Category: Social Media

Mr. Zuckerberg, take responsibility! Or why Facebook can never be an independent platform that provides users with the ultimate truth

Washington and Brussels call for far-reaching regulation for Facebook: Above all, it is the opinion of the world’s largest social network that politicians are suspicious of. But with increasing political intervention, the risk increases that Facebook will become an organ controlled by the state and special interests.

Don’t let the politicians lie – fact-checking is a must

It was only a matter of time before social networks themselves would become the subject of the US election campaign. Because at some point, a politician would demonstratively exceed the limits of what is still permitted on platforms such as Twitter or Facebook according to the company’s guidelines. And that has now happened: Twitter recently provided a tweet by the President of the United States about the susceptibility of postal elections to fraud with a “fact-checking label” and thus offered users further information on the subject, some of which was contrary to Trump’s post. Facebook even had a number of its posts deleted, which dealt with the problems of the left-wing militant network Antifa and which had used symbols that were also used by the National Socialists.

President Trump sees the measures as an interference with freedom of speech and wants to prevent such interference with the content published on the platforms in the future with the recently issued executive order “Protection against online censorship”. Meanwhile, leading employees of Facebook, parts of the advertising industry, many politicians and parts of the population of Facebook and Twitter are demanding exactly the opposite: “Intervene more in the content, don’t let the politicians lie – fact-checking is a must”, says they argue.

The current regulation of social networks in the United States

In general, a dispute has arisen in the USA about how social networks should deal with content. It is hardly surprising that there is no consensus in this polarized country about what is only keen rhetoric or perhaps a call for violence, and that in the hot climate a post is quickly referred to as a false message or disinformation, even though the content is only controversial. The Americans will elect their President in five months. And the political establishment is shaking with the influence that Facebook, Twitter and Youtube could have on the outcome of the elections. Whether politicians, lobbyists, civic associations, trade unions, advertisers or employees: in the end, they all want to be in charge of what can be posted on Facebook, Twitter or Youtube. Private opinion now needs state borders – social media regulation is required. Such efforts are also being made in Brussels.

But instead of regulation that offers politicians a gateway, it needed framework conditions that strengthen responsibilities and market mechanisms. Do we want the political influence on such essential opinion platforms like Facebook or YouTube to increase? Which opinion will be considered acceptable on Facebook in the future, if discussions about topics like racism, environmental protection or American politics often threaten the emotional, moralizing club of opinion?

What was needed rather than the influence of moralizing opinion leaders on Facebook would be a competition-promoting regulation that, first of all, transferred to Mark Zuckerberg what an entrepreneur had to carry: responsibility. Secondly, it would be a matter of adjusting the business model, in which the user would finally have to become a customer (today he is the product). And thirdly, any regulation should start from a responsible and courageous media consumer and strengthen them.

The current regulation of social networks in the United States dates back to the childhood days of the Internet. Long before Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook, the American legislature had already created the ideal legal conditions for its success. At that time, in 1996 – Zuckerberg was just eleven years old – the Communication Decency Act (CDA) was passed in the USA. It was the time of the first Internet service providers (ISP), and the main aim was to prevent pornographically but also other inappropriate content from poisoning the climate on the Internet. Article 230 decoupled the right to intervene from the obligation to be ultimately responsible for the remaining content:

According to popular belief, these 26 words created the Internet. They became the legal business foundation of Facebook, which was founded in 2004. The social network is still a neutral platform on which users post their content. The company assumes responsibility for this to a minimal extent by referring to Article 230. There are no limits to Facebook’s growth: Today, several hundred million posts are posted on Facebook every day; 2.8 billion people access the social network every month.

Facebook, like a publisher, has to take responsibility for what is seen on its pages is

However, Facebook generally only has to assume responsibility for what happens on the platform in exceptional cases. And if you don’t want that at all, you’d better retreat to the position of neutrality. Facebook’s impartiality or independence is an illusion. Of course, the company intervenes massively in the news feed – this is the stream of content that reaches the user on his own Facebook page. Facebook’s algorithms control what the user gets to see when and how often. Your goal is to keep the user on the page as long as possible. Because the longer he is on the page, the more advertising Facebook can show him. The more Facebook can learn from the user (via his posts, the likes distributed by him, the Internet pages that he uses when he has long left Facebook has, etc.), the more expensive it is to sell advertising space to advertisers. Ultimately, the user is the product that Facebook sells to the advertising industry.

The group is increasingly countering the criticism that is increasingly permeating Facebook that it is a platform for false information and campaigns for disinformation, with self-regulation: General rules of conduct, fact-checkers and a newly established oversight board are intended to walk the tightrope walk between freedom of movement resulting from the CDA law Manage opinions and exceed the limit of what is permissible. Facebook now pays a whole army of external, supposedly objective fact-checkers. They check controversial posts for their truthfulness. Depending on the result, Facebook removes such positions, or the algorithms ensure that they slide far down in the newsfeed and become virtually invisible. And the twenty-member oversight board, which is staffed by external experts is to decide in disputes and doubts whether the content has been rightly removed or marked with comments from Facebook.

Self-regulation

But this type of self-regulation is hugely problematic. First, Facebook is getting very close to publishing. Second, it is based on the false assumption that there is only one truth and that facts are separate from opinion. However, an allegedly objective assessment of a controversial claim does not necessarily refute the latter.

Against this background and given the increasing attempts by politicians to exert institutional influence on Facebook and its content, it would be time to create clear responsibilities: Facebook, like a publisher, has to take responsibility for what is seen on its pages is. This responsibility would mean Facebook’s duty to remove illegal content. It would also give the company the freedom to edit, classify (according to fact or opinion), curate and select content according to its style. That would massively change the face of Facebook today. Facebook could no longer hide behind the illusion of neutrality, and users could no longer be deceived by it. It would probably be assumed that Facebook would become less attractive as an advertising platform for the advertising industry. Users might be asked to checkout. But with that, they would finally become a product and a customer, and Facebook would become their product, not an advertiser.

At the same time, competition in the social network market should finally be stimulated: it should be possible to switch from Facebook, including all contacts and connections – the so-called social graph – to another social network. Just as in the mobile phone market the right to take the phone number to another provider that made the competition play properly, the portability of the social graph should be guaranteed. The design of the various social networks would then be guided more by user demand and not by politics and interest groups, as is to be feared in the future.

But the social media user cannot avoid one thing: he must act as a responsible and courageous media consumer. It is not brave to arbitrarily topple historical statues from the pedestal in virtual rooms, to ban opinions that deviate from the mainstream or to raise demands for the protection of minorities or the environment to a quasi-religion. It is also not brave to indulge in the illusion that there could be a Facebook that will provide users with the ultimate truth as an independent platform. Responsible citizens dare to deal with the ideas of dissenters on social networks, and they can do it rationally and critically.

How to write comments that bring visitors (but don’t make you a spammer)

I had to laugh.

A few days ago, I saw a funny photo, and I found the statement particularly apt.

In the photo, we see two older women chatting on the street:

I only dare to go out on the road. It has become too bad on the Internet.

Sometimes it is. People scold, swear, troll, and annoy so much on the Internet that the street is already safer than the Facebook timeline.

On the Internet, many people seem to be losing their manners.

You can see this on blogs too: comments that are pure spam, that offend or that are subliminally arrogant.

Comments are an excellent tool for getting new visitors – if you do it right, because almost every blog offers you the opportunity to leave your URL when you comment.

If the readers find you attractive, click on your link, and you have won a new reader.

Another feature of comments is almost as important: they create a relationship between you and the blogger. Usually, the blog comment is your first encounter with another blogger. So you should make a good impression.

But how do you write good comments?

1.Have a face

Have you ever had a date when you showed up in a Spiderman costume? Or as a Duckwin Duck with a cape and mask?

Of course not.

People with a mask are immediately suspicious. They are up to something or hide something under their cape. You don’t trust such a person.

It’s no different on the Internet.

If you comment, there should be a face – your face.

As a gravatar, do not use childhood heroes or other “masks”. You shouldn’t just use the gray silhouette, which is set by default.

Take a photo where you can sleep well and look beautiful and use it as a gravatar.

Everything else just makes people suspicious – and suspicious people don’t click your link.

2. Have a name

On the Internet, many people like to hide behind a pseudonym.

If it were legally possible, many would even like to blog with a pseudonym – but this is not possible due to the obligation to provide an imprint.

I am not a dating expert, but if you introduce yourself as “Master Yedi” on your date, then I am sure that the meeting will go wrong – unless you are lucky and your counterpart does not label yourself as schizophrenic.

Therefore, use your real name when commenting.

And no, please do not use your domain as a name: “Harry from CoachingDeluxe.de.”

That looks spammy. It looks like you want to put your domain in the comment as often as possible.

So don’t do that.

Just do it: “Harry”.

There is a separate field for the domain.

3. Don’t scatter links.

Links in comments are like fire: they can keep you warm and bring joy, but you can also burn your fingers on them.

So you should treat links to your blog very carefully.

My advice: leave it.

Sure, you may be able to contribute something to the discussion, but no matter how good the link is, it always leaves an impression on the blogger:

He just wants to spread his links.

Maybe some readers have this impression too. It is tough to post a link in the comment without acting like a spammer. And spammers immediately leave an unpleasant aftertaste.

Above all, you should refrain from comments such as: “Cool, I also wrote something on this topic [Link].”

Sincerely: who cares? You join the “me too” shouts at a flea market. You can be happy if the blogger unlocks your comment at all.

If you want to arouse interest and trust, leave the scattering of links in the comment field entirely.

There are better ways to get backlinks.

4. Don’t stink

Self-praise stinks, even on the Internet.

Some people love their voice so much that they can tell you for 15 minutes what they had breakfast and how tenderly the butter melted on their tongues.

Unfortunately, you can also see self-praise in blog comments. And to clarify: self-praise has lost nothing.

How to read comments like:

  • “I’ve been implementing all these tips for years. That’s why I have the leading blog in my niche. Have a look; there you can learn something. “
  • “Nothing new in this post, I’ve been doing everything for years.”
  • “Oh yes: I can make a good living from my blog income and only paid the deposit for my Mercedes SLK yesterday.”

My thought with such comments: Nice for you. You get an order. Pat your shoulder three times.

Seriously: hold yourself back in a comment with self-praise. Otherwise, you are immediately unappealing.

Oh yes: mockery, destructive criticism and sarcasm also stink.

5. Read the article

Yes, this is not a matter, of course.

This phenomenon is often seen on Facebook, where people only see the headline of the article, but are already diligently writing hate comments on Facebook or otherwise adding their mustard.

If you don’t want to go through as a mustard slingshot, then show with your comment that you’ve read the article.

So don’t write: “Great article.”

But: “I loved the example with the mustard. That made the problem so clear to me. “

Do you see the difference

Be as specific as possible and refer to the article – the more specific, the better, because then you can also start a dialogue.

6. Show appreciation

People love recognition.

And when you give others credit, it has a significant effect: people love you too.

Imagine your circle of friends, and a “new” comes into the round. He criticizes each of your friends, enumerates quick facts, and makes an effort to stand in a great light.

Then a second newcomer comes around, and he gives praise. He sincerely praises your friends’ shoes, their smiles and is interested in them.

Which person do you find more likable?

The second, of course. Those who give recognition also get recognition from others.

Therefore, you should always show appreciation in your comments. No, you shouldn’t crawl or slime in the other’s butt, but give honest praise.

As a reminder: When you put it in, you tell people what they want to hear. When you praise, you tell people what they don’t expect.

So your comment should contain a simple element: the compliment.

I don’t say that because I want you to praise me in the comments, but because it should be so. Compliments are the best way to make yourself accessible.

7. Increase the value

Now comes the coronation.

The most important aspect of a useful comment is that it offers added value. Ideally, your comment should increase the value of the article and not decrease it (as unfortunately, spam comments do).

You can deliver added value in the following variants:

  • Tell about personal experiences – Often, in a blog article, you only see one person’s skills. If you bring your expertise into the discussion, people will know that it works for others or that you can do it differently. A good experience report leads readers to this reaction: “Oh, he had the same problem as me. I’ll take a look at his blog. “
  • Ask meaningful questions – in your comments; you should ask questions that others might ask – then other readers will see the answer directly. You should also ask questions that are as specific and goal-oriented as possible. An excellent question is always: “How would you approach Problem X? I can’t get any further … “
  • Add a point – Many bloggers like to write list posts with a fixed number of points. If you can think of another, it would be the perfect material for comment. But please don’t be spiteful or with your big index finger. Just put your tip on the table. If you are lucky, the blogger will even add your comment to his article.

Improve the world

There are enough trolls and spammers on the Internet to make the web a place you don’t like to travel.

We can change that. We can start with ourselves and write comments that are not spammy. Comments that add value. Comments that give honest recognition and do not burst with self-praise.

In the end, only everyone can win: the blogger gets more comments. Good comments get you more attention. And you two enter into a dialogue.

What more do you want?

SEO tips: off-page optimization in 2020 – how it works!

Even people who otherwise have little to do with SEO should have heard of the topic of on-site SEO. But what about off-page optimization? Is it just about link building, or is there more to it?

Off-page and on-page are two sides of the same SEO medal. Off-page optimization defines all processes and methods that take place away from your website – for example, references from external pages (links).

The ultimate goal of off-page SEO is to attract as many visitors to your website as possible. This can be used to generate sales in the following, or to inform customers about the offers in a retail store, depending on the goals pursued a website.

But how specifically will you tackle off-page optimization in 2020?

Clean link building in magazines, blogs and forums

For search engines, backlinks are still the basis for building trust. The main focus is on the value of a page that issued the link.

If premium magazines, newspapers and Wikipedia link to your site, this is a great sign of trust for Google and will undoubtedly have a positive impact on the ranking.

The term clean link structure is also understood to mean that the pages concerned are selected. Not every page should refer to your page, because this could look like spam. A search engine like Google will see through such measures in the medium term and even punish the landing page in case of doubt.

Link building through resource pages

Resource pages are pages that publish high-quality content on a specific topic. These can be found among others as follows:

“Keyword” + inurl: links

“Keyword” + “Question”

“Keyword” + “resources”

The next step is to check out the free backlink checker from Ahrefs and have the domain checked.

If the page is good enough for a backlink, there are the following approaches to get a backlink from the desired page:

  1. Broken links method. The requested page is scanned for broken links. If you find one, you point this out to the website operator and suggest a replacement. Of course, this should be a suitable, own destination URL.
  2. Guest posts. The operator of the desired page is advised to write a guest post on a specific topic to place the desired backlink then organically.
  3. Find suitable articles on external sites. The blog or website operators are contacted and referred to a new, appropriate source on their landing page and asked whether they would like to incorporate it into their page. This is legitimate because Google also honours when websites are kept up to date and refer to relevant sources.
  4. Answer questions on portals such as Quora, gutefrage.net & Co. to include the appropriate backlinks in the qualified answers.
  5. Write and publish high-quality forum entries that refer to the destination URL.
  6. Create high-quality reference contributions on your page and link them to Wikipedia.
  7. Link exchange: Write to thematically related pages whether you are interested in a link exchange.
  8. Infographics: If you create great infographics, other people may want to include them on your website. The condition for using the infographic is that a backlink is set.

No matter which of these ways you want to go, creating high-quality content is always part of building backlinks.

One cannot expect much from dubious ranking packs for a few available euros, for example, from Fiver and Co. Here you usually get to deal with “black hat” SEO methods, which will always damage your reputation in the medium term, for example, if there are entries from spam websites under your company name or the backlinks are generated via hacked websites.

People don’t link to your site because they don’t know they exist; and they will not usually know, that they exist unless you tell them about it. “

– Julie Adams, Our Beautiful Planet

Buying premium backlinks and having the link building service carried out by professionals to achieve a sustainable SEO effect makes absolute sense. There, SEO agencies that specialize exclusively in the topic of off-page optimization are recommended.

Other factors of a useful link

If excellent content is provided on the website, organic backlinks will inevitably also result. Forums, in particular, generate some links if the topic is worth discussing. Blogs or newspapers can also mention your page as a reference.

The link strength results from the anchor text, the position of the link in the article and the number of backlinks.

To analyze organic backlinks in more detail, it is worth taking a look at tools such as Seobility (which offers up to one domain and up to 10 keywords for free), Openlink Profiler (completely free) or the Moz Link Explorer.

About the anchor text, it should also be mentioned that a so-called exact match anchor text has its disadvantages. If too many anchor texts with a single specific word or order appear in the link profile, it is reasonable to assume that these are not organic links, but instead, activities related to link exchange or link purchase.

How effective are social signals?

In addition to pure link building (link building), there are also so-called “social signals”. These are mainly tweets, Facebook posts, and all other “social” platforms on which content and links are shared.

Although a direct connection between ranking and social signals is controversial, a correlation can be seen in any case. Google has also confirmed such a relationship:

Social annotations drive a 5% -10% increase in click-through rate, on average.

ZMOT Handbook, Thingwithgoogle.com

Social signals don’t just include tweets and Facebook posts. Social signals are also comments, likes and retweets. Those who focus on this generally have more traffic, since the platforms automatically promote a lot of interaction through the algorithm. Efficient social media marketing should, therefore, also take place.

Also, customer reviews on external sites as Amazon or Google My Business are among the so-called social signal.

Become an opinion leader and strengthen your brand

If you are looking for a specific search term, you will notice that large portals (with a lot of traffic) appear in the top places. This is primarily because Google, Bing and other search engines prefer strong brands and opinion leaders. A well-known brand, therefore, has it more comfortable and more relaxed.

But how can you strengthen your brand? This works especially when there is a lot of talk about a brand name. The mentions on the Internet show that it could be a relevant company. But a large number of high-quality backlinks and a large number of subscribers on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Co. can also be an indication of this.

This is again proof that social media should not be put on the siding, even if you have a limited reach in social media. You can counteract this by, for example, “managing” the current social media trends, that is, by publishing suitable content for popular hashtags.

Criteria on the website

To understand the rankings in the search results, you have to ask what Google values. Google’s goal is to show the best and most relevant content for a given search query. For this, Google uses the so-called user signals, e.g. the length of stay and the bounce rate.

If the user lingers on the page for a long time and even clicks on further pages, then it is a sign that it is relevant content. Google will then reward the page with even more visitors.

Create a monthly report of the off-page optimizations

To draw an interim conclusion, it is worth creating a report with the most important key figures once a month. The reporting can include the following numbers:

Website key figures

  • number of visitors
  • Number of page views
  • Sessions per user
  • Home page views
  • Top 10 Articles
  • The average length of stay per session in seconds
  • Pageviews per session
  • Bounce rate
  • The main traffic sources
  • Share of organic traffic
  • Direct traffic share

Social media

  • Follower XING
  • Twitter followers
  • Facebook likes
  • Followers on Pinterest
  • Followers on LinkedIn
  • Followers on Instagram

In this way, it can be systematically recorded whether the methods in off-page optimization made sense or whether one’s efforts in a particular area still need to be intensified.

Conclusion

With our contribution to “Off-Page Optimization in 2020 – How it Works”, we have prepared a broad overview of the topic for you and showed you how systematic backlinks could be built up.

However, all of this means that high-quality links exist on the target page. Every effective off-page optimization in 2020 goes hand in hand with on-page optimization. In this way, parameters such as loading speed and bounce rate can also be improved.

How to create content step by step that gets more traffic

If you want to get visitors now, you need to create high-quality content first.

But before you start with the actual work, you should invest a little time in the planning.

Step 1: content planning

By now, you should have roughly defined your inbound marketing strategy and created a buyer persona.

Let’s take a closer look at critical strategic points related to content marketing:

Step 1.1: Define your rough topic

You start by defining your big topic. What category is your company in? Your topic could also be your industry here.

Step 1.2: Define your subtopics.

After you have defined your topic, you should consider the associated subtopics. As a rule, your topic is very rough. What components can you split it into?

With us, it is possible to divide our topic into the following areas: content marketing, social media marketing, blogging, search engine optimization, advertising texts, landing pages, conversion optimization, analytics, design, and marketing automation.

These are the pillars around which your content will turn.

If you follow these two steps, you have mostly automatically defined relevant short head keywords with which you want to rank in the long term. Short Head means that it is short keywords that are searched a lot, but accordingly have a lot of competition.

As a rule, you should find 5-10 subtopics. You can also call these topics or terms “seed keywords.”

Step 1.3: Think about content ideas.

Your seed keywords are the big categories for which you should create content. Here you can choose your rough topic or one of your subtopics (e.g., “Inbound Marketing”) and think about content ideas (e.g., “Inbound Marketing Benefits”) for your editorial plan . At this point, think about a publication rhythm such as B. “once a week”.

Et voilà, you already have an exciting idea and also a keyword that you should focus on. With this, you have automatically defined a long tail keyword. In contrast to the short heads, these are longer and therefore have fewer search queries, but less competition.

Step 1.4: Do keyword research

In between, you should always do little keyword research with the Google Keyword Planner and pay attention to the following points:

  • Relevance – How relevant is your idea to your potential customer? What does he expect? What exactly does your keyword describe?
  • Search queries – How often is your opinion searched for per month? Is the work worth it? Anything over 100 searches is worthwhile.
  • Competitors – How strong is the competition for your idea? How difficult will it be to rank with it?

Since it is not so easy to rank with short head keywords, you should first focus on long-tail keywords with little competition and pick them up first. Let’s do it too! 😉

Step 1.5: Choose the content medium.

In general, you should not start with several media (text, image, audio, video) at the same time, but limit yourself to one medium.

Even if you, For example, a good copywriter up to, creating content that has a marketing function is a bit of a bummer. You have to learn and perfect that first. I only started with text in 2012.

I also recommend that you do not create news-heavy content, but focus on evergreen content. Many of my posts from 2012 are still valid today and are shared diligently. Timeless content is much more efficient. Above all, small businesses always have to struggle with the scarcity of resources. That is inevitable.

Duration: about 1 hour

Step 2: content research

OK. Research doesn’t sound as exciting as letting your creativity run wild and creating content. But solid research is essential if you want to be successful with inbound marketing.

It is about collecting so much data (statistics, examples, quotes, theories, ideas, and stories) for your potential customer to provide them with sufficient information. This is also one of the most common mistakes I see:

Unfortunately, the content is often far too thin.

This is due to a lack of research. Fittingly, Wilson Mizner once said so nicely: “If you steal from an author, it’s called plagiarism. If you take from more than one, it is called research “. I don’t mean that you should copy other content. But you can calmly inspire yourself. After all, there is no monopoly on ideas. It is essential that you bring your own words, your own words, and only your way in your point of view. This makes your content unique.

You will then no longer have any blockages because you have plenty of material that you can use. Even if you’re an expert in your field, you should always research to find exciting ideas that you didn’t have before.

But how do I do it correctly?

Step 2.1: focus on a keyword.

When planning content, we came up with a few content ideas and found a few new keywords to match.

It is crucial here that you focus on a keyword. The trend is in the opposite direction, but that’s how you keep it friendly and straightforward.

Step 2.2: Brainstorming keyword variations

Let’s stick to our example with the advantages of inbound marketing. Here I have z. For example, simply search for “inbound marketing advantages”, “inbound marketing benefits,” and “inbound marketing advantages”.

Step 2.3: Scan the first 100 search results.

I checked the first ten pages for each of these terms, so I scanned all 100 search results. Here I mainly look at the headline and select the posts that seem appropriate to me. Sometimes I find inspiring and exciting articles on page 10. In-depth research pays off! 😉

Then I scan all the posts and filter out those that are not relevant. Amazingly often, there is still inferior content.

Step 2.4: Consume the found content.

Finally, I consume the content and keep taking notes at the same time. I also collect essential sources such as studies or statistics, which I will link later.

During this research, you automatically check your competitors. So look at what they do well and what they do bad. Then think about what you can do better.

Step 2.5: stay up to date.

Also, you should regularly consume a lot of third-party content to acquire plenty of inspiration, ideas, and metaphors. Therefore, you should also follow your influencers and look at their content.

Duration: about 4 hours

Step 3: Content creation

Anyone can create mediocre content.

But producing content that is regularly read, shared, and linked is a somewhat higher art. An art that is hard and takes time. The resources and knowledge needed.

Now let’s take a look at how the process works in detail. Whether you choose text, image, audio, or video, the workflow always remains the same:

Step 3.1: Think of your buyer persona.

First, take your buyer persona at hand, imagine it again in your mind’s eye and start producing content just for them!

Step 3.2: Create a heading

Your headline is the essential element. It is a promise in return for the valuable time of your prospect.

Therefore, make sure that your heading contains a benefit. What does your prospect benefit from? What’s in it for him? A simple trick here is to start with a “like you” heading. When you do that, you automatically force yourself to think about its benefits.

Take your time here. You should create at least 10-30 variations of a heading.

Always remember that everything is only temporary. The finishing touches come later. I always choose the first best. But over time, I keep changing it because I find something better.

Step 3.3: Create an introduction

With the introduction or the intro, you have to pull your prospect into your content. That is why it is the second most crucial element.

Tell something exciting here, make a definite statement, ask a provocative question, or list exciting statistics. Work here with things that draw attention. You are welcome to tell a story that, at first glance, has nothing to do with the topic.

Step 3.4: create a structure.

Then you think of a structure that breaks up your content into small parts. If you focus on the text, we are talking about the subheadings here.

Make sure that they are in a logical order (such as the post you are reading). You should also remember that the beginning and the end are essential. These are the points we humans remember.

Step 3.5: fill in the blanks.

If you have a structure, you have created a form that you only have to fill out. This makes the whole thing much more comfortable.

So start by writing down everything you can think of and what you’ve learned from your research. Don’t pay attention to structure or spelling. The main thing is to put your thoughts on paper!

Step 3.6: Don’t forget the conclusion

A missing conclusion is one of the most common points that I miss from our guest authors and generally on the web.

Therefore, summarize the entire topic in a few sentences, since many only look at the conclusion. In the end, feel free to ask an open question to encourage comments or make a direct call for action. An exciting cliffhanger is not wrong at this point, either.

Step 3.7: do the finishing touches.

You have now created a rough draft. Now you have to grind it again from start to finish.

The previous steps were your notes or script if you focus on image, audio, or video. Now it’s about the creation of the recording.

Make sure that your content is personal, that you use everyday language (content is not an essay), and tell stories.

Step 3.8: take a break.

Yeah, congratulations! You have a robust design! You can now retake a look at it, but editing or editing it doesn’t do much.

You’re just too blind, too deep in the subject.

So you shouldn’t do anything at first. It sounds ironic, but it is true. Have a beer or wine to celebrate the day. Relax! 😉

The next day you should start again with fresh eyes. I do it in detail like this:

  • Day 1: Research, brainstorm, and make enough notes. Then nothing. Then take a break.
  • Day 2: Make a first rough draft. Bring in a little structure and order. Then retake a break.
  • Day 3: Fine-tune your content until it’s perfect. Then feed him in and publish it.

It works well!

Step 3.9: Optimize for the search engine.

After the fine-tuning and the break, you take care of the on-page optimization. Here you simply make sure that your focus keyword appears in the following element on your page:

  • Title tag
  • URL
  • H2 and H3 heading
  • In the actual text
  • Bold or italic
  • Image, alt attribute, and filename
  • Meta description

Also, you could now do OffPage optimization and take care of what’s outside of your website. All to get links. But here is the most straightforward strategy to start with to create content that is automatically linked because of its added value.

Step 3.10: Add your content

Finally, you have to enter your content. To do this, copy your text into your CMS and, if necessary, upload your infographic, podcast episode, or video.

Make sure that your spelling is correct, that you are using further links and show notes, and that the formatting is designed appropriately.

Duration: about 4 hours

Step 4: content marketing

Unfortunately, the fun doesn’t stop after the content is created. That was only 50% of the work. You should spend the remaining 50% doing your doctorate.

The internet is just a crowded place. Your content may be great, but finding it is a problem.

Getting your content closer to your target audience is hard work!

To make things a little easier, follow the steps below. Of course, you don’t have to take them all now. But the more, the better results:

Step 4.1: Create an email campaign

Your audience should always know about your new content first. And email is still the best way.

Your email subscribers are your real audience.

That is also the basic idea of ​​inbound marketing. You start with a small audience and let it grow bigger and bigger, and they help you more and more to spread your content and your brand accordingly.

Step 4.2: Link from older content

Many like to forget this point. You should link from your older content to your new content. Here you already have perfect prospects and customers who may also be interested in your new content.

Step 4.3: Promote via social media.

Social media is the best place to discover content. That is why you should share your content there via your fan page, relevant groups, and also via your private profile.

Here you can promote your content more often. In the past, we only got a doctorate once. Today we do five promotions per content. Much more effective.

Step 4.4: leave comments.

High-quality comments that add value to entertainment are excellent content that can draw attention to your new content.

You should have thought about who your influencers are in your inbound marketing strategy. So leave comments on relevant posts and link your new content.

Step 4.5: contact your influencers.

If you’re already with your influencers, slowly build a relationship with them and ask them to share your content or link them where appropriate.

Step 4.6: Write guest posts

Guest posts are an excellent strategy to reach the audience you want quickly. Everyone involved benefits. Guest posts can also provide relevant links that can have a positive impact on your rankings.

Buffer has e.g., B. wrote 60 guest posts at the beginning and thus got 100,000 customers. Not bad, right?

Step 4.7: Unlock Paid Ads

You can also spend a bit of money and promote your content via social ads (such as Facebook ads) or search ads (such as Google AdWords). Facebook, in particular, makes it pretty easy with its boost function.

Step 4.8: be creative.

Finally, you can get creative with your marketing. Mint has z. B. worked with badges with something like, “I’m horny for mint” on it. Over 600 blogs took part, linked the website, and gave Mint a lot of visitors and links. Blog parades count e.g., B. also here. Or how about a crazy marketing stunt?

It is even more relaxed if you already plan your doctoral strategy when it is created. So you can e.g., B. mention, quote, and link your influencers in your content. So you have a good reason to let them know afterward.

Duration: about 4 hours

Step 5: content optimization

When many hear “content optimization”, most think of the search engine. But just focusing on it here is a bit too short.

After all, inbound marketing is about more than just the search engine!

So let’s take a look at the individual steps to optimize your content so that it produces better results.

Step 5.1: optimize your content.

First, take a look at your visitors. Does your content marketing work at all? Do you even get visitors with your content?

If not, you should first look at your formatting. Your content has to be attractive. Even if that sounds like a trifle, I often stumble across content that looks inferior but is not.

Then you should look at your quality and ask yourself if your content is of high quality. At this point, also look at your grammar, spelling, content length, and whether you get to the end.

Step 5.2: optimize for social.

In this step, you look at your shares. Is your content shared at all? That’s a good factor in whether your content is of high quality.

Another, not so unimportant, point is the social media images. Do you have an exciting picture at all? Can you see your intriguing headline in the picture?

Also, it can only be due to marketing. Therefore, check again if you can go more about influencers and guest posts.

In some industries (most sensitive topics), content is not shared publicly. Here you simply have to focus on the search engine.

Step 5.3: Optimize for Search

Here you look at the absolute criterion: your rankings. How well does your content rank for your focus keyword? You should also see how many links your content has received. Links are still one of the most crucial ranking factors.

What can you do about it? First, focus again on the good old OnPage optimization and see if you meet all the points from step 3.9. Often you go over here quickly and like to forget some points! 😉

You can still do link building and ask for links to essential content influencers, magazines, bloggers, and other websites. The best thing to do is simply go through guest posts here.

Step 5.4: Optimize for conversions.

Finally, you look at the business indicators. Is your content already generating leads? Can you attribute your content to your sales?

What you can do about it is challenging to say. Then you probably have a strategic problem. Then you should dig in-depth, conduct interviews with your prospects and customers, and try to find out why.

Check out what the best content is. Why does it work so well? Can you create more content like this?

Duration: infinite

Conclusion

The core of inbound marketing is always about content marketing. So you have to start with quality content to get traffic.

But before you start, you should plan a bit and think about your keywords and content ideas.

After that, you should do extensive research and collect enough data to provide your prospect with enough information.

Only then will you be able to create content that delivers value.

Once you’ve created your content, you should market it via email, social media, comments, influencers, guest posts, and paid ads.

Your content is never perfectly optimized. Always better. That’s why you should run there regularly.

Inbound marketing is a journey. And no campaign.

Mobile marketing with augmented reality? Tips, tricks and ideas!

When it comes to the latest trends in online marketing, augmented Reality should not be missing. Since the great success of Pokémon Go in summer 2016, many marketers have the technology on their watchlist. Still, often ideas and concrete use cases were missing to implement their AR projects. With seven use cases for mobile marketing with augmented Reality, I would like to provide you with initial inspiration that makes you want to use innovative technologies in marketing.

With GoogleAR, brands can present their products as a 3D model in the search results.

Augmented Reality? What is that?

In contrast to Virtual Reality, where users can fully immerse themselves in the virtual world with VR glasses, with augmented Reality the real world is preserved, and digital elements are added. We need suitable technical aids for this: Google Glass, Microsoft Hololens, and Magic Leap are the first AR glasses for this purpose. However, the models are still far from the mass market and are currently used in various industrial solutions. Due to their short reach, they are presently hardly relevant for marketing. So does that mean we have to wait a few more years for AR marketing?

No, we don’t have to. Fortunately, augmented Reality can also be experienced with a smartphone or tablet, so that AR marketing measures currently take place primarily in the field of mobile marketing. AR software extends the smartphone or tablet camera image with 3D-registered and, in the best case, real-time interactive elements, which results in exciting application possibilities. I want to use the following seven use cases to demonstrate how Augmented Reality can be used to achieve marketing goals:

Awaken the desire to travel with augmented Reality

To encourage long-distance travel, Lufthansa used the AR function of the Shazam app as part of a price campaign. The so-called walk-in ads open virtual portals with which travel destinations can be experienced virtually. To do this, users have to click on an advertisement within Shazam, and without an additional app download, they end up in the augmented reality experience. For this purpose, a virtual gate appears on the smartphone display, if you walk through it with your cell phone in your hand, you will find yourself on a virtual viewing platform in New York and can view it from a 360-degree perspective. Atmospheric sound effects support the visual experience.

Lufthansa is sure to attract the attention of users with this unusual advertising medium, as the AR-Ad stands out from the pool of known ad formats, especially since so far, only a few consumers have contacted AR advertising. The extent to which the AR application is suitable for converting users to book flights has remained unanswered.

Shop virtually with an AR app

Augmented Reality also has an increasing right to exist in e-commerce. AR can help, especially when it comes to products where photos and videos are not enough to adequately represent them. This is how OTTO makes it possible with the AR app yourhome To try out pieces of furniture digitally in your own home. Using the smartphone camera, the app calculates the room dimensions about the product, so that the two-dimensional camera image creates a true-to-scale, three-dimensional space for furnishing. Buyers can then place the desired objects in it to check proportions, try out different setting options, or assess whether the new floor lamp fits so well in the planned living room corner or not. Amazon also enables a comparable user experience with the Amazon AR View Home app and offers furniture, electronic products, household appliances, and toys as 3D objects that can be placed virtually in your own home:

Augmented Reality in Google search results

Since the announcement by Google manager Aparna Chennapragada at the I / O developer conference in May 2019, we have known that the search engine is using augmented Reality in the search results pages (SERPs). Various brands have already created the first use cases of the new AR function as part of mobile marketing. For example, if you search for the SUV model “XT6” from the Cadillac car brand on your smartphone, Google offers the option “view in 3D” and the car can be virtually parked in front of your garage entrance and can be viewed in three dimensions from all sides. This allows brands to emotionally bind potential buyers to the product at an early stage by integrating it directly into their own consumer lives.

To use Google’sGoogle’s AR feature, 3D models of your products must be uploaded, and you can find them by adding a code snippet. The algorithm of the company currently decides whether the 3D model then makes it into the search results or not.

Screenshot of GoogleAR in the SERPs

Fire free for AR couponing

Burger King launched a creative attempt in augmented Reality last year in Brazil. Burger King equipped its app with an AR feature for the “Burn that Ad” AR campaign. If users aimed the front camera in their smartphone at the logo of the competition, it went up in flames. As a reward for a virtually flared McDonalds billboard, there was then a voucher code for a free Whopper burger the next time you went to the restaurant. The campaign aimed to publicize the new payment method by smartphone in Brazil.

Virtual try-on with augmented Reality

While Facebook and Instagram have already integrated augmented Reality into their platforms, YouTube is now also testing with “Virtual Try-on.” The cosmetic brand L’OrealL’Oreal is currently one of the guinea pigs of the new function and offers customers the opportunity to see a tutorial in the upper part of a split-screen, while they can virtually try out the lipsticks themselves in the lower half of the screen.

Since buying ModiFace, which specializes in AR and AI, L’OrealL’Oreal had increasingly been using virtual try-on in 2018. With augmented Reality, L’OrealL’Oreal customers can try out different makeup and hair colors on themselves, for example. In addition to successful product advice, the goal of AR deployment is to increase brand loyalty and awareness, by merely sharing the virtual try-on via social media. The app is not only available for users at home but also on tablets on-site in stores to lower the inhibition threshold for downloading the app.

AR filter in social media

AR filters are becoming increasingly popular in social media marketing. Snapchat was a pioneer here for a long time, but Facebook is closely following. AR filters can create funny and surprising effects in selfies and expand photos with products, film, or advertising characters. The key to your AR filters is called Spark AR, a software developed by Facebook that is easy to understand even for laypeople and beginners. Netflix provided an example of augmented reality marketing with AR filters at the start of the second season of Stranger Things :

The entertainment factor of AR filters is significant and leads to the fact that users actively interact with the advertising and, in the best case, disseminate the results. In combination with influencer marketing, AR filters can become a real awareness magnet. Influencers can use the filters created by the brands to draw attention to the product, service, or event in question.

Find the right size with augmented Reality

The DHL Packset app offers a practical AR application that helps customers find the right package size. Everyone has probably faced the question of whether the “S” size is sufficient or should be sent as an “M” package. Augmented Reality can now help by scanning the object that they want to communicate with their camera: The AR function shows the different package sizes so that it is easy to see whether it is too small. The object would protrude, for example. Once the correct package size has been found, the shipping label can be booked directly on the go, and the order can be completed in an e-branch of Deutsche Post.

Nike offers a similar AR application and measures the user’s feet to suggest the correct shoe size. Augmented Reality is particularly convincing in that it makes the buying experience even easier for the customer.

Conclusion: a good time for augmented reality marketing

Currently, more and more brands are starting to try out augmented reality marketing, because the timing is perfect: On the one hand, the creation of AR content is becoming more relaxed and more comfortable, so simple AR applications can already use common assets such as text, images, and videos generated, but they unfold their full effectiveness with 3D models. This makes the technology attractive not only for consumers but also for industrial goods marketing since suitable data is already available in many cases.

The decisive factor for marketing success, however, is above all the increasing distribution and improved usability: Where previously an app download was necessary, there are now more and more options for browser-based AR measures that can be integrated directly into social media, for example. Here, brands can currently particularly benefit from the novelty of the technology, since consumers have not yet had enough of the new format. Another advantage is the activating effect of Augmented Reality, which offers users the opportunity to deal intensively with the AR application instead of passive consumption. So technology provides a lot of creative potentials to reach users in new ways.