Unlocking the Power of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

In today’s digital era, search engines have become our go-to solution for finding answers, products, and services. But have you ever wondered how certain websites consistently appear at the top of search engine results? The secret lies in a powerful strategy known as search engine optimization (SEO). In this blog post, we’ll delve into the world of SEO, demystifying its meaning, exploring its importance, and shedding light on the factors that influence search engine rankings.

What is SEO?

SEO, an acronym for search engine optimization, refers to a set of techniques and methodologies employed to improve a website’s visibility and achieve higher rankings on search engine result pages (SERPs). The primary objective of SEO is to attract organic traffic, i.e., visitors who find your website through search engines rather than typing the URL directly.

Understanding Organic Traffic

Organic traffic plays a crucial role in driving potential customers to your website. When users search for information or products, search engines aim to deliver the most relevant and authoritative results. By optimizing your website for search engines, you increase your chances of appearing higher in the search results, making it more likely for users to click on your link and visit your site.

The Significance of SEO for Businesses

In today’s highly competitive online landscape, businesses vie for attention and customers. As a result, securing a top position on search engine results can make a significant difference in gaining a competitive edge. Research shows that users often click on the top results, with a majority of clicks going to the first few entries. Therefore, by implementing effective SEO strategies, businesses can increase their visibility, reach a wider audience, and drive more relevant traffic to their websites.

Factors Affecting Search Engine Rankings

Search engines employ complex algorithms to determine the relevance and authority of websites. Understanding the factors that influence search engine rankings is essential for optimizing your website effectively. The “Periodic Table of SEO Success Factors” by Search Engine Land provides a comprehensive overview of these elements:

  1. Content: Quality, relevance, and uniqueness of website content.
  2. Architecture: Website structure, navigation, and accessibility.
  3. HTML: Proper use of title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags.
  4. Trust: Establishing credibility through security, transparency, and user reviews.
  5. Links: Quantity, quality, and relevance of inbound and outbound links.
  6. Personal: Tailoring content to match user intent and preferences.
  7. Social: Leveraging social media signals and engagement.

While it may seem daunting to control all these variables, the key is to focus on enhancing one or two aspects at a time. By consistently optimizing and improving these factors, you can gradually increase your website’s ranking and drive more organic traffic.

Unlocking Business Potential with SEO

The beauty of SEO lies in its cost-effectiveness and long-term benefits. Unlike paid advertising, SEO allows businesses to organically attract visitors without incurring substantial expenses. By investing time and effort in optimizing your website, you can reap the rewards of increased visibility, brand exposure, and ultimately, higher conversion rates.

Conclusion

In the world of online business, SEO plays a pivotal role in driving organic traffic and enhancing website visibility. By understanding the intricacies of search engine optimization and the factors that influence search rankings, businesses can strategically position themselves at the top of search engine results, gaining a competitive advantage. Embracing the power of SEO and continually optimizing your website can unlock new opportunities, expand your reach, and boost your online success.

For further insights into SEO and its importance, be sure to check out our informative infographic on the evolution of SEO, highlighting why this strategy is crucial in today’s digital landscape.

Optimize CTR in Google Ads

What is CTR?

One of the cornerstones of digital advertising terms to know is click-through rate, or CTR. This metric provides a ratio of the number of clicks on link or call to action. Click-through rate is calculated by simply dividing the amount of clicks by the amount of impressions, then multiplying by 100. So for example, if a link received 1,000 views and 15 clicks, the CTR is 1.5%

Why does CTR matter?

Click-through rate is a vital tool to use for any pay-per-click advertising campaign. It is often utilized to evaluate the overall health of a campaign. This is due to search based platforms, such as Google, using CTR and other metrics to assess a site’s content and relevance to the platform’s users. The idea behind this is that if CTR is high, the site’s content is useful and helpful to people searching for certain keywords. Because of this, the site will continue to show in a higher rank. Having the site show more frequently is a reward for creating relevant content. This results in a happy user and provides the advertiser with a more engaged audience.  

What is a good CTR?

Oftentimes, CTR will vary from campaign to campaign or keyword to keyword. Thus explaining why there is no exact or set number to aim for with pay-per-click CTR. With this in mind, however, it is good practice to compare one’s CTR to its industry averages. In addition, search network ads tend to have a higher Click-through rate averaging at 1.91% Display network ads have a lower average CTR of 0.35%. Of course, a “good” click-through rate would be above the average percentages. 

How can CTR be improved?

The most common ways to improve CTR are keyword management, copywriting, and ad extensions.

Keyword Management

Relevant keywords are essential to improving and maintaining higher CTR. It is important to keep your target audience in mind when drafting these keywords and get specific by using long-tail keywords.

Long-tail keywords are more like key phrases since they include more than two words. These types of keywords are tailored to the individual close to a point-of-purchase rather than someone only researching. This tactic sets the campaign apart from competitors and seeks out people who are more likely to purchase. 

Copywriting

Being unique in copywriting is the key to success here. It is easy to ignore most search ads because they all follow the same pattern. Standing out can be as easy as including more numbers than competitors in the ad’s headline. Get creative, because there is only so much space allowed for the ad’s copy. 

Ad Extensions

Ad extensions are additional links, call outs or information on the site. Call extensions provide a phone number or a button to call when on mobile. Location extensions give the physical address of the business and may offer a button for directions.Extensions like these are great to attract a user’s mouse for more information because of the easy interaction being offered. Seller rating extensions appear automatically if the business is rated four stars or higher which instills trust in the user viewing the ad. Finally, sitelink extensions promote supplemental links on the ad and help with broad match searches. The idea behind all ad extensions is to add more text and info to the ad in hopes of it becoming more relevant to searches.

If you are interested in learning more about how to optimize your CTR, contact Adventure Ad Agency.

Refreshing your Social Media Strategy

Has your social media posts gone stale? Do you feel like you post the same stuff over and over again, but you don’t know what else to do? We understand and are here to help inspire you to refresh and strengthen your social media strategy in 2020.

Go Back to the Social Media Basics

Do not be afraid to stop and go back to the basics. There are many tried and true ways to get your self out of a social media rut.

One of the best ways to reset is by performing a social media audit. This allows you to really evaluate where you are at and where you are headed.

When performing an audit, it is important to identify what is and is not working in your current social media strategy. You should take a look at where you are meeting and where you are falling short of your goals. Do not be afraid to change!

For more tried and true ideas, check out our detailed post on how to get the most our of your social media marketing in five easy steps for more insights! Still stuck …. ?

Get Inspired, then.

If you are not following fellow business owners, industry brands and leaders, or your competitors, you should be. Look for ideas within other people’s content. But really, scroll through other people’s content and ask …

  • What are others doing on social media that really grabs your attention that you can emulate?
  • Which of their posts have the most engagement and why?
  • Is their audience the same audience as mine and is there a way we can collaborate?

It may seem like a simple idea, but everything starts as a simple idea. If you are having trouble getting inspired within your industry, look at other industries as well. Consider what business you follow on social media and ask these same questions. Inspiration can come from anywhere.

Try something new.

Try something you may even think is a bad idea and see what happens. You will never know until you try, and as much as we think we know our customers, we don’t always know as much as we think we do.

As advertisers, we are constantly trying new ways to get our audience’s attention. The worst thing you can do is no longer trying new things.

Form a hypothesis and test it. If you try something new and your social media audiences don’t respond, then you can comfortably decide that is a bad idea for the future. But maybe, just maybe, you will be surprised to see that your audience responds much better to the new content than you could have ever expected.

Finally, stay people-focused.

Social media is about being social. People engage with content that is people focused. When in doubt, share more content about people, especially your customers.

Do not be afraid to comment on your follower’s posts. Engage with their content! Repost or share positive reviews. Ask your followers what they want.

We hope these tips help you stir up some creativity for your social content. For more help refreshing your social strategy, contact us today or visit our blog for more fresh ideas.

Website Building Blocks

Building Blocks of a Website

We all know and love websites. For business owners, your website may be what you rely on to inform customers about your product and services and to bring customers into your business.

Despite being very important to us however, many of us do not understand how websites work or what it takes to run a website.

Here are the 3 core building blocks of a website:

Domain

Your domain is your URL or digital address that users can type into a browser in order to access your website. When a user types this URL into a browser, it actually takes a complex process behind the scenes.

First, a request is sent to a global network of servers that form the Domain Name System (DNS). You may have heard the term DNS records. Every website has their own unique DNS records. These store information specific to your website, including your website’s name servers. All of this is managed by a hosting company, which we will cover next.

After the request reaches the Domain Name System, these servers search for the “name servers” that are associated with the domain you have typed into your browser. A name server is simply computers called a web server, managed by your hosting company.

When your hosting company receives the request initiated by a user trying to access your website, the web server will fetches your site and send this data back to the user in their browser.

Hosting

Since you now know what a domain is, what is a hosting company? Often, this may be the same place that you purchased your domain. In other cases, you may have purchased your domain separate from your hosting. Some common hosting providers include GoDaddy, WPEngine, BlueHost, SiteGround, and many more!

Regardless of how it is set up, hosting is service that provides the technology needed for a website to be viewed on the internet. This is where your website is actually stores on the internet. A website needs to be “hosted” or stored on computers called servers, which we discussed above.

When you pay you hosting provide, at the most basic level, you are paying for the storage of your website as well as the ability for users to find your website through a domain. However, there is a lot more that goes into this.

Content Management Platform

This is most likely the part you may be the most familiar with as it is what is used to actually edit the content of your website. A content management platform or CMS is simply a software platform.

Most commonly, there is a Graphic User Interface (GUI) that allows interacting with a website’s database to be user friendly. While websites use HTML (the Hypertext Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), you do not to be a developer who can write in HTML or CSS to edit your website because of GUI.

On the CMS, the every day person can create post, edit pages, update and publish content, and design the look of your site. Using themes and plugins, business can build beautiful, impressive websites without a developer.

One of the most common CMS platforms is WordPress. Others include SquareSpace, GoDaddy, and Wix. In some cases, you may even have a custom CMS solution if your site was built by a developer.

To learn more about or to get help creating a new website, contact Adventure Ad Agency today! We are happy to help improve your existing website or start a new one for you.

What is Server-Side Tagging?

In our complex digital advertising ecosystem, there are a lot of confusing terms for advertisers and business owners to wrap their heads around. From Javascript code to auction dynamics and header bidding, online advertising is a complicated and ever-changing landscape.

Adventure Ad Agency is here to help business owners navigate what these new technologies mean for them and how business owners can take advantage of new developements.

One of these recent developments is that Google introduced Server-Side Tagging to Google Tag Manager and Tag Manager 360. This will allow digital marketers to move third-party tags off their sites. Instead, they will go into a new server container hosted in their Google Cloud account.

What is a “tag”?

A tag is simply a method of embedding JavaScript code. There are many, many different reasons to have JavaScript code or tags on your page.

Often, these tags of JavaScript code help with audience tracking and a variety of third party services used for online advertising. For example, Google Analytics uses a “tag” on the page to track user behavior on websites.

The most common way to implement these tags is client-side!

Server-Side versus Client-Side Tags

To understand what server-side tagging is, it is first important to understand what it is replacing: client-side tagging.

Client-side tagging is when JavaScript code often referred to as a “tag” loads on a businesses website. Because the actual website page has to load this code, client-side tagging can slow down websites and cause delays.

With server-side tagging, the code is not processed on the page. Instead, the page calls a server where the actual processing is happening. This means that the code is no longer on the page slowing down everything else that needs to work on the website page. The code is being called and processed on a server.

Thus, by moving third-party tags off your site, fewer tags must load when your customers visit. This leads to faster page load times. Faster page load times lead to better user experience. Better user experience means happier website visitors and customers!

Why does this matter to me?

First, does your business use Google Tag Manager to manage your tags? If yes, server-side tagging can help speed up your website if they have numerous JavaScript code or tags on their site.

On the other hand, if businesses have none or very little code/tags on their website, there is no need to make the switch. You can’t optimize what isn’t there!

If you are interested in learning more about server-side tagging on Google Tag Manager or want to understand if Google Tag Manager is right for you, contact Adventure Ad Agency.

Cookies

What is a “Cookie”? And why are they disappearing?

No matter where you turn, you will see a headline on the “Death of the Cookie” affecting advertising with apocalyptic undertones and stress inducing warnings.

From AdExchanger to Ad Age, the headlines are about the “death” of third party cookies, but what does this really mean and should advertisers be worried?

Google has made the decision to phase out third party cookies in the next two years, and Chrome accounts for more than half of all global web traffic.

What is a third party cookie?

However, before we get ahead of ourselves, what even is a cookie?

Unfortunately, it is not the type of cookie that is a delicious treat. According to the New York Times, a cookie is “a small string of text that a website (or online service) stores on a user’s browser. It saves data on your browser about your visit to our site or other sites. It often includes a unique identifier (e.g., cookie #123).”

In simpler terms, when you visit a website, the website may give your browser (such as Chrome, Internet Explorer, or Firefox) a “cookie” or small string of text to keep stored for later. This cookie can store information about you and your computer. Advertisers use this to segment users and target specific groups based on the information collected.

Why does it matter?

For advertisers and businesses, this will effect your digital marketing and have a big impact on your digital marketing strategy.

Since advertisers will no longer be using third-party data from cookies to segment online audiences, new targeting strategies and technics will need to be explored.

However, this is not the end of the world. Both Firefox and Safari have already phased out third-party cookies, and everyone will be in the same boat. Plus, the entire advertising ecosystem benefits from providing more data to advertisers to use in decisioning.

Takeaways

At the end of the day, it is good to be informed of the changes coming our way, but there is no need to be stressed when reading the latest apocalyptic headline. Third party cookies are going away, but some new and maybe even better solution will take its place.

At Adventure Ad Agency, we look to the future for our clients are future proof our advertising to handle everything from COVID-19 to the death of the third party cookie! Contact us to learn more about Adventure Ad Agency.

Advertising during COVID-19

Advertising during COVID-19

The past few weeks have been a time of unprecedented disruption to almost every part of our daily lives. The current pandemic has upended our routines and changed the way businesses do business.

Many businesses have been required to close their physical doors and covert to fully online sales. Other “essential” businesses have been navigating how to keep their employees safe and healthy while still trying to meet their customers needs and heightened expectations. Still other businesses are facing the harsh reality of not being allowed to do business at all.

No matter the situation, Adventure Ad Agency is working with each and every one of our clients to help them succeed even under these strange and challenging circumstances. Regardless of what your current situation is as a business owner or employee, we are hear to remind you that life and business can still go on, and as we all adjust to new ways of communicating and doing business, we are here for you.

While it may be challenging to worry about advertising during a pandemic, there are numerous opportunities for businesses to continue to reach out to their customers, build brand awareness, and attract business.

Here are some of the ways adverting is more important than ever during COVID-19 and how you can do your best to help your business succeed:

Embrace Social Media

Social media was critical to any business before the current pandemic. However, with people stuck at home spending countless hours on their phone unable to interact normally with their peers in social settings, social media has become even more important.

Your customers are stuck at home on their Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube account, and more. If you weren’t active on your social media before, get active! If you are, think of new ways to promote your business or simply stay in touch with your customers.

1. Post an update on how your business is effected by COVID-19.

If you are open for business, how are you protecting both your employees are customers? Have your hours of operation changed? How can customers get in touch with you? Let your social media family know what is going on. Keeping your customer base and potential new customers informed is important.

2. Share resources.

In times like these, communication is key. Along with posting updates about how your business is adapting to COVID-19, share resources to help your clients stay in touch. If you have a new online order system, share the link. Provide answers to FAQs and local government announcements pertaining to your business.

3. Try something new.

Do not be afraid to try something new. Many businesses are trying Facebook Live for the first time. Clothing stores have put on Facebook live fashion shows. Law offices have done live Q&As with customers. Restaurants have started contests asking customers to share images of the enjoying their food to win a gift card.

What do all of these business have in common? They are trying something new. Even if these ideas aren’t new to you, keep up the good work. Look at what other business are doing for inspiration. Just keep trying!

4. Stay in touch. Build community.

At the end of the day, just stay active on social media. It will build brand awareness and ensure your customers don’t forget about you in the meantime. Now is a great time to build community and support one another. Use your social media account to build community.

Focus on What Matters & Adapt

With the current pandemic, your advertising plan is going to have to change. What you thought would work a few months ago won’t work in the current landscape and that is okay. You may have to lower your advertising spend or switch from one medium to another. The key is knowing how to adapt and planning ahead.

1. Know your business.

At Adventure Ad Agency, we work with our clients to fully understand the business of each and every one of our clients .This is critical to creating and implementing a successful advertising strategy and campaign.

As a business owner or employee, you are likely hyper-focused on ensuring your company can brave the storm of COVID-19. You know best what you need and your advertising plan should be specifically designed to do just that.

2. Be adaptable.

Sometimes it feels like the current rules and regulations change everyday. As you are looking to adjust your advertising strategy during this pandemic, be sure to remain adaptable.

3. Try new ways of advertising.

Just like with social media you should try new things, now is the time to try new advertising strategies. These are new times with new needs. You may find that something you haven’t tried before because it didn’t make sense for your business needs at the time is now the perfect fit. Many businesses are still just starting to explore online advertising. However, with many people stuck at home, online is where your customers are.

Hopefully these tips have helped inspire new ideas and served as important reminders to help your business during COVID-19. Advertising is a powerful tool that can help businesses survive in challenging times and thrive in even better ones. No matter your current situation, the team at Adventure Ad Agency is here to help and hopes you are staying safe and healthy!

If you have questions about how Adventure Ad Agency can help , contact us today! For more advertising insights, explore our blog or call us at 1-864-400-9920.

Adventure Ad Agency Team

Visit Our New Office Location!

Adventure Ad Agency is excited to announce that we have moved offices. Come visit us at our new Greenville office location conveniently located close to the Bon Secours Wellness Arena and I-385!

We are growing. Thus, we needed more space in order to continue bringing our clients and partners the highest quality advertising services.

Come visit us today at 1010 East North Street, Suite B2, Greenville, SC 29601!

Brand Personas

Building Brand Personas to Enhance Advertising Efforts

Never heard of a brand persona before? No worries. That is why we are here to help. Every billboard advertisement, social media post, and marketing flyer is an opportunity for you to tell your customers who you are and what you are all about. Each of different items are influenced by brand personas. Thus, understanding what brand personas are and how they can be used will allow you to take full advantage of those advertising opportunities and help you convert your audience to customers.

What is a Brand Persona?

It’s not that complicated. Your brand persona is the personality or “voice” of your business that shines through your advertising. In simple terms, it is your brand’s personality.

“A well-crafted buyer persona (or customer persona, audience persona, or marketing persona) allows you to personalize your marketing on a large scale by humanizing core target groups of your customer base.”

Hootsuite

If you sell children’s clothing, your brand persona will likely need to be fun, light-hearted, and compassionate. However, if you sell motorcycles, you will need an entirely different brand persona. Your brand persona will be fierce, fiery, and fun. There will be more room for adult humor or content that would be completely unacceptable from a children’s store.

Why Does it Matter?

You may be wondering how this is different from your brand. Your brand persona and your brand should be closely aligned. However, brand personas focus specifically on the personality you are using to communicating your brand across different mediums and platforms.

While you should have one brand, you can have one or multiple brand personas. In fact, we encourage multiple personas.

The Importance of Multiple Brand Personas

When you are selling a product or service, you always want to be sure to consider your audience. The way you may sell a pencil, for example, to a 5 year old boy and a 30 year old woman would be very different. In advertising, this is the same. The way you communicate or reach your audience should depend on who your audience is and what they care about.

The various platforms you use to market your product are different and have different audiences. The way you speak to your followers on Facebook should be very different from how you communicate with your followers on LinkedIn.

Understanding your audience will allow you to build better brand personas. Your LinkedIn brand persona will be different from your Facebook. Taking the time and effort to carefully craft these identities can pay off in the long run.

The Challenges of Multiple Brand Personas

However, one of the biggest challenges is balancing multiple brand personas while still managing to maintain one cohesive brand.

Here is the way I like to think about it. We as individuals have one brand or identity. However, we have multiple different personas or aspects of our personalities. We show different aspects of ourselves at work, with friends, and around our families. We don’t speak to our grandmother the way we speak to our boss or our friend.

Brand personas are the same. You should keep your brand or business identity consistent across platforms, but you should also craft a specific brand persona for each platform or medium.

Whether or not your realize it, these small things are big things for businesses. Your brand persona can draw customers in or turn them away.

One of the biggest challenges of brand personas is balancing multiple brand personas while still maintaining one cohesive brand. Make sure to constant ask yourself – does this still align with my primary brand.

Building your Brand Persona

There are tons of great resources providing tips on how to create a brand persona such as Weebly or Buffer. Here are a few of our favorite tips from Forbes:

  • “Develop your personas around the 20% of your customers who account for 80% of your income.”  – Ahmad Kareh, Twistlab Marketing
  • “By understanding their problem or challenge, you can determine how your product or service can best help them, where they may be typically seeking information on how to solve that problem, and even brainstorm content ideas that will engage with this persona.” – Elyse Flynn Meyer, Prism Global Marketing Solutions
  • “Consumers today expect that a brand persona be honest, human and true, but all that can be bolstered when the brand shows it really cares about higher-order ideals like community, humanity or citizenship.” – Daryl McCullough, Citizen Relations
  • “Considering the platforms, channels, times of day and overall communication method that is best for each persona will help ensure your ads are optimized for that audience.” – Ben LeDonni, CreativeMMS

If you have questions about how Adventure Ad Agency can help you build your brand personas or rejuvenate your advertising strategy, contact us today! For more ad insights, explore our blog or call us at 1-864-400-9920.

Social Media Planning

Getting the Most from your Social Media Marketing in 5 Easy Steps

If you are a business owner or marketing manager, social media can often find itself becoming a low priority item on your busy day to day agenda. There is a misconception that it can be an ad-hock exercise when you have a few minutes of time to spare.

Unfortunately though, if this is your social media approach, you are likely not getting the most out of your marketing as you should be. More importantly, you are also missing out on the opportunity to build brand awareness and engage with customers.

While it can be tricky to know where to start to improve your social media, it is most important that you start some where. Just by being proactive in your planning and strategy, you will see improvement.

If you’re interested in taking your social media marketing to the next level and getting the most out of your efforts, follow our five easy steps to social media success.

1. Integrate your Social Media into your Marketing Plans

Stop thinking about social media as a separate effort from your main marketing mix. No matter how you advertise and market yourself, you need to be cohesive across all channels.

While your twitter brand persona may fun and quirky and your LinkedIn brand persona may be professional, the messages and organization values should be consistent across platform and across digital, social, and traditional advertising channels.

Your social media strategy should not be separate from your advertising or marketing strategy. Instead, your business marketing strategy should guide your social media planning. When you plan an advertising campaign, it should be a focus in traditional advertising as well as social.

2. Perform a Social Media Audit.

Once you’ve begun thinking about social media as a part of your larger business strategy, it is important to take a hard, honest look at your platforms. Ask yourself …

  1. How does reality compare to my expectations?
  2. Am I communicating the values of my business consistently, accurately, and to the best of my ability?
  3. Am I engaging with my audience in an informative and helpful manner (not just trying to sell products/services)?
  4. Are my brand messages consistent across platforms?
  5. Have I developed different personas for each platform? If yes, are these the correct personas?

While this is not an entire list of questions, it is a good starting point. The best way to get a thorough and accurate assessment of your social media platforms is to perform a social media audit.

Quite simply, this is a formal process where you document the status of each of your platforms. After the analysis, you can step back, see what is missing or doesn’t align, and then adjust from there. Hootsuite has a fantastic free guide and template you can use for your social media audit.

3. Understand your Audience

Your marketing messages should be directly informed by the audience on the platform you are using. For example, radio ads and television ads are extremely different. This is for obvious reasons as on television you can see the advertisement and on the radio you can only hear voices.

While the difference between social media platforms is not as extreme, it would still be wrong to assume your messaging should be the same on each platform. The platforms are different and so are the audiences.

Understanding your audience on each platform is key to success. The best way to do this – spend the time researching.

Check out these amazing resources from Hootsuite:

From this demographic information, you can make informed and educated decisions about content, timing, and more. This brings me to the question – does what I post actually matter?

4. Build an Editorial Calendar

Yes! What you post absolutely matters. Often, this is how you can tell an ad-hock social media plan from an informed planned one. While it is important to be timely and post relevant interesting content, it is also important to be prepared.

One of the best ways to stay on top of your social media planning is to build an editorial calendar. This is a tool to organize your content and plan out what, when, and how you will post to the various platforms you choose.

When we handle a client’s social media, we start with an editorial calendar. This allows us to plan out how often we want to post and ideal times to post, but it also ensures we take the time to think through what we are posting.

Not only does this allow for collaboration with the client, it also allows us to stay on top of sticking to consistent brand messaging. Because we aren’t rushed to post, we have time to think through different brand personas and communicate differently on different platforms to different audiences.

There are many different ways to build an editorial calendar, but yours should be design in a way that is best for your business. Here is one source that provides a free template as a starting point.

5. Measure it. Strive for Excellence.

Social media is both an art and a science. Because of the digital world we live in, marketing managers and business owners have access to lots and lots of data. We can see massive amounts of information. However, this can be a blessing or a curse.

It is easy to get overwhelmed with all of the information and not do anything with it. However, you are then missing out on useful information that can take your social media planning to the next level.

There is no one size fits all way to view your data and analytics, but finding what is best for you and your business is critical. Hootsuite provides tons of resources on how to look at your analytics, including this free guide.

Last but not least, if you make it through all five of these steps, keep going. Never stop evaluating through audits, staying up on the latest audience trends, utilizing an editorial calendar or planning system, and measuring your success. However, if you do only one think, start thinking about your social media as a part of your whole marketing strategy. You will start building more value from your efforts immediately.

For more information on how to drive value for your business through marketing and advertising, explore our blog, contact us here or call us at 1-864-400-9920.