You can rely on us to keep you up-to-date on the latest digital marketing news, best practices, and industry trends. Following are the ones we found most interesting today.

Content Marketing

In order to engage current and future customers, content creators need to produce material that’s entertaining or educational (or both) and that satisfies their target audience’s interests. Content can include blog posts, ebooks, infographics, photos, and videos.

Successful content creators need to integrate the following habits into their routines:

Keep up to date with industry news daily
Write regularly and show your personality to stand out
Study your industry’s audience to identify common characteristics, interests, problems, and creative opportunities
Curate others’ content and interact with your communities
Understand your key performance indicators (KPIs) such as:
- Direct traffic – number of people that visit by entering website link in their browsers
- Organic traffic – number of people that visit from a search engine result link
- Social media traffic – number of people that visit from a social media post
- Submissions – number of people who submit their contact information in exchange for an offered resource
Network with colleagues and industry thought leaders
Explain solutions rather than recite knowledge
Be curious, question the status quo, and think critically about content so as to come up with new solutions (source: HubSpot)

If you’ve just returned from a business or trade conference or are planning to attend one soon, make sure you turn what you’ve just learned into impactful actions for your brand instead of surrendering to “conference hangover.” Set aside time on your calendar to think strategically, extract actions from the notes you took and share with coworkers, and stay connected with fellow attendees and presenters. (source: Content Marketing Institute)

Email Marketing

Improve deliverability of your business emails by testing and adjusting your processes. Before launching an email marketing campaign, check for possible errors, ensure that content is engaging for your subscribers, clean up your lists, and monitor engagement rates. (source: MarTech Today)

SEM

If you’re using Google AdWords, make sure you diversify your pay-per-click (PPC) online advertising spending to avoid being adversely affected by ad networks’ rule changes. Diversification tips include having backup company name and credit card available in case of accidental banning, use SEO in addition to PPC, don’t rely solely on social media traffic, keep in touch with advertising network contacts, and use small advertising networks (not just Google AdWords). (source: Search Engine Watch)

SEO

YouTube

If your business has a YouTube channel – or plans to create one – you’ll need to optimize the videos you post in order to increase your YouTube channel’s viewership.

Tips to optimize videos for YouTube search include:

Identify keywords for your video and rename video file with primary keyword
Add keyword in video title
Optimize video description by putting most important information in the first 2-3 lines of text
Tag video with popular, relevant keywords
Select category for video (under “Advanced Settings”)
Upload custom thumbnail image for video’s result link rather than using YouTube’s automatically-generated thumbnails
Add subtitles and/or closed captions to video
Use Cards (preformatted notifications to promote brand or other videos) and End Screens (information displayed at video’s end)

SEO tools to optimize videos for YouTube search include:

Ahrefs Keyword Explorer – comprehensive SEO platform; use tool’s Keywords Explorer feature and filter keyword results by YouTube
Canva – design templates; use Thumbnail Creator for YouTube videos
Cyfe – software suite including Web analytics platform; track keyword rankings and performance on YouTube as well as other Web properties
HubSpot Content Strategy – content strategy tool; find popular keywords and organize them into “topic clusters,” then link videos and blog posts
TubeBuddy – all-in-one video platform to manage production, optimization, and promotion of YouTube content
VidIQ Vision – Google Chrome browser extension; analyze how and why some YouTube videos perform great (source: HubSpot)

Social Media Marketing

TikTok

Attracted by the video-based social app’s popularity with Generation Z, some brands are already using TikTok for brand awareness. Companies that have been successful with TikTok include Chipotle, Guess, NBA, NBC’s Stay Tuned, San Diego Zoo, United Nations’ International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and Washington Post.

Tips for integrating TikTok into your marketing strategy:

Experiment to figure out what works and what doesn’t
Be creative, use humor, and show a different side of your organization
Engage with your audience with challenges, videos, or music duets (source: HubSpot)

Twitter

Business-to-business (B2B) companies are using Twitter chats (TweetChats) to connect with their audiences. Typically, a business asks a question about a topic (associated with a hashtag) or lets the audience tweet questions, then tweets in response to replies to encourage more discussion.

Tips for planning to host a successful TweetChat:

Review other chats to learn what works vs. what doesn’t
Choose topic for TweetChat and stay focused on it
Pick hashtag so people can follow chat
Select date and time that doesn’t conflict with similar chats
Facilitate discussion by preparing engaging questions
Encourage participation with guest tweeters like your business’s leader(s) and/or industry experts
Promote the chat ahead of time by writing a blog post about it and announcing it in social media networks
Launch TweetChat, ensuring hosts are available and ready to discuss relevant topics
Continue monitoring hashtag even after the chat ends to identify potential qualified leads and get ideas for future TweetChats
Use information from chat to write blog posts with insights and quotes and promote future Twitter events, potentially reaching people not following you yet (source: HubSpot)

Extra

Customer Experience

Don’t just market or sell—first consider your customers and the problems they face, then use technology to solve those problems with innovative solutions, resulting in an improved customer experience. Be willing to make changes and use technology as a tool for change. (source: MarTech Today)

Identity and Trust

The ongoing effort to ensure trusted communications (phone and email) to identify legitimate senders and eject “bad actors” involves not just technology and innovation but also industry cooperation. (source: MarTech Today)

Relocation

If you’re thinking of moving somewhere else in the U.S., some states and cities are offering to pay you to move there:

Connecticut: New Haven – maximum $10K in interest-free loans (forgivable in the long-term) + $30K for energy-saving upgrades
Maine – subtracts recent college graduates’ student loan payments from state income tax due
Maryland: Baltimore – $10K loan for downpayment and closing costs of long-vacant properties (forgivable over 5-year period)
Michigan: St. Clair – pays recent college graduates (with arts, engineering, math, science or technology degrees) maximum $15K in student loan repayments
Minnesota: Harmony – maximum $12K in cash rebates to build a new home
Nebraska: Curtis – free land if you build a single-family home
Oklahoma: Tulsa – discounted rent and free utilities for 1st 3 months plus $10K stipend if staying a year
Vermont – $5K-7,500-10K (source: HubSpot)

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