How to Create an Effective Social Media Workflow and Save Time

If you think there's no such thing as the ideal social media workflow, think again. The key to mastering your own custom-made social media process is knowing what tools to use and ensuring that you don't miss anything along the way before publishing or posting your content.

Social media marketing has been a powerful means of reaching a broad range of audiences with targeted, unique content. In fact, there are currently more than 100 social media networks for marketers to choose from – and that number is constantly growing.

With the wide variety of options available, separating and prioritizing your social media workflow can be difficult, and then developing a calendar schedule to match. This becomes especially challenging when you consider that there's no such thing as "one-size-fits-all" when it comes to social media marketing.

There will always be various factors involved in what works best for your company's individual needs, especially on social platforms. You must consider your audience, industry niche, and existing resources before creating a solid strategy based on what you want to achieve on each network.

6 Steps to Build an Effective Social Media Workflow

1. Determine your roles and responsibilities

Social media marketing is about connecting with your audience on the most engaging and personal level. It takes more than just posting. It requires an organized workflow that includes content creators, managers/managers-of-talent (i.e., social influencers), graphic designers—and every other person in between.

The best way to assemble this team? Get everyone involved by creating clear roles for each member based on their bandwidths: What responsibilities do they want to take responsibility within? How much time does he have available per week or month before deadlines need attention?

You can't just throw a bunch of people in front of their computer monitor and expect them to work miracles. If you have a team already set up, take some time to sit down with each member and educate them on the specific responsibilities they should be looking over. For example, if Susie will do a bulk of your Twitter updates while Kelly focuses on Facebook posts, then spell things out for them both.

2. Customize your workflow

Many great tools are available that will help keep your social media marketing schedule organized, including HootSuite, Buffer, and SocialPilot. It's important that whatever application(s) you integrate into your workflow process, make sure everyone knows exactly what needs to be done.

Share your schedule with everyone on your marketing team. Set up custom alerts for each of those terms when you need to post daily, weekly, or monthly to a certain service. So they'll automatically pop up in the notifications panel as soon as it's time for a status update. You can find any number of great software on the internet.  

3. Follow a schedule and stick to it

A content calendar helps you get the most out of your posts by ensuring they go live on time. It also allows for more efficient distribution across different social media platforms. It indicates what is popular at any given moment to give some inspiration when creating new pieces.

A great way to plan ahead is to use social media management tools. You can input all desired dates to generate a monthly schedule (or weekly if preferred). Be sure to set aside space each day, for example, 30 minutes here or five consecutive hour slots there. So, everything doesn't collide during crunch-time.

It's crucial to set up a content calendar and follow the schedule accordingly in order to save your time. Set up alerts for every term in the schedule to ensure you'll never forget to post anything.

4. Automate wherever possible

Social media automation is key to efficient workflow and is highly recommended for business owners who find it difficult to juggle social media and other tasks. Today, there are tons of social media management software that allow you to edit, remove, and schedule posts anytime you want. Using these tools offers you the chance to save time and focus on what matters more.

That's why, instead of juggling between one social channel to another, it's best to automate your social media workflow. But, make sure you set a schedule and stick to it: use automation tools only if you can't manage your accounts manually. For instance, Hootsuite's scheduled posting feature lets users determine when their message will be posted across multiple channels.

5. Create content in bulk

Having to create bulk content can also save time and energy. This is a time-efficient way to ensure that your social media accounts are always up to date, and you can adjust them as you see fit.

Batching your content creation will help you stay productive and consistent with the branding. In fact, batching becomes especially important for posts that require a lot of attention to detail because it gives them all enough time in one sitting so they don't fall behind or get forgotten about entirely. 

6. Track results with analytics

In order to improve the performance of your social media marketing, using KPIs is essential as it helps measure how well or badly your content is performing. In this regard, Google Analytics for websites and Facebook Insights are two great tools that help find out what works and what doesn't in your social media strategy. They monitor visitors' activity from social channels, including clicks, site traffic sources, demographics profile of fans, and page views per visit, among others.

Using social media analytics can improve your workflow and save time because you can access all this information from one source. In order to find out more about your social media activity, you need to know how these tools work and what kind of data they provide so you can improve all your future campaigns.

Conclusion

Working on social media can take a lot of time, especially when you have to maintain the quality of your content. Fortunately, some shortcuts can help optimize your social media workflow so you can utilize your time more efficiently and enjoy working on the social media accounts for your business. This article should help you improve your social media workflow and strategy by implementing all these tips above. 

Author

Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award-winning explainer video company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order). 

Twitter: @breadnbeyond

Email: andre@breadnbeyond.com 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreoentoro/

Here Are Reasons Why TikTok Is A Good Fit For Marketing

TikTok is now the well-known application that is termed as the fastest growing platform of all time from its existence. Also, it is the one that has been shortlisted as the most downloaded application globally in the past two years. TikTok is a video marketing tool, which has short videos that reach people in a short duration. TikTok’s active users are about 800 million, which says that it is the 9th application to have a dense population. 

Marketers are drawn by TikTok as it reflects the social media trend for collaboration and creativity among Gen-Z. Owing to its fast-paced nature, users are attached to this platform spending an average of 52 minutes in a day. And however, about 90% of TikTok users access this application daily. A study proves that 68% of the users watch out for some other's videos and 55% upload their videos. 

Let’s see why TikTok is a big deal for marketing!

Why TikTok For Marketing Matters A Lot?

If you have come across the latest news that TikTok now is not only the application for the cultural sphere but also the political world. Luckily, the launch of TikTok for business has been helpful to so many people in the community. With a slot of new features, people enjoy the content, where they can implement new tactics if they want in their content. 

There are more and more brands jumping in TikTok just for a wide range of exposure as there is a little bit of competition. When you get into the platform for the first time, FYP on TikTok will filter your interests based on your past interactions. Get on this ultimate application and use it as a marketing tool for your brands. 

5 Reasons On Why TikTok A Big Cheese For Marketing Field

Reason #1: Influencers On TikTok

Influencer marketing is a common thing that could be found on all applications and TikTok has no exception for it as well. And if you don’t know what it is all about, reach out to TikTok and find the influencers who help brands by helping them financially. Brands choose the right influencers for their campaign so they could target a wide range of audiences.

Influencer marketing seems to be particularly effective because people do trust real people like them, it's more like a recommendation from a friend and not from an advertisement. TikTok is also a field that is widely adopted by businesses and now is equal to that of Instagram marketing as it has a personalized flair on it. 

Reason #2: Advertising On TikTok

TikTok advertisements are relatively new additions to the platform and they are also highly effective. However, there is an open talk that TikTok ad space is a direct competitor to Snapchat and Instagram. TikTok is as common as other social media has its own paid ads but there are some quirky facts behind it that every marketer should be aware of. 

There are about five advertising modules and they are as follows:

In-Feed Ads: They are also called TikTok's standard ad format, which allows you to embed the video ad that embeds the video ad that is played in the For You feed. It has an optimal duration of about 15 seconds. 

Top-View Ads: Top view ads are the ones that appear on the TikTok For You page as soon as you open the app. Their duration is about 60 seconds long and offers a good viewing experience. 

Brand-Takeover: These ads are the ones full-screen, with high impact and they are slightly similar to the previous top-view ones. They appear either as a 3-second image or as a 3-5 seconds video. 

Branded Hashtag Challenge: These ads are the best fit for user-generated content and in this way, they engage audiences by encouraging the content. And the ad format can be broken down into three placements in the app. 

Branded Effects: This kind of ad format helps brands to show their playful side by utilizing their branded stickers. However, these effects can be used in standalone campaigns or cultivated in hashtag challenges. 

Reason #3: Presence Of Diverse Content

TikTok is not a new network to build an online expression. TikTok is now bringing bite-sized media to the forefront, creators must learn all the nooks and corners in TikTok. 

Popular posts on TikTok fall into two categories: music and comedy, when you create content in these genres it tends to receive more likes on TikTok expressing how effective your content is. There are a lot of topics that do survive on TikTok, choose the one which consistently forces you to learn something new about it every time. 

Consistent branding on TikTok is the most important thing because people are regularly watching the posts on social networks. On the other hand, if you are a creator you must be consistent with your posts to gain long-lasting audiences for your products. 

Reason #4 Chances Of Going Viral

When TikTok content is unique in its way there are more chances that your content is yet to go viral. Now, finally, TikTok has confirmed that people on TikTok have grown massively and it is phenomenal. Also, some studies have proved that the followers count on TikTok does not lay a foundation to get featured on For You Page. 

What does this mean? It means that you can have overnight success just after posting one video. If you are the one who has spent only a short time on TikTok, do wide research on how vast the platform is and find out the niche that suits you in all ways. You can utilize the opportunities on the way whether it might be the usage of hashtags or challenges. 

Reason #5: TikTok Is Not An Saturated Platform

TikTok is still a very new opportunity to use and was initially released in 2016 and gave its hit in 2018. Its parent company decided to merge it with another app called Musical.ly. TikTok marketing has become more common where people make huge loads of money using the creator fund option. On the other hand, influencers are becoming more and more helping brand owners. 

Major brands have made their way towards TikTok as this app’s result is highly satisfiable like other fields like Snapchat and Instagram do. TikTok is still the best fit for marketing as some of the results have proved their marketing success. As a newcomer, you have less competition but some are still fighting over the same target audiences. 

Key-Takeaways

TikTok now has shrouded all the political controversies and it's the best medium that some don't know how to use. TikTok for business now has become a very casual thing as there are lots of examples, which proved their success already. 

Overall there is no substitute to replace TikTok as it is good in its way of content creation. I hope the article was useful and it would be a part of your success somehow!

Author Bio

Anne Joseph is a passionate social media writer and working at Bouxtie. She has strong strategy skills in developing and managing social media campaigns. She loves to make new connections and enjoy the opportunity to work with social media influencers. Start following her on Twitter.com.

How to move to hybrid working without disrupting your social media traffic

Hybrid working is being adopted globally as a strategy to combat COVID infections in the workplace or ease workers back into the office environment after months or sometimes more than a year of working remotely.

The benefits of this strategy are numerous, removing the daily commute for the employee several days a week, and will also help the business owner to keep their overheads down, or even enabling them to find smaller premises for the same or larger headcount. However, the fact remains that without that dynamic face-to-face environment that the office generates, the creative elements that are essential to effective social media posting could possibly suffer.

Social media traffic is the life-blood of your business

If, like many businesses, social media not only generates the most traffic to your site but also the most relevant traffic, this can be a huge problem. By using social media effectively, you can find potential customers who are already aligned with your company ethos and have a built-in desire for your products. Without this supply, your business won’t stay around very long, so when it comes to addressing the hybrid working issue, you shouldn’t need telling twice that there can be no half measures.

Creating a virtual office environment

The easiest way to do this (on paper at least) is to duplicate the office environment virtually, but as many companies have already found out to their cost, this is much easier said than done. The balance between ‘in touch’ and invasive when it comes to your staff working remotely can be a delicate one, and effective communication can often suffer as a result. Picking the right suite of software can be part of an effective solution but could open up another range of issues.

Taking the mystery out of cloud-based working

The most obvious and most effective solution, if you have projects that need to be worked on by multiple people who could be either in the office or at home, is to have a cloud-based solution. The first hurdle here is that many people within your business will have very little idea how it all works or what the cloud actually is.

It is this area that has seen the most casualties, and by finding professional help when it comes to using Microsoft 365 services, you can neatly sidestep this pitfall that has claimed so many others. This is because if you don’t know what you are doing when you have that much data moving between a number of sources, there can be some serious problems.

Keeping on top of your social media commitments

You can’t maintain effective communication with your audience if you can’t do it within your own company, and with information flowing freely and securely the same way it would in the office, social media posting should be as easy as it was before. This means that there will be very little chance of your Instagram account posting about a product that is not quite ready due to poor communication or anything else that could damage your online presence.

Writing Great Agile Marketing User Stories: 6 Steps

Writing agile marketing user stories is a brilliant agile practice that helps your team maintain a user-centric approach to everything they do. Each task, project, and team effort is built around a customer goal that is clearly defined with the user story. Below, you’ll learn how to write great agile marketing user stories in 6 steps.

1. Do it Systematically

Writing your agile marketing user stories needs to become a part of your team’s routine. Why? Because that’s the only way you can create powerful user stories that make your marketing efforts more powerful and effective.

So, make this a part of your team’s routine to ensure consistency in writing.

1. Be Super-Clear

Agile user stories need to be simple and to the point. These stories are supposed to sum up the main idea behind a team's task and explain what makes this task important for the end-users.

So, when you’re writing, make sure to:

• write short, simple sentences

• only include information that carries a meaning

• remove everything redundant

This will put everyone’s focus on the same, clearly defined idea, and ensure the team works in unison.

1. Listen to Customers

Your agile user stories don't need to be the sole product of your team's creativity or experience. Instead, you should base them on the actual needs and problems your customers are facing.

So, where can you find actual customer stories? You have a ton of options:

• social media comments and messages

• reviews and feedback

• customer service messages and conversations

Listen to what your customers have to say and use that as a source of writing your agile user stories.

source: Pexels 

1. Follow a Structure

Each agile user story that you write should be structured the same way. Following a consistent formula will help you deliver better results and compare your previous stories to one another.’

The structure that works best is:

• Who? + What? + Why?

Here’s an example of a user story written according to this pattern:

• As a team coordinator, I need a remote management tool so I could manage my teams professionally and easily.

You've got the answer to all three questions, blended in one simple and clear sentence. It's how all agile user stories should work. Naturally, you can adjust the formula to fit your specific business needs, but it needs to provide valuable information you can then act upon.

1. Make it Real

If you write user stories that are in the domain of unachievable and unreal, nobody’s going to benefit from them. Your user stories have to be centred around a goal that is:

• hard but possible to achieve

• challenging for your team

• important for your customers

If you write a user story that reflects a realistic goal, the whole team will be more motivated to work on reaching it. So, be careful not to take it too far.

1. Break Them Down

Once you create your user story and your team understands the goal set before them, you should break it down and use it to plan action. How will you make it happen?

Once you reach this phase, your agile user story becomes a starting point for a more elaborate written plan that includes:

• phases of the upcoming project

• steps your team will make

• estimated time 

• set deliverables 

In other words, you need to define what makes this user story complete and the team’s job successfully finished. Otherwise, you’ll never be certain whether your team has finished the job or not.

If writing more elaborate plans is a challenge for you, GetGoodGrade can offer their professional writing services. You need to make sure everything you write for your agile marketing team is polished and accurate.

Final Thoughts

Writing great agile marketing user stories is a necessity for teams who want to invest in their user experience and satisfaction. The 6 steps listed above are everything you need for writing high-performing user stories that will get your teams to their goals, efficiently and quickly.

5 Great Techniques To Expand Your Instagram Stories Engagement

At present, marketing on social media is everything about engaging your existing audience. It's not actually for the reach of your Instagram stories or posts, but it's a lot more like total people count reacting to your Instagram posts after getting them.

We are here to share a few essential and valuable tips to do the exact things discussed above. Thus, you could grab excellent tips which you could use to boost up your stories' engagement on Instagram.

Nowadays, Instagram users are going more crazy about story features on the platform. So, implement the tips mentioned below to enhance your story engagement on Instagram. Let's jump in.

5 Great Techniques To Expand Your Instagram Stories Engagement

Pick these five great techniques before uploading your story content to attain maximum reach, increasing engagement, and grab massive story views for your Instagram stories. 

Craft A Story

Naturally, narrating a story through Instagram stories is a perfect way to double your story engagements on the platform. Thus, utilize this factor from the beginning till the end. 

Remember that uploading a photo is an easy thing, but to grab your audience for engaging, it is necessary to bring up the context and good CTAs to convert your viewers to engage leads. 

Include Best Captions

A hard thing but an effective way to skyrocket your story engagement on Instagram is to bring up the best captions to your Instagram image or video stories.

A fact is that most users are unmuting when searching through their feed on the platform. And also, recent research says that nearly 75% of Instagram users watch Instagram stories without sound(sound muting option). So, it would help you a lot when you write some excellent captions in the story content on Instagram to increase your audience responses and reach.

Utilize Instagram Story Stickers

Create your Instagram stories more colorful with emojis & stickers and bring them attractive & funny to your target audience. There are many stickers on the platform to include, but there are two stickers that make brands double their Instagram stories engagements. Let's see:

Poll Stickers

Recently, Instagram users love to react to Instagram poll stickers rather than other stickers. It's mainly because the asked question would be interesting to your audiences. It massively benefits you more in taking your business to the next step and can get the content type to upload in the future for better engagement from your active audience.

The most significant factor from the poll stickers is that you have simple access to view the people lists who provided answers to your Instagram poll. And also, you could DM them privately within 24 hours to start and build the conversation.

Question Stickers

It's an informative and exciting sticker that most users on the platform attract to your story content. You could quickly grab your Instagram audience to give a question to you in the stories using a question sticker. Thus, it attains the massive opportunity to double your story engagement on Instagram. 

If any user on the platform asks you a question from the question sticker you posted, you will receive a notification, and it's the perfect time to answer the question and post it in your stories. If you upload an answer containing story content, a user who asked you a question would get a notification that their stunning question acquires a reply.

Here, you can choose a specific subject when you ask your audience to ask a question? Like the things they are interested in most or about positive dreams and goals.

Additional Stickers

Other stories stickers on Instagram like hashtags, location, mention, or emojis stickers are also great for gaining more engagements for your Instagram stories. These things would add attractiveness to your Instagram stories and pick the attention of your audiences. Thus, select Instagram story stickers correctly for your Instagram stories and develop your performance. 

Use Prompts Or Calls

Sometimes, it is more crucial to encouraging your audience about what they need to do next. Could you utilize relevant prompts in your Instagram stories to boost engagement and users' time spent on your Instagram stories while still confused about prompts?

So, here are some prompts to bring user engagement for your Instagram stories:

Tap For More

Start with a tile that encourages a compelling question and include the "Tap for more" prompt effectively on your story content on Instagram. It creates excellent hype in viewers and brings them to tap on it. To upload the next tile showcasing relevant and proper info like informational video content or images about what you need to convey to your target audiences.

Hold To Read

Add immense content to tell a big story using more informative texts or pictures, such as finding a specific small item from many things in a picture. Here, you could use the prompt "Hold to read" and bring them to see the entire content or image. 

Get Ready To

It excites anticipation and excitement in your target audience and supports you to bring the tone of what arrives in the future. When you use the prompt "Get ready to," it simply means you are taking your audience to screenshot your next tile or making them turn up the total volume or bringing them to rotate the screen to watch in the full-screen view.

Screenshot Story Content

Every tip is more crucial, but screenshot stories are more attractive to raise your audience's reach and engagements for the story content on the platform. Here are a few screenshot stories examples:

Wallpapers

It's the welcoming thing to your Instagram stories because you are providing something useful for your audience. Your wallpapers may include cute quotes or stunning wallpapers. So, providing wallpapers in stories increases your brand awareness values.

Stories Battle

Gamifying experiences could be a perfect method to double the engagements. Utilize this strategy to your story content on the platform to generate more lead forms and provide giveaways for winning challenges and help you gain more target audience. 

Conclusion

Instagram stories could be the perfect way to stay in the feeds of your followers. Thus follow these five techniques to double your story engagement on Instagram and lighten your innovative and creative mind. And also, you can spend more time thinking about more options that help in enhancing your profile. 

Author Bio

Mary Kyle is a content developer and marketing manager who works at Snaphappen. She has written more trending articles on social media and has a handful of experience in delivering engaging content.

Author Image

Supercharge Your Holiday Promotions with these 5 Social Media Tips

Is your sales bottom-line feeling the crunch this year? Don't fear! We are about to head into the holiday season - a time that offers some of the best opportunities to promote your business through social media.

Although social media is not a replacement for old-fashioned salesmanship, people are constantly connected to their screens - especially during the holidays. If you are lucky, you might just stumble on a new viral trend that will help you supercharge your sales beyond your wildest expectations.

When the gift-getting itch arises, be the company that scratches with these simple social media holiday promotion tips:

1. Deliver a "Holiday Happiness Boost"

One of the best ways to get social media traction is to give people free goodies. This can be an actual physical product or something as simple as a coupon code or access to a service that you provide for free.

Free incentives get people on board quickly with your brand, especially when they can get something valuable to them and save them time or money.

2. Run a Contest

Even if you do offer products for free, a contest allows your audience to engage with your brand at an even more personal level. People love the excitement of getting lucky, and you always bring in new fans when you hold an engaging contest.

The trick is to find a contest that will make your audience want to participate. One of the most effective methods is to ask them questions about which product they like best and reward those who participate by giving away prizes:

"What's Your Favorite Holiday Treat?" - upload photos of your favorite holiday treats with your favorite product and use a digital tool to manage the contest entries and winners.

3. Curate a Social Media Wishlist

As the holidays get closer, you start to see wishlists pop up everywhere on social media. Get creative and use them as your chance to give back and help people find a gift that they might enjoy.

Take advantage of this potential by setting up your business website or Facebook page with a feature-rich wish list that includes your products. The best part? This requires no effort on your customers, and they can do all their holiday shopping wherever they are!

4. Get Festive with Holiday Hashtags

Hashtags are more than just a way to follow a trend or chat about something on social media - you can turn them into a full-on marketing and brand promotion tool.

Take advantage of popular hashtags by calling out your best products or even entire categories using relevant hashtags in the metadata of your posts and tweets.

A simple way to do this is by simply adding the relevant #holiday hashtag when you post about holiday deals, wishlists, contests, and more.

5. Launch and Promote a Holiday Collection

It's no secret that new product lines are great for business and can be a key driver of holiday sales. However, getting people to actually notice them can be tricky.

If you are looking for an unconventional way to generate buzz about your new products, turn to social media and offer a special promotion or giveaway in exchange for a fan following you on Instagram or retweeting your Facebook message:

"Follow Us on Instagram & Receive $25 Off Your Next Purchase!"

All you need to do is get people to follow your account on Instagram, and you'll give them $25 off their next purchase.

Need Help? Let Real Time Outsource Deliver Your Social Media Success

No matter your business's size or niche industry, the holiday season is a great opportunity to promote and market your business through social media. Make sure you stay active and post relevant content, such as pictures of the products you sell or how people can use them!

Want to see more great examples of successful holiday social media techniques? Head over to Real Time Outsource online!  Our team of professional content creators can help you put together the perfect holiday social media content.

We take pride in helping your company succeed by putting out relevant, engaging content. Visit us online today if you're ready to take your holiday marketing strategies to the next level.

5 Effective Tips To Promote Your Brand Using TikTok Advertising With Higher Traffic

TikTok is an engaging platform with great potential to drive audiences to a specific website. The use of TikTok by people around the world has flipped away other social media sites. TikTok grows its popularity with exciting features and audiences. The high engagement makes brands get involved with TikTok for promoting their business. 

There are about 850 million active users monthly on TikTok either for watching or publishing videos. The success of TikTok lies in your 15 seconds content with beautiful background music to keep your audiences engaging.

One of the best features to promote your brand faster and get new audiences is by utilizing the advertising feature on TikTok. Create a worthy content fit for your audiences and promote your brand by running TikTok ads.

Why To Consider TikTok Advertising For Brand Growth?

TikTok became the seventh most downloaded application among the social media platforms. The success keeps on continuing only because of its attractive features. The most important feature to gain your target audience is by running TikTok advertisements. Spot your audience’s sight by creating short videos and running TikTok ads.

Advertising on TikTok is self-service to gain more audiences and bring popularity for your brand with new potential audiences. TikTok ads are for brands and all the users who want to improve their TikTok accounts with huge followings. Target your specific audiences on TikTok ads based upon the following factors:

• Age

• Gender

• Interest

• Location

• Behavior

Before getting into TikTok ads, know your target audiences to reach the right audiences globally. Grow your business by reaching your target audiences through TikTok advertising.

Types Of TikTok Ads

There are varieties of options on advertising features to make your content visible to new audiences. Know the features of each type from the below points to utilize it in the power way.

1. In-Feed Ads

The InFeed ads appear in between when you are busy scrolling the FYP. TikTok allows only 15 seconds to show the ad, so try to make content within the time period. The users can share your ads where you will get the chance to get your target audiences.

2. Brand Takeover Ads

These ads appear once the user opens their TikTok application. It is a full-screen video ad where you can include a CTA button to direct your target audiences to the place where you want them. There will be a great reach for your brand and gain indirect sales benefits by gathering your audiences to the right place. An important note is, the user can view only one brand ad in a day. So use it most effectively.

3. TopView Ads

TikTok allotted a certain space for performing ads. The TopView ads are just like the Brand Takeover ads where the user sees your ad when they open the TikTok application. The only difference is Brand Takeover ads appear as soon as you open up the application, but the TopView ads appear after 5 seconds of application usage. You can make 60 seconds of full-screen video.

4. Hashtag Challenge Ads

These ads cannot be shared outside TikTok. Only the TikTok users can utilize this opportunity to show their creativity and improve brand awareness. Create engaging and creative content to grab the attention of target audiences. Brands can get both organic and sponsored benefits responsible for their growth. Direct your users to the specific challenges using this ad.

5. Influencer Ads

Influencer ads are the most effective method to gain new audiences and increase brand awareness. Influencers publish your content as the sponsored post on their page. Since the content quality of influencers is always good, there is a great chance to increase customer count.

TikTok Advertising Strategies For Your Brand Growth

Follow the below strategies while creating TikTok ads to gain better results:

Tip #1: Create Quality Content

People will watch any content only if it looks exciting and engaging. Prepare ad content that gives a clear message about your brand or your goal. TikTok users will watch your ad to the fullest only if it is high quality. 

Create engaging content to boost views on TikTok and get a better engagement rate by landing your target audiences on your video. The best content drives more audiences and customers to your ads.

Tip #2: Find Your Target Audiences

TikTok ads have the option to target specific audiences for displaying your ad to the right people. Also, the content you prepare should be according to their interest. Find the audiences who show interest in your niche and the content they are likely to watch. 

Generally, people will have some expectations of brands, and you have to fulfill their expectations to achieve success for your brand. Put all your effort and perform a complete analysis of your competitors to know your audience’s interest. Experiment with different contents to identify the better concept.

Tip #3: Take The Help Of Influencers

Influencers have great exposure on all social media sites. Combine with the right influencers who have your target audiences to increase reach for your brand with their sponsored content. Influencer advertising is the best strategy to gather new potential audiences and help to boost your business.

Communicate with the chosen influencers regularly and maintain a good relationship to get quality work from them. Influencers already have huge followings, and when the ad related to your brand displays on their page, you can get higher engagement.

Tip #4: Keep An Eye On The Discover Page

Scroll down the discover page regularly to find the trending content and creative ads. When you relate your content with the trending topic, you can attract many audiences to your campaign. Learn the techniques used in the trending content and incorporate them while preparing your content.

Also, respond to your competitor’s campaign to get the attention of their followers towards your TikTok page. It also helps to recognize you when your ad displays on their page. 

#5. Use All New TikTok Features

Make your TikTok ads enjoyable and engage people with your fun content. When your content is humorous, you can easily direct your audiences to the landing page and increase sales conversions. 

Make use of all features like sounds, effects, and filters on your ad content to capture the attention of target audiences. A trending sound with perfect effects fit for your content can make your ad attractive and increase brand reach.

Wrapping Up

TikTok is experiencing a successful journey with plenty of trending videos from global audiences. Due to the pandemic situation, most brands focus on the online medium to get new audiences and increase sales by using their marketing plan. Since the competition on TikTok keeps on growing, don’t miss out on the advertising feature to feature your brand. 

Utilize TikTok’s advertising feature by making entertainment and engaging content. Use the above points to improve your TikTok ads. 

Run the TikTok ads to attain brand success with your creativity!

Author Bio: 

Anne Joseph is a passionate social media writer and working at Bouxtie. She has strong strategy skills in developing and managing social media campaigns. She loves to make new connections and enjoy the opportunity to work with social media influencers. Start following her on Twitter.com.

Four Best Ways to Maximize Your TikTok Ads

TikTok might just seem like a way to showcase your best dance moves, but it is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms in the world. Available in over 200 countries and with over 100 million monthly active users in America alone, it has become an essential marketing tool, particularly for those brands looking to target younger demographics.

As the popularity of the platform continues to rise, TikTok advertising is only going to become more important. How do you maximize your results, though? We have taken a closer look at some top tips to help you:

1)     Keep vertical video in mind

One of the most common mistakes people make is using landscape videos. TikTok is a vertical platform, which means you want your videos to be aligned with the platform – although it is possible to use square videos.

2)     Hook them instantly

TikTok is a fast-paced app, which means you need to immediately capture your customers’ attention. To do this, you should take the time to understand what it is that’s motivating your target audience.

3)     Be concise

Not only do you have to capture their attention immediately, but you also have to maintain it. Videos that are between 10 and 25 seconds in length enjoy the highest engagement.

4)     User-generated content

One of the most successful methods of maximizing your TikTok ads is to utilize user-generated content. This helps to draw in existing users and helps ensure your brand is targeting your core demographics.

Need help with your TikTok ads?

TikTok ads can help you to transform your digital marketing, but here at Realtime Outsource, we know how challenging it can be. That is why our experienced team is here to help you with content creating, page management, and social ads, so if you want to find out how we can help you, Get in touch today.

Four Social Media Strategies That Work For Small Businesses

You might not realize it, but social media is an essential marketing tool for every business. There are over 3.6 billion users on some form of social media today, with that expected to increase by almost one billion more by 2025.

Many small businesses mistakenly believe that social media is not worth their time. However, with almost all of your customers on social media and 87% of consumers saying it influencers their buying decisions, it can transform your business and boost your income.

Starting on social media can be confusing, so to help you, we have taken a closer look at some of the best strategies:

1)      Know your competition

Before starting out, you should understand what your competitors are doing and the content they are sharing. This will help you to understand what works and what you can do better.

2)     Choose your channels

Don’t try to spread yourself too thinly. Focusing on those social media platforms that are most relevant to your customers can yield greater results and maximize your sales.

3)      Develop a plan

When it comes to maximizing your engagement and driving more traffic towards your pages, it is essential you work from a plan. Posting content as and when you think of it can result in a sporadic page, but focusing on a content plan ensures you are posting regularly and giving your customers the content they want to see.

4)      Engage with your audience

Social media is not just a one-way street. You need to ensure that you are not just posting content but engaging and interacting with your followers too.

Need help with your social media?

If you are looking for help with your social media, Realtime Outsource is here for you. Our team lives and breathes all things social and can help you create content, manage your pages, and promote your brand. Want to find out more? Get in touch today!

7 SEO Tactics For Writing an Effective Meta Description

Before digging into SEO tactics, it's important to remember that the crucial part of search engine optimization is quality content. You must focus on writing content that is relevant and engaging before leaning on SEO techniques to boost your performance.

You may think that this only applies to the meat of your content. It doesn't. Writing good content for the benefit of your reader is something you should consider even when you're writing meta descriptions. When you consider that your meta description is essentially the first call to action you present, that only makes sense. 

What is a Meta Description?

A meta description is an HTML attribute that is used to describe the content on a particular web page. Google captures the meta description from the web page source code and displays that on the search engine results page. This means that this small piece of content is the first information potential visitors see about your web page.

How do Meta Descriptions Impact SEO?

The truth is that search engines don't use meta descriptions to influence SEO. Google confirmed this back in 2009. This includes the use of keywords in your meta description. However, that doesn’t mean that meta descriptions don’t impact SEO. They have a big influence on whether people click on your website or not. This does impact SEO. In addition to those click-through rates, Google also measures on-page time, backlinks, and other metrics that can result from those initial clicks.

Now you know why meta descriptions are so important. It’s time to get into the ‘how’. You can learn to write meta descriptions that lead to more clicks and better SEO. Check out seven ways to write customer-friendly meta descriptions that earn more traffic to your website, build trust, and create more conversions.

1. Offer a Strong Value Proposition

Think about your internet searches. When you click on a search result, you do so because you believe that you will receive the information you need or reach the product or service that interests you. It boils down to something really simple. You click the links that you believe have something to offer you. Remember that your potential customers have the same POV. Your meta description should answer the question, ‘what is in this for me?’ Give them a reason to click.

One of the best approaches to this is to conduct a comparison. Look at similar competitor pages, especially those that are ranking higher than yours. What are they saying to draw in traffic and earn better SEO rankings? When you find out, don’t copy them. Instead, you have to write descriptions that are even more compelling. It takes time to do this kind of competitive research, but it is always worth the effort.

1. Use an Offer to Attract Clicks

If you think about it, your meta description is a bit like a mini advertisement. Think about it. Businesses pay to have their meta descriptions and site links in the paid advertising space at the top of the results. You are doing the same. The only difference is that you are on the list because of organic relevance, not because you paid to be in the space.

Your web page, blog, or landing page is already relevant to the search. Shouldn’t you continue to hook the user further with an appealing offer or call to action? 

Take a look at this result from Nordstrom Rack. Their meta description attracts anyone looking for summer dresses with a promise of 70% off:

1. Keep The Length Down

Keep in mind that the best meta description length is 160 or less. Google does allow up to 300 characters, but that’s too many. At first, keeping to the lower limit may feel challenging. But, there’s a good reason for it. You’ll force yourself to be clear and concise. This will also ensure that your meta description doesn’t get truncated. When your description appears in search engine results, it should always communicate a complete thought.

In this SERP for high-performance auto parts, the following result falls a bit short. They used the meta description to list some types of parts they have available. Unfortunately, the list is truncated. What if someone is looking for a part that doesn’t appear in the description? They might find another search result to be more relevant:

1. Focus on Being Inviting

If you can fit a keyword or two into your meta description, that’s great. It could help your SEO. However, that’s not guaranteed. This is why it isn’t worth writing a clunky meta description, just to include a string of keywords. Instead, focus on writing a description that is appealing to your target audience. 

One thing to consider is writing quality. Take the time to write something in the appropriate voice that doesn’t have problematic spelling and grammar mistakes. Typos and poor grammar is often seen as a sign that your website is unprofessional and spammy. Best to avoid that at all costs. It’s helpful to remember that all content deserves good proofreading and editing. Order proofreading services to make sure you get professional help with that.

Your meta description is a bit like a sign in front of a storefront. What would be more inviting:

“Coffee, Hot, Seattle, Hole Bean, Weekly Special”

Or:

“Enjoy hot, whole bean coffee from Seattle. Check out our weekly special.” 

1. Treat PPC as Serious Competition

Like it or not, those paid search ads are going to be the first thing potential customers see. That means you have to be competitive. You have to work hard to ensure that your meta descriptions are a bigger attraction than paid ads. Keep note of the paid ads that appear in the search engine results that you are trying to optimize for. This will help you understand what you are up against.

Fortunately, you do have an advantage. Internet users tend to trust organic content more than paid advertisements. If you can write a meta description that communicates, “I’m here to help you” rather than “I’m here to sell you something”,  you will be at a great advantage. 

1. Prove That You Really Are a Big Deal

This is the perfect place to blow your own horn or engage in a bit of name-dropping. If you’ve worked with a VIP customer, earned an influential certification, been associated with a memorable brand, or carry a specialized license, use your meta description to let people know!

When you generate trust and build thought leadership, you earn clicks. However, you should keep your character limit in mind. Pick one or two of the most outstanding honors to share in your meta descriptions. Keep things brief. You don’t want your point to be truncated.

Imagine that you’re searching for a qualified roofing company in the Chicago area. Wouldn’t you be drawn to a fully certified company, authorized master contractor, and company that is well known in the Chicagoland region? This search engine result displays this concept quite well:

1. Test Relentless And Adapt Constantly

The truth is that you are going to write meta descriptions that you are sure will be absolute winners. Sadly many of these will fail. Conversely, it’s not uncommon for a writer to come up with a meta description they think is mediocre at best, only to have it get amazing results. Some of this is simply the learning process. Eventually, you’ll get a better idea of what works.

Some of this is simply since people are unpredictable, and you will be surprised at what might work at any given time. This is why your best choice is to try various meta descriptions, A/B test them, take an objective look at the results, and make changes. Keep in mind that small changes can make a big difference. A poorly performing meta description may not need to be rewritten entirely, just tweaked a bit.

When you find the right combination of words to make your meta description get results, it’s time to apply what you’ve learned. Then, implement that as you write or rewrite meta descriptions for the other pages on your site. Just remember that you should avoid simply copying one meta description into multiple pages. This can cause duplicate results that can lead to confusion or frustration.

Final Thoughts: Back Your Meta Descriptions with High-Quality Content 

As you create your meta descriptions, keep in mind that search engine algorithms along with user preferences are always changing. This is why it is best to focus on content quality and relevance, or SEO tactics. This effort should begin with your writing relevant, inviting meta descriptions. However, it’s important to continue this by ensuring that your blog posts, landing pages, and other content are also engaging and informative. Ultimately, your meta descriptions give users a reason to click. It’s up to you to create page content that makes them glad that they did.