Category: Digital Marketing

SEO is not all about optimizing for the right keywords. You have to nail your On-Page SEO to ensure that the page speed of your website is between 0-3 seconds. Keep reading to find out How Page Speed Affects SEO and how to boost your page speed in this blog. 

The page speed of a web page is the time it takes to load up on a browser. A lot of factors can cause poor page speed. You need to identify why your pages are slow and implement SEO practices using reliable tools to boost the page speed of your website. 

 

What Is Page Speed in SEO?

 

Page speed is the time required for a page to load when a user clicks on it through Search Engine Result Pages. 

There has been a debate on whether page speed is a ranking factor. Will search engines not prioritize a page that loads faster but contains nothing valuable? Or will it rank an authoritative page higher that loads slower? 

Before we crack this question, we’ll have to take a brief look at the history of How Page Speed Affects SEO.

 

The History – How Much Does Page Speed Affect SEO?

Google announced in 2010 that they had decided to identify site speed as a ranking factor. Back in the day, the update to the search algorithm pushed in 2010 by Google only applied to desktop results. Google made changes to its search algorithm for mobile users in July 2018. 

The official announcement stated that Google will now count page speed as a ranking factor for mobile like it does for desktop users. 

 

The Importance of Page Speed in SEO

Boosting page speed takes a lot of time and effort, but it’s something you should not ignore. Remember that you have to optimize for speed other than writing quality content if you want to rank higher on SERPs. Here’s why fast page speed matters in SEO:

 

One cannot ignore the importance of page speed as a google ranking factor for mobile users.

Source: Think with Google

 

Mobile traffic now makes up more than half of the global web traffic. It’s essential to target mobile users if you want to boost the credibility of your business. The best way to target your mobile audience is to claim higher SERP rankings by boosting the speed of your web pages. 

Improving the speed of your web pages can help you increase dwell time and reduce bounce rate. You can also implement the AMP framework to decrease the load time of your web pages. 

 

As mentioned above, Google and other search engines rank pages with better page speed higher on SERPs – and this is How Page Speed Affects SEO of your website. Focusing only on content will not enable you to get more visitors to your website. You need to optimize the speed of your web pages if you want your website to rank higher on SERPs. 

 

 

According to a report published by Kissmetrics, users will be quick to leave your page if it doesn’t load up faster. You can only increase your conversion rate if your website responds quickly. Allowing the users to interact with your products and services without any delay can make it easier to make more sales. 

 

Source: Finalsite

 

Improving the User Experience for your website visitors is more important than you think. With the decreasing attention span of online users, you need to provide relevant information in the shortest possible time. 

People will be quick to leave your page if your website doesn’t load up fast. This is why you have to enhance the speed of your web pages to keep users engaged in your products or service. 

 

What Is A Good Page Speed?

Now that you know How Page Speed Affects SEO, you should also know about the ideal page speed of a website.

Experts suggest that your website should load up between 0-3 seconds if you want to boost your conversions. 

It’s easier to identify what page speed is good for websites, thanks to the PageSpeed Insights tool introduced by Google. According to this tool, if you get an SEO score of above 90, your website loads up fast. 

 

How to Evaluate Page Speed?

Core Web Vitals is a ranking factor according to the Page Experience Update introduced by Google. As an online business owner, you need to optimize for Core Web Vitals if you want to rank higher on SERPs and boost the speed of your web pages. 

Source: Google Search Central Blog

 

The Core Web Vitals is divided into three factors:

 

1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

Source: web.dev

 

LCP is a metric that tracks how long it takes for a website to show its first rendered content, whether it’s an image or textual content. This metric doesn’t count for any color or background that might show on a webpage. LCP should show up within 2.5 seconds, according to Google.  

 

2. First Input Delay (FID)

Source: rockcontent.com

 

FID is a metric that tracks what a user thinks of the interactivity and responsiveness of the website. This metric makes it easier for the search engine to track when a user tries to interact with a web page, and what response the browser gives. FID should be less than 100 milliseconds. 

 

3. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

 

CLS is a metric that tracks how much a page undergoes design changes when a user visits it. According to Google and UX experts, a page’s design shouldn’t change abruptly as it can surprise the website visitor. Google suggests that CLS should be less than 0.1.

 

Other Speed Factors

Source: PageSpeed Insights

 

There are six other factors related to the page speed score. These factors are labeled as “field data.” You can find the value of these factors for your website using the Lighthouse tool made by Google. It’s essential to know about these factors to learn How Page Speed Affects SEO. Below is a brief introduction to the six factors: 

 

The FCP metric estimates the time it takes the browser to process the first bit of content provided by the DOM. This process shows the user that the website is loading up. 

 

The FMP metric estimates how long it takes for the website to show the biggest above-the-field layout change. It also counts the time required to show fonts on a web page. 

 

The Speed Index metric is used to estimate how long a web page takes to show a “visually populated” field to the user. This metric is calculated in milliseconds and depends on the viewport. 

 

The First CPU Idle metric is used to calculate the time taken for the main thread of a web page before it’s ready to take input provided by the user. 

 

The Time to Interactive metric is used to calculate the time taken between finishing the last Long Task and the gap of 5 seconds between network and main thread inactivity. 

 

• Max Potential First Input Delay

The Max Potential First Input Delay metric is used to measure the expected First Input Delay that any website visitor can observe. 

 

How to Improve Website Page Speed?

 

Now that you are aware of the Core Web Vitals and six other major factors that influence the calculation of Page Speed, it’s time to delve into the “How” of improving page speed. 

Improving page speed falls under the umbrella of Technical SEO. It’s better to work with an SEO expert who can analyze page speed issues and fix them if you’re not a geek. However, if you’re willing to try boosting page speed yourself, here’s how to improve google page speed the right way:

 

• Eliminate Unnecessary Redirects 

Many SEOs use redirect chains to redirect a website to its mobile version. Unnecessary redirect requests can make your website unresponsive or slow down page speed because of the additional HTTP request-response cycle. 

Eliminating all the redirect chains effectively requires a lot of effort. You can simplify it by using the “Screaming Frog” tool. 

 

• Check Your Server Response Time

Server Response Time is the time taken to load up the HTML of your webpage. Experts suggest that the Server Response Time of your website should be under 200 ms. Here are some of the reasons that might increase Server Response Time:

3 Factors that Cause Slow Server Response Time

• Slow database queries
• Slow routing
• Slow application login 

 

• Prioritize Above-The-Fold Content

As mentioned above, the UX of your website plays an important role in page speed. You should prioritize showing the above-the-field content if you want to keep the user engaged on your website and reduce the bounce rate. 

 

Optimizing media files like images and GIFs on your website will make it easier for you to boost page speed. There are several factors that dictate whether and how you optimize media files on your website. It’s better to enlist the goals you want to achieve with media files on your website before you start optimizing those files. 

 

GZIP compression is one of the cool ways to boost page speed for SEO purposes. Enabling GZIP compression support on your server can reduce transferred response. You can read this guide on what GZIP compression is and how you use it. 

 

• Introduce a Caching Policy

Having a specified caching policy can overcome the delay in processing which is one of the factors that blocks page rendering. A good caching policy can identify and solve all the caching problems. Read this resource to learn how to benefit properly from browser caching. 

 

Conclusion 

We’ve answered the questions “How Page Speed Affects SEO” and “How to Improve Mobile Page Speed” in this blog. In case you have any query about your site’s page speed, you can reach out to our SEO experts to get proper guidance. Make sure you subscribe to our email list to stay updated about all things SEO!

When you run a business, a strong email marketing campaign is a great way to connect with customers, engage your audience and drive your conversions. And for most brands, this channel will form a key part of the digital marketing strategy.

What is the purpose of email marketing?

Email marketing can be used for various things, such as:

1. To directly sell to motivated existing customers or to convert potential customers
2. To educate customers on your service or product offer, with explainers
3. To talk about business news and encourage event sign-ups if you’re in the B2B space
4. To promote your social, blog, and other digital marketing content as part of a digital marketing ecosystem
5. To continue to move customers along the sales funnel, towards conversion.
6. To build your brand reputation – primarily in the customer market, but also in employer and stakeholder markets, depending on your goals.

What types of emails can you send to customers?

But what types of emails can you think of to send to your lists? After all, there are only so many promotional messages that your customers and leads will want to hear. Too many of those, and you risk a spike in those dreaded unsubscribed.

The trick is to mix up your content with a planned schedule of different – but extremely engaging – content types. This content needs to always be:

1. Completely relevant to the reader, and this means segmenting your email lists carefully and then targeting as tightly as possible, ideally with a degree of personalisation.
2. Value-driven. So that your customer can immediately see why they received the email and know that they will get something worthwhile from it.
3. Timely – in terms of its seasonal relevance.
4. Well-written, beautiful to look at, and fast to load, for that optimum reader experience.

Email ideas to try

So, with this in mind, let’s look at some different email ideas.

Welcome email

A welcome email is the first chance you get to connect with your customer. It reinforces your brand, shares your values, and creates a sense of excitement. It’s also the perfect opportunity to share a special welcome deal, encourage your customers to complete an action (such as joining a Facebook group) and leave the customer wanting more. Show your great commitment to service by flagging up contact routes in case your customer has any queries.

Offer emails

Every customer loves an offer email! And what better way to start the day than with a snap deal of some kind? Make it seasonally relevant and, if possible, consider tailoring the deal to your customer’s purchase history and interests (if your tech allows this.) A simple 10% off code or free delivery code with a personal message from the business owner or CEO will create a real feeling of goodwill.

Survey and testimonial emails

Customers read online reviews and value them, so share your finest testimonials to stimulate awareness and desire to try your products. This is a great time too to launch your own short satisfaction survey, to give customers the chance to give their views and input. This helps people to feel listened to and important – just make sure you act on what they say!

Newsletter emails

A good, branded newsletter is one worth reading. So, pack it with relevant, quality content, rather than just advertising for your business. A few product references and a deal or two are great, but the newsletter should offer value, such as expert guides, ‘how to’ explainers, inspiration, ideas, and so forth.

Free gift emails

Again, a free gift email is one that gets opened! Offer a free gift with every purchase, such as a mini sample size of something that you sell, or a relevant add-on. If you sell luxury tea in small batches, you could add a small box of fancy biscuits from a partner. If you sell beauty products, then add a couple of samples from a new product line. Free gift wrap is also a lovely touch before Christmas.

Value emails

Explain the value of your brand and its offer. How does it change your customer’s life or enhance it in some way? How have people benefited from using your products or brands? Value attributes are vital to customers, especially in today’s cash-strapped period, so really focus on how you deliver value and the benefits.

Recruitment emails

It’s another legitimate reason to email your lists, and it’s also a great way to talk about your company values, mission and ethos, and show that you’re a successful business that’s growing. Customers and jobseekers are interested in businesses with real purpose, and clear ethics, so talk about diversity, sustainability, giving back and community initiatives to really boost engagement.

Product update emails

Launched a new range? Enhanced an old favourite with new features? Talk about it and offer an incentive to try, such as an offer code, or product bundle. Remember to include a link to buy – and optimise the process for simple, hassle-free purchasing in just a few clicks.

Tools you can use to help with email marketing and reporting

Most businesses today use commercial email marketing tools that allow them to:

Create and build impactful, beautiful and branded emails
Create and manage distribution lists, with segmentation and targeting
Easily manage signups and unsubscribed
See rich analytics in the background that show which email campaigns have been successful.

There are a huge array of email marketing tools on the market and some of the most popular include Mail Chimp, Active Campaign, and Gist. Before deciding which tool might be the best for your business, here are some things to consider:

1. Is the email marketing tool cloud-deployed, so that it can be licensed on a user basis and bought in as needed?
2. Does it offer the features that you need, such as rich analytics to show open rates, engagement rates, unsubscribes, social proof, conversions, etc?
3. Does the tool integrate with your other digital marketing tools and systems, such as AdZooma and social media platforms, so you can easily manage your entire digital marketing strategy within an integrated and holistic digital environment?
4. Is it easy to use and intuitive, with features such as high-quality templates and the ability to import media?
5. Can you add, adjust, edit and segment your email lists with precision?
6. Is the system cost-effective?
7. What support does it offer?
8. What do other users think?

In conclusion

Email marketing is a powerful tool and a valuable part of your brand or business’s digital marketing strategy. There are various types of promotional emails you can send to customers on a scheduled basis. There are also various marketing systems to consider and the best fit for your business will depend on your particular needs and objectives.

An essential guide to creating a results-driven customer journey via email. Discover more at adzooma.com.

Nailing customer journeys is pivotal to any marketing activity; including good old email! In this blog post, we explain how to create a rewarding customer journey via email, from prospect through to buying customer. We call this our 7-step map.

But before we start, it’s important to remember that any customer journey using email should:

1. Identify and address customer pain points

2. Hit them at the right points in the buying journey

3. Educate and inform

4. Keep customers hooked until they are ready to buy

5. Deliver valuable content and offers 

6. Not bombard or overwhelm them 

Our 7-step map to creating the perfect customer journey via email

#1: Research and analytics

Every email marketing platform comes with built-in analytics, which usually contains a lot of valuable information. By checking your analytics, you can learn which emails were opened, how many, which links were clicked, whether any actions were taken via the email, and much more. Email marketing is heavily based on data, so the more you know, the better you can market via email. 

To learn more, head to our recent blog.

#2: Create customer personas

A crucial part of planning a customer journey is building personas. This sounds fancy, but it just means considering the various demographics of your customers. Think:

·        Age

·        Gender

·        Location

·        Occupation

·        Product interest

Once you have your personas, you can try creating some dynamic content. For example, sending women’s fashion emails to your female contacts or marketing a Manchester-based university to contacts who live within a 60-mile radius of the city. Your results will skyrocket! 

Personalising your emails is also a good option. Personalisation is expected nowadays, and many email platforms make it pretty easy to do. Stick to the basics – using just first name or company name personalisation is fine. We find less is more, especially if you are sending personalised emails to a cold database. 

To learn more, read this recent article.

#3: Target touchpoints and devices

Although email is a traditional platform, it can still combine with other platforms such as PPC, display, and SEO. You can do all sorts with email nowadays, including setting up sends to fire out after an advert is clicked or a form has been submitted. Think about other touchpoints (or channels) that your customers might be engaging with and get smart about it!

To learn more, skip to our recent blog.

#4: Workshop

Customers are far more likely to remain subscribed if they are served exclusive offers and other freebies. Flash offers work well – a cheeky ‘15% off this weekend’ works wonders. If your business can’t stretch to a discount, then you can try inviting them to an exclusive ticket event instead, like a workshop. You can gather valuable customer feedback during and after the workshop, too. 

#5: Identify and address customer pain points

Identifying the wants, needs, and frustrations of your customers is an important part of the journey process. If you don’t know this, then you can’t provide the ideal product or solution! Some of the best ways to identify customer pain points include completing personas (see #3), running your email campaigns and testing what your data responds to, and sending out surveys. 

#6: Monitor and feedback

A great way of monitoring your customer journey is by automating it. As the name ‘customer journey’ implies, you need to, quite literally, take your prospective customers on a journey! Using an email automation tool with built-in analytics and a detailed dashboard is a great way of doing this. 

For email marketing to work, each email needs to land in your customer’s inbox at the right time, and email automation tools allow you to build programmes tailored to your prospects and customers. They send emails automatically once an action is ‘triggered’ by a user – for example, once an email is opened or time lapses and the next email is due. Implementing an email automation programme can increase leads, protect your email data and save on budget, to name a few of its benefits. 

It’s also a really easy way of seeing exactly what your customers think of you as email sends are triggered by actions – like opens, non-opens, unsubscribes, etc. You can even add a survey to your customer journey to encourage feedback!

Examples of the best email automation tools

·        AdRoll

·        Customer.io

·        HubSpot

·        Intercom 

·        Mailchimp 

·        Marketo

#7: Come back to the table

All good marketers sit down and analyse what is working and what isn’t. Gathering data on your marketing efforts is the only way to know what your customers respond to. If something isn’t reaping the results you expected, come back to the table and revisit the customer journey. There’s no shame in stripping everything back and visiting your journey from the very start.

How many emails to send after someone signs up

If you’re creating a prospective customer journey via email, then an automated welcome programme is a logical place to start. Building a welcome journey is quick and easy, but remember, first impressions count, and this is your chance to sell your product or service.

Though the contents of your welcome journey will depend on your product or service, you can follow the initial model below. We recommend building and setting up four core emails plus four sends to non-opens. If you’d like to extend your email automation programme, you can arrange for these contacts to enter a re-engagement programme afterwards.

Here’s an example of a welcome programme for prospects. You can use this template to start off your email automation journey. 

·        Send 1 – Brand introduction and USPs

·        Send 1a – Resend to non-opens

·        Send 2 – Why do people need your product or service?

·        Send 2a – Resend to non-opens

·        Send 3 – Customer reviews 

·        Send 3a – Resend to non-opens

·        Send 4 – Flash/limited time only offer

·        Send 4a – Resend to non-opens  

Typically, disengaged contacts or customers will drop off as they move through the welcome programme. Engaged customers will either convert immediately, at a later date or end up in your re-engagement programme.

How many emails to send to your list

There is no set number of emails that you can send to a list – just make sure you are not sending every single day (unless your contacts expect this, for example, a daily digest). Send regularly to avoid your leads cooling down, but don’t give your contacts a reason to unsubscribe or report you as spam.

Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms, and businesses that want to succeed need to post regularly. But finding time to post every day can be difficult, especially if you’re busy running your business.

That’s where scheduling tools come in. In this article, we’ll discuss some of the best apps to schedule Instagram posts and how they help you deliver content for your followers.

Instagram Trends in 2023

It’s no secret that Instagram is a hugely popular social media platform, and the popularity of trends changes rapidly. So, it’s important to stay up-to-date on the latest trends if you want your content to be relevant, useful, and engaging.

One of the biggest trends on Instagram in 2023 will still be Stories in all their variety of formats. This feature, which was first added in 2016, allows users to share photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours. Since its introduction, the feature has become increasingly popular, and companies should take advantage of this trend by creating engaging content for their Stories.

Another trend that will be popular in 2023 is using influencers. Influencers are people who have a large following on social media and can persuade their followers to take action, such as buying a product. Businesses should work with influencers to promote their services, as this is an effective way to reach a larger audience.

To create good content for Instagram, businesses need to understand what kinds of posts perform well on the platform. Some of the most popular types of posts include images with quotes, behind-the-scenes photos, and user-generated content. If you want your business to succeed on Instagram, make sure you post regularly.

Why You Need an Instagram Scheduler?

As we mentioned before, one of the challenges of running an Instagram account is finding time to post regularly. Marketing automation in general and scheduling apps in particular allow you to plan your posts, so you don’t have to worry about posting every day.

There are a few advantages to using a scheduling app. First, it saves you time. If you plan your posts, you won’t have to spend time every day coming up with new content. 

Second, it helps you be more consistent with your posting. When you post regularly, your followers will know when to expect new content from you. 

Third, it improves your reach. Scheduling apps allow you to publish posts at optimal times, which will result in more people seeing your content.

10 Best Instagram Planning Apps

Scheduling apps make it easy to see what you’ve posted in the past and track how well your posts are doing. There are many apps to schedule Instagram posts, but we’ll focus on the most popular ones, as they’ve proved to be effective. Some of them focus solely on Instagram, while others provide planning for other social media platforms.

1. Sendible

Sendible is a social media management platform that allows users to schedule posts for all their social media accounts, including Instagram. It was launched in 2008, which makes it one of the first apps that help marketers manage their social media accounts. Its handy dashboard integrates all popular activities in one place: publishing, monitoring, and analyzing reports.

Main features:

• Common space for all social streams and quick filters for individual profiles
• Automatic sentiment analysis
• Presentation-ready reports
• Integration with Canva, Google Drive, YouTube, and Dropbox

Price: plans start at $29/month

Free trial: 14 days

Availability: Web, iOS, Android

2. MeetEdgar

MeetEdgar is a social media management platform that was launched in 2010. It’s known for its ease of use and ability to recycle content. The app helps users save time by allowing them to schedule posts in advance and automatically reposting content that’s performed impressively in the past. It was made with entrepreneurs in mind, so it’s perfect for small businesses.

Main features:

• A library of evergreen content
• Automation time slots
• Anti-writer’s block tools: finding quotes in articles
• History and performance tracking

Price: plans start at $24.91/month

Free trial: 7 days

Availability: Web, iOS, Android

3. Buffer

Another popular scheduling app is Buffer. It makes it easy for you to share great content with your followers on social media. With Buffer, you can easily schedule posts ahead of time, so you never have to worry about forgetting to share something important. Plus, Buffer gives you valuable insights on who’s engaging with your content and where they’re located.

Main features:

• Social media analytics: best day to post, best frequency, engagement rate
• Team collaboration
• Answering comments from the dashboard
• Reminders and notifications

Price: plans start at $5/month per social channel

Free trial: a free plan with limited features is available

Availability: Web, iOS, Android

4. Iconosquare

Iconosquare is an app that’s specifically designed for Instagram. It helps you track your account’s performance and understand your audience better. With Iconosquare, you can also schedule posts and track hashtags. Plus, the app gives you valuable insights on when the best time to post is, so you can make sure your content is seen by as many people as possible.

Main features:

• Customizable dashboards so you can see the metrics you need
• Support for multiple social profiles
• Instagram analyzer: best time to post, geolocation, user tagging, and more
• Competition monitoring

Price: plans start at $49/month

Free trial: 14 days
Availability: Web, iOS, Android

5. Post Planner

Post Planner was launched in 2011 and is a social media management tool that helps you plan, publish, and analyze your posts. It’s perfect for small businesses and bloggers who want to save time. With Post Planner, you can easily find popular content on social media and schedule it for later. This tool also gives you valuable insights into what’s working and what’s not.

Main features:

• Automated posting calendar
• Content recycle option
• Platform-specific post creation
• Content discovery: finding popular articles, videos, and images
• A library of branded content

Price: plans start at $5/month

Free trial: 7 days

Availability: Web

6. Later

Later is a great app for scheduling posts on Instagram. You can use it to schedule photos and videos, as well as stories. Later also integrates with other social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. This makes it easy to manage all of your social media accounts in one place. You can also use Later to create reports about your social media performance. This can help you track how well your content is performing and make adjustments.

Main features:

• Batch-scheduling
• Help with finding on-brand content
• Sales and traffic tracking
• Suggestion for strategy optimization.

Price: plans start at $15/month

Free trial: 14 days; a free plan with limited features is also available

Availability: Web, iOS, Android

7. Preview

Preview is a social media scheduling tool that lets you schedule posts for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. It also has a built-in image editor so you can quickly edit your photos before posting them. Preview integrates with other apps like Google Sheets and Canva, which makes it easy to create and manage your content.

Main features:

• Unlimited scheduling of posts, Reels, and Stories
• Automated posting for different time zones
• Built-in photo-editing tools
• Hashtag suggestions and caption ideas

Price: plans start at $6.67/month

Free trial: a free plan with limited features is available

Availability: Web, iOS, Android

8. Onlypult

Another popular solution is Onlypult. It offers a content planner where you can drag-and-drop your posts to schedule them in advance. The platform also provides analytics, so you can track your performance over time. With Onlypult, you can manage multiple accounts and create content for Instagram, Facebook, and other social networks. Although it’s a relatively new solution on the market, it’s quickly gaining popularity for its ease of use and robust features.

Main features:

• Multiple accounts management
• Support for photos and videos
• Team access
• Competitor analysis

Price: plans start at $10/month

Free trial: 7 days

Availability: Web, iOS, Android

9. Planoly

With Planoly, you can plan, manage, and optimize your Instagram posts from a desktop or mobile device. The platform offers a built-in image editor and allows you to schedule posts for specific times and dates. You can also track the performance of your posts with analytics tools provided by Planoly.

Main features:

• Shoppable gallery feature
• Designer templates for posts and Stories
• Drag-and-drop grid calendar
• Content repurposing for Facebook and Twitter

Price: starts at $11.25/month

Free trial: 7 days

Availability: Web, iOS, Android

10. SocialBee

Last but not least, SocialBee is one of the latest additions to the family of social media management tools. It allows you to schedule posts, track your performance, and measure your ROI. The platform offers support for multiple social networks, including Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. With SocialBee, you can also create content in advance and publish it at the most optimal times.

Main features:

• Content plan for weeks ahead
• Integration with Canva
• Post customization for different platforms
• Engagement rate tracking

Price: plans start at $19/month

Free trial: 14 days

Availability: Web, iOS, Android

Tips for Making Great Content

Now that you know why you need an Instagram scheduler, let’s talk about making great content. Here are a few tips:

Know Your Audience

First, you need to consider your audience. Who are you trying to reach with your content? What kind of content will they be interested in? When you know the answers to these questions, you will be able to create content that appeals to your target audience.

Use High-Quality Images and Videos

People are more likely to engage with posts that have attractive pictures and well-edited brand videos. Use trusted video-editing tools and photo-enhancing services to make your content look its best. Here are some of our suggestions:

• Movavi Video Editor – a handy, easy-to-use video editor with plenty of features and effects.
• Openshot – an audio/video mixer that can help you easily create engaging videos in no time.
• Adobe Photoshop – the industry standard for image editing.
• Canva – a great tool for creating graphic designs, blog banners, and social media posts.
• VSCO – an intuitive photo editor with preset filters and effects to make your photos stand out.

By using high-quality visuals in your content, you can drive more engagement from your audience and increase the chances of them viewing your post or clicking through to your website. So take some time to find the best tools for creating stunning images and videos that will capture people’s attention.

Keep Your Posts To-the-Point

People on Instagram have a short attention span, so it’s important to keep your posts brief and to the point. If you want to share more information, link to another website or article in your post.

Use Hashtags Wisely

Hashtags help you reach a wider audience and get more engagement on your posts. When you use hashtags, make sure they’re relevant to your post and that you’re using them correctly. Don’t use too many hashtags, or your post will look spammy.

Final Thoughts

If you’re serious about digital marketing, then you need a scheduler that can help you keep track of your posts and ensure that they go out on time.

How to schedule a post on the Instagram app? All you need to do is sign in and connect it to your Instagram account. Once you’ve done that, you can start creating posts. Just remember to keep your audience in mind when you’re creating content and schedule your posts accordingly.

By following these tips and using an Instagram scheduling app, you’ll be well on your way to success on this social media platform.

Wondering if you have the right tone in your online presence? Find out if you have checked all the tone of voice boxes in our latest blog.

Getting the tone right for your business is essential. Your brand’s tone reflects what to expect when customers buy from your company or clients use your services. Whether you’re a small one-man band, or a company with over 100 employees, consistency with your tone is necessary for success online. Getting the tone right can make your content much more readable and appealable to the correct audience. 

It’s not too hard to find your tone; let’s explore the five ways to strike yours right. 

Showcase Your Personality Through Content 

Your brand and the personality behind it are unique, so why not showcase this? 

Interestingly using your personality can help reach the correct target audience. For example, if you work in accountancy, you may wish to convey a profound, matter-of-fact tone with your content. After all, the industry is set by rules, and you are responsible for handling people’s finances, a job requiring strictness. However, if your target audience and usual customers are small independent businesses, co-operatives, and the self-employed, a more relaxed tone may be used for an approachable feel to your business. 

Alternatively, children may be your ideal audience, but the primary source of engagement will be their parents, so striking a tone which appeals to them whilst still being child-focused is key. However, your manner may be slightly more playful if you run a children’s play centre. It will mostly use light-hearted puns and everyday slang, even made-up words.

Essentially, your tone needs to be set depending on your target audience. Consider who you want to attract to your business and how best to direct them. Imagine having a conversation with them face to face and use that conversation as a base for the tone and personality of your business. 

Consistency Is Key for Your Tone 

Once you have decided on the perfect tone for your business, keeping it consistent is vital to keep readers interested and engaged. 

A variation in the overall presentation of the characteristics of your delivery is highly likely to disengage with readers and cause them to lose confidence in the stability of the establishment. 

See what we did there? Basically, if you change your voice, it may put off potential customers as you are blowing hot and cold, and instability equals untrustworthy. Whether blog-writing, posting on your socials or drafting a newsletter, keep everything within the same tone of voice. This will keep you recognisable and keep your company’s followers interested in what you’re up to. 

Which Socials Do You Use Most?

Although you could utilise all the social media platforms to promote your business, the one that your customers use regularly is the one you may consider matching your tone of voice to. Each platform is used for different reasons by various audiences, so finding where your target audience is can be key to promoting your business and styling your tone of voice. 

• Twitter – Worldwide, more men use Twitter than women, and the highest percentage of ages who use Twitter is between 25-34. So, if your audience is within this category, Twitter is a great platform. However, you are restricted to characters, so if your company can condense its information into short snappy sentences, this may help define your tone. 
• Facebook – Facebook is used by more women than men and mostly sits within the 30-49 age bracket. Facebook allows for more characters than Twitter, but avoid using very long paragraphs as it will cause quick disengagement. Instead, grab the attention with links to your other platforms where long-form content can be consumed in the readers’ own time. 
• LinkedIn – This platform should be used for B2B posts and information. Individuals using these websites usually look for network opportunities and somewhere to find a service. If this sounds familiar, then LinkedIn will help propel you. The tone on this platform varies, from tongue-in-cheek to keeping things professional. Returning to the above point, consider who you are trying to reach. 

Essentially if you are predominantly using a particular platform, consider the users and match a tone of voice which will appeal to them. 

Use a Stand-Out Kind of Tone

Although your audience will be the same as your competitors, this shouldn’t mean your tone of voice is. Embrace what makes you different and use this as part of your tone. Researching how your competitors approach their target audience could help you define yours and create a distinctive platform and marketing strategy. The best example of this, which has taken the internet by storm, is the rivalry between M&S and Aldi. 

Their internet “beef” began when M&S sued Aldi for the rights to their caterpillar cake. Aldi took to Twitter to make light of the situation, and the one-sided Twitter war became viral. However, M&S decided not to engage in the joke and kept within the tone of their brand, approachable but classy. This is an excellent example of popularity due to choosing the correct tone of voice. Aldi’s entire marketing is based on daft stunts and public engagement, whereas M&S prefers to maintain a well-respected, tasteful tone. However, if you haven’t followed Aldi’s Twitter account, you’re missing out on some great content. 

Be Real to Yourself

If tongue-in-cheek is not your personality and one you struggle to promote, don’t force it with your business. A forced tone of voice can feel very off through content, and it is clear that it doesn’t represent who you truly are. Authenticity is what will make your tone of voice appear much more natural. 

The same goes for copying content and tone from similar businesses. No one likes a copycat, and if your content is very similar to another business in the field, you may find it difficult to find a natural rhythm. So, remember, it is always best to stick with what you feel most comfortable with, and the tone will flow naturally. The more authentic it is, the easier it will be to keep within your brand’s tone of voice. 

If you are struggling with any aspects of your digital marketing, feel free to contact us, and we will ensure that we get you started. And whatever questions you have about social media, let us know, and we can help.

What is email marketing and how can it benefit your business? Here’s everything you need to know about incorporating email marketing into your digital marketing strategy.

Email marketing involves using beautifully-designed and crafted emails to communicate with your target audience. It can be used to directly promote or market products and services, and also to support softer sales through brand awareness, education and engagement. Most businesses use commercial email marketing systems from third parties to design, create, measure and optimise their email marketing campaigns and to ensure the highest level of ROI. For the answer to ‘what is email marketing and how can it benefit my business?’, read on.

What is email marketing used for?

Email marketing is a fantastic tool for your digital marketing strategy. As a powerful and engaging channel, it can be used for multiple purposes, such as:

To inform customers of new products and services and to share promotional messages

To offer custom discounts and offers, or to launch competitions

To add value with product explainers, training sessions, event invites or industry analysis.

To build community and engagement as part of a broader marketing ecosystem.

Why is email marketing so powerful?

There are many advantages to email marketing. For example:

1. Reach

Facebook might have a billion users, but there are nearly 4 billion email accounts across the world. Social media may still garner headlines, but email marketing remains the easiest way to reach customers and leads.

2. Accuracy

Only 2% of a business’s fans or contacts will see the average Facebook post. However, 90% of emails make it to their recipient. A contact is 45 times more likely to see your email, than a social media post.

3. Conversion potential

Email campaigns usually yield a 3% conversion rate, whereas a social post might generate a 0.5% conversion. Additionally, twice as many customers buy from an email than from search engines or social media posts.

4. Cost-effectiveness

Email marketing is very cost-effective, and platforms such as MailChimp and Campaign Monitor offer pricing based on email lists and campaigns.

5. Integration potential

Email marketing works perfectly alongside targeted online advertising so that your customers will notice more of your brand and its messaging – increasing the conversion potential. For example, you can support email marketing with a targeted online advertising campaign to maximise exposure for a branded product launch.

6. Flexibility

The message and purpose of your email marketing depends on your objectives. This simple medium can be used for any kind of communication and delivered as part of a broader marketing campaign to cross-promote different channels and platforms.

The pros and cons of email marketing

Of course, like all digital marketing channels, there are pros and cons of email marketing. Marketers need to weigh up their objectives, budget and resources before deciding whether an email is the best channel to achieve the intended results. For example:

The benefits of email marketing are:

• It forces an action – whether that’s reading the content, archiving it or deleting it.

• It builds relationships and traffic to your social channels, website and blog.

• It offers targeted segmentation for highly personalised communications and offers

• Email marketing systems offer A/B testing to see what works and what doesn’t.

• It can be highly affordable, with a high degree of ROI.

• With a template system, marketers don’t need advanced design skills to create emails that look good and perform.

The downsides of email marketing can be:

• Branded email can be filtered into spam folders
• Overly large emails can be slow to load and never read.
• It’s very popular, which means your brand may struggle to stand out amongst copywriters.
• Without excellent engagement strategies, you can see too many unsubscribes. This is because many readers sign up as a result of a single purchase – without necessarily the intention to make another.
• Design can be tricky to optimise across platforms unless you use a good system.
• Costs can be expensive if you aren’t sure what you are paying for. For example, if you don’t clean your databases and segment them for targeting, you may be wasting your budget on the wrong recipients.

How to build quality email lists

The success of your email marketing campaign depends on various factors. These include these three key elements:

1. The right email list

It’s important to build high-quality marketing lists that are clean, de-duplicated and organised according to your goals and customer preferences. Don’t be tempted to buy generic email lists as many commercial email marketing companies prohibit their use.

To build a genuine email list, try offering an opt-in to future communications at the point of purchase, offering a discount or hosting a competition. Always be aware of relevant legislation though for data management, including GDPR in the EU and UK and CAN-SPAM in the USA.

2. Professionalism and aesthetics

A good email needs to look great, be correctly branded, be visually appealing and render correctly across all operating systems and devices. These are all skills for your digital marketing team. Always send that test email before hitting the ‘send to all’ button!

3. The right messaging

Email communications should be sent according to a plan, so that messaging is staggered and emails aren’t too frequent. one good tip for success is to remember that emails don’t always need to be promotional. Customers want valuable, interesting content – so why not initiate a survey, ask for feedback or simply thank your readers for trusting their inboxes with your content? At this time of year, you could also extend Thanksgiving and Christmas well wishes.

Above all, remember that email marketing operates from a position of trust. If you are respectful of your customer’s data and time you will have a far better chance of hitting the mark with this powerful digital channel.

When you think of a web design company, the first thing that comes to your mind is IT professionals working on a PC to build websites for various companies and organizations. However, the services that a full-service web design company offers is not just limited to website designing. Although, it is a major part of the entire scope of the company, many of them provide various other services based on their infrastructure. This often helps both the companies and the clients to reap a lot of benefits in the long run. While companies can grow their business by providing a package of services related to business development, this approach helps customers to get complete support from a single service provider, without taking the effort to search for different companies offering individual services. Here are a few major services offered by a full-service web designing company to their clients.

Website maintenance

The responsibility of a web development company towards their clients does not end just by creating a website. It will need ongoing maintenance and additional services to keep it running 24/7 without any downtime or 404 errors. There may also arise other needs like updating content, changing images, adding videos, and more. Although, in websites that are powered by CMS like WordPress, it is possible to add and manage content easily by the client themselves, many companies outsource such works to professionals. In most cases, clients prefer to give the work to the company that has built their website. Therefore, a full-service web design company usually provides website maintenance as part of their service.

Graphic/Logo design

Designing is a part of website development, and a web design company cannot function without the support of a graphic designer. A website needs many banners, posters, and images that needs to be updated frequently to align with the latest trend. Many companies offer graphic designing alone as a separate service by designing ad posters, brochures, logos, and images for businesses and organizations. You may also consider availing these services from your web design company as a combo pack as it is more affordable.

Search engine optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a part of digital marketing and is a service that is offered by leading website design companies these days. It is a service that is very closely associated with website development. SEO is the process of optimizing your website based on content, design, and various other technical parameters, so that it ranks on top of the search engine results page for various keywords searched by internet users. This helps businesses to boost their website and connect with customers seamlessly. If your web design company offers SEO, then you can easily build an SEO friendly website as soon as your website is launched.

Social media marketing

Social media marketing (SMM) is a popular service that many web designing companies offer today as a part of their digital marketing services. Social media is one of the best means for businesses to increase their website traffic and generate leads. Most companies now even link their websites with their social media profiles. These are external links that complement each other to enhance website traffic. Thus, a website design company can be the best social media marketing partner for your business.

Pay per click marketing

Another service that is connected to a web design company is pay per click (PPC) marketing. This includes running paid ads in search engines, social media platforms, and other websites. The ad is usually optimized based on keywords and is meant to increase website traffic, provide brand awareness, or generate leads. It also involves creating a landing page to which the ad directs the users who click on the ad. This landing page is designed by website developers. Therefore, due to its connection to website designing, many web design companies have started offering PPC as a separate service.

Email marketing

A service that was initially offered by a digital marketing company, is now becoming a part of a web designing agency. This is one of the most popular digital marketing services that brings targeted results to your business. Email marketing also needs a landing page to which the users are directed when they click on the ‘call to action’ button provided in the email. As this requires the support of a web developer, top website design companies have now started adding email marketing in their service list.

Content writing

Content is, was, and always will be the king. The importance of quality content in both web designing and digital marketing cannot be overemphasized. A website will neither be recognized by search engines, nor be read by users, unless it has reliable and useful content supported by keywords. Due to the increased relevance of quality content in business communication and marketing, content writing has started to be recognised as an individual service recently. As a website design company cannot manage without an in-house content writer, content writing has become a subsidiary service of web designing companies.

White label services

White label services are now becoming common in the web designing industry. It provides a balance of opportunities among companies working in the same industry. In white labelling, a company purchases a white label company’s service and presents them to the customer under their brand name. This is usually done when a company gets too much projects in a short term that cannot be handled by their in-house team. A web designing company can act as a white label company by offering their support to other web design companies.

Looking for a full-service web design company as your business partner?

Partnering with a full-service website design company can give you many benefits than outsourcing your website work to freelancers or small agencies. This allows you to enjoy multiple services for your business under a single roof and at affordable price, instead of searching for individual service providers. NetConnect Digital Agency is a full-service web design company and digital marketing agency based in the United States providing various services like website creation, website maintenance, upgrade website, SEO, SMM, PPC, email marketing, content writing and white label services. If you need any website help or digital marketing support for your company, our dedicated team is always there to assist you 24/7.

What is white hat link building? It’s a way of earning links to your web pages from other websites. This form of link-building is an SEO technique used to increase authority and relevance. White hat link building is any method used to earn links within Google’s guidelines. These tactics lead to organic, high-quality links that are relevant to your content and the linking page’s content, whereas gray and black hat link-building use techniques that either skirt Google’s rules or violate the rules entirely. Though it may be tempting to use gray or black hat link-building, as these strategies often bring fast results, white-hat link-building techniques achieve more substantial outcomes that last longer. There’s another reason to avoid using unscrupulous link-building tactics — the consequences of doing so can be embarrassing and expensive. JCPenney discovered this when they employed an SEO firm that used linking schemes to get the company’s web pages to rank at or near the top of irrelevant searches. This was a clear sign that something wasn’t right. Google Penguin was the search engine algorithm update that led to the search engine measuring the quality of links, not just the number of them. This update is why spammy, low-quality backlinks may not be penalized.

How to Build White Hat Links

There are several proven white-hat link-building techniques, and each of these strategies falls within the rules set by Google. Even better, they allow you to organically increase your reach, develop authority, and build more traffic sources in addition to boosting your company’s SEO.  The following strategies are among the most prevalent and proven effective. Most marketing teams are successful when they incorporate a number of these techniques together to earn high-value backlinks.

Provide Testimonials

Businesses often share testimonials from satisfied customers or industry experts, which increases trust and create a sense of authority. You may have solicited testimonials for your website, but there’s also a significant benefit to providing testimonials for other companies.  If you are satisfied with a product or service your business has used, contact the company and offer a written testimonial. If they accept and plan to publish your testimonial, request that your company’s name and a link to your website be included in the testimonial immediately following it. This will create a quality backlink.

Guest Posting

A guest post is an article or blog post that you write to be published on another website. This might be an electronic publication relevant to your industry, a business blog, an online magazine popular with your audience, etc. The most significant factor is that you choose a site of high authority. Look for popular sites that are respected in your niche and earn plenty of their shares and backlinks. What you are doing via this technique is relying on one site to pass its domain superiority onto yours via a backlink. When you approach someone about guest posting for their business, come to the table with a few topics in mind. Be prepared to explain how your content will connect with its audience and what value it will add. In return, ask them to allow you to include at least one backlink to your website. It is standard to have such a link in the author’s bio, and you may also be able to include an in-article link to a relevant blog post or service page on your site. Putting your best work out there when you guest post on another blog is essential. Doing so will help guarantee that you are asked to write for other sites in the future. This doesn’t just mean you’ll earn more backlinks. Guest posting also enables you to develop what Google calls E.A.T. — Expertise, Authority, and Trust — another SEO ranking signal in addition to backlinks.

Incentivize Social Media Sharing

A social media share doesn’t count as a backlink itself, though it is a great way to get your content in front of as many people as possible, which is worthwhile for brand exposure alone. Additionally, the more social media shares you receive, the better the odds that someone will find your content worthy of linking. Engage with your social media followers. Encourage them to share your posts. Add social sharing buttons to your blog posts. You can even add an incentive to make sharing more enticing. For example, if followers share your blog post and tag your brand, you can enter them into a free giveaway.

Creating a Linkable Asset

A linkable asset is an article, blog post, case study, or other authoritative content that people link and share via their websites, blogs, or accounts across social media platforms. It will answer an important question or dive deeply into a relevant topic. To create a linkable asset, start by identifying some topic areas where your expertise can truly shine. Consider the information that you are uniquely qualified to provide. Long-form content tends to perform better. Aim for at least 2,000 words, then focus on creating high-authority content. Use data, add infographics, embed videos, and employ other assets to make the content thorough and engaging. This will earn it the most social shares and backlinks. You can take a passive or active approach to use linkable assets. A passive approach might work if you are already receiving a significant amount of engagement with your content. You will create the asset, publish it, and promote it through your social media channels. Then, you wait for the backlinks to come in. With an active approach, you take the initiative to reach out to other brands, content creators, and publishers to let them know what you’ve created. Prepare a short pitch to send over along with the link. Explain how the information you are providing ties in with that company’s content and target audience.

Leaving Blog Comments

This technique is interesting because it can be both a white hat and a black hat technique. When used as a white hat link-building service, commenting on a blog involves adding helpful, relevant remarks that include a link to something related to the topic and are valuable to the audience. Here are some of the best white-hat practices for leaving backlinks in blog comments: Follow all of the site guidelines about comments and promotional links Disclose if a link is promotional, as well as your relationship with the site you are linking Establish a presence as a community member or contributor before adding links Your link should relate to the problem or pain point described in the post or article If you aren’t sure if your comments and links are allowed, reach out to the webmaster, who will clarify what is and is not permitted.

Understanding White Hat Link Building

Any business trying to earn backlinks must know about various white hat link-building strategies. These are the techniques you want to deploy for meaningful, long-term success. At the same time, you also want to stay up-to-date on Google’s guidelines for backlinks and learn what black-and-gray hat link-building techniques are. This will help you avoid using these techniques, even inadvertently. Remember our JCPenney example from earlier? Chances are that the company thought they were dealing with a white hat link-building service. Had their marketing team been able to tell that the tactics they were using went against Google’s guidelines, they could have avoided public embarrassment.

Recognizing Gray and Black Hat Tactics

Gray hat link-building techniques are often ethically dubious. They aren’t necessarily deceitful or illegal, but they do push the envelope. If taken too far, they can lead to penalties and damages to your online reputation if links to your pages are seen as spammy or low value. An example of a gray hat technique is purchasing expired domains with the purpose of pointing backlinks to your website. You buy a parked website with some history and domain authority, then change the content to link to your website. This tactic can quickly work to help you earn some link authority and is referred to as a P.B.N. (private blog network). However, manipulating SEO results like this generally creates only short-term effects and can cause the domain authority of the site you purchased to drop quickly. This may be a gray hat method if the site you buy is relevant to your industry, but it quickly becomes a black hat technique if it’s not. Another instance of gray hat link building is using various techniques to create low-quality guest posts and publishing them to websites that don’t have any form of quality control in place. These sites allow anyone to post articles and links without editorial control. With black hat techniques, there’s no doubt they are unethical, and some tactics may even be illegal and explicitly violate Google’s guidelines. Fortunately, most are easy to avoid because they involve doing things that are widely considered “underhanded.” One common black hat technique is spamming the comment sections of articles and blog posts with irrelevant statements. Most of us have seen irrelevant comments about get-rich-quick schemes, shady investments, and questionable weight loss products. Black hat link builders may even offer a commission to people willing to spam their links. This tactic is most often used in places where comments are not moderated or where there are so many comments that moderator may not notice a spam link.

How to Avoid Using Black and Gray Hat Techniques

For the most part, you can avoid using black and gray hat techniques simply by focusing on relevant, organic link-building; however, there are some other practices to keep in mind. First, be extremely cautious about paying for links. It’s one thing to work with an SEO company that will help you form a link-building strategy, but it is another to pay for links. The latter will almost always involve sketchy tactics. Enter into reciprocal linking arrangements with caution. The sites you work with should be relevant to yours, and so should the content links. Be wary of low-quality posts and sites linking your web pages. Finally, know where your pages are being linked to. You may be held responsible for spammy and other low-quality links. Google has methods to manually evaluate and penalize sites they think are using black or gray hat backlinking. Fortunately, there is a process for disavowing links and requesting a new evaluation.

Evaluating Your Current and Future Link Building

How can you be sure you are using link-building techniques that won’t lead to SEO penalties from Google? Start by using the white hat techniques listed above. Then, follow these common-sense guidelines. Backlinks should come from high-authority sites, be relevant, and a backlink should add value to the content and improve the user

experience. Stick to these three practices, and your link-building strategies will likely be well within Google’s rules and policies.

It’s me. Hi. I’m mad at Ticketmaster. It’s me. 

That’s right – Swiftie Maria is back again, here to bring you a marketing breakdown of how Ticketmaster failed Swifties, its customers, the world, and every basic marketing class ever taught.

If you’ve followed the news recently, you’ve probably heard about the upcoming Taylor Swift Eras tour. Specifically, you’ve heard about how badly Ticketmaster botched the sale. And that’s not just angry Swifties talking – it’s so bad that the US Congress is investigating Ticketmaster for violating antitrust law.

So if you’ve been waiting for a combination roast and educational post on Ticketmaster, then pull up a chair and grab your teacup.

Because I’ve got a steaming pot of TEA.  

How Ticketmaster’s “Verified Fan” program would have worked…in Ticketmaster’s wildest dreams

First, let’s start with what Ticketmaster thought was going to happen. 

Taylor Swift wanted to make sure that tickets got into the hands of actual Swifties and not scalpers or bots. Ticketmaster’s solution to this problem, as it has been for other artists, is their Verified Fan program. However, because Taylor Swift is such a massive star and this is her first tour in years, Ticketmaster attempted to stagger the entry of Swifties onto the Ticketmaster website. The idea was that fans were to select their top three concerts. Then they would only be able to shop for tickets in those concert venues’ time zones. 

Swifties submitted the information to Ticketmaster, then received an email with their concert selections as well as a confirmation that they were verified. This did not guarantee that they could participate in the Verified Fan presale event, however. Demand was too high.

But Ticketmaster knew that was coming and they had a plan for it. On November 14, 2022, the night before the presale, Swifties would be randomly selected from the Verified Fan pool. Then they would be notified via email, later followed by a text message containing:

• Concert date for which they were eligible to shop
• A shopping link
• A unique code required for access

It should be noted: throughout the Verified Fan signup window, Taylor Swift’s team kept adding shows due to the unprecedented demand. Additionally, Swifites who previously purchased tickets for the canceled-for-COVID LoverFest were to receive a “boost”, as were Swifties who received emails from Taylor Nation for being loyal fans. Keep this in mind for later on in the article.  

How Ticketmaster imagined presale day would go

Ticketmaster instructed Swifties to use the link they received via text message on presale day in order to log onto Ticketmaster. This would be done 30 minutes before 10 am, local venue time.

Using me as an example, I live in EST but was eligible to shop a Nashville concert. That meant I was to log on at 9:30 central time for the 10 am central time opening, even though for me this was actually 10:30 and 11 am eastern time respectively. 

The 30-minute waiting period was intended to allow Swifties a chance to make sure their payment information was up to date, and that they were logged in without issue prior to the opening of the virtual waiting room. Ticketmaster encouraged fans to keep the page open, saying they would automatically place fans in the virtual waiting room at 10 am venue time.

Once in the waiting room, fans would see a bar across their screen indicating how many fans were ahead of them in line. This bar would progress like an installation bar as fans moved through the queue. Swifties understood that their unique code would be required to enter the queue. 

Once at the front of the line, fans would be placed in the “ticketing room.” This screen would show the venue layout and the ability to pick seats to then purchase. Fans would be given 30 minutes in the room, but once tickets were added to their basket, they would have 8 minutes to check out before the tickets were released back into the pool. 

After purchasing the tickets, fans would have the option to purchase parking and ticket insurance and then receive a confirmation email. 

This process was to repeat for every time zone of the Verified Fan presale portion of the day. 

Afterward, the Capital One Pre-Sale was to go live a 2 pm eastern the same day.

In summary, sales would go like this:

• 10 am EST – eastern time zone Verified Fan sales
• 11 am EST – central time zone Verified Fan sales
• 12 pm EST – mountain time zone Verified Fan sales
• 1 pm EST – pacific time zone Verified Fan sales
• 2 pm EST – Capital One Pre-Sale

This was how it was supposed to go. But Swifties know it didn’t turn out that way. We remember what actually happened all too well.

We knew you were trouble, Ticketmaster – and the missing codes proved it

Fact: the Verified Fan pre-sale went so badly that Swifties started calling it The Great War.

But even the day before The Great War was nerve-wracking. Verified fans selected for the presale were supposed to receive their emails that day.

Why was that nerve-wracking? Because the emails went out in batches, but the corresponding text messages were not being sent in the same batch.

Around 1 pm eastern time, emails started going out. Then text messages with links and codes followed. The Swiftie Discord server I joined specifically for the Eras Tour lit up.

Some people received their emails and codes. Others were getting only emails, others just codes. And some got nothing.

I received my email, but no code. 

Hours passed. I still didn’t have my code.

My friend called and said she got her email and code an hour later. So what was I supposed to do?

It was getting late and people in Discord said that for previous concerts on Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan program, they would receive an email but no code. They couldn’t get tickets. This was not a new problem.

Would I be one of those unlucky ones? 

The delayed delivery of emails and text message codes pointlessly tortured the Swifties

As the evening progressed, I slowly morphed into a blob of a human being. I was 90% anxiety, 10% human. I began questioning if the anxiety I felt, as though my life depended on receiving a single text, was how Zoomers felt all the time. 

It wasn’t a shining moment for me. 

Ticketmaster put me out of my misery seven hours later. I received a text message from a random number. THE random number. I finally had my code. 

It seemed like the end of my problems, but I should have known it wouldn’t be. The elation I was feeling now would soon be replaced by more anxiety.

I would soon have to reach into the depths of my soul for courage and the will to press on in what would later be called “The Swiftie Hunger Games.”

The Great War, or: Ticketmaster’s chaotic, drawn-out pre-sale left fans feeling burnt

I set my alarm for 8 am. Today was the day. November 15.

Even though I didn’t have to be on the computer until 10:30 eastern (9:30 central), I wanted to hit the Discord early and show support for the Swifties looking to gain tickets to east coast concert venues. I also wanted to get a jump start to make sure I could access my Ticketmaster account. I always forget passwords and wanted to make sure my payment information was up to date.

So color me surprised when I couldn’t even get Ticketmaster’s website to pull up.  

Ticketmaster just kept clocking. Then it errored out. I couldn’t even open the page, much less look up any concerts.

The only way I could access the page was through a stroke of luck. The previous day, I had emailed myself the link I was texted by Ticketmaster. When I clicked that link, it brought up Ticketmaster and by some soft kiss from the Swiftie Gods, my Ticketmaster account automatically logged me in. To this day, I don’t know how that happened.

The screen said I was in the waiting room and that my screen would automatically refresh and place me in line once the appropriate time came. Sure, no problem. But what I learned real quick was that I could not do a single thing to mess with my internet connection. The east coast Swifties were warning others about getting booted from the system.

Slowly, the stories started getting worse as my time to enter the line was getting closer. Thousands upon thousands of east coast Swifties were still waiting in line. Central was about to open up. And if you know Taylor Swift, you know that seeing her in Nashville is a high-demand location. 

Ticketmaster dropped Swifties onto a vague screen saying “2000+ people ahead of you”

Central opened up. My screen moved me to the queue. Tummy butterflies were a flying. I had no idea what to expect but I was going to be ready. I had my code copied to my clipboard to enter it to get into the line…except Ticketmaster didn’t request it. That couldn’t be good. 

Well, that’s OK. I did have the boost from Taylor Nation, but I couldn’t expect that to put me right in front of the line. After all, there were all the LoverFest Swifties who needed to get priority (because they bought tickets for a tour canceled by COVID).

But then I started seeing some discord messages about people getting seats fast who did not have either Taylor Nation boost or LoverFest. And then I saw messages from people who had LoverFest and didn’t even get a code.

Then more and more messages arrived from the east coast saying they were getting booted out of the ticketing room. People with legitimate codes ran into errors. Others waited hours, only to get sent to the back of the line instead of the ticketing room.

Something was afoot. 

Pardon the interruption: Ticketmaster randomly stopped the queue for an indeterminate amount of time

Image ℅ Interview Magazine

Without warning, Ticketmaster paused the entire ticketing process. And that’s when the rumors started flying. 

Waiting in line for hours felt like death by a thousand cuts. You might call me dramatic (my husband does), but imagine having to sit in a chair for seven hours straight feeling like you are playing Russian Roulette if you dare to go to the bathroom.

Don’t let the computer fall asleep.

Don’t refresh the page.

Avoid doing anything that could possibly tax the internet connection, lest it make you lose your place in line. I thought I was mentally and physically prepared for this day. But I was not ready for it. I was too delicate.

The Taylor Swift puns just kept coming as we all began to go a little batty. 

Ultimately, Ticketmaster screwed up so badly that you could only get Taylor Swift tickets if you could afford to spend hours waiting on the computer

Hours went by. I tried getting non-internet-related work done, chatted on the Discord, and cleaned my office for a bit. I learned how to see what my place was in line by viewing the source code of the page.

In the end, the Capital One Pre-Sale that was supposed to also happen that day was ultimately pushed to the next day. The pacific coast venue sales were pushed back to the afternoon.

Ticketmaster unpaused the queue without warning after two hours. People started sending screenshots of their loading bar. The East coast had loads of Swifties bemoaning the fact that they were still stuck in line.

Finally, it happened. I was next in line.

I was also about to vomit because several of my new Swiftie friends were next in line and then got booted to the back of the line for no reason.

I held my breath as the screen refreshed to put me in the ticketing room….and BAM I was IN!

Though the sale started at 11 am eastern, I did not get into the ticketing room until just before 4:30 eastern. As I sat staring at the stadium seating chart trying to make my selections, the seats were blinking like Christmas lights. The same tickets were appearing and disappearing over and over again.

The 7-minute ticket hold was not working the way it was supposed to. It was madness.

I grabbed my tickets, paid, and then went back to send screenshots to the Discord. In a matter of 15 minutes, I watched the stadium sell out. 

Note: there were still people waiting in line for hours after me, only to get into the ticketing room and find it sold out. There were still people on the east coast who had not gotten into the ticketing room by the time I got my tickets. 

Like I said – madness. 

I Think There’s Been a Glitch: Ticketmaster sold out all the general sale tickets before it was supposed to

As bad as my experience was, I was fairly lucky. I would be remiss if I didn’t cover what happened in the next 24 hours.

The next two time zones opened up much later than initially promised. While it was still an insane mad dash to get tickets, the pacific time zone venues had a better shopping experience as the servers were no longer completely overloaded. 

The next day was the Capital One Pre-Sale event. I attended this as I wanted to still try and score floor seats. Already, the process was substantially better, albeit I still had to wait a lot. The line was shorter, but the ticket purchase page resembled Christmas lights again. Available seats would be there one moment, then gone the next. And that pre-sale sold out even faster. I watched it happen. 

Here’s the catch. After the Capital One Pre-Sale, Ticketmaster canceled the general sale. They were out of tickets. The entire tour sold out. 

Due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand, tomorrow’s public on-sale for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour has been cancelled.

— Ticketmaster (@Ticketmaster) November 17, 2022

Ticketmaster failed to set aside tickets for the general sale, screwing over everyone who wasn’t part of Taylor Nation, the LoverFest tour, a Verified Fan, or the Capital One Pre-Sale

Swifties were SHOOK.

This was not supposed to happen.

Only a certain percentage of the tickets were to be sold during the two presale events combined. A whole other set of tickets was supposed to be available for general sale that Friday. So how could they possibly be sold out? 

There must have been a glitch. 

Or some serious shady business. 

Tickets were already popping up on resale websites, with one ticket in Houston going for $22,000. Nosebleed seats for $500 were considered a bargain. Scammers came out of the woodwork.

If you were lucky enough to score tickets, you were advised to change your Ticketmaster password. Hackers targeted accounts with Taylor Swift tickets.

Up to this point, neither Taylor Nation nor Taylor Swift herself had made a statement. They just kept releasing re-mixes of Anti-Hero, the irony not lost on any of us Swifties. 

Just after noon eastern on November 18, Taylor Swift made her statement. It was short, it was clear. She drew on the cat-eye sharp enough to kill a monopoly. She was dressing for revenge.

Ticketmaster is a de facto monopoly. That’s the only reason they can get away with this.

Music fans have dealt with crummy ticketing experiences for years. It was almost a right of passage to attend a high-demand concert. Ariana Grande, Olivia Rodrigo, and Harry Styles also had historically intense ticketing experiences. But even rock stars for the older crowds have been impacted too, such as the recent Bruce Springsteen debacle.

Ticketmaster has been a problem for a long time. Pearl Jam even fought them in court all the way back in 1995.

So why now? Why are Ticketmaster and LiveNation in hot water now?

Optics.

Taylor Swift has grabbed the spotlight for smashing records and fighting the good fight against big conglomerates.

Swift has built herself a reputation for fighting for what is good and right, and no longer is she letting herself be pushed around. And if she gets weary, she has millions of Swifties there to back her up.

So it has taken an artist like Taylor Swift, who had a large enough and dedicated enough fan base spanning multiple generations – the majority of whom are incredibly tech savvy – to get the attention of the Tennessee Attorney General, North Carolina Attorney General, the Justice Department, and Congress itself to finally look into the LiveNation and Ticketmaster monopoly. 

Ticketmaster has so much power that a superstar who took her music back from her own record label didn’t have any viable alternative for ticketing

Based on Swift’s statement, it was clear that she was forced into working with LiveNation/Ticketmaster due to a lack of competition in the industry. LiveNation controls access to most major music venues in the United States. Want access to a LiveNation venue? You have to go through Ticketmaster. No option.

If it walks like a monopoly and talks like a monopoly, then it’s probably a monopoly.

In case you were wondering, the last time Congress got involved in something like this was when Facebook was facing antitrust violations. 

Up to this point, Ticketmaster has been growing and forming important relationships with concert venues throughout the United States. The 2010 acquisition by LiveNation only further improved that growth. Users liked the Ticketmaster interface, and the name was trusted back in the day.

But more ticketing experiences are beginning to resemble the Eras Tour. Their business practices are seeing increased scrutiny. Now a once-in-a-generation music star like Taylor Swift says that she was forced into business with Ticketmaster because there were no other available options in the marketplace offering the same service.

At the time I’m writing this, Congress has given the CEO of LiveNation until December 15 to schedule a briefing with Congress to discuss the process used for the Eras Tour ticketing experience. 

Time will tell what happens to LiveNation and Ticketmaster. Will they stay BFFs? Will they be torn apart?

We don’t know yet. All we know is that Taylor Swift and her team continue on with their vigilante shit.

But what we do know is that Ticketmaster’s monopolstic control over live music ticketing has allowed them to get away with failing at all the marketing fundamentals.

Ticketmaster vs. the 4 P’s of Marketing

One of the first things you’ll learn in marketing class: the 4 P’s of marketing. Ticketmaster and LiveNation, a long time ago, understood these lessons. But at some point, they forgot them. So let’s look at how their monopoly status makes them exempt from the most basic marketing rules.

Promotion 

In marketing, promotion is every method of communication that you use to inform people about a product or service.

Why the 4 P’s of Marketing Remain So Important

Ticketmaster didn’t have to do much to promote the Taylor Swift event. Her fan base is practically one massive omniscient being. For me, the way that I knew about the Eras Tour was through the social media profiles of Taylor Swift, Taylor Nation, and their mailing list. The communication was detailed and frequent, and it laid out the process and made very clear what the important dates to know were if you wanted to get tickets to the tour. 

As for the Capital One Pre-Sale event, enjoy the below promotional commercial that Ticketmaster, Capital One, and Taylor Swift put together. It’s honestly one of my favorite things, despite the bitter taste of how the events actually went down. 

Promotion is about message strategy and frequency, as well as ads and PR. But execution is an important part of promotion. Ticketmaster botched that.

You needed an email and text message code to buy a ticket. But text message codes and emails didn’t go out at the same time. Some people didn’t get them at all. And for those who did, the codes sometimes didn’t work.

Some people logged on, waited for hours, and then got kicked out of the ticketing room and put back in line. It was utter chaos.

Then the general sale was canceled due to Ticketmaster accidentally selling out tickets too early. Figure that one out.

Basically, Ticketmaster invalidated all prior communication with their abysmal execution of the sale.

Place

Place typically refers to how easily customers can access a company and how convenient it is to buy from them. Ticketmaster is a virtual ticketing system, so their “place” is their website and virtual waiting room. It’s also the place they screwed up the worst. 

Through the Verified Fan program, Ticketmaster hoped to gauge the amount of web traffic they would be experiencing on November 15. But their servers could not handle the traffic surge, and they had to pause the pre-sale process.

In fact, they kept sending out emails stating the historic demand. Yet, their servers were still not up to snuff, resulting in the entire pre-sale process being paused for an undetermined amount of time. 

During the Taylor Swift sale, customers simply couldn’t reliably access Ticketmaster. Codes never arrived or didn’t work. Customers were randomly booted from the ticketing room due to server errors, having to start again at the back of the line.

Now I am grounded enough to recognize that not all of the errors were Ticketmaster’s fault. I’m sure some of the codes or payment issues were user errors. But I was in direct communication with fellow Swifties who were using the codes issued to them by Ticketmaster, for the correct date and venue, and they were getting kicked out. Other users that I spoke with were being booted to the back of the line when they were next to be allowed into the ticketing system.

Simply put: Ticketmaster didn’t prepare their place for a big sale.

But what about the blog post Ticketmaster released?

The one defending their preparation?” 

Yes. Let’s talk about that.

Ticketmaster posted two blog posts. The first was deleted within hours of its posting due to backlash. In the second, Ticketmaster states that only 40% of users who sign up to be Verified will actually shop the tour.

Be that as it may, there are always exceptions to the rule. 

Ticketmaster didn’t think this through. Swifties are notoriously dedicated. Taylor Swift has not toured in four years due to the pandemic. The demand for tickets was enormous.

With so much uncertainty around demand, Ticketmaster should have prepared their servers for a minimum of 60% of the Verified Fan accounts. 

Which, speaking of the Verified Fan accounts – remember that Verified Fans did not have to input their codes until after reaching the ticketing room. The codes were supposed to be the gatekeepers. So why let the systems get flooded with millions of fans, only to later boot them out? Ticketmaster had the right tools, they just forgot to use them. 

And lastly, in regards to Place, Ticketmaster should have scheduled sales farther apart. Leaving just one hour between each time zone clearly was not enough time. Consider that there were thousands of fans in the eastern time zone waiting in line when the central time zone venues opened up. 

So what can we take away from this? Standard practices and rules of thumb are important when preparing your place. But remember that every client and situation is different. Sometimes, you have to work outside of the standards to address obstacles beforehand.

Product 

This should have been simple. Ticketmaster had the product. They had all the tickets.

Taylor Swift tickets are basically gold. Perfect product-market fit. Practically impossible to screw up.

But they accidentally sold all the tickets during the Verified Fan and Capital One Pre-Sale events. So they didn’t have any set aside for the general sale.

The problem here is so obvious that I won’t elaborate.

Price 

Price is another part of marketing. Too high and people won’t buy, too low and you won’t make a profit. The price itself sets expectations for the quality of the product.

But it’s not just about the cost of the goods/services themselves. You have to factor in fees and ancillary associated costs.

Concerts must price their tickets based on paying the artist, other performers, choreographers, wardrobe/makeup, sound/lighting, security, and so on. Then there are all of the costs the venue will take on, such as security, concessions, electricity, and additional staff. A lot goes into pricing.

But Ticketmaster managed to screw this up too with their Highway Robbery system, better known as Dynamic Pricing and Platinum Tickets. Fortunately for Swifties, Taylor Swift did not allow either of these practices to be put into place, although there were a plethora of high-priced VIP packages with little real value. 

What’s Dynamic Pricing? Basically, a scam. Dynamic pricing allows seat prices to change based on the amount of demand at the time. In Bruce Springsteen’s case, floor seats periodically surged to several thousand dollars each. And people bought them.

What, pray tell, then, are Platinum Tickets? They say “Optimal Platinum” or “Platinum VIP.” It’s just a fancy label for a higher ticket price. The seats are the same, there is no special perk, just a higher price tag. In a way, they are sucker’s version of vanity pricing. (Seriously.)

Again, we thank our Queen Taylor Swift for being a Swiftie herself and not allowing Ticketmaster to use Dynamic Pricing or Platinum Tickets. She singlehandedly stopped Ticketmaster from failing completely on this P.

(And yet their general sale screw-up still put tickets in the hands of scalpers. Now nosebleeds are going for $500. So did they really pass?)

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Ticketmaster vs. the 4 C’s of Marketing

Let’s take another super basic marketing model: the 4 C’s of Marketing. Surprise: Ticketmaster completely flunked here too.

Customer

So much of marketing revolves around keeping your customer base happy. You have to consider their wants and needs, and how you can fulfill them. That will let you build a loyal customer base.

Or you can just forget all that, build a monopoly, and the customers won’t have an option.

Ticketmaster had two customers when it came to the Eras Tour: Swifties and Taylor Swift herself. Ticketmaster let both down.

As stated earlier in this post, Taylor Swift’s team was forced into partnering with Ticketmaster due to the stadium contracts in place. Kind of hard to have a stadium tour if you can’t book the stadiums due to non-compete contracts with a ticketing office. 

Now let’s look at the Swifties. They too are customers as they are the ones purchasing the ticket and helping Ticketmaster make a tidy profit. And despite Ticketmaster acting shocked as to the historic numbers of fans that turned out to the pre-sales, they said themselves that there were 3.5 million Verified Fan signups. That’s a lot of customers. 

So how did Ticketmaster fail these customers? Two ways.

First, their horrendous customer experience failed to consider ticket buyers’ needs.

Second, they threw their other customer under the bus – Taylor Swift herself. The night of the Capital One Pre-Sale, a chairman for LiveNation was interviewed on CNBC.

According to him, it is Swift’s fault for being “too famous” and having not toured in four years (three of which occurred during a once-in-a-century global pandemic). And according to the since-deleted blog post by Ticketmaster, the pre-sale events were huge successes and there was no need for people to be all worked up. 

They only got away with this because they’re a monopoly.

Taylor Swift had her hands tied, watching Ticketmaster play the fiddle while the Swifties burned. 

Cost

Cost is very similar to price in the 4 P’s, but it also takes into account non-monetary expenses. Time is also considered a cost. And time is what Ticketmaster robbed its customers of on November 15.

As I’ve already explained in great detail how Ticketmaster stole two days’ worth of my time (and oh so much more in my mental health), let’s instead look at how this isn’t the first time Ticketmaster has done this.

Ever heard of Olivia Rodrigo? Or perhaps the song Drivers License? She is a seven-time Grammy award nominee who runs in the same musical circles as Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Harry Styles, Shawn Mendez, Halsey, and even Justin Beiber. When she held her pre-sale ticketing event with Ticketmaster, a similar fate occurred to her fans. Almost exactly. Fans waited for hours only to be kicked out of the queue with codes not working. 

The ticket cost is high. The intangible cost of wasting an entire day trying to get tickets somehow manages to be higher.

Now Ticketmaster will get a taste of their own medicine, paying both the tangible and intangible costs of going to court.

Convenience 

Generally speaking, Ticketmaster is built upon convenience. Fans don’t have to wait outside a ticketing office. That’s nice.

Enthusiasts can simply whip out their phones or open a new tab on their computer and purchase tickets online. But when it came to the Eras tour, Ticketmaster managed to make something worse than actually going somewhere to buy a ticket.

I don’t know about you, but having to sit at a computer for 7 hours without leaving is not convenient. Sure, desk jobs involve sitting at a computer all day, but at least employees can get up for water, use the restroom, and even go for a walk on their lunch break.

Not in the Swiftie Hunger Games.

I was stuck in a nerve-wracking hellscape for hours. The shopping links went out by text, but Ticketmaster all but required fans to purchase tickets on a computer (which not everyone has). Then there was the aforementioned “temporary pause” that lasted two hours, the “2,000+ People Ahead of You” screen which concealed the fact that sometimes 30,000 people would be ahead of you in line.

So did Ticketmaster make purchasing tickets convenient? Hell no. 

Communication 

Initially, Ticketmaster actually did a good job here. They clearly outlined the steps of how to become a Verified Fan, and even set the expectations that not every Verified Fan would receive a code. It was a harsh truth, but supply and demand is a real thing and Ticketmaster did a good job expressing that piece. 

What they then tanked was everything thereafter. 

Ticketmaster employees who were responding to direct messages on Twitter were giving conflicting information. Some statements said that the general sale was not canceled, just postponed. Others said that there were no tickets. Others said that there were 800,000 tickets. 

Then there were conflicting messages regarding the stadium employees. One woman said a stadium employee tried selling tickets at scalper prices while the ticketing process was on hold. Whereas others have been told that the stadiums have no idea how many tickets there are and only know what the public knows. 

The reason for the pause is still up for debate. Was it due to Ticketmaster not actually inputting all the codes into the system? Was it because the servers were overloaded? Both? 

Did scalpers get in, like they did for Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour concert? 

And then of course there is the previously linked Ticketmaster initial blog post explaining the Eras Tour disaster, which had to be quickly taken down and reworked due to the backlash it received. If you haven’t checked out the link, the post was all but bragging about how historic the ticketing event was, ignoring the fact that it failed at communicating with its customers in a meaningful way.

Not exactly the best way to communicate with one’s customers, if I do say so myself. 

Dear Reader

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this article as much as I had writing it. I’ve never been a part of a community that might actually create change, so it is exciting and interesting to me to see how Swifties might be what finally gets lawmakers to look into Ticketmaster & LiveNation. Will it be the next Facebook Trials? Only time will tell. 

But what we can learn from this postmortem of the Eras Tour sale is what NOT to do in terms of marketing fundamentals. 

And if any Ticketmaster or Live Nation Board Member is reading this – feel free to reach out. I’d be happy to give you a private lesson in your Marketing’s Ps and Cs. 

Think marketing is confusing as hell? You’re not alone.

Join over 1,000 other confused, but curious folks. Download Weird Marketing’s FREE Experimental Marketing Guide.

In 2022 B2B marketers have continued to find creative new uses of social media marketing as the marketing world experienced another year exploring uncharted territory. We’ve been fortunate to feature many fine articles on our blog over the year that explore how B2B marketers are making the most of social media marketing to elevate and achieve new levels of success.

We’re also fortunate to have a wealth of talented B2B marketing professionals contributing to and reading the TopRank Marketing blog — which will celebrate its 20th year in 2023.

The expertise our team has acquired in helping some of the top brands in the world including Adobe, 3M, SAP, LinkedIn, and Oracle plan, implement and measure a wide range of marketing programs has often made it here to our marketing blog. To help our B2B blog community grow its social media marketing knowledge, we’re thrilled to once again offer up our annual list of the most popular social media marketing posts of the year.

The B2B social media marketing articles that were our most popular of the year are listed below, and we hope they will help you ask the right questions and continue to provide best-answer solutions to the challenges we’ll all face in 2023.

We give many thanks to you — our dedicated readers, for continuing to make the TopRank Marketing blog a go-to B2B marketing resource.

Our Most Popular Social Media Marketing Posts in 2022:

1. Virtual Vision: 5 New LinkedIn Features & How B2B Marketers Can Use Them To Succeed — Lane R. Ellis

LinkedIn* has released an impressive array of new features in 2022. From company page newsletters and the LinkedIn Podcast Network to the Future of Skills and many other new tools.

In the most popular social media marketing post of 2022 on our blog, I shared 5 new LinkedIn features B2B marketers need to know. We’ve continued to explore new LinkedIn features and insight throughout 2022, including in our CEO Lee Odden’s insightful “LinkedIn #B2Believe and The Playbook for Promise Making in B2B Marketing with Jim Habig,” and “How LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Uses Blogging to Power Its Growth Engine.”

You can check out all of my posts here, and follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

“Always seek the opportunity to acquire new ways to do marketing, because the ability to pivot & adapt to the unknown is the most valuable skill set.” — Som Puangladda @sompny Click To Tweet

2. B2B Marketing Education: 7 Free Social Media Training Programs From Top Platforms — Lane R. Ellis

B2B marketing is ever-changing, especially when it comes to social media, and in our second most popular social media marketing post of the year we took a look at seven free social media training programs from top platforms including:

• Meltwater
• Sprinklr
• LinkedIn Learning
• Brandwatch
• Agorapulse
• Digimind
• SproutSocial

With more than 70 percent of companies recognizing online learning as essential to long-term strategy (Digital Marketing Institute), it’s been a fantastic time to explore the vast array of online social media marketing courses available to B2B marketers from leading social platforms.

“B2B marketers who take the time to focus on making learning a perpetual and lifelong endeavor gain key advantages that help future-proof the work we’re doing today and inspire what is coming down the pike.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis Click To Tweet

3. Survey Says: 2022 B2B Marketing Insight From Social Media Polls — Lane R. Ellis

What are the key areas in the B2B marketing industry where professionals see a need to adapt to meet new challenges?

One straightforward way to gauge the pulse of the industry is simply by asking, and social media polls can offer a uniquely helpful look into the concerns of B2B marketers.

In our third most popular B2B social media marketing article of the year, we took a look at what the latest poll data reveals about where B2B marketing is in 2022, from tactics and platforms to events, search and more, plus where it’s headed in 2023.

“Keeping on top of your audience’s outlook — whether it’s from poll results, questionnaires, surveys or other varieties of feedback — can make your B2B marketing efforts more grounded, data-backed, and authentic.” — @lanerellis Click To Tweet

4. Listen Up: How B2B Marketers Are Expanding Social Listening Offline & Beyond — Lane R. Ellis

How can B2B marketers amp up their social listening strategy and expand it into other areas?

Social listening is a vital aspect of modern B2B marketing, providing valuable insight into current and potential future customers, yet many marketers treat it almost as an afterthought.

From devoting greater bandwidth to purposeful listening to using observational skills that drive marketing change, in the fourth most popular social media marketing post of 2022 we shared 5 key ways to take your listening skills to the next level.

“’Listen’ means much more than hearing with ears. It means to pay attention. Synonyms include observe, be attentive, give attention to, hang on words, and take notice.” — Meryl Evans @MerylkEvans Click To Tweet

5. Livestream Marketing: 5 B2B Brands Elevating With LinkedIn Live — Lane R. Ellis

How are B2B brands elevating using LinkedIn Live?

Throughout 2022 B2B brands have increasingly turned to LinkedIn’s live-streaming offering LinkedIn Live to elevate their messaging in creative new ways. Brands using LinkedIn Live are increasing engagement from virtually all public-facing sides of their organization, and pulling their professional communities closer than ever in real time using live-streaming.

In our fifth most popular social media marketing post of the year, we take the lens-cap off and look at five B2B brands that are elevating customer experiences by live-streaming with LinkedIn Live, including:

• Salesforce
• Mitel
• Maersk
• Demandbase
• Mercer

“When it comes to where B2B influencer marketing can take business in the next few years, our only limitations are our imaginations.” @BrianSolis of @Salesforce Click To Tweet

6. 5 Timely Ways B2B Brands Can Conquer Metaverse Marketing — Lane R. Ellis

What do B2B brands need to know about the metaverse?

The metaverse is currently a disconnected hodgepodge of holographic hopes and digital dreams that may or may not eventually reach the sustainable velocity to capture the hearts, minds, and wallets of the public and private sectors.

Whether you’re just testing the metaverse waters as a B2B brand, making the decision to go all-in, or taking a wait-and-see approach, in our sixth most popular social media marketing post of the year we took a deep dive into the current state of the metaverse, and shared top 5 insights B2B marketers can use today and in 2023.

“People ask about virtual reality, and if the metaverse is going to be the whole future, and the answer is that it’s going to be part of the future.” — Sir Tim Berners-Lee @timberners_lee Click To Tweet

7. Instagram’s Enhanced Creator Tags: Implications for B2B Influencer Marketing — Lane R. Ellis

How can B2B marketers benefit from Instagram’s enhanced tagging features?

Instagram’s addition of enhanced tagging — which is also available for use in video Reels — offers significant exposure opportunities for B2B content that has been created by multiple professionals, often precisely the type of content that is either made or co-created by B2B industry influencers.

In our seventh most popular social media marketing post of the year, we looked at how enhanced Instagram tagging can help give a voice to industry experts, help elevate underrepresented talent, and boost brand visibility.

“In a world where online visibility directly leads to brand sponsorships and other types of monetary opportunities, crediting is more important than ever.” — Alexandra Zaoui @ZaouiAlexandra Click To Tweet

8. How B2B Brands Can Embrace The Metaverse, BeReal, & Other Developing Social Channels — Lane R. Ellis

Should B2B brands embrace the metaverse, BeReal, and other developing social communication channels, and if so, when is the right time to start becoming involved?

While we haven’t quite gone from B2B to B-to-BeReal just yet, emerging social channels such as BeReal and in a broader sense the metaverse do offer B2B marketers and brands plenty of opportunities, as we explored in our eighth most popular social media marketing article of the year.

The web graveyard is littered with the digital skeletons of so many formerly promising social platforms, including some that were once seemingly poised to rise to the echelon of the most-used forms of online communication.

This social media platform churn is also what helps keep the web interesting and alive, yet there’s no doubt the turnover has made it harder for B2B marketers to invest in new and developing social channels, a challenge that will continue into 2023.

“People make purchasing decisions based on recommendations and perceptions of people (not brands) they respect and trust. Influencers will be essential for humanizing B2B brands in 2022.” — Tamara McCleary @TamaraMcCleary Click To Tweet

9. Copious Content: 5 Creative Ways B2B Marketers Can Benefit From Twitter’s New Long-Form Publishing — Lane R. Ellis

How can B2B marketers rev up their social media engines using some of the new long-form social media content publishing features?

In our ninth most-popular B2B social media marketing post of the year, we examined how community-building, executive influence, and episodic or unexpected content can help B2B long-form content thrive on social platforms.

“It takes great storytelling to attract, engage, and convert in B2B marketing, and having a bigger slate to work with lets more powerful brand, customer, and employee stories gain a new audience.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis Click To Tweet

10. Cannes Creative B2B Lions: What Award-Winning B2B Marketing Looks Like In 2022 — Lane R. Ellis

What does award-winning B2B marketing look like?

For the first time since the prestigious Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity began in the 1950s, the 2022 event saw dedicated B2B-specific marketing award categories, offering a new opportunity for B2B marketers to have their efforts shine on the global stage.

Now that the inaugural Cannes Creative B2B Lions awards event has taken place, in the tenth most popular social media marketing article of the year, we took a look at just what award-winning B2B campaign efforts look like in 2022, and where they are likely to be headed in 2023.

“The next twenty years will be about the ‘Creatification’ of a new generation of tech businesses.” — Ryan Roslansky, @LinkedIn CEO Click To Tweet

Thanks TopRank Marketing Readers

That’s a wrap on our a varied and insightful selection of the 10 most popular social media marketing posts from the TopRank Marketing blog in  2022.

We published many other posts this year specifically about elevating B2B social media marketing, a tradition we’ll continue in 2023, so stay tuned.

Please let us know which social media marketing topics and ideas you’d like to see us focus on for 2023 — we’d be thrilled to hear your suggestions.

Many thanks to each of you who read our blog regularly, and to all of you who comment on and share our posts on the TopRank Marketing social media channels at Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

*LinkedIn is a TopRank Marketing client.