Alright, so a graphic designer is essential for certain aspects. These are the people that can make the website creative, add the perfect graphic for a blog, and work their magic for that print ad that you want asap. Let's just say that graphic designers are indispensable. However, these people can get loaded down with everything else and don't have time for the latest fun image for a social media campaign. So, the job falls onto the social media person.
Eventually, as more and more projects involving social media start to pile up, the inevitable evolution will occur. This does not mean that the graphic designer will not touch any social media at all, it just means that the social media person has to step up. A graphic designer cannot make a graphic for every day of the week, plus complete all of their other work. You need to find the balance between graphic design and social media.
Thus, not only are social media experts researching the latest trends or keywords, tweeting about the hottest topics, writing content, responding to the comments or ratings, and scheduling out posts to best suit their brand's needs, but they're also creating the images to go with their latest clever quip. They're fully taking on these brands digitally and are the eyes, ears, and mouth of the brands they're representing.
The Whole Package
With that, these social media pros have to transition from being wordsmiths to being the full package: being able to write and create visually stimulating images. As they are planning out and instinctively creating these social media posts, they must also think about the visuals. What images can I pair with this? Should I create a fun meme or do I need to overlay text on a photo? What best suits the needs of the post, but also the brand? When this happens, a social media expert not only has to know the brand, but must fully immerse themselves. Images sometimes can define the client more than the copy because people are drawn to images. Does anyone else remember the quote, "A picture is worth a thousand words?" For a company, it's true. People form opinions of companies based off of their social media, including the copy and graphics. Also, a bad image or poorly-paired image and text can quickly go under Buzzfeed's latest "What Not to Do on Social Media" list. The nightmare for any company.
So, what should be done to prepare for this shift?
Ready to Rumble
There are a couple ways to handle this, but it all depends on your company culture and how you want to proceed with this looming trend.
You could just make sure that the next social media person that you hire is graphically savvy. This person must be a digital saint by having social media, content, and graphic design backgrounds. This is possible, but rare. The majority of these people have preferences or specialties in one area, so be clear on this and respond accordingly.
Another option is to train or assist your current social media people. This could be anything from basic graphics courses, free or expensive, to using basic graphic design programs. For the people who want to learn more or are struggling to think graphically, then some classes might be ideal. However, if some team members just do not have the gift, then I would suggest designating a few people with graphic skills on the team to make these graphics.
The social media gurus that have talent, and don't need or want a class, might want to look into a couple other options:
1. Learn from YouTube videos and blogs for more in-depth graphic design tips, like Photoshop. This is pretty straightforward, but it does work, and it can be done during work hours or independently, based on company policies.
2. Rather than the social experts teaching themselves the more complicated programs, try out some of the lighter graphic programs. So, instead of learning how to touch-up the background in a photo, use programs that don't have to do as much "heavy-lifting." There are free sites like PicMonkey and Canva, which allow for uploading images, using some pre-set design elements, and editing them to your needs. Now, both have paid features, so be sure to take a look. Both allow for some flexibility when creating graphics to help take the stress off the graphic designers. Canva even has a business level, which allows for multiple users to access photos and designs. Another free image option is Buffer. Yes, it's a social media scheduling site, but it also has a feature for some meme or image creation by combining a few simple elements.
The Ultimate Social Media Expert
When preparing for the latest social media posts, be sure to remember what matters. It's easy to get caught up in the latest memes or just promoting services. Keep in mind what interests your audience and create the text and images accordingly. Be sure to scatter the fun graphics, the blatant self-promotion, and everything in between throughout the calendar. It's finding the right balance, just like finding the right combination between the post's text and the image. It takes knowledge of the audience and brand, while still being creative. That's one thing that the ultimate social media guru must be --- creative, engaging, and sensitive to needs.
Simply put, a new era is here for small businesses. Graphic designers are sharing the load with social media experts. With the right tips and tricks, these social gurus can conquer the graphic world that they live in.
Memorial Day should be a hallowed day of remembrance for all Americans. The reality is that most people will spend the day with friends and family having fun.
Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with enjoying this day; however, it is important that we take time out to reflect on the sacrifices that have been made that give us the rights and freedoms we enjoy as American citizens.
Our economic system is a primary benefit of the freedom bestowed upon us by the founders of our land and those who have fought to defend it. As Americans, we have the freedom to follow our dreams and become entrepreneurs, create new products or services, start a non-profit, work for a large corporation, work for a small business, and etc. The list goes on and on.
At The Squad, we are honored to participate in the American economy by helping our clients grow their businesses through strategic marketing and business develop initiatives.
We love serving our clients and working hard to strengthen our economy.
In my opinion, the most American thing we can do is work hard to provide value to others. This can be in the form of making a product or providing our service. Either way, we owe it to our fellow Americans and those who have given us our freedom to do our best day in and day out.
Is America perfect? No, but it is the best country the world has seen to date.
Let’s do our part by working together to keep America strong so that future generations can enjoy the blessings that our generation has enjoyed.
The choice we make today directly impacts the future for our children and grandchildren.
As you celebrate Memorial Day this week, take some time to reflect on what you enjoy as an American citizen and the price that was paid for your freedom.
Let’s join together as Americans to make sure our country remains the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." - Abraham Lincoln
Content curation is an essential part of an effective content marketing strategy. The key to a successful content curation strategy is finding and sharing the content that will connect with your target audience. Like most things, this is easier said than done.
At The Squad, we have developed a five-step process that we use to curate content for our partner clients.
Know your target audience
This first step is Marketing 101 - you have to intimately know who your target audience is. Savvy marketers take it a step further and develop detailed buyer personas for key decision makers within a target audience. This extra step gives you the capability of providing relevant content with pinpoint accuracy.
What are you trying to accomplish with curated content?
There are four distinct benefits of curating content:
Thought leadership - showcase the depth and breadth of understanding of your industry, client needs, and community
Lead nurturing - provide relevant content to leads and prospects at specified times during a lead nurturing campaign or send directly to a prospect when you read an article that would benefit them
Original content ideas - consistently reviewing content being produced by others in your industry may provide you with ideas about content that can be created by your team
Potential SEO benefit - sharing curated content on your social media and as summary articles or intra-page links may benefit your score in major search engine ranking algorithms
Finding content
There is no shortage of content! The challenge is finding relevant content that is high quality. It is important to remember that when sharing content with your tribe, you are by default giving it your stamp of approval!
You have to read every article before you share it! Evaluate the content for the following criteria:
- Relevancy
- Credibility
- Value
- Validation
In our experience, the best sources of content are industry publications, key influencers, and social media.
We recommend the following tools to help you find content to share:
Where to share your curated content
There are many avenues in which you can share your curated content including:
Measuring success
It is always important to measure the success of any marketing tactic. Some tactics are easier to measure than others. The impact of curated content is one of those that can be difficult to directly measure.
Our team typically uses engagement factors (likes, comments, shares, etc.) to gauge the impact of curated content.
Social media followers or website visits in most cases are not good data points. Curated content may or may not impact follower growth on social media and will have minimal impact on traffic to your website because you are sharing content from other sources.
Next steps
Before sharing curated content, make sure you have a plan. Develop an overall strategy and tactical implementations that will benefit your content marketing strategy.
I personally enjoying finding and sharing curated content. It helps me stay up to date on the ever-changing marketing industry and provides me with lots of great information to share with my tribe.
Let me know if you have any questions about curating content or would like to learn more about our content curation services at The Squad.
Friday the 13th is almost upon us and it's the perfect time to think about things that are scary. Obviously, crazy clowns and creepy, stormy nights are up there, but what about losing money and ruining your website? Your website is your digital representative. It tells online users who you are, what you do, and works to obtain new leads and sell your products. It's an extension of your brand. Neglecting or missing certain aspects can make you lose money in the long run, which truly is scary.
13 Ways to Ruin Your Website
1. Not updating information. If you have copy on your website telling readers to check out the latest 2014 trends, that's a turn-off. No one will trust your site or you to have the latest information.
2. Music. If your website has music auto-playing in the background, then you need to fix it now. This is an outdated and annoying practice. You are more likely to chase people away than invite them in.
3. Not collecting information. If you have a downloadable offer or a contact page but are not having people fill out a form, you are missing out on valuable lead information.
4. Not having enough information. People visit your website to learn, make sure they can understand who you are and what you do. Don't make the mistake of only having a few pages of garbled text. This befuddles the user more than it helps them.
5. Confusing flow. If you have fifty buttons to click, countless ads, and complex titles, then no one will understand where to go. People will just bounce off your site rather than stay and fight it.
6. No social links. If you are putting in the effort to build your social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, it's hurting you not to have those links on your page. Social media can even help cultivate leads.
7. Not having analytics set up. You want to be able to see where people are coming from, where they're going, and what they're doing. It's your site, so you want to know what's going on and analytics is the perfect way to do this. Furthermore, you can take the data and adjust your site accordingly to fit the needs of that target market.
8. Not mobile responsive. How many times have you visited a site on your phone or tablet and it didn't work? It was glitchy and you couldn't seem to navigate the site, so you just ended up leaving. That's what people are doing with your website if it isn't mobile responsive.
9. Being static. Your website shouldn't just exist. That's like you just sitting there expecting people to notice you, which doesn't happen. You have to be proactive and be seen. Work to increase your search engine optimization ratings or write blogs, do something so that the right people can come to you.
10. Bad layout. If everything is mismatched and is so bad to the point of being a distraction, then you have a problem. Not only will users leave, but will do so running. They will just remember how terrible your website was and connect that confusion with your brand.
11. Not being optimized. The ALT text, meta descriptions, keywords, and more should be utilized to optimize your site for search engines. If you aren't on the first page of Google, you aren't being found.
12. Directories. Years ago before Google updated its algorithm, being in a directory listing was a popular practice for backlinks. Now, that's one of the biggest things NOT to do. Google sees those sketchy directory sites and knows that they're not proper links. Do not submit your site to a directory, it will only ruin your credibility with search engines.
13. No images. People are visual learners. A picture can easily help make an instant connection with a complex topic. In addition, with the proper optimization, search engines can give you credit for the images, too.
If you aren't trying, you're dying. Don't let these 13 scary situations ruin your website. With the proper attention to detail and help, your website can be an asset instead of the death of you.
If you're looking for a website redesign, contact The Marketing Squad for a quote or check out our website for more information.
Where you choose to host your website is a very important decision. There are many things to think about before selecting your hosting provider.
Consider the following questions:
- How important is your website to your overall business strategy (branding, marketing, sales, client service, product delivery, etc.)?
- Does your website need to be secure? (If you are processing credit card transactions, it has to be.)
- Do website visitors expect your website to be available when they visit it (uptime) and fast?
- Is it important to you that your website is backed up daily in case something unexpectedly breaks your website?
- Do you want to make it easy for your web design team to update and maintain your website?
If you answered YES to most of these questions, you need more than a low cost shared hostingsolution.
About a year ago, we made a strategic decision to partner with WP Engine to host our clients' WordPress websites.
We have a dedicated server with WP Engine where only our clients' WordPress websites are hosted. This provides our development team many advantages over off-the-shelf shared hosting including:
- Enhanced security features like multiple firewalls, redundant global server co-locations, andSucuri malware scanning.
- Speed! WordPress websites can be a drain on a web server if it is not configured properly. WP Engine servers are set up and optimized specifically for WordPress website functionality. Additionally, WP Engine offers a built-in CDN that makes delivering web page content super fast.
- The robust set of tools available to our development team streamlines WordPress website development and maintenance.
- WP Engine provides amazing customer support. If I have an issue or need help with something, their support team is fast, knowledgeable, and very easy to work with.
Your website is one of the most important components of your marketing strategy. It is important that it is secure, functions properly, and loads quickly. While it might be tempting to choose a low cost shared hosting solution, this is taking an unnecessary risk that could cost your business in the long run.
Digital marketing is an essential component of your overall marketing strategy. Choosing the right marketing partner to tell your brand’s story is critical. It is important that you know the right questions to ask and key things to look for when choosing the right digital marketing agency to align with. Below are seven key questions that will help you make your decision.
What are your goals in partnering with a digital marketing agency?
Before setting up discovery meetings with different agencies, you need to know three key things:
- Why do you want to hire a digital marketing agency?
- What do you want them to do for you?
- What is your budget?
The answers to these questions will help you and the agency dialogue about how to leverage digital marketing to build your brand.
What questions are they asking?
The quality and depth of questions you are asked by the agency will give you clues about their overall understanding of digital marketing and how they may be able to apply it to telling your brand’s story.
What does winning looking like?
Before investing in a marketing or business initiative, you have to have an end goal in mind. Whether it is generating more leads for your sales team, increasing e-commerce sales, or generating more brand awareness, you and the agency have to know what you are trying to accomplish.
How do they measure success?
Data is the backbone of successful marketing strategies. Ask the agency what kind of tools they use to assess marketing performance. You also need to know how often and in what manner that data will be presented to you.
Do you trust them?
Based on your perception of the agency and your interactions with them, do you believe they will be able to deliver results?
Do you believe they will be transparent if things are not going according to plan?
Do you like them?
Depending on how much marketing you want the agency to do for your brand, you or members of your team will be spending a lot of time working with agency team members. You need to be comfortable working closely with the agency's team on a regular basis.
Do they practice what they preach?
Invest some time exploring the agency's social media channels, website, blog, and other digital channels. Do you like what you see? Do you feel that what you experience in the sales process aligns with what they are doing?
Choosing the right digital marketing agency is an important decision for every organization that chooses to outsource marketing functions.
Making the wrong choice can cost you time, money, and negatively impact your brand.
