 1. META tags: META tags aid in helping to describe a page’s content to a search engine. Including META tags in your site setup ensures that you are able to include the most important elements that you would expect to get your page noticed. The more relevant information you include in your META data the better your search relevancy will be. This translates into increased traffic from search engines, as relevancy is extremely important to users. No one wants to click a page and end up somewhere they didn’t expect to be. 2. Keywords: These are words that describe the content on your page and allow a user to be aware of what the site they are visiting is about. Used in combination with META description tags, your keywords form the backbone of your content strategy in the realm of SEO. You don’t want too much of your keywords cluttering up your page since search engines are usually wary of too high a keyword density. Ideally, your keyword density should lie between 3% and 5% for any particular keyword set. 3. Product Descriptions: These give your site the look and feel of a professional company and also gives Google something to reference. Your product descriptions should also have keywords considered and should conform to the limit of 3% to 5% as well. Keeping this figure is enough to satisfy the search engine that you’re not keyword stuffing just to make your content more popular. The descriptions should be meaningful as far as possible and written for the user. It’s a true test of balancing your content writing in order to appeal to both search engine robots and the average user. 4. Basic Content: Basic content gives your site a barebones for further development of content as time goes by. Through your basic content you are trying to attract users and at the same time get them to do something. Whether it’s subscribing to an email list or clicking over to a product page, your basic content should be original and should appeal to the customer. It should bring value to the customer’s life in some way. That is the hallmark of good content. Content Strategy Phase Two: Advanced Operations After setting up the initial barebones on the blank slate website, we can now proceed to monitor it for a period of time to see how it evolves and develops in terms of traffic. This sets a benchmark from where we can go on to the advanced part of the exploration and the key motivator for developing a content strategy. Does content really make a difference in generating leads and increasing visits? Let’s find out by utilizing the major vehicles of content marketing: 1. Blogs: Blogging has long been accepted as one of the ways to generate traffic and to keep your website fresh to attract new visitors. Search engines enjoy blogs because they tend to deal with a particular niche and once the search engine determines the niche the blog is in it’s easy to direct relevant traffic to the site. Blogs allow for a company or website to focus on creating high-quality content that appeals to their target demographic. Through this content the company can generate new leads or conversions, or develop customer loyalty by focusing on providing useful content to their users. Blogs need to be updated regularly in order to remain relevant. Updating too much can cause useful information to be lost. There’s a fine balance to walk here, but doing it well is worth the effort. 2. Social Media: The newest way for websites to interact with customers directly … Read more

Marketing Lessons From Taylor Swift: What We Can Learn From The Pop Star-Turned Media Mogul

December 31, 2020August 4, 2015 by Josh McCoy

When you think of Taylor Swift, it’s likely that the image of a marketing guru doesn’t come to mind. As it turns out, though, Taylor Swift is more than just a pretty voice and an Instagram feed full of kittens: this 25 year old pop-star is also a winning force in the marketing world. Taylor Swift’s Marketing Lessons: Is It Natural Prowess? Taylor Swift is probably best known for her bevy of Number 1 hits. Throughout the duration of her career, the blonde bombshell has seen the top of the Billboard Charts four times. “Bad Blood”, her most recent chart-topping hit and the third from her ultra-popular 1989 album, took less than two weeks to scale the mountain of new music, which begs the question: what’s her secret? Is it just great song writing and a direct, T-Swift-only line into the hearts of millions of music-lovers worldwide or is it something else? The answer, as it turns out, is that Miss Swift is just really, really good at marketing. And no, she didn’t take marketing lessons.. Part of her marketing prowess comes down to knowing exactly who to partner with at exactly the right time. Although “Bad Blood” has been bumping around since the release of 1989 in October of 2014, Swift managed to propel it to the top of the charts recently by re-mixing it with Kendrick Lamar, who happens to be one of the hottest names in today’s hip-hop scene. By doing this, Swift utilized one of the oldest and most effective marketing games in the book: combining forces for better results. There is something distinctly omni-channel-esque about Swift’s decision to pair with Lamar and it is obvious that by joining forces with the hip-hop legend, she made an amazingly intelligent marketing move that allowed her to tap into a different stream of listeners. While Kendrick Lamar’s listeners may not have chosen to purchase a Taylor Swift album before the re-mix of “Bad Blood” dropped, it is likely that they will now, which allows Swift to broaden her already massive fan base. Additionally, the strategic addition of Lamar means that Taylor’s typically pop/country songs now stand a very real chance of being played on Hip-Hop radio and streaming stations, which provides a new and exciting platform and serves to further her apparent plan for total global domination. Endearing Videos for Maximum Fan Engagement One of the foremost things that have garnered Taylor Swift global affection is the fact that she’s always seemed utterly reachable. All you need to do to produce evidence of this is scan the YouTube comments that accompany her “Shake it Off” or “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” videos for ample fan gushing and statements of identification. In the past, Swift’s funny, sweet music videos have given her a mainline catheter into the hearts of many but, now that she has reached epic levels of popularity, she’s begun to change it up. Unlike her previous videos, “Bad Blood” takes its plot line from a Bond-esque action film, complete with plenty roundhouse kicks, high-tech scenes and pop-culture references to Kill Bill and LeeLoo’s famous strappy costume from The Fifth Element. In addition the fact that “Bad Blood” is visually shocking and a complete foil to anything Swift has done before, the video is chock-full of powerful female names. Everyone from Paramore’s Hayley Williams to supermodel Cindy Crawford and actress Jessica Alba are featured in the video, which means that it will show up across their respective fan bases, as well, allowing Swift to expand her already massive reach. More effective than the inclusion of big names, however, is the way that Swift and her marketing team chose to tease viewers during the lead-up to the video’s release. For the weeks preceding its launch, each of the famous faces featured in the “Bad Blood” video released a vintage-looking shot of her respective costume and character on Instagram, giving audiences an exclusive sneak peek and the added fun of a distinctly movie-poster feel. Every time a new image dropped, the media went wild and Swift’s social media follower count gained a few zeros. Although 1989 was already a chart-topping album (it never left the top ten) Swift timed her “Bad Blood” launch with the moment when the album began to lose some of its death-grip on the industry. In order to drum up more enthusiasm for the video’s release, Swift seized one of the biggest events in the industry: The Billboard Music Awards. One Release to Rule Them All This year’s Billboard Music Awards opened with a clip from “Bad Blood” and the rest was history. An estimated 11.1 million people watched this year’s Billboard Music Awards and every single one of them bore witness to Swift’s newest brain-child. It doesn’t hurt that Swift went on to win eight trophies that night, furthering her reputation as a top dog in the music industry. The fact that Swift and her team chose the Billboard Music Awards to launch “Bad Blood” was no accident. By choosing such an important, media-riddled and highly-televised event, Swift and her team ensured that the video would not only set the stage for the awards, thus creating a sort of aura that would hang over the event all night, but also that it would be highly televised, tweeted about and reported on. In the end, it wasn’t so much the unique genius of “Bad Blood” that rocketed the track to the top of the charts as it was the dedicated, calculated and painstakingly specific utilization of advanced marketing efforts combined with brilliant launch times and media release tactics. How Swift Does Classical Marketing With a New Twist Swift’s launch of 1989 is akin to a master class in marketing and, if she keeps going, she’s going to usurp MBAs everywhere. Even before Kendrick Lamar entered the scene, Swift was enjoying partnerships with the likes of Diet Coke, with whom she produced an adorable commercial resplendent with kittens and plenty of whimsy. As … Read more

20 Brands That Blow It Away On Instagram & What To Learn From Them

January 1, 2021August 3, 2015 by Josh McCoy

Have you ever snapped a picture, applied a filter, and shared it to your followers with a fun hashtag describing your feelings as you post? Then you’ve used Instagram. Instagram is an amazing social channel that provides people with the ability to give their followers a glimpse into their everyday lives. Many times this means a ton of cat pictures, selfies, and the occasional food and beverage shot. However, there are businesses and brands out there that are taking their Instagram game to a whole other level, hitting it out of the park with their strategy. I am going to look at these amazing brands, helping you find some great Instagram inspiration for your own strategy. 20 Brands that are Amazing on Instagram What are some brands that can give you excellent Instagram inspiration? I am going to take a look at some of the top ones when it comes to excellent content. 1. John Deere Tractors, farming, spending time with family, and living off of the earth are all things that John Deere shares on their social channels. When you look at their Instagram page, you can immediately tell what they sell, and how much they value family and hard work. This is a great illustration of a brand knowing their audience base, and creating images to share that will easily connect with fans, followers, and customers. 2. Billboard Magazine Keeping up with the latest music news is something everyone loves, and Billboard Magazine helps with that. They provide their followers with “insider info” and give behind-the-scenes looks at various projects, concerts, and more. BTS is a great way to interact and engage with your audience. 3. The White House It’s pretty obvious that the White House staff is pretty stellar at social media. They understand that working with the public is a great way to bolster positive attitudes, which is a great inspiration for everyone, including businesses. Work to promote positivity, and you’ll start to notice more positive change around you. 4. NASA NASA has a variety of excellent Instagram accounts, giving followers and fans excellent content that they all want to see. You can follow their main account, or you can choose different ones from different laboratories, space centers, and missions. This guarantees that you will be able to get the content you want, without having to sift through other content you aren’t interested in. 5. Intel Seeing the latest innovations in technology and watching as awesome things are created can be an exciting thing for many people. When it comes to showing these, Intel is tops, giving all of us a great look into the future of technology. In addition, we see great behind-the-scenes elements, which creates great personal connections with all fans, followers, and customers. 6. Virgin America Airlines Virgin is known for their swanky airline, and their Instagram shows just how awesome it is. Just a short, quick look at their pages shows some awesome photos of the airline, all with the signature purple lighting that everyone associates with them. This is a great illustration of keeping something consistent, whether a particular color scheme or voice, when it comes to using any social channel. 7. Taco Bell You don’t have to like their food, but it is pretty hard for anyone not to laugh or enjoy this brand’s epic social media and advertising campaigns. They utilize humor in some of the best ways possible, making great connections with their fans and customers. But, like I said, even people who aren’t fans of their food still love their hilarious approach to all marketing. 8. Warby Parker Warby Parker is a great place if you want designer glasses, as well as having a passion for helping those in need. The company knows that the main customer base they want to reach incorporates the younger generations, and their Instagram shows that. They truly are masters at creating content that young shoppers are likely to enjoy. 9. Macy’s Fashion and fun are two major aspects of Macy’s Instagram account, and they capture it all amazingly. From giving suggestions on how to style the best minion outfit to celebrating the USA women’s soccer team, Macy’s knows how to connect with their audience. They are an awesome example of just how to utilize something that is currently trendy, as well as something that can bring everyone together in joy and celebration. 10. Game of Thrones Whether it is when the show is airing, during a convention, or when the snow drifts start piling up, the Game of Thrones Instagram is on the ball. You get great behind-the-scenes looks at the series, plus fun photos of the cast at various Game of Thrones events. This really helps make all GoT fans feel like they are involved in this awesome series. 11. Starbucks What’s Instagram without a picture of food and a Starbucks coffee cup? Their Instagram is filled with photos of the current marketing campaign, pictures of store locations, videos, and, of course, those coffee images. Starbucks is a great source of inspiration, no matter your industry, when it comes to social media. 12. GoPro From an impactful bio to great fan-made images and videos, GoPro is an excellent example of involving clients and using Instagram to the fullest potential. You can expect to see amazing fan-captured items that are sure to make anyone want to use a GoPro camera. How can you implement anything from such a popular company? Simply by involving your clients and sharing media that is created by your client base; just share images they send in and have a blast. 13. H&M H&M knows that their client base is one that appreciates fashion, fashion tips, and fashion industry news. And this is exactly what they share with their 8.4 million followers. You can see great style ideas for Bohemian-chic, how to relax at the beach, and the latest from whichever fashion week or show the brand is at. With fun videos, great behind-the-scenes looks, and excellent product images, H&M is definitely a leader in the world of Instagram. Take … Read more

Here’s One Celebrity Trend You Don’t Want to be Following: Buying Social Media Followers

January 1, 2021July 31, 2015 by Josh McCoy

If you’ve ever dipped a toe into the world of blogging, you’re familiar with the “follower dilemma.” More followers means more exposure and increased authority, which generally means more conversions. That said, it makes sense to have as many followers as possible, right? It may even make sense to get those followers through whatever means necessary, right? Come to think of it, purchasing followers isn’t a terrible idea, right? Wrong. Although many of the world’s biggest celebrities beef up their social media accounts by buying followers, it’s not a trend you should follow. Here’s why: Click Farms and Hollywood Habits Although it may be surprising to some, buying social media followers is a hot business in Hollywood. Each year, companies that manufacture fake profiles and like producing “click farms” rake in hundreds of millions of dollars. One of the many problems with these so-called like farms (aside from their blatantly fraudulent nature) is the fact that, although the companies themselves are raking in the cash, the workers behind the hundreds of thousands of “likes” being produced on a daily basis are generally low-paid individuals from Dhaka, Bangladesh. These workers often make as little as $1 per 1,000 clicks and are subject to sweatshop-like working conditions. The click-farm problem has gotten so bad, in fact, that Facebook recently stated that up to 14.1 million of its more than 1 billion total users are fraudulent accounts built by overseas click-farms. Given these numbers, it’s easy to see how celebrity social media accounts are able to utilize purchased social media followers to quickly inflate their follower base and boost the appearance of popularity. The Problem With Fake Followers Although it might be perfectly fine for an uber-celebrity like Kim Kardashian to have 40 million Instagram followers, this doesn’t fly for Every Man, nor should it. While the temptation to purchase followers can be considerable, bloggers, businesses and individuals are best off giving the fake follower scene a wide berth. Fake Followers Aren’t Going to Beef Up Your Business In addition to being exploitative to low-paid, overseas workers, there are plenty of completely valid reasons you shouldn’t buy fake followers for your business. First and foremost: fake followers don’t generally increase business. Although purchasing social media likes is touted as a way to increase conversions, it may actually have the opposite effect. Although purchased fans result in a spike in overall “likes” or follows, they don’t ultimately interact with your page the way a real human does. In other words, a fake profile that has been built solely for the purpose of providing fraudulent “likes” won’t also provide high-quality page links, mentions, page views or conversions. Since these are the things a web page ultimately needs to succeed, it is obvious that purchasing social media followers won’t do anything besides boost your subscriber numbers. Fake Followers Drive Away Real Fans Additionally, purchasing social media followers will ultimately dilute the experience of your real fans. By drowning your page in phony likes and spammy comments, it is distinctly possible that the presence of fake followers will intimidate or completely overshadow your authentic fans. Because of the obvious presence of fake profiles hovering around your page, real people that may have otherwise interacted with you or your product will be less likely to comment, convert or join in than they may have been if more of your followers were authentic. While celebrities don’t need to spend much time or brainpower analyzing their engagement rates, normal businesses and bloggers do and the presence of fake followers will make this process incredibly difficult. Fake Followers Muddy Marketing Data Additionally, fake followers make it difficult for you to track where your high-quality traffic is coming from, who is engaging with your brand and who is not and how you can best attract more users. Faulty marketing data makes it tough to have a successful business and, in many cases, purchased followers are to blame. Fake Followers Lead to Disappointment and Huge Fluctuations in Numbers Individuals who purchase fake followers in hopes of beefing up their social media numbers and lending a false sense of authority, permanence and popularity to their business or web page are likely to be disappointed when their thousands of fake followers suddenly disappear. Dozens of companies across the web have cracked down on fake followers. For example, in a move known as the “Instagram Rapture,” Instagram wiped millions of fake accounts from its platform, causing Justin Bieber 3.5 million followers while rapper Tyga and famous-for-being-famous celebrity Kim Kardashian both lost upwards of 1 million followers. Take a hint from the celeb world: when it comes to building popularity, do it the honest way in order to avoid social-media based follower cleansing. How to Purge Fake Followers Is there a company you admire that seems to have tens of thousands of followers? Have you been wracking your brain trying to figure out what they’re doing that you are not? They may well be buying followers and, what’s more, it will be easy for you to find out. “But how?” you ask. As it turns out, there are many ways to spot fakes. If you’re a Twitter user, you can utilize an app like “Fake Follower Check” to generate an overview of follower activity and fake profile information for any page on the web. To follow up, use an app like Twitter Counter to view the page’s growth progression rate. When using Twitter Counter, watch out for sudden, sharp spikes or drops in subscriber numbers that would indicate the presence of click-farms. If you’re scanning a Facebook page, you’ll have to dig for fake profiles by looking into your page’s overall interaction patterns, as there is no app to check for suspicious activity. The tell-tale sign of fake followers is a page that has a huge spike in overall “likes” without co-occurring interaction on posts and content. Facebook also allows users to run Graph Search in order to determine where a business’s fans are coming from. … Read more

5 Ways to Making Your Web Content More about ‘You’ and Less about ‘Me’

January 1, 2021July 28, 2015 by Josh McCoy

How much do you think about the needs, expectations and opinions expressed by your past clients while churning out new web content pieces created to support your promotional goals? If it took you more than a couple of seconds to provide an accurate answer to this question, then perhaps you’re doing something wrong. Maybe you’re boring your audiences to death with mundane “who-we-are” type of speeches, fluff talk, and empty promises. If that is the case, now would be the best time to rethink your strategy and kick your selfishness to the curb, for your own good. Today, it is less about you, and more about them- your clients, the ones who keep you in business. Companies that are currently working on a unique web content creation plan tailored to their short and long-term goals plan have to maintain a fine balance between crafting branded content and elaborating user-oriented content with no brand affiliation whatsoever. Why Your Branded Web Content Shouldn’t Be Only about You Let’s face it: no matter how well-researched and informative branded content may be, it can still fail to reach its target, simply because it is promotional by nature. Savvy online visitors can read between the lines and separate a truly useful, reader-oriented piece created to entertain, educate or inform an audience, from a shameless sales pitch. Branded content can serve your best interest, as long as you put the needs of your potential clients first. How do you do that? We invite you to try not one, but five awesome tactics designed to boost the value and overall effectiveness of your content, make it resonate with your public and make your company seem a less self-centered and more inclined towards the happiness and fulfillment of its clients. 1. Try to Become Less Egocentric and More Empathetic First of all, check out your website and analyze your content. What kind of feeling do you get after taking a closer look at your landing pages? If you are egocentric by definition, chances are that you have stumbled across many “we do this and that”-kind of sentences. In this case, you may want to consider investing in a complete rewrite. Frankly speaking, your prospects don’t care about your products until you give them a reason to do so. In other words, they won’t try your goods until you come up with a combination of incentives (better quality, smaller price tag, freebies, special promotions and so on) that could raise their interest. You don’t have to offer substantial cash rewards to keep your readers on your website. Even the tiniest perks triggering negligible costs (free eBook or white paper download or a discount code) can cultivate the loyalty of your future and existing customers. 2. Write with Your Prospects in Mind and Avoid Promotional, Heavily Brand-Focused Web Content Promotional content can backfire, especially if it puts your interests above the ones expressed by your prospects. This threat is real, judging by the fact that one year ago, even Facebook considered tweaking the News Feed to reduce the amount of overly promotional content that was being served to its users on a daily basis. Web content, and especially the one meant to be distributed on social media platforms, should become the epitome of interactivity. Engaging posts usually comprise a plethora of elements that catch the reader’s eye and make him click on links over and over again. For instance, according to KissMetrics, photo posts get up to 104% more comments and 53% more likes than the rest. Question posts also receive up to 100% more comments. Furthermore, the length of your content appears to be another matter of great importance, considering that posts under 80 characters obtain 66% more engagement than longer ones. Therefore, write with these numbers in mind and tailor the substance and appearance of your posts based on the particularities of your audience. 3. When It Comes to Rolling out Branded Web Content, Make Sure It’s 100% Unique and Catchy We totally get it: well-rounded, promotional web content can help you increase brand awareness, reinvigorate sales and attract new prospects. If you are planning on turning your branded content into one of the main pillars of your marketing strategy, at least do your best to individualize your writing and make it reflect your vision, expertise, tradition, relationship with clients and the uniqueness of your brand. As Content Marketing Institute suggests, any business owner should start to think like everyday people, rather than striving to act like a CTA-oriented, old-school marketer. Self-appreciating content is anything but shareable, so work harder to get in touch with your buyer persona and gain insight into your public’s needs, demands and preferences, instead of trying to shove your products down your buyers’ throats. 4. Create a Community around Your Brand Through Engaging Content Here’s another idea worth developing and implementing: start thinking like a customer. Yes, you’ve got that right. If you were to shop around for a new detergent, what kind of selection criteria would you set up to make a great buying decision? Maybe you want to discover a formula that eliminates stains faster and more effectively than any other, or wish to spend less money on cleaning products. Or perhaps you want the best of both worlds and feel determined to go for a brand that fulfills your request. At the same time, as a Forbes article points out, in order to craft engaging content, you should spend a lot of time talking to some of your customers. Any feedback is much appreciated because it helps you make smarter changes when needed. Once you complete this phase, you should strive to catalyze connections. Socializing with your fans and followers is a relatively straightforward process; the real challenge is to stimulate them to bond with each other. The Red Bull’s success story revolving around a solid community of enthusiastic adrenaline junkies is only one example that may catch your attention. An article signed by James O’Brien and published by … Read more

9 Lies SEO’s Are Still Telling Themselves

January 1, 2021July 21, 2015 by Josh McCoy

Joshua McCoy is our company COO and our all-around developer and web guru. Read more on the About page. Did you hear about this story yet? Chances are, if you’ve made any kind of rounds on the internet, you already have. After years of being a massively successful link builder who made upwards of $50,000 each month by spamming Google, marketer Jeff Deutsch realized that he was building homes on the dark side of the moon. I started out in SEO around 2010, and although many marketers around me did, I never followed suit and went the black hat way. I stayed white hat and inbound marketing friendly ever since I started out (which is why my role at our content agency, Express Writers, fits me perfectly). Yet, I know enough of the “dark” realms to have major respect for someone like Jeff telling his past as a black hat this transparently. The iconic image below was all too perfect for the crazy tale that subsequently fetched 150,000 views and over 94,000 shares alone on Facebook. He didn’t quit black hat SEO because the income wasn’t good or the lifestyle pleasant (quite the opposite, as Jeff details). It was because the SEO model he had created was impossible to maintain in the face of increased awareness about link builders and aggressive Google programs like Panda and Penguin. In Deutsch’s powerful confession piece, “Confessions of a Google Spammer,” the author chronicles his rise and subsequent downfall as a black hat link-builder. He transparently allows readers see the ugly truth of how the life of a professional, black hat SEO can quickly spiral out of control, becoming a merciless and often empty money-machine that leaves the spammer devoid of real skills or knowledge of white hat tactics. When his link-building business begins to fail, Deutsch becomes anxious and addicted and realizes that he is ill suited to survive in the post-de-indexing world. After a hellish 18 months, he finally realizes that to be truly white hat, he needs to cross over into the world of inbound marketing and high-quality content instead of continuing to run on the “anxiety-inducing treadmill of using black hat SEO to get traffic.” Although this story may seem anecdotal, it is more than just a come-to-SEO-Jesus moment. 9 Lies SEO Marketers Like To Tell Themselves (And Stay Comforted In Their Sleep) This story is a perfect example of how SEO’s often tell themselves things that involve the following nine lies, which lead not only to their personal downfalls, but also to the mucking-up of the entire SEO industry. 1) My latest hack will fall below Google’s radar yet again Although there are loopholes in every system, Google is a particularly good one and with developments in de-indexing as well as programs like Panda and Penguin, it’s highly unlikely that a hack will evade Google’s radar for long. What’s more, once Google catches on, there is a solid chance that the hacker is in for a rapid de-escalation of lifestyle like the one Detusch experienced after his $100,000 per month business was lost to de-indexing. 2) Those tiered links won’t get figured out anytime soon Since tiered link building is a decidedly black hat technique and search engines are on a mission to destroy black hat techniques, it’s a safe bet that tiered links won’t work the way SEO’s want them to. Google’s algorithm relies on at least 200 ranking factors arranged in order of their impact on total rank with contextual links being the crème de la crème of the linking world. Not only does tiered linking not work but it is likely to be found out due to the fact that a large number of low-quality links throws out a huge number of negative metrics, which acts as a footprint for Google’s spam filters, which are now built specifically to obliterate spam-filled tiered links. 3) My pyramid linking scheme still works Pyramid linking is a risky business and since it is so intrinsically reliant upon wobbly pillars like tiered links and ongoing hacks, it is liable to crumble and, when it does, the SEO is in deep trouble. Once again, one needs only to turn to Deutsch’s article for an example of this. After the Authority Link Network began to crumble, Deutsch found himself in the position of watching his clients loose their clients and so on and so forth. Although a pyramid seems like it might touch the sky, there is no way for the top to stay intact when the bottom begins to crumble. 4) I can post crappy content that a $5 Fiverr gig author wrote Content is king, as it turns out, and there’s really no way to get around this fact. Nowadays, crappy content sticks out like a sore thumb and Google doesn’t appreciate spammers who add millions of words of spam to its index. As a result, there have been several updates to the system that are designed specifically to target cheap, spammy content. With increasing focus on high-quality content and strong, white-hat links, it’s gotten harder and harder for crappy content to rise through the ranks. 5) I still think I can succeed with .gov links Links are an important topic to white- and black-hat SEO’s alike but the essential difference lies in the type of link being used. Links can either help or hurt SEO or simply be ignored altogether by search engines. .Gov links happen to fall into the latter camp. White certain types of .gov links can be beneficial to SEO ranking, they do not often rank as high as other types of links. The reason for this is that, historically, black hat SEO’s have used .gov and .edu links to lend false authority to their spammy content and, like it always does, Google caught on. 6) My article spinner isn’t broken Simply put, article spinning is poor form for any SEO and, as search engines continue to evolve, the use of article spinning software continues to become a worse idea. One … Read more

Are Your Headlines & Titles Driving Potential Customers Away?

June 19, 2024July 10, 2015 by Josh McCoy

You’ve spent days researching your next blog post. You’ve double-checked all facts, reworded each fragment very carefully and analyzed and improved your CTAs. At the end of this lengthy, time-consuming process, you’ve redirected your last drop of energy towards the headline. While trying to come up with the perfect title, you finally realize that creativity has flown out the window. Should you sacrifice a few more hours of sleep to draft several versions and pick the most suitable one, or should you just make a quality compromise and settle for a headline that doesn’t do your body copy any justice? Why Headlines Will Always Matter (A Great Deal) We can all agree that an informative, original, and creative headline marks the beginning of a fulfilling reading experience. What you may not know is that the quality of your headlines is influencing your conversion rates a great deal. New research conducted by Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism introduces a set of interesting findings cited by Marketing Land. According to this source, 51% of the visitors who land on search sites looking for fresh news affirmed that an interesting, catchy headline represented the reason they chose to click on a certain story. The source of the information and the social signals linked to it seem to be less important. 37% of the respondents said they clicked on web content from a website that they knew and trusted while only 11% revealed that they clicked on a story recommended by a person in their social circle. These numbers are easy to interpret, and the lesson that you need to learn and apply is pretty straightforward: Do you want to rewrite your success story? Start by writing better headlines! What Should You Expect from a Good Headline? Aside from its originality and high dosage of creativity, what are the other key aspects that separate good headlines from terrible ones? According to a guide published by Columbia University, good titles must be correct (in implications and facts), should command attention, and lead to a deeper connection with the audience. They must also match or set the tone of the written material. While all the pieces of the puzzle are equally important, do keep in mind that you should never sacrifice accuracy on the altar of creativity. 5 Categories of Bad Headlines That You Should Avoid at All Costs Headlines with puzzling, unintended meanings are some of your most dreaded enemies, which could easily affect your reputation and credibility on any niche. If you’re striving to improve your headline writing skills, here are a few bad examples that you should analyze before putting pen to paper. 1. The Ridiculous, Illogical and Unintentionally Hilarious Headline In a recent post, Diply rounds up some of the most unbelievably ludicrous headlines that you might have read so far. As the result of illogical thinking or a failed attempt to explore the power of the dramatic, situational or verbal irony for emphasis, these headlines make us raise an eyebrow and ask ourselves: What were the authors thinking? One-of-a-kind pearls of wisdom such as “Mayor Parris to Homeless: Go Home”, “Threat Disrupts Plans to Meet about Threats”, “One-Armed Man Applauds the Kindness of Strangers” make us want to rethink our titles and question our logic over and over again to avoid such catastrophic public displays of ignorance and negligence. 2. The Dull Headline That Nobody Has Time For People have very little desire to invest their time, patience, and energy in reading activities that cannot be associated with groundbreaking revelations. They want to get the latest info on high-interest topics that could influence their quality of life (career opportunities, promotions and discounts, special events that they may be interested in and so on). At the same time, they ignore headlines covering mundane facts and have very little or no desire to read headlines that they’ve seen on dozens of other websites. A lack of originality expressed through the headline may be an accurate indicator of the body copy standards. As we have stated in a previous post, people usually judge a book by its cover, and won’t hesitate to evaluate your piece without actually reading it based on the attractiveness of its title. Dull headlines are your worst enemy, so take all the time you need to make your final version eye-pleasing, intelligible and as creative as possible. 3. The Mysteriously Incomplete Headline Let’s assume that you open the newspaper, or land on a website and stumble across the following headline: Board of Directors Meeting Takes Place. So what? Why is this event a matter of great importance? Does it lead to massive layoffs or a string of promotions? Why should we, the readers, care about it (and move on to the body copy)? You may be inclined to think that an aura of mystery expressed through your title may compel your readers to read, or at least scan your piece. Unfortunately, this is not how it works. You have to provide a minimal amount of information to arouse the curiosity of your audience. Highlight the reasons why they need to take a closer look at your article and deliver the promise of a captivating, useful reading experience. 4. The Headline with an Information Overdose Poles apart, headlines containing massive amounts of information are equally puzzling, annoying and ineffective. We can all name more than a few books with incredibly long, hard to grasp titles. The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade by Peter Weiss, and Don’t Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, The Torments of Low Thread Count, The Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems by David Rakoff are only two of the most eloquent examples that come to mind. At a first glance, you will probably be asking yourself the following question: who would actually read these books? After all, if a writer … Read more