5 Proven Ways to Create Eye-Catching Video for Social Media

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Video Marketing|5 Proven Ways to Create Eye-Catching Video for Social MediaWhether you have a product you want to sell or wish to reach more people on your social media, video marketing is a tried and tested method that guarantees results.

There are various challenges that the modern day content creator faces. Most social media users are overstimulated, and there are multiple brands vying for the user’s attention. So, how do you stand out when the stakes are high and the competition is tough?

In this article, we’ll talk about 5 ways you can make your video stand out among the others.

1. A Good Hook

The content of your video doesn’t matter if you don’t have a good hook. Users will only pause on your video for one or two seconds, if at all, and that’s all the time you’ll have to make them stay.

Include keyword phrases designed to catch the attention of your target audience. Create suspense or ask them a question directly that makes them pause for the answer.

And it doesn’t just end with a good hook either. Now that you have your audience’s attention, make sure to give them something that makes them glad they stayed. It could be information, or the answer to your initial question, or something that you know your target audience wanted to know in the first place.

2. Include Text

Most of the time, people watch videos on Instagram and Facebook without any sound. It hurts your brand and it hurts your engagement if your users don’t find your videos worth watching, or pause because of one reason or the other only to find that they need to turn the volume on to understand what’s being said.

Most of the time, they’ll keep scrolling. And every person who doesn’t engage with your post might be a customer lost. Adding text even gives you a unique opportunity to add some color and motion to your video.

Have the text appear and disappear from view in different ways. Maybe it pops up and out of sight in fun ways, maybe the colors of the text go well with the background and the video’s aesthetics.

3. Make a Script

It’s good to sound natural in your video- in fact, it’s probably best that you do. But that doesn’t mean that you should wing it either.

Sounding unprepared or beating around the bush in your video is something you can’t afford to do. There is a whole world of content at your viewer’s disposal that they can switch to any time, so if you don’t get right to the point and utilize every second of the video to tell them what you want to, you’ll hurt your business and brand.

4. Create a Good Looking Video

Content creators are beginning to understand the importance of visually appealing content now. People have more chances of pausing at a video they find beautiful and professional.

If you want to shoot indoors, invest in the proper lighting and some props to make your video look good. It might be a good idea to use a single colored sheet as the background to make your product or the subject of your video stand out. Make sure the colors don’t clash!

Another great idea would be to shoot outdoors. What’s stopping you from shooting at a beautiful spot in the forest or a bustling mall? Keep your brand’s identity and focus in mind, then choose the best looking option for your video.

5. Look Good!

If you’re going to be in the video yourself, make sure to look your best! Even if the video contains shots of the kitchen, living room, or just the product, you need to make sure that nothing looks sloppy or out of place.

It doesn’t serve you well to look unprofessional when you’re trying to attract people to your page- it’s the expertly made, high value and visually appealing and professional content that they’re looking for.

In the end, creating an eye-catching video is a combination of planning, good camera skills and a great location, so take your time in making it to make sure you get it right.

7 Simple Ways to Improve Local SEO for Your Business

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Local SEO|7 Simple Ways to Improve Local SEO for Your BusinessIf you run a local business then it’s important to be able to reach out to local customers. Potential clients will perform an online search based on location, and you want to be the first name they find. In order to get your website to the top spots of the search engine results pages, you need to optimize it for local SEO. This is essential for local searches. You need solid strategies to ensure you appear as an authority in the field in your community. You’ll then gain a competitive edge in the local market. Here are seven simple ways to improve your local SEO.

Optimize Your Google My Business Listing

A well-written Google My Business Listing is a sure-fire way to improve your local SEO. First of all, you need to claim your business profile and include plenty of information. This includes beautiful photos of your products and engaging copy. You need to create the perfect listing, so as soon as a local person Googles the type of product you sell, they are attracted to your business. For the best results, you could consider outsourcing this to SEO Services as they will have the resources and expertise to optimize your listing.

Post your listing in other online business directories

There are several other online web directories that local customers will use. Post your listing in more of these to increase your chances of being found. This will also help to boost your local SEO and the search engine bots will find your various posts and consider you more of an authority in your field.

Create local content for your website

In order to boost your SEO, you also need to optimize your website. Create engaging video content relating to local events. You could even volunteer as a company and film a corporate charity video. As well as video, include local news and information. This will help your site to rank more highly as a local business. You should also update your social media with local content as well. You can be creative with this or even collaborate with other local businesses.

Use local keywords in your content

Use local keywords in written content across your listings, website, and social media accounts. These keywords need to match what a potential customer might search for on Google. Local keywords, in particular, contain location-specific phrases related to the same geographic location of your business. You can learn how to find keywords for a local search online.

Create separate pages for each location

If you want to boost your local SEO you need to create location pages. This means a separate landing page for each location of your business. If you offer services across multiple locations it could affect your SEO if not. You can’t utilize those location-specific keywords unless they relate to only one place. On your separate location pages, you can include details about each location and places in the town near your business, for example. Google won’t rank the pages as highly if they’re too similar.

Create separate service pages

You should also create individual service pages to improve local SEO, rather than one page listing all services. Search engines won’t consider your brand as an authority in one specific area if you include all your services on one page. You can include a services tab on your main homepage with drop-down links to all your services, for example. This goes the same for the unique products that you offer. These product pages are where potential customers may first arrive. They tend to search for a product or service rather than the name or type of a business.

Incentivize local customers to leave reviews

Customer reviews are very effective, especially for local businesses. They show that members of the community trust your brand and that others should too. There are several ways to encourage customers to leave reviews. You could automate follow-up emails asking them for a quick review or rating. You could even incentivize them by offering a promo or discount in exchange for recommending you to a friend. Post positive reviews on your website and listings. Try to include personal information about the customer, as long as they’ve agreed to it. This will give your business a lot of credibility in the local neighborhood. By boosting your appeal to both local customers and the search engine bots, you can start to make a name for yourself in the field. You’ll create the online presence you need to succeed.

Secrets To Having A Successful LinkedIn Platform

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |LinkedIn|Secrets To Having A Successful LinkedIn PlatformThere are those people who view LinkedIn as a job-hunting arena, and there are those with the view that it is just a normal social media platform where you browse all you want. Other people view this app as a digital platform for business transactions. It ranks among the top fifteen apps in the world, which attracts great traffic. If you are not a signed-up member, you do not know what you are missing!

Most users use the social network to grow their businesses and connect with professionals in all sectors. Before sharing any content on the app, make sure it is strategic to stand out among all the users. Ensuring that your profile is well maintained and the content shared is spectacular, then there will be a positive impact on your personal brand and any business. So be very keen when you are creating content for your LinkedIn profile and posts.

There are various methodologies used to you have the relevant strategies to conquer in this platform. Using the LinkedIn tool will effectively promote your social media content, and connections are made by accepting invitations from other people.

How to be distinctive in LinkedIn

If you are a new member, you can register and start sharing your incredible ideas within no time. Setting up the pages is so easy, and the right guidance is always provided. Don’t be pressured on the amount of content you have to post daily as it is not a necessity, and that article, website, or blog you are thinking about will always get the deserved audience.

What to remember

The dos

For you to meet the relevant audience, always remember the following things:

  • When adding photos, add individual images and not stock photos, for example, self, clients, or employee images.
  • Make the content posted personable.
  • Always publish relevant information.
  • Cover industrial topics
  • For consistency, post content regularly.
  • When there are comments, remember to comment back.
  • Headlines are super important.
  • You can add compelling statistics in the form of images.

The Don’ts

  • When posting, share more than just a post as they reach fewer people
  • Avoid posting long videos.
  • Avoid using links
  • Avoid getting too personal on the posts.

Promotions

There are content ideas that make you independent and unique.

Social status

First, ensure you make all the relevant changes through self-actualization as social media users are categorized into three.

  1. The lurkers (90%)- compromise the biggest part of users. They scroll through the platform without making any posts, comments, or content sharing.
  2. The (9%) contributors- they actively contribute in certain levels. They comment on reposts, share, and post on their platforms with their social circle.
  3. The (1%) creators comprise the smallest group and actively come up with new content. Generally, they have a bigger following, and they are recognized as the industry leaders.

The three social media categories make LinkedIn keeps growing, bustling, and thriving with content creativity at all times. Every time you log in to your social media accounts, have clear guidelines to maximize the limitless possibilities available. Be creative, stand out, and if your social status does not please you, then change!

Post that video

Some people think that posting videos only makes sense on the other various social media platforms compared to linked users. Cancel that thought because it is not true because videos are a valuable asset in the business world. Even professionals spend more time watching content like ads as compared to static content. If you want to test it, provide information on a certain topic in both written and video form and see the results. There are several areas where you can use videos on the platform, including:

  • Profile page
  • Publisher section
  • Posts on the newsfeed
  • Learning sector like the payment methods

Videos are uploaded from other social sites like YouTube. The posted videos need to be informative about a particular business, products, and brand. The videos do not necessarily have to be done professionally or fancy since if they contain relevant information, they will always reach the desired crowd.

Informative videos contain content that directly describes the particular event in question, including case studies, brands’ story, business introduction, the making process, and updates on coming events, team, and the frequently asked questions.

There are many possibilities, so pick up that phone and post the relevant videos. Posting those videos ensures that your page is captivating, engaging, personable, and marketable.

Statistic attack

Professionals are always in dire need of honest statistics regarding the popularity of any content on the online platform. When you include statistics in your posts, you appear well-informed and with relevant knowledge in the specific industry. Hence when sharing content, always consider statistical content, including;

  • Informative articles
  • Relatable case studies
  • Branded information graphics
  • Relevant videos
  • The white papers

If, in any case, visuals create anxiety levels, always choose to use the fun statistics, for example, ‘are you aware that.´ When you share helpful, meaningful, and exciting statistics, people will view the information quickly and meaningful. Don’t forget to make the statistical headlines eye-catching and with great wording.

Great headlines increase people’s engagement.

When you have to increase traffic to your page, ensure that the headlines are intriguing and captivating. To create high-performance headlines, research is necessary as it brings clear insights into the post. There are several considerations always to make when creating that perfect headline, including;

  • The wording
  • Describing habits
  • Statistics
  • Question headlines

Remember, when you want to stand out, your headlines need to be well-written, strategic, and informative to keep up with the industrial trends.

Strengthening the relationship with CTA

When you create readable, meaningful, and informative content for the readers, that is the first step to your LinkedIn success. If you want to achieve full potential in the posted content, ask your readers to take the call to action step! Successful social media content entails actions rather than creation.

When creating content, ensure you understand the specific goals you intend to achieve. If you want the readers to engage more with your content, you can add links related to your articles from other blogs, videos, and articles.
All the content published should directly link to your business, and the content to action needs to be designed to meet all the targets.

Consistency

Imagine when a content creator posts something then goes silent for several months; what impression is created? People are habitual; hence being consistent is key for any form of success. Pick the time and days which work within your schedule to keep your followers updated on the happenings. Schedules ensure you as a person commit to engaging the audience, and they tune in on all the specified posting times. The created trust eventually leads to business development and active conversations.

Associate with the right groups and individuals

Always work with you to set goals; for example, if you offer online marketing services, participating in LinkedIn groups increases possible sales chances. When you are part of a group, be sure to connect, converse, share content and obtain leadership skills from the greatest professionals in the world! The created engagements place you and your business in a better position and depending on the size of the group, be sure of positive returns.

Repurpose your already created content

Content creation does not need to take tons of your time, so stop stressing! You can be resourceful using the relevant content already in your hands, for example, existing articles and blog posts. When you post blogs and articles on your LinkedIn platform, it increases the number of people reached, building the brands’ awareness and customer engagement. Every published document needs to be added to your profile to keep the followers informed.

Question posts and tips

The internet is a crucial research platform where people ask questions like ‘how to’ and learn new things. Always think of this platform as an open educational tool.

Like any other social media platform, users, mostly professionals and businesses, hunger for knowledge to gain all the information needed. The beauty of things is that you will always learn from another person.

So, fear not when you are posting relevant ideas as you are helping another person! When you decide to share any content, follow the right guidelines for your content to be viable in the long run.

Engaging in comments creates more content.

Each post intrigues different community members, and their options are mainly found in the comment section. Do not worry about the type of comments made as you choose the ones you wish to engage in, and after every conversation, you will gain new ideas.

When you avail yourself to the audience conversations, they may pose questions or comments to creatively make content to suit their interests while answering all their questions.

Make your predictions

For you to make relevant predictions on trending topics, you do not need rocket science. It is just the logical understanding of your industry. Creating content with several predictions entices the followers to share their opinions actively, and the beauty of it is that you may be right or wrong.

When you start being a leader rather than a follower, you are sure to command the masses.

Share your opinions

Always remember sharing is caring! A bigger percentage of LinkedIn users are interested in industrial insights. So, if you have amazing content, share it with the rest of the world as long as it resonates with the industry, and you can make individual reviews.

Never forget that people have reviews, thoughts, and opinions about anything like religion, fashion, politics, and economics. Hence whenever you share any information, people will always make comments, whether in support or against your idea. What an actually great way of developing a brand image rather than defining your voice with established opinions.
Each time you share ideas and information with attached own opinions, you effectively increase society members’ interest. Agreeing or disagreeing people are always interested in reading other peoples insights and opinions.

Create unlimited content

Unlike other social media platform users, LinkedIn people are into longer content which is still unbelievable. Posted content with approximately two thousand words gain larger traffics in comments, shares, views, and likes. People are always looking out for interesting and conversational information on which they can base their facts each time. So, do not be afraid of that longer content; it might favor you and always have informative and captivating content.

Do not forget to be human.

When you decide to share stories with the world, share human experiences that create valuable connections as people connect with stories associated with failure and triumphs in the long run. When you are honest about the journey undertaken, you naturally grow your following and build trust like a business development journey.

People will be interested in connecting, commenting, and learning from your experiences. You will be surprised when you realize that people with the greatest following have documented their life stories, including the good and the bad.

Retargeting ads

Retargeting is the best way in marketing to win back your audience while actively re-engaging them. It gives the advertisers a chance to increase new visitors to their pages with relevant ads. The due process on your page offers the various steps followed, including creating a relevant name, creating audience segments, and adding the website links targeted.

Job postings

People always look for new chances of growth in the form of better and new jobs. LinkedIn is mostly viewed as a platform for job hunting and networking; hence posting jobs helps other people get a better tomorrow!

When you share the number of open positions in your organization, you get a bigger number of people from whom you choose the most qualified or the individual who meets your criteria.

In conclusion, there are several ways one can use the LinkedIn platform to channel their ideas and market their businesses. The main secret to growing a large following is to create informative, relevant, and captivating content in articles, blogs, or videos. Always take time to understand the features in any platform for maximum benefits.

Why you should hire an SEO specialist

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |SEO Specialist|Why you should hire an SEO specialistThe online world is hugely saturated. Without the right knowledge, tools, and technical skills, it can be hard to get traffic for your business—no matter how big or small. One part of the process is SEO (search engine optimization), and to stay one step ahead of the competition, you should probably hire an SEO specialist.

SEO is how search engines read your website. With this reading, they can rank the content and add you to the search results whenever someone searches for a relevant phrase or keyword. If you want your business to succeed, you need to get your website to appear on the first page of results—which can be pretty difficult considering there are millions of web pages to compete against.

So how can a specialist help?

They’ll keep track of changes

It might seem easy at first to work SEO into your website, without hiring an expert. But you’ll quickly find that the keywords that once worked no longer do, and as such, your traffic begins to drop.

Major search engines such as Google are constantly changing their algorithms in order to help serve the best results to their users. A specialist can help you stay in the loop with all the latest updates, and will modify your content accordingly. While you’re busy serving your customers, they can work in the background to keep the traffic ticking along.

Your time is worth money

When running your own business, time is money. The time you spend working on SEO and updating web content is time you could be spending obtaining new leads, offering improved services to existing customers, or working on your marketing plan.
SEO campaigns often need to be analyzed and processed every day, which can seriously take away from your chances to make money.

They can offer so much more

Chances are, SEO specialists come with a whole load of other skills and strategies that can be used for boosting visibility and making your marketing more efficient. Take a look at www.theecommguys.com/pages/seo-ottawa, and you’ll see they offer SEO services but also help with user experience, site speed improvements, and even social media marketing.
Marketing specialists of any kind can be an invaluable asset—especially when you’re looking for fast growth for your business.

Increased cost efficiency

For the untrained eye, throwing more money at Google Ads and cost-per-click campaigns might seem like the only option, but specialists in the field will show you how you can use your money more efficiently. Although it might cost you to hire a specialist, the money you’ll retain from a more efficient strategy will quickly cover that cost, and more.

There’s more to SEO than content

Although adding keywords into your website’s content is one part of the strategy, there’s a lot more to it. Everything from HTML coding to meta tags, link building, and creating redirects are all part of optimizing your site—so it helps to call in the experts.

You’re already a boss in your own field; nobody is expecting you to master the marketing industry, too. SEO specialists are great value for money and can totally transform your current revenue streams. With a little help, you could be ranking on the first page of Google and growing your business further than you ever imagined.

Strategies To Grow Your Website Traffic

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Website Traffice|Strategies To Grow Your Website TrafficAll business owners want the same thing, ‘more customers’. Their second answer being more traffic to their website, which will bring in more customers.

So how can you attract more customers to your website? There are many different strategies to consider.

Advertise

This may seem obvious, but advertising is key. Consider your target market and advertise in ways that will reach them. You could consider paid ads, social media, magazine or newspaper adverts, TV, radio or display boards as excellent ways to attract people, building your brand’s awareness, and getting your site out there in front of people.
With any advert, consider the wording and language used and the outcome you want for more people to see your site. For example, if you are looking to convert a visit to a sale, you could include a ‘call to action’ within your advert.

Make Sure Your Content Is Valuable

What is it that you offer, that makes you, your site, brand and product stand out? Think about what your customers (now and future) will gain by visiting your site. You might be able to help them solve a problem, sell a product that will help them overcome a hurdle, teach or educate.
If you’re unsure of where to start, have a look at keyword research tools and google trends to see what is popular.

Social Media

It is never enough to have a great product or service in the hope that everyone will just stumble across your site. You need to proactively promote your brand, product, and service. There are many different channels of social media and the luxury of this and you can utilize them in different ways to get the word out.

For example, Twitter is great for immediate short-term influence, whilst Pinterest can offer a longer-term visual solution for continual advertising and Instagram can allow a more interactive way for customers to engage and ‘tag’ you and your business.

SEO

SEO (search engine optimization) is most likely a strategy you’ll of heard of already. In short, it refers to boosting where a website ranks in search results. The higher you rank, the more your website will be seen.
An SEO company can assist with this and work with you to build a plan of action for your business to list higher when customers search for certain words or phrases.

Create Catchy Headlines

Like your products and services, you need to stand out from your competitors. Your services and products could be the best, but unless you have a compelling heading or caption to draw customers in, they could scroll on by.
Consider your customer, use their language and phrasing to engage them. You may want to write out more than one heading out to consider which is most appealing and eye-catching before pressing the publish button.

Offer Variety Of Content

Not only will variety in social media channels boost your exposure but it is also worth considering once you’ve got your customers to your site, how to maximize their visit. Think about your content and your clients. In today’s world, a lot more customers buy and appoint services through their mobile devices whilst out on the move. With this in mind, it is important to ensure you have a mixture of content to cover all bases. Include short and snappy articles, blog posts, videos, photos as well as longer content articles.

Link Internally

Using internal links on your site. That way you can guide customers to other services or products they may be interested in, which they were unaware of, or link to reviews and feedback confirming how wonderful your product or services is.

Have Evergreen Content

There possibly will be times when you focus on an upcoming holiday or occasion as a driving force to get traffic to your website however it is vital that you can maintain a steady stream of traffic for the rest of the year.
It is recommended to use ‘evergreen’ content available that will always be relevant and will continue to attract that footfall.

Examples of evergreen content would be how-to guides, product reviews and answers to frequently asked questions.

Include List Posts

Articles with numbers in the title such as ‘10 ….’ act as a good way to draw attention. By having a number in amongst words it makes it stand out and eye-catching, which will draw in more click-throughs to your website.
These aren’t always the best types of content to build regular viewers/customers – so this is where those internal links to other articles can help – but they offer a great alternative way to drive the traffic to your cyber front door.

Have A Plan In Place

Like all things business we have to work hard to get the results. Driving traffic to your website is no different. It takes hard work and dedication, along with the ability to multitask planing your content, advertising, social media presence along as with the day to day tasks needed within your business or brand. So, it is always a good idea to generate a plan. Plan out your what you are going to post on social media and site or sites you will be using. Plan any new content you’ll be releasing and how you plan to advertise it.
You can get specialize content calenders to help you with this so you’re releasing all your content in a logical order.

Repurpose Your Content

You might be debating how much more work you’ll be taking it but it will pay out in the end and like anything new you’ll find you get quicker at this the more it is implemented. One way to help keep times down is to revamp and repurpose older content in different formats. You might have some amazing older content in your locker, so dig it out and reuse this content in a YouTube video, for example, a Video Pin on Pinterest.
By doing this you are maximizing the amount of value you are getting out of one piece of content.

Email Marketing

With the majority of the population having email, email marketing is a great way to drive traffic and to keep you and brand in your customers’ minds. All you need to do to benefit from this to get customers to sign up. There are many ways to do this, some sites use pop up boxes for this, others have a ‘subscribe here’ open on their side bar. All you have to do, is come up with a compelling reason that they need to sign up and subscribe now.

Once subscribed you’ll be able to communicate directly with your customers. For new subscribers, you can send a welcome email series out to them. This will allow you to make a good impression and allow your customers a ‘get to know you and what your brand or business is all about’. So remember, this is your opportunity to make a good impression.
so keep them notified of all new services, product and valuable content you’ve created.

Within the body of these emails you can also include your social media links and start the process of building yourself ‘super fans’ that follow you across of media channels.

With all of these suggestions, it is worth completing research in advance as there are numerous sites and technologies available to assist and make these steps easier to achieve. If that fails there are also companies out there that strategies and support in different fields that you could outsource too.