Categories
Branding

What is a Micro-Influencer?

Influencer Marketing – This is a term that most individuals in business, if not all, are familiar with. It’s a word that has been around since 2017 and does not seem to be going anywhere any time soon. So, what’s influencer marketing and why has it been able to withstand the waves of time for the long that it has?

Well, since its introduction in 2017, influencer marketing became ‘the next big thing’ in marketing with relative ease. Almost every business, small and large alike, joined the bandwagon hoping to get a fair share of what this new kind of marketing would offer. And as you would expect, some won and some lost.

In 2021, businesses are still making good use of influencer marketing, leaving one to wonder what really is the magic wand behind the marketing practice. Turns out it quite an easy thing. It’s all about taking advantage of an influencer’s following and their follower engagement to promote your products – and it simply works!

Celebrities in Influencer Marketing

In influencer marketing, one may think that their biggest catch would be to collaborate with celebrity influencers for maximum ROI, but that’s simply not the case. Why? Such influencers may have a large following, but most of their followers won’t  engage with these influencers in such a manner.

They simply won’t fall for the idea that their most revered individual can use certain products and/or services. Not because that these products or services are not great, but just because celebrities find their satisfaction in using products that may not be affordable to the average customer.

Besides, using a celebrity to promote your products and/or services is not the cheapest form of marketing. Let’s not even talk about the ROI!

Enter micro-influencers…

What are Micro-Influencers?

Micro-influencers are a group of influencers who don’t have a huge following (10,000 – 100,000). This makes it possible for these individuals to engage closely and more often with their following due to the size. Since most of the micro-influencers don’t live an extravagantly lavish lifestyle, it is easier for them to convince their followers that they have actually tried out a certain product or service.

Where Can One Find Micro-Influencers?

Finding micro-influencers is not as complicated as you may think, owing to the fact that they are present in every industry. However, it’s advisable to take your time when choosing such influencers to avoid ending up with the wrong ones.

One of the best places to look is your own social media accounts, taking into consideration that such individuals might already be following or engaging with you. You can also use the different tools that are designed to make it easier for you to find influencers who are tied to your industry.

When looking for influencers, be sure to go for the ones who not only engage with products such as the ones that you offer but also have an audience like yours. Once you get in touch with a few influencers, be sure to manage your relationships with them. For this, you will need a tool that gets the job done, and makes it easier to tracks your interactions.

Why Work with Micro-Influencers?

Here are the top reasons why working with micro-influencers is a good idea:

Reach a Specific Target Audience

In simple words, micro-influencers have an active audience, that is actually interested in the product or service that you sell. In comparison, macro-influencers have a very large following, with an audience made of individuals from all kinds of niches and domains, which lowers your probability of reaching your target group. Besides, micro-influencers are known to have more genuine interactions with their audience, which yields a good opportunity for marketing.

Accessible to All Sizes of Businesses

One of the main advantages of using micro-influencers for marketing is that they are accessible to all small, medium, and large businesses in an equal measure. This may not be the case with macro-influencers, taking into consideration that their high rates usually discourage small businesses from wanting to partner with them.

Micro-influencers charge a lower rate, which improves your business’s ROI and makes it possible to work with lots of influencers at the same time. That way, you can reach your targeted audience with greater ease.

Effective Marketing

Last but not least, it clear that micro-influencers indeed do influence buying decisions. Statistics from Nielsen show that 82% of Americans do have their purchase decisions influenced by friends, while 31% of buyers’ decisions are affected by influencers, according to Socialbakers. Besides, the majority of micro-influencers have a 60% higher campaign engagement compared to macro-influencers.

Micro-influencers have a closer connection with their audience, which makes it easier for them to convince them to use a given product or service.

How to Determine if Your Micro-Influencer Marketing Campaign is Working

If you have taken the journey of using a micro-influencer to promote your business, be on the lookout for the following indicators of a good investment:

ROI

You simply can’t invest in a marketing campaign that does not give back good returns on investment. As long as you choose the right influencers for your campaign, you will be on your way to a good ROI, and a growing business.

Engagement

One of the reliable ways to measure the success of a campaign is to have a closer look at the user engagement in terms of likes, comments, clicks, and even reach.

Audience Growth

A good influencer marketing campaign will ultimately lead to audience growth. If your social media account grows once you’ve started working with a given micro-influencer, it’s a good sign that your marketing efforts are paying off.

Final Word

When done the right way, partnering with micro-influencers to promote your business is one of the best investments that you can make towards the success of your brand. You won’t have to use a lot of cash, there will be less hand-holding, and you will definitely reach a greater audience for your products and services.

Categories
SEO

Keyword Research: A Guide to Choosing the Right Keywords for Your Content

Choosing the right keywords is crucial when creating content and marketing material, as keywords enable readers to find your content. The right keywords also help target specific questions your audience may ask when using search engines to find information about products, services and topics related to your business. Keyword research is essential for choosing the right keywords and phrases for your content.

Define Your Goals

Before beginning your research, it’s important to define the goal of your content. If you’re creating marketing material to boost sales, the key phrases are likely to be different than those used when convincing readers to subscribe to your mailing list. For short-term advertising campaigns, you may want to choose words and phrases that are trending on social media. However, for long-term sustainability, you will need to choose words and phrases that have been popular for a longer period of time, and which are likely to remain popular in the future.

Know Your Audience

In order to target your content effectively, you need to understand your audience. Identify the questions your audience might have and the subjects they talk about online. Spend some time eavesdropping their conversations on social media, forums and other online platforms to see what they’re talking about. “Pay attention to the specific words and phrases they use when discussing topics related to your business” says owner Jennifer Kennedy of oaksapparel.com.

Gather Ideas

Brainstorm ideas for keywords and phrases you can use in your content. Start with a blank sheet of paper or text file and write down anything that comes to mind. Don’t filter or judge your ideas at this stage; aim to find a broad range of topics and different angles that might appeal to your audience.

Researching your competitors can also provide plenty of ideas. Look at the key phrases they are targeting in their content to see which ones are grabbing the attention of their audience and which ones are gaining them a high rank in search engine results. You can also look for new angles that your competitors have overlooked.

Search engines and social media are great sources of keyword ideas. Most search engines will provide a list of related queries when you search for a phrase or word, while social media searches can show you what people are saying about topics related to your industry. Pay attention to the language used by people when they talk on social media, as it’s often more informal than the language used when typing questions into a search engine.

Keyword tools, such as the one provided by Google AdWords, can provide advanced data about the phrases people are searching for, the number of searches within a specific time frame and the amount of competition for each phrase. Google Trends can also be useful for identifying topics that are currently popular with searchers.

Choosing the Right Keywords

Each article, blog post or piece of marketing material you create should target only one main keyword or phrase. If you are creating a new website or another online platform, choose no more than five keywords as your main targets. Ideally, you want to choose specific phrases that achieve plenty of regular searches. You should also aim to choose phrases with low competition in the search rankings. Remember to use the same words and language that your audience will use when searching for or talking about your products.

Keyword research is crucial for choosing the right words and phrases to use in your marketing material, content and blog posts. Defining your goals, knowing your audience and gathering ideas are the first steps toward choosing the right keywords and phrases.

Categories
Branding

Guest Posting is Bound to Make an Impact on Your Brand

Benefits of Guest Posting

Guest posting is essential when it comes to building a successful blog. Guest posting allows you to build your brand by building backlinks to grow your audience. Guest posting also helps give your blog credibility. It doesn’t matter if you are a large corporation or an individual blogger; guest blogging can take your blog to the next level in many different ways.

Guest posting is more than a link building strategy. There are numerous reasons why guest posting is Some of the known benefits of guest posting include increased traffic and authority, as well as the establishment of your brand.

Self-Promotion

Guest posting has become an increasingly popular way to self-promote. The advantage of guest posting is the quality traffic that it brings to your blog. Having guest posts on several other blogs helps you gain exposure and ultimately will drive traffic to your website. Of course, traffic depends on the site you are guest posting for, but if the site is reputable and already has readers, you can expect a good amount of traffic from the guest post.

Link Building

Without investing any money into it, guest blogging allows you to get a link back to your website and helps build your authority in your niche market. Almost anyone can easily guest blog without investing into technical Search Engine Optimization. Many niche blog owners find this to be a huge advantage because it means they’re building backlinks for their blog without getting into the technical side of Search Engine Optimization.

Additionally, guest posting can be one way to gain status as an expert in your field. The more authentic posts you create for blogs in your niche, the more chances you will communicate with others and become an authority in the eyes of your audience. Authoritative posts are well researched, factual, and well written.

Wider Audience

Finally, guest posting allows blog owners to establish his or her brand. Guest posting is a good way to become known in your niche as well and lets you reach a larger audience. Guest posting helps you become an influencer by building your brand and reaching a wider audience.

The benefits of guest posting aren’t just useful to small niches or writers looking to become influencers. It is helpful to every site on the web because it helps you gain recognition for your work. Right now, guest blogging is the way to go when it comes to article marketing. It is the most powerful ways to build traffic, become an authority and establish your brand. That is because guest blogging allows you to build high-quality, strong, and useful relationships in your industry creating value and link juice.

Guest blogging provides you with a chance to build relationships. It is a good use of your interpersonal skills and pushes people to think outside-the-box to come up with great content. Most importantly, many find guest posting to be fun because it’s usually on a topic that someone is familiar with and enjoys.

Categories
Web Designer

Top Web Designer Skills You Must Have in 2020

Web designers and web developers have grown in popularity due to the growth of online marketing. Competition has also tightened and this is the reason businesses are expecting a lot when it comes to web design and development skills. The job of a web designer is to conceptualize the original web design ideas and then bring simplicity and user-friendliness into those complex roadblocks. Here are some skills which can ensure that you stay at the top of your game.

 

Design Tools

Having the right set of tools ensures that a craftsman performs well. There are several software applications which can help you achieve all the designs that you may need to create.  There is a huge possibility that you as the designer will have to use Photoshop, Sketch or Mockplus to determine the best way to process image. Using the right tool allows you to have the right kind of information and thus give you the best results when it comes to an understanding of the correct outcome.

 

Design Sense

Having a good sense of design is critical when it comes to web designers. Web design is one of the best ways to make sure that you have the right kind of website which will people understand the elements like typeset, images and other basic design and principles.

 

UX Design

UX stands for the user experience, which can help create a persona for the website. They use sitemaps which allows you to layout pages and content. This is one way to help improve the user experience and increase user conversions.

 

Responsive Design

There is a growth of smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. There are many people who can make sure that there are small screens which can make sure that they have the right view. A web designer needs to make sure that they understand the principle of the web design and keep the web pages readable even on a phone screen.

 

Graphic Design

Web designing and graphic designing are different in that the major role of a graphic designer is to make sure that their skills can enhance the quality, beauty and marketability of the website.

Adobe Animate

Animation is trending and can easily revamp any dull website into an attractive piece of art. There are many clothing brands who are opting to make sure that they have an identity which allows the audience to recognize the impact and the value of the website.

Technical Skills

As a web designer one has to master HTML, CSS, JavaScript, WSM. This will ensure that one can easily read and solve problems. Try to depend on the actual work which designer and developer can have a scope in. This allows them to have the right knowledge about styles and colors which can be controlled by the codes.