As we emerge from this trying time, marketing efforts will have to adapt and user-generated content (UGC) has never been more important for hospitality to connect and communicate trust and safety with guests and visitors in a post COVID-19 world.

Cleanliness is Paramount

As travelers emerge from the safety of their homes, their number one concern is the cleanliness of their alternative accommodations. As reported in Longwood’s Travel Sentiment Study at the end of June, the two factors most important to travelers are a clear and thorough cleaning plan (43% of those surveyed) and staff health checks and strict use of personal protective equipment (34%). And the industry is quickly taking note to keep up with this abrupt change of guest preferences. 

The Chicago Tribune reports that Hilton has teamed up with the Mayo Clinic and the maker of Lysol to develop cleaning procedures for the COVID-19 era, and Airbnb is creating cleaning protocols for their hosts with guidance from a former U.S. Surgeon General. Johns Hopkins Medicine International is consulting Four Seasons on health and safety decisions, while the Westin Houston Medical Center is the first hotel to employ germ-busting robots that scan rooms with a UV light to kill bacteria, fungi and viruses. 

A hotel’s cleaning efforts are the new hot amenity

Hospitality marketers would be wise to clue in on this, showcasing the efforts that a brand goes to in order to ensure a clean and safe experience. Highlighting these stories—and the frontline employees who are ensuring safety—through guest user-generated content in traditional advertising, digital efforts and social media will be key in revitalizing consumer confidence in the hospitality industry. 

Focusing on cleanliness is not going to be a one-and-done campaign. The Points Guy suggests that a “clean certification” could be on the horizon, and industry experts believe that it is going to take until 2023 for the hospitality industry to reach pre-pandemic levels. So buckle up—the emphasis on hygiene is most likely going to become a fixture in your marketing strategy.

Travel is Happening Closer to Home

While many tourists are anxious to fly the friendly skies, one cornerstone of the American family has returned: the road trip. 

“Tourism recovery typically begins locally,” Elizabeth Monahan, spokesperson for Tripadvisor.com, recently told CNBC. “Travelers tend to first venture out closer to home, and visit their local eateries, stay local for a weekend getaway or travel domestically before a robust demand for international travel returns.”

The Longwood’s Travel Sentiment Study at the end of June validated Monahan’s assessment, stating that 30 percent of the respondents had changed their travel plans to a destination they could reach by car. One possible reason? People are more aware of the recovery efforts in their locale and are more willing to get their R&R in the immediate vicinity.

Marketers should begin shifting their marketing efforts from attracting outside visitors to becoming more attuned to a local audience. A focus on ads both in town and in markets that are a reasonable drive away will become the norm. And one savvy play will be to engage local social media audiences in “staycation” campaigns. 

Tapping into local social media users that create content makes a lot of sense in the COVID-19 landscape. Make no mistake, social media users don’t have to have millions of followers to be effective. Micro- and nano-influencers are family members, friends or coworkers who have a small but mighty social media presence. 

Their voice matters to their smaller audience because it is perceived as being authentic. When they recommend an experience, a brand, or a hotel, their word is as genuine as advice from a friend. With TINT —you can easily engage these “real” audiences and kickstart local campaigns to promote social contests and see who is posting about your brand or using related keywords in a very quick and visual manner. This content can be used to further show how real people are engaging with and trusting your brand.

Socially Distant Amenities

In a world where we have to mask up and be six feet apart, many of the hotel amenities of yesterday are just not practical, but that doesn’t mean you can’t deliver a special experience for guests on your property. 

USA Today recently reported on the socially distant amenities that Hyatt is offering to guests at locations across the country. For lovebirds looking to tie the knot, the Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe offers a private, in-person wedding ceremony that can be streamed to friends and family at home. Missing the camaraderie—and stiff drinks—at the lobby’s cocktail bar? Some Hyatt locations will send up mixers and liquor to your room and host a Zoom session to show you how to properly shake or stir your drink. And the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach in California is offering a picnic basket dinner along with blankets for guests to enjoy a bite and watch the sunset over the Pacific.

The key is to drive social connection even while being physically distant. Brands should encourage staff to get creative on how to connect with guests and test out novel ideas—you never know what will stick. 

And when you find a winning experience, be sure to provide the hotel’s social media handles and hashtag for consumers to use in social posts. This simple ask is an easy way to encourage hotel guests to create user-generated content (UGC) that lauds the creativity of your property.

The UGC Platform to Connect with Guests

As the hospitality industry recovers, it’s important to understand how much UGC can connect your brand to guests.

TINT surfaces content that your guests create, and makes it easy to secure permissions to repurpose that content across your marketing campaigns, web galleries, and social media platforms. 

We’re here to help. Our content and social experts are available for a no-obligation consultation. Together, we’ll walk through a blueprint designed to scale as your guests return. Schedule a time to chat.

The post Hospitality Marketing in a Post COVID-19 World appeared first on TINT.

This blog was co-written by Brenda Courtney, SEO Content Specialist at Innov8 Place.

How Does UGC Help SEO? 

1. Gain long-tail keywords and keyphrases from customer reviews.
2. UGC Supports Voice Search Optimization.
3. UGC is a Tool for Content Sourcing
4. UGC Can Boost Your Search Visibility and Domain Authority
5. UGC supercharges Social Media’s effect on SEO
6. Watch Out for Poison UGC!

1. Gain Long-tail keywords and keyphrases from customer reviews

Reviews, customer testimonials, and client quotes have been a staple of UGC since the inception of the marketing website. They provide affirmation that your audience is making a good choice backed by the authority of other users and previous customers.  A 2017 study done by Search Engine Journal found that 67% of customers are influenced by reviews. Influence Central found that 43% of people check reviews before making any online purchase. Digital marketers have (unintentionally?) also been driving SEO with the incorporation of review-type UGC into their websites. 

Online reviews have the unique ability to supercharger long-tail keywords. According to SEO tool ahrefs, long-tail keywords are “low-volume, highly-focused search queries”. These types of keywords can seem counterintuitive to standard SEO practices that focus on high volume, “popular” queries. But long-tail keywords, targeted through UGC, drive action. Low search volume has high value. People searching for these terms often have specific purchase intent or specialized use-cases. The granularity of these terms is often too specific to justify running elaborate pay per click marketing efforts against them. But adding UGC that incorporates these keywords allows pages to rank for them in search without requiring customized keyword-focused landing pages or costly paid search campaigns. 

2. UGC supports Voice Search Optimization

With the continued growth of voice search, companies are striving to become the featured snippet to capture voice search results. In an Adobe study, 48% of polled consumer use, or have used, voice search. Of those, 85% used it on their smartphones and 39% used smart speakers. Those numbers continue to trend upwards. 

As mentioned, UGC is a goldmine for long-tail keywords. Review-type UGC features natural language that mirrors the way that people would search for content by voice. People speak differently than they type, and search intent matches that. Becoming Human, an Artificial Intelligence Magazine, says that both Google and Bing (and the voice assistants that draw from them) seek the “closest-to-perfect” search result that matches conversational questions.

Having a variety of reviews that represent the verticals or personas that a company markets against is key to capturing the more obscure and specific searchers. Marketers can spend eons attempting to map out all the inbound pathways that someone could search for their product or service. UGC is a great starting place. 

3. A Tool For Content Sourcing

There is no argument that content is king. HubSpot found that content marketing produces up to a 13x positive ROI compared to other similar types of marketing. To achieve this, HubSpot recommends between 3 and 5 pieces of content each week to maximize efforts for organic traffic and brand awareness. Generating content on time, at that scale, can be difficult. UGC helps you tap into the wonderful content creators that are within your audience.

Branded content marketing, although great in small doses, is becoming overused and audiences finding it less sincere. Let’s face it, the number of brands using trending memes to bring awareness to themselves is starting to become white noise. To truly create dynamic content there needs to be a balance between branded voice and authentic user narratives. Use UGC to help create this. Share a variety of UGC to appeal to the various “tribes” within your customer community. 

One-quarter of search results (25%) for the world’s biggest brands are links to user generated content.  Websites that featured user content saw a 20% increase in return visitors. Additionally, these websites recorded a whopping 90% increase in time spent on-site. 

Need more convincing? Check out 46 Mind-Blowing Stats about User Generated Content. 

4. UGC Can Boost Your Search Visibility and Domain Authority

In early SEO and Search Engine Marketing (SEM), it was all about keywords and building backlinks. With these being the only two components of SEO it wasn’t long before these tactics lead to spammy links and keyword stuffing. Over time, search algorithms have become much more sophisticated and have started to focus on finding trustworthy sites that fit a user’s search intent. 

UGC is a great way to get new content onto your site. That new content will be indexed and crawled by search engines. As your content is shown as useful -low bounce and high engagement- your content will naturally rank higher. This higher ranking content is more likely to linked or referenced by other content. 

Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). It is a comparative tool that lets you score content and website strength against other websites, such as competitors. As content is implemented, consider how it will affect DA. Organic “page-one” SERP results are more valuable than the best-crafted paid search ad. 

5. Social Media affects SEO

The effects of Social Media on SEO can be a contentious one. It 2014, it was announced that the Google search algorithm was not affected by the engagement and activity of social platforms. It seemed to make sense at the time. Social Media, with its massive proliferation and exponentially growing number of pages, would hold too much sway over search results. Popularity would overshadow usefulness and accuracy. Google still maintains that social signals do not have any significant effect on SEO. 

In 2018 and 2019, Hootsuite and Neil Patel (respectively) tested the SEO results of content on social. Both of their research found that Google was correct in saying that social signals did not affect SEO and SERP ranking. But, that is not the complete story. 

Hootsuite found that there is an indirect relationship between social media and SEO. “Content that performs well on social will likely earn more backlinks, which helps boost search rank.” Particularly in the short-term, social engagement drove positive trends in backlinks, referencing domains, and overall ranking. It also expedited the distribution and general awareness of the content, increasing visitor traffic. 

Combine this knowledge with the fact that UGC converts more effectively, increases engagement, and drives action. You have a recipe for SEO success that can be quickly integrated into your current social marketing strategy. 

Neil Patel adds that you shouldn’t exclude Bing, which is generally more amenable to social traffic. Approximately 30% of search traffic in the US (2018) was served through Bing. That 10% global search market share could be just the customers you’re looking for. 

Watch Out for Poison UGC

As much as using UGC can improve your SEO, it can also do some damage if you are not monitoring it. This is especially critical when you open up comments, testimonials, and reviews on your site. One poor review or testimonial that goes unnoticed and unanswered can have a negative impact not only on your brand but also your search results. You can actually start to rank for negative terms and if you have savvy competitors they will be looking for that in their opposition research.

You should also keep an eye out for spam. Spam posting and low-quality content can quickly hurt even the most SEO rich site. Spam filled comments will hurt rankings and start to transform your site into something that search algorithms perceive as insecure and lacking authority. . It’s important to put in place both a spam filter and to self manage what content gets posted. 
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There has never been a better time to incorporate user generated content into your marketing. It not only supports your specific calls to action but also has a holistic effect that can improve the overall authority and search optimization of your website.

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Innov8 Place is a premier digital studio specializing in web design, search optimization, and custom database construction. From API integration to eCommerce enablement, Innov8 builds websites for businesses of all sizes using only US-based developers. They offer a variety of technical and SEO maintenance plans to keep your site up and ranking. Learn more about Innov8.Place. 

TINT helps the world’s top brands with UGC discovery, activation, and implementation. Learn how UGC can invigorate your marketing and support your search engine optimization strategies, talk with one of our UGC specialists today.

The post Five Ways UGC Boosts SEO appeared first on TINT.

Add a Personal Touch 

The most powerful is the most personal. Guests don’t want to be viewed simply as a head-in-a-bed, they want to feel important and valued. Luckily, in the hospitality industry, there is plenty of opportunity for making it personal. 

When a team learns something about a guest, they should act on it. Couple in the corner suite celebrating an anniversary? Send up a bottle of champagne and strawberries. Business executive mentioned he saw his favorite beer in the bar? Send over a pint or a drink ticket to comp out his next pour. 

These small gestures may be Hospitality 101 for many concierge teams, but the intention here is specific—get people to post about this experience online. So push that anniversary gift a little further and make sure to include a note with the hotel’s current hashtag or Instagram handle. That gentle reminder can be enough to move that gift basket from a word of praise shared between two guests, to an Instagram story shared with hundreds of potential customers. 

Make Your Space ‘Insta-Worthy’

Social media is often referred to as the highlight reel of our lives. For a property to make it onto someone’s social feed, there must be something worth sharing, something with a “wow” factor. 

It may be a fantastic view, a mural or a welcome wall with eye-catching art—the exact element doesn’t matter. Rather, it is the intention of creating these spaces and opportunities for guests to share their experience. 

A fantastic example of this is seen at The Surfjack Hotel & Swim Club in Waikiki, Hawaii. Tucked away from the beach in Honolulu, The Surfjack doesn’t enjoy the ocean views that may come to mind when you imagine a hotel in paradise. However, The Surfjack still boasts one of the most recognizable and Instagrammable focal points in the dense Waikiki tourist district. Their “Wish You Were Here” pool is a ready-made postcard right there in the center of the hotel. The pool is a place people want to be and be seen, making it social media catnip.

Inspire UGC with a TINTmix Digital Signage Wall  

Even without the Instagrammable focal point, it’s possible to create a physical reminder to encourage guests to engage with the help of our TINTmix product. This visually appealing feature can round up the most exciting guest snapshots, owned media and even advertisements. 

Utilizing TINTmix, properties can create a physical space that both showcases the UGC of scores of guests and provides an opportunity for new guests to contribute. Social media, at its core, is about sharing stories. When guests are reminded that others have shared their experiences at a property, they are much more likely to do the same. 

Be Present on Social Media 

It may seem obvious, but simply being present and not allowing social channels to become stale is a massively effective way to encourage UGC. This doesn’t mean just posting regularly, but also responding to questions and comments with a genuine voice. 

If a brand is asking guests to join in on the conversation, the brand should be the one to lead that conversation. This can mean responding to comments and DMs, liking followers’ content, following back or even running contests and giveaways. 

Having an active presence on social media shows guests that a brand’s social channels are a place where their voice can be heard and valued. That trust and connection is invaluable and can’t truly be replicated anywhere else in the marketing stack. 

A Simple Ask 

Even if a property is picture perfect, it’s unlikely that all the guests will want to post on social media about their experience. What’s more likely is that the majority of guests have a great experience and, while they might be grateful and have a positive view of the hotel, they won’t create a social media post about that experience without a prompt or reminder. The act of asking guests to post on social doesn’t have to be cringeworthy, though. 

Something as simple as including the hotel hashtag or Instagram handle in a check-in or check-out email or even on the room keycard can serve as a perfect reminder. Brands ask for reviews this way all the time, so a social media post is just a different version of that same ask. 

Start the Conversation and Build Your Community

It may not be any single one of these strategies or tools that gets a guest to post about the hotel. Often, it’s a mix of all five—remember to provide multiple opportunities for a guest to share their story. 

TINT can help make those opportunities effective and plentiful. Are you ready to start the conversation around your property and build your community? Contact us to schedule a demo and see how we can help encourage your guests to become marketers! 

This post was contributed by Chrissy Chavez. Photo by yeongkyeong lee on Unsplash.

The post 5 Ways to Encourage Guests to Post About Your Hotel appeared first on TINT.

Make an Impression with Image Walls

A successful property isn’t simply providing a comfortable bed and a place for guests to safely rest—it’s creating an entire experience. And one way to drive home that experience is provide a sneak peek at the front desk of what’s to come by repurposing other users’ photos on a digital image wall.

This type of dynamic content creates connections to other real guests and encourages customers to leave their own mark and contribute to the conversation. San Antonio Startup Week recently used the TINT Digital Signage product to help connect event guests across 14 different venues. The product helped this small team curate content across multiple venues while organizers focused on keeping the event running smoothly. Hospitality brands can create that same wow factor by implementing this strategy: as guests check out the amenities of your hotel, encourage them to check in via social to be featured on the image wall right in front of them.

Show Authentic Guest Experiences on Your Website

Web content is a great place to incorporate UGC. While there are merits to spending money on a staged photo shoot, UGC complements those highly produced images by bringing free content with the unique and authentic perspective of the consumer. This style of content is relatable for potential guests as it gives the inside scoop of what the property is really like.

Hospitality brands can tap into that honesty by using UGC on booking pages to show potential guests the type of experiences they, too, can expect to have when booking a stay. Loews Hotels & Co. has fantastic UGC web implementation on their website’s #TravelForReal landing page. It’s word-of-mouth advertising at the last touch point before a guest books—a crucial time to turn a prospect into a paying customer.

Take Online UGC Offline with Printed Material 

Many loyal customers don’t just support their favorite brands, they love them. This is one of the key drivers to guests posting about your hotel or hospitality brand while traveling. Return the love and put your guests—and the guest experience—at the forefront by repurposing online UGC in the offline world of printed material.

Once again, Loews Hotels & Co. really capitalizes on this strategy. They have repurposed high-quality UGC in a number of their print ads, creating a glimpse into their hotel’s experience that may be lacking in a typical corporate photo. Rather than having their creative team approximate the types of lifestyle photos that are insanely popular on social media, they go straight to the source by repurposing their guests’ photos.

Furthermore, Loews has even used UGC photos on their guest room keys. This seemingly small change has a big impact. Now, every time a guest opens their room, they won’t just be looking at a nondescript key card, but getting a glimpse into another guest’s experience—and maybe inspiration to create one of their own while on the trip. None of those reminders are focused on the specs of the state-of-the-art Olympic-sized pool or the chef’s accomplishments at 4-star restaurant. Instead, photos by guests that focus on the outcomes—the experience, memories and moments—over a hotel’s features is where UGC really shines. 

Email Newsletter Spotlights

While social media algorithms and policies can change on a dime, email is one of the few channels brands have almost complete control over. An opt-in channel like this is a perfect place to utilize UGC for a variety of reasons: 

1. Make Customers Feel Special
   Taking the opportunity to celebrate and spotlight customers is a fantastic way to say thank you to loyal customers and make them feel like they are a part of the community around a brand. Starting a “Customer of the Week/Month” is a great way to engage customers and show off the Insta-worthy aspects of the product or experience.
   
2. Educate Customers About Other Products
   Newsletters are a great way to turn what might have been one-time guests into loyal customers by showing what else the brand has to offer. If a customer has only stayed at one property, showing UGC from a different locale might entice that customer to book a new trip or set their default to your brand the next time they happen to be traveling to that city. Giving customers otherwise nonexistent exposure to the rest of the brand’s portfolio is a leg up on your competition.portfolio is a leg up on your competition. 
   
3. Create a Positive Feedback Loop
   Being featured in a newsletter read by thousands or millions creates a positive feedback loop for your guests. By repurposing other guests’ photos in your newsletter, you incentivize customers to use the hashtag and tag the brand when posting photos to social media in hopes that maybe their experience will also be shared. This makes your customer feel important and benefits the brand.

Expand the Power of Your UGC Beyond Social Media

The power of UGC is in its ability to tell authentic stories that connect people to your brand. The possibilities for that connection are endless and extend well beyond social media. That’s where TINT can really help out your business.

With tools like TINT’s Content Aggregator, Machine Learning Content Curator and Digital Signage, we can help elevate your hospitality brand’s story and connect to more customers. If you want to learn more about how to expand your brand’s use of UGC, contact us at TINT to schedule a demo today. 

Garrett Heath is a social media and content marketing consultant and founder of MarketingBytes.io. Chrissy Chavez also contributed research and writing to this article.

The post 4 Ways to Use UGC Beyond Social Media appeared first on TINT.

How frequently should I publish content? 

It’s a common question. And the answer is, usually, annoyingly vague: It depends. It depends on your marketing goals, your manpower, and your bank account.

Unfortunately, most of us don’t have HubSpot-level budgets. The company’s marketing blog dominates dozens of organic search terms by cranking out 20 to 25 posts per week. 

As a lead writer for an inbound agency, I wrote a minimum of 16 comprehensive articles per month for clients. The articles were well-researched, relatively entertaining and averaged 1,200 words per post. Significant spikes in traffic came after consistently publishing content for 8 to 12 months. 

Both quantity AND quality mattered when it came to ranking our clients for competitive keywords. If you’ve never reaped the rewards of a well-executed SEO strategy, that may sound like too much work. Understandably, this is why many SMBs turn to paid advertisements. 

Unlike inbound marketing, social media and PPC ads deliver instant traffic. The only problem? The leads stop coming when you stop paying. Though I felt good about achieving cumulative results for our clients — traffic that would keep coming long after they stopped paying us — I often found myself wondering: 

Are expensive paid advertising campaigns and labor-intensive SEO really the only options for increasing site traffic, high-quality leads and brand awareness? 

Around this time, I began working with early-stage startups who seemed to be in a catch-22: They didn’t have the budget for huge ad spend, nor did they have the time to write 4-6 posts per week. 

This conundrum led to my discovering a handful of online marketers who appeared to be working smarter, not harder. Case in point: Brian Dean of Backlinko published less than one post per month from 2012 to 2017, for a total of 53 articles. As reported by BuzzSumo, the posts drove nearly 4 million visitors to his site and generated an impressive 2,490 shares per article on average. 

In this article, I’ll share some tips I’ve picked up from marketers like Brian that I’ve begun experimenting with.

How to Generate Better ROI: Publish Less Content

Unsurprisingly, the “secret” to gaining better ROI with less content isn’t so secret… 

It’s producing original, in-depth, and well-researched content, before strategically promoting it. Instead of spending 1 to 2 hours to create a 500-word post like the average marketer, you might spend 12 to 20 hours crafting a truly original, 1500-to-3500-word post. 

Translation: Marketers must get buy-in from key stakeholders to put more money into more thoughtful content upfront and then organically promote that content like gangbusters. You should publish less content and syndicate more (and more effectively).

“You don’t have to create content, day in, and day out,” says Derek Halpern, Social Triggers founder. “You just have to work on getting the content you already have… in the hands of more people.”

As Halpern shrewdly points out, spending 80 percent of your time creating content and 20 percent of your time promoting it makes zero sense for small marketing teams. Informal studies reveal that only 10 percent of the content you make will “rise to the top,” anyways. 

For example, large publishing platforms like Forbes rely on contributor networks to publish thousands of articles per day. Why? Because they know a small fraction of those average 500-word articles will generate buzz.  

This means scrappy content marketers should devote more time to promoting content than they do creating it. In other words, you have to hustle to get your content seen before the SEO begins kicking in. So, why not create something that your target audience would find truly useful, remarkable and worthy of sharing? 

Here are three tips for putting the “less is more” approach into practice:

1. Publish epic “case studies” on Medium

A few years ago, my colleague Ali Mese found himself weary from the pressure of cranking out content to grow his personal brand. So, he vowed to only “hit publish” when had something truly original to say: 

“The more I focused on helping my startup clients to grow, the more firsthand lessons I learned,” Mese says. “And every time I learned something through that experience, I logged onto Medium and published a new story… In the most cluttered marketplace in history, readers’ attention is fleeting and it is our job as writers to constantly earn the attention and trust of our audience.” 

Mese has since grown his readership like bananas on a Costa Rican farm in the summer by publishing one high-quality article every 2 months on the platform.

Mese replicates these results for his own clients, thus raising brand awareness and quality leads, by taking a three-fold approach: 

1. He emphasizes real numbers while utilizing superb storytelling. 
2. He pitches publications that already have large readerships.
3. He invests in promoting Medium articles on Twitter. 

Medium’s algorithm, theoretically, promotes the pieces with the most “claps” to the community’s recommended page. However, gaining initial traction can be challenging. 

For this reason, savvy marketers invest in small paid advertising campaigns that drive traffic to their Medium articles. Assuming you are targeting the right audience, and your posts are super interesting, your early promotional efforts will have a cumulative effect on future publishing success.

Upon correct execution, this strategy results in getting noticed by Medium staff, appearing on featured tag pages and being promoted in the platform’s email newsletters. Though some marketers prefer to reserve their non-SEO-worthy ideas for Medium articles, others are comfortable cross-publishing on both blog and platform. 

After uploading a post on WordPress, and ensuring the content is indexed by search engines, you can use Medium’s WP plugin to ensure your Medium story has a ‘canonical tag’ that links to your WP version. This supposedly prevents Google from “punishing” your site for duplicate content. 

2. Become a master content distributor 

Another way to achieve better ROI with less content? Become a master content distributor that does more than post on existing social networks and call it a day. 

That’s how AppSumo’s Chris Von Wilpert came to fame. The online marketer says he generated $100,000 from one blog post by writing a strategic post and promoting it via what he dubs “The Content Promotion Flywheel.” In only 2 months, Von Wilpert attracted more than 87,000 visitors with less than $500 ad spend. 

The content marketer breaks his process into four steps:

1. Create keystone content. 
2. Build an audience of “true fans.”
3. Use free traffic multipliers: Influencer outreach, content repurposing, email list building tactics, etc.
4. Use paid traffic multipliers: Retargeting ads, social media ads, etc.

Study companies and personalities whose no. 1 channel is content marketing (i.e. Drift, Buffer, Seth Godin), and you will notice a familiar pattern: They all have unusually engaged audiences that genuinely enjoy interacting with them and one another. 

The million-dollar question is obviously: How do you build a fan-base from scratch? Loyal brand communities are built on trust, and that doesn’t happen overnight. 

Von Wilpert accelerated the trust-building process by making a list of his “Dream 100” clients, writing a juicy piece of content he knew they would love and personally sending each contact a link via email. He spent hours studying, synthesizing and translating how other SaaS companies could replicate HubSpot’s growth strategy before publishing the post: Peek Inside HubSpot’s Multi-Million-Dollar SaaS Growth Strategy.

The result? Many SaaS influencers with large audiences happily shared his “look under the hood post” with their followers via social media, including the CMO of HubSpot himself. 

Von Wilpert says any industry could replicate the same strategy with success, only the numbers might be smaller in some cases. Obviously, the entire framework hinges upon creating the right keystone content. Which brings us to point no.3: 

3. Write “epic” content 

This particular type of content goes by many names: Evergreen content, keystone content and epic content are common. I just call it “content that, actually, gets read.” 

Why? Because your target audience is genuinely interested in the subject matter at hand, and every sentence you write is enticing them to read further down the page. 

“If you want a ton of traffic – you have to make your content ‘contagious,’” says BloggerJet founder and Ahrefs CMO Tim Suolo. “By saying ‘contagious,’ I mean the kind of article that makes the reader want to share it with someone else. [This] will naturally amplify any initial traffic that you bring to it.” 

Essentially, there are two parts to creating epic content:

1. Being a good copywriter
2. Choosing the right subject matter

The former requires clear, crisp and concise communication. It also necessitates a knack for teaching via storytelling. Despite what many may believe, writing is a skill that can be developed with practice. 

Personally speaking, the more challenging aspect of the equation is identifying the perfect subject matter to write about. This is where good ole’ fashioned research comes in. 

Assuming you have already identified your dream clients, your objective is to pay attention to the kind of content they read, like and share:

• What problems are they most interested in solving?
• Who do they most admire in the industry?
• What are they most curious about?  

However, one of the easiest ways to assure your content idea has viral potential is to check a content database like Buzzsumo. 

Search for keywords related to your topic and identify what sort of headlines get shared a lot. Once you’ve proven your idea is traffic-worthy, it’s just a matter of improving upon those already-viral articles with your own unique data, stories and viewpoints. 

Additional tips for creating epic content:

• Use photos, screenshots, and graphs.
• Use plenty of subheads.
• Hard return every 2 to 3 sentences. 
• Include social sharing options. 
• Write riveting introductions. 
• Write curiosity-invoking headlines.
• Backup claims with linkable research when possible.

Obviously, this is a simplified summary of how to create shareable content, but you get the drift. Study popular articles already created by leaders within your industry to see how yours stacks up. 

Work smarter, not harder

Finally, don’t forget to repurpose the epic content you put so much effort into creating, distributing and advertising. Long blog articles can be broken into slideshares, social media posts, podcast discussions and more. 

Case in point: Buffer committed to only repurposing and refreshing existing content as an experiment in 2015. The results? Organic search traffic grew more than 4 percent and one Medium post generated 2,888 views. While we can’t all get away with publishing no new content for an entire year, most of us could stand to publish far less often. Remember: Publish less content, promote better! 

TINT helps you create better, more engaging marketing materials by incorporating user generated content into each piece of collateral. UGC converts betters, creates stronger audiences, and democratizes the content creation process. Schedule time with one of our UGC experts today to learn how TINT can help support your content marketing goals. 

The post Smart Marketers will publish less content in 2020 appeared first on TINT.

Garrett Heath is a social media and content marketing consultant and founder of MarketingBytes.io.

You may be familiar with the phrase “Content is king,” but too many people think that it should be a magician as well. Those not in the content marketing world seem to view the content creation process as akin to pulling a rabbit out of a hat: instantaneous. Unfortunately, creating content takes time. This is particularly true when it comes to making good content. Whether you’re a content marketer trying to explain why a piece can’t be done instantaneously or a manager or executive trying to understand what your team is up to, this post will help, as we dive into the four reasons why creating content is a time-intensive operation. 

1. Persona Research Is the Foundation

Before you begin writing a word, you must understand the person you’re trying to reach. Anything created before that could be in vain—at best you get an unfocused piece, at worst a monumental waste of resources. Content marketing all starts with the foundation of truly understanding and empathizing with the people you’re looking to reach. 

This is vital for your content strategy for two reasons. First, it helps you define a piece’s tone. A highly technical DevOps engineer is most likely going to want to be reached in a very different way than a less technical manager who makes buying decisions for the engineering department. Understanding the lingo and attitudes of those you’re looking to reach will ensure that the message gets through. 

Second, once you’ve identified your persona(s), you need to understand their pain points, dreams and ambitions. This should help inform you as to the types of pieces that will resonate with them and ultimately help you create a solid content calendar. This prep work takes time, but it’s necessary.

2. Interviews Take Time

While there are some content pieces that can be created in a vacuum, there are others that will require interviews with experts. Let’s consider the creation of a very technical blog article or white paper. 

Indeed, some content marketers are domain experts—think a former software developer now SaaS marketer—but often the marketer may not have the deep expertise required to produce the content. While they may logically know how someone uses their company’s product or service, the marketer may not have practical, hands-on experience with it. This means that they have to draw out that information from experts in the same way that a journalist would need to interview a source. 

Interviews are of course crucial to customer case studies. These testimonials are strong pieces in the content marketer’s arsenal for demonstrating the value of a product or service in the voice of the customer. But it does require time on the part of both marketer and customer to craft and answer questions to get those insights. 

Anytime you’re reliant on an outside source to produce a piece, the time to completion will go up. While creating this content may be your number-one priority, it probably isn’t for your source and can fall to the bottom of their list. Expect to wait a long time before they’ll schedule a call—and expect last-minute cancellations.

3. The Approval Process Equals Red Tape

Bureaucracy is real in corporate environments and can impact the time-to-market of your piece. This is especially true if you’re creating content for a regulated industry, such as finance or health. But the red tape exists in even the most mundane sectors, especially when the legal or executive team has to approve any piece before it is released. 

Furthermore, while the customer case study is a great marketing vehicle, the very nature of partnering with another organization could mean having to jump through the hoops of two bureaucratic structures to get approval. 

Red tape has derailed plenty of projects I’ve been assigned to work on. Identifying and communicating potential hiccups is key so that your team has a realistic expectation of when a piece can land.

4. Multimedia Production Doubles the Time (At Least!)

Anytime a piece requires more than the written word, the timeline can become elongated. Multimedia elements often include:

• Custom graphics to be embedded in the post or used on social media
• Design for white papers and ebooks
• Infographics 
• Video 

Each of these requires a different amount of lead time, depending on the complexity. But the result is that even though the written piece may be done, it can’t be published until all elements are complete and assembled into a cohesive whole.

Having a content calendar can help ensure that everyone across the marketing organization is on the same page and that all assets arrive on time.

In the end, after accounting for some or all of these four considerations, you’ll still need to put “pen to paper” and craft a compelling narrative.

Content Doesn’t Appear by Magic

While content is vital to all modern organizations, it often isn’t seen as a process that requires time and resources. 

But once you get your content engine going, it can inform many parts of your business: It provides organic search traffic, fodder for your newsletter, updates on social media and key information that can drive sales. 

Content is the fuel that all digital marketing efforts run on. Let’s give it the time it deserves.

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Luckily, the basics of SEO are still easy to grasp. And as a social media pro, it’s worth knowing. An enormous amount of business comes from organic search. 51% of all website traffic comes from organic search traffic and 81% of people search online before making a purchase according to Brightedge. 

The bottom line: If you’re a social media manager, learning some basic SEO will make your work more impactful.

How SEO Works at a High Level*

* For the purposes of this guide I will be using “search engine” and “Google” interchangeably with the understanding that there are many search engines in the world

First, let’s get a high-level understanding of how SEO works. Put yourself in a search engine’s shoes. As a search engine like Google, your goal is to deliver the information the searcher is looking for. The searcher’s goal is called “search intent” in SEO parlance.

If a searcher is looking for “how to fix a toaster”, you would want to deliver the most comprehensive guide to fixing toasters. If instead, the search is for “showtimes near me”, that might be a list of movie times for local theaters. In another case, the searcher could ask, “how tall is Obama?” and you would want to deliver a single definitive answer (6’1”).

All of these are different search intents.

The challenge for search engines is how to match the vast library of content on the web with these search intents. To do this, they load and keep a copy of nearly every page of every website through a process called “crawling”. 

Then each page is evaluated based on different criteria, or ranking signals to figure out which content has the highest likelihood of satisfying the searcher’s intent. These signals surface high-quality content and the very-best pages show up at the top of the search results. Google created a video to help make this process easier to understand:

When it comes to social media and SEO, these ranking signals are the main way the two interact. So, let’s dive deeper:

SEO Ranking Signals

There are hundreds of ranking signals that search engines consider. However, all of them serve a single purpose, which is to help Google identify “high-quality” content and maximize the probability that searchers are happy with the results. The most important signals can be categorized into two groups.

Engagement Ranking Signals

Engagement ranking signals show how engaged the user was while reading the content and serves as a proxy for the content’s value. The two most important metrics here are Time on Site and Bounce Rate. Meaning the longer the user stays on the page and the less they bounce, the more value the user found in the content.

For social media marketers and content creators, engagement signals are where you have the most influence. Everything from the layout of the page to the story the content tells directly impacts how engaged readers are. Later, we will go into how social media channels and UGC can be used to improve these signals and grow organic search traffic.

Fun facts: Google gives out Google Analytics for free so they can collect time on site and bounce rate information and use it in its search ranking algorithm. This is also why recipe websites are often filled with so much fluff content at the top, an unfortunate result of food bloggers gaming the system and forcing users to stay on the page longer.

Reputation Ranking Signals

Reputation ranking signals help Google understand how reputable a website is. A site like nytimes.com should obviously be considered more reputable than a small personal blog. So how does Google figure this out? 

The most important reputation signal is how often other websites link to your website. When a reputable site links to your site, they are vouching for your brand’s reputation. In the same way, Google equates these links to reputation or “domain authority”. Obtaining these inbound links, or “building backlinks” takes time and effort, but a higher authority means a higher rank for every page of a website.

One thing to keep in mind is that not all links are created equal. Links can be divided into two groups: “no follow” and “follow”. These designations tell Google whether they should follow these links when crawling a site, and whether to count a link when determining domain authority. Links from social media are “no follow” which means they do not directly contribute as a reputation ranking signal.

Although improving a site’s reputation ranking signals can take a significant effort, it’s important to consistently build backlinks at every opportunity to give your site a chance to rank. There are a variety of SEO techniques involved in doing this, which are best covered in Brian Dean’s Definitive Guide to Backlinks.

Do social media shares increase domain authority?

As was mentioned before, links from Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and other social networks aren’t directly considered in the same way that regular links are when Google calculates domain authority. Since social networks allow paid content promotion, Google does this to prevent gaming the system. Another reason for this is because social media shares happen 24/7 and take place faster than Google can crawl. Matt Cutts, the official spokesperson for Google goes into more detail here in a video:

However, one important benefit is that incoming traffic from social shares allows Google to measure time on site and bounce rate. If the content is good and visitors stick around to read it, the positive signals improve the chances the site’s content will rank well. There is also evidence that social signals do influence search engine rank. Hootsuite found a strong correlation between the two in a recent experiment.

How To Use Social Media and SEO Together

Now that we know how search engines work, how does a social media marketer use this knowledge in practice? Let’s look at a couple of real-world tactics:

Using Social Media Content (UGC) To Boost Website Engagement

For those with an existing audience, UGC is an easy way to increase visitor engagement on your site. Because engagement metrics like time on site is so important for how Google ranks content, using UGC impacts a page’s search performance.

So how do you integrate UGC into your website? With TINT, you can seamlessly integrate hashtagged and user-generated content from any social network. Simply log in, connect your social accounts, request rights to content, and add the embed code to your site. 

And even better, the benefits go beyond SEO. Users are more likely to trust the content of a website if they see content from other users. 93% of consumers find UGC to be helpful when making a purchasing decision.

Use Social Media as Inspiration for SEO Content

Creating compelling content is more difficult than ever before, and it’s essential to use every tool available to ensure your content is found online. One approach is to use social media to identify interesting topics in your industry. 

“I use Twitter to find topics that are trending now and build content around those topics that make sense for my clients. You can take it one step further and use Google Trends and Reddit to further filter content based on popularity”, says Chris Giarratana of StrategyBeam.

If you have a large enough audience, you can also use social media platforms as a testing ground to find content that resonates with your audience. This can help you develop content for search that has a better chance of ranking. Even looking at something as simple as which tweets or facebook posts gain the most likes or shares can point you in the right direction.

Use Social Media to Promote Content and Build Backlinks

Social media enables you to quickly reach website owners and build valuable backlinks. “I use social media to let various organizations and individuals know when they are referenced in a piece of content that I’ve put together. That way, there is a higher chance of them linking to my piece vs simply emailing them.  This leads to more links, and a faster climb to the top of the rankings”, says Phil Strazzulla of SelectSoftware

“Create a social media campaign designed specifically with the goal of developing your backlinks in order to increase SEO. Many social media accounts are used by sites to collect information for blogs, lists, journalism, and more. Use attractive imagery they would post on their articles with informative copy that could add to their own content and attract their attention with tags and hashtags. Not only will you be increasing your engagement on social media, and boosting your algorithm, but you’ll also be making important connections for backlinks and so much more.”, says Mia Germain of 71Above.

Use Social Media to Build SEO Partnerships

Identify a handful of prominent influencers and blogs in your space and start interacting with them

“I recommend commenting on their posts, asking questions, retweeting and sharing their posts, etc. The key is to focus on helping them, not getting what you want. Post positive feedback, promote their stuff, etc. The benefits for you will come later – your goal at the start is just to help them”, says Adam Thompson of ReliaSite.

Over time, you’ll start to build a relationship, which can lead to:

• Guest blogging opportunities
• Them sharing your posts or content
• You being able to pitch your content to be included in their piece
• Organic linking that naturally happens between high-quality publications

What SEO Tools Do I Need to Use As a Social Media Marketer?

Now that we’ve learned how to use the two channels together, what tools are the most helpful?

As a social media marketer, the SEO-tool ecosystem can be overwhelming. Most tools are tailored to the needs of a data analyst with a strong focus on metrics and reporting. Luckily, we’ve picked out a few easier-to-use SEO tools to help you harness both channels together:

Google Search Console for Content Inspiration

If you need search data, get it straight from the source. Google Search Console, or GSC, gives marketers 4 essential metrics for (almost) every page and keyword for your site: position, impression, clicks, and click-through-rate. 

Although the dashboard can be daunting at first look, the data can be invaluable for coming up with ideas for new social content. Medium to low-volume search queries are a great way to get ideas for what your social media audience is interested in reading about. It can also teach you about the vocabulary your audience uses for your product or service.

Topic for Content Optimization

Now that you’ve used Google Search Console to identify what content to create, use Topic to create compelling content that resonates with your social media audience.

Topic is a powerful content optimization tool that uses existing SEO content to give you guidance on how to write comprehensive content about a specific topic. Just paste in a specific topic that you plan to write about, and it gives you important sub-topics to talk about. An interactive editor allows you to paste in a draft and get immediate feedback.

Hootsuite for Building SEO Partnerships on Social

Hootsuite is a social management tool with many features including scheduling, analytics, and content curation. But one feature that works well with SEO is Hootsuite’s monitoring functionality. By monitoring organizations that also speak to your audience, you can develop a relationship on social that can then progress to a deeper content partnership. This can lead to valuable backlink building opportunities that would be difficult to obtain otherwise.

Key Takeaways

• Basic SEO is an essential skill for social media marketers
• Search engines use various ranking signals to match content to various search intents
• Links on social media do not directly count towards Google’s reputation ranking signal
• However, social media can still be used to influence both engagement and reputation ranking signals 
• Using user-generated content from social is a great way to increase user engagement on your website
• SEO relies on establishing relationships with other organizations and bloggers, which social media can facilitate

The post Social Media SEO and UGC: Everything You Need to Know appeared first on TINT.

Is your social media too heavy on sales? 

Is your content a lot of fluff without gravitas? 

Do you struggle to find the right mix? 

It may be time to examine your content weighting strategy on social media. 

Social Media Content Weighting Strategy is a balancing act. You need to drive engagement while still focusing on the bottom line. You need to generate goodwill with feel-good pieces even though there may not be a direct correlation to sales goals. 

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) mix, we call it content weighting strategy, tends to be taught more on the Communications side of the house in Academia. Purdue has a great brief on IMC for the uninitiated or those who need a refresher. The core concept of IMC is the consideration that external communication tools, like social media, are not just tools for selling. They are tools to distribute a holistic story about the company, brand, or product. 

Your content weighting strategy should include a mix of topics including:

• Thought Leadership
• Investor Relations
• Industry News
• Customer Spotlights
• Recruitment & Employee Relations
• Organizational Communications
• Sales Messaging
• Product Messaging

In large companies there are lots of departments to consider and an elaborate content weighting strategy is necessary to ensure that everyone’s needs are met. It is often a precarious balancing act. The marketing team will want to focus on their funnel. The sales team will want activity that immediately generates leads. The communications and public relations team will seek to tell stories that drive earned media and engagement. You’ll probably need a committee for this. 

In smaller teams, it can be easier to set an editorial calendar that aligns your marketing and communications needs. It just takes discipline to stick to the content weighting strategy.

Regardless of your team size, the content weighting strategy should balance “heavier” sales messaging with “lighter” content to ensure that your audience is not turned away by a constant barrage of “BUY NOW”. 

You can visualize the content weighting strategy as a scale. There is heavier messaging like Sales materials. These should be balanced out with lighter content like customer and employee spotlights or intermediate weight material like Thought Leadership and Industry commentary.  

Try a Content-Type Calendar

For many teams, a content-type calendar can be effective when you’re limited in your ability to plan for an entire month in a single go. 

The sample content calendar above uses a simple weighting system that typifies content while remaining agile enough to move things around when opportunities arise.

• Monday: The sample starts with lighter industry news because their team knows that this content type is effective piece on Mondays. People start their week by checking emails and looking for things that may have happened over the weekend.
• Tuesday: The Sales or advertising piece comes out on Tuesday to ensure that leads generated have plenty of time to be chased during the week.
• Wednesday: An engaging fluff piece comes out midweek alongside the heavier weekly newsletter. 

• Thursday: A thought leadership piece comes out Thursday to show industry expertise, encourage discussion, and provide the customer success team with content to share with their accounts. 

• Friday: Every Friday is a customer spotlight released in collaboration with the customer’s communication team. Employees on both sides are encouraged to share with their networks.

• Weekend: Industry clickbait or lighter news is shared over the weekend to grab the attention of people scrolling during their days off.

Not a fan of the simplified content-type calendar? Our friends at Hootsuite have a variety of great free editorial calendar templates. 

Don’t fear commitment. Find an editorial calendar and content weighting strategy that works for you… and stick to it. A good strategy will enable you to distribute great content. It should not feel stifling.

After implementing or revising a strategy, there are always a few basic next steps. 

1. Test the strategy against all social platforms. What tracks on Facebook may not work on LinkedIn or Twitter.
2. Share the content weighting strategy with everyone who has a stake in your social. It’ll help provide guidance for when content is released, deadlines to get content to the social scheduler, and help dissuade the inevitable request for “something that NEEDS to be posted right now”.
3. Stay flexible and vigilant. Social media algorithms change frequently. Your marketing personas may drift over time. Include your content calendar in your annual marketing audits. 

——-

When you’ve implemented a solid content weighting strategy, you’ll need to fill it with content. TINT helps organizations of all sizes discover beautiful content that helps increase brand authenticity, drives engagement, and supports your sales goals. Schedule a call with one of our social experts today and learn how TINT can help you achieve your marketing and communication goals. 

The post Social Content Weighting Strategy appeared first on TINT.

What’s in a Hashtag? The Story So Far

Simply put, a hashtag is a precise type of social media metadata tag that allows users to quickly find other messages containing specific types of content or themes that they find relevant.

If you’re interested in seeing pictures from Venice, Italy, for example, head over to Instagram and search for the hashtag “#Venice.” You’d see an impressive volume of published UGC containing that hashtag—allowing you to see images, videos and other posts relevant to Venice from users worldwide.

Since 2007, hashtags have dominated social networking sites like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter among others. When you consider there are now about 2.77 billion social media users worldwide, it’s easy to see why it’s rare to find someone who still calls it by its “pound sign” original name.

The Power of the Hashtag: What These Campaigns Mean for Marketers

 

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Brands can easily leverage hashtag campaigns to increase engagement in ways their audience finds interesting and relevant. If you know which popular terms people in your target audience use and follow, you can incorporate those terms into your posts to make it easier for them to find your content. This often creates its own momentum. The more you can incorporate relevant hashtags to steer a particular conversation on social media, the stronger that conversation will become. Hashtags don’t just ensure someone can hear your voice—they ensure your voice is as amplified as it can be.

Creative hashtag campaigns are used in just about every way you can imagine. #AskMeAnything is a great hashtag to encourage your audience to reach out and ask questions about your products, services, or even your industry. Anyone who wants to participate in the discussion can do so using the hashtag, making it easy for you to engage your audience and even easier for them to participate.

 

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Hashtag campaigns are also popular fixtures in giveaways on social, including Instagram contests. Search Instagram for #giveaway and you’ll see plenty of promotional campaigns that encourage users to post UGC using strategic branded hashtags to enter for a chance to win a giveaway. Not only would a hashtag campaign like this increase your audience engagement (let’s be real—everyone loves a good giveaway), it would expand the amount of positive UGC about your brand. Suddenly whenever someone searches for the hashtag associated with your brand name, they can see enthusiastic, positive UGC about you. How nice is that?

Whether your hashtags are created by your brand or organically by your audience, oftentimes the most effective hashtag campaigns tend to have some type of organic component to them. This does a great job of spurring engagement with targeted audiences who are most likely to find value in your brand. Consistent, valuable interactions over time build a relationship of trust, and that’s exactly what causes your audience to keep your brand story conversation going strong.

The Massive Influence of Gen Z

 

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The impact of hashtag campaigns is particularly important within the context of Generation Z – otherwise known as Gen Z. Born between the mid-1990s and the early 2000s, there are more than 60 million Gen Z individuals today. Collectively, this generation has roughly $44 billion in purchasing power annually, and that number could easily approach $200 billion when you consider their massive influence over parental and household purchases. Never underestimate the influence a 17-year-old has over what their parents see, experience, and ultimately, are willing to pay for.

Likewise – consider that Gen Z is expected to account for 40% of all consumers by as soon as 2020. Not only is this group influential today—their influence will increase every year. As this generation leaves school and enters the workforce, their purchasing power and disposable income will grow. It’s critical that brands take note—if you can capture the attention of Generation Z today, the returns could increase exponentially for a decade or more.

The size and power of Gen Z is enormous, and represents an incredible amount of untapped potential for savvy brands who know how to command Gen Z’s attention in a relevant, authentic and (most importantly) cool way. With this in mind, it’s no wonder we’re seeing Gen Z engagement skyrocket through hashtag campaigns that incentivize their brand engagement. So how do you create marketing campaigns with this radically different approach in mind? With hashtags, of course.

1. #ShotoniPhone – Apple

 

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One of the best examples of a successful Gen Z hashtag campaign is also among the most recent. This year Apple relaunched its #ShotOniPhone campaign – one that asked users from around the world to submit their best photos shot on an iPhone for a chance for that content to be used in a future Apple marketing campaign.

Tens of thousands of people submitted gorgeous User Generated Content on Instagram and Facebook under the hashtag before ten winning submissions were selected to be used on billboards, in Apple retail stores and online. This is important because, according to USA Today, both the iPhone and the larger Apple brand have a tremendous amount of positive buzz with Gen Z buyers.

Not only did Apple effortlessly generate an enormous amount of UGC – each one of those photos was essentially an ad for the iPhone, as they all showcased just how powerful the smartphone’s camera had become.

Apple’s #ShotOniPhone” campaign is arguably one of the best examples of leveraging UGC in a hashtag campaign like an Instagram contest. Thousands of people from around the world were incentivized to submit countless photos shot on their iPhone devices, for a chance to bring awareness to their own abilities—and maybe win a prize. As a pretty sweet result, Apple increased audience engagement and received countless beautiful UGC to use in future marketing campaigns, completely free of charge. That’s the textbook definition of a “win-win” situation.

2. #LetsDoLunch – Domino’s Pizza

This campaign from pizza giant Domino’s is a really great example of mutual trade. In other words, “if you do something for me, I’ll do something for you.” Studies show that pizza brands in particular already have the attention of Generation Z – and Domino’s has always been a leader in this space. Previously, they created quite the buzz on Twitter when allowing people to place pizza orders by tweeting a pizza emoji to Dominos.

During the campaign, Domino’s ran a promo on social that leveraged an incentive for huge discounts off a lunch order for using the #LetsDoLunch hashtag in tweets. Not only did users win steep discounts, but the number of social posts referencing Domino’s soared—boosting their brand value as well. It’s also another example of Generation Z’s collective affinity chain restaurants and fast food businesses in particular.

3. #IHOb – IHOP

 

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In 2018, IHOP pulled off an unusual move on social when they flipped the “P” in their logo upside down – temporarily becoming IHOb. Using the hashtag campaign #IHOb, the company invited people to “guess” what that “b” might stand for and many, many people took them up on it.

It was eventually revealed to stand for “International House of Burgers,” but even after the company reverted back to IHOP, the impact was already massive. More than 30,000 people responded on social with guesses, and the brand’s “answer” was reshared more than 15,000 times. There’s no denying it—the brand remains one of their top ten favorite restaurant chains as per a survey of more than 1,800 young Americans.

4. #2018Wrapped – Spotify

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Spotify’s campaign is notable because it features a different flavor of UGC—streaming data. At the end of every year, Spotify dives deep into its user data from the previous 365 days to come up with a custom playlist of the top 100 songs for that period. Not only were users able to see and stream the most popular songs using the #2018Wrapped hashtag, but they could also see analytical data like top genres, the number of new artists discovered, the total minutes of music streamed and more.

Experts agree that not only was this a masterful example of free advertising, but it was also an incredibly transparent one. During a period where consumer faith in brands is notoriously low, Spotify threw open the door on a year’s worth of streaming trends—giving people a peek behind the curtain, so to speak. It’s the type of campaign that music lovers look forward to every year. Since Gen Z is known for their eclectic music tastes – this hashtag campaign was a brilliant way to shine a light on their unique music consumption habits as well.

To put this all into perspective, two out of every three people in the US and the UK use Spotify. The music media giant is one of Gen Z’s top streaming services of choice, and over 50% of people would happily pay for Spotify in the future. Take these data points into consideration and you can see why the brand uses marketing techniques like this hashtag campaign—they naturally skew towards younger users.

5. #WorthSaying – L’Oreal Paris

 

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The #WorthSaying hashtag campaign from L’Oreal Paris deserves a round of applause, because not only did it significantly expand the beauty brand’s reach, but it tapped directly into the Gen Z value of social consciousness and a larger responsibility. The hashtag campaign was simple enough: women were asked to share ideas that were important to them that were #worthsaying. In exchange, L’Oreal Paris pledged to donate $0.25 every time the hashtag was used to TIFF’s Share Her Journey

Women across social channels decided to share strong, powerful messages that were #worthsaying—and they spoke volumes. This campaign incentivized Gen Z to engage with the purpose of empowering women to and support charitable contributions they cared about at the exact same time.

The campaign has gained a momentum of its own between relaunches for #WorthSaying and #ShareHerStory, in the spirit of championing women storytellers. The campaign has been able to strike the heartstrings of Gen Z in the best possible way. Bravo!

6. #MaytheFourthBeWithYou – Everyone

 

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Star Wars is a global phenomenon that has won over the hearts of previous generations and continues to capture the attention of younger generations annually. Every year, fans get together to celebrate May the Fourth—a play on the Star Wars phrase “May the Force be with you” that celebrates Star Wars Day. Hashtags like #MayTheFourthBeWithYou and #MayThe4th are always quick to make an appearance. Savvy brands move even quicker to leverage public attention to offer brand engagement incentives.

Everyone from Lush Cosmetics to Corvette to Lego and beyond got in on the fun this year, increasing awareness and audience engagement on social in one fell swoop. What makes this example unique is that the hashtag didn’t start with a brand – it started with fans themselves. Participating brands simply showed that they were willing to participate in a conversation that was already happening, and that they could do so in a fun way that was in keeping with the spirit of the holiday.

The most recent Disney “Star Wars” film branding is an excellent example of how to successfully market to multiple generations – both to Gen Z and their parents. “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” alone made over $936 million at the domestic box office and remains one of the highest-grossing movies of all time You cannot reach a number that high without capturing the attention of Gen Z, roughly 25% of the entire United States population.

7. #GoProMillionDollarChallenge – GoPro

Source: GoPro

Instagram contest, anyone? Hold on to your seat belt for GoPro—a brand with a product built to go viral. This particular hashtag campaign took the form of a contest. GoPro challenged their own community to help them create the “most epic highlight reel ever,” and in exchange, the company split $1 million among all of the featured contributors. Anyone could upload any clip to social media for consideration, so long as they used the hashtag #GoProMillionDollarChallenge.

The results? 25,000 submissions came pouring in from around the world. These were combined to form the company’s Million Dollar Challenge video that was 100% User Generated Content, through and through. It’s an absolutely show-stopping video and an epic example of a brand highlighting authentic UGC. The video features 66 clips from 56 creators, who each took home an impressive $17K.

GoPro ranks among Gen Z’s top ten coolest brands, and we definitely see plenty Gen Zers using this hashtag across YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms. Not only did this campaign confirm that Gen Z members are nothing if not content creators and curators, but it also singles out GoPro as one of their collective favorite brands. Well done!

Inspiration for your next Instagram Contest

 

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Hashtag campaigns are the perfect opportunity to amplify the power of an existing campaign by making it easier for your audience to discover your content, contribute UGC, or participate in an Instagram contest. 

That said, crafting and executing your own successful hashtag campaign is often a lot easier said than done. Trying to figure out which hashtags really captivate your audience, or when and where to use them can quickly dominate your time. This is why UGC experience tools are so invaluable to increasing audience engagement and participation.

Inspired for your next Instagram contest? Don’t overlook the importance of a UGC experience platform in your authentic marketing strategy.

The post 7 Gen Z Hashtag Campaigns to Inspire your Next Instagram Contest appeared first on TINT.

1. Voice Search

The first trend to watch out for is voice search. Voice enabled search is becoming more widely utilized as consumers continue to adopt tools like Siri, Alexa and Google Home. According to Google, 60% of all searches are done with a mobile device. While 20% of those searches are done using Voice Search.

This shift in how consumers interact will drive a change in the way content is presented. Voice search will also affect SEO and keywords, as customers tend to speak longer sentences in comparison to text based search queries of two to three keywords.

To stay ahead of this trend marketers will need to adjust their keyword research which will have the added benefit of presenting options to rank highly for featured snippets. Having a wide range of content that is relevant to support these snippets, will be necessary for brands to provide the best answer and gain placement in these featured spots.

2. Instagram TV

Launched in June of this year Instagram TV or IGTV is a new video platform that marketers should utilize in 2019. Unlike other video streaming platforms, like Youtube and Vimeo, IGTV is dedicated to vertical video playback, which makes it a game changer for marketers targeting a mobile only audience. IGTV is optimized for mobile based content, which Instagram estimates by 2021 will account for 78% of total mobile data traffic. Younger audiences tend to spend more time with amateur content creators and IGTV is the perfect platform to support the trend. If mobile content and video, matter to your brand this trend needs to be part of your strategy for 2019.

3. Microbrands

Microbrands or smaller scale brands will continue to rise in 2019. Micro-brands are utilizing social media marketing channels, like Instagram and combining it with their UGC. As a result, these brands are seeing an increase in brand awareness, engagement, and higher conversion rates. Microbrands focus on creating micro-moments which will help shape how other, larger brands use UGC and social media.

Micro-moments can be defined by consumer behavior such as, when and how customers will use a smart-phones, to learn something, take an action, or make a purchase. Microbrands have done an exceptional job of using UGC to create these micro-moments. Microbrands are leveraging these moments by analyzing the data from these interactions to learn how customers are making their instant purchasing decisions. Microbrands have also figured out how to place the appropriate content in front of the ideal target audience, which has made their efforts widely successful and something to take notes from in 2019.

4. Chatbots

As technology continues to advance artificial intelligence tools will continue to emerge and this brings us to the use of chatbots. For some brands, the chatbot have become the first touchpoint a customer has with brands. Chatbots give brands insight into what their target audience is looking for and when. They also make it easy to deliver information to potential buyers, while collecting insights to help refine the brands messaging.

Brands that are implementing chatbots are meeting their customers where they are, providing quick useful information. They are also taking the opportunity to gather key insights directly from their customers during the conversation. According to recent research only 42 percent  of marketers say they use the conversations from their audience. The value in customer feedback and interaction can present a huge opportunity for better relationships, better messaging, and more value for the customer.

5. Cause Marketing Campaigns

Our last trend for 2019 is cause marketing campaigns. Cause marketing is where brands and charitable organizations team up to combat a social or environmental problem, providing business value for the brand and support for the cause at the same time. Cause-related marketing will continue to grow in popularity in the year ahead, as it has already grown from $816 million in 2002 to $2.05 billion just last year. This means brands will continue to contribute and associate their businesses with good causes, to help increase their brand reputation, while driving awareness, and engagement with consumers.

Marketers must take advantage of social media tools, like TINT which can help save time and money with higher converting content. If you’re looking to get ahead of next year’s trend and increase the impact of your content Request a demo to get started!

The post Biggest Marketing Trends for 2019 appeared first on TINT.