How to drive traffic through Instagram & Pinterest without spending large amounts of money

September 5, 2018September 5, 2018 / marissapick / 1 Comment

Often at conferences I discuss the power of visual social media. We’re living during a social media revolution and as Aristotle stated well before social media existed, “There can be no words without pictures.”

The human brain process images 60,000 times quicker than text (Click to Tweet) and 59% of executives would rather watch video than read text (Click to Tweet). Having a visual social media marketing strategy is essential and in order to cut through the noise and succeed we MUST take advantage of specific strategies, tools, tactics and tips to have a competitive edge.

Visual media has always trumped the written word when it comes to winning people’s short term attention. This guest post is from Vin Clancy who recently launched his new book Ace The Game: The 100 best growth hacks in the world right now” which is a can’t miss book this year. You can learn more about Vin by visiting his website or blog and joining his growth club to receive strategies and tips to get ahead as a marketer. I found his tips to be very helpful in leveraging Pinterest and Instagram to generate traffic and I hope you’ll find it valuable as well, enjoy!

How to drive traffic through Instagram & Pinterest without spending large amounts of money

Pinterest and Instagram are two seriously powerful platforms.

Visual media has always trumped the written word when it comes to winning people’s short term attention.

Pinterest

Despite mainstream opinion, Pinterest is no longer just a site for the female, mom demographic.

It’s a pool of regularly engaged traffic that is just ripe for the taking.

In fact, it is the 2nd biggest referrer of traffic online (after Facebook)

First you need to set up a profile with a niche in mind.

Make it fairly general to your niche, then use various boards to hyper target your audience.

Use IFTTT and deploy the “Repost from Instagram To Pinterest” feature (good Instagram content translates good Pinterest content)

Make your profile look awesome and schedule 20+ pins a day of viral content that has done well on Instagram (use non-copyright images without logos)

Use software like followinglike to auto follow people who would be interested in your product/service and let it run.

A word of warning though, this is against Pinterests terms and conditions so proceed with caution. Use proxies if you’re handing it to an intern and be conservative with the amount of people you follow/unfollow in a day.

Once you start seeing a spike in traffic work out which pins are performing the best then make your own that direct directly to your blog/website.

Using this method it’s not uncommon to see anywhere between 10k-250k shares!

If things aren’t going right straight away here’s a few things you need to do.

1) Do more research into what successful Pinterest accounts are doing

Use the search function to stalk influencer accounts and just copy what they’re doing
Find board name inspiration by searching boards
Look at the accounts that have 5000+ followers and reverse engineer

2) Optimise your profile

Make sure your account name as relevant keywords
Do the same to your description
Make sure you have 10-20 boards in your niche. Be hyper focussed.
Fill your board description with keywords
Create unique covers for all your boards

3) Repost A LOT to see what works well

From my coaching classes to my private consulting clients, everyone is trying to optimise the very little traffic they’re getting
It’s extremely difficult to work out what works if you’re hardly getting any visitors. Work on reposting a lot of popular pins 30+ a day if that’s what it takes to see what gets the best traction. Then optimise from there.

4) Engagement automation

Keep following/unfollow until you reach 500+ followers
If you don’t have any followers no one is getting alerts when you’re reposting all this content, thus no one is sharing it
Follow the followers of your identified influencers (unfollow when you’re following 10k)

5) Content Seeding with group boards

Group boards are boards you can request to contribute to.
Joining means you can repin content to an existing audience
This can greatly increase your follower growth and decrease the amount of time it takes to work out which pin style is the most shareable.
Find group boards in your niche and follow the boards steps to become a contributor. This may be email, commenting on a specific post, sending them a DM etc.
See if your influencers are part of group boards, it’s a good place to start.

6) Identify Content That Resonates

Now comes the waiting game, to figure what works and what doesn’t takes time unfortunately. So be patient!
Once you get a gist of what’s working and what isn’t start posting less of the bad stuff and more of the good stuff

Once the ball gets rolling that’s when you start making your copycat Pinterest content with your logo, and then you can start directing the traffic to your landing pages or ecommerce stores (from there it’s up to your websites to convert the clickers!)

Instagram

Moving on now to the platform some of you may prefer, Instagram.

In this section I’m going to explain the simple hashtag ladder strategy that you can use to drive up followers and build an awesome account.

Now a lot of you may be thinking that this will be a huge secret that is safe guarded by big brands and influencers alike…

Well it’s not.

It’s actually hidden in plain sight!

You know those long lists of hashtags some people put in the first comment of their photos? Well if used properly these lists can draw in followers from outside of your current audience.

Hashtags make up one of two main discovery mechanics on the site (the second being the explore page)

Hashtags are the mechanic that anyone can nail from the start, making them great to focus on for small accounts.

Each post you put on instagram can have up to 30 hashtags (and you guessed it, we’re going to use all of them!)

So we need 30 hashtags, but which ones?

To break into the ‘popular’ section of any hashtag search result you need fast and massive engagement on your post.

If your account has a lot of followers, this is pretty simple (especially if they have notifications for your account on).

The trouble is a lot of you don’t have a lot of followers or even what is considered ‘great’ engagement (+5%) so you’re unlikely to rank on this page.

Example: Say you’ve got 5,000 followers, so a 5% engagement rate would be 250 people liking one of your photos. Using a classical hashtag strategy, that 250 likes is unlikely to get you to appear in the popular results for most of the hashtags you’re using, they’re just too competitive. For the tags you do rank in, you may be an extra 10–20 likes, but it’s not enough to get any crazy growth.

So you need to ladder your hashtags so that you rank for the easier ones first.

The likes you receive from the easy to rank hashtags will then allow you to rank for your second hashtag.

The likes you generate from this will help you rank for the third (and so on and so forth)

Now this won’t fire on all cylinders every time, so maybe think about deleting the posts that don’t quite as well.

But if you have 10 posts a day and perhaps 3 or 4 it the jackpot, then you’ll be in for a few follower spikes every day.

So how do you make these ladders?

I’d suggest that for an account below 10,000 followers, you want to find a range of RELEVANT hashtags (check the popular results to make sure there’s content similar to your in them) that have been used between 10,000 and 250,000 times.

You may even want to find multiple sets of 30 hashtags, each with a roughly even distribution of hashtag uses across this range, using different sets for different posts.

The key here is that your posts normally couldn’t rank in the popular results for the hashtags that have been used 250,000 times, but they could easily rank for those that have been used 10–20,000 times. So you get some engagement from those, which pushes you into the results for the 20–40,000 tags and so on.

Of course, the more you post (to a degree) and the better the content quality, the more success you’ll have. The key point here is that if you don’t have this hashtag ladder in place, it’s much more difficult, if not impossible to get any viral results from your Instagram posts.

What do you think of this guest post? Please leave a comment below or send me a tweet @marissapick.

Five Surprising Social Media Statistics That Might Make You Rethink Your Social Strategy

January 25, 2016January 25, 2016 / marissapick / 1 Comment

Social Media is changing faster than ever. It’s hard to believe that, only a decade ago, social media was little more than a budding trend. Of course there were websites such as Friendster and MySpace which had a decent level of adoption, but the population as a whole had not come around to it yet.

These days a new social media channel or app seems to be popping up hourly, it’s exhausting to keep up! Did you know that the average american spends 40 minutes per day on Facebook? (Source: NBC News) When you consider how much time Americans spend engaging with digital media–nine hours a day—40 minutes on Facebook might not seem like a lot of time. (Click to Tweet).

Social Media Examiner put together an easy-to-read Social Media Marketing Industry Report for 2015 which included insights which may help in determining and shaping your 2016 social media strategy. Below I’ve outlined five surprising social media stastics which may help shape or rethink your 2016 Social Media Strategy.

1. Infographics are Liked and shared on social media 3X more than other any other type of content. (Click to Tweet)

Infographics are an information tool that compresses a lot of information in one single medium. It simplifies what your entire article is all about. Aside from the pictures, it is loaded with texts, graphs, etc. to give you a clearer idea of what the topic is all about. Infographics are a visually compelling communication medium that when done well can communicate complex data in a visual format that is potentially viral,make sure they’re a part of your 2016 strategy! (Source: Mass Planner)

2. 64% of marketers are using social media for six hours or more weekly. (Click to Tweet)

By spending as little as six hours per week on social, more than 66% of those marketers are seeing lead generation benefits with social media. However to reach these goals marketers often rely on the help of social media management tools. 87% of marketers reported they don’t know which social media management tools are best to use. (Source: Social Media Examiner) *Need Help with Social Media Tools? Here are three of my favorite social media tools.

3. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and YouTube were the top five platforms used by marketers in 2015. (Click to Tweet)

Some of the larger changes seen from 2014 included Twitter use dropping from 83% to 79%, Instagram increasing from 28% to 36% use in 2015, and SlideShare joining the ranks. Facebook had a 1% decline in marketer use from last year. It is likely these trends will continue into 2016, and new platforms like Periscope will take part of the market share. It’s crucial to have a strategy unique to optimizing each platform, remember there’s no one size fits all social media strategy. (Source: Social Media Examiner)

4. 66% of marketers plan to increase their use of Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn in the future. (Click to Tweet)

Twitter moved up two spots from the 2014 report to be the number one social media platform that marketers plan to use more of in the future. YouTube and LinkedIn followed close behind, especially among B2B marketers. Surprisingly, Facebook saw an 8% decline in reported future use. (Source: Social Media Examiner).

Quick Tip: Make sure you’ve got a plan to optimize and analyze specific social media channels to ensure you’re using your time properly. It’s important to know which channels to use based on the KPI’s and results you’re trying to drive.

5) When people hear information, they’re likely to remember only 10% of that information three days later. However, if a relevant image is paired with that same information, people retained 65% of the information three days later. (Click to Tweet)

You MUST have a visual social media strategy in 2016, it’s crucial. The human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text with 90% of the information transited to the brain is visual. If you want to shine on social media make sure you’re testing video, images, and quotes within your channels to best optimize and drive your KPIs. (Source: LifeLearn) *Need Help with Visual Social Media Tips, Check Out My Post “Don’t Get Left Behind, 6 Tips to Recharge Your Marketing Here.

Let me know what you think, leave a comment or shoot me a tweet. Enjoy!

Don’t Get Left Behind, Six Tips to Recharge Your Marketing

June 28, 2015 / marissapick / 2 Comments

The World is Changing, How are you Marketing to a Changing Audience? The average person now spends more than 12 hours online everyday! This is great news for marketers because by 2020 over 80% of the buying cycle will be under their control. It also means that marketers will need to better understand the the mindset of online users.

Every 60 Seconds:

98,000+ Tweets are sent

696,000 Facebook status updates

11 million instant messages

698,448 Google Searches

1,820 TB of data created

217 new mobile web users

168+ million emails sent

(Source HP Vertical)

Every 60 seconds over 98,000+ tweets are sent! Talk about a fast paced world! @BMAGlobal15 #BMA15 pic.twitter.com/KuhF7NsOID

— Marissa Pick (@marissapick) May 27, 2015

We need to understand what people want from their content. We live in a crowded marketplace and we need to find innovative ways to put our customers first, cut through the noise, and deliver a good and memorable digital experience.

Is your brand ready? It better be with stats from the one minute snapshot above! We live in a world where people trust peer recommendations more than advertising, and users seek out information online. You MUST ensure your brand has a digital presence, and a strategy for the future.

Below are six tips to keep in mind to help you recharge your marketing:

1) The User Is KING, your customer MUST come first:

Many marketers have always said Content is King, however this year the user is king, and we as marketers must ALWAYS put our customers first. Often we forget that someone is on the other end receiving the experience that we are creating. Marketers often assume because they can do something, that they should do it. It’s important to think about what not to do while considering what we are doing. These decisions matter.

We should focus on delivering clear messages, placing our customer first, and keep our brands messaging simple. Be honest, give them a reason to know you better.

2) Track Your Customers Journey:

Today, brands should be using information to deliver more personalized experience for individual users to help them along in their customer journey. Cookie based tracking now allows a brand to better understand a users mindset and online behavior. Now with the rollout of marketing automation more brands should focus on getting to know their customers and where they are within their buying process to better deliver messages customized to where they are within their journey.

3) Manage Unlimited Channels:

It used to be a simple uncrowded space back in 1960 when there were only a few marketing channels. In 2015 it’s become a crowded space with over 70 channels to choose from! The challenge marketers will face as we continue to expand is that now will have little control over the channel since the power will lie with the user and how they interact with one another without the brand’s involvement.

4) Organic Reach is Limited, Consider Methods to Stick Out and Reach Your Targets:

Research has shown that only 2-4% of a brand’s fans will see their content in an organic framework. As a result brands now should look into investing in paid social media to further leverage their message to their targeted audience. Content should be packaged with different images and messages to best optimize and leverage messaging. It should also be created with a strategy to be shared across various social networks. All messages and paid advertising should point to the same end channel, but marketers must test & optimize to better reach their audience.

It’s important to review, tweak, reinvent and develop campaigns to enable your brand to stand out and cut through the noise.

5) Publish the Right Content with the Right Platform:

As marketers we have an end goal of creating shareable and compelling content to further expand our brands value. Often those within my role often find themselves with the challenge of ensuring it’s optimized as best as it can be to encourage sharing across social media. We need to work to create a strategy before we create content. Chris Brogan said it best, “Content Marketing is weaponized storytelling.” We must to turn the tables and use great media thinking to drive content curation, and not the other way around. Remember, content is fire, and social media is gasoline!

6) Have a Visual Social Media Strategy:

The human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text with 90% of the information transited to the brain is visual. If you want to stick out on social media test video, images, and quotes.

People don’t engage equally with every tweet. Research by Media Blog, which analyzed the content of over 2 million tweets sent by thousands of users over the course of a month, shows that adding a photo URL to your tweet can boost retweets by an impressive 35%.

There’s a ton of tools to help you get started to develop free visual content, my favorite are pablo by buffer, canva, and quotr.

Hope you enjoyed this post, send me a tweet and let me know what you think, or leave a comment below!

Three minutes with ME, article featured online with B2B Marketing

May 21, 2015 / marissapick / Leave a comment

I’m looking forward to speaking next month in London during B2B Marketing’s B2B Summit. My presentation will focus around visual social marketing which I feel is the next generation of social media. I spoke with the editorial team who published the below article on their website here.

B2B MARKETING KNOWLEDGE BANK INTERVIEW:

Marissa Pick, director of social media at the CFA Institute and speaker at the upcoming B2B Summit, reveals what’s holding B2B marketers back on social

Q: Tell us a little bit about what you do
I just started a new role as director of social media at the CFA Institute. I oversee efforts to reach journalists, legislators, policymakers, and investment professionals who play essential roles in shaping the direction of the financial services industry. I oversee the global social media campaigns and lead a global team.

Q: How and when did you get into social media marketing?
I signed up to Twitter about six years ago, and loved the real-time element and engagement. I worked at BizBash Media in New York and started to see how social media fit into live events and how excited delegates would get to see a live Twitter feed onsite at an event. It merged online and offline communications and to this day I still get excited when I talk about social media marketing; it’s a real passion for me.

Q: Social media is known as one of the most difficult channels to prove ROI from. Is it possible? How do you do it?
Showing ROI from social media is a challenge every marketer is facing. We’re working a lot with our analytics and web team to add on as much tagging as possible to track our traffic and paid conversions. We are also testing discount codes in FY16 to track event delegates from our social media activities. It is possible, but it’s difficult and takes time. Social media is still in its infancy so we have to remember to be patient while companies are working on solutions to make it easier. In the past I’ve worked to develop custom social media packages such as sponsored tweets and social media lounges, which show direct ROI from our efforts.

Q: Your session at the B2B Summit is on visual social media. Are B2B brands missing a trick by not using it?
The human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text and 90 per cent of the information transited to the brain is visual. Visual platforms allow real-time marketing to give brands an advantage for a behind the scenes look to drive more personal connections. Companies should be tapping into visual social media to show their audience how awesome the brand is and to provide the visual stories the customers/delegates want to see and hear. It’s important to keep an open mind and formulate a social media plan with realistic expectations and don’t be afraid to test new things, and push the limit. We can’t measure success without having failures as part of our journey.

Q: What’s the most common barrier to B2B brands succeeding on social?
The most common barrier is fear and not knowing where to start. I try to break down barriers and enable employees to feel empowered by setting up social media training sessions for our staff and walking them through the basics. I find the biggest challenge most individuals face is not knowing how to get started with social media. It’s quite simple, it takes time, but once brands set a social media strategy and get going often they’re hooked with the real-time engagement. I would recommend providing training to staff, and keeping everyone in the loop with social media trends and advances.

Published May 2015