As 2016 comes to an end and 2017 looms over the horizon, I thought it was time to stare into my crystal ball and see if I can predict the big things that will happen with digital marketing in 2017. It will be fun to look back at this post towards the end of 2017 to see which, if any of them, will come true.
Video – even more important in 2017.
Let’s start with something that’s a safe prediction – video will be even more important for digital marketing in 2017 than it is in 2016, which is saying something as it’s a major influence in Facebook and Twitter’s algorithm already. The functionality of Facebook Live will continue to be enhanced and the use of Facebook Live will get even better results in their algorithm.
There have also been announcements of live video streaming developments both for Twitter and Instagram and I wouldn’t be surprised if LinkedIn and others followed suit.
In summary, you really need to include using video within your digital marketing mix in 2017.
Augmented Reality and 3D
The success of Pokemon Go earlier this year was the first real demonstration of augmented reality, where the digital world was overlaid on the real world, in real-time. There will be more games like this in 2017 and this will lead to digital marketing opportunities for business.
The 3D world is also developing at pace. Facebook has made an investment in this technology, as our many of the games consoles and Samsung are now promoting a 360-degree camera to support it, so it’s coming. I don’t think it will be big in 2017 but I can see it happening in 2018.
Google – it’s plans will influence your website
Google will continue to refine its algorithm and these will focus on improving the ranking of websites that perform well on mobile devices, so your website needs to be designed for mobile. Key things to focus on are a mobile responsive design, use of AMP pages and quick loading pages. I predict a further refinement to Google Adwords too. Oh and don’t forget to post those videos onto your website too.
Social Media
Facebook
Facebook will continue to go from strength to strength. Video and Facebook Live will become increasingly important and influential in the performance of posts. I am expecting some augmented reality and virtual reality features to be introduced in 2017, but these technologies are still in the development and experimental phase so it is difficult to predict exactly how this will be done. Back the right option and you will get an advantage but there will be many false starts. The developments that have started in Messenger for businesses will continue to deliver additional features.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn was purchased by Microsoft in 2016 and I believe that their influence on LinkedIn will grow in 2017. Some areas of LinkedIn, such as the company page, have already been revisited and revamped and this will continue across 2017. I can see groups being re-vamped as LinkedIn groups seem to have lost out to Facebook groups in recent years.
Twitter
Twitter is going to have an interesting 2017 and its success or otherwise will depend on who eventually buys Twitter and the direction of travel they take it in. Salesforce were rumoured to be the most likely buyer and if this is the case then there is the potential for some exciting developments towards the end of 2017, assuming the sale takes place early in 2017. Whatever happens as far as the potential sale, I predict there will be enhancements made to the paid advertising feature.
Other social media
Pinterest and Instagram will continue their rise in prominence within the digital marketing sphere and there will be a social media channel that develops from left-field. I don’t know which one but either SnapChat or WhatsApp appear to be well placed.
Is this the year of the small business app?
I read an article recently that predicted the death of websites and the advent of app only internet marketing. I wouldn’t go that far, but I can see the introduction of simple apps for small businesses becoming more popular, especially as we consuming so much of our digital information via mobile devices and apps work so well on them … definitely one to keep an eye on and even if it doesn’t happen in 2017 it is going to happen in the next few years.
Summary
In summary, it will be interesting to revisit this post regularly during 2017 to see which, if any, of these predictions comes true.
Finally, I would just like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year, where digital marketing plays a big part in your success.
Helping you with your digital marketing
If you would like help with your Facebook marketing or any other aspects of your digital marketing, call Red Knight Solutions on 02392 265725 or e-mail us at enquiries@redknightsolutions.co.uk to find out more about how we can help your business thrive online.
Are you a business owner who is frustrated by the impact of your posts on your Facebook business page? Despite working hard to gain lots of likes for your page, Facebook is hardly showing your posts to any of your followers – statistics show that often less than 1% of people who have liked your page will see your post.
If this sounds familiar, despair no longer, here are 5 tips to follow that will see your post reach increase dramatically.
Facebook loves Video.
Video is the number 1 way to boost your posts, as Facebook loves video and its algorithm is heavily weighted to extend the reach of posts that feature video. If you really want your post to reach its maximum potential use Facebook Live for the video feed, as Facebook is really promoting Facebook live.
If you’re not comfortable using Facebook live then produce a video, but load it onto Facebook if possible rather than hosting it on YouTube or any other video hosting platform, as Facebook does favour hosted video. If you are producing a video, it is also a good idea to include captions on the video or produce the video in such a way that it communicates its message without sound, as a high proportion of the people that will see your video on Facebook will do so with the sounds off.
A further benefit of having the video hosted on Facebook is the detailed analytics that Facebook provides you with.
Include a picture when you post on Facebook.
If you are unable or unwilling to include a video, include one or more photographs with your post. Facebook likes seeing photos with posts and it is also more eye catching in timelines that Facebook does add your post to.
If you can post several pictures that relate to a post, then you should use these to create a slideshow. There are facilities for doing this in Facebook or you could you a tool like Animoto or ripl. Facebook will treat a slideshow you have created as a video.
Encourage Interactions with your post.
If people are reacting to your post, the Facebook algorithm will give your post a boost. There are three types of interaction you should try to encourage, sharing, commenting and liking. They all have an impact.
Sharing your post.
You can extend the reach of your Facebook post by sharing your business page post into any groups you are a member of where your post will be of interest. You should also share your post on your timeline.
When sharing your post, you should include a comment that encourages interaction from group members – shares and comments seem to have the biggest impact on posts, but likes have influence too.
If you employ staff, you should encourage them to interact with your post and share it. If you know other business owners, then you should consider asking them to share your post too, with a reciprocal offer of sharing their posts too.
Page Settings
There are numerous business page settings that affect where and how your post will appear on Facebook, most notably your preferred page audience. Use these to let Facebook know who your target audience is and your posts are more likely to appear on the timeline of people who match this description. There are options available to help with selection across the 150 odd attributes that Facebook holds about its users.
Boosting your post
If all else fails, you can consider boosting your post. If you decide that you want to boost your post, don’t press the boost post button, but got into the ads manager to boost the post. This is because Facebook advertising manager lets you choose what the purpose of boosting your post is and if you look closely at the options available, boosting your post doesn’t necessarily achieve the outcome you would expect it to.
Helping you with Facebook
If you would like help with your Facebook marketing or any other aspects of your digital marketing, call Red Knight Solutions on 02392 265725 or e-mail us at enquiries@redknightsolutions.co.uk to find out more about how we can help your business thrive online.
Phew, what a relief. You’ve finished writing your blog post and you’ve avoided the 7 content marketing mistakes that I recently wrote a blog post about, but now what do you do with it? How do you get people to read it? Here are 7 steps you should take to maximise the exposure of your blog post, without spending any money.
Step 1 – Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Make sure you have maximised your search engine optimisation when you published your blog by:
including appropriate key words and phrases within the text of your blog;
using appropriate file names and completing alt-text and description fields for all of the images you have used in your blog; and
Completing SEO meta data on your blog post, especially page title and description.
Step 2 – Facebook
Post on your Facebook business page
The first place to post your blog is Facebook. Post it on your company page, making sure it pulls through an appropriate image. If it doesn’t pick up an image from your blog, then upload one to go with it.
Share on your Facebook timeline
Lots of people think they’ve done what they need to on Facebook at this point, but they are wrong and are missing so many opportunities, as sharing your post from your business page on your personal timeline will increase the number of readers, as your friends and family (well at least some of them) will want to read what you have written and hopefully think it is worth a reaction, comment and maybe even a share. If you can encourage them to react to it in some way it will help, as getting interaction is part of Facebook’s algorithm on deciding whether to display a post in somebody’s timeline.
Share in Facebook groups
Don’t stop there though. Have you joined any Facebook groups that relate to your business? Yes, then you should share your post in all those groups too. If you’ve not joined any groups yet, then there is a great opportunity for you to expand the reach of your post and for many unconnected people and businesses to learn about what you do by joining relevant groups, participating in conversations in those groups and posting your content there.
Step 3 – Twitter
Tweet your post from your business Twitter account, using appropriate hashtags and images. If it is relevant to a specific follower, then you could send them a direct tweet or direct message to allow them to connect.
Once you have tweeted your post from your business account log into your personal account, retweet your business account post and like it too.
If you are using any Twitter automation tools, such as Twitter Jukebox or Social Jukebox, then remember to add your post as appropriate to ensure that it is included in your automation.
Step 4 –Linked In
Post a link to your blog as a status update on your LinkedIn profile and if you think your blog is an interesting read you could consider copying it and posting it on LinkedIn as an article. This will give all your connections an opportunity to see your post.
If you think your blog is relevant to some of your contacts, you could also send them a direct message which includes a link to your post and an appropriate message as to why you have sent them a direct message about it.
Don’t forget to also post an update on your LinkedIn company page too. Your company page may well have a different set of followers to your LinkedIn profile.
Finally, post your blog in all the relevant LinkedIn groups you are in. Although not as popular as they once were, groups are still an active area of LinkedIn and posting will help attract additional readers.
Step 5 – Google+/Google My Business
Don’t forget to add your post to your Google+/Google my business page too. Although this is unlikely to bring you that many direct readers, it does help one very important reader – Google, Which means that this is one of the most important actions you can do.
Step 6- e-mail marketing.
If you are running an e-mail newsletter, don’t forget to add your blog posts to it. If you’re not running one, then sharing blog posts is a great way to start developing your e-mail newsletter content.
Step 7 – On-line forums.
Post a link to your blog in any on-line forums that you are a member of. If the forum has a good reputation, then this can have additional benefits to your SEO as your post will act as a backlink to your site.
Bonus Step – Other Social Media Sites.
Depending on the nature of your business and the style of your blog then there are other social media sites you may wish to post your blog on too. These include Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube.
Lots to remember.
There is a lot to remember when it comes to posting your blog. I have developed a checklist to help me remember all the different steps I need to do and I’m very happy to share it with you. If you would like a copy please complete the form below and I will e-mail it to you.
I hadn’t really warmed to Twitter until recently. Yes, I tweeted some content and followed people who followed me, but I wasn’t really focusing on Twitter as a social media channel for promoting Red Knight Solutions and my following was fairly small.
However, I was asked to do a session on Twitter at an Elite Digital Mastermind group recently so in preparation for that session I have been working on my Twitter presence and have been pleasantly surprised to see my Twitter follower count jump from 400 to over 515 in a week, which is a rise of over 25%, so I thought I’d share some details of what I have been doing so you can consider doing it too.
Changing my use of Twitter
The first change in practice I’ve made is Tweeting to people who follow me as I follow them back, rather than just pressing the follow button and leaving it at that. I had already used Crowdfire to send a message to each person as they followed me, but I now I type a quick thank you tweet to them. I’m spending quite a lot of time on trains at the moment so I normally do this whilst travelling – mobile signal permitting, of course.
I’ve also started using Social Jukebox to set up regular tweets. This comes with a jukebox full of quotes which I have left running and a jukebox that I am using to quote links to my site and other relevant digital marketing material – a link to this blog will be added very soon. I have also done some tweaking to the quotes jukebox, creating pictures for some of the quotes and adding them to the quotes in the jukebox and this will be an ongoing activity as I quite like the idea. I have also added some additional quotes from other sources – my next challenge is to make some quotes of my own that I think are worthy of sharing.
I am continuing to also tweet interesting and relevant links from digital marketing articles I find and have become more conscious of ensuring that I include Twitter as one of the places to share information, whereas before I mainly focused on Facebook.
These actions mean that the number of tweets I am making has increased considerably, which has also lead to more interaction with my followers.
Along with increased activity on Twitter, I have spent some time updating some of the company profile. I have updated the profile picture to use our new logo and I have also updated the header photo to include a picture of me. One thing I learnt when updating the profile picture was to ensure that you have the minimum height and width to 400 pixels. I was getting very frustrated initially as the logo picture I was using was 400 pixels wide but not that high and Twitter kept shrinking it. Once I set the background to be 400 x 400 pixels it all worked fine.
Learning Twitter the hard way
It’s not all been plain sailing though, as I experimented with linking Twitter to my personal Facebook page and on through to the Red Knight Solutions Facebook page and for a few days I was getting regular posts on my Facebook page from Tweet Jukebox. The good news was that some my friends had conversations about some of the quotes that were posted, but it didn’t feel right to me so I have turned that feature off.
Twitter Tools
A really useful tool within Twitter that I have just learnt about is the creation and use of lists. One of my biggest frustrations with Twitter has been that as the number of people you follow and who follow you grows, your timeline becomes really noisy. However, if you create lists of people you are really looking to keep a close eye on, such as clients, potential clients or major influencers in your field, you can use them to see just those you are interested in. This allows you to start using the tools on Twitter, such as likes, retweets and quoting tweets, focusing on those you have added to your lists.
I have mentioned a number of tools I have started using and the world of Twitter seems to have an abundance of tools and add-ons that you can use to make your Twitter experience better. Whilst doing research about Twitter tools I did come across this blog which lists over 90 useful Twitter tools. Please feel free to research them further and if you find any of them are useful please let me know.
If you would like help getting more out of Twitter or any other social media channel please get in contact with Red Knight Solutions by calling 02392 265725 and we would be happy to help you develop your digital marketing strategy and ensure it is making good use of Twitter.
Let’s start with something that’s a safe prediction – video will be even more important for digital marketing in 2017 than it is in 2016, which is saying something as it’s a major influence in Facebook and Twitter’s algorithm already. The functionality of Facebook Live will continue to be enhanced and the use of Facebook Live will get even better results in their algorithm.
The success of Pokemon Go earlier this year was the first real demonstration of augmented reality, where the digital world was overlaid on the real world, in real-time. There will be more games like this in 2017 and this will lead to digital marketing opportunities for business.
Google will continue to refine its algorithm and these will focus on improving the ranking of websites that perform well on mobile devices, so your website needs to be designed for mobile. Key things to focus on are a mobile responsive design, use of AMP pages and quick loading pages. I predict a further refinement to Google Adwords too. Oh and don’t forget to post those videos onto your website too.
Facebook will continue to go from strength to strength. Video and Facebook Live will become increasingly important and influential in the performance of posts. I am expecting some augmented reality and virtual reality features to be introduced in 2017, but these technologies are still in the development and experimental phase so it is difficult to predict exactly how this will be done. Back the right option and you will get an advantage but there will be many false starts. The developments that have started in Messenger for businesses will continue to deliver additional features.
LinkedIn was purchased by Microsoft in 2016 and I believe that their influence on LinkedIn will grow in 2017. Some areas of LinkedIn, such as the company page, have already been revisited and revamped and this will continue across 2017. I can see groups being re-vamped as LinkedIn groups seem to have lost out to Facebook groups in recent years.
Twitter is going to have an interesting 2017 and its success or otherwise will depend on who eventually buys Twitter and the direction of travel they take it in. Salesforce were rumoured to be the most likely buyer and if this is the case then there is the potential for some exciting developments towards the end of 2017, assuming the sale takes place early in 2017. Whatever happens as far as the potential sale, I predict there will be enhancements made to the paid advertising feature.
