X Premium Review: Is Paying To Be Verified On X Worth It?

X Premium Review: Is Paying To Be Verified Worth It?

15th October 2023, marked exactly a month since I subscribed to X Premium and I thought of giving a review based on my personal experience. Is it worth giving Elon Musk your $8 monthly? What are the features that come with X Premium formerly Twitter Blue?

What's X Premium formerly Twitter Blue?

For starters, X Premium is a paid subscription introduced by X  after Elon Musk #TwitterTakeOver that goes for $8 on the web and $11 on Android and iOS in a bid to counter bots on the platforms.  X Premium comes with premium features that a normal user can't access

Why Did I subscribe to X Premium 

First, I subscribed to X premium because I wanted to explore the features offered by X. Secondly, my posts were receiving less impressions despite getting some engagement such as likes and retweets. Thirdly, in line with that, I got Influencer gigs early September to live tweet events. This meant my posts needed to get more impressions for my posts for me to deliver.

What are X Premium Features?

Here are some of the features or benefits you get when you subscribe to  X premium: Edit Post: X doesn’t allow you to edit posts after sending out posts. However, with X premium, you can edit posts  up to 1 hour after sending it out. Undo Post: You can also undo posts before getting visible to your viewers. After undoing it, you can edit. I have used this option more than the edit feature Highlight posts: On X premium you can highlight some of your best posts on your profile. See, the way you can pin a post, yes but now  number of the to a dedicated highlight tab. I have used this alot since it makes it easier for a user to go through my profile and understand what I do and stand for on the platform Post Longer posts:  On the premium version, you can tweet beyond the usual 280 characters. X premium supports 25000 characters with 4 in line images. I find this feature useful, especially when I want to share weekly recap of social media updates. Not bad after all! Get boosted in rankings in conversations and search: If you are on regular X version, you will notice you have view impressions despite getting interaction on posts. X premium boosts your ranking on X feed and also on search. Also, on replies sections your replies are prioritized.  Interestingly when starting in September I had  about 9600 followers and a month later I hit 10.1k followers with more increase. Also, if I compare my X posts impressions between August 14th  to September 14th, I had 262.3K impressions compared to  31 days of having a badge, I got 853.6K impressions  Use Text Formatting: On the web, you can bold and italicize text posts. This comes in handy when I want to emphasize a point or word.   Organize Bookmarks: Bookmarking posts on X is not just enough, you can also organize your bookmarks into folders. I prefer to organize folders to different topics for easier retrieval because it lacks the search feature.   Create Communities. On X premium you can create up to 10 communities and spotlight your communities on your profile. I have a growing community on X on Digital Trends and Insights. Join here Monetize, Make money: When you subscribe you can earn as a creator through X Ads share revenue program once you achieve 5 Million Impressions in the last 3 months.Payouts are made out after every two weeks.. Another way you can make money X is through subscriptions, where you can lock your content behind a certain preferred fee.  Psst! Despite the growth in impressions and followers, I haven’t managed to monetize my account. Get Access to X Pro: Remember the Free tweetdeck? Yes it’s now a premium feature behind 8 dollars renamed as X Pro. Still to explore more with its new interface. Thread Reader: When reading threads, you can use a new reading experience as one continuous post the way long posts look like. I love it! Post longer high quality videos of up to 3 hours long. Account analytics: You will get quick access to your account analytics in the last 7 days.  Account Protection: X Premium allows you to add an extra layer of your account protection with two-factor authentication via SMS. These are some of the X Premium features. You can explore more benefits here

How Do You Get Verified On X?

The verification process on X is very easy. You can choose to get verified on the Web to save up those 3 dollars. 

Here is how to get verified on X for Individual accounts

Step 1. Go to your Profile Menu and Click on “ X” on the Menu. Step 2.  A new window will pop up showing Individual and Verified Organizations Step 3. Next, click on Individual followed and hit “Subscribe” button Step 4. From there decide if you will go for monthly or annual subscription Step 5. Next, Pay by providing your card details and subscribe. Immediately X will grant you access to premium but you will have to wait for them to review your application before the badge appears on your username. Mine took about 4 days to reflect on my X account

Is it worth paying for the blue tick on X?

The answer lies if you find the features locked behind the $8 dollars valuable.  For instance, if you want to grow your account, get prioritized and or are struggling with visibility on the platform, you may consider getting the badge. NB:X is testing a new program known as Not  A Bot that will require non- verified users to pay an annual fee of 1 US dollar to be able to post, retweet, reply, like repost or bookmark posts. Read more here Oct 23-2023: 10 Things That Happened in The Digital Space Last Week

7 Essential Qualities of a Successful Digital Marketing Consultant

What does digital marketing consultant do?

In todays’ ever changing world, you may need to work with a digital marketing consultant to elevate the growth of your business. What does a digital marketing consultant do? A digital marketing consultant is a professional who helps businesses and organizations develop and execute effective digital marketing strategies. They provide expert advice and guidance on various aspects of digital marketing. This will help you achieve their marketing goals and increase their online presence. Here are some key responsibilities of a digital marketing consultant

1. Digital Strategy Development

A consultant collaborates with clients to understand their business objectives and target audience and ideal social media platforms. They develop comprehensive digital marketing strategies tailored to the client's needs. This involves identifying the most suitable digital channels and tactics to reach the target audience effectively.

2. Run Paid Advertising Campaigns

Hiring a digital marketing consultant will assist you in planning, creating, and managing online advertising campaigns across platforms such as Google Ads, social media platforms, and YouTube advertising. They will help you optimize campaigns to achieve maximum reach, engagement, and conversions within the allocated budget.

3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

As you know, SEO is crucial for improving a website's visibility in search engine results. You will not be able to execute this alone if you don’t know how to do it. That's why you will need an experienced digital marketing consultant. A digital marketing consultant will help you analyze websites, conduct keyword research, optimize content, and provide recommendations to enhance search engine rankings and drive organic traffic Click To Tweet. Some will even be able to write engaging and informative content for your website.

4. Content Marketing

Content is King! It’s what drives engagement, leads and conversion for any business. A consultant will also help you develop winning content marketing strategies that engage and attract the right  target audience. You can read this article to understand types of content and why it’s important to brands. Consultants often assess the performance of content and make suggestions for improvement.

5. Social Media Marketing

Moreover, consultants assist in developing social media strategies to enhance brand visibility, engage with the audience, and drive website traffic. Right now, we have top social media platforms and emerging platforms. Platforms  like Threads, Lemon8, Bluesky and much more to come. Therefore a consultant will recommend platforms suitable for your business, create content calendars, and provide insights. Also, they will optimize social media posts and advertising to ensure you gain the most from your marketing efforts and return investment.

6. Analytics and Reporting

With digital marketing you can easily track and measure your marketing efforts. To add on, working with a consultant will help you use various tools to track and analyze the performance of digital marketing campaigns. These could be web analytics tools like Google Analytics, In-app social media analytics or third party analytics tools like Semrush, Sprout Social among others. Moreover, They will provide you with reports while highlighting key metrics, trends, and areas for improvement. Consultants use these insights to refine strategies and make data-driven decisions.

7. Digital Marketing Training

Finally, some consultants may offer training sessions to educate clients on digital marketing principles, tools, and best practices.If you are in Kenya and you would like to have in-house training for your team, you can hire a certified digital marketer like Egline Samoei Click To Tweet. She will help you gain a better understanding of digital marketing and empowers them to execute strategies independently if desired. Yo can reach out via email at egline@samodigitalagency.com

In Conclusion

To conclude a digital marketing consultant helps businesses leverage digital channels effectively to achieve their marketing objectives, improve brand awareness, drive website traffic, and generate leads or sales. Lastly, they stay updated with the latest trends and technologies in the digital marketing landscape to provide valuable insights and guidance to their clients.  

How To Create A Successful SEO Content Strategy in 2023

Google keeps updating its ranking algorithm; hence digital marketers and business websites must update their SEO content strategy. The competition to rank better in SEO and attract more visitors narrows to having a winning SEO content strategy. This article guides you on how to create a successful SEO content strategy in 2023.

1. Understand your Target audience

Before creating any content, you must know your audience, interests, and search intent. Audiences visit your page not because they like it but because they need a solution. If you don't offer a solution to their needs, you probably add no value to them, and they will visit other pages.     Understanding your audience can help you create relevant and engaging content that resonates with them, increasing traffic, engagement, and conversions. There are many ways to understand your audience. You can conduct market research, carry out client interviews, create personas, use Google analytics, and analyze your competitors. With the evolving technological landscape, make sure you align your strategies with the industry trends.  

2. Conduct Keyword Research

While the SEO algorithm uses several parameters to rank a website, keywords cannot be underestimated. Keywords are the backbone of any SEO content strategy. Conducting keyword research is vital to identify what people are searching for and how to optimize your content for those queries. Simply put, keywords give you the user's intention and subsequently attract an audience looking for your solution.  Finding relevant and high-volume keywords is a game-changer, and high-ranking sites can attest to it. Pull all your strings to obtain the right keywords for your content. While finding these keywords can be an uphill task, things become far much easier with keyword research tools. Input suitable keyword phrases, long-tail, and funnel keywords to generate high-ranking keywords for your page. Finally, integrate the generated keywords into your page and see the magic traffic you will pull. 

3. Create High-Quality Content

Creating high-quality content is a must-have ingredient in your SEO strategies. It never gets old, and there are no signs that quality content will drop its weight in the SERP algorithm. The beauty of quality content is that it provides value to your audience and gives them a reason to visit and stick around your page.  Creating quality content is not a rocket science task. Just make your content error-free, engaging, informative, authentic, factual, and relevant. Furthermore, add visual and multimedia elements to make your content eye-catchy and genuine. You can use charts, graphs, videos, audio, appealing images, and data tables. Well-crafted content enhances user experience and statistically generates high click-through rates (CTR). 

4. Optimize Your Content

Optimizing your content for search engines and devices is an important SEO content strategy in 2023. You ought to make your content visible to search engines by optimizing your content, including keywords in title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and throughout the body of the content. Make it organized and appealing to users.  Also, ensure that your content is mobile-friendly and loads quickly. Remember, millions of users use mobile phones to shop online, and this trend will continue. If your page is not mobile-friendly and takes too long to load, then be ready to lose more leads.   

5. Align your SEO Strategies with Brand Goals

. Aligning your SEO strategies with brand goals is crucial for the success of your business. SEO strategies deviating from your brand goals can waste efforts, resources, and poor ROI. When your SEO strategies align with your brand goals, you create a consistent message across all channels and experience increased brand awareness and recognition. Your brand goals communicate your identity and objectives. SEO efforts can help you reach your target audience, build trust and authority, and drive conversions. By aligning your SEO strategies with your brand goals, your efforts target achievable, measurable, and meaningful results. You create a strong brand identity, gain a competitive edge, and ultimately drive long-term growth and success.

Conclusion

Getting a successful SEO content strategy for 2023 can be tough, especially with the rapidly evolving SEO landscape. Nevertheless, you don't necessarily need to be an expert to pull outstanding SEO strategies for your brand. Many SEO strategies fit your brand and have been well-elaborated in this article. Leverage these SEO strategies and attract massive traffic to your site. 

8 Effective Ways To Use Twitter to Grow Your Business

How To Use Twitter to Grow Your Business

Twitter is one of the most powerful social media platforms that you can use to raise awareness about your business, engage with customers, and generate leads. Twitter boasts 229 million daily active users as of April 2022. So, if you are still wondering if you should use Twitter to grow your business, the answer is “Yes.” All you need to know is how to set up your account and connect engagingly with people. Remember, people, go to Twitter to discover what is trending and not to be marketed to by brands. Therefore, when your business is on Twitter, you need to have conversations that matter to your community that will help your business grow and thrive. This article looks at ways to use Twitter to grow your business. But first, let us look at what account you need.

Types of Accounts Available on Twitter

In the past, Twitter used to have one general type of account. However, in the recent past, Twitter introduced the following:

• Twitter for Professionals is meant to provide businesses, creators, publishers, and developers of all industries and sizes to showcase and highlight their content, products, and services directly on Twitter for free.
• Twitter Blue which is a monthly subscription that gives the most engaged people on Twitter exclusive access to premium features

Tip: Set your regular Twitter account and switch to Twitter Professional.  This will help you  specify the category and account type as a business. It will be easier to grow your business on Twitter.

Ways to Use Twitter to Grow Your Business

Create an Outstanding Profile

Begin by setting up your business account. Choose a display name that is easy to read. Also, use and handle that is consistent with your brand. You may not get the handle that matches your brand name because it’s been taken, but try to use something that still aligns with your brand name. For instance, @SamodigitalAgency was taken, we used @SamodigitaA Next, you need a cover photo that compliments your brand colours and acts as an ever-changing billboard showcasing what’s new with your business. If you have offers or promotions or are celebrating a season, you can change it accordingly. Also, have a profile photo which preferably should be your company logo. The ideal dimension of a Twitter profile photo is 400x400px, whereas the cover photo dimension is 1500x500. After that, you need to create a memorable bio that provides Information like your business mission statement, value proposition, location, branded hashtag, or operating hours.

Pin a Tweet

Once you have set up your profile, it’s time to send out Tweets. You will have to create different tweets daily or weekly. If you had created a tweet showcasing your brand, it would get overshadowed by the latest tweets. Therefore, it’s advisable to pin the tweet. A pinned tweet will appear on top of your Twitter profile, and you can change it anytime you have something new you want to inform your audience. Here is an example of pinned Tweet

Why should you monitor social networks as a brand/ business? Social media monitoring is the process of tracking hashtags, keywords, and brand mentions in order to stay informed about your audience and industry trends & topics We can help you do social media monitoring in Kenya pic.twitter.com/20CHEc88XK

— Brandmoran- Social Listening Tool (@BrandmoranKE) December 17, 2021

 

Create Engaging Content

You need to create engaging content to capture the attention of your followers and target audience. Try and  express this through different supported formats like texts, videos, images, infographics, GIFs, and memes. You can also combine all the formats, as Twitter now lets you post images, videos, and GIFs in a single tweet.  Be creative in how you create your content. Ensure they are informative and educational and add value to your clients. Also, add some humour to your content. Humour humanizes your brand. It’s also memorable and easily shareable. A brand like Mwango Capital uses memes to recap and share news about the business in Kenya.

????? ???? ????'? ??? ???????? ???? ?? ????? ?? ??????? ?? @CAK_Kenya:

1. KRA is set to come down hard on Kenyans as the President has set them a target of doubling double tax collections by the end of his first term.#MwangoMemes pic.twitter.com/7gtRjY04pr — Mwango Capital (@MwangoCapital) October 29, 2022

Work with Influencers

Influencer marketing has proven to be one of the most effective marketing strategies. Influencers help create brand awareness, reach a new target audience, raise brand advocacy, and increase sales. Moreover, people trust consumer recommendations. You must work with the right influencers within your industry and niche, even when they have a small following. According to a blog post by Twitter, brands are now shifting to working with micro-influencers over mega-influencers since they offer trusted reviews and have built a strong following that can be valuable to brands. Here is an example of how ShowmaxKenya worked with one of the top social media influencers, Janet Machuka to promote their shows

On my Twitter Spaces tonight sponsored by @ShowmaxKenya!

A chat on a documentary called “Love Crimes of Kabul.” Joining link: https://t.co/KEVR2sj9qb #Showmaxing pic.twitter.com/BTjFOSZYEy — Janet Machuka (@janetmachuka_) October 31, 2022

Be Consistent

Another way to grow your business effectively on Twitter is by being consistent on the platform. Tweet at a specific frequency, depending on what works for your brand. For some brands, tweeting three times a week works for them, while tweeting daily works for others. Choose what works for you and stick to that.

Connect with People

As a business, you are also free to follow other accounts. Follow the people within your industry, thought leaders, partners, stakeholders, brand advocates, customers, and fans. These groups of people will likely follow back and engage with your content and eventually help to create brand awareness.

Leverage Twitter Spaces

During the Covid-19 pandemic, social audio content emerged that helped people connect while keeping their distance. We saw the emergence of platforms like Clubhouse, Facebook audio rooms, and Spotify Greenroom among others. To keep up with this trend, Twitter introduced Spaces. Spaces are live audio conversations on Twitter. As a business, you can host spaces to discuss industry topics, get feedback about your product or answer questions about your product. Twitter Spaces helps you get real-time engagements, build a community, connect with cultural moments and get instant feedback. Try to host spaces consistently or one of your team could participate in other spaces within your niche. Below is an  example of how Synnefa a Kenyan Agribusiness Startup is using Twitter Spaces

The future is calling, and it is here to stay. With the development of new innovative technologies, farmers are leading the way.

Join us tonight at 8PM as @taitangetich shares his journey with @FarmersStories! Twitter Spaces Link: https://t.co/5ru8oPOqw7#Agri4Value pic.twitter.com/h35GU5ghli — Synnefa (@synnefa_KE) March 16, 2022

Promoted Tweets

You can also promote your tweets through Twitter ads to reach a wider audience. Twitter ads campaigns allow you to achieve your marketing goal, like brand awareness, increasing followers, driving consideration, or delivering conversions. Twitter lets you quickly promote your posts, grow your followers, and increase your reach if you build brand awareness.

Conclusion

Twitter offers you immense ways to grow your business. Whether you are a solopreneur, a small business, or a large business, you can connect with fans, communities, audiences, and partners and grow your brand. Just understand the platform and use the above ideas to grow your business, get leads and make conversions. If you need help with creating social media content or blogs, contact us at info@samodigitalagency.com.

Quote Tweet vs. Retweet? 5 Reasons Why You Need Retweet Posts

The engagement metrics on Twitter are retweets, quote retweets, likes, link clicks and impressions. However, retweeting is viewed as an important metric on Twitter, not just for a marketing campaign but even for Tweep(user). In this article we look at the difference between a retweet, a quote tweet and then look at the importance of retweeting a post. Let us get started!

What is a retweet?

Twitter defines a retweet as a re-post of a Tweet. The Retweet feature helps you and others quickly share that Tweet with all of your followers. You can Retweet your own Tweets or Tweets from someone else. Some users disagree with Retweeting your own Tweets and even made hilarious Tweets About Retweeting Your Own Tweets, but you have heard from the horse's mouth; You can retweet your own tweet!

What is a Quote tweet?

On Twitter, you can retweet or quote a tweet. When you quote a tweet, you are retweeting a tweet and adding your comments. It could be a recent Tweet post that you want to add your perspective or an old post that is relevant again. Twitter introduced Quote Tweets in 2020 as temporary tweet format ahead of the November 3rd US presidential election, to help prevent abuse and the spread of misinformation.

Tweets about a Tweet add more to the conversation, so we’ve made them even easier to find.

Retweets with comments are now called Quote Tweets and they've joined the Tweet detail view. Tap into a Tweet, then tap "Quote Tweets" to see them all in one place. pic.twitter.com/kMqea6AC80 — Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) August 31, 2020

  In both cases you just retweeting but quote retweet you can add your comment.

Why Do You Retweet on Twitter?

So why do we retweet? Now that we have distinguished between the two types of retweets available on Twitter, you need to know the importance of retweeting.

1.      To quickly share information

Many will agree that they retweet as a quick way to share information while attributing it to the source. Assuming trusted source posts a piece of breaking news, you will likely retweet the post instead of creating a new one of the same content. The news could be about a winner of an event, say the Tokyo Olympics, the death of a popular figure, natural calamities, court ruling or any other news. Below is a poll I conducted on the reasons why people retweet.

Hey Tweeps, why do you retweet a Tweet?

— Egline Samoei (@EguarEglin) July 9, 2021

 

2.      To amplify information

People also retweet tweets so that they can amplify the information to their followers. Also, it is a means of sharing information, but this time, it reaches a new audience or your audience. Assuming there is a post by Samodigital Agency on tips on content creation, I would retweet the post so that it can reach many people interested in the marketing tips.

3.      To add your perspective

You may come across a post that you may want to add your sentiments different from the sources. In this case, you will quote a tweet with your sentiments. If an old tweet has become relevant again, you can retweet it and quote with the current context. You can also quote a tweet poll to give the results or a finding of a poll. Here is a good scenario by social media marketing strategist and Founder of Africa Tweet Chat Janet Machuka

Wow! According to this poll, most people can comfortably quit Instagram.

Once crazy response was, "I don't have clothes for Instagram." Well, please wear that one dress all the time. https://t.co/cpHqagVVdV pic.twitter.com/NfKiTsonSu — Janet Machuka (@janetmachuka_) September 7, 2021

 

4.      To make one's presence as a listener visible

You can also show support to a person on Twitter by retweeting their post and making them visible.  Mark Trammell, a design researcher at Twitter, says, "People also retweet to introduce their followers to someone new or to shine a spotlight on someone deserving…The retweeter becomes the person who brings the new cool kid in town to the party."

5.      Build relationships

When you retweet a person's tweet, you are not only sharing information or amplifying their tweet but also building relationships. Yes, that is how online relationships are built and nurtured. You may have come across a situation where a person retweets your tweet, and you go ahead and check their profile and even follow them. With time you get to build meaningful connections.

Wrapping Up

Engagements on Twitter vary but retweeting a tweet is seen to be more powerful. It is an easier way to share and amplify information. It also gives you a chance to gain followers and attract relevant personalities. Keep tweeting, keep retweeting. Eventually, build and grow your network! Follow Egline Samoei Twitter and LinkedIn as well as Samodigital Agency on LinkedIn and Twitter for more engagements.  

Facebook Page vs Profile: Is it Better to Have a Facebook Page or Profile?

Facebook Page vs Profile: Is it Better to Have a Facebook Page or Profile?

Facebook allows anyone to create a Facebook page or personal profile. So, which one is better to have? If you have a business, it is always advisable to separate your personal profile from a Facebook page. When scrolling through a Facebook feed you will see posts from personal profiles who are friends, pages you have liked and even groups you have joined.  A few weeks ago, a friend was venturing into photography and I received a friend request from a name that looked familiar. Looking through the profile, it was the brand name of his photography. This never sounded well for me and urged them to create a Facebook business page instead.  Remember he already has a Facebook personal profile and is now creating another Facebook profile under his photography name. So, why have a Facebook page not a Facebook profile for business? First, we need to distinguish between a Facebook profile Facebook page

Facebook Profile

A Facebook Profile is your personal account on Facebook, where you tell people about yourself, add friends and share personal updates. A profile is what you first create when you sign up on Facebook by providing personal information and creating a password. With a Facebook profile, you can connect with friends, family, colleagues, and follow brands and organizations that are of interest.

Importance of a Facebook Profile

• You will be able to create posts, share videos, photos
• You can share information and stories with your friends and family
• Like, follow and get updates on businesses and organisations that interest you

Facebook Page

A Facebook Page is your business's digital presence on Facebook that you create using your personal profile. A Page has tools to help you grow your business, connect with customers and see how people interact with it. With a Facebook business page, you add details of your website like contacts, website, services and get analytics. Facebook page is ideal for businesses, organisations, charities, public figures Previous Post: What is Doomscrolling and How To Avoid Doomscrolling?

Why You Should Have a Facebook Business Page for your Brand or As A Brand

Imagine a brand like Nike sending you a friend request, or you sending a friend request to a company like Coca-Cola? You find it odd, right? Now, imagine how many friend requests those companies could be receiving if they created a Facebook profile instead of a Facebook page where their fans could just like and follow within a click! Tip?

A facebook business page should be part of your social media strategy, not a replacement for your website Build your authority in Industry Own a website #websiteisimportant #websitedesign pic.twitter.com/ztqxeLh7D4

— Av (@GameSpells) April 24, 2021

That is exactly why brands need a business page no matter how small your business is. Try and look at the future. Your fanbase, community or customers will grow over time. Here are other benefits of having a business page over a profile

Get  A Wider Reach

With a Facebook page, you get an advantage of a wider reach on your posts. Page’s content is often public and Facebook users can search and view your content. When your followers share or comment on your page, their friends will get to see your posts. Some will be prompted to follow you back.  Tip: When posting content on your page, add relevant trending hashtags within your industry so that you can get a wider reach. In 2020, Facebook Promoted the Use of Hashtags on Posts with a promise of Wider Reach

Unlimited Follows/Likes

Unlike a Facebook profile that limits you to 5000 confirmed friends and 1000 friend requests in the queue, pages allow millions of people to follow your brand. You can invite friends to like your page and  grow your community. Moreover, you can also manage your followers by banning disrespectful followers or muting insensitive words on your page.

Target Your Market

The beauty of having a page is that you can market your page to a specific targeted audience. Also, you can boost posts to the targeted audience or lookalike audience. A lookalike audience is customers who are similar to your current audience. Moreover, with a targeted audience you can target people:

•  According to their interests, gender, age, location, behaviours and demographics
• That  like your page
•  Who like your page and their friends
•  In your local area

Tip Facebook Page Posts: The Rise of Memes and Why You Need to Start Using Meme Marketing

A Cheap Way to Market and Advertise Your Brand

Facebook pages offer you an affordable way to advertise and market to your target market. Within less than $2 you can reach about 443-1.3k people per day with 68-195 engagements! Facebook promotions are affordable and allow you to target the right audience. NB: My Ad Center settings are in Kenya currencies for the pages I manage.

Get Free Analytics

With a Facebook page, you will get free overview analytics and detailed insights into your posts. You will get insights on total page followers, organic followers, paid followers, daily page views, organic vs paid reach, page likes among others. Another free detailed page insight you get on the Facebook page is the People insights. You can know your fans, followers, people engaged, people reached by age, gender, location and language. What a free useful insight!

You Can Schedule Posts

Sometimes you may have a busy schedule but you still want to engage your customers on Facebook. At times, you want to have your post published when most of your page followers are online but you will not be online then. Here is where the Facebook Schedule post feature comes in. You can schedule posts to any day and time, unlike a Facebook profile.

You can allow other People to Manage your Page

Teamwork is paramount! A Facebook page allows you to add other people to manage your page such as comments, create ads and delete comments. You can assign your friends or your team with roles like editor, moderator, analyst, advertiser or a custom role.

Conclusion

If you are a personal brand or have a brand, consider creating a Facebook page over a Facebook profile. Although you must have a Facebook profile to create a Facebook page, you have a Facebook and grow it.  With a business page, you will enjoy a pool of privileges in marketing, get data insights and manage your community easily. For more tips on digital marketing,  follow Egline Samoei on Twitter and LinkedIn   

The Rise of Memes and Why You Need to Start Using Meme Marketing

Today, you can’t miss to come across a meme as you scroll through  your favourite social media platform.  People relate with memes and they will often share them from one social media platform to another. You will even find pages or accounts dedicated purely to memes. Some social media users have even branded themselves as king and queens of meme-making. Since memes are being embraced globally and they communicate humorously, you should start incorporating meme marketing in your digital marketing strategies.

What are Memes

Going by online definition, memes pronounced as /meems/ are images, videos, pieces of text, typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by internet users, often with slight variations. One of the most popular memes in 2021 is a photo of US Senator, Bernie Sanders sitting with legs and arms crossed comfortably has been superimposed into images from around the world. This photo went viral and I bet you must have seen it.  

What is Meme Marketing?

Meme marketing is the use of memes by brands to promote their product and services Click To Tweet. Some brands have taken lead in meme marketing as one of their social media strategies since they are free, easy to create and are sharable. According to the 2021 Social Media Trends report, meme marketing is one of the social media marketing trends in 2021.  The report says “memes are spreading across the internet as a fun way to engage communities. They’re not all positive and cute, however. As per any communication, they can be used to manipulate the mindset of viewers. They can be used to normalize extreme behaviour, like external agencies interfering with elections or other major events. In 2021, you need to be ready to protect your brand from memes.” The report further says thatin the coming months and years, expect memes to be used more to persuade consumers, both on key issues such as these, and the ones that could impact your brand Click To Tweet.   Worldwide mentions of the term "meme" has been increasing over time according to Google Trends   Also Read: Tips for using hashtags on Facebook  for a Wider Reach

What to Consider when Creating Meme for Marketing

Here are some tips to consider when creating memes for marketing

1.      Know Your Audience

The first thing to consider before making a meme is to analyse your target audience. If your target audience is millennials or baby boomers you can craft content and caption what is relatable to them.

2.      Be Trendy

You need to keep up with trends and hijack your social media posts with memes of what people are talking about what is usually known as memejacking. Take for instance, on March 29, 2021 the Ever Given ship was freed in the Suez Canal by days after being since March 23 causing traffic in the canal. A number of brands were keeping an eye on the trending event and once it was freed they posted memes around their brands on Ever Given ship. Here are some examples trendy meme marketing on Ever Given

Don’t worry. We’ve got this. pic.twitter.com/JwOBhJtu4h

— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) March 29, 2021

A quick solution to the #Evergiven problem in the #Suez...

We give you, BATTAASH ⚡ pic.twitter.com/KH4xe1NM7Y — World Horse Racing (@WHR) March 29, 2021

However, be aware not to use meme on sensitive topics like violence, rape, race, assault etc that may damage your brand.

3.      Make Sure the Meme Matches Your Brand Voice and Personality

Just like any other brand content that you post on social media, from post to stories it should match your brand personality and voice.  It makes it easier for your audience to relate it to your band. Neil Patel emphasizes that, no matter what you decide to do with your memes, be consistent with your brand persona and stick with it. Otherwise, you risk confusing (and losing) your audience. What should guide you in creating memes that are in line with your brand voice and personality, you need to define the target persona.  Here are some guiding questions by Julia Enthoven in a Social Media Examiner article on how to use memes for marketing.

• What content does your customer consume?
• What music, TV shows, or celebrities do they like?
• How can you delight and entertain them?
• What problems do they face that are common to their community?

Note that the worst thing to do with memes is to add  a call to action (CTA) such as subscribe, purchase, or follow. Memes are a fun way of engaging with your audience therefore they will share them, which will then create awareness and eventually generate leads. Click To Tweet

4.      Repurpose Popular Memes

Creating original memes might be difficult.  At times you may not be able to create one that matches the current moment of what is happening. As a result, you can reuse existing GIF or Meme libraries online.  Some of the popular meme online libraries include GIPHY, imgflip and Meme High Res Stock, and iStock just to mention a few. You can visit these meme libraries and repurpose exciting memes by adding captions, brand font and logos.

 

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5.      Be Cautious About Your Memes and Research Well

Research your memes well and understand the cultures so that you don’t offend online users. On one occasion, the Chelsea football club had to delete a meme after some fans took offence to the Kante meme shared by Chelsea. Chelsea had created a meme in wake of the huge container ship, the MV Ever Given, finally being freed after being stuck in the Suez Canal in Egypt since last Tuesday Also Read: What is Doomscrolling and How To Avoid Doomscrolling?

Benefits of Meme Marketing

You will notice that the most successful brands across the globe are incorporating meme marketing in the social media content strategy. This then begs the question of why you should use memes in marketing. Here are some benefits of using memes in marketing.

Memes Are Easy to Create and Cheap

Creating memes is easy since you can find existing ones on online memes libraries like GIPHY and  imgflip.  From there, yours is just to repurpose them to align with your brand voice and personality.

Meme Humanize Your Brand

When people are interacting with a brand online, they don’t want a robotic kind of engagement. They want to feel they are engaging with a human behind the screen. Memes give you that opportunity to humanize your brand through memes.

Memes are relatable hence Increase Engagement

The beauty of memes is that they are relatable with people and tend to share them willingly. How many memes have you seen today on social media? A number of them, right? probably you have even shared them or reacted to them. By nature, memes are widely shareable hence it increases engagement.

Memes create a sense of community

Memes create a sense of belonging among your followers and audience when you use memes that your community can relate to.  You must have seen comments like “I can relate” on a meme.

Conclusion

Meme marketing is still new and a few brands have embraced it.  You should also start using memes in your marketing strategy since they create engagements, allow brands to communicate their brand personality funnily, humanize a brand and create a sense of community. Connect with Egline Samoei on LinkedIn and Twitter

Telegram was Most Downloaded App Globally in January 2021 as WhatsApp Drops to 5th

Telegram was the most downloaded non-gaming app worldwide for January 2021. It had more than 63 million installs, 3.8 times its downloads in January 2020. Click To Tweet The countries with the most significant number of Telegram installs were India at 24 percent, followed by Indonesia at 10 percent, according to the latest data provided by Sensor Tower Intelligence.

Why the Sudden Surge in Telegram Downloads?

Ever since WhatsApp announced their new privacy policy in January 2021 that WhatsApp users would essentially be sharing more of their in-app data with Facebook, users were not comfortable with the update and began looking for alternative messaging apps.  The most favourable WhatsApp messaging apps became Telegram and Signal.

December 2020 Vs. January 2021 Non- Gaming Top Apps Worldwide

As you can see from the top apps worldwide for January 2021 Chart, Telegram became the most downloaded app globally. It was then followed by TikTok and Signal in the third position. WhatsApp was the fifth most downloaded app down from 3^rd position in December 2020. If you break it down per digital distribution service,Telegram was the most downloaded app on the Google play store, while Signal was the second most downloaded app, with WhatsApp dragging at the sixth position. On the contrary, TikTok was the most downloaded app on the App… Click To Tweet In December 2020, TikTok was the most downloaded non-gaming app worldwide for December 2020, with close to 56 million installs. According to analytics by Sensor Tower, the countries with the largest number of TikTok installs were from Douyin in China at 11 percent, followed by the United States at 10 percent. WhatsApp was topping at top 3, while Telegram was the 9^th most downloaded app and the Signal app is missing out in the top 10

Bottom Line

The WhatsApp privacy update backlash led to an increase in downloads of Telegram and Signal messaging apps.  Since WhatsApp announced a three-month delay of a new privacy policy initially slated to go into effect on February 8th, how will it impact the February downloads? That is something worth watching! Follow Egline Samoei on Twitter  

SaaS Content Marketing: 8 Effective Habits for Quality Content

Why Quality Content?

"Google only loves you when everyone else loves you first." – Wendy Pier.Google only loves you when everyone else loves you first. Click To Tweet To rank on Google's top page, you should create content that is in line with Google's Algorithm. It is not just about ranking top on the Google search engine but creating authentic and valuable content for your target audience "Google wants to reward high-quality sites that contain original content. So not only does great content make a better website, but it also improves your site's rankings, which can have a very positive impact on your business.t that is useful to your audience." Says Neil Patel, the co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar and KISSmetrics. Therefore, there is a need to create quality content for your website or blog post. Now, let us look at habits you need to have to create quality content for any SaaS tool

1.     Have a SaaS Content Marketing Strategy

Having a strategy is a key ingredient in producing quality content.  Set out your goals, establish KPIs, profile your target audience, choose content type, and determine how you will measure the results.  As a content marketing team, ensure that you meet weekly or daily to discuss your content marketing strategy. The meetings have proven to be yield good results for content marketing. According to the B2B content marketing report, effectiveness is greater among teams that meet more frequently (61% of the most effective B2B marketers meet daily or weekly). With the Covid-19 pandemic forcing organizations to work remotely, you can still have meetings virtually via video conferencing tools like Zoom, Google Hangouts, Skype, etc. If you are a sole content marketer, you still need to evaluate your content marketing strategies and plan.

2.    Create Original Content

Always create original content that resonates well with your brand audience. Google does not like plagiarized content, and you will be punished for that. As a matter of fact, there many contents out there that you can reference but do not copy and paste the content to your website.

3.      Update Your Content

Effective SaaS content marketing is not always about creating new content only. It is also about updating the existing articles, How-to topics, blog posts or any content on your website.  Google Search Console is a great platform to give you clues on what you need to update on your existing articles.  You will find new search terms that will enable you to add or remove from your existent article. Take, for example, if you are into the SaaS industry and your company has added a new feature that is useful during the Covid-19 pandemic or software user interface has been updated. You have articles written base on the old interface. Is it not time to update them?

4.      Your Content Should Provide Answers

When writing SaaS content, write content that provides solutions to your readers or clients. Write educational content and avoid promotional content. When writing SaaS content, write content that provides solutions to your readers or clients. Write educational content and avoid promotional content Click To Tweet A person clicks on a link to your article because they know the article will provide an answer to what they have queried on the search engine.  Neil Patel adds by saying that "people don't just want answers, they want answers fast. So, make your content easy to scan so people can pick up the juicy, important bits quickly."

5.      Monitor Brand Mentions

There are plenty of reasons why you need to track your brand mentions online. An online user can review your product or service and they fail to link back to your site. In this case, you will have a great reason to reach them out and request them to link back. On the other hand, if it is a negative review, you will reach out to them and handle the situation before it gets worse. Use tools like Google Alerts, Brand24, Brandmentions, Semrush Branding monitoring, among others, to monitor your brand online.Use tools like Google Alerts, Brand24, Brandmentions and Semrush Branding monitoring tool to monitor your brand online. Click To Tweet

6.      Incorporate Images and Videos

The best way customers can learn and feel about your product or service is by adding images and videos to your website content. Using the visuals graphics illustrates the point you are making clearly.  For instance, you are writing an article on installing or using your app or software. Using images for each step provides the reader with a clear step on what they need to do.

7.      Share your Content

After writing your content or creating those beautiful infographics, you need to share them with your communities. Publish the content on your blog, share the content on social media and forums like Quora. Sharing content creates engagement, brand awareness, generates a lead, increases sales, and leads to upselling or cross-selling. With that in mind, always add a call to action in your articles.

8.      Monitor and Evaluate your Content Performance

Now, you have created your content, published it and shared it with your community. What next? What follows is for you to monitor and track the performance of your content. A good web monitoring tool you can use is Google analytics. It well helps you monitor your website activities such as real-time traffic, pages per session, bounce rate, traffic channels, user's behaviour and devices they use etc. From the Google web insights, you will be to understand your target audience, improve your site performance, and improve your SEO content.

Wrap Up

Quality and creativity are key to SaaS content marketing that you can infuse into your overall digital marketing strategy.  When creating content, always provide value to your customers and be simple and straightforward. Keep updating your content, and remember to evaluate your content performance. In an event where you want a SaaS content writer or tech writer to write articles, blog posts, guest posts, press release or editorials, Samodigital Agency can do that for you. Send an email at egline@samodigitalagency.com. You can also follow Egline on LinkedIn and Twitter.          

What is Content Marketing and its Importance to Brands

Do you know what content marketing means? Probably not because you have clicked on this article. It is a buzz word for digital marketers and marketers that pops up in their conversations.  This article explains what content marketing, types of content marketing, and its benefits. Let us get started with its definition

What is Content Marketing?

One of the popular definitions is “It is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action” according to CMI The takeaway from that definition is creating and distributing valuable, relevant content to attract and retain an audience.  In one way or another, you may have engaged in some of these contents unknowingly. In simple terms, it is a type of digital marketing that enables brands to connect with their customers and audience without selling them their products or services. It is a way to tell brand stories through different content forms like blog posts, social media posts, emails, gated content, and video. To add on, content Marketing is not something very new since.  A brand like John Deere has used it since 1895. John Deere is OG’s of content marketing. They revolutionized marketing by introducing Furrow Magazine.

 “Furrow magazine provides the reader a mix of current issues in farming with both local and international background, and best practice examples as well as exclusive news and facts on John Deere products and company strategy.” Sriram Sankar

See that! John Deere is providing value to its customers who are farmers through the Magazine.

Types of Content Marketing

By now, you have an idea and glimpse of the types of content you should use.  Let us just list some popular types of content marketing used by modern marketers.

• Articles
• Audio-Podcasts, Voice tweets
• Blog posts
• Case studies
• E-books
• E-Courses
• Infographics
• How to guides
• Newsletters
• Press Release
• Presentations
• Photos
• Social Media content
• Videos
• Whitelists
• Webinars
• Website Content
• User-generated content

Now, if you want to get started with content marketing and want articles, blog posts or website content, contact Samodigital Agency.  They will help with content creation and writing since they specialize in content writing for brands.

Importance of Content Marketing

There many benefits that come with deploying content marketing as one of your digital strategies. Here are some benefits:

• Increased sales: Great content creates awareness of your brand to potential customers; build relations, and they will eventually consider your product or service over your competitor.
• Increased audience retention:  With compelling content, you will keep your audience hooked, and they will come back for more.
• Cost savings: It is cheaper compared to other forms of marketing strategies. A study by DemandMetric revealed that content marketing costs about 62% less than traditional marketing tactics, and it generates about 3 times as many leads!
• Better customers who have more loyalty:  Other than retaining customers, you will get loyal customers.
• Higher Search Engine Ranking:  Since Google loves good content, you will get high page rank hence high website traffic.
•  Building Email list: Content like newsletters, website forms, webinars enables brands to get relevant email lists from potential customers and loyal customers.
• Create brand credibility: When you create compelling content that is valuable, consistent and educational, customers will use it as a credible source of information. As a result, your brand will become credible.
• Generate Leads: Valuable content will make customers more interested in your brand. Therefore, when creating content, always add Call to Actions (CTA.)
• Social Media Growth: When the target audience engage with your relevant content, they will go ahead and follow your brand on social media. Others will even share your social media content or web content.

Conclusion

To conclude, content marketing is a powerful strategy that you need to use to build authority, increase sales, create brand awareness and create value for your audience. Samodigital Agency is a content creation agency that you can contact and help you get started.