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LinkedIn vs. Facebook: Which Is Best for Your Business?

Integrated Marketing
September 23, 2021/by
LinkedIn vs. Facebook: Which Is Best for Your Business? The slew of social media channels available today can paralyze even the savviest business owners. Where do you start? Which one is best? How do you avoid wasting time on channels that won't bring in a solid ROI? The struggle is real. Facebook and LinkedIn are two of the biggest social media platforms and provide a number of opportunities to reach your audience. This leaves us with this question: Which one should you focus your efforts on? We’ll cover the pros and cons of each platform below. LinkedIn vs. Facebook for Business Let's recap quickly. At its core, LinkedIn is a professional network that was initially created as a corporate recruitment platform. Now, it boasts many features similar to traditional social media sites, including status updates, blogging capabilities, and private messages. It’s also the most effective platform when it comes to delivering content and securing audience engagement. Facebook, on the other hand, was specifically designed as a place for people to share and communicate. The "sharing" element is its most prominent selling point, but there are still plenty of other features that allow businesses to effectively reach their audiences. In fact, one survey by Facebook found that 74% of American consumers use the platform to discover new products and brands. LinkedIn and Facebook both have the Groups feature that allows you to connect with other like-minded people, and they both have powerful ad setups. So with similar features, what...
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The Death of the Third-Party Cookie: What Marketers Need to Know About Google’s 2022 Phase-Out

Marketing Trends
September 21, 2021/by
The Death of the Third-Party Cookie: What Marketers Need to Know About Google's 2022 Phase-Out What do marketers and Sesame Street monsters have in common? They LOVE cookies. For years, brands have been using them to track website visitors, improve the user experience, and collect data that helps us target ads to the right audiences. We also use them to learn about what our visitors are checking out online when they aren't on our websites. But the way we use cookies and Google ad-tracking tools could change dramatically with Google's efforts to phase phase out the third-party cookie on Chrome browsers by 2022. The third-party phase-out was initially announced in February 2020, but Google accelerated buzz around it this month when they announced that they won't be building "alternate identifiers to track individuals as they browse across the web, nor will we use them in our products." "We realize this means other providers may offer a level of user identity for ad tracking across the web that we will not — like PII graphs based on people’s email addresses," a Google post wrote. "We don’t believe these solutions will meet rising consumer expectations for privacy, nor will they stand up to rapidly evolving regulatory restrictions, and therefore aren’t a sustainable long term investment. Instead, our web products will be powered by privacy-preserving APIs which prevent individual tracking while still delivering results for advertisers and publishers," says Google. How Marketers and Advertisers are Reacting to Google's Phase-Out While numerous advertising agencies criticized Google's...
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7 Reasons Scale-Ups Earn Investments, According to HubSpot’s Founder

Business Growth
September 21, 2021/by
7 Reasons Scale-Ups Earn Investments, According to HubSpot's Founder Every successful company starts with a single idea. It's how those ideas are approached, molded, and questioned that dictate whether or not they go on to evolve into a startup. However, reaching startup-dom doesn't complete the lifecycle of these ideas. Instead, becoming a startup is the moment when ideas begin to grow into something actionable, driven by a collection of intentional goals. And as all of us who have lived the startup life know — when you're a startup, more often than not your goal is simple: to survive. I like to think of being a startup as treading water. Succeeding as a startup requires constant motion to ensure you can find product-market-fit, drive early customer growth, and build a baseline product all at the same time. The moment you stop moving is the moment you lose traction. And this is all before you've even begun to scale. Fortunately, there comes a point where you've treaded water long enough to reach your first lifeboat: Investments. That's where it gets exciting. As startups move from idea mode to scaleup mode, there are a number of signs I look for in order to determine if I'm going to invest. Of course, not every scaleup has to get every one of these signs right to be worthy of investment, but the more positive signals a scaleup has to offer, the higher the odds of long-term success for that organization. So, what is the secret sauce...
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How to Build and Scale a High-Performance Marketing Team, According to Leaders Who’ve Done It

Leadership
September 18, 2021/by
How to Build and Scale a High-Performance Marketing Team, According to Leaders Who've Done It In 2020, I started using Headspace. And, as it turns out, so did everyone else. The meditation app, which was first launched back in 2012, initially generated roughly $30 million in revenue and, as of 2017, had 40,000 subscribers. Today, the app has over 2 million users, and is valued at $320 million dollars. How's that for growth? But, when any company scales that quickly, it begs the question: Will the business survive, and even thrive under its newfound success? Or will it crumble? Perhaps your company is experiencing similar growth, and your marketing team is feeling the growing pains. Or, maybe your business is brand new, and you're focused on effectively building a strong marketing team for the first time. Whichever the case, the challenges that come along with building or scaling a marketing team can be detrimental to an organization if handled poorly. Which is why I sat down with marketing leaders at Google, Microsoft, Wistia, Canva, and Typeform to learn their tips for successfully building or scaling a team — so that you're ready when it's your time to grow. Let's dive in. Tips for Building an Effective Marketing Team 1. Hire with diversity, equity, and inclusion in mind. There are countless benefits to diversity in the workplace – for instance, did you know organizations with a diverse leadership team have 19% higher revenue on average than companies with less diverse leaders? Or, how...
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How to Create Landing Pages for Real Estate [+Examples]

Real Estate
September 18, 2021/by
How to Create Landing Pages for Real Estate When people are looking to buy or rent a new house, what's the first thing they do? That's right, they go online. In fact, 51% of home searches start on the internet. People search Zillow, Apartments.com, Redfin, and local real estate websites. Additionally, people also turn to the internet when they want to value their home or learn more about the real estate market. All this to say that when it's time to generate leads in the real estate industry, posting online and creating a landing page is the first step. In this post, we'll discuss how to create a landing page for real estate and review sample real estate landing pages to inspire your own. 1. Choose the type of landing page you need. Before you can get started, it's important to understand the different types of real estate landing pages. The three main types include: Home valuation: This type of landing page lets users type in their address and get a quick idea of how much their home is worth. Buying/selling websites: These websites are where buyers and sellers go to place listings online, including Zillow or Redfin. Free content: This landing page is usually targeted toward those who want to start working in the real estate industry or are in the beginning stages of buying/selling. You can place free content on a landing page to get leads to download the offer...
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How to Make Instagram Story Highlights [+Engage Your Audience]

Instagram Marketing
September 15, 2021/by
How to Make Instagram Story Highlights Did you know that ⅓ of the most viewed Instagram Stories are from businesses? Customers want to see what businesses are posting about on "Stories," however, as you probably know, those are only viewable for 24 hours. But what if your audience wants to save those Stories and come back to them later (whether for a link or to reference something)? This is why Instagram added the "Highlights" feature several years ago. With this tool, brands can save Stories so that customers can look at them whenever they want, indefinitely. In this post, we'll walk you through how to make an Instagram Story Highlight, and then dive into expert tips on how to use the feature to engage your audience. 1. Tap on the plus sign from your profile. The first step in creating an Instagram Highlight is to tap on the plus sign in the top right corner of the screen when you're on your profile. 2. Select Story Highlight Then, you'll want to select "Story Highlight." 3. Choose the Story you want to add. At this point, it's time to choose what Stories you want to save to your highlight. You can choose one or several. Then, hit "Next." 4. Pick a cover photo and add a name for your highlight. Lastly, you'll choose a cover photo and then add a name for your highlight. Then, click "Add." To add more Stories over time, you...
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What is Data as a Service (DaaS)?

RevOps
September 15, 2021/by
What is Data as a Service (DaaS)? "The Cloud." It's a concept that has grown wildly within the past 20-40 years as technology evolves. But if you're like me, you might not know what it really means. The cloud refers to how and where data is stored and where it isn't. It allows software and services to run on the internet, instead of only locally on one device, because the data is stored remotely across a variety of different servers. With this technology, companies have begun storing data online and modernizing their infrastructure, data management, storage, and analytics. While data management, analytics, and integration can sound like intimidating topics (especially to those of us that aren't mathematically inclined), it's so important for analyzing, strategizing, and increasing reliability in data for your marketing efforts. In this post, let's review what data as a service (DaaS) means and look at some DaaS companies to understand it better. DaaS companies focus on helping customers use their data in the most strategic, efficient way. Additionally, they help customers store their data and have impeccable search functions to make creating data reports easier. As we continue to get more data and insights into what works and doesn't, data-driven decision-making is becoming more and more popular among businesses. DaaS is similar to software as a service (SaaS), which are companies that offer software online and via the cloud, instead of needing to download or install a program. There's also IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)...
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2021 YouTube Ad Specs

Youtube Advertising
September 15, 2021/by
2021 YouTube Ad Specs Did you know that over 500 hours of content is uploaded to YouTube every minute, and the platform has more than 2 billion users? I don't know if it's just me, but I didn't know YouTube had that much content published every day. Since many businesses use YouTube as a marketing tool for their campaigns, it's important to stay up to date on the ad specifications. In this post, we'll give a quick overview of the ad formats and ad requirements for YouTube. YouTube Ad Specs YouTube Display Ad Specs Display ads appear to the top right of a video, right above the video suggestions. Specs: 300 x 250 px for the larger view 300 x 60 px for the smaller view Recommended video dimensions are: 426 x 240 (240p), 640 x 360 (360p), 854 x 480 (480p),1280 x 720 (720p), 1920 x 1080 (1080p), 2560 x 1440 (1440p) and 3840 x 2160 (2160p). Aspect ratio is 16:9 Max file size is 128GB or 12 hours, whichever is less. Accepted video formats include: .MOV, .MPEG4, .MP4, .AVI, .WMV, .MPEGPS, .FLV, 3GPP, and WebM. YouTube Pre-Roll, Mid-Roll, and In-Stream Ad Specs As I'm sure you've seen, most YouTube videos have ads either at the beginning of the video (these can be skippable or non-skippable) or in the middle of the video. These are called pre-roll and mid-roll ads (previously called in-stream ads). While there are several YouTube...
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10 Real Estate Social Media Marketing Strategies That’ll Bring in New Business

Real Estate
September 14, 2021/by
10 Real Estate Social Media Marketing Strategies That'll Bring in New Business The following is a guest post by Leslie Mann, a real estate agent with Gibson Sotheby's International Realty of Weston, MA. Buying or selling a home is an important financial (and emotional) decision. Most people are full of questions when they undertake this endeavor. Your clients want more than someone with a real estate license. They want an agent who will protect their interests and help them navigate the complexities of property ownership. The agent they choose must be someone they'll feel confident having by their side throughout the process. That's where social media comes in. If applied correctly, it can be a great way to open a dialogue, share advice, and forge an ongoing relationship with buyers, sellers, and renters. In this post, learn the benefits of using social media for real estate, a handy list of do’s and don’ts for agents to follow, and examples of posts you can incorporate into your real estate social media strategy. Ryan Tombul, Nashville Realtor, J.D., says, “Social media doubles as an avenue for free marketing that allows agents to supplement exposure for listings within their own personal network and beyond.” Read on to discover real estate social media strategy tips, as well as things you should avoid.  Tips That Agents Should Embrace 1. Promote the town, not just the house. Homebuyers want to know the good,...
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The Ultimate Guide to Podcast Advertising and Sponsorship

Advertising
September 14, 2021/by
The Ultimate Guide to Podcast Advertising and Sponsorship According to research by Podcast Insights, there are more than 2 million active podcasts and counting. As a marketer for a small to mid-sized business, you might be interested in podcast sponsorship, but not know where to start. Mainly because there are so many podcasts to choose from. How do you know which podcasts your target audience is listening to? To help you determine what ad strategy is right for you and where to put your podcast dollars, I spoke to HubSpot's podcasting team and did some additional research to comprise a list of helpful strategies for finding, vetting, and advertising on a podcast that aligns with your brand. Podcast Advertising Terminology Tips for Finding and Sponsoring Podcasts How to Advertise on Podcasts Navigating Podcast Sponsorship Podcast Advertising Terminology Before we discuss the ins and outs of podcast advertising, let’s review the terminology you need to know before reaching out to podcast hosts and networks. CPM Rate: CPM stands for "cost per mille." The CPM represents a flat standard rate advertisers pay for every 1,000 impressions. Host-Read Ad: a pre-recorded ad that is voiced by the host(s) of the podcast. Dynamic Insertion: the use of software to automatically insert ads into pre-existing podcast audio. These ads can be easily changed across a podcast’s entire catalog without making changes to the original audio file. Programmatic Ad: pre-recorded advertisements that do not feature the original host...
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