Building and Running a Growth Marketing Agency with Ellen Jantsch written by Sara Nay read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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If you are planning to use Instagram for your business the best way to enhance your success rate is by boosting your following first. Your sales are highly dependable on how much people reach you. So you need to optimize your Instagram. The trickiest part of Instagram SEO is being found on the platform. Additionally Instagram SEO is a little bit different from Google SEO. So it will take some time to get used to. Why You Should Optimize Instagram You must be thinking why Instagram is so important or why it should take up your precious time? Here are some stats to clear your doubts. Instagram has nearly 1 billion active users. People spend an average of 53 minutes on Instagram daily. Two-thirds of the whole Instagram users are 34 years or younger. 83% of people prefer Instagram to discover new services or products. The above data shows the importance of Instagram to enhance your business productivity. However you need to be careful. In this article we will discuss the 5 best Instagram SEO ideas to boost your visibility. Optimize Your Instagram Profile for Searching Purpose The Instagram search operates a bit like Google to deliver the most pertinent profile based on your search term. However the search results depend on the accounts you follow and connect. Also the post you liked on Instagram plays a massive role to determine relevance. Additionally the keyword also has a massive influence. Heres how: Name and Username: If you add a primary keyword in your name and username it will improve your chances to be shown in the relevant searches. Bio: You can also add keywords to your Instagram bio. The blank place can be used to add relevant secondary keywords. Choose a Caption That Is Keyword-Optimized On the Instagram Explore page you can only use location tags and hashtags to find content. Besides that Instagram also serves content recommendations based on your interests and interactions. For example if you regularly check gaming-related posts then your Explore page will most likely provide content based on the gaming world. Thats where your post captions take part. The Instagram Explore page is based on an account embedding framework algorithm that identifies similar Instagram accounts. Also it uses name bio username and caption to identify how accounts are relevant to one another. Thats the main reason why you should write descriptive and innovative captions with relevant keywords. This will also help your post to show up on the Explore page of relevant users. Treat Hashtags As Keywords On Instagram the main purpose of the keyword is to help users discover relevant content. However a hashtag functions a lot like a keyword. When you search for a particular hashtag you get all the posts tagged with the same specific hashtag. Similarly if you tag your post with a certain hashtag then it will show up when someone searches for that particular hashtag. According to https://www.forbes.com to attract the right audience you need to tag your posts with appropriate hashtags relevant to the content. However try not to overuse the hashtags and the caption space as it will look negative. Instagram permits you to use a maximum of 30 hashtags in one post. But you should not add more than 10 hashtags at once.If you want your post to gain quick likes then buy 20 Instagram likes. Getting Tagged Can Boost Your Discoverability When people tag your username in their post or story other people can visit your profile through the username. So the more you get tagged the more audiences you can attract. For example you could encourage your audiences to tag you or your products in their images to get featured in your post. You should let them know that you appreciate them by reposting some of their photos. Additionally you can organize some giveaway contests and that requires tagging your account. This way you can highly boost the number of tags. Use Alt Text Wisely Instagram has a special feature that allows you to create an alternative text to clearly describe your photo in detail. With the help of a screen reader the app then reads out the image description or caption that informs you what the photo contains. This feature was invented to help users who are visually impaired. However you can also use the alt text feature for Instagram SEO. By using keywords in your alt text the Instagram algorithm can clearly understand what the image contains and how it can be relevant for certain users. Although Instagram creates alt text automatically for your images make sure you edit the section to make it more detailed or descriptive. Beware Of Black Hat SEO When you are struggling to get visibility on Instagram you may think that black hat Instagram SEO tactics can help you to get fast responses. But remember these quick solutions are not permanent. They dont turn your account truly visible. Additionally Instagram has started to crack down on accounts that repeatedly use third party software to avail visibility. If you use bots to generate fake followers and fake likes your account might face a permanent ban on the platform. Conclusion These are the 6 tips to boost your Instagram discoverability using SEO. You need to create and update your Instagram account meticulously because your account will distinguish you from any other basic business. So boost up your account visibility with these 6 tips so that you can enhance your brand awareness among a relevant audience. The post 6 Ways To Boost Your Instagram Discoverability Using SEO appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Original source: https://socialmediaexplorer.com/social-media-marketing/6-ways-to-boost-your-instagram-discoverability-using-seo/ The post 6 Ways To Boost Your Instagram Discoverability Using SEO appeared first on connect social networks. via Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/6-ways-to-boost-your-instagram-discoverability-using-seo/

What’s Happening With AI Right Now written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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Selling Cost Reduction Instead of Promising Leads with Thomas Hess written by Sara Nay read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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Top 3 tips for success in the crowded ecommerce direct-to-consumer marketplace

For online retailers, Direct-To-Consumer (DTC or D2C) has always been the dream. What’s not to like? You cut out the middleman, retain complete control of your brand, and communicate directly with your customers. The rise of DTC giants like Dollar Shave Club and Casper Mattresses proved the potential of the model. Of course, it also led to a rush of new entrants. In the US, for instance, as more companies embraced the model, DTC sales nearly tripled from $6.85 billion in 2017, to $17.75 billion in 2020 according to eMarketer.

“There’s huge opportunity in the DTC space, particularly as attitudes about buying online have shifted by necessity due to the pandemic” says Berlin native entrepreneur and venture investor Julian Fuchs. “But to succeed in the increasingly competitive DTC landscape, you’ll need ways to set yourself apart.”

For new entrants, sourcing a quality manufacturer and sorting out reasonable shipping times – once the key hurdles – are now just the start of the DTC journey.

Julian, who’s had success investing in and building a number of DTC brands such as Everjump, Klaeny and Maniko, provided PUBLICATION NAME with his top three tips for winning the DTC game.

1. Niche down, but build around a larger theme

“For a newcomer to the DTC space, you’ll of course need to find a winning niche and start small. Importantly though, you’ll want to have a vision and roadmap that allows you to expand into a wider theme,” says Fuchs, who cites the example of Dollar Shave Club. What started as razors, gradually expanded into a complete line of men’s products, from deodorant to hand cream. One of Fuch’s recent projects, Everfit, targets the high-end jump rope niche, but – as the brand name suggests – has a vision to expand into fitness products more generally.

2. Stand for something

With the unprecedented choices now available to online consumers, discerning buyers increasingly make purchase decisions driven largely by their values.That’s why it’s important for your brand to give people something to identify with and get behind. Here Fuchs cites sustainability as a winning approach.

“Whether it’s fair trade, championing human rights, or protecting the environment; when your brand stands for something important, you’re taking a huge leap towards building loyalty and getting buy-in. But you need to be serious about it. People can see through half-hearted attempts at sustainability, and that will backfire.”

This leads us to Fuch’s next tip:

3. Leverage your customers to drive growth

As competition in the ecommerce space has heated up, the cost-per-click for traditional advertising platforms like paid search and social has risen dramatically. And as consumers are inundated with advertising, the effectiveness of paid influencers is likewise waning.

“I’ve seen a number of DTC startups waste precious runway on campaigns that never pay off. That’s why it’s so important to have customers who believe in your vision.”

Fuchs is talking about user generated content (UGC), where the buyers themselves promote the brand. UGC has been proven the most effective organic marketing strategy in recent years, with 90% of consumers saying it now holds more influence over their buying decisions than paid ads, promotional emails, and even search engine results, according to a TurnTo Networks study.

“There are a number of strategies for engaging users to generate content that promotes your brand,” says Fuchs. “And the best strategies are almost completely organic. GoPro is the go-to example here, with thousands of users uploading their videos to Youtube. More often than not, though, you’ll need to provide some motivation. For example, offer a prize for the best UGC.”

Looking for venture funding tips? Julian Fuch’s venture firm DigitalRain has a great educational blog.

The post The Winning DTC Playbook With Entrepreneur Julian Fuchs appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Original source: https://socialmediaexplorer.com/content-sections/tools-and-tips/the-winning-dtc-playbook-with-entrepreneur-julian-fuchs/

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Weekend Favs February 6 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one that I took out there on the road.

Social Media positively influences sales and improves brand loyalty and connections to a large extent. It plays a significant role in customer support service. From a business perspective it saves a lot of time and money. Additionally social media platforms allow you to reach a much wider group of customers than traditional methods. As per Statista 4.41 billion people will use social media by 2025. It is an excellent channel for customer care as it is so immediate and accessible. 76 of people who message a business on a social media platform do so for customer service or support. The mutual benefits of easy brand accessibility via Instagram Twitter Facebook or YouTube allow easy customer contact and engaging social interaction. Around 47 of US consumers have a favorable view of a brand that responds to customer service questions on social media. Here is a list of the top five ways to use social media to extend customer support: 1- Consider Setting up a Dedicated Social Handle for Social Media Customer Support The Marketing Land says that failing to respond can lead to a 43 decrease in customer advocacy while a reply can increase it by 20. A brand needs to use a separate social account specifically dedicated to customer support. For example Hootsuite uses @Hootsuite_Help and BestBuy uses @BestBuySupport as a customer support platform on social media. Using a separate social account will help you filter out and flag any support and service issue from your primary channel. As per Convince and Convert around 42 of consumers expect a response on social media within 60 minutes. Also failure to respond on social channels leads to a 15 increase in churn rate for existing customers. A dedicated social media account for customer support also enables you to address customer support questions faster and in detail. A fast and detailed response that resolves issues helps you to satisfy and retain frustrated customers. Also include a link to your main account to increase the reach of your dedicated social handle for social media customer support. 2- Incorporate Social Listening into Your Strategy Increased customer expectation for rapid response customer support through social media channels has made the social listening solution a necessity for customer support and community management in 2021. As per Socialbakers 51 of brands utilize social listening in any capacity. Social listening involves monitoring social conversations around various topics. It allows you to understand why where and how these conversations are happening and what people think and feel. It also helps you understand what is important to your audience and identify trends that your target audience is following. Here is an example when Best Buy did not receive a direct @ mention on Twitter by the customer. But incorporating social listening helped Best Buy to respond with a helpful message suggesting a product specific to the customers pain point. You can either manually check all your notifications across all the social media platforms or use a social listening tool to do it for you. The efficient way to see posts that did not tag your brands social media profile is to use a tool. Choose a listening tool that brings forth actionable data measures sentiment and integrates effortlessly into your business strategy. Various social listening tools offer paid and free tools to track monitor and notify you when conversations are happening. The best tools are Google Alerts and Mention. 3- Use Social Tools to Support Customer Service Monitor customer service activities on Facebook Twitter Instagram and other platforms using tools such as Zendesk. It offers the ability to listen to consumers across multiple platforms. It automatically converts conversations on these platforms into tickets allowing agents to respond to and resolve issues effectively. Here youll find the type of tools you can use to support your customer service needs: Chatbots: Chatbots offer 24/7 social customer service. Chatbots provide immediate responses to customers so that they do not have to wait for long. They are more affordable than hiring a human customer service agent and work best for simple questions that you get often. Messaging apps: Messaging apps communicate directly with your customers. It helps your customers to contact you personally so you can handle matters privately. Live chat: Live chat is a great option as it provides quick responses from real live-chat representatives. Neil Patel used this strategy and saw a dramatic increase in inquiries leading to new business. Tracking systems: Tracking systems measures the impact of your customer service efforts on social media. It gives you insights into how long it takes for your business to respond to messages and resolve issues. 4- Use Social Media Communities Social media communities can be an organized page and group that your audience engages with. It can also be an undefined but active follower base that is highly engaged with your organic content strategy. Social media platforms provide you a great opportunity for your brand to build a community. More specifically Facebook allows you to create private and public groups. Create a Facebook group for your customers to join. Once joining the group the members can start discussions share opinions ask questions and communicate about your products or services. For example MobileMonkeys has a Facebook group named MobileMonkey Island. It allows members to ask questions and share knowledge about Facebook Messenger chatbot marketing and advanced Facebook Ads with MobileMonkey. You can use an external Facebook social inbox tool like Sotrender to help you in navigating your daily tasks. Ensure that you establish your community rules and assign moderators to keep the group running smoothly. Similarly you can use Instagram to build a community. For example Summer Fridays use Instagram stories to ask their audience to share what products they would like to see next using real-time customer demand. Glossier Summer Fridays and Create amp; Cultivate are community-orientated brands that have seen huge success on Instagram. There are helpful tools for making the most of your Instagram community such as Statigram Webstagram and Nitrogram. 5- Focus on Creating a Customer Advocate Base A customer advocacy base is a group of loyal trusted customers and employees who can speak out in favor of your brand. As per Convince and Convert 45 of customers will share their positive experience if a brand responds helpfully to an issue. One of the first things customers usually do when they have a bad experience with your brand is to write a negative review online. Therefore instead of responding to a negative comment your strategy should be to provide excellent customer service creating a strong loyal customer base that will advocate for your brand. Final Thoughts Social media is a valuable channel for marketers to reach and convert customers. These platforms have evolved to be more than marketing and advertising platforms. They are important channels for businesses to provide customer service especially with the rise of a conversational business. An unanswered customer complaint on social media lowers consumer loyalty by 50. Therefore monitoring your brands social media pages and understanding how to use the platforms effectively can up your support game. The better you get at providing customer support on social media the more traffic you can expect there. The post 5 Best Ways to Extend Customer Support Using Social Media appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Original source: https://socialmediaexplorer.com/content-sections/news-and-noise/5-best-ways-to-extend-customer-support-using-social-media/ The post 5 Best Ways to Extend Customer Support Using Social Media appeared first on connect social networks. via Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/5-best-ways-to-extend-customer-support-using-social-media/

The Introvert’s Systematic Guide to Networking written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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Restoring Common Sense in Business written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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Shalom Lamm (Education and Career)

Shalom Lamm is an American real estate developer. He is the son of past chancellor of Yeshiva University Norman Lamm, and currently lives in West Hempstead, New York. Following in his father’s footsteps, he received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Yeshiva University, where he served as chairman of the school’s Academic Senate. He then went on to earn his master’s degree in American military history from the American Military University in 2001. He is currently the CEO of the non-profit organization Operation Benjamin, a company dedicated to correcting the issue of hundreds of American-Jewish soldiers who fought during WWII who were mistakenly buried under Latin Crosses.

Operation Benjamin

The project began and is named for Private Benjamin Garadetsky, a Jewish soldier who was buried under a Latin Cross at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in France. Since his case, the efforts of the Operation Benjamin team have had great success in correcting burial grounds.

The mission of Operation Benjamin rests on three pillars, faith, family and historical accuracy. Their work is very diligent, and it does not cost the families of these fallen heroes any money to correct the mistakes that have been made. The organization views the responsibility as “an honor to help set the record straight.” Shalom Lamm is very proud of the services his organization provides.

The work to correct the representation of a fallen soldier’s faith and heritage relies on a four step process. First, they identify a service member who was of the Jewish heritage and was buried under a non-Jewish grave marker. They find these individuals using extensive documentary evidence. Secondly, they prepare a dossier to present to the federal government as well as a cover letter signed by the family to request the change of the grave marker. Once the request is granted, the organization works with the government and the families to set up a date and time for the burial marker change. Lastly, once a date is scheduled, the families of the deceased soldiers participate in a memorable Jewish graveside marker change ceremony.

Burial in a Jewish Cemetery

When a member of the Jewish faith has passed away, the burial process may seem different to anyone who is not a part of their religious beliefs. The most important elements of a proper Jewish burial is the Tahara. This is the preparation of the body by the Chevra Kaddisha for its final rest, until the Resurrection of the Dead in the era of Moshiach. The Tahara includes cleansing, washing, and dressing the body. People recite prayers to help lift the soul into the Heavens.

Jewish tradition requires that the body be buried in a plain and modest casket. No pillows or anything of the sort, the interior of the casket should be left plain. It must be made with material that will disintegrate into the ground to allow the body to return to Earth. A Jewish person is also not buried in their usual clothing or with jewelry. They are instead dressed in white traditional shrouds as well as a Tallit, also known as a prayer shawl. The dressing of the deceased is so important, the Jewish law insists that the funeral should be postponed until proper Tachrichim can be used.

It is a desire that a person of the Jewish community be buried back in the Land of Israel. If a burial is set to take place anywhere else, the Chevra Kaddisha will place Earth from the Land of Israel inside the casket. Although different from other religions, a proper Jewish burial is sacred to families such as Shalom Lamm’s and they want to carry on the tradition.

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Original source: https://socialmediaexplorer.com/content-sections/news-and-noise/feature/shalom-lamm-importance-of-burial-in-jewish-cemetery/

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