TRICKS TO GAIN MORE INSTAGRAM FOLLOWERS
Did you know the most followed user is Instagram’s own account, with over 280 million followers? Cristiano Ronaldo is the most followed individual, with over 154 million followers?
Primary Selena Gomez had held the title of being the most-followed person on Instagram since March 2016, when she knocked her friend Taylor Swift off the top spot. But now Selena herself has been dethroned, with Juventus and Portugal footballer Cristiano Ronaldo racking up more followers. Cristiano Ronaldo has over 154 million followers.
Instagram now has more than one billion users, and elevated user engagement levels. And with 80 percent of accounts following a business on Instagram, it seems like marketers might be keener than ever to get accustomed with Instagram for their business but whatever unsubstantiated reason, most businesses still utterly ignore Instagram when building their social media strategy. It’s about time we start considering Instagram, a vital part of the corporate ‘social media bundle’.
We’ve uncovered tactics that could help you grow a bigger, more relevant audience on Instagram.
- Make sure your bio is complete. Include relevant keywords and hashtags, and a link back to your site.
- Promote your Instagram account on your other social media accounts and profiles. Tell people what they can expect once they’re following you.
- Use the Right Hashtags.
When it comes to Instagram caption ideas, you need to look beyond the one-word, obvious hashtags. Sure, you want to use those, too, but mix it up and use hashtags to tell part of your story. You can Use popular hashtags so your images get found in the search. Some of the most popular ones are:
4. Comment and Engage With People Using Those Hashtags Too.
- Use hashtags that are known to help increase followers: #FF (Follow Friday), #instafollow, #l4l (Like for like), #tagforlikes and #followback.
- Cross-promote your dedicated hashtag.
- Like and comment on other users’ photos. This is the most natural way to gain new followers.
- Use your bio link to drive traffic to your newest or most popular content.
- Interact with top influencers in your space and try to become one of their favorite people or brands.
- Adjust your settings so any potentially embarrassing tagged photos won’t show without your approval.
- Develop your own unique, recognizable visual style. Figure out how you want to stand out and make it so!
- Be consistent. Know why you’re posting, and who you’re posting for. Be consistent about how you use the platform and your follower count will grow organically.
- Use calls to action in your photo captions.
What is the Difference Between Digital and Online Marketing?
“Online marketing” and “digital marketing” are both terms that are often confused and misused. I work in the industry, yet have found myself wondering should I write “online” or “digital?”
Knowing the difference can help you shape your overall marketing strategy.
It can also help you analyze your current strategy by categorizing in which type of marketing your efforts fall. Are you making sustainable long-term initiatives that will yield results consistently or are you merely playing by ear with each of your outreach efforts?
The Umbrella Term: Digital Marketing
The term “digital marketing” refers to using digital channels, devices, and platforms (regardless of whether they are online or not) to build or promote your marketing message.
In other words, with digital marketing, you don’t limit yourself to using the internet. In this way, digital marketing can serve as an ‘umbrella’ term because it encompasses many marketing techniques.
For instance, if you download ‘Temple Run 2’ on your iPhone, you would do this by using the internet, and the app was built with technology that probably did as well. However, when you use it on your phone, the app is working independently from the internet and thus considered a form of digital marketing.
To give you another example, let’s say you want to run a mobile campaign where you send SMS texts to your customers offering upcoming promotions from your business. Again, technology was used to create and send the message, but it was no need for a live internet connection for your users to receive it.
You could say that as long as technology keeps evolving, so will digital marketing. You could also say that anything that has a digital foundation can be considered digital marketing. And as of now, you have plenty of strategies to choose from:
Games
Content Marketing
Video Marketing
Mobile Marketing (SMS text campaigns)
TV Ads
Here’s another idea: digital marketing may also refer to offline ads on digital devices. In this case, you can launch an ad with a local cable company (offline ads) and display ads on TVs (a digital device).
Get the Action Live with Online Marketing
Online marketing, also commonly referred to as “internet marketing,” is a subset of digital marketing. The main characteristic of online marketing is that it requires a live internet connection to work, so, for instance, if you run a PPC campaign for your business, you are doing a form of online marketing.
Another example is if you run pop-ups on your website to advertise and offer or service. The same goes for display advertising of any format whether it be banner ads or text ads.
Like digital marketing, online marketing evolves with technology. However, I would argue that online marketing improves exponentially through time making it challenging to keep up with it. Also, for a newcomer, it can seem more overwhelming because of the terminology and skills often required.
Some online marketing efforts include:
SEO (Website Optimization)
PPC (Google Search, Bing Search, etc.)
Display Advertising (Text, Image, Video, Shopping Ads)
Social Media Marketing (Facebook, LinkedIn)
TV (Google’s Display Network)
Online marketing includes most, if not also all, of the marketing strategies included in online marketing. We have ads for people typing keywords in Bing Ads or Google Search, including searches performed on YouTube as well. Then we have the massive Display Network from Google, including the Audience Network for Bing Ads (MSN, EDGE, etc.), among other networks serving text, image, and video ads.
One of the latest features available on Google is the new device segment for TV. The display network now includes television, meaning that we may now serve ads on smart TV’s capable of both, connecting to the internet and browse and display ads.
Digital vs. Online, Does the Difference Matter?
The truth is, it doesn’t. The definition is a mere technicality. What matters is that you understand the implications of each one when building your overall marketing plan.
Which leads me to my next point: strategize. Regardless of the way you choose to do marketing, you need to have a plan of action. What kind of results do you want to get? How do you plan on achieving this? Do you want exposure, or do you want to get to know your audience and track the money you have invested?
Answering these questions will help you realize if you need to focus on online marketing, digital marketing, or both at the same time.
Let’s talk. Book a meeting!
Why SamsungS10 S10+ & S10E is being considered good for Active Internet Users
Business keeps getting faster every day and you need to be able to work anywhere—flexibly and collaboratively. With the Galaxy S10 for business, you can do everything you need right on your phone as fast as you need to, and keep your company and personal data protected. Connect the Galaxy S10 to any monitor with the DeX adapter, and it has the power to perform like a desktop PC. Using DeX, you can access your desktop anywhere with enterprise-ready VDI solutions. With access to Microsoft Office Mobile, you can view spreadsheets, presentations and documents anytime, anyplace.
Wireless Power Share lets you charge Galaxy devices or even a friend’s phone right from your device.
Intelligent Wi-Fi reaches faster speeds with Wi-Fi 6, connecting reliably and securely even on public networks. And it seamlessly switches to LTE to hit incredible data speeds up to 2.0Gbps.
with all this feature, the latest Samsung galaxy s10 series proves to be the ultimate
Device for the die-hard internet addicts on the go. Pre-order yours today with one going
For around 100,000 Kenyan shillings #wecanhelp
7 Ways to Advertise on YouTube
Let's discuss the target methods you can use in your campaigns for Youtube advertising:
1. Placements
Placement targeting allows advertisers to pick specific videos they would like to appear on. The main advantage of placements targeting are:
You can pick highly relevant videos
You spend money only where you have a higher chance to convert
You will be able to control bids on the placements that are likely to make the difference for you
This method also holds many disadvantages:
Volume might be small
CPCs are higher due to a lower amount of available impressions
The campaign will be difficult to scale up
2. Topics
Each person has different topics of interest and being able to target those topics allows you to target a relevant audience while generating volume.
The main advantages of topics targeting are:
Large impression availability
Targeted, but not too narrow
Good CPC compared to placements targeting
The main disadvantages are:
Lower conversion rate than placements targeting
It doesn’t guarantee websites talking about your topics will be relevant to your business
It might be too broad for items targeting specific niches
3. Contextual
Contextual targeting works with keywords and helps identify pages whose context fits the context of your keywords. Picking the right keywords becomes key to the success of this campaign type.
The advantages of a keyword driven display campaign are:
It allows you to target contexts relevant to your business
It is a good way to scale up campaigns at a low CPC
The main disadvantages are:
It might not convert very well at first
It needs a lot of negative placements to make sure the campaign doesn’t invest money on bad websites.
4. Remarketing
This is one of the most effective ways to target people on YouTube since it is based on targeting people who have already visited your website without converting.
Remarketing is extremely powerful and its main advantages are:
High conversion rates
Extremely relevant to the users
It can be customized based on users’ behaviors on the site
Remarketing doesn’t have many disadvantages:
You need to make sure not to target irrelevant users, such as people who bounced right away from your site
It might become too invasive if it has no caps on impressions
5. Interests
Interests can be found in the same place where you add a remarketing list:
Interests include:
Affinity audiences: This option allows you to target large groups of people based on their long-term interests
In-market audiences: This option targets people who are actively shopping in the market for your products or services
The main advantages of interest targeting are:
Possibility to reach out to a large number of targeted users
Lower risk to target irrelevant users
It focuses on the user behavior and not only on page content
The main disadvantages are:
It might still target audiences that aren’t relevant enough
6. Demographics
This target option speaks for itself. It allows you to target users based on age and gender. Additionally, Google introduced an additional targeting layer which consists of targeting a parental status. Here is what the end result looks like:
Demographic targeting has a few powerful advantages:
It helps exclude people who aren’t relevant to a business
It allows you to customize bids by age, gender, and parental status
The main disadvantages are:
It general and targets too many irrelevant users for businesses that don’t aim to the masses
If you get a lot of traffic from “unknown” users, you won’t be able to optimize based on performance and you will be running blind
7. Combination of Targeting Methods
This is certainly one of the most interesting targeting options since it allows you to take the best of each targeting method and reduces targeting disadvantages, since different methods compensate for the flaws of others.
The best practice is to combine two to three targeting options, but no more, to avoid limiting your audience too much.
Conclusion
With the ever-increasing demand for video, you can never know too many ways to get your ads in front of the right audience. However, not every business has videos ready to go and banners are a great way to get started with YouTube. Get in touch with us at Entwined Media and we will help you in these tips to increase sales and brand awareness across Youtube.
4 Reasons Why You Should Design Without Color First
Creating your screens in grayscale before adding color forces you to think clearly and prioritize right when it comes to UX design.
1. You focus on layout and spacing
When you start designing keeping the B&W color palette constraint in mind, most of your thinking time goes into figuring out how to space things right to be able to seem like things are grouped together. You start thinking about the invisible yet more important aspects such as readability (line height, paragraphs, and typography), center of attention (call to action buttons and sizes) and scannability (grouping of elements, spacing)
2. Your clients ask the right questions
Good design takes time. At the early stages of design, most designers are shy to show incomplete work to their clients/users to gather early feedback. I cannot stress more on the importance of gathering early feedback from clients. This helps you to stay away from the trap of too many iterations with too much time wasted on unnecessary versions. Most clients either don’t know what exactly they want or suck at giving constructive feedback. Showing them an early version that looks like a more high-fid version of a pen and paper sketch will get them to understand the process and ask you questions that are more constructive.
You might get a ‘What color works for this button’ which surely leads to be a better conversation than ‘Why have you chosen yellow for this button’.
3. Your designs are clean
Creating a simple and clean design is not an easy task. When you create your designs in black and white, all your focus is on usability, spacing, sizes, laying out elements, interactions, and flows. The first version of your design should only feature different shades of black and white to show hierarchy and visual weight between elements.
4. Creates consistencyIt is best to use three or lesser colors in your design. Having too many colors in your designs may confuse the user or bring the attention of the user to less important areas. When you have a single brand color and use it selectively on a design that’s complete in black and white, the eyes of the user naturally get dragged into these “color” areas.
9 Critical SEO Checklist Items for Website Design & Development
Web developers straddle multiple disciplines bringing content to the web. In addition, to design and marketing concerns, professional developers are also committed to keeping websites accessible, fully supported, and recognizable to search engines.
Various strategies accomplish the task, and while they are not always as well-versed in the field as dedicated SEO professionals, web developers and website design agencies are most effective when they understand SEO fundamentals (and beyond).
1. Don’t Forget the SEO Basics
Consistent attention to basic SEO provides a solid foundation for any website. Accounting for details like alt tags and title tags strengthens content and makes your site more accessible to both search engines and other accessibility needs, such as screen readers. The tags should be attached to every image and anchor text, accurately describing what’s on them.
Another long-time feature of SEO, the importance of metadata hasn’t diminished – it actually has new changes.
Metadata can best be described as a concise informative snapshot of other data, furnishing basic info about website content.
Well-structured meta titles and descriptions make it easier to find content, increases click-through-rate (CTR), and reinforces information organization. Creating metadata manually makes it more accurate and site-specific, driving better results than creating it automatically.
2. Validate all Code Against W3C
Following best practices includes validating code against W3C standards. The process ensures your code is seen properly by search and follows widely accepted formatting rules. Without validation, coding errors can cause a search to overlook or dismiss key aspects of your site.
3. Use Proper Structure
Site structure contributes to consistent user experience, but a well-structured website can also enhance SEO. Users and Google are looking for some of the same things, so delivering a memorable UX also satisfies the search provider.
Proper structure leads to site links, outlining your featured pages each time your website appears in search. The valuable SEO advantage makes it easier for visitors to navigate your site and points them to the information they came for.
Sitelinks are awarded by Google, recognizing websites with proper structure. If you present a messy website structure, you’ll likely be passed over, losing the SEO benefits of site links.
Web developers need to understand when to use
use <header> tags, <section> tags, <footer> tags, and much more during the development process. I’ve seen websites with more than one <h1> tag and always cringe when viewing the source code of sloppy web development.
Other structure and code issues are the simple things for UX – web developers must get into the habit of using the proper “type” on form fields for phone, email, URL, and text. This is simply great practice and makes for happy visitors on their mobile experience.
Link Internally for Better Crawling and Indexing
Google admittedly isn’t perfect, crawling and detecting all the content on websites. That makes it even more important to maximize the impact of your top pages. Linking internally helps support your site’s structure, in terms of ranking and indexing. The strategy is particularly effective when new content is linked to steady, evergreen pages Google already recognizes as relevant.
This goes double for using proper “noindex” tags throughout your site. Certain pages like “tag” pages typically do better by not having them indexed, giving more power to your service and product pages. Each particular website structure is different, and your web developer needs to understand the site architecture extremely well to get this nailed down properly.
- Understand Pagination and Canonicalization
Strong canonicalization ensures every piece of content on your website has a unique URL. Done correctly, the process brings greater authority to your site, preventing the benefits of quality links and content from being diluted. Pagination splits content into multiple pages, providing a series of direct links, usually found near the bottom of the page.
Clicking the numbered page links and forward/back icons enables visitors to efficiently navigate material. Though it is not always a top priority, intuitive pagination is an easy way to boost UX, which ultimately helps SEO.
- Ensure Proper Robots.txt and Sitemap.xml
You can’t blame Google for your website performance if you don’t send search engines the proper messages. If you’ve added a disallow directive to a Robots.txt file during development, make sure it is removed before the site goes live.
Both the Robots.txt and Sitemap.xml files should be properly formatted upon live launch and ready for your SEO professional to take the next steps. With the Sitemap.xml file, it should be submitted to Google Search Console.
- Manage and Implement Structured Data
Including structured data from schema.org can elevate your game. It’s vital to make sure your structured data is coded properly. Automatic tools don’t always uncover structured data problems, so manually checking for coding errors is the best defense.
You can check each page’s structured data using Google’s Structured Data Tool. There are many opportunities to embed structured data. Some obvious ones are:
Local Business data
Navigation
Breadcrumbs
Image Galleries
- Speed up Browser Caching
Browser caching and setting correct expire times for files saves time on the visitors future visits to your website. Essentially, this is a local copy of images and other files, such as CSS and JavaScript, that help with page load.
- Page Load Speed is Critical
As previously mentioned, the Speed Update announcement is definitely one huge reason to make sure your site loads fast, especially in mobile search. More importantly, you want your site to load fast on the desktop as well.
Your web development professional needs to consider all areas where speed can be improved. This includes using progressive JPEGs, understanding when to use PNG8 vs PNG24, and optimizing all files and assets on page load.
Similarly, failing to compress images can result in usability issues. Files are readily compressed with photo management software, before being exported for the web. And in some cases, using a smaller image size is all that’s needed to facilitated faster loading speeds.
There are many tools available to check page speed.
In Summary
The best web developers maintain SEO awareness, optimizing during each stage of website design and development. An SEO checklist helps manage the details and ensures a tight campaign and a website that can scale as your needs grow.
If you’re not getting the best possible performance from your website, it’s time to start giving SEO the attention it deserves.
If you’re looking for a progressive web development company that understands these concepts and many more on how SEO plays a vital role in the website design process, feel free to reach out to us!
Top 5 Digital Agencies in East Africa
Ogilvy has been producing iconic, culture-changing marketing campaigns since the day its founder David Ogilvy opened up shop in 1948. Today, Ogilvy is an award-winning integrated creative network that makes brands matter for Fortune Global 500 companies as well as local businesses across 131 offices in 83 countries. The company creates experiences, design and communications that shape every aspect of a brand’s needs through six core capabilities: Brand Strategy, Advertising, Customer Engagement and Commerce, PR and Influence, Digital Transformation, and Partnerships
Dotsavvy provides digital strategy, design, marketing and technology to some of Africa’s biggest businesses and most loved brands. We are driven by the challenge of reconciling our clients user needs and business goals to achieve transformational digital marketing outcomes.
Entwined Media is a Digital Engagement company located in Westlands, Nairobi that strives to understand the needs of our clients and analyse the market to implement the best methods to further your brand or product #WeCanHelp
Belva Digital is a performance-driven digital marketing agency based in Nairobi, Kenya. We focus on leading brands, enabling them to leverage the Internet to grow their businesses and organizations. Our creative and dynamic team will work with you to understand, tailor and implement the perfect blend of digital marketing solutions to achieve your business goals.
East Africa Digital Marketers is a full-fledged digital marketing agency based in Kenya at Westlands, Nairobi. Established in 2012, have failed enough to know what works online and what doesn’t.
5 DIGITAL MARKETING TRENDS TO WATCH OUT FOR IN 2019.
It seems like there is new technology coming out, every year Technology has rehabilitated the system of how commerce is done by allowing countless people to reach goals and try new things that they’ve never done before. Clients are demanding a more cohesive experience which is quite challenging for digital marketers. The year 2018 saw many changes taking place. What should one expect from digital marketing trends 2019?
Can you imagine what Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Snapchat would be if they did not have content? Imagine of blank spaces, there is numeral of reasons why they say content is the king. Content marketing is about information. It’s the marketing of a business or brand through the sharing of educational, entertaining, or insightful information that will ultimately help readers improve their lives. The quality, of good content, will always matter this means the year 2019 will have to reinforce the content the reader will see.
There is a rise in popular video platforms like Facebook Live, Instagram TV, and Ticktok.
TikTok, the short-form video app, has yet to launch ad units for brands or formal monetization products for creators. But over the last month, many agencies have been paying closer attention to the app and many marketers foretell another shiny object with impending for solid engagement. Live video is another sensation that will soon trend, momentarily video platforms will continue to dominate in 2019.
3. Instagram-
The year 2019 it will be about Instagram Stories, Instagram Live, IGTV, and Instagram Influencer Marketing If you ought to take this platform seriously, you MUST and start growing your followers here, as the number of followers is crucial for Brand Identity on this platform. Instagram dazzling rise continues, dominate the stagnant growth rates of Snapchat and Facebook. The proof still remains that with a whopping 1 billion accounts logging in, posting, liking, and commenting on images each month, Insta is a part of monthly life for one in seven people. Brand Follower Growth Increases from 6% to 8% Month-Over-Month.
4. Influencer Marketing
Another effective simple tool that can push the brand to sky limits. Influencers can give exceptionally good marketing. They can be anyone from celebrities, YouTube stars or bloggers like Miss Kihoro, Njugush, and others, who emanate the persona to influence consumers. Surveys show that people tend to trust more on consumer opinion over corporate statements. Using prominent personalities to give a good mouth on your brand can give reactions that can surprise you.
5. WhatsApp Marketing
It is anticipated that Facebook Ads will have ‘WhatsApp Us’ call to action button that will lead people to WhatsApp for business in the first half of 2019. This is the feature that would re-define the lead generation Industry, not forgetting the immense growth of Business WhatsApp, the social messaging service assimilated by Facebook for $19bn in 2014 and now has become the fasted growing communication App. Can you believe in most of the country its most popular than Facebook? how can businesses in Kenya use WhatsApp for business? Now, many businesses in Kenya now can download the WhatsApp Business to use for customer communication, marketing and, promotion.
Why Social Media Is Important for Business-to-Business Companies.
Social media plays an important role for companies because not only is it an essential communication tool between you and your clients, but also an excellent way to promote your business and brand.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn allow you to reach a wide audience: both your customers, people who already know your brand and potential clients who are searching for your product.
Social media is a fundamental part of inbound marketing. Though social media communication is dominated by most companies as communication is addressed to individual customers – it shouldn’t be ignored by businesses as their social media presence is significant.
However, business to business marketing is always considered to be difficult, labour-intensive, demanding and gives us new opportunities for implementing a marketing strategy that works.
Increasingly, you can see that business to business companies are successful in the world of social media!
According to stats worldwide, social media helps business to business companies with gaining new customers, therefore, it’s worth to invest your time and effort creating social media strategy. 75% of business to business buyers and 84% of C-level or vice-president executives take social media into account when making purchasing decisions.
Keep this in mind the next time you feel Social Media is not a tool for your kind of business.
Your online goals
Hey! It’s time to chat about goals.
Every business has different objectives. It’s good to know exactly what you want to achieve online, as it can help you set the right priorities and put your plan into place. Because you don’t want to feel too overwhelmed.
There are lots of clear ways digital can help your business. Such as, building relationships on social networks, selling online, finding new customers. Or even keeping existing ones.
It’s good to start by asking yourself a simple question: why, exactly, do I want to be online?
Imagine you own a hair salon. Your ultimate goals could be: to cut more people’s hair, sell more premium services than the standard haircut, and sell more of the products you offer.
But before anyone can walk through your door, they have to know you exist.
This is a great goal that digital can help with.
So let’s start with that one: getting the word out in the digital world.
One easy win is listing your business in local online directories. So, when people look for hairdressers on search engines, or online maps, your business will show up.
Then you might decide to build a website to share information about your business. This could be things like, your opening hours, your location, your prices and the services you offer. Maybe even photos and videos that could entice new customers to walk through your door.
You could set up a social media page- like on Facebook, Google+ or Twitter where you could post photos of your creations, offer special deals and really connect with your customers.
As you start achieving these goals, and more people become aware of you. Your goals may naturally evolve and you might want to shift your focus toward turning visitors into paying customers.
You could add new features to your site. Things like online appointment scheduling, a “reviews” section where people can say nice things about you, or even an ecommerce store to sell your hair and beauty products online.
Now that you’re using digital to attract visitors, and turn them into customers, you could start expanding your business by investing in online advertising.
Whatever your ultimate digital goals are, or where you currently stand, your priorities will naturally change and grow with your business.
Now to make sure you’re meeting your objectives, it’s really important to measure your progress along the way.
This is called “analytics”. Analytics lets you know what’s working well, and what could be tweaked.
At Entwined Media we can help you this so as to achieve your online success. Before you dive into the digital world, think about exactly what you’d like to achieve. Then, prioritise different online opportunities to help you accomplish your goals.
Talk to us and, we’ll help you plan. First, by looking at different ways you can establish a digital presence.
Next, the different ways to market yourself online.
And lastly, how you can measure and improve your digital endeavours.
0732 998899
