Image via Social Media Today

The ‘Swipe-up for more’ prompt has always been located down at the bottom of the Story screen and has previously allowed creators and businesses – with a minimum of 10k followers – to drive traffic to a website. With the updated features ability to customize and place the Link Sticker anywhere on a Story, creators and businesses will have more options to drive traffic and increase click-throughs. This new Link Sticker will sit alongside previously made interactive features available in the app, including stickers for donations, music, and polls.

This feature has been in development for quite some time, as Instagram had previously been testing this feature out in small batches throughout the summer. According to social media expert Matt Navarra, ‘Link’ stickers will become more widely available to users starting on August 30th and, as it appears, may eventually be available to all users, 10k followers or not. As minimal as this change is, it is a huge win for small businesses, nano-influencers or any business just starting out on the platform.

As Instagram continues to roll out updates in line with their new direction, we’re excited to see what else is in store for optimizing our content. In the meantime, we will be patiently waiting for the ‘Link’ stickers to show in our accounts, so we can begin implementing them into our strategies.

Social Media Advertising at Today’s Business

Our Social Media Strategy team takes a comprehensive approach to social media marketing with your business goals in mind. Our methods are anything but one size fits all. We formulate a unique and competitive strategy for each brand that we work with. Depending on your goals, we are able to determine appropriate KPIs for each of your campaigns.

We are constantly keeping up to date on emerging trends in the social landscape to ensure that our campaigns are always utilizing best practices and performing adjacent to industry standards. If you are ready to start embracing the full potential of Facebook and Instagram advertising in your brand’s social media campaigns, let’s talk!

The post Instagram is Removing its “Swipe-Up” Feature: What Brands Need To Know appeared first on Today's Business.

What is the iOS 14 Update?

So what exactly does Apple’s new iOS 14 policy entail? Simply put, it allows for user transparency in regard to app tracking. All apps will be required to submit information on how their app collects and utilizes consumer data. In addition to this, they will need to display a prompt that asks users for permission to track their data across third-party apps and websites. This prompt will both show users what information is being tracked and give them the opportunity to opt-out. It is likely that this will encourage users to decline tracking, which will severely limit advertising capabilities, on Facebook specifically.

We believe users should have the choice over the data that is being collected about them and how it’s used. Facebook can continue to track users across apps and websites as before, App Tracking Transparency in iOS 14 will just require that they ask for your permission first. pic.twitter.com/UnnAONZ61I

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) December 17, 2020

Where Does Facebook Stand On This Update?

Ever since Apple announced the iOS 14 update back in June of 2020, Facebook has been against these changes and, especially, the impact it will have on smaller businesses. As the update will be rolling out during Q1 of 2021, however, Facebook will be adhering to these guidelines and has already provided advertisers with webinars and resources about how they are handling these changes, which includes:

Implementing a Required Prompt

As mentioned above, apps will be required to display prompts where users will need to allow or decline the tracking of their data. Facebook is not excluded from this and has already begun implementing a prompt across its platforms.

Continuing to Collect Data

For the individuals who opt-in to the transparency prompt, device identifiers will continue to be collected.

App-Based Business Tools

Facebook has enabled its SDK to support Apple’s SKAN API and will support app-based business tools for Apple’s SKAN API for mobile apps moving forward.

Aggregated Event Management (AEM)

For those who develop and optimize ads through web-based business tools, Facebook is limiting the measurement of certain events for iOS 14 users through the Aggregated Event Management (AEM) system. This will ultimately change the way that advertisers track their conversions.

Changes Web Advertisers Can Expect

The aftermath of this update will be felt by both web and app advertisers. For an in-depth guide on how ads will be changing for both advertisers, we recommend reading this guide from Facebook. However, here, we will be reviewing some general limitations businesses need to be aware of as they continue to promote on Facebook’s family of apps.

Creating Ads

The biggest ad limitation that will be seen for web advertisers is that reach and frequency bidding will no longer be available. Auction bidding will be the only available buying option when making ads for iOS 14 devices. 

Reporting 

The new iOS 14 update will limit advertisers’ ability to measure the performance of campaigns because:

• Real-time reporting will not be supported.
• Data may be delayed for up to 3 days.
• Support delivery and action breakdowns (age, gender, region, etc.) will no longer be supported.
• Attribution windows will change to a seven-day click, one-day view window and set at the ad set level.

Targeting 

For targeting, audiences will begin to decrease as people start to opt-out of tracking, which means audiences may need to be broadened to reach more potential customers. Facebook advertisers who utilize standard and custom events will also be maxed out at 8 conversion events per domain.

Actions Moving Forward

To prepare for these incoming changes, Facebook recommends that advertisers complete the following steps:

• Verify your website’s domain to help avoid any future disruption of your website campaigns. This should be prioritized for domains with pixels used by several businesses/personal ad accounts.
• In Events Manager, configure 8 preferred web conversion events per domain.
• Prepare for the shift in attribution windows and adjust your campaign strategies accordingly.

With social media continuing to be a force in digital marketing, changes are inevitable. As with any technological change in this industry, all advertisers can do is adapt and use their creativity and innovation to propel forward.

Social Media Advertising at Today’s Business

Our Social Media Strategy team takes a comprehensive approach to social media marketing with your business goals in mind. Our methods are anything but one size fits all. We formulate a unique and competitive strategy for each brand that we work with. Depending on your goals, we are able to determine appropriate KPIs for each of your campaigns. We are constantly keeping up to date on emerging trends in the social landscape to ensure that our campaigns are always utilizing best practices and performing adjacent to industry standards. If you are ready to start embracing the full potential of Facebook and Instagram advertising in your brand’s social media campaigns, let’s talk!

The post How Apple’s iOS 14 Update Will Impact Web Advertisers appeared first on Today's Business.

For years, Facebook’s 20% text restrictions have been a thorn in the side of social media advertisers and graphic designers everywhere. On September 7, 2020, Facebook announced they will no longer be penalizing ads with higher amounts of image text. There is no better time than in the year 2020, for Facebook to remove its restrictions on the 20% text rule.

BIG news for Facebook advertisers:

Facebook is killing its ‘<20% text in image’ rule for ads

Source: Facebook pic.twitter.com/nP18BSLP7L

— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) September 22, 2020

The 20% Text Rule Explained

Advertisements are two-sided and Facebook’s ad system is designed to uphold value for both the people and businesses. With the people in mind, Facebook felt that ads with too much text created a cluttered and noisy experience for users. Facebook believes too much text on an image was an obvious sign to users that it was an ad—leading people to scroll right past it. Therefore, Facebook created and enforced the 20% text rule. 

In previous years, ad creators had to abide by the 20% text guideline, where text on an ad could not fill more than 20% of the image. If it did, the ad would be rejected and not allowed to run. This guideline not only caused advertisers and creators much frustration, and many times caused extra work in redesigning ads to get the text to fit within 20% of 25 boxes in the text overlay tool. This tool, however, was not a great option and would often give you a pass. Then, thinking you were in the clear, you would implement your ad into your campaign and Facebook would reject it for – you guessed it – too much text. 

Over time Facebook started to ease up on this rule, so ads with over 20% text would not get flat out rejected, but would run with some limitations. And although Facebook claims this rule was for image ads, at Today’s Business, we would find video ads getting rejected for utilizing too much text as well. Facebook advertisers with years of experience learned how to manipulate this rule, by choosing a thumbnail for the video that met the 20% guidelines. But, at the end of the day, there was always a fear in the back of everyone’s head that Facebook could reject the ad and the ad creation process would have to begin all over again. 

The Importance of This Change

Now that Facebook has lifted the 20% rule altogether, ad creators are free to put as much text as they’d like on an ad. But should you? Although this is a reason to celebrate, Facebook still believes ads with less than 20% text are a best practice. According to Facebook, “Facebook’s ad system is designed to maximize value for people and businesses. That’s why we conduct research and analyze feedback from our community to understand how different attributes of an ad affect that ad’s performance. We’ve found that images with less than 20% text perform better. With this in mind, we recommend keeping your text short, clear, and concise in order to get your message across effectively.”

Even if ads with more text are not preferred, we’re just happy we have the power to decide.

If you are an active advertiser on Facebook, it is probably safe to say that you’ve already narrowed down some ad types and templates that are successful for your business. Now that you are free to include as much text in your ads as your heart desires, this does not mean you should completely revamp your creative strategy. It also doesn’t mean you shouldn’t push the limit and try new things. Use this freedom to run some creative A/B tests with different text options, but focus on the text being impactful, not just large.

Social Media Advertising at Today’s Business

Our Social Media Strategy team takes a comprehensive approach to social media marketing with your business goals in mind. Our methods are anything but one size fits all. We formulate a unique and competitive strategy for each brand that we work with. Depending on your goals, we are able to determine appropriate KPIs for each of your campaigns.

We are constantly keeping up to date on emerging trends in the social landscape to ensure that our campaigns are always utilizing best practices and performing adjacent to industry standards. If you are ready to start embracing the full potential of Facebook and Instagram advertising in your brand’s social media campaigns, let’s talk!

The post Facebook Removes 20% Text Restrictions for Paid Ads appeared first on Today's Business.

If you’re from New Jersey then you know we take pride in all of the flavor our state has to offer. We just can’t keep quiet about it. We publish, review, and post about recipes, restaurants, bars, and beer. It’s how we share what we love! And it’s how these Jersey-proud food-lovin’ publications add even more flavor to a little state that is already bursting with variety. Check out what these NJ Food Blogs have to offer!

Hoboken Girl

In 2012, New Jersey resident Jennifer Tripuka started Hoboken Girl to explore and document exciting happenings in her area. Since then the site has seen enormous growth and is currently authored by 20+ contributors, each with a unique perspective on the Hoboken area. Stop by for news, lifestyle advice, shopping hotspots, community events, and yes FOOD! Peep their “Food + Drink” category for guides about the hottest cocktails in the city, as well as tips for how to stay safe and have the most fun when dining out. (We also highly recommend their Sweet Deals Directory for coupons and savings at a handful of Hoboken businesses!)

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A post shared by Hoboken Girl® (@thehobokengirl) on Aug 14, 2020 at 1:42pm PDT

Boozy Burbs

Food news is good news, folks. And Boozy Burbs delivers just that. If there’s a new food hot spot in the Greater Bergen County area, the Boozy Burbs team is there in advance to highlight and inform with links to menus and suggestions on how and what to order. While you’re getting the scoop on their blog, visit their Instagram for endless mouth-watering foodie posts. This is primo content and we are HERE for it.

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A post shared by North Jersey Eating—Food Media (@boozyburbs) on Aug 2, 2020 at 3:40pm PDT

The Digest Online

We know how to pack a lot of flavor into our small state. The Digest follows suit by packing loads of delightful, informative, Hoboken-centric content into their five-topic issues that cover Health & Wellness, Lifestyle, Parenting, Real Estate & Design, and of course, FOOD – all with an emphasis on keeping it local.

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A post shared by The Digest Magazine (@thedigestonline) on May 11, 2020 at 1:54pm PDT

NJ Monthly’s Dining Category

New Jersey Monthly has been supplying NJ news for over 40 years – always with the “express purpose of destroying the myth that New Jersey is a mere pass-through state.” Stop by their dining category for the latest Garden State food news or discover an extensive selection of the top dining spots on the New Jersey Monthly “Jersey’s Best List” – a directory of top local dining experiences, specifically crafted by New Jersey Monthly’s dining experts.

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A post shared by New Jersey Monthly Magazine (@njmonthly) on Aug 7, 2019 at 8:49pm PDT

Jersey Bites

The Jersey Bites team is on “a quest for food with attitude.” Owned by Deborah Smith (Author of the Jersey Shore Cookbook) and penned by a handful of vibrant authors from all over the state, this blog offers informative and heartwarming food news. Articles often include interviews with business owners and patrons who understand why New Jersey has some of the best bites around. Don’t pass up their “Best of” categories to find the best nachos, doughnuts, and brunch spots recommended by their readers.

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A post shared by Deb Smith | Food | Restaurants (@jerseybites) on Oct 6, 2020 at 7:08am PDT

South Jersey Beer Scene

Every great beer has a story. The South Jersey Beer Scene team is dedicated to discovering those stories while they explore Jersey’s vibrant beer culture. Here you’ll find the latest craft beer news, commentary, in-depth articles about drink releases, and more. And it doesn’t stop there! Their podcast (of the same name) is hosted by Vic and Richard who travel and speak to local brewery owners, offering a personal glimpse at the people responsible for crafting the latest and greatest flavors in the Jersey beer scene.

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A post shared by South Jersey Beer Scene (@sjbeerscene) on Aug 2, 2020 at 9:01am PDT

Bite-Sized Blogs

The Tap Takeover

Rob Bedford is a lifelong New Jersian and a craft beer enthusiast who believes we are in the “golden age of beer.” He pours his passion for where he is from and what he drinks into his frequent and flavorful posts that focus on beer and local breweries. His in-depth reviews comment not only on flavor, but experience, and even the beverage’s package design. Visit The Tap Takeover for a refreshing and enthusiastic taste of New Jersey. 

Food and Wine Chickie

They say that sharing is caring – and Veronique Deblois has plenty to care about and share with her readers. Deblois authors Food and Wine Chickie, a lifestyle and food blog dedicated to sharing what she loves: great food, wine, and company. Deblois’ is well-traveled and often expresses her love for variety through delicious recipes (Chocolate Chip Walnut Pie, anyone?) as well as her in-depth reviews of NJ dining and travel experiences.

Each of these blogs exemplifies why New Jersey is home to a healthy dose of heart, humor, and good food. There’s plenty to go around! Did we miss one of your favorites? Comment and let us know!

The post Top NJ Food Blogs You Should be Following appeared first on Today's Business.

In August of 2019, Facebook officially rolled out its Special Ad Category update within Facebook Ads Manager, which restricts ad targeting options for any account running ads related to credit, employment, or housing. The purpose of this new ad category is to help advertisers avoid discriminatory practices. Facebook required all advertisers to identify whether or not their campaigns belong to a Special Ad Category and update their targeting settings to comply with these restrictions by March 31, 2020, or their ads would not be allowed to run.

What is Facebook’s Special Ad Category?

Facebook developed the Special Ad Category in response to civil rights concerns about its ad targeting features. Within this expansion of Facebook’s ad policies, it is required—for any account running ads related to credit, employment, or housing—to select the Special Ad Category when creating a campaign. By doing so, advertisers are limited in the targeting options they can utilize so that Facebook users are protected from unlawful discrimination.

How Does This Impact Ad Targeting?

Under the special categories mentioned above, the following restrictions are placed on advertisers’ targeting options.

Location

Ads can no longer be targeted by zip code, but can still be targeted by country, city, or state.

Age & Gender

All ages (18-65+) and genders must be included.

Detailed Targeting

Any targeting options (demographics, interests, or behaviors) that could contribute to discriminatory practices may be restricted.

Lookalike Audiences

Lookalike audiences are no longer an option for campaigns ran under special ad categories. Instead, Facebook will utilize the custom audiences you would generally use for lookalikes (website visitors, customer lists, or engaged users) to create something similar, now referred to as a Special Ad Audience.  Under the special categories, advertisers can make use of Special Ad Audiences in lieu of Lookalike Audiences. These audiences still use existing information you have about the users you want to reach to create an audience with similar behavior. However, the audiences are adjusted to be in compliance with the Special Ad Category policies.

How Do Real Estate Advertisers Adjust Their Strategy?

At Today’s Business, we have been working with luxury real estate properties for many years. In past campaigns, we had been successful in using Interest Targeting and Lookalike Audiences to drive traffic to the properties’ website in order to build up a strong remarketing audience of potential qualified leads. Now, with the debut of the new Special Ad Category, we were forced to revamp our strategies for our real estate clients. 

If you are a real estate property who is feeling the effects of this change, here are a few ways that you can adjust your strategy to comply with Facebook’s new policy and effectively reach your target audience through Facebook advertising campaigns.

Use Engaging Ad Creatives

The number one way to run a Facebook campaign that your target audience will engage with by putting your creativity on full display. When it comes to luxury apartment communities that generally have a higher price tag and exclusive amenities, it is important to highlight those specifics in your ads to be able to catch the eyes of those who fit into your demographic and get them to click through, but also provide a clear message to people who may not fit your target audience. By putting yourself in the shoes of your target audience, you can highlight the important things that users would be looking for when they apartment hunting and truly set yourself apart from your competition. 

Use Your “Voice”

Your ad has captured your audience’s attention. Now, they’re reading your ad’s caption for more information. This is your opportunity to tell them what they want to hear. Reiterate the key points displayed in your ad creative, provide more detail, and most importantly, speak to who you are targeting! To combat these new targeting restrictions, it is incredibly important that your ad copy isn’t leaving any questions unanswered. If a 25-year-old is seeing an ad for an active adult community, you should give them no reason to click-through to your website because the dynamic-duo of your ad creative and ad copy has clearly explained to them that their age group is unable to live at your community. Even though you cannot choose the age range you are looking to target, by hitting the nail on the head when it comes to your creative and copy, over time, Facebook’s machine learning will dynamically adjust to show your ad to the most engaged audience and ultimately give you a low cost per result.

Use Simple but Specific Targeting

There is a reason why you are advertising your community in the first place, right? There is a goal you are looking to accomplish and you know who you are looking for in order to complete that goal. Remarketing is more important than it ever was in terms of acquiring quality leads for real estate. Your targeting strategy should be less impression-based and more lead-based. You can spend hundreds of dollars and get your ads in front of tens of thousands of people, but since you are limited in what you can control, you could essentially be wasting your ad dollars reaching the wrong people. By building a strong remarketing audience and driving those users to a landing page optimized for conversions, your campaign will be set for success.With the ever-changing dynamics of digital marketing, we must continue to rely on our creative abilities and adaptability to get our message across to our target audiences. Speak directly to your audience, put yourself in their shoes, give them all the information they need, and retarget until they convert!

Social Media Advertising at Today’s Business

Our Social Media Strategy team takes a comprehensive approach to social media marketing with your business goals in mind. Our methods are anything but one size fits all. We formulate a unique and competitive strategy for each brand that we work with. Depending on your goals, we are able to determine appropriate KPIs for each of your campaigns.

We are constantly keeping up to date on emerging trends in the social landscape to ensure that our campaigns are always utilizing best practices and performing adjacent to industry standards. If you are ready to start embracing the full potential of Facebook and Instagram advertising in your brand’s social media campaigns, let’s talk!

The post Understanding Facebook’s Special Ad Category for Real Estate Advertisers appeared first on Today's Business.

And ironically enough, Facebook is relying on Twitter to let its users know about the issues their platforms are having today.

We’re aware that some people are having trouble uploading or sending images, videos and other files on our apps. We're sorry for the trouble and are working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible. #facebookdown

— Facebook (@facebook) July 3, 2019

It seems as though these types of issues have become the new normal for Facebook and its family of apps: Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Let’s break this down real quick.

In January, Instagram crashed and was completely inaccessible for hours. In March, Facebook was down due to a ‘Server Configuration Change‘. Then, about a month later, the family of apps crashed yet again (if you’re counting, this is the third major outage in 2019). So, here we are again in July with yet another Facebook outage!

While waiting for Facebook and Instagram to get it together, we checked out Twitter to see what the rest of the social media community had to say about the outage. Hopefully everything is back to business as usual again soon so our social media team can get back to work. But until then, check out our top 3 tweets from the Facebook and Instagram outage!

1. TMZ hit ’em with a “thank u, next.”

Instagram people tryin' to come over to Twitter like: #instagramdown #facebookdown pic.twitter.com/Uu7ppWK88z

— TMZ (@TMZ) July 3, 2019

2. A mood

Yea, what’s new#FacebookDown #InstagramDown pic.twitter.com/Ykq6swPQSN

— 9GAG (@9GAG) July 3, 2019

3. But really guys… again…

Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp all being reported as down.

Social media managers basically be…#facebookdown #instagramdown #whatsappdown

Is it working for you? pic.twitter.com/ksTgXQKZqj

— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) July 3, 2019

Social Media Updates

Our social media team lives on Facebook and Instagram. When there’s an update, we’re on top of it. And at this rate, we can, unfortunately, expect something like this to happen again in the near future. So, be sure to keep up with our blog for all things social media news, updates, and strategy!

The post Yes, Facebook & Instagram are Down… Again. appeared first on Today's Business.

The old way of social media marketing was dependent on creative, organic content. But now, the reach of a Facebook or Instagram post is less than 5% of a page’s total likes. The new way of social media marketing is through targeted ad campaigns that utilize a strategic funnel system to build awareness, increase website traffic, and drive conversions.

What is the social media funnel?

Trying to sell to users on social media who are not familiar with your brand and have not interacted with your content does not work. The social media ads funnel is an extremely effective approach to social media marketing because it nurtures a potential consumer through a sequence of ads until they are ready to convert. Through the three phases of awareness, consideration, and conversion, advertisers are able to narrow down their audience from top to bottom so their ad dollars are being spent effectively by reaching the right people in each phase.

Awareness

Those who are not paid media experts wouldn’t understand the value of brand awareness. Just because you can’t put a number on the ROI of an impression, doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable. How do you expect someone to make a purchase if they’ve never heard of your brand? Simply think of an impression as a potential conversion and you will quickly realize how valuable your awareness campaign truly is. Building brand awareness is the first and in some ways the most important step of the social media funnel. In order to gain a potential customer, you need to make them aware of who you are and what you have to offer. Starting with a broad brand awareness campaign also helps you to build out your target audience to retarget in later phases of the funnel. Awareness is the car that drives on the road of consideration, leading to the destination of a conversion.

Consideration

Consideration has often been coined as the forgotten stage of the marketing funnel, even though at the end of the day, leads from this phase are micro conversions. In abandoning this stage of the funnel, inexperienced advertisers are missing out on a huge opportunity to target potential customers who already have an interest in your business or brand. You spent time fleshing out a thumb stopping awareness campaign and now it’s time to capitalize on it by hitting those potential customers once again. Now that they know who you are, they need to know more about what you’re about and what you can do for them. This is your chance to start building a relationship with potential customers, drive them to your website, and encourage them to consider your products or services. By doing all of this effectively, you can retarget people who watched a specific percentage of your video, visited your website, etc., and hit them one last time with an ad that you know will drive them to convert.

Conversion

Once you’ve finally made it to the conversion phase, you are ready to seal some leads. The people that have made it this far started at the top of the funnel and engaged with your ads so highly that they stuck with you throughout the entire ride. Now that you made these customers aware of your business or brand and they’ve considered your products or services, they are now ready to convert. By using direct messaging to speak to your highly targeted leads, there is nothing left to do but watch the conversions roll in.

Key Takeaways

Turning a simple impression into a lead takes time. It’s not going to happen overnight. It’s not going to be easy. There is no one size fits all approach. If you aren’t utilizing the funnel approach to acquire leads on social, it is nearly impossible to know whether or not you are targeting an audience that is ready to become a customer. But by understanding each phase of the funnel, using the right types of creatives, targeting the proper audience, and analyzing your results to evaluate for future campaigns, you are ready to reap the benefits of paid social media advertising.

The post What Facebook’s Recent Updates Mean For Your Social Media Strategy in 2019 appeared first on Today's Business.

If Instagram is your favorite social media platform, then we can almost guarantee that you’ve struggled with crafting the “perfect” caption before. Instagram can be tricky when it comes to captions, especially when you are trying to generate a lot of likes on a photo. Whether you’re a business owner trying to generate some buzz or you’re looking for tips for your personal account, here are some tips to get those hearts flying.

Be Brief

Most people don’t like to read in general and the same applies for Instagram captions. Chances are people aren’t actually going to stop and read your caption, but seeing a couple sentences as opposed to a large paragraph is a lot more comforting to the eye and will make them more likely to read. Be brief, but don’t abbreviate too much; slang is great, but you want people to actually understand what you are trying to say.

For example, if you visited the Grand Canyon, you don’t need to write about how your brother stubbed his toe on a cactus while looking at his weather app that told him it was 100 degrees outside because his shoes were untied and you got sunburn because you ran out of sun tan lotion. I bet you stopped paying attention in the middle of that sentence. Instead of including every moment leading up to your post, try to let your incredible photograph do (most of) the talking.

Comedy, Comedy, Comedy

You don’t have to be Chris Rock to get in touch with your inner comedian. Everyone likes a good joke or a witty pun. A single word or emoji can be enough if it correlates with your picture the right way. Be aware of what is going on in your picture; even the most serious posts can have the funniest captions if you draw out the right details.

You can never have too many (#bae)sics. #TractrJeans

A post shared by TRACTR JEANS (@tractrjeans) on Jun 17, 2017 at 5:53am PDT

While comedy is a great tool for Instagram captions, it won’t work if the joke is overplayed. For example, on your 23^rd birthday, do not make the blink-182 reference about how you hope that people still like you when you’re 23. Think outside of the box and come up with something that’s original to the picture you are posting. Give them a smile and they’ll give you a heart!

Consistency is Key

When you go to your favorite Italian restaurant and ask the waiter for Chicken Parmesan, you don’t expect him to bring you out a Big Mac and a side of fried rice, so don’t give your Instagram followers that! Whether you realize it or not, you’ve established your own brand on your account with the photos that you have posted in the past. Your followers are expecting you to give them a certain brand and it will be very obvious to them if you are trying too hard to be something you’re not.

Also, if your posts become consistent and routine, then the likes will become routine as well. People throw you a follow because they enjoy what you’re posting, and if you change that, you risk a decrease in your engagement.

Teamwork makes the dream work! ????

A post shared by Today’s Business (@todays_business) on May 19, 2017 at 7:30am PDT

Know your Audience

A caption only pertaining to you and your circumstances can lose the interest of a majority of your viewers. While a joke may seem clever to you, if it’s one of those “you had to be there moments,” people won’t resonate with your post. This decreases the chances that they will like your photo.

Don’t forget: be smart. There is no need to be raunchy, especially when family members and future employers can look at your content. Try to keep it PG!

Timing is Everything

While being spontaneous with your Instagram posts can be fun and easy, the fact of the matter is you run the risk of losing the opportunity of more people seeing your post. Understand when your users are most likely going to engage with your post, and schedule your posts around these time periods. Oberlo has more details on scheduling posts in Instagram.

Keep up with the Different Social Media Trends and Updates

Social media platforms are constantly progressing and changing in hopes to get  . Keeping up with what is happening can help you on your personal account, as well as your business account!

Keep in mind: Sometimes what might be successful on one platform might be disastrous on another. Here at Today’s Business, we’re constantly researching the latest digital marketing trends to ensure success and engagement for all of our clients. For more information on how we stay up to date, don’t hesitate to contact us today!

The post The Secret Behind the Best Instagram Captions appeared first on Today's Business.

1. Social Media connects you with your audience.

Times are changing and the world of advertising is going digital. Social media has expanded its influence way beyond a Facebook or Instagram account. It’s not just a page anymore. It’s an interaction with a potential customer and a conversation we can start. It’s ideas that we can spread like wildfire.

Not only can you connect with your audience through the content that you push out, but you can also learn a lot about them. What do they care about? What type of content do they like to share? Learning about your audience can not only give you valuable insights to tailor your content to better engage with them, but it also gives an avenue for great customer service. You can respond to your audience when they have questions in real time. Social media provides a direct link from business to consumer.

2. Drive targeted traffic.

Your target market is already on social media. Why not capitalize on these engaged audiences? For the first time in history, we get to intertwine marketing into someone’s everyday life and we can do it in a highly targeted way. Website traffic increases when the right people are seeing your content. 

There are 2.27 billion monthly active users on Facebook and 800 million on Instagram. It’s time to start profiting from those users who are already engaged. 

3. Build a brand that people remember.

You can’t secure brand loyalty or consumer advocacy without a defined brand. Social media is a great place to start building your brand because it allows for creativity and consistency. Building a brand begins with the right messaging and the right voice. According to Hootsuite, 52% of people who discover a new product on Facebook say they are interested in buying it. When social media channels are used effectively, any business can tell a compelling story and engage the right audience with content that generates a buzz.

4. Campaign success can be easily tracked.

With traditional marketing, you pay for a commercial slot or a billboard on the side of the highway. The problem with that is you won’t be able to track the effectiveness of your campaign and you won’t be able to see if you made a solid return on investment. Between Facebook, Instagram, and Google Analytics, there are so many avenues to measure the success of each of your campaigns.  

5. Social Media helps SEO.

Social media boosts your website’s organic traffic. Let’s say that you just put out a new blog on your site. The best way to get that blog out there is to promote it on social media. When targeted to the right people, you will see an increase in traffic that will help your site rank better in the long term. Utilizing social media channels is a great opportunity for people to find your site when they wouldn’t otherwise search for your business.

Social Media Marketing at Today’s Business

Today’s Business began with “Making Business Social” as our tagline, and we continue to create effective and strategic campaigns for a multitude of businesses in a vast amount of industries. Our social media team will come up with a strategy specifically tailored to your business and the goals you want to achieve. If you’re ready to take your business’s social media presence to the next level and start seeing results, let’s talk!

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What is Social Media Listening?

Social listening is the process of monitoring conversations on social media channels that revolve around specific brands, products or industries, and leveraging those insights to optimize content towards a particular demographic. Monitoring collects every social mention and interaction, while listening requires analysis and taking action. Extracting key insights from social conversations and transforming them into action will allow you to better position your brand strategy and improve return on investment (ROI).

How does social media listening work?

Most monitoring tools work by crawling sites continuously and indexing them. Once these sites are indexed they can be searched through queries, or search strings. This will lead to “mentions” on the tool’s interface.

Why is social media listening important for brands?

1. Target Audience: Helps you gain a better understanding of the customer and increases chances of creating effective content relevant to their needs.

2. Lead generation and engagement: Social listening tools can reach a new audience as well as allow target audiences to express themselves. It allows them to engage in conversations that will be valuable for the company and personalizes the relationship with the customer.

3. Customer service: If you use the right social listening tools and stay on top of issues and comments about your product, you can offer exceptional customer service, address customer needs, and make strategic decisions.

4. Product Development: Social listening can help you gain valuable feedback on your product and based on these insights, you can improve your product and incorporate an enhanced brand strategy.

5. Brand Reputation: Building a positive brand reputation is key! Develop a unique value proposition by keeping track of the sentiment around your brand and its services.

6. Competitors: Stay ahead of your competitors by tracking conversations of your competitors’ products. Use this to your advantage and develop a successful brand strategy!

What are some social media listening tools that can be utilized?

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is one of the most popular tools in social media marketing. It helps manage multiple social network channels and monitors what people are saying about your brand.

Google Alerts

This is social media monitoring for beginners— monitor the web for interesting content or competitors, and create a google alert and receive email notifications every time Google finds new results across blogs, sites, and forums.

Reddit Keyword Monitor

Get real-time results through this app— set the keywords on Reddit you would like to keep track of and get a sense of who is talking about your brand, products, and market.

Mentionlytics

Track mentions, keywords, and sentiment in multiple languages and find potential influencers across social networks and other web sources.

Brandwatch

Social media analytic tool that tracks billions of conversations happening online everyday, including blogs, news, forums, twitter, Facebook…etc., and allow brands and companies to understand consumer insights, trends, and brand perception.

Optimize your Social Media Strategy

When it comes to social media listening tools, you can understand your company’s strengths and weaknesses and make strategic decisions accordingly. Are you looking to improve your business’ brand strategy and increase ROI? We can help! Please contact us today for more information.

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