May 2021 - Taktical Digital

Month: May 2021

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How To Guides

TikTok For Beginners: How To Use TikTok

In the realm of digital marketing there’s a constant effort to follow trends and platforms as they make their way onto the scene. And TikTok may appear to hold little more than a niche and structured appeal at first glance, but as of 2021 it’s grown an audience of 500 million active users. This makes it one of the top ten biggest social media sites in the world, ranking above networks like LinkedIn and even Twitter.

 Clearly, TikTok is a new game that demands to be seen. But how can you best harness the potential of this platform for your marketing needs? Where do you start when learning how to make a TikTok video?

How to Make a TikTok

Before you learn how to become TikTok famous, you need to understand the platform. TikToks are a short-form art based under the same parent company that once ran Musical.ly. When looking into how to use TikTok most will find the interface to be relatively simple at its core. You create an account, and then under your profile you tap the plus icon to create a new video.

From that point you can record through the TikTok video editor, which is a basic tool you can use to create 15-60 second videos from scratch. There are filters and effects you can take advantage of, but the most popular tool is TikTok’s ability to add songs and sound bites. This is most commonly seen in the dance and lip sync videos that have made the app so massively popular.

How to Use TikTok to Create an Audience

Looking into the best creators on the app, it’s clear to see that there’s more involved in how to make TikTok videos than what the app’s built-in editor provides. It’s an open secret that many of the best creators use outside video editing apps to take advantage of their many key features.

There are free apps like Viamaker and BeeCut that come with stickers, fonts and effects unavailable on the traditional TikTok video editor. And some apps come with limited free plans or in-app purchases, but they offer movie-style tools and increased customer service. What’s clear to see is that, with a majority of the app’s audience being ages 16-24, notoriety within the community does not necessarily have a price tag.

Embracing TikTok for Beginners and Beyond

TikTok is a platform where money won’t give you the advantage that ingenuity and authenticity will. Take in consideration the most popular video on the platform as of 2020, which showcases Zach King and a basic magic illusion. It has little production value, but has gained over 2.2 billion views.

Wallaroo has listed some ways that brands have taken advantage of TikTok to showcase their product and message. And if you’re looking for a more in-depth look into connecting with other more established creators, we have our own guide on how you can partner with influencers to create viral campaigns.

Overall, there is an inherent advantage in learning how to make a TikTok video, in that there’s really no prerequisite for success. So whether you’re working on your own or forming a relationship with a TikTok advertising agency or the right influencer, TikTok can be a valuable tool in engaging a massive audience with your brand’s genuine self.

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How To Guides

How to Make Money On TikTok: The Lowdown

Over the past few years, intelligent and outgoing teenagers have been learning how to monetize TikTok without much training in marketing or social media.  From TikTok select individuals who have built up their following and established a brand are able to become celebrities in their own right.  On the other side of the coin, brands who were hurting for sales and in dire need of exposure to new target markets and engagement have been benefiting from TikTok as well.

Have you been wondering if it is possible to make money on TikTok like all of the influencers who are now branching out into music and even acting?  The answer is yes!  Through TikTok advertising and TikTok brand partnerships it’s possible to make money and serve as an advertising cheat code for the companies that you choose to work with.  While you may find it hard to believe that any marketing director would want to pay a teenager $20,000 for a post, if that $20,000 in ad cost translates to a few hundred thousand dollars in sales, it will have all been worth it.

Can you make money on TikTok?

As a top influencer it is possible to make a great living on TikTok.  In some cases, users with millions of followers are receiving paychecks for a single post from brands and sponsors that are more than some doctors or lawyers would bring in per month.  A good example is the TikTok personality, Josh Richards (username:@joshrichards).  With nearly 25 Million followers Josh would have an estimated earnings per post of over $20,000 provided that he is working with sponsorships and brands to monetize his dancing or other entertaining antics.

But don’t be scared away by the daunting task of accruing tens of millions of followers!  Even TikTok influencers who play their cards right and have some experience in marketing are able to make several thousand dollars per post with just a million followers.  With one million followers, according to the Influencer Marketing Hub’s TikTok Money Calculator your estimated income would be somewhere between $700 and $1,100 decreasing to $250 or less per post if you have a quarter of a million followers.

Opportunities & Tik Tok Money

In addition to branding deals, there is also an opportunity for TikTok influencers to receive coins which are then translated to diamonds and exchanged for real cash!  While it is true that TikTok keeps 50% of the revenue earned by users through diamonds and coins to upkeep the app, some influencers are able to cash out up to $1,000 in diamonds per day.  Once you start receiving diamonds from followers who want to cheer you on, you can exchange them once you’ve reached $100.

TikTok is just another opportunity for aspiring influencers and social media personalities to expand their following or build a new following from the ground up.  Once you have a group of other TikTok users that are interested in and engaged with your posts, the sky’s the limit!  With a following of a few hundred thousand users, you’ll be able to identify brands who may be willing to work with you based on your niche market.

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How to Ban Someone from Your Facebook Page

If you’re a small business owner or work on the marketing team of a large organization, then it should come as no surprise that Facebook remains a hefty revenue driver and lead generation platform for eCommerce. 

Facebook’s Marketplace and Ads offer brands and solo-preneurs the opportunity to compete for new business across a virtual exchange. Globally, Facebook Marketplace is used in 70 countries and by 800 million people. With no shortage of demand, Facebook continues to break records with the company’s Q4 2020 $20.7 billion reported revenue and 25% year-over-year growth, illustrating how much businesses and individuals are willing to spend on the social media site.

Mathematically, LinkedIn’s cost per lead estimations are considered to be the most expensive of all social media platforms, but Facebook reigns king in social ad return on investment (ROI). While this suggests Facebook remains a lucrative channel for both ad spend and investment, businesses risk wasted energy through other means unique to social media.

While Facebook moderators do their best to remove content that violates Facebook’s Terms of Service, brands must remain vigilant to police their own Business pages. If you’re a business owner who has suffered at the hands of a routine online harasser, we feel for you and thankfully, there is a solution.

Larger brands afford entire social media teams and experts to monitor their company’s online reputation. While some aspects of managing a business on Facebook can be coordinated or initiated directly, having dedicated resources is a plus. When met with an anonymous harasser with too much time on their hands, consider the act of blocking someone from your Facebook page. While this may seem extreme, consider the effect that person (or persons) has on the online experience of your prospects and customers.

In this article we’ll walk you through how to ban someone from your Facebook Business page, un-ban an individual, and remove a post or comment.

When Not to Block People on Facebook

A word of caution: Facebook’s ban feature should not be used by businesses looking to suppress the opinions or feedback from customers who genuinely undergo a bad experience. If you receive negative feedback or a negative review, be sure to respond to that person in an effort to build trust and respect among members of your online community.

Remain professional, correct the mistake (if there was one), and thank the person for bringing this issue to your attention. Removing content that you deem “unfit” for your page simply because it is unflattering will result in backlash. Followers tend to call-out the bad actions of online businesses given their relative anonymity. Bad word-of-mouth has a profound effect on your brand’s reputation.

How to Ban Someone Who Likes your Facebook Business Page

Step 1: Navigate to “Settings.”

Step 2: Select “People and Other Pages” in the left-hand column.

Step 3: Search for the user you want to ban and click to check the box next to their name.

Step 4: Select the gear icon and choose “Ban From Page.” Click “Confirm.”

How to Hide a Comment on a Facebook Post

Step 1: Hover over a comment by the user and select “…” located at the right. Select “Hide Comment.”

Step 2: Click “Ban [Name].”

How to Prohibit Messaging Your Facebook Business Page

Step 1: Select “Inbox” at the top of your Page.

Step 2: Choose the message from the person you want to ban on the left.

Step 3: Select the “Mark as spam” icon.

How to Ban a Facebook User from Post on Your Business Page

Step 1: Choose “Posts” from the left-hand column of your Page.

Step 2: Select “Visitor Posts” at the right-hand side of your Page.

Step 3: Locate the post by the user you want to ban and select the “…” icon.

Step 4: Click “Ban From Page,” then “Confirm.”

How to Unban Someone From Your Facebook Business Page

Step 1: Go to “Settings.”

Step 2: Go to “People and Other Pages.”

Step 3: Select the “People Who Like This Page” dropdown and choose “Banned People and Pages.”

 

Step 4: Click to check the box next to the user you want to unban.

Step 5: Click the gear icon and choose “Unban From Page,” then click “Confirm.”

If you’re interested in additional instructions for banning harassers on Facebook, check out the company’s help page, which includes details surrounding ‘classic’ business pages and more.

For related reading as part of our Facebook series, check out 4 Advantages Of Using Google And Facebook Ads For Your Online Store and The Absolute Worst Facebook Ads In 2020 from the Taktical blog.

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10 Tips to Improve ROI in Google Shopping Ads as Shared by Industry Experts

January 29, 2021 

The year is 2021, and Google Shopping ads is a platform that has been the cornerstone to success for many companies, brands, and individual marketers alike!

If you’re one of those campaign managers who dream of acing their Google Ads campaign for an improved ROI or just gain better exposure, we do understand your end of the hustle.

However, truth be told, coming up with high outputs of results and performance by keeping up with the traditional marketing tricks isn’t going to help you.

Today, you need to do something beyond keeping up with the conventional approaches over your Google Shopping Ads campaign; you need to get creative with your campaigns.

Yes, improving your toolkit or improvising with the analytics might help improve ROI in Google Shopping, but it’s only half the way done. You can only measure your real success over Google Shopping when you implement performance dynamics with practicality and results over your future campaigns.

Therefore, to help you with improved ROI around the same, we have curated 10 Tips to improve ROI in google shopping ads, as shared by the industry experts.

Let’s have a look!

What are Google Shopping Ads?

Google Shopping Ads (Previously known as Product Listing Ads (PLAs)) are displayed based on product demands. These searches across Google and Google Shopping and are displayed above the organic search results.

The USP of this platform is based on images used as a direct channel for marketing different products. However, that’s not it with Google Shopping Ads; this platform’s core functioning is to deliver keyword-oriented results, i.e Users can buy products based on the keywords that they are most likely to inquire Google with.

This means, when a prospect puts a relevant keyword around a specific product, Google shows all the possible products that will be relevant to the search query over its search engine result page (SERP).

Why Should You Use Google Shopping Ads?

Listed below are some of the advantages of using Google Shopping Ads for your eCommerce store:

Provides you with maximum exposure 

Google Shopping Ads provide businesses with their only chance to feature their products over the Google Search Results. This way, eCommerce stores and businesses of every shape and size maximize their chances of exposure to the billions of web surfers over a specified budget (usually minimal).

Show vs. Tell 

Google Shopping Ads helps you market your product at different verticals by showing search results with relevant images. It highlights relevant product information with images (one of the best ways to active conversions)!

Intent vs. Interruption 

We all have been through the irritation caused by pop-up ads. However, Google Shopping ads are entirely different. Instead of showing irrelevant results without context, it allows users to find relevant results over search.

Yes, we know that you are all geared up, to begin with, your Google shopping campaign.

But, before you are all set to start your journey over the platform, we suggest you understand the increased competition over the same. It is essential to have a campaign strategy that bears maximum results with minimum spending, ultimately improving the ROI.

Not sure how to do that?

Relax, we have you covered. Let’s have a look!

10 Tips to Improve ROI in Google Shopping Ads

1. Tweak Your Product Titles for Maximum Clicks

Probably one of the most easily overlooked section of your Google Shopping Ads strategy is the product title. What many fail to notice is that the product titles are the very essence of the entire campaign as it is the first thing that the visitors lay their eyes upon.

Therefore, when you think of improving your ROI over Google Shopping Ads, it’s important that you tweak your product titles a bit. Your product titles provide visitors with an overview of the items that they are viewing.

Remember, product titles are the first description that your visitors see and read; make it impactful!

Tip: When you create a product title, remember to make it keyword & information-rich; it should be summing up the entire essence of the product. Further, your product titles should be based on your industry type.

Example

If you are creating a campaign based on camping products, you should create a title in a format that showcases “Brand, product + significant keywords, type of product and size”.

Similarly, when you create a campaign around different industry types, you might be required to create a different product title. Therefore, when you deal with products in different industries, it’s best that you try to experiment with different product title formats of other competitions.

Remember, if you had the chance to amend only one change to your Google Shopping Ads strategy, tweaking around your product titles is your best bet!

2. Tweak Your Product Feed Descriptions 

The next best area to implement your Google shopping Ads strategy is over your product feed.

Like your product titles, your product descriptions also significantly impact your sales; it needs to be well-structured and contain keywords for SEO. Further, Google Shopping Ads provide users with a 5,000-character limit for descriptions.

However, you need to be very certain that it is not very long. This is because customers won’t read the full 5,000 words description and getting close to the limit makes the content look messy.

Tip: Out of the 5,000 characters provided, expect your customers/ visitors to focus on the initial 1,000 characters or less. Therefore, it is essential that you make the most of your product feed description.

Optimize your product descriptions and fill them with informative content. You should also try to include well-researched and targeted keywords over the content, as it helps the ads rank better in search queries.

3. Tweak Your Google Product Categories

Google product categories are semi-optional, making it another easily ignored area of the shopping campaign.

Shopping Ads allows you to sell products without defining them and automatically categorizes your product if you do nothing.

However, you shouldn’t allow Google to do so.

The reason? When segregating automatically, Google confuses the product categories, which makes ads ineffective and irrelevant.

Therefore, it is always advisable to tweak your product categories differently and understand which product performs better across different segments.

Segmenting helps understand product categories and allows you to analyze the trends around different products of your store.

Tip: Try categorizing every product that you sell and segment them based on categories around gender, prices, brand, and reviews. Remember, don’t leave out the product/ products that aren’t performing well!

When used effectively, tweaking your Product Categories counts for one of the best Google Shopping Ads tips.

4. Have High-Resolution Product Images

One of the significant areas that entice your customer to know more about a specific product is its image.

Moreover, the USP of Google Shopping is no different from the traditional eCommerce stores; it tends to offer a visual experience of its offering. This way, your product images play a significant role in influencing sales as they are the first thing that visitors notice over the SERP page.

The core functioning of Google Shopping Ad works by combining Google merchants’ accounts and different category pages to show ads with relevant product images as a greater highlight.

With images playing such a significant role in driving sales, why not make the best out of that too?

Yes, even the images used over your Google Shopping Ads can be used to improve your ROI.

The Tip: Keep up with the rules! When you are adding product images to your campaign, make sure that you are doing it right and keep an eye on the following:

  • Do not submit images below 32×32 pixels or images above 64 megapixels in terms of size. Further, while putting up apparel images, make sure to keep it at 250×250 pixels)
  • Don’t increase the size of your thumbnails or images
  • Avoid using images that have a watermark, text, or logo over it
  • Refrain images with borders
  • Submit high-resolution images and keep them limited to one image unless you are submitting a bundle

When you abide by Google’s rules, you can quickly improve ROI in google shopping.

5. Include Relevant Google Shopping Ad Extensions

While setting up campaigns might be your proficiency, having extra help that makes your job easier is never a bad thing, right?

Yes, we are referring to the free help over your campaigns provided by the Google Shopping Ad Extensions.

Having the right set of shopping extensions is your best bet to improve ROI in Google Shopping. These extensions make your job easier and help you in ways more than one.

Depending on its type, these extensions serve different functions and help to expand your ad with extra pieces of information (something you might have missed).

Further, these extensions also help in the automation of your Google Shopping campaigns, giving you the opportunity to explore more!

Tip: When you go hunting for your ad extensions, you will come across a plethora of extensions. However, you need to make sure that you understand the extensions put to use!

Moreover, give some time to find your ideal extension, as what works for others might not help you reach your campaign goals.

You should also try using extensions that help improve the CTR of an ad over a significant time. Remember to focus on different aspects of ad extensions that allow you to access multiple level automation of a given campaign.

6. Try to Use Google Customer Reviews & Products Rating

Reviews and product ratings have been among the most prominent ways around eCommerce industries in recent times.

Putting up reviews and ratings helps manifest human psychology, where visitors are more confident about the products that have been used or reviewed by others. It helps them understand the product, even before they buy the product.

Sounds interesting, right? Why not use Google customer reviews & product ratings for your campaigns?

Yes, you can showcase them over your website and, in return, gain a clear idea about the products your customers are checking out at your store and see the reviews left behind by existing buyers.

This way, by using a simple technique of utilizing reviews and ratings, you can easily improve ROI on Google Shopping and build the credibility of your eCommerce store.

7. Always Have a Negative Keywords Strategy in Place

Having negative keywords placed strategically over your campaign can be a cornerstone to its success. Yes, negative keywords do that part!

When you prepare a list of negative keywords and implement the same in your shopping campaign, it helps Google understand the specific keywords that should not be triggering your ads.

This way, your products are only limited to an appealing audience besides saving your ad spend.

Now, isn’t money saved = money earned?

To help you understand better, let’s understand how negative keywords work, with an example:

You are an eCommerce retailer that deals in AC motors.

Considering that you are setting up campaigns for your shop, you are more likely to use relevant keywords like “AC motors near me” or “Best AC motors near me” as your primary keyword to trigger ads.

However, what if a prospect enquires Google with “motor shops near me”?

Yes, Google will show up your products as well, leading to a loss of ad spend. This way, when your search results prove to be irrelevant to the user, the search engine automatically drops the quality score over your ad, making it look irrelevant.

When you have your negative keywords placed correctly, you provide Google with a clear idea of the keywords you don’t want to showcase your ads upon.

Now, doesn’t that sound just right?

Tip: Don’t just set up a list of negative keywords and settle; you need to seamlessly update the negative keyword list at regular intervals to save over your ad spend. Also, don’t just label your campaign with negative keywords at once; keep a distinctive interval between updates.

8. Adjust Bids By Device Performance

The penetration of mobile users certainly outweighs the likes of desktop users, making complete sense when you are setting up your campaigns. Products that will be performing better over a desktop might not perform the same way over mobile and vice versa.

Now, isn’t it a smart move to focus your campaigns on platforms that have a higher penetration of users?

Yes, it is possible to implement your campaign around device performance, and is also one of the best Google Shopping Ads tips! 

When you can segregate your ads’ performance into different categories based on different devices, you improve your overall ROI. Every type of device has a significant role to play in your campaign.

Further, Google allows users to adjust the overall bidding strategy over a specified percentage, provided that you have all your device types listed in a singular ad group or campaign.

This way, you can easily adjust all the bid types when segmenting campaigns based on devices for different products.

Tip: Focus on the type of products that you are selling! Once you have curated a list of products, it becomes easier to implement a device strategy over them.

9. Fine-tune Your Ads by Geo Location

While Google Shopping Ads give you the global platform to sell your products, it’s your smart marketing that helps you become successful and improve the ROI of your business.

Similar to the idea of similar products having different demands over different geographic locations, you should also fine-tune your ads the same way!

Wondering what? Relax, let’s understand the same with an example:

Say that you are a dealer of air-conditioning units that ships around the globe. It’s apparent that you will find an increased demand for your product in tropical countries than the other subtropical regions where the temperature is comparatively lower.

Now, does it make any sense to spend a similar ad spend over both the locations?

Therefore, it is always advisable to fine-tune your ads by Geo-Location.

10. Make Sure You Increase Bids for High-Performance Products

Coming over to our last but one of the easily ignored tips, increase your bids over high-performance products. However, before you make such a move, it is always better to implement a query filtering strategy as well.

When you implement such a strategy over your Google Ads, you can easily set different product group bids based on search results.

Consider an example where there’s a high-intensity keyword around an upcoming product like “Apple car”, isn’t it logical to revise your ad spend target and use a certain amount of it over that specific keyword?

While you might have other options like “electric cars” or “future cars” to utilize your budget, these keywords are too generic and will fail to provide the required results.

Tip: Never invest all your ad spend or a considerable portion of your ad budget over high-density keywords as new trends roll up every other day. Remember, try using a strategy that comprises both high and medium density keywords.

This bidding strategy might turn out to be one of the best google shopping ads tips for you!

Conclusion

We hope that you test the above ways on your Google Shopping ads and reach new heights with your business.

However, it is crucial to understand that not every campaign and its relevant audience will have the same response. The true results of your Shopping ads campaign rely on how effectively you execute them.

All the best for your next campaign!

Guest Post Contribution from AdNabu

AdNabu helps improve sales in Google Ads for shopify stores. If you are running google search, google shopping, or display campaigns in Google Ads, Their apps help to increase your sales.

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How To Guides SOCIAL MEDIA

How To Save Your Snapchat Memories And Data

With so many amazing memories being captured on social media platforms it’s important to ensure these photos and videos are properly saved.  Saving Snapchat memories and Snapchat data allows you to relive fun life experiences and share snaps and stories with friends or family.  The saving of memories and Snapchat data even allows brands to reuse memorable videos and photos for social media advertising.

The value of a snap or story that has created high levels of engagement or allows you to relive an amazing vacation or adventure can be absolutely priceless.  

How to Save All Memories to Camera Roll

In order to revisit memories in particular, you have to manually save each and every memory to your camera roll because the information is stored in Snapchat’s cloud system by default.  It’s commonly believed that saving each and every snap individually is the best way to accomplish this task, but there is another way that Snapchat has built into the app.  If you want to save all of your memories to the camera roll at once, the process is actually quite simple.  BY navigating through a few settings pages you will be able to prevent the mistake of forgetting to save a great video or photo with family.  

All you have to do to save memories to your camera roll is navigate to the gear-shaped settings tab in the top right-hand corner of your Snapchat app which will take you to the settings screen.  Scroll down to memories (which will be under ‘Snapcash’) and select ‘Save To…’ which will then leave you a few options.  You can select to save your snaps and stories to your camera roll only or to your memories & camera roll.  By selecting one of these two options, you’ll never have to forget about losing a Snapchat memory in the cloud.  

How to Save All Memories to Camera Roll

If you have not been individually saving your memories to the camera roll prior to changing Snapchat settings as discussed above, you’ll have to go back and manually save them.  In order to begin the process, just select a memory so that you are able to see three small white dots in the top right-hand corner.

When you click on the three dots you’ll be taken to a new menu, a menu where the first option is ‘Export Snap’.  Once you have selected ‘Export Snap’ you’ll be able to choose the camera roll and in turn save the photo to your iCloud, photo hard drive or anywhere else you’d like.  Saving a memory to your camera roll means that you will be able to access that photo or video in the same way that you would access a photo that you took on your phone.    

How to Save Snapchat Photos to Camera Roll

Saving a photo that you have just taken on Snapchat to your camera roll before you have sent it to your contacts is just as easy.  All you have to do is take a photo or video and then click on the download button (bottom right-hand corner) and the photo will be saved to your camera roll.

How to Save Pictures from Snapchat Chat to Camera Roll

Photos that are sent via chat are unlike photos that are simply sent with a time-limit to a contact that cannot be saved.  Any user can send a photo from their camera roll or a saved memory via chat to a contact to laugh about a fun time, recall an event or revisit an adventure.  In order to save a picture from Snapchat chat to your camera roll just select the chat in which the photo was sent, click and hold your finger on the photo and select ‘Save to Camera Roll’ when the option appears.

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What Does My Facebook Profile Look Like to Others

People turn to social media, especially Facebook, to post all kinds of things. From life declarations to expressing inner thoughts to funny videos and pictures, it seems like posting to Facebook is one of the most natural and common things to do these days. Countless Facebook Ads have even become an everyday thing you see on the social media giant. This makes it all the more reason to be careful when it comes to your posts and your privacy settings.

While your posts, images, and maybe even events are meant to be shared with family and friends, what you post can also be made available for the general public to see. While there are settings you can choose to prevent the public from being able to see your posts, it can be a hassle to check every single post to see if they are set to Private.

To remedy this challenge, Facebook has fortunately provided a way for you to see your Facebook profile as someone else would. This gives you more control over what content you make viewable to everyone. Keep reading to find out how to use this helpful Facebook viewer tool.

How to View Your Facebook Profile as Someone Else

Facebook’s feature for viewing your Facebook profile as someone else is called “View As.” This allows you to see what it looks like from the perspective of someone who isn’t your friend, and more specifically, lets you control what is and isn’t visible to the public. This feature is even useful for hiding particular details from specific people.

First, log in to your Facebook page and go to your profile. Underneath your cover photo to the far right (next to the Edit Profile button), click on the three dots. From the pop-up menu, click on “View As.”

You will now be able to see what your profile looks like to someone who isn’t your friend on Facebook. At the top of the screen, you will see the words: “This content on your profile is: Public.”

There used to be a way to view your Facebook profile as a friend, however, that appears to have been removed from the “View As” feature.

Why You Should You Know How to See Who Views Your Facebook Profile

Social media, particularly Facebook, has significantly changed how people communicate with one another. While posting habits and thoughts may have become second nature, it’s important to keep in mind that what you post on Facebook can have security risks. There may also be posts that you just don’t want everyone to see, perhaps more personal posts just meant for family and friends.

The amount of information that can be gathered from a picture is often underestimated. Even just the surroundings of your house or a landmark can give away your location to someone who is persistent enough. Viewing your Facebook profile as someone else enables you to easily and quickly view which posts are available for the public to see. No longer will you have to check the settings for each and every post.

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How to Master Social Media Copywriting: 6 Tips You Need to Know

For almost two decades already, social media have been gaining importance non-stop. What originally emerged as a tool for simple social contact recovery with long-lost friends, relatives, and other acquaintances, very soon discovered its vast potential as a very powerful marketing tool for individuals and businesses.

Linkedin and Facebook are, in fact, an electronic fair of a sort where employees meet their future employers, and companies attract their customers. The same is true for Instagram, Twitter, and other social media of your favor, although each has its unique features.

This is why it is crucial to master the art of how to write as a guest blogger – and do it in a way as to attract many new customers to the business of interest. Here are some useful recommendations to consider if you want to learn how to do that more effectively and probably make a career out of it. After all, as last year’s research by Brookings Institute revealed, many professions would soon become obsolete as a result of automation, and many new would emerge. However, as a career path, social media management is currently at the peak of popularity and isn’t losing its ground in the foreseeable future.

Important Things to Remember

  1. Make the first step.

Although copywriting’s central notion is familiar to almost everybody, its true meaning is far not obvious. It is not merely giving a description of your goods or services, but persuasive writing to transform you passive readers into active supporters – not haters. Not an easy task to apprehend now, is it? Not even a clue what to start with?

A common saying goes as follows: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”  Sometimes the most challenging thing is taking that first step. A common “nightmare” among many professional writers is sitting with a blank paper or a text file and not knowing what the first sentence should be.

Many of those struggling at the beginning subconsciously see these first phrases as the most critical sentence in the whole written piece of work they’re about to produce. This understanding frustrates them further, and that’s yet another common problem to deal with.

If you’re new to copywriting, let us suggest formulating your task’s primary goal and using it as a starting point instead – although you may as well find other useful methods of your own.

  1. Know Your Customer.

Social media platforms like Facebook are somewhat similar to a loud market, with many people chattering at once. In order to not spend your resources in vain but direct them at a receptive audience, you either have to cry out even louder (hardly an effective tactic!) or “hit” them with what really makes their hearts beat.

First of all, whom exactly are you addressing? In each company’s case, there may be dozens of different stakeholder groups to deal with: clients, vendors, investors, business partners. Then there are, of course, analysts, auditors, regulators – you name it. Although not each group will necessarily read your posts on social media, the idea is still the same: you’ll need to identify the target group and find a “key” to it.

This is why emotional connection plays such an important role here. A proper psychological approach has a great deal in that. Believe it or not, it has a significant part in almost every field, which explains such widespread popularity of psychological training of different sorts nowadays.

In order to truly get in touch with the target audience, competent copywriters should know who they are dealing with and what this particular audience requires as an entity: what content are they looking for to receive? This doesn’t necessarily require being a certified psychologist but implies at least a little research.

  1. Invest in Your Writing Skills.

Perfect grammar is an essential requisite, of course. Still, when it comes to social media marketing, a dedicated writer should keep in mind many important nuances, such as:

  • Character limits for each particular social network;
  • Primary purposes of each specific social network. What kind of people are you targeting, what are their interests, what do they invest their time at home, at work, during the daily commute, etc. Many other tiny but critical specific nuances Instagram and Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest all have, which will make them very different in many aspects;
  • What hashtags it is better to use, what tone to stick to, and whether to add emotional dimension or not;
  • What writing templates it is better to follow in each case.

The above list is far from being exhaustive, as there are much more things to remember.

Continuous professional development (CPD) is another vital thing. Although, not an official requirement as in the case with, for example, professional accountants (who have to take a certain amount of CPD points annually to keep their certificates and stay in the profession), copywriters – probably like all others – still need to maintain their awareness of what’s changing in their field and adapt correspondingly, either through online/corporate courses for professional copywriters or else. You can also enlist some of the best proofreading services to help you with your copy.

  1. Stick to the plan.

 Advertising your products with social media, if performed effectively, can quickly become the leading way to attract new clients, more so in the field of IT. But in order to be performed effectively, SMM has to remain consistent in following a clear strategy of content marketing. Otherwise, your business won’t be getting the full potential from what social media may offer.

What sort of plan – that will depend on each particular company and currently pursued strategy. Launching a new product line is one good example. In that case, you as a copywriter will probably be given a task to raise awareness of the product among existing customers, or on the contrary – to focus your attention on a different market segment, if the product is aimed at not the same type of clients.

Or consider dozens of other different tasks your company’s governance may have – finding new partners, M&A plans, hiring, restructuring, other important announcements, etc. As a marketer, all those things must be communicated to raise your audience’s awareness and win over their attention. Quite understandably, in each particular case, what you produce will also be very different.

From that follows the importance of communications as a type of “soft” skills of utmost importance in today’s business reality. As a copywriter, you have a task to bring the message to your company’s customers, and exactly what message it will be – that is up to the company’s governance to decide, giving you directions to follow. With that in mind, you’ll have to:

  • Communicate with your managers and understand the task,
  • Communicate the key message to your target audience,
  • Read the results of the implemented marketing strategy and, again, communicate them to the company’s governance for it to see if course correction is needed,
  1. Choose your words carefully.

No matter how great the social network guest post is, it is worth nil unless it finds its way to top spots in results generated by web search engines. Please note that “choosing words” here implies quite a different meaning as compared to what we talked about earlier: it is not simply about formulating your thoughts and writing them down!

Search engine optimization is probably the main thing mastering which you are able to direct visitors’ flow to your website and stand out among the competitors. SEO is a comprehensive internal system of measures to raise the website’s position among all other results generated by web search engines, depending on certain inquiries by the ones who perform searching.

The efficient implementation of those measures can significantly increase your website’s attendance, thus expanding your customer base. That’s why capable SEO copywriters who produce copy not only do that with strictly defined criteria, taking into account various nuances like thematic citation index (TCI) or keyword density, are so valuable and highly paid nowadays.

  1. Put technologies to good use.

Although no computer will ever write a poem as good as a talented human will, AI-assisted copywriting is gaining momentum (although still a subject for speculations).

But AI and machine learning are not the only technological aspects to be used by professional social media copywriters. Grammar checking tools are an obvious example, but there is much more.

For instance, there are also such useful instruments as text randomizers. Although they have nothing to do with artificial intelligence, depending on the task to be completed, they may remarkably save your efforts in producing many similar texts for publication on several different social media networks.

In conclusion

As one can see, social media copywriting is far not only about writing texts and posting them on social media platforms, although this may be seen as its basis. Successful copywriting in today’s business world requires much more than impeccable texts with keywords and catchy phrases.

In order to really get paid for what you can do best, you’ll also have to master other related skills – like awareness of user experience, for instance, or – who would have thought! – even basics of psychology to establish a better rapport with your audience.

Marie Barnes is a journalist, freelance writer, and editor at Studyscroll. She has worked for many major publications, but she also ambitiously pursues challenging freelance projects. Her love for traveling motivates her to explore the world. Marie wants to inspire people to follow their dreams by sharing her experiences online.

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Small talk

Instagram Introduces New Feature: Instagram Categories

New Instagram features can be kind of exciting when they first rollout. You wonder how they will affect the user experience. Will it make the experience better? Will they have an impact on marketing? How useful will the new Instagram feature be? It can be interesting to see how seemingly minor features can create significant changes.

With Instagram categories, you have a new feature that allows users to sort the accounts they follow in different ways. With this feature, you can find the accounts you see the most, the ones you interact with the least and you can even look at an Instagram categories list for the accounts you have followed most recently or those that you have been following the longest. Along with that, you can also manage notifications and how much you see from some of the accounts you follow.

This can be good for users because it makes it easier to manage the accounts they follow based on a range of factors. As an example, you might look for the accounts you interact with the least and find that you want to unfollow. On the other side, you might find an account that is showing up a lot and manage the notifications so you see them less. You could also look back on the oldest accounts on your list and find that they no longer reflect your interests at the current time.

While it isn’t a seismic shift in the way the platform operates, these types of Instagram features make a difference. In this post, we are going to look at how you can use these accounts from your Instagram profile.

Accounts You Interact With Least

Let’s say you want to trim down your list of followed accounts. The accounts you interact with the least would usually be a good place to start. With this feature, all you would need to do is go to your profile and open the list of accounts you are following. Once the list is open, just click on the option for “Least Interacted With”.

Accounts You See Most

Maybe you are seeing too much content from one of the accounts you follow. With the new categories feature, you can find the accounts you see the most and take different actions to manage how much you see. Just go to your profile, open the list of accounts you are following and click on the option for “Most Shown in Feed”. From there, the list will organize starting with the accounts you see the most.

Most Recent Follows

Seeing the accounts you have followed recently can also be useful. To do this, go to the list of accounts you are following on your Instagram profile and click on “Default”. From there, you can select the option for “Date Followed: Latest”.

Earliest Accounts Followed

Since a person’s tastes and interests change with time, you might also want to see the accounts you have been following the longest. To do this, you would go to your profile and open the list of accounts you follow. With the list open, you can click on “Default” and then select the option for “Date Followed: Earliest”.

Managing What You See

Maybe you have accounts you don’t want to unfollow, but you want to limit what you see from the account. To do that, you would go to the account in question and click on the “Following” tab. From there, you will see a menu with options for notifications, mute and restrict. Under these options, you will find different Instagram features that allow you to manage the content and notifications you see from the account.

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