By now, most people have heard of SEO regardless of their industry, department or company size. But what is the actual marketing impact of SEO and how can you use it as a tool to promote and grow your business? Let’s take a look at what SEO stands for and how marketers around the world use it to promote their clients.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the process of driving traffic to your website with the help of all of your organic online content (blogs, articles, social media content etc.). However, be aware that it is not just any content that will increase your website’s traffic; it is crucial that it is optimised specifically for SEO in order to maximise results. SEO entails optimising all of your digital assets, such as your website, your social media, website content, etc. for search engines. 

Okay, but do you REALLY need it?

Why can’t I just run paid advertising campaigns to increase conversions? Well, you can choose to split your marketing budget in any way you want and feel free to experiment with different marketing strategies until you find the sweet spot. However, the reason that SEO might be a better choice is that, with SEO, individuals have already shown an interest in a particular product or service. With online advertising campaigns, you are targeting people based on different strategies such as retargeting or lookalike audiences with the goal of persuading them to purchase your product. But you don’t need to do that with SEO because people are already looking for a specific product or service – you just need to make sure that yours comes first on the search engine results. 

Becoming increasingly popular by the year, SEO is a very effective way to fulfil your marketing goals, whether that is brand awareness or conversions as it’s been found that most people will never look further than the first page on Google. Imagine you are an organic tea brand in London. What if every time someone typed in “organic tea London” into Google, your brand would pop up first? That would have a dramatic impact on your sales, as well as your brand awareness. Even better, this could help you tremendously with your online advertising campaigns too. You now have an audience that you know have enquired about your product or are likely to recognise your brand in the online environment. It will give you an advantage when it comes to targeting different audiences and increase your chances of generating sales. 

Where do you start?

The two main types of SEO that you will be introduced to are On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO. When thinking about search engine optimisation, most of us think of link building and complicated keywords strategies. While all of these elements are, of course, crucial to SEO, On-Page SEO serves only as a foundation for everything else that you implement later as part of your optimisation strategy. As most content will be published on your website, it makes a lot of sense to start with the website itself. Your On-Page SEO is a primer of the Off-Page SEO activities and you want to get it right. So, is your website optimised? 

On-Page SEO 

URLs 

Your URL structure is important not only for SEO but also for tracking purposes. Ensuring you have a clearly defined and segmented URL structure will give you a better understanding of what performs well and what is not working so well on your website. 

From an SEO standpoint, you want to keep your URLs short and concise for best results and remember to include relevant keywords wherever applicable. 

Sitemap

Another important On-Page element that you need to consider when performing On-Page SEO activities is your sitemap. This is (quite literally) a map or a blueprint of your website. Why would this be relevant for SEO? Well, it helps Google or other search engines to find, index or crawl your website’s content. By letting the search engines know which pages of your website are the most important, it will help to optimise your website and prime it for Off-Page activities. 

Title Tags 

While we’ve learned in recent years that your website content must include keywords and be SEO-friendly, placing these keywords in the titles of your website is probably still one of the most impactful positions. 

“The length of a title tag that Google will show will vary (it’s based on pixels, not character counts) but in general 55-60 characters is a good rule of thumb here.” (Demers T., 2020) 

Meta Descriptions 

Although you might be unsure what a meta description is, I guarantee that you see meta descriptions every time you search the web. 

The meta description is, put simply, a 160 character snippet of your website’s content. It’s used by search engines to let viewers know a bit about what they are going to find on a certain link before they actually visit the website. Seeing as many of us read the meta description before we enter a website, this is a crucial element for optimising your website. 

Alt Text 

It is highly likely that you have images on your website, whether they are in your blog posts, the home page, product or service pages, price lists, etc. Believe it or not, all of the images on your website are relevant for SEO. Since these are recognised as content by search engines, it’s essential to tag these pictures with relevant keywords in order to make it easier for Google or other search engines to find and push your website higher in the search results. 

“For example, if you have pictures of a customized Superman water bottle on your article, then save the alt-text for the image as ‘customized superman water bottle’, and then that picture will pop up whenever that keyword is searched for.

60% of consumers are more likely to contact a business or visit a site when a relative image shows up in their search results.” (Patel A., 2020) 

HTTP vs HTTPS

“A protocol is that “http” or “https” preceding your domain name. Google recommends that all websites have a secure protocol (the “s” in “https” stands for “secure”). To ensure that your URLs are using the https:// protocol instead of http://, you must obtain an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate. SSL certificates are used to encrypt data.” (Muller B., Moz) 

Keep in mind that there are other elements that you should always check before starting Off-Page SEO activities, such as page speed, header response, redirects, fixing broken links, and even duplicate content as these are all key factors in your website’s health and they eventually will have an impact on your SEO efforts. 

Once your On-Page optimisation is complete, it’s time for you to develop your Off-Page SEO strategy and find out the perfect recipe for your brand in order to get more traffic to your website, rank higher in the search results and ultimately, grow your business. Next time, we are going to discuss everything you need to know about Off-Page SEO so make sure you come back to find out how you can start performing SEO tasks that will help you achieve your business goals. 

Are you thinking about investing some of your marketing budgets in SEO but you’re not sure where to start? Luckily for you, this is exactly what we do! As a digital marketing agency, we can help you with that, all you need to do is get in touch with us today at hello@socialgamma.com.

In today’s world, we can benefit from so many marketing tools and techniques that it makes it difficult to choose! With various marketing strategies at your disposal, it is important to determine which ones will work best for you. The following will help you understand what these are and what they are used for. Both paid and organic are tremendously important and most businesses use a healthy mix of both to optimise their marketing efforts. I like to think of the campaign-types as superheroes. Each one has different strengths so using a combination is generally the best way to fight the battle. Paid marketing is faster, often at a higher price, and is more measurable. Organic marketing is more steady, provides longer-term effectiveness, and can be used to establish yourself as a thought leader within your industry, as well as to boost brand credibility. 

Since search engines have existed, there have been digital marketing activities in some form or another. For businesses today, there are various channels you can explore to achieve your business goals digitally. Note that I said business goals digitally, not your digital goals. It is important to work backwards from your business goals in order to determine the best strategy for achieving them. 

Here is a list of organic marketing activities:

• SEO link building
• Podcasts 
• Social Media Marketing 
• Email Marketing 
• Content Marketing
• Guest blogs

Here is a list of paid marketing activities:

• LinkedIn Sponsored inMail, Sponsored Content, Text Ads
• Facebook Ads
• Instagram Ads
• Twitter Ads
• Google AdWords
• Bing and Yahoo Ads
• Amazon PPC

I’m sure I haven’t even exhausted this list as there are new marketing tools available to us regularly. As a non-marketer, there are actions you can take to fulfil your goals online and with a little bit of guidance, you can easily get started. However, as digital marketing becomes more competitive, there is a wealth of knowledge required to manage these activities. Thus, it is important to pick a few channels and focus specifically on those rather than spreading yourself too thin. 

Organic Marketing

1. Organic marketing is intention-driven and is labour intensive. You manually promote creative content, whether this is visuals or copy.
2. Organic marketing spans all social media platforms, search engines, and websites.
3. Organic techniques are mainly used for “top of the funnel” brand awareness activities to familiarise your target audience with your brand, tone of voice and product/service.
4. These activities are used to establish yourself as a thought leader in your niche or industry. It is a great way to educate your audience on the problem-solution fit and product-market fits that your brand looks to achieve.
5. Bottom line is that the more relevant and original content you create, the greater your chances are to attract an engaged audience. The effects of the content generated digitally last for a long period of time making this a long-term investment.

Paid Marketing

1. It is possible to run paid campaigns across various digital channels but the objective must be clear. It is specifically to drive certain actions from your audience.
2. Paid marketing is often more expensive than organic since it involves Cost-Per-Click or CPM (Cost-Per-1000 Impressions) campaigns. However, organic can become expensive too if you are producing regular content for your digital channels as it involves a tremendous amount of talent and labour. 
3. Paid marketing achieves short-term results that can be advantageous to your business when you rapidly need to grow. Alternatively, it can also help with ‘failing fast’ when you want to receive feedback on an assumption and quickly validate it. 
4. Paid marketing helps with conversions, traffic campaigns, brand awareness, lead generation, driving impressions, and acquiring larger audiences quickly.
5. These campaigns help with achieving a promising ROI or ROAS on direct and measurable investments made.

Both paid and organic have their advantages. It can be easy to be mesmerized by the effects of any superhero. However, which one will save your day? If you would like to learn more about what your strategy should be, which channels you should use, and further insights on your potential to grow within your industry, contact us at hello@socialgamma.com 

In Mandarin, the word Weiji is used for both crisis and opportunity. The dichotomy that this term implies reflects the life of an entrepreneur. Whether you’re starting a new business or are a seasoned entrepreneur, you are challenged by moving targets and infinite opportunities all the same.
The entrepreneurial lifestyle requires a mix of grit and softness. It’s a constant balancing act and ensuring that you have enough fuel to cross the finish line. As we walk on a tight rope, we must keep walking. There are multiple tools that help with the journey. Here are 5 tips to help with your entrepreneurial journey:

1. Surround yourself with positive people – Whether this means friends, mentors or employees, it is all the same. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time or energy with so choose wisely. 

2. Just Do It – This isn’t a Nike ad, however, those three words are so powerful. If you don’t believe me, take Art William’s word for it and listen to his speech here: https://bit.ly/1pTVTBc. I’ve never listened to this speech and not been inspired. It leaves a huge smile on my face within the first minute of listening to it. It is important to go out there and get started. Actions are louder than words.

3. Allow Space and Dynamic Thinking – Creative thinking and problem solving requires mental space. Personally, I usually have quick burnout sessions and then recover. It’s like High-Intensity Interval Training for my mind. My mornings are filled with swift and fast-paced work tasks. By lunchtime, I reset and unwind. I step out of the micros and step into a macro frame of mind. I interact with the team, speak with clients and expand my energy by interacting with others. My day is a series of energy bursts and lulls, giving myself enough variety to stimulate my mind. I also am able to give myself space before I start the day to clear my mind with workouts and meditation. Every entrepreneur has their own style. Do more of whatever works and suits you, as long as you’re able to have a balanced mind. 

4. Set Expectations – Oftentimes, we underestimate our 10-year goals and overestimate our 12-month goals. We need time to achieve success, and before you know it, you will be living a purposeful life as long as you invest consistently and daily in personal and community growth.

5. Enjoy It – Running a business is challenging in itself. You might start off with an exciting idea, however, you will need that passion to persevere. There will be days when you feel uncertain and afraid. However, if you enjoy what you do and find it purposeful, you will thrive. If you are not in a position to change careers and are currently dispassionate in your current role, try to find an exciting angle to what you do where you can fulfil both your duty and curiosity.

These five tips are vital to your long-term success as an entrepreneur. They don’t seem entirely obvious at the beginning but become more evident amongst entrepreneurs as time passes by. Remember that it’s all a balancing act and that you need to be prepared for a demanding, yet beautiful ride ahead. 

Don’t forget to follow us @socialgamma on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn for more marketing tips and insights of a London-based digital marketing agency!

You have an IGTV account and you are ready to go! Except, you are not sure how to work around IGTV content. Luckily, you have us to guide you through how it works!

Instagram now allows you to share a preview of your IGTV video on your feed, which has been a game-changer for all social media content creators. It’s important to understand that while IG Stories are attention-grabbing short videos of a maximum of 15 seconds, IGTV will only get the engagement you are looking for if you treat it as it is: an online channel for long-form video content. Of course, big brands such as Netflix share full episodes of their shows, but even with a much smaller budget, you can share longer videos and get people to click “Keep watching on IGTV”.

Only a few seconds are enough for a viewer to decide whether they’re staying on our profile or keep scrolling for other content, so it’s crucial for your videos to be engaging and have a strong introduction. Not sure what your introduction should be like? Well, people will watch what is relevant to what they like, want or need. That being said, your introduction should give them an idea of what the video is going to be about and who is it for. Bear in mind that most people go on social media with the sound turned off which means they are less likely to hear if you are saying something. Adding subtitles or keywords is a great idea to ensure you are maximising engagement rates.

Understanding your target audience is a key factor when creating content for IGTV and social media in general. If it seems hard to define your audience, a good way to do it is by creating audience personas to get a deep understanding of who you’re targeting and what are their desires and needs.

Be authentic and consistent! Nothing works better than being yourself and posting constantly to start developing an actual connection with your followers and regular viewers, as well as any new users discovering your profile. Videos can last from 15 seconds to 60 minutes and you don’t have to worry about always posting a high-quality, branded video as long as you are promoting relevant and engaging content.

So why not have a go at IGTV and start using your new account today? 

Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter @socialgamma!

You may not have heard of Pinterest if you are not an avid fan of arts and crafts. Pinterest is a hub of quirk and interest, an online visual search engine that allows its users to discover, pin (aka collect on a page/profile) and share pictures and videos relating to their interests. They pin these items on “Boards” – different pages they label as subcategories like Fashion, Craft, House Inspo and so on.

Pinterest is a huge hit amongst the public as a personal tool, but what benefits can it provide to your business? Like all social networks, it can be used carefully and cleverly as a marketing tool to do 5 key things.

Grow Your Audience

The more frequently you use the site, the more likely your content is to be pinned. When this happens, your content and services are exposed to new groups of people, with massive global potential.

Grow Brand Awareness

With all these potential people seeing your content, it’s a great opportunity to reinforce your brand values and personality by selecting content that fits. As you are more active and engaging, the audience learn more about you and this helps to build brand awareness and loyalty.

Improve your SEO

Using the correct keywords across Pinterest can help to improve not just Pinterest Search Rankings, but also Google Search Rankings for your business.

Increase Website Traffic

Creating content to pin allows you to include a direct link to your website, product or service! This means that every single piece of content you are sharing can have a direct call-to-action with potentially great results.

Place Ads

Like other platforms, Pinterest even allows you to turn your content into ads and will place them across the network. These appear to a person looking like normal pins – almost. They have a small text indication that the piece of content is an advertisement. They have an easy to use ad manager that allows you to define audience characteristics including Age, Gender, Interests, Location, Language and Device. You can even use business analytics so you can see how your ad is doing.

This is all great! But how do you know if Pinterest is for you? Have a look at what your business is promoting and compare it carefully to the type of content and consumers on Pinterest. If you are a finance business, then it might not be the right move. However, if you are a fashion, beauty, furnishings or even craft brand then Pinterest could be a roaring success for you. All you need then is content that can make you stand out from the crowd.

Video has come on a long way since L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat scared watchers into thinking a train was going to burst out of the screen in 1896. Short video has evolved into one of the most popular and engaging forms of content on social media, and it’s understandable why. Its more attention grabbing, more authentic and more memorable. That’s why we’ve come up with 5 key ways you should be making the most of the medium on the biggest social network there is: Facebook.

Stop the Clock

Insights show that engagement takes a heavy hit once videos breach the 90 second mark. We’re a busy generation, and as such people simply don’t have time to sit down and watch long-form videos that pop up as they’re scrolling absent-mindedly on the bus. Limit you video content to between 15 and 90 seconds to get the best engagement results. For video ads, keep it at 15 seconds max to get your message across.

Make Your Point

Most viewers will decide in the first couple of seconds if they think the video is worth watching or not. That’s why you need to make sure you’re giving them a reason to keep watching in those first few seconds, otherwise you risk people moving on before they’ve got what’s going on. First impressions count!

DO Judge the Book by its Cover

After all, your audience could take one look at that cover thumbnail and decide immediately if they’ll stick around to view or not. Research shows that video ads with a more attention-grabbing, visually engaging cover thumbnail can half your cost per ad! The lesson here being: never neglect the thumbnail design.

Don’t Stop at the Feed

Animate your whole brand. Applying a video to the cover of your business page will give a great first impression to visitors. You can use the space to promote brand awareness, a new product or service, or even an event. Don’t use too much text though, and keep in mind the dimensions: 820 x 312 pixels for Desktop and 640 x 360 pixels for mobile.

Subtitle it

Studies show that 85% of users will watch videos with their sound turned off. Closed Captions will not only allow these people to know more about what’s going on in your video, but they will also be more inclusive for the deaf community. Win-win! Make the subtitles branded for an extra personal touch.

So, there you have it! Following these simple rules will certainly increase video engagement on your Facebook page. Hiring a Digital Marketing Team who know their stuff will allow you to focus on growing your business while all of this complicated stuff is taken care of. Head to our contact page to find out more about our Social Media Marketing services, and what we can do to help boost your brand!

The biggest news shaking up the world of social media (and if you’ve not heard about this yet, have you been living under a rock?) is the planned trial removal of “Likes” on Instagram.

That’s right, the social network giant is testing out a new feature that would hide how many Likes you have on your post from the public. Only the poster of the content would be able to see the Like count, whilst followers and public user would only see one named user “and others” likes this. Instagram are encouraging users to focus on the content itself, instead of the response. Perhaps this is an attempt by Instagram to reduce the amount of fake accounts circulating their network and focus more on authentic growth.

But what has the response been? Well much like opinions about social media in general, it’s a very mixed bag. This news is following ongoing claims of users becoming too obsessed with number of Likes, often relating the number to their own self-worth. A recent report from the UK’s Royal Society for Public Health found an enormous amount of negative psychological effects linked to excessive social media use, including anxiety, depression, loneliness and sleep deprivation. There are hopes that the removal of the self-worth association with number of likes will reduce the negative mental health impact. This change in the network could help promote the positive opportunities that social media has to offer, like community, authenticity and self-expression.

On the flip side of things, there has been a huge negative outcry from the influencer community. For many of these influencers, Likes directly correlate with their income. With these changes, businesses will have to change the way they make decisions about sponsorship. Influencers and businesses alike will be forced to focus much more on other measure of success, like follower count, comments and post frequency.

Instagram are even considering removing metrics on Stories, which were the inspiration for the change. This all comes after Twitter CEO discussed the possibility of removing follower counts from their network.

Currently the trial is only happening in Canada, so influencers globally are holding their breath to see if it will roll out worldwide. Will these changes affect the constant need for validation in our modern life? Or will users simply switch to a new measurement? Only time will tell.

Let us know what YOU think about Instagram’s Like removal in the comments.

Having done a lot of reflecting on our beliefs and our ethos at Social Gamma, we are embarking on a new chapter in our company story: Social Good.

Social Good is a mission, a way for us to apply our individual and collective beliefs to our work every single day. The most fulfilling projects and clients we have taken on are the ones trying to make a positive change in the world, and we want to build them up to something greater than ever before. We’ve made the decision to make a change and a difference.

We’re focusing in on just a few key industries:

• Health, Wellness and Nutrition
• Non-Profit
• Sustainability
• Education

Having worked with many clients in these industries so far, we’ve come to love not just what they do, but what we can do for them. For our health, wellness and nutrition clients we have carried out a variety of web and app development services, as well as investor and lead generation digital ads. We have helped our clients gain key investors, find leads and even maintain and develop their online presence to ensure their continued success. Our non-profit and sustainability clients have benefitted form our social media expertise. We’re proud of the achievements we have made on their channels, both in engagement and follower retention. We have also helped them to achieve fundraising goals and launch successful events and projects. Our education clients found new leads and an increased following through paid lead generation and social media ads.

And this is not just a side project. The team has always had a passion for giving back, from their university days to now. One of our Account Managers, Ana, has volunteered at a special school, helping children from the ages of 8-14 with learning difficulties and autism. She also worked with toddlers in foster care. Our Lead Creative, Rebecca, was a Team Leader for breast cancer awareness charity “CoppaFeel!”, promoting the cause, educating young people on campus and raising funds. The team won a fundraising award and ranked 3^rd on the UK CoppaFeel! University Fundraising Leader board the year she graduated. Our Managing Director and Founder, Ria, led a group called Remedy Through Music, who visited children’s hospitals every week to sing to the patients. We are inspired to this day by the people we worked with and the plans we helped carry out.

So now, our mission is clear. We will use our skills and know-how to spread the positive waves out into the world! If you are in the health, wellness and nutrition, sustainability, non-profit or education industries and you’re looking for a Digital Marketing Team who share an affinity with your values and passions, then give Social Gamma a call. We look forward to doing Social Good with you!

When you’re marketing a new product or service it’s tough to keep up with the ever-evolving online social space. Keeping pace with the millennial mindset, algorithms, demographics and new techniques can be near impossible! That’s why we’ve put together your new ABC’s, to help guide you in your decision making on Social Media.

Authenticity

If there’s one thing we know about millennials, it’s that they can’t stand things that seem fake. A recent campaign from Fanta showed a series of prank clips based around their new flavours. These videos were staged to look like common viral videos that quickly gain popularity – but these didn’t. Many of the Facebook comments were simply about how “clearly staged” and “cringy” these clips were.

This just goes to show that non-authentic content is an immediate no for millennials. Authenticity creates trust between you and your followers, something that is key for customer retention. This is one of the reasons that influencer marketing is overtaking celebrity endorsements on social media: it feels far more authentic.

Balance

It’s important to consider the main purpose of social media: to be social. If a brand’s account is all product pushing all the time, then followers can get bored quickly. They come to social media to be amused, to find fun content they want to share around, and occasionally for recommendations and shopping. A balance between personal posts that remind your followers there is a face/team behind the brand, and posts discussing the product/service can help with retaining followers and long-term brand awareness. However, make sure these personal posts are authentic and in keeping with the brand’s tone of voice.

Clarity

Make it clear who you are as a brand from day one. If you are a serious company then take your social media seriously by posting industry knowledge, important events and milestones within the company and present your product/service as a clear-cut solution to something. Memes have no place on a serious company’s feed and can cause confusion amongst followers. If you are a quirky, friendly brand then make it clear with a conversational tone of voice and humorous, highly personal content.

Having a social media marketing team behind your brand is paramount to hitting these key points regularly with your content, whilst keeping up with the finer details of the online world. Even great content needs expert knowledge on the best times of day to post, the best channels for a brand, and optimisation of hashtags. These things ensure your content is not just being seen, but being seen by the right people, in the right light. With all this behind you, there should be no trouble with increasing the number one thing that matters on social media: engagement.

With these simple rules in mind, you should have the components necessary for a flourishing social feed. All you need now is an excellent product or service to show people!

Contact us for further information on how Social Gamma can help you present your brand online.