What are the Best Content Marketing Metrics for Business Success?

If you’re new to content marketing, you might be pumping out some amazing content. But, you might not know exactly who it’s reaching or how well it’s working. To achieve lasting success in your business, you need to understand the power of content marketing metrics.

Content marketing is an important part of modern marketing strategies. It allows you to create valuable and engaging content to attract, engage, and convert your target audience. To make the most impact with your content marketing efforts, it’s essential to optimize performance by keeping an eye on key performance indicators (KPIs).

So, which metrics are important and how can you track them? In this guide, we’ll delve into content marketing metrics. We’ll also explore effective strategies for using them to drive your business forward.

Understanding Your Content Marketing Metrics

Before diving into specific metrics and KPIs, it’s crucial to grasp their significance in the broader context of content marketing. Optimizing content performance with key performance indicators involves more than just tracking numbers. You need a deep understanding of your audience’s behavior. You also need to understand your overall business objectives. By focusing on the best content marketing metrics for your business, you can make data-driven decisions to drive growth.

Measuring Your Audience Engagement

Are people engaging with your content? Or are they scrolling right on by? Savvy content marketers know how important it is to measure your audience’s engagement. This involves analyzing metrics such as time spent on page, scroll depth, and interaction with multimedia content.

By understanding how your audience engages with your content, you can tailor your strategies to create more compelling and valuable experiences. For example, if a particular blog post receives high engagement but low conversion rates, you can experiment with different calls-to-action or content formats to encourage conversions.

Aligning Your Metrics with Business Objectives

What are your overarching business objectives? Are you most interested in lead generation, sales, brand awareness, or customer retention? For example, if your primary objective is to increase sales, you may focus on metrics related to conversion rates, revenue generated, and customer lifetime value (CLTV). Align your metrics with your business objectives. This will ensure that your content marketing efforts drive tangible results and deliver value to your organization.

Using AI for Content Marketing

Are you using AI for content marketing yet? It’s not just about coming up with content ideas. In the ever-changing world of content marketing, businesses must stay ahead to stay competitive.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can be a powerful tool for content marketers. You can analyze past performance and predict future trends and consumer behavior. You can use predictive analytics to anticipate shifts in audience preferences, emerging topics, and content consumption patterns. This lets you optimize your strategies proactively.

Continuous Optimization and Iteration

Content should always be tested, tweaked, and improved. It’s not a one-and-done job. Effective content marketing measurement involves continuous optimization and iteration. This means regularly analyzing performance data, identifying areas for improvement, and making changes to enhance engagement and conversions.

By adopting a data-driven approach to content marketing, you can refine your strategies over time, uncovering insights that lead to more impactful content and better business results. Leverage tools and technologies that facilitate real-time monitoring and analysis. This will help you adapt quickly to changing market conditions and emerging trends. It keeps you ahead of the curve while maintaining a competitive edge.

Essential Metrics for Evaluating Your Content Performance

Traffic Metrics

One of the most basic content (and important) marketing metrics is website traffic. Tracking metrics such as page views, unique visitors, and sessions provides valuable insights into the reach and visibility of your content. By analyzing these metrics, you can identify trends, understand audience behavior, and optimize content distribution strategies to drive more traffic to your website.

Engagement Metrics

Engaging your audience is a key objective of content marketing. Metrics such as time on page, bounce rate, and social media comments, likes, and shares offer insights into how users interact with your content. By analyzing engagement metrics, you can identify high-performing content. This will help you understand audience preferences and tailor future content to drive better engagement.

Conversion Metrics

Ultimately, the success of your content marketing efforts depends on how well you are driving conversions. As we discussed, these may vary depending on your goals. Conversion metrics such as app downloads, e-mail signups, conversion rate, lead quality, cost per lead (CPL), and cost per acquisition (CPA) provide insights into the effectiveness of content in driving desired actions, whether it’s lead generation, sales, or other conversions.

ROI Metrics

Measuring return on investment (ROI) is critical for evaluating the financial impact of your content marketing efforts. ROI metrics, including revenue generated and customer lifetime value (CLTV), quantify the value generated by your content initiatives. By analyzing ROI metrics, you can determine the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy, allocate resources more efficiently, and demonstrate the impact of content marketing on overall business objectives.

Measurement Tools

So, all this is great, but how do you do it? Here are some popular tools and strategies for measuring your content marketing performance:

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a powerful web analytics tool that provides comprehensive insights into website traffic, user behavior, and conversion metrics. By setting up tracking events and audiences, you can gain valuable insights into the performance of your content. You can then optimize your marketing strategies accordingly.

SEMrush

SEMrush is an SEO tool that offers insights into organic and paid search performance, keyword rankings, backlink analysis, and competitor research. You can optimize your content for search engines by analyzing keyword data and monitoring search trends. This can improve content visibility in search results.

Moz

Moz offers a suite of SEO tools, including Moz Pro and Moz Local, that provide insights into keyword rankings, backlink analysis, site audits, and more. With Moz, you can track your search engine visibility and optimize your content to improve organic search rankings.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is another comprehensive SEO tool that offers insights into backlink profiles, keyword rankings, content analysis, and competitor research. You can improve your content marketing efforts by analyzing competitors’ content strategies. You can also identify link-building opportunities to drive more traffic to your website.

BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a content discovery tool that allows businesses to identify trending topics, analyze content performance, and track social media engagement. Understanding what resonates with your audience can help you create more engaging and shareable content.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a social media management platform that offers robust analytics and reporting capabilities. By tracking engagement metrics, monitoring brand mentions, and measuring the effectiveness of social media content, you can optimize your social media marketing efforts. This helps drive meaningful engagement with your audience.

HubSpot

HubSpot is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform that offers a suite of marketing automation tools including analytics and reporting features to track the performance of marketing campaigns. With HubSpot, you can monitor key metrics such as website traffic, lead generation, and customer engagement. This helps you optimize your content marketing strategy and drive business growth.

Salesforce

Salesforce is another popular CRM platform that offers robust analytics and reporting capabilities. You can gain a comprehensive view of your customer interactions by integrating Salesforce with other marketing tools and platforms. You can also measure the impact of content marketing efforts on sales and revenue generation.

Using these tools to set up tracking and measurement systems enables you to capture relevant data. You can then track key metrics over time. Analyzing performance data empowers you to identify trends and spot opportunities for optimization. You can make data-driven decisions to improve your content effectiveness and ROI.

Bottom Line for Content Marketing Success

Measuring and analyzing content marketing metrics is essential for evaluating the effectiveness of your content marketing campaigns and driving meaningful business results. You can gain valuable insights by understanding the different types of metrics available and their significance. Using the right measurement tools can empower you to create better content that converts.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the way we live and work, and the marketing industry is no exception. AI is being used by marketing departments in a variety of ways, and its impact is only going to grow in the years to come. If you’re a content marketer, you’re probably already using AI in your daily life (Grammarly anyone?). Maybe you’re a seasoned AI pro or maybe you’re just starting to dip your toe in the bot waters. Either way, read on to find some inspiration for streamlining and improving your content marketing with AI.

Why Use AI for Content Marketing?

One of the most exciting areas where AI is helping content marketers is in the creation and distribution of content. You always need more content, but how can you churn it out faster while making it more effective and more targeted to your audience? AI can help you to:

Generate ideas for new content

You can use AI to analyze data from a variety of sources, such as customer surveys, social media, and industry reports, to identify trending topics and customer pain points. This information can then be used to generate ideas for new content that is relevant and engaging to your target audience.

How to use this type of AI for content marketing: There are a number of AI-powered tools available that can help marketers generate content ideas. For example, you can use an AI tool like Bard, ChatGPT, or Jasper to generate a list of trending topics in your industry or to identify questions your customers often ask online.

Write and edit content

AI can also be used to actually write and edit content. There are many AI-powered writing tools available that can help marketers generate high-quality content quickly and easily. These tools can also be used to check grammar and style and to ensure that the content is optimized for search engines.

How to make this work for you: There are several ways to use AI to write and edit content. For example, you can use an AI tool like Jasper to generate a first draft of an SEO-optimized blog post and a tool like Grammarly to check for grammar and style errors in a finished piece of content. You can also use AI to generate personalized email marketing campaigns or create social media posts tailored to your target audience.

Promote and distribute content

AI can also be used to promote and distribute content on social media, email, and other channels. AI-powered tools can help you identify the best times to post content on social media and target the right audience. AI can also be used to create personalized email marketing campaigns.

How to use AI for marketing distribution: There are many ways to use AI to promote and distribute content. For example, you can use an AI tool like Sprout Social, Hootsuite, or Buffer to identify the best times to post content on social media. You can use platforms like MailChimp, Constant Contact, or HubSpot Marketing to create personalized email marketing campaigns. You can also use AI platforms like Semrush, Ahrefs, BuzzSumo, or Mention to track the performance of your content across different channels.

Specific examples of how AI is being used by content marketers today:

• BuzzFeed: BuzzFeed is using AI to generate personalized news feeds for its users. The company’s AI system analyzes user data, such as reading history and social media activity, to identify the topics that each user is most interested in. The system then generates a personalized feed of news stories, videos, and other content from across the web.
• Ulta Beauty: Ulta Beauty uses AI to power its virtual beauty advisor tool. This tool allows customers to ask questions about beauty products and trends and to receive personalized recommendations. Ulta Beauty is also using AI to personalize its email marketing campaigns and to generate personalized product recommendations on its website.
• JPMorgan Chase: Chase marketing execs say that AI has created better advertising copy than their human writers ever could. For the past several years Chase has used Persado’s machine-learning tool to rewrite copy and headlines resulting in higher click-through rates. They are also using the AI program for their internal communications and customer service prompts.

These are just a few examples of how AI is being used to improve content marketing efforts. As AI technology continues to develop, we can expect to see even more innovative and effective ways to use AI to create and distribute more relevant and engaging content for target audiences.

How to get started with using AI for content marketing:

If you’re a content marketer who is interested in using AI to improve your efforts, there are a few things you can do to get started.

Identify your goals

Who is your target audience? Which part of the funnel are you targeting? What do you want to achieve with your content marketing efforts? Do you want to increase brand awareness, rank as a thought leader in your industry, increase downloads, generate leads, or drive sales? Once you know your goals, you can start to identify specific AI tools and strategies that can help you to achieve them.

Choose the right tools

There are so many different AI tools available for content marketers. It can be overwhelming. Some tools are designed to help with content creation, while others are designed to help with content promotion and distribution. Choose the tools that are right for your needs and budget. Start with one or two. See some examples below.

Learn how to use the tools

Once you’ve chosen the tools you want to use, take some time to learn how to use them effectively. Most AI tools come with documentation and tutorials that can help you get started. Look for articles and videos that can give you specific prompts that work well for content marketers.

Experiment and track your results

Don’t be afraid to experiment with different AI tools and strategies. Try different things and see what works best for you. It’s also important to track your results so that you can see what’s working and what’s not (and AI can help you do that too!).

AI platforms for content marketers:

Don’t know where to start? Here are some popular AI platform examples that content marketers can use:

• ChatGPT: ChatGPT is a large language model chatbot developed by OpenAI. It can be used for a variety of tasks, including generating text, translating languages, writing different kinds of creative content, and answering your questions in an informative way.
• Bard: Bard is a large language model chatbot developed by Google AI. It is similar to ChatGPT, but it is trained on a different dataset of text and code. Bard is also capable of generating different creative text formats, like poems, code, scripts, musical pieces, emails, letters, etc.
• Jasper: Jasper is an AI-powered writing assistant that can help marketers generate high-quality content quickly and easily. Jasper can be used to write a variety of types of content, including blog posts, articles, social media posts, and email marketing campaigns.
• Grammarly: Grammarly is an AI-powered writing assistant that helps users improve their grammar, style, and clarity. Grammarly is used by millions of people around the world, including many professional writers and editors.
• Hootsuite: Hootsuite is a social media management platform that uses AI to help marketers schedule and publish their social media posts. Hootsuite’s AI system analyzes social media data to identify the best times to post content and the best hashtags to use.
• BuzzSumo: BuzzSumo is a content marketing platform that helps marketers find trending topics and identify the content that is performing well on social media. BuzzSumo also provides insights into the influencers who are sharing particular types of content.
• Semrush: Semrush is an SEO tool that helps marketers improve their website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). Semrush provides insights into keyword research, competitor analysis, and link building.
• Ahrefs: Ahrefs is another SEO tool that is similar to Semrush. Ahrefs also provides insights into keyword research, competitor analysis, and link building. Ahrefs has a feature called Content Explorer, which can be used to find popular content on a given topic.
• Surfer SEO: Surfer SEO is an SEO tool that helps marketers to optimize their content for search engines. Surfer SEO provides insights into keyword density, topic clusters, and related keywords.
• CoSchedule: CoSchedule is a marketing calendar and social media management platform that helps marketers plan and organize their marketing campaigns. CoSchedule’s AI system can help marketers find the best times to publish their content and identify the topics that are most relevant to their target audience.
• Canva: Canva is a graphic design platform that allows users to create a variety of visual content, such as social media posts, infographics, and presentations. Canva’s AI system can help users to create professional-looking visuals without any design experience.
• Synthesia: Synthesia is a video creation platform that allows users to create videos using AI-generated avatars. Synthesia can be used to create educational videos, marketing videos, and even product demos.
• Podcastle: Podcastle is a podcast creation platform that makes it easy to record, edit, and publish podcasts. Podcastle’s AI system can help users remove background noise, transcribe their audio, and even generate subtitles for their videos.
• Beautiful.ai: Beautiful.ai is a presentation creation platform that helps users create professional-looking presentations without any design experience. Beautiful.ai’s AI system can help users choose the right fonts, colors, and images for their presentations.

These are just a few examples of the MANY AI platforms that content marketers can use! When choosing an AI platform, it is important to consider the specific needs of your business and the types of tasks you want to automate.

How to use AI for content marketing to improve your results:

By using AI to improve your content marketing efforts, you can expect to see several benefits, including:

• Increased traffic: AI can help you create content that is more relevant and engaging to your target audience. This can lead to increased traffic to your website and blog.
• Improved conversion rates: AI can help you to create content that is more persuasive and effective, as well as targeted to your ideal audiences. This can lead to improved conversion rates on your website and landing pages.
• Reduced costs: AI can help you to automate many of the mundane tasks involved in content marketing. This can free up your time to focus on other tasks and can also reduce your costs.

Additional tips for using AI to improve your content marketing efforts:

• Start small. Don’t try to use AI for everything all at once. Start by using AI for one or two tasks, such as generating content ideas or editing your content. Once you’re comfortable using AI for those tasks, you can start to use it for other tasks as well.
• Use AI to enhance your efforts, not replace them. AI is a powerful tool, but it’s important to remember that it’s not a replacement for human creativity and expertise. Use AI to enhance your content marketing efforts, not to replace them.
• Use AI responsibly. It goes without saying that it’s important to use AI responsibly. Be mindful of the ethical implications of using AI in your marketing efforts.

AI is a rapidly evolving field, and new AI tools and strategies are being developed all the time. By staying up to date on the latest AI trends and developments, you can ensure that you’re using AI to its full potential to improve your content marketing efforts.

Blogs, newsletters, white papers, website content, landing pages, infographics, e-books, social media content – who has time to write all of it? Whether you’ve launched a new product, re-launched a brand, or started a podcast, you need a partner who can help guide you.

The world of content marketing is virtually limitless. So let’s break down the ins and outs of what a content marketing agency can help you do. Learn what a content marketing agency does, what services they typically offer, and how it can help your business grow.

What is Content Marketing?

What exactly is content marketing and why is it an important part of a digital marketing plan?

Content marketing is the strategy of generating, creating, and distributing content to attract, acquire, and retain a clearly defined target audience, and to drive profitable customer actions. The content’s primary goal is to attract and interest a site’s visitors and to move them toward action.

What Are the Different Types of Content Marketing?

Blog Posts

Most people are familiar with blogs. It seems like almost every type of company has one. Blog posts are written articles related to your business or service. They offer a fast and easy way for brands to communicate with their intended audiences, such as fans, current customers, and potential customers.

According to HubSpot, brands that have blogs receive 55% more website traffic than companies that don’t. Furthermore, companies that blog have 434% more indexed pages (which means it has been crawled by Google and will appear in search results).

It’s important to share blog content on a regular basis and to optimize it for the appropriate SEO keywords. A content marketing agency can help make this fast and seamless.

Website Content/Landing Pages

Website content is extremely important for conversions, but it’s also what drives you to the top of Google searches. Landing pages are used to direct customers to specific pages on your website. This is the tool that you use to engage your target audience and convert them through your sales funnel.

Newsletters

E-mail newsletters are a great way to stay in touch with your current customers, as well as to attract new ones. A segmented e-mail newsletter can help you communicate directly with those who matter most to your business.

White Papers/E-books

Have you heard the term, “lead magnet”? White papers and e-books are heavily used by businesses to generate leads online. When you create something of value, like a white paper or e-book, people will be willing to give you their e-mail address to receive it. From there, you can move them to your segmented e-mail lists and send them into your sales funnel.

Infographics

Infographics are a visual way to display information (and usually numbers, facts, and figures) at a glance. While, at first glance, these may seem to be passive content, infographics actually promote authority and credibility, and they are highly shareable.

Social Media Content

Everyone needs social media content! Creating content for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and other social media channels is a key part of any digital marketing strategy. It also falls under the umbrella of content marketing.

What Makes Content Marketing Different from Other Marketing Techniques?

Content marketing is a “pull strategy” – pulling in potential leads with useful, educational, or entertaining content. It’s a long-tail marketing strategy (unlike digital ads) that positions you as a thought leader, boosts your website’s SEO, and keeps potential customers coming back for more.

Content marketing should be one part of your overall digital marketing strategy (which usually includes SEO, SEM, public relations, PPC ads, etc.).

Creating Effective Content That Resonates With Your Audience

First, you need to know WHO you are trying to reach. Is it your current customer base? Do you want to keep them coming back for more? Or are you trying to reach a new audience by targeting a particular interest or demographic?

Successful content marketing is not just about being able to create a themed piece of content and pushing it out. It is about getting your audience to actively engage with your content. It is about having a constant emphasis on building an audience and engaging your audience with content that is specific to their needs. The key to success is having content that is consistent and producing measurable results.

Do You Need a Content Marketing Agency?

Is your content not getting the attention or results you want? Does your content marketing strategy feel out of control? You probably need help. If you’re strapped for time, unable to keep up with the trends, or simply don’t have the budget for a dedicated writer or content marketing team, you may want to consider outsourcing your content marketing to a content marketing agency. It’s no secret that businesses struggle to find the time and money to do everything themselves. From developing content to carrying out social media campaigns, it’s cost-effective to hire a specialist for certain tasks. That specialist may come from a digital marketing agency or from a content marketing company.

There’s a lot of talk these days about creating content that matters. However, we’ve found that even the most forward-thinking companies struggle to fully comprehend how to create and implement the strategy that is best for them.

Our clients have found that we’ve helped them create a comprehensive, lasting, and successful content marketing strategy. Contact us to see how we can help!

Important Tips for Sharing Content on Social Media

According to U.S. copyright law, it is illegal to publish someone else’s work on your website or blog without their permission. It doesn’t matter if you give proper attribution and link to them. If the artist or writer never gave you their permission, then it is theft.

Content Theft On Websites Vs Social Media

Now, that’s how it works when it comes to scraping text or copying photos, cartoons and videos off other people’s websites and publishing them on your own. But when it comes to sharing on social media, things are a little different.

Sharing someone else’s work is very different from stealing it. You don’t have to look very far on social media to find users who will copy someone else’s images, erase their signature or watermark from the images and then share them as if they themselves had created them. That is theft, and if you do that sort of thing, you will eventually get reported and have your account shut down.

Social Media Sharing: Best Practices

To protect yourself from crossing the line into copyright infringement and content theft, there are a couple of simple steps you should take before copying and sharing someone else’s art, photography or writing on social media.

First, look over the person’s profile to see if they specifically request that people not share their work without permission. Remember, many of these creators are making a living from their work, so they are losing money when people share their work without permission or without attribution. So if they specifically ask not to share, then don’t share without their permission.

Most content creators and influencers will be happy to have their work shared with attribution – that’s why they’re posting their work on social media in the first place. But it doesn’t hurt to check their profiles first. And ALWAYS ask for permission before posting.

Second, when you do share, always tag the writer or artist or account from which you took the content. This is just good etiquette and common courtesy. But don’t just tag them in the photo. Instead, tag them in the caption or text so that your followers will see the tag and click through to see more from that creator.

Many content creators love shout-outs like this to grow their business. So if you enjoy their work and want to support them, then be sure to give attribution in a way that will send more people to their page. But, do be careful not to share from the same person over and over. There’s a fine line between sharing content and scraping/stealing.

Ready to outsource your digital marketing? Top Tier Media provides a full range of social media marketing and influencer outreach services. Contact us today to find out more.

Five Reasons to Hire a Social Media Agency

Many businesses don’t understand why social media isn’t working for them when it works so well for other companies. It usually comes down to one thing – who’s managing the social media profiles. Would you trust an inexperienced intern to represent the face of your business? No. So why trust just anyone to represent you on social media?

It’s Not For Personal Use

All those interns or “discount” social media managers may not understand social media outside of personal use. Many don’t understand all the rules and policies for each network concerning interacting with others, running contests and promotions, uploading images and ensuring followers and fans actually get your updates.

You don’t want someone who will just post pretty pictures (or worse steal images and re-share without consent) – you want someone who understands digital marketing strategy.

Boost Followers

A social media pro doesn’t just try to copy what every other business is doing. They take time to understand your target audience and what they want most. They learn what type of tone to use, which images work best and how to work in a call to action that encourages more sharing and following.

Interact With Customers

What happens when you get a negative comment? What if a customer has a question? What if a celebrity or big-time influencer engages with the brand? Can an amateur handle these situations? Odds are, they’ll ignore any feedback and just keep posting. A pro will interact professionally with customers and boost any celebrity or press hits. They work to resolve issues and maintain a positive company image and online (and offline) reputation. They boost customer service and make your social media profiles a trusted place for customers to get the help they need.

Save Money

Spending less on someone might sound like a benefit, but it’s not. While an intern or low cost consultant tries to figure things out, you’re losing followers instead of gaining them. Your competition is becoming more popular. The ads they’re posting are costing more than you’re gaining. You’re not saving. You’re wasting money. A pro costs more upfront, but actually delivers results that increase your business for the long term.

They’re A Partner

A social media pro isn’t just someone who posts updates to Facebook and Instagram. They’re a business partner. When they take on a project, their goal is to work alongside you to grow your business. They understand your company as well as you and handle the social media marketing side so you can focus on the rest.

Tired of wasting time and money on someone who doesn’t understand social media or your business? Top Tier Media provides a full range of social media services. Contact us today to find out more.

How to Find and Pitch Beauty Health and Style Influencers

If you are running a small business, chances are that publicity and marketing for your brand and product line are on your mind. Without a dedicated publicist, contact emails, editorial calendars and the all-too-important relationship with your chosen print or broadcast editor, this type of media may be out of reach. Or maybe you simply want to increase awareness faster than the 3-4 month lead time that magazine editors require and are looking to work with bloggers and influencers.

Many businesses understand the value of partnering with influencers such as bloggers, YouTube creators and Instagram influencers to endorse their particular brands, but they don’t know where to begin and what criteria should be put into place to discern between someone of influence and someone who is a hobbyist. Not to mention, what are the rules of engagement? How do you approach them and maintain a positive relationship?

As bloggers ourselves at Top Tier Media, we have a few tips you will find helpful.

Where to Find Influential Influencers:

1. Pinterest
   Pinterest is a blogger’s dream. It is the place where blogs get pinned and re-pinned with very little effort. Pinterest overflows with millions of professional pictures of blog-worthy outfits, delectable recipes and brag-worthy adventures. Behind many of these pictures are bloggers. Many have enormous followings and earn regular incomes because of this. Take a look at their Pinterest statistics. Their number of followers, pins and likes will show how influential they are in the marketplace and how often they are active on the site. Strategically partnering with a blogger with a large enough following can send loads of traffic back to a site with eager customers.
2. Instagram
   Hashtags are the best ways to find beauty bloggers on Instagram. Try searching hashtags such as #beautyblogger, #lifestyleblogger, styleblogger #fashionblogger, etc. Want to find a beauty blogger in your specific niche? Try #crueltyfreeblogger, #veganbeauty, #over40style, #greenbeauty, #drugstoremakeup, etc. The hashtags can help point to a particular authority in that field. Look for Instagram users who post regularly, stay within a theme and have true engagement in the form of likes and comments. While follower numbers are important, if the engagement doesn’t jive with the follower count, then it is likely that the Instagrammer may have “bought” fake fans. If the influencer doesn’t have a physical blog linked to in their bio, they typically have their direct contact information listed.
3. YouTube
   YouTube is the ultimate tool for finding influencers to endorse a product. With any given topic featured on YouTube, the most popular content creators show up at the top of the search results. Try searching keywords like you would on Instagram.

Remember – microinfluencers, celebrity influencers, and those with large followings will likely charge a fee for their services. You must not only be willing to send free product, but (oftentimes) have the budget to pay their fees for promotion.

What to Avoid When Pitching Bloggers:

1. Leaving a comment on a blog post/video/social media post regarding your brand, product and that you’d like the blogger to write about it. Some brands have even posted entire press releases in the comments – that’s a HUGE no-no and a big turn off.
2. Tagging a blogger telling them they must try your product with a link to it. (And more so, doing this incessantly when the blogger does not respond.)
3. Ignoring how they want to be pitched (which is usually found in their About/Contact section.)

How to Pitch Influential Beauty and Health Influencers:

1. Send relevant press kits. Of course you wouldn’t send pitches for beauty products to a food blogger. But, go one step further and read the “About” section and a few posts before contacting – for example – don’t make the mistake of pitching a product with animal ingredients to a vegan beauty blogger!
2. Perfect your pitch. Address the blogger by name – make it seem personal and not like a mass email (even if it is – but we don’t recommend mass pitches in general.) Don’t forget to include information about your product, small photos or pdfs (don’t clog up in-boxes without asking; “Photos available upon request” works beautifully), a link to your product’s website (you won’t believe how many people forget the link), your contact information, when the product will be released, prices, etc.
3. Use the magic words. Include the phrase “press samples available” instead of asking to send products for review. This is a subtle way to encourage bloggers to ask YOU for the product. While there is no obligation for bloggers to review your product (unless you have a written agreement to pay for an “advertorial”), they will be more likely to do so if they have requested the product samples.

Need help pitching influencers? To start a conversation with Top Tier Media regarding blogger outreach and your social media strategy, contact us today!

Social Media Marketing for Beauty and Health Brands

Marketers aren’t just using social media to push products anymore. It’s more about increasing brand awareness and providing better customer service. The result is more conversions. Today’s marketers are using social media differently than they used to. Today, it’s more personal which helps engage your target audience better than ever before.

A Look At Influential Marketers

To get a better idea of what personal means for social media marketing, you only have to look at businesses such as Fab Fit Fun, Anastasia Beverly Hills, Colourpop and Living Proof. While they’re all active on social media, you can easily see the unique personality each brand brings to their channels.

Many of their posts aren’t specifically shouting, “Buy this product!” Instead, they focus on showing tutorials, inspiring customers, showing the company in action and posting fun visuals that make customers easily relate to the brand.

By creating a positive social media image that seems more like a close friend, these companies stay top of mind with their followers. Plus, they’re always available to interact with customers on all channels. Thanks to their efforts, customers easily recognize the brands and feel comfortable buying products from a brand they’ve grown to trust.

The New Social Media Strategies

Instagram is growing in popularity as marketers are realizing the power of visual content. Social Media Examiner’s report shows 71% of businesses have found visual content to be the most effective content for reaching their audience. This makes Instagram a must-have in the social media arsenal.

It’s important to note that businesses aren’t mainly focused on sales. The top three reasons businesses are marketing on social media include:

• 90% market for increased exposure
• 77% market for increased traffic
• 69% market for developing loyal fans

Only 51% actually market for improved sales. This means it’s time to consider changing your marketing strategy to engage your audience versus just selling to them.

By leveraging the power of all of these networks, plus reaching out to influential bloggers, YouTubers, Instagrammers, and other digital influencers, businesses are growing their followings and customer base by thousands. All it takes is a more personal approach to build trust and prove your customers are more important than your bottom line.

Want to learn more about how Top Tier Media can strategically help you? Contact us today and let’s get started!

Social Media: Defining Goals and Expectations

It’s no secret that social media is the driving force behind engagement marketing for many different types of brands today. With so many platforms to chose from targeting varying demographics, it makes sense that any business looking to establish their social reputation and expand their reach would do so with an eye towards utilizing social media to their own best advantage.

However before diving head-on into the fray, it is critically important for every brand owner to set realistic expectations for their company in terms of what social media can (and cannot) do for them. Though invaluable for reaching the masses, social media platforms are not a panacea when it comes to a poorly planned marketing strategy and as we all know, becoming an overnight hit rarely happens “overnight.”

Define Clear Objectives

The first step is to be realistic about what social media sites can and cannot accomplish. To simply establish an Instagram or Facebook page and posting pretty photos is not going to generate brand awareness on any meaningful scale. In order to create a community of brand loyalists, extensive planning must first take place before any actual data is transmitted.

Ask yourself:

“What do I expect social media to actually accomplish?”

“What steps will it take for me to reach that goal?”

“How long do I expect for it to take to accomplish that goal?”

Additionally, you’ll need to establish short and long term goals and identify key metrics to measure success. What does success look like? Is it acquiring 10-20% new fans weekly? Is it a strategic tweet garnering a set amount of retweets? Is it increasing sales monthly? And by how much? How often will you measure growth – weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly?

Understanding Social Media’s Role

It’s likely many business owners look at the role of social media sites as a way for prospective customers to obtain the somewhat nebulous concept of “brand awareness.” However, in reality there are several roles a strong social media presence can fill.

When focusing on social media’s role for your brand, try to think of uses that go beyond simply hyping a product or service. Several top brands such as Virgin America and Target have developed dedicated online followings by passing pertinent information to followers and offering superior customer service. Sometimes it’s not the social platform that drives the initial sale, but it is the customer care post-sale that creates brand loyalty for future sales.

Have a Long-Term Strategy:

Expecting near-instantaneous mass saturation of your brand is at best a pipe dream. The most successful social media campaigns have nearly all been the result of long-term planning and lots of trial and error. If you think you’ve got it all figured out, think again! Be flexible with your approach, and never become so wed to one idea that you’re not willing to abandon it if a better one comes along.

It’s an old adage that “slow and steady wins the race”, but in the case of social media campaigns this advice still rings true. There is no shortage of factors to consider when it comes to having a well thought-out social media presence. However, with a logical approach combined with realistic goals, you can offer yourself your best chance to succeed.

10 Rules of Social Media Marketing

When it comes to social media, there are some general rules or best practices that will help you succeed in reaching and engaging with your audience. Each of these ten social media marketing rules is designed to help make your business more visible and accessible to the demographic you’re trying to reach.

#1: Be Consistent

Your social media presence is the only contact some customers will have with you. Your social media account must be updated regularly to ensure visibility with your social media-only customers, not to mention a more active and visible profile increases your chances for customer engagement.

#2: Provide Value

You cannot promote sales on your social media accounts without providing real value to your customers. Customers are more likely to shop with you if they are learning something from your business. This includes behind the scenes access, a look at up-coming product launches, entertaining or informative content, answering customer inquiries and resolving any issues.

#3: Be Accessible

Ensure that all contact initiated by customers is returned within 24 hours (or less). Your customers are contacting you on social media because they need help, and you must respond as quickly as you can. People are less likely to call an 800 number these days. Social media is now considered a customer service channel.

#4: Be Polite

Social media can be the first stop for complaints and rude behavior from disgruntled customers, but you should always be polite and keep your cool. Your social media account should be a kind place where customers can get assistance with any issues.

#5: Choose A Proper Name

The name of each social media account needs to be consistent. Using the same name across all your social media accounts is important, and you should choose a name people can easily search. Using abbreviations or too many underscores or other symbols will only cause confusion among your customers.

#6: Share Across Platforms

You can share across social media platforms when you are using them, but put some thought into it. Make sure your posts are optimized for the social media channels you’re using. Don’t share the same item from one social media account to another multiple times. Your customers will catch on to an overwhelming amount of content if they think it looks like spam.

#7: Allow For Sharing

You want people to enjoy and share your content, right? The more eyeballs the better! The pages and products on your site should have a share button that allows customers to share your content on their social media accounts.

#8: Be Human

Your social media account must be run by a real person. If customers engage and are ignored, they will quickly go elsewhere. Joking with customers and being fun is part of the charm of social media! Your social profile shouldn’t replicate an RSS feed.

#9: Interact With Other Companies

Having online conversations with other companies allows you to grab a bit of the spotlight. These conversations amount to free publicity on the other company’s social media feed. Of course, use caution when communicating with your competitors.

#10: Expand Your Operation

You need to expand to new social media sites when they appear on the landscape, but only when that platform is appropriate to the demographic you target. Go where your demographic is!

Tips for Optimizing Pinterest Photos

We know that you want to receive as much traffic as possible when you write a blog post. Unfortunately, you may be missing some of that traffic and interested visitors if you aren’t paying attention to the important factors of correctly placing images on your website. Fortunately, we are here to help you and can offer some tips on optimizing blog photos for visually-oriented social sites like Pinterest.

Use Text on Your Images

Sites like Pinterest can be helpful when a person is searching for home interior ideas, crafts or recipes. Let’s say that you are a food blogger, and you have a delicious chicken Marsala recipe that you want to share with other people. It does take extra time, but you should be sure to add text onto your images. If you have a picture of chicken Marsala, pull up a fun font on your image editor and watermark your picture with the words, “Tasty Chicken Marsala.” This will catch someone’s eye when they’re browsing images and increase the chances of them visiting your website. You may also want to include your logo or website URL so people can find your site easily. You may also want to use longer, portrait-style photos rather than horizontal images. Putting your text toward the top of the image can also help get clicks and saves.

Use Keywords In the URL

The next tip is to use the main keywords of your post in the URL. On most content management systems such as WordPress or at blog creating websites, this can automatically be done when you have the settings take your post title and use it in the URL. Your URL should look something like this,”http://www.yourfoodblog.com/recipes/tasty-chicken-marsala-recipe/.

Title Your Image With Keywords

We’re pretty sure that taking these next two tips and incorporating them into your arsenal will help boost your traffic and increase visitors. We would also bet that many bloggers fail to use these techniques, and this may help put you above your competition. Be sure to use descriptive keywords when you title your image files. If you use something like, “tasty chicken marsala.jpg” and not,” image356.jpg,” it will help boost your images in search engine results.

Don’t Forget to Use Alt Text Correctly

Here’s a golden tip on why you should make sure that your alt text for each image is descriptive. Did you know that Pinterest takes the words from an image’s alt text description and places them automatically into their pin description? By using “tasty chicken Marsala” in the alt text area of your image, you are automatically giving a Pinterest user the description for their pin. This top tip will definitely help pop your images to a highly visible area when someone is searching for specific keywords.

What tips do you have to share? What has worked for you?

5 Best Practices for Instagram Content

With tens of millions of active users, Instagram is a marketing tool you can’t overlook. It’s not just another social network. It’s the best place to go beyond text and introduce your brand visually to your audience. It’s a more personal and interactive way to engage with customers.

Gaining followers requires more than just posting pretty pictures though. Make sure you’re posting only the best content while optimizing marketing strategy and using relevant calls to action.

1. Focus On Quality

Blurry or fuzzy images aren’t a good representation of your brand. The top brands have one thing in common – their images always look stunning. Utilize Instagram’s editing tools or outside photo editing apps or software to clean up images. You can also use a DSLR camera to make your images sharper.

2. Keep It Personal

Some of the most popular brands on Instagram don’t focus on blatant product marketing. For instance, The Ellen Show posts more candid shots of things that go on backstage. Using images your audience can relate to versus just images of your products makes your brand seem more personal and relatable.

3. Turn Them Into A Story

Thinking of what to post is one of the hardest parts of using Instagram. Keep it simple by turning your images into a story. For instance, if your launching a new product, post fun shots from the initial planning meeting, demos in action, the first official product coming off the assembly line and your team posing around the first product display.

Pictures are worth a 1,000 words. Create a novel by sharing your story through Instagram.

4. Have Personality

Uploading bland pictures of products against a white backdrop or people posing uncomfortably with your products isn’t going to help build followers. Is your brand fun? Post pictures of your staff playing around or people using your product at a popular event. The more personality your pictures have, the easier they are to relate to.

5. Use Hashtags

Skipping hashtags is like trying to yell in a crowd of millions. If you want your pictures seen, you have to use relevant hashtags. Participate in trending hashtags whenever possible for more exposure or create your own event specific ones to boost brand awareness. Make sure to use hashtags that aren’t overly broad (#naturalmakeup vs #makeup for example). You can use up to 30 hashtags in the first comment after posting your image. You can use up to 10 hashtags in Instagram stories.

The most important thing to remember on Instagram is to have fun and interact with your followers. Do this and it’ll be well worth your time. Looking for help with your Instagram strategy? Contact Top Tier Media for help!

How to Host a Successful Influencer Event for Your Brand

While media events have been a staple for many decades, the rise of influencers has created an entirely new approach to this brand-building activity. However, it is important to understand the potential pitfalls and take care of the basics if you want to have a positive experience with any influencer or blogger event. If there is any time you want your brand and company to shine, it’s in front of those who will be writing about it to deliver your brand message to their captive audience.

Define Your Objectives and Deliver Substance

As influencers play an increasingly important role in how your prospects and customers view your brand, they are more demanding in what they expect from brands. In other words, bloggers understand their value and know that they don’t just serve as a conduit to bring attention to your new product or service.

Start your planning for a blogger event with the perspective of an influencer.

Ask, as if you were a blogger, “What are you going to find out by attending the event that will enhance your position as an authority and industry insider with your readers and base of followers?”

With that approach, you will shape the event to provide information that is useful and significant. This might include unveiling a new product (letting the influencers be the first to try it) or providing a unique experience that influencers will want to participate in. The essential goal is to provide something the influencer or blogger couldn’t have simply picked up from an email or press release.

Take Care of the Details

To avoid a blogger disaster such as that experienced by ConAgra Foods, translate your goal into an event that fits the influencer culture. For example, provide your key information to the attendees in digital form, not just a bag full of old school printed materials.

Other such details include:

• Using a hashtag that will help track media mentions across all platforms (not every blogger uses all the same platforms to channel information.) Remember, your hashtag serves as a keyword that allows you to track comments concerning your event.

• Capture your event with a stellar video and post it as quickly as possible after it closes. Also, create a microsite for the event if it fits your objectives. Consider filming a live stream of the event via Facebook or Instagram.

• Make sure to hand out goodie bags with product for influencers to take with them, as well as a printed card with your brand’s social media handles and hashtag for the event.

Planning is the key to a successful event, and it’s very helpful to review some of the more successful events that got a lot of subsequent mentions on the right channels. Vet the influencers in your niche and review their coverage of past events to make sure you’re inviting the right people.

Top Tier Media specializes in planning influencer events. Contact us if you need help setting up a stellar event!

How customer service can increase word of mouth marketing

Today’s business management focuses greatly on the customer experience to enhance revenue. You can be on every social platform, have a great marketing campaign and garner plenty of positive product placement in print and broadcast, but if your customer service is severely lacking, then all of that effort could be mute.

In terms of cost and efficacy, word of mouth (WOM) marketing yields the most profound results for companies across a bevy of sectors. At the same time, a negative customer experience expressed through WOM can affect the organization greatly as well. Nevertheless, positive word of mouth can be fostered by great customer service, as it reduces the marketing expenses of a brand. Many marketing executives have elected to nurture this approach given its impactful outcomes.

Marketing executives ask a range of questions to determine the WOM approach that best serves the needs of their organization. Questions such as what is the percentage of customers attracted to your service through personal referrals and is the customer service experience being translated via social media? Is great customer service translating into positive WOM messaging online and off?

Survey results have found that 20 to 75 percent of new customers to a business come through personal referrals due to a positive shopping experience.

In 2012, according to the president of the Cheesecake Factory restaurant chain, WOM enabled the company to spend 25 percent less than the competition in its industry because of the impact of WOM marketing.

Moreover, in evaluating the efficacy of WOM, brands weigh questions such as, what is the nature of word of mouth generated (whether it is negative or positive)? How predictive is word of mouth in terms of driving sales?

If brands are able to convert twenty percent of their dissatisfied customers to ten percent, they can transform the impact of WOM on their organizations. For instance, a customer service center that provides routine service for a company has the capacity to generate three hundred new customers per week if only one out of every 30 of the 10,000 positive referrals in a new customer sampling are leveraged correctly.

Ironically, many brand executives, when asked whether customer service is considered part of the overall brand marketing initiative, are perplexed as they still devote much of their resources to more traditional advertising.

At Top Tier Media, we live and breathe social media and know that exemplary customer service shown in the social media space is vitally important to the bottom line.

Where does customer service rank for you in your social media strategy?

3 Ways Social Media Is Changing Advertising

Today’s advertising landscape is an eclectic array of both online and real-world marketing strategies, from a post on Instagram to a billboard on a main drag. Social media, in particular, has created an entirely new platform for businesses to attract customers. Because social media is interactive, advertising is now more about relationships than ever before.

Take a look at some of the tops ways social media is changing advertising:

Constant Contact

When it came to old-fashioned advertising, your flyer or billboard had to be located in a busy area to be seen by hundreds or thousands of people. Advertising through social media allows your business to be in constant contact with key customers. Every time potential customers access their social media accounts, which is often up to a dozen times a day, there is another chance for them to see your posts, pictures and updates. There is no need to wait for customers to walk past your billboard because you can reach them on a daily basis through social media. They may even share or comment on your content, making your business even more visible in the marketplace.

Familiarity

With so many products and brands in the marketplace, consumers are often bombarded by images and logos throughout the day. Basic psychology reveals that people look for mental shortcuts as they make daily decisions. You cannot, for instance, research EVERY type of cosmetic, fashion or health product  to verify which are the best. People look for well-known brands and logos or testimonials from friends, family and influencers to learn about new products. Your business can use social media ads to reach your demographic and stay top of mind.

Targeted Audience

One of the major ways that social media has enhanced advertising is easier targeting. If your business sells cell phone accessories, for example, you may want to pinpoint teens and young adults in your advertising strategy. Post quirky or funny videos surrounding device use or start a conversation about tablets versus smartphones. The more you engage with your targeted audience, they’ll be more inclined to buy your product repeatedly because of the strong social media relationship. You have given them interesting news and conversation-starters which pique their interest, and make them want to learn more.

Take your social media to the next level by creating targeted ads for your demographic. Contact Top Tier Social Media for help with social media management and ad creation.

4 Reasons to Choose a Social Media Marketing Agency

Every business needs a social media marketing plan. Social media helps companies build brand recognition, convert casual fans to diehard advocates, and keep an eye on their reputation. It can be a great way for small businesses to grow very quickly, but many business owners run into the following roadblocks.

1. There aren’t enough hours in the day.

Many professionals cannot send tweets and update their statuses on top of everything else they have to do in a day. They may want to add social media to the mix, but they need to focus on the things they already do that have a positive, measurable impact on the bottom line.

2. You don’t have time to keep up with “the next big thing.”

When researching social media marketing techniques online, it quickly becomes obvious that there is a lot to learn.

* Which platforms are right for your customers?
* How can you engage followers?
* What is the right message and frequency for your audience?
* Where should you look for useful metrics?
* When can you expect to see measurable results?

Someone who has already invested considerable time and effort in learning a skill can appreciate that although a social media education might be a worthy goal in today’s world, it probably is not worth investing in a new course of study. Social media is a dynamic industry that requires experts to update their skills continuously. A social media agency has these experts on hand at all times.

3. You don’t have established networks.

A social media agency also has the benefit of extensive networks across many platforms and different audiences. When working with a new client, an agency can promote to these networks and draw some of the followers over to the new venture.

4. You’re too close to the campaign or product.

Oddly enough, a professional may be too close to a social media campaign to appropriately evaluate its merit. Social media marketing is an art form. First time efforts often fail when someone cannot assess what works and what does not without getting defensive. Even worse, some campaigns end just as they begin to find success, because those managing the campaign did not know how to measure and prove true social media success.

A social media consultant not only knows what works and what does not, but also includes scientific evidence in the form of analytics data when determining the success of a campaign. Like all true marketing professionals, social media experts adjust campaigns according to what works and what does not, rather than feeding anyone’s creative ego.

Seek social media guidance

You have enough to do maintaining your business and staying on top of changes in your field of expertise. Trust an expert to manage your social media presence so you can project your professional image across all platforms.

How to Credit Bloggers for Their Images

In this day and age it is so easy to do a quick Google search to find the perfect image for a blog post or advertorial. This is, in fact, what many people do to find compelling content. But they’re missing the critical step – crediting the original source for the image.

Contrary to popular belief, Google images, Flickr, Tumblr and Pinterest are not original sources for images. Many times, those sites lose the information on the original content creator, which is sad, especially when it’s a compelling image. So you must take another step to find the original author if you find images by those means. You want to follow the image back to the blog or site it originated from to credit that blogger or photographer. To find the original image source, upload the image to http://images.google.com. The original source will usually be the first or second link listed.

When you are a blogger and you spend hours on your blog creating images, you don’t want someone taking those images and using them without proper credit. To give proper credit, it’s as simple as the following:

Image: Sugarpill Minty Blues eyeshadow via Phyrra

If the text can be hyperlinked (if you’re posting on a website), you want to hyperlink the blog name with the URL for the creator to give them proper credit.

If it’s for Facebook, Instagram or Twitter be sure to tag the influencer or blogger:

Source: @Phyrra

All images are copyright to the photographer that took the images, unless that photographer signs away those rights. So typically, you need to have permission to use that image, unless they have licensed their work for Creative Commons. Most bloggers are happy to have their images used with proper credit. If you’re ever in doubt, just ask! And if a blogger asks you to take down an image, you should do so immediately to avoid a lawsuit.

5 Ways to Tell if Social Media is Working for Your Brand

In the competitive world of the beauty business, beauty brands want to make sure that their social media campaigns are working for them. While some brands expect a direct increase in sales, this increase is sometimes one of the last ways to tell if a social media campaign is working. So until your beauty brand does start to see an increase in sales, how can you measure that your social media campaign is even doing its job?

Here’s how:

New fans – Keep in mind that the primary purpose of having a fan page on Facebook or Twitter is to build an online community for your beauty brand. Think of your brand’s Facebook page as an online hub for customer service, brand awareness and direct fan engagement. Tracking an increase in new fans over a period of time is a great indicator that people want to be involved in your online community. If you are posting relevant and useful content, responding to fan questions/concerns and actively engaging fans with contest, trivia and more – you should always be seeing a steady increase in fans.

More visitors – Similarly to seeing an increase in new fans over time, an increase in visitor traffic to a beauty brand’s website and/or blog is a great indicator that existing customers or even potential customers are interested in your brand. What to do if you start seeing a lull in web traffic instead of growth? Make sure that you are still driving traffic from all of your social media platforms on a consistent basis. While you should always focus of posting relevant content to build your community, you always want to be linking social media posts back to your websites.

Comments and shares – A simple ratio suggests that an increase in fan engagement usually begins after an increase in fans. While fan engagement may naturally increase due to an increase in page fans, you want to also make sure that you are posting content that is engagement-worthy! Are you hosting contests and giveaways? Are you increasing buzz about your beauty brand by offering free samples? Are you asking questions and are you genuinely interested in your community feedback? Continue experimenting with different types of engagement until you get a feel for what your community wants and is looking for from your brand.

Building new relationships – Whether you are building relationships with the beauty bloggers reviewing your brand or other beauty brands in a similar niche as yours, you’ll know your are building your online community right if you are getting to know more people than you did before. Online communities should always be open to RTs, positive commenting and engaging with other beauty brands because it does less harm than good. It doesn’t mean you are promoting another brand, it simply means that you are establishing your own part in an even bigger online beauty community!

Sales – Ah yes, an increase in sales. While it’s hard to measure a direct increase in sales from social media unless there’s a specific campaign (specifying to mention Facebook, Twitter etc.), you will also want to know if social media, on its own, can be responsible for an increase in sales. If you remain consistent in efforts to build a lively and knowledgeable online community, you’ll increase the probability that a potential customer will select your beauty brand by simply being involved and being aware of your brand by being in the online community you’ve worked so hard to build. Remember, it often takes 7 points of contact before a customer is ready to buy. So increase the frequency by staying active on all social media channels.