Let me get something off my chest. I’m going to take my ‘professional’ hat off for a second and get real with you. In my opinion, when it’s used for anything other than website marketing, Facebook is a largely toxic platform. It harms society more than it improves it. But …
Today you will learn how to get viral traffic for free. You’ll learn: 2 ways content goes viral 4 steps you need to take 5 rules for maximum results 3 websites to make life easier You’ll also see how I got millions of visitors to one of my websites, for …
Today I’m going to take you through the steps that I have personally used to grow my Facebook group by 11% in just 60 days and show you how you can do it too.
Before we dive in head first I have a word of caution.
You should NOT rely on Facebook groups to build your business, or any other platform that you do not have complete control of.
There is always the possibility that you may unknowingly violate the terms of service and potentially lose the following you have built. Instead you should use your Facebook group as a vehicle to funnel people into your email list or another system that you do have complete control over.
The 5 Steps And How You Should Approach Them:
I have achieved a steady growth of 11% over the last 60 days by increasing the frequency of my posts and focusing on adding the right type of content that engages the audience. I attribute the majority of my growth to the following:
Educational Content & Inspirational Content
The purpose of adding educational and inspirational content on a more frequent basis will help keep your audience more motivated and engaged. With a nice mix of motivation, inspiration, and education members will feel that their goals are achievable.
Ask More Questions
Asking questions has been a huge help when it comes to getting group members engaged. Your focus should be on asking the right types of questions and making sure not to over do it. You don’t want to make it all about your self. Stay focused on the type of content the reader gets excited about.
Welcome New Members
Making a welcome post and tagging new members is a great way to set the tone for the group and make everyone feel welcome.
Cross Promotion/ Social Media Promotion
A big way to make sure your group members can stay up to date on all the latest info is to promote your group to your email list and vice versa promoting your email list to your Facebook group. Promoting your group on other social media platforms such as twitter, Instagram, linked in, can all lead to more members flocking to your group.
Competitions & Giveaways
A great strategy in addition to all the ones listed above is to run some competitions and giveaways. PEOPLE LOVE FREE! So in order to increase the desirability of products I will give some away through competitions.
Final Conclusion
Overall if you make the mission of your group very clear and focus on serving your core purpose you will grow your Facebook group. Begin by implementing the ideas you have learned today and do not focus solely on new traffic. Make sure part of your focus remains on keeping your current members engaged and excited about the content you have to offer.
Today is traffic Tuesday and I’m going to show you how you can literally put your content in front of millions of eyeballs.
This is really easy, it’s really simple and anyone can do this.
It’s the best day of the week because I get to show you some awesome traffic strategies to help you grow your website and grow your business.
This is an incredibly powerful strategy, and it’s one that I have just recently discovered myself, so I thought I had to share it with you.
Works for Every Niche
Now, it doesn’t matter what your niche is, you’re going to discover channels that have millions of views and are relevant to your niche.
These high traffic channels are the perfect place to put your content on.
For example, the DIY channel has 2 million views, e-learning has 3 million views, the health channel has 6 million views, and the gaming channel has 8 million views.
And that’s just the very tip of the iceberg.
As you can see, we’re dealing with popular sources of traffic.
That means you can drive large volumes of traffic to your website for free.
It’s a website called Scoop.it and it’s a content curation platform.
Expert Content Curation
Industry experts and authority figures use this from almost every niche you can image, and they share the best content from their niches.
Scoop.it allows you to put your content in front of those experts for them to share. This is content curation.
Some channels have massive followings and anyone can create their own channel.
The digital marketing channel alone has almost 3 million views, so that’s a substantial amount of people who crave that type of content.
I’m going to show you how to use Scoop.it to drive traffic to your website.
Today you’ll learn how to publish your content on there, I’ll also show you how to save time by publishing your content across multiple social media platforms with one click, and I’ll also show you exactly how to put your content in front of the biggest names on the platform.
So by the end of this post you’ll know exactly how to drive large volumes of traffic to your website and I’m going to show you how to do it for free, providing that you have awesome content to begin with.
So let’s head over to Scoop.it and create a free account.
Sharing Your First Scoop
Once you’ve chosen unique and added a few keywords you can then add your first scoop.
Its real easy; just paste in a link to some of your content and click the button.
Now it’s going to take a few seconds for the platform to retrieve your content but another powerful feature allows you to publish to multiple social media profiles at once.
So you can choose a Facebook profile, Facebook pages, your Twitter account, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, Buffer and I think there’s a few more too.
So how do you put your content in front of the popular experts and authority figures in your niche?
Sharing with Experts
Again this is ridiculously easy.
First of all, you’ll want to choose a high-traffic channel relevant to your niche.
On that channel scroll down to find people who are publishing frequently and have a look at their profile.
On their profile you can see the channels that they have created.
Choose a relevant channel with a large following, and at the top of the page you will see a ‘suggest’ field.
Paste a link to your content in there and then hit the button.
Now your chosen expert will see your suggestion, and they might share it with their audience if its good enough.
And the great thing about this; when they share your content, their followers also tend to share that piece of content across their platforms too.
This is a really good way to go viral in your niche.
Best Practices
Obviously this is a powerful strategy that’s easy to use and anyone can do.
But before you run off to start promoting your content, let me give you some points to consider.
This is going to make sure that get you the best results.
First of all; only share high value content that is relevant to the channels you contribute to.
Make sure that your content is absolutely shareable, that its top-notch and it’s something that people really do want to read or it solves a specific problem.
Then be consistent.
You have to have a regular curation schedule.
So bring this into your marketing mix and make it part of your daily or weekly routine.
And then finally add unique insights to your Scoops, and SEO them.
Google can pick on this content too, so add a piece of original content in there and make sure that you SEO it just like you would with any other piece of content.
And remember, this is simple – so anyone can do it, and you can do this too.
Now there’s nothing stopping you from driving large volumes of traffic to your website for free and by the end of the day you could be seeing amazing results from this strategy.
Over the weekend Neil Patel reported that 62% of small businesses fail when it comes to facebook advertising.
His article provides some wonderful facts and figures and if you want an in-depth analysis of that and all the problems surrounding Facebook advertising then go check out his post.
But if you want the shortcut on how to succeed, and how to fix your Facebook ads then stick around here because I’m going to walk you through it.
And then finally a third campaign retargets just the people who have subscribed to your email list.
You advertise your product or your service to those people.
So you are gradually working people further down the funnel, and at each stage you are warming them up by delivering maximum value, in what feels like a very natural progression.
You can also segment your audience and run specific campaigns for specific types of people.
Let’s say you have a website about mobile phones, and you have a section about iPhones and you have another section about Android.
If somebody lands on a blog post about iPhones, you know that they are interested in iPhones, and therefore all the campaigns that they see on Facebook are related to iPhones.
This increases your conversion rates; it increases your sales and your bottom line as a result because everything is specifically targeted to that person’s interests.
What if you’re selling information products? You might be selling ebooks or training courses.
I’m going to give you a strategy that works really well, and I use this myself.
Take two lessons from the first chapter of your training course or your ebook.
Turn one of the lessons into a free blog post, and use the other lesson as a lead magnet.
The free blog post will most likely be an introduction, it will help your prospect realize exactly what the problem is and how they need to solve it.
And then because the second part is the lead magnet it creates a very natural progression.
This makes subscribing to your email list feel like the next natural step for someone to take.
Or alternatively another way to run a campaign could be; take the best lesson from your course, one that delivers the best possible results in the shortest amount of time, and turn it into a lead magnet.
That piece of content will be transformational, it will move your prospect from A to B, and by the end of the lesson they will be able to accomplish something new.
When you structure your campaign like this, buying from you also feels like natural step.
This allows you to sell in a really low-pressure kind of way because you’re not trying to convince anybody that they need anything, you’re just providing the thing that they already know they need.
That’s the key to this; make the sales experience seamless so it doesn’t feel like selling.
We want to make it feel more like seduction.
And then when you do things this way, you also eliminate – or at least reduce, the chance of buyer’s remorse.
A massive Facebook exploit has been discovered and it’s gonna impact the way advertisers use the platform.
Facebook has now stopped showing Audience Reach Estimates for any campaign that’s using a Custom Audience as part of the targeting.
The exploit potentially allows data brokers to build comprehensive profiles of individuals inside Custom Audiences.
Considering the Cambridge Analytica scandal, it’s no wonder that Facebook is fast to take action about this.
In a statement that has not been widely reported by the media yet, they have said:
We’re grateful to the researchers who found this issue, and we’ve suspended this feature to fix it. People’s privacy and security is incredibly important to Facebook, which is why we take any potential abuse of our service very seriously
Audience Reach will not be shown for Custom Audiences, and also for Look-alike Audiences.
Now this is a big deal if you are retargeting on Facebook, or running offers as part of a sales funnel.
Facebook has said they will investigate in a way to fix this bug, but they don’t have a time scale for us at the moment.
So it could be quite some time before the feature returns, if ever.
But I’ve got mixed views about this.
On one hand, its great that Facebook are finally taking privacy seriously – or appearing to be taking privacy seriously at last.
It’s taking them a few years to get to this point.
And then on the other hand, this development is gonna make life a little bit more difficult for us advertisers.
I suppose if we’re talking about people’s privacy then that obviously has to come first.
But I’m gonna miss the Audience Reach Estimate tool in some of my campaigns and I’m sure you will, too.
If this is news to you then share this with people in your network and let them know about this development so they’re not caught off-guard.
Today I’m going to tell you about a tool that you can use to drive free traffic to your website, and help you build a following on social media.
I’m talking about a free tool called DrumUp it lets you post to your social media profiles automatically.
And it does a bit more than that too.
Easy Content Curation
I have no relationship with this platform and I’m not being paid to endorse this.
It’s a tool that I’ve recently discovered and I thought I would share it with you guys too because I think it’s going to benefit you.
It’s easy to set up, I just had to connect it to Facebook and to Twitter – and that was a one-click process.
Then I put in a few keywords like ‘digital marketing’ and ‘copywriting’ and now when I login it brings back a whole heap of content that I can share with my audience.
I can schedule posts on both Twitter on Facebook at the same time, in one click.
But it does something else too which is really cool.
Drive Traffic For Free
They have a feature that lets you compose a new post and share your own content – just like we would in any social media platform but on DrumUp we have something really interesting; it’s called Repeat Post.
You can make DrumUp re-post your content multiple times, as often as you like.
So for example, you could schedule the same post to be shared every seven days, or every two days, or how often you want and the posting will just run on autopilot and drive traffic to your websites.
And because you’re scheduling relevant information to be shared with your audience, along with your own unique content, it can help grow your audience across social media platforms.
A Word of Warning
I know that there’s a lot of people trying to build an audience on social media platforms, and drive traffic to their websites – and I’m one of them too.
But listen, when it comes to building an audience on social media I think it’s a double-edged sword.
Personally, I don’t really think that it’s a good long-term strategy.
I think if you’re building a following it’s got to be on a platform that you own and control, like email.
And that’s why I put so much into email marketing is because if Facebook changes the rules, like they did recently, or if Twitter changes algorithm like they did a couple of weeks ago, then I won’t be affected by the decisions of those companies.
So that’s why I strongly suggest that if you’re using a tool like DrumUp then make sure that you are driving that traffic to platforms that you own and you control, such as your blog and your email list.
Right, I’m gonna leave it there for today, if you’ve found this useful then share it with others who might benefit too.
Social media usage is in decline for the first time in history, according to the Infinite Dial 2018 report.
If this is accurate, what does that mean for you?
Let’s get into that in a minute.
What is the Infinite Dial Report?
Since 1998 the Infinite Dial report has covered media and technology usage.
This year they have found that social media usage is down for the first time in history, by almost 4%.
Usage has dropped from 80% in 2017 down to almost 77% in 2018.
And Facebook takes the biggest hit, they have fallen from 67% usage in 2017, down to 62% this year.
This is shocking news because social media usage has actually increased 7% every single year for the last 9 years.
2018 is the first time that we have seen things begin to shift in the opposite direction.
The report has also reveals that young people are now moving away from Facebook and Twitter, something which has long been predicted by marketing experts.
We now finally have evidence of this beginning to happen.
Young people are moving towards Snapchat and Instagram, so if that is your key demographic (people from the ages of 12 to 34) you might want to invest your advertising dollars in targeting them on those platforms.
I’m gonna talk about more about advertising, specifically Facebook advertising in a second.
Why is there a Decline in Social Media Usage?
The reason for the decline in social media aren’t clear at the moment.
However, the Convince and Convert website suggests that usage in Facebook has declined because of politics.
Now I don’t discount that, but I do think that is probably only part of it.
There is an ever growing sense of distrust in Facebook as a whole, but this is not the end of social media – not by a long shot.
We’re not talking about some cataclysmic event that’s going to wipe out social media.
But as a result of the shift in usage, no matter how small we can almost guarantee that the price of Facebook ads are going to increase.
How will this Impact Facebook Ads?
Prices are going to increase.
So now is the perfect time to start building an authority website that attracts large-scale traffic, in preparation of that coming price increase.
However, CNBC reported that advertisers, for the foreseeable future, are sticking with Facebook despite the recent negative press, and general distrust in the platform.
Advertisers are still seeing an opportunity in Facebook, and I agree with them – for the moment.
Its got the largest audience size, it cannot be beat.
The level of advanced targeting is just phenomenal, and no single platform can give us the same kind of opportunities to advertise that Facebook can.
And a lot of advertisers are still experiencing cheap rates and most still regard it advertising there has ‘a low level of risk’.
In 2018, if you want to test out an offer, or test s sales funnel, then Facebook is a great way to do it.
So no major change there, but Facebook is running out of places to put their adverts.
That means those places will become more valuable, as more people leave the platform.
Imagine Facebook a limited number of resources that are beginning to run out.
Therefore the resources that they have, which are ad placements and the user base, are slowly becoming more valuable – and that means more expensive.
But if you are adamant that you don’t want anything to do with Facebook, which I completely understand, then I have a Youtube video that gives you 7 alternative platforms you can use to drive traffic to your website instead .
So I’m going to leave it there for today, if you’ve found this useful then share it with your network.
The big news this week has been that digital publisher LittleThings has shut down, supposedly as a result of the new Facebook algorithm changes.
But is this the end of the relationship between Facebook and digital publishers, or could there be something new on the horizon?
I’ll tell you about that in a minute.
LittleThings have amassed 12 million followers – now the funny thing is that back in 2016 LittleThings they said, “Facebook loves publishers”, and the CEO said, “I think that we need each other”.
In the last couple of days they have called Facebook the “destroyer of worlds”, because they have lost 75% of its organic traffic due to the algorithm changes.
What does this mean for us?
So what does this tell us?
It tells us that we can’t put all our eggs into one basket.
As we’ve seen from the Google algorithm changes over the years, we’ve repeatedly seen that one little change has destroyed hundreds of businesses. And now Facebook are doing a similar thing.
The lesson is; we have to diversify.
I mean diversify everything – all our traffic sources, and even our income sources.
Listen if you’re into the online entrepreneur thing then you need to have multiple income sources.
But as bad as these recent changes are for publishers, Facebook might be rolling out more changes, and this time they might actually benefit us.
Facebook Broadcast Composer
Facebook has started testing the sending of mass messages, on a small number of business pages.
This is a feature called Broadcast Composer and it’s not publicly available yet.
It allows pages to mass message subscribers that have interacted.
Right now selected pages are only allowed to send messages to subscribers that have initiated conversations, but this might change in the future.
And at the moment there’s a cap on the number of messages that can be sent each month.
Facebook is allowing chosen pages in the US, Mexico, and in Thailand to test the application.
But they’re keeping a close eye on things because there is potential for abuse.
If the testing phase goes well maybe Broadcast Composer will be rolled out to all business pages in the near future.
You see, this is a result of recent stats uncovered by Facebook that found that 330 million people have initiated conversations with small and medium sized business pages since 2007.
So this could be a potential solution from Facebook to help brands connect and reconnect with their target audiences.
It’s a development that I will be keeping an eye on and report back to you guys with updates as they happen.
Take Control
Either way, if this technology rolls out or not, as entrepreneurs we have to drive traffic into systems that we own and control, like autoreponders.
That way you we protected from algorithm changes, we’re protected from third parties, and from corporations that don’t really have our interests at heart.
I’m going to leave it there before I start ranting.
If you found this useful hit the share button and spread the love.
Today you’re going to learn how to make Facebook Messenger Bots, the easy way.
I’ve avoided using Facebook Messenger Bots for quite a long time because I’ve felt a bit intimidated by them.
I thought it was going to be really complicated thought I was going to have to devote a few days of my time to learn how to use them properly but nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact I got my first messenger bot up and working in around three minutes – which is amazing, right?
What are Facebook Messenger Bots?
A lot of marketers are using them at moment, I was reading somewhere that there was something like 100,000 messenger bots on Facebook already.
These bots are conversational apps and they use some kind of artificial intelligence.
And the cool thing is we don’t actually have to get hands dirty with cold to make use of this stuff
So we can use them to increase our conversions and increase our sales, and deliver goodwill to our audiences, within minutes.
I’m going to get into ways that you can use them in a second but if you can imagine these little Facebook Messenger Bots are a bit like virtual sales assistants.
They can answer pre-sale questions, they can deliver customer service round the clock 24/7. Its pretty powerful stuff.
While I’m learning about this stuff for the first time I thought I have to share it with you too because I try to share anything that happens in my business so you can benefit too.
So how are other brands using Facebook Messenger Bots? We need some examples to see the kind of things that we can do.
Facebook Messenger Bot Examples
Whole Foods have got a clever Facebook Messenger Bot that helps people to find recipes. That’s a really cool and positive way to use this tech, right?
SnapTravel is using bots to help people to find hotels that sit within a prospects budget – more really positive usage.
And that’s going to give people another reason to engage with the brand and bring more people into their funnel because they can view SnapTravel, and Whole Foods, as companies that have the information they are looking for.
HealthTap is also really interesting. They are using Facebook Messenger Bots to deliver medical advice. How crazy cool is that?
This tells us that there are lots of different ways we can bots and if you want to use if you want to make your own I’m gonna show you how to do that – it’s really simple.
What happens is this; when someone subscribes to you fan page you can automatically send them a message that brings them further into your sales funnel.
You can use bots to promote affiliate links, promote other offers, deliver goodwill content, the fact is you can use them however you like.
Personally, I think if you can decide whatever way you believe is the best way to serve your community, is probably the best way to use them.
Which Services to use?
There are 4 services that I’ve found that let you make Facebook Messenger Bots without messing around with any code or anything complicated.
I’ve already made one with ManyChat, and it was super-easy.
Watch the video above to see for yourself.
The Process
After signing up I literally just:
Gave permission for my Facebook account to be connected to ManyChat
Chose one of the ready made templates
Customized the text
Changed the picture
It then sent a test message, which showed that everything was working perfectly.
Once you familiarise yourself with the platform, you’ll notice a whole bunch of different tools that you can use to make more advanced Facebook Messenger Bots.
I’m sure we’re going to come back to this at some point in the future when I’ve actually got some subscribers on my page.
A few tips
Maybe you like the idea and you feeling like you’re gonna go for it and set up your own campaigns?
Well, hold on just a second.
I’m going to give you a few tips that you need to know before you dive in to this.
Before you set up your first Facebook Messenger Bot:
Have an end goal in mind
Decide what actions your subscribers need to take to achieve that outcome
Make sure that the end result fits inside your existing sales funnel or your existing strategy.
Once you have your objectives, and you know what actions your subscribers need to take, and you know how it fits into your overall business then you’re going to have to:
Write good and clear copy
Ask the right questions
For example you might ask new subscribers what their email address is.
But you gotta do it in the right way, so you might say ‘hey I’ve got this free report for you I’d love to send it over to you so give me your email address and I’ll send it to you right now.
Also make sure that:
The tone matches the rest of your brand
Don’t say something that you wouldn’t say in person
Write conversational scripts
Have multiple answers ready for a variety of different questions.
And finally test, test, and then test some more
Done is Better than Perfect
It’s not going to be perfect the first time you set one up, and that’s ok so test it, and tweak it.
The first time we try new things, it’s unlikely it’s going to be perfect so just like most thing in digital marketing we’re going to have to tweak things as we go.
And remember that done is better than perfect.
The important thing is to just get it up and running – it doesn’t need to be the best messenger and it just needs to work.
Don’t be intimidated by this technology stuff, like I was.
Right now we’re in a really fortunate position where a lot of the tools that we need are just point and click.
Look at building a website, for example. If you want to install WordPress there’s literally 2 or 3 clicks of a mouse and then BOOM! you’ve got a fully functional and professional website.
I mean just 10 years ago that process was so complicated and so time consuming most people didn’t bother.
And if we go back further, say 15 years ago, that kind of technology didn’t exist.
So right now we’re in a really positive place and we’re really fortunate to exist in a time where we can just point and click your mouse and get the things we need to improve our businesses – and ultimately our lives and the lives of our families.
I’m gonna leave it there for today, if you’ve found this useful then share it with your network, pay it forward and they’ll probably be thankful to you – and it helps me out in a massive way too.
Is this the future of marketing? 360 video helped BMW get 3.5 million views in just two months.
360 videos are immersive, sure, but are they REALLY the future of marketing? Are they worth your time and really do they improve your marketing efforts?
Well, you be the judge.
What kind of results should you expect from 360 videos?
They are obviously popular but is it all just a gimmick or a fad that’ll blow-over in a few months?
If the numbers are anything to go by, I don’t think it is a gimmick.
I’m gonna run you through some new data released by St. Joseph’s Communications and it’s going to give you the full picture about 360 videos.
But putting numbers aside for a second why are 360 videos effective?
Why is this the Future of Marketing?
360 videos put viewers (and prospects) inside the story and they experience things from a new perspective.
These videos also help prospects feel empowered, and feel like they have a degree of control over the situation and the viewing experience.
Big organizations and corporations have seen some pretty cool results when they’ve experimented with 360 video.
For example, NASA, Sony, and BMW have all taken advantage of 360 video.
Real World Results
NASA has doubled the number of video views and they’ve actually increased their Youtube subscriber base by 35% as a result of using 360 videos.
Sony has split tested traditional video vs 360 video, they ran a trailer of Don’t Breathe in both versions.
The 360 version was watched seven times more than the traditional version.
So that’s fairly conclusive evidence that these new video formats are attractive and people want to consume that kind of content.
I’ve already spoken about BMW at that start of this post, but in addition to the 3.5 million views they’ve received in two months, they’ve also gained 11,000 likes and 2,000 shares as a result.
As we can see, 360 videos are producing a massive increase in engagement, but it could be because they’re new and people are kind of flocking to them to experience someone we haven’t seen before?
I do think they actually have legitimate marketing value for the longterm.
Maybe this is the start of something much bigger, a much more immersive way of marketing.
Also, the stats that St. Joseph’s Communications have released have shown that 360 videos receive a much higher click-through rate.
They attract more viewers, and people watch the videos for longer.
Split Test Results
St. Joseph’s Communications have discovered that in a side-by-side split test of traditional video vs 360 video, the 360 version will typically see a 29% increase in views.
They’ve also found that 360 videos experience an increase of 41% for actual actions.
That’s things like shares and subscribers.
The click-through rates, when split tested, came in at around 4.51% in comparison to traditional videos which is 0.56%.
So again we can see a massive increase of results, this time the click-through rate, when using 360 videos are used.
But what about the content?
In Demand Content
The most popular types of content for 360 video are things like sports and travel.
Also live entertainment is very popular, movies, news, documentaries and television shows these are all in demand content for 360 video right now.
What if you like the idea of making your own 360 videos?
If you want to try this out for yourself, you can make your own 360 videos fairly easily.
Make your own?
If you want to get ahead of the competition you can buy an adapter that connects to your smartphone, there are a wide range of adapters out there for every budget.
This is the part where other sites would throw in an affiliate link, and reveal ulterior motives for sharing this important info with you.
But not Profit Copilot, my friend, everything published here is 100% for your benefit – not mine.
There’s even a bunch of different free software packages out there what will let you stitch together your video footage. I can’t recommend any because I haven’t used any, yet.
If you do decide to make your own 360 videos let me know, I’d love to hear about your progress and see what kind of results you get.
Now, TrendSpottr for Instagram lets you find influencers and connect with them under any hashtag.
This is really useful if you want to take advantage of Instagram for your marketing, and that’s something that I’ve been meaning to get into, but feel a bit hesitant about using it.
Maybe one of you guys know more about Instagram marketing and can point me in the right direction, so if you do just let me know in the comments.
The fourth tool that I’ve got for you it’s called BuzzSumo.
You know it’s a favourite of mine.
Did you know that BuzzSumo also lets you find influencers?
Check this out ok, it even gives you statistics that you can use – including the reply ratio of influencers.
How useful is that?
And then the last tool, the fifth tool that I’ve got for you is called Gmass.
This is really good for managing all the contacts and emails that you send out to influencers.
Obviously you need one or two to get back to you but this lets you contact multiple influencers and manage the communication.
So there you go, I’m gonna leave it there for today – if you’ve enjoyed this or if you found it useful then share this with other who might benefit from it too.
Posting duplicative or substantially similar content, replies, or mentions over multiple accounts you control, or creating duplicate or substantially similar accounts, with or without the use of automation, is never allowed.
Posting multiple updates (on a single account or across multiple accounts you control) to a trending or popular topic (for instance, through the use of a specific hashtag) with an intent to subvert or manipulate the topic, or to artificially inflate the prominence of a hashtag or topic, is never allowed.
As an alternative to posting identical content, you can Retweet content from one account from the other accounts you wish to share that post from. This should only be done from a small number of distinct accounts that you directly control. Please note that bulk, aggressive, or very high-volume automated Retweeting is not permitted under the Automation Rules, and may be subject to enforcement actions.
Obviously this algorithm update will do more to prevent spammers – and that’s a pretty good thing in my opinion.
But will legitimate digital marketers get caught in the crossfire?
Twitter’s intentions are in the right place but will it manifest in reality or will we see a whole heap of legitimate marketers and content creators punished as a result?
Only time will tell but I’ve got my fingers crossed and I’m optimistic that this is going to improve the platform in a fairly big way.
Imagine if your advert could have a potential reach of 80 million impressions.
Today I’m talking about news UK which is an advertising company they are responsible for the Sun, The Times, The Sunday Times and a few other publications here in the UK.
They are releasing a new advertising tool that will compete with Facebook ads.
Now, this is in response to the algorithm changes that have upset so many people, and maybe you’re one of them.
So the new tool is going to let you upload adverts – the same kind of adverts that you normally would upload to Facebook or Twitter.
You can even upload Tweets to the new system, and then it will go live in around 24 hours.
An exact replica of that advert will appear on the Sun mobile website and The Times mobile website.
News UK claim they can give advertisers access to 80 million impressions, so if you’re into branding in a big way this is certainly one to consider.
The fact that you can advertise on news websites is a bog deal.
I know just how valuable the CPM rate can be – it’s typically amongst the highest rate on the Internet.
We have seen rates as high as $50 per CPM.
What that means is for every thousand impressions you give you will typically earn a few dollars for those impressions.
News websites tend to command the highest fees because of the authority and perceived trust that goes along with them.
However, at the moment there’s no pricing available for this new tool and the information that they have given is minimal.
We don’t really know what to expect – we know what it can do and how it’s going to do it, but beyond that we don’t really know the exact details until they make some kind of formal announcement and launch the tool.
I suppose this just goes to show that when a company like Facebook or Google makes algorithm changes that affect a lot of people – new opportunities will spring up elsewhere on the internet that cater to those people.
And if there’s one constant in this Internet marketing thing, it’s that change is inevitable and we have to constantly adapt and refine to keep moving – changing our strategy as technology moves forward and as algorithms change.
Personally, I think this development from News UK is a very positive thing for us, for advertisers, and for marketers.
Maybe News UK will be among a group of companies that produce advertising products and services that take business (and our advertising dollars) away from Facebook – which is only a good thing in my opinion.
As great as Facebook Advertising is, they’re not really fair to us and they don’t really treat advertisers with the respect that we deserve for funding their business, right?
We’re continuously being punished and squeezed for more profit by Facebook and I think the more they do that, the more opportunities will spring up elsewhere that we can take advantage of.
And maybe this is going to be one of those opportunities, maybe it won’t be. It might all fizzle out or the service they roll out isn’t up to the standard that we expect, or maybe they don’t have the level of targeting that we want.
There could be a whole host of reasons why it doesn’t work – but maybe it will work.
And fingers crossed that if this works other services will spring up too.
Also in one of my previous videos a couple of months ago I gave you 7 alternatives to Facebook Ads, so if you are feeling stung by Facebook at the moment have a look at that video.
So I think I’ll leave it there for today, apart to say; this stuff is important, right?
That’s why I do this Profit Copilot thing, it’s to help change people’s lives, even in just a small way.
That’s real important, so share it with other people who need to know this stuff too, and they’ll probably be really thankful that you have. And it helps me out in a massive way.
Today I’m talking about the Guardians Instagram account and it’s phenomenal growth by 57% in just one year over 800,000 followers on the account.
So the funnel works like this; they use Instagram to lure people in to their funnel so they create engaging content for free in the hope that those people will become readers of their website and starting using their apps.
And then, eventually, those people will become paying members of the website.
That’s the basic structure of their funnel.
They achieve outstanding growth by focusing on core guidelines; to target a younger demographic.
So they are focusing on environmental issues, human rights issues, and animal welfare.
And they are also focusing on solutions – where other news organisations just focus on problems.
What are the mechanics of this?
How are they really achieving this kind of growth?
Well, they actually have a team of three people posting content every day – and then they have another entirely separate team that focus on distribution.
They also have journalists, video producers, and designers who all contribute content on the Instagram account and this really mixes things up and it keeps things interesting.
But it does make having a consistent editorial style a little bit of a problem for the Guardian.
The team, on average, post three pieces of content to Instagram per day.
And it’s a mix of original content that’s designed specifically for Instagram, and then they use existing content from the website, and then they also make sense some third-party content so they might use content from independent filmmakers.
They also have reoccurring Instagram stories.
These are really powerful because they hook people in and keep people interested in the brand.
One of those weekly stories is called ‘fake or for real’ and they ask Instagram followers to guess whether a story is fake news or not – and then a journalists will reveal the truth about the story.
And each one of those stories gets around 50,000 views per week.
Another story that they use on a regular basis is called ‘Brexit bites’.
This takes a complex issue like Brexit and simplifies it down to make it easy for their followers to understand.
So there you’ve just got all the main elements of a strategy that the Guardian newspaper are using to increase their Instagram following.
If you’ve found this useful then remember to share it with others – they’ll probably be thankful that you have, and it helps me out a little bit too.
Today I’m talking about big news from Facebook and Instagram. They are banning certain types of ‘branded content’ from their platform.
This is massive news for influencers and high-profile pages.
Tt’s also massive news for those of us who pay influencers to promote our content.
So if you are using influencers as a traffic source this affects you directly.
But first, what is branded content?
What is branded content anyway?
I know it’s a bit of a strange term and one that is open to interpretation.
And maybe thats one of the reasons why Facebook and Instagram are tightening things up.
Branded content is content that a brand pays a publisher to promote.
So for example if I write an article or shoot a video then I can pay an influencer to share that with their audience.
Brands have figured out that they can just pay influencers to link directly to products and sidestep the content creation aspect of promotion.
So for that reason Facebook and Instagram are updating their policy to read:
Don’t accept anything of value to post content that you did not create or were not involved in the creation of, or that does not feature you. – Facebook Policy
And there we have it in black and white.
These changes are going to take effect in March, 2018.
You haven’t got long to diversify or come up with a new strategy on the monetization of your pages or rethink the content that you are creating and publishing through influencer networks.
If publishers continue to violate this new policy they will be restricted from using Facebook’s monetization tools.
So they’re gonna hit you where it hurts.
But what’s the bigger picture and what does this really mean?
The bigger picture
As I’ve been predicting for some time now, the focus of online marketers really needs to shift to creating high quality content.
If you are not creating your own content at the moment you need to reconsider that.
This is something that will become increasingly important to you if you want to stay relevant in your marketplaces.
But thankfully I have a little shortcut for you that will work in the immediate future regarding this new policy update.
‘High quality content’ can actually be as little as having an original quote inside the content that is being promoted.
So if you are a brand seeking promotion from an influencer just make sure that they are involved in some way in the creation of that content.
At the very least have a high quality original quote from them.
Likewise if you are an influencer make sure that you have your stamp in every single piece of content that you promote.
So that’s a quick shortcut that you can use to make life a little bit easier for you when things change in March.
If you found this useful then share this with people who might benefit from it too.
