TikTok is rolling out Photo Mode, a new photo slideshow editing tool that mimics the features of Instagram, along with a few other new features, including enhanced editing abilities and longer captions.
TikTok Introduces Photo Mode
TikTok announces in a blog post that it’s rolling out Photo Mode, a carousel format made specifically for sharing still images on the app. In addition to still photos, creators can add music to their posts.
Posting content in Photo Mode is similar to posting regular video content in the app.
How To Use TikTok Photo Mode
To start creating content in Photo Mode, hit the “+” icon at the bottom of the For You page.
In the bottom right, click the “Upload” button to open your photo gallery. Choose the photos you want to add to their carousel and click “Next.”
Like with TikTok’s video posting features, the content editing page will appear. This is where you can add any music and effects.
A small icon will appear at the bottom of the screen that reads “Switch to Video Mode.”
The Social Media Rivalry
This new feature is strikingly similar to Instagram. Instagram is known for allowing creators to post still image carousel posts on their feed and stories, and TikTok seems to have mimicked this.
This adds to the recent history of social media platforms mirroring each other’s features.
In the past, TikTok has inspired new features across social media platforms, including Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and, most recently, Twitter’s new video features, so it may surprise some to see TikTok taking notes from other apps’ features.
TikTok’s New Enhanced Editing Tools
In addition to TikTok’s Photo Mode feature, the company rolled out a few new enhanced editing features.
In a blog post, the company announced:
“TikTok’s enhanced editing tools allow you to easily adjust clips, sounds, images, and text in a new editing environment, all within TikTok’s creation flow. You’ll be able to:
Edit clips: Stack, trim, and split video clips.
Edit sounds:Cut, trim, and set the duration for sounds.
Edit and position text: More easilyedit, position, and set the duration for text.
Add overlays: Add photo and video overlays for picture-in-picture (or video-in-video) stacking.
Adjust video speed:Speed or slow the pace of video clips.
Frame content: Rotate or zoom in and out of frame of individual clips.
Add sound effects”
The company also announced longer descriptions for content, with up to 2,200 characters for each post. This is a big jump from the former 300-character limitation.
TikTok’s new features, including Photo Mode, are currently available in the U.S. and most global regions.
Google has unified all its business intelligence tools under the Looker brand, it announced at Cloud Next 2022, its virtual user’s conference.
Looker will now be the face of all existing Google Cloud data analytics programs. These programs will be included in the Looker Suite and bear the Looker name. For example, Data Studio is now Looker Studio.
“Looker is the name you’ll hear us use when talking about all of our Google Cloud business intelligence products, as we bring together Looker, Data Studio, and core Google technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning,” Kate Wright, Google’s Senior Director for Business Intelligence Product Management said in the announcement.
Looker Suite Includes Integrated Cloud Infrastructure Services
Looker is being launched in Cloud Preview today. The new version will include integrated core cloud infrastructure services, including key security and management services.
Google is also launching a preview of Looker integration with Google Sheets. It plans to eventually support visualization tools like Salesforce’s Tableau as well.
This continues the integration trend Google has followed since acquiring Looker in 2020 for $2.6 billion. Shortly thereafter, the search engine giant began offering full support for the Google Marketing Analytics Suite.
Google Seeking To Enhance Business Intelligence Offerings
The acquisition of Looker significantly enhanced Google’s analytics and business intelligence capabilities. A key part of this was Looker’s semantic data modeling capability, which allows developers to define data and analytics assets to ensure consistent interpretations.
By combining all its analytics offerings under one umbrella, Google seeks to provide users with more functionality than traditional dashboards.
Looker Studio will now support data models from Looker, allowing users to apply the Looker modeling layer to combine data sources. Overall, this unification seeks to allow companies to bring more data into their workflows and applications, so they can make better informed day-to-day decisions about operations.
Earlier this year, Google launched BigLake and integrated Analytics Hub and BigQueryML into its cloud platform. At the time, Looker was not mentioned.
Looker Studio Pro Adds Enterprise Management Features
Looker Studio will now be available in three tiers, including Looker Studio Pro, which is intended for more advanced users at an enterprise level. This adds additional management features, collaboration tools, and service-level agreements.
Google plans to integrate the enterprise version with Dataplex, a data management environment in the future that enables data lineage and metadata visibility.
The features included in Looker Studio Pro are specifically intended for use by large organizations with many employees.
YouTube has a new way for users to find and engage with content creators directly by tagging their handles. Announced via the video-sharing platform’s News and Events page, it allows channels to use unique identifiers with the @username format.
These handles will appear, in comments, video descriptions, and on channel pages, among other places, allowing users to quickly tag others.
“It’ll soon be simpler and faster to mention each other in comments, community posts, video descriptions and more,” YouTube said via the announcement. “For example, creators can be shouted out in a mention in comments or tagged in the title of a recent collab, helping them increase visibility and reach with new audiences.”
Handles will be rolled out over the next month and creators will be notified when they can choose their handle. If a channel already has a personalized URL, that will become the handle by default, though this can be changed for a short period after the notification is received.
“The timing of when a creator will get access to the handles selection process depends on a number of factors, including overall YouTube presence, subscriber count, and whether the channel is active or inactive,” YouTube said in the announcement.
Handles Joins Channel Names As Unique Identifier
In early 2022, YouTube began allowing content creators to change both the name and the URL of their channels. These offered branding opportunities to help channels identify and distinguish themselves.
However, unlike channel names, each handle will be unique, allowing creators to further distinguish their distinct brand. This is similar to the handles and usernames commonly used on other social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Prior to this update, YouTube had only offered limited support for the use of the format. Users could use it in YouTube Live chats to mention others, or creators could use the @ format to mention channels and video titles, but could only tag another user by replying to their comments.
@Username Format Seeks To Compete With TikTok
With more than one billion users worldwide, the short-form video platform TikTok has become a major player in the world of social media. As such, other social media platforms have been seeking ways to compete with it Facebook by launching Reels and YouTube by expanding into Shorts.
One of the features TikTok offers is the ability for users to engage in conversations through posts and the resulting discussions and results. By adding @username handles to both channel pages and Shorts, YouTube is hoping to generate similar usage.
Google will shut down its Assistant Driving Mode Dashboard on November 21, according to a report by 9to5Google.
Initially announced at I/O 2019 as a replacement for Android Auto, which was discontinued last year, the dashboard was designed to provide users with some of their smartphone’s functionality while driving.
By discontinuing Assistant Driving Mode, Google no longer has a direct successor to Android Auto.
Assistant Driving Mode features a dashboard with Google Assistant, a music player, volume controls, and buttons for making a call or sending a message. It can be accessed either via the homescreen shortcut or by verbally instructing Google Assistant to launch Assistant Driving Mode.
It is intended to allow people to perform the most common smartphone tasks, e.g., navigating, texting, and playing music using their voice alone. This, in turn, will hopefully reduce distractions while driving and prevent accidents.
Most Android Devices Using Assistant in Google Maps Already
While Google is shutting down Assistant Driving Mode, the similarly named Driving Mode in Google Maps will remain. This provides Android users with a car-optimized Google Maps experience.
The Dashboard tool uses a tile format for navigation, while the Maps version uses a combination of a tabbed and grid layout. Both provide access to the microphone used for Google Assistant commands.
According to 9to5Google, the reason the tech giant was shutting down Assistant Driving Mode was that the majority of using the Maps version. Due to the similarity in names and functionality, some may not even have realized the Assistant version existed.
The Assistant Driving Mode Dashboard was seen as a downgrade by many in the community, with some suggesting it was never intended to be a permanent replacement, but instead was a stopgap measure to gradually convert Android Auto users to Google Maps.
As the two apps are share so much functionality, Google may have decided there was no reason for both to exist.
Google Moving Away From Non-Voice Assist Technology
The sunsetting of Driving Mode is the latest in a series of moves Google Assistant has made to shift away from functionality that is not solely built around voice assistant. Other projects that have been abandoned include Snapshot, which provided Android users with a quick summary of their day’s most important tasks, and Smart Display Games, which allowed for third-party apps that use both touch and voice input to offer games on the Nest Hub.
Getting your business up and running as a new Amazon seller can be daunting.
You must invest in top-notch Amazon marketing tools to get the most out of your online store.
To help you out, here is a list of the top Amazon seller tools currently accessible, both free and paid.
Amazon Marketing Solutions
1. Amazon Ads
Amazon allows marketers to raise the rankings of their products in search results by spending on specific keywords. The marketer will incur costs if a customer clicks on an ad.
Advertising on Amazon is very similar to advertising on Google through AdWords. Product detail pages also can host ads from Amazon.
Even so, Amazon offers a wide variety of forms of advertising, such as:
Amazon Sponsored Product Ads.
Headline Search Ads.
Amazon Product Display Ads.
Outside Of Amazon
2. Helium 10
Among the many Amazon FBA seller tools available, Helium 10 stands out as a top choice.
Marketing itself as “The Industry’s First All-in-One Amazon Software,” it provides resources for:
Market Analysis.
Keyword Research.
Search Engine Optimization For Listings.
Operations.
Analytics.
Marketing.
Finance.
Black Box is Helium 10’s primary specialty research tool, providing you with all the specifics to find profitable product-selling prospects.
Rather than having to go through individual product listings on Amazon to find this information, Black Box provides:
The average monthly sales of a product.
What percentage of vendors offer it.
How well-received it is among its users.
Annually, Helium 10 costs somewhere from:
Starter: $29 per month.
Platinum: $84 per month.
Diamond: $209 per month.
Elite: $399 per month.
3. PPC Entourage
Want to get the most out of your pay-per-click advertising budget?
It highlights essential elements for a successful PPC campaign.
Additionally, it includes resources for locating the ideal keywords for your Amazon listings.
4. Refersion
Refersion is a rapidly-growing affiliate management system with more than 500,000 clients. As recently as August/September 2022, its Amazon Affiliate Marketing Marketplace helps active Amazon Affiliates scale their offerings by promoting their Amazon Marketplace with publishers, influencers, and other third-party affiliate style channels.
Amazon marketers can work with Refersion to convert loyal customers into sales affiliates and monitor their real-time performance.
With its flexible settings and optimization tools, you can achieve the results you want in no time.
The Refersion platform functions similarly to other affiliate marketing tools.
5. Nautical Commerce
Nautical is the only fully-featured multi-vendor marketplace platform that integrates retail, financial technology, and supply chain management.
It’s a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform for setting up and growing online marketplaces for B2B companies, brands, and merchants.
Nautical allows you to rapidly and cheaply create a marketplace that shoppers and dealers love.
6. Buy with Prime
Online stores can expand their consumer base by providing buyers with the same streamlined, hassle-free checkout experience that Amazon Prime subscribers enjoy.
You can use Buy with Prime at any online store, not just Amazon.
Prime advantages are first-rate, and they are now available to a more extensive range of websites to enhance the user experience and speed up Commerce for retailers.
7. Jungle Scout
Jungle Scout is an end-to-end solution for Amazon sellers, covering every step of the process, from sourcing products to marketing them.
Using Jungle Scout’s Supplier Database, you can easily track down a reliable supplier of the product you intend to market.
If you want to take your Amazon FBA business to the next level, then you can rely on the reliable statistics provided by Jungle Scout.
However, if you’re interested in trying out Jungle Scout before subscribing, you can do so for free for seven days.
Prices for Jungle Scout start at:
Basic: $29 per month.
Suite: $49 per month.
Professional: $84 per month.
8. EcomBalance
EcomBalance is the best accounting software you can find if you own an online store.
Nathan Hirsch and Connor Gillivan, two seasoned ecommerce professionals, started and currently lead the business.
They were high-volume Amazon sellers for six years before launching and scaling FreeUp.net to eight figures and selling it in 2019.
EcomBalance takes care of all of your bookkeeping concerns. It integrates Quickbooks Online or Xero with your various sales platforms, financial institutions, credit card processors, and payment gateways.
Then, on the 15th of each month, it oversees all the bookkeeping tasks that need completion to have accurate financial statements.
When you sign up for EcomBalance, you get one month of service for free, and its prices are reasonable for companies of any size.
Consider using EcomBalance if you want to save time each month by automating your bookkeeping and better understanding your financial data.
9. Inventory Lab
Inventory Lab is a must-have tool for managing your stock, listing products, shipping orders, and calculating profits if you’re an Amazon seller.
With this software, you can track inventory levels by SKU (stock-keeping unit), analyze product profitability by SKU, and add unit expenses.
It simplifies your operations, allowing you to put more energy into expanding your business’s stock and customer base.
Bottom Line
Many resources are accessible for market analysis, discovering new products, optimizing listings, tracking sales, and more.
Whether you’re just starting or have been selling on Amazon for a while, this comprehensive list of the finest Amazon seller tools will help you make the perfect choice for your online store.
Plenty has been said and written about Google Analytics 4 (GA4), but one overlooked message is one about expectations.
Marketers used to the legacy Google Analytics Universal platform for most of the past decade need to adjust. Their lives would be easier if the right expectations were set.
I recently had the privilege of discussing this very thing with three GA4 professionals who were kind enough to give me their insights.
Below are some of the most significant expectations as GA4 becomes your primary measurement platform.
1. GA4 Is Not Plug & Play Like GA Universal
To be fair, Universal was never completely “plug and play.”
There’s some setup (goal conversions, events, filters, enhanced ecommerce tracking, etc.), but nothing like GA4 is.
The planning and setup can take way more time than Universal.
Analytics professional Alan K’necht from K’nechtology said:
“Google followed the 80-20 rule. They saw that 80% of their users were only using 20% of their reports and scrapped the other 80%. ‘Sorry’ if that was one that people were using. You now need to create a custom report.”
2. Everything’s An Event (So Get Used To It)
In GA Universal, an average site may have five to 15 site actions set up to count as an “event” (completed video views, gallery views, ungated download, etc.).
In GA4, everything is an event, and you might as well get used to it.
Pageview = Event.
Session Start = Event.
First Visit = Event.
Scroll = Event.
Click = Event.
Video Start = Event.
File Download = Event.
Video progression = Event.
Video complete = Event.
Newsletter Signup = Event.
Contact Submission = Event.
View Search Results = Event.
You get the idea. Everything remotely worth measuring is an event.
3. Don’t Expect A Reliable Apples To Apples Comparison Of Year Over Year (YoY) Data
Remember when using Universal for one year and GA4 for the next.
If you have both platforms (GA Universal & GA4) running side-by-side today, you’ll notice the numbers don’t match.
One of the reasons there was a huge push to get everyone on GA4 and tracking data by July 1, 2022, is so marketers can have YOY numbers in July 2023, because there would be a full year of data being measured similarly.
Anna Slyter, Head of Analytics for NordicClick Interactive, advised:
“To be clear, marketers should never rely on Google Analytics for exact numbers – it’s meant to measure trends – Universal was that way, and so is GA4.”
(Disclosure: The author is also employed by NordicClick Interactive.)
It’s also not a surprise the numbers from GA4 won’t match what you see in Universal.
K’necht added, “There has never been a 1-to-1 ratio of analytics data between products. Each one uses various algorithms and calculations. History is repeating itself.”
4. You Can Do A Lot More With GA4 (Than Universal), But There’s A Catch
Simply put, the catch is that it’s a lot more complicated.
“Google has moved their analytics product from something easy to use by everyone but with limitations to a product that is more tailored to analytics professionals where it offers far more customization and flexibility.
However, sadly, this takes its use out of the hands of most small businesses who wanted to do the analytics themselves.”
5. Annotations Are Missing From The GA4 Interface
Annotations are one of Universal’s most useful and beloved features – for a good reason. Within the platform, you can document an abnormality (spike or decline), so it’s easy to recall it long after it occurs.
For now, it will be very important to keep a separate list to document annotations until Google gets that feature added back in (to GA4).
Of course, this could get added back in at any point, but as of this publication, it hasn’t been.
6. Small Website? Welcome To The World Of “Thresholding”
If you have a small amount of data and try running a report for a narrow time range, you’re likely to run into “thresholding.”
Simply put, Google doesn’t want you to be able to identify an individual via GA4 personally.
For example, if you have a small ecommerce site that gets less than ten orders per day, you would likely be able to identify an individual user by taking their order and looking at what time they were on your site, where they went, what was in the cart, etc.
Slyter explained:
“Thresholding in GA4 (when Google Signals is on) is a massive pain for ‘standard’ reports.
Custom explorations appear to show the data better. Still, that data will only be available for up to 14 months (depending on data retention settings) – so, a data warehouse would be useful to retain data longer.”
Editor’s note: One can still avoid thresholding by selecting “Device based” Reporting Identity with the screenshot below. In most cases, that option works just great, and if you don’t have a user login on your web app, device based is the best option to go.
Screenshot by editor, October 2022
7. There Will Be Less Free Stuff From Google
The previous point mentioned a 14-month availability limit on data, so it’s clear they don’t wish to provide free data storage indefinitely.
Knecht added:
“Hence the maximum of 14 months of live interactive data. Instead (of storing it indefinitely) they gave us a free (but smaller version of the paid) instance of BigQuery. Here you can keep your data until it is full.
For most businesses, this will be several years’ worth of data, but if you need more space, you can upgrade to the paid version.”
Editor’s note: Also, you can’t create multiple filtered views – it is now a paid feature.
8. Bounce Rate Is Now Available, But That Doesn’t Mean You Should Pay Attention To It
Initially, it wasn’t a part of GA4, but apparently, enough feedback convinced Google of its need to be included.
It is back but measured very differently than it is in Universal. It is 100% minus the new “Engagement Rate” metric.
For example, if you have a 76% engagement rate, you now have a 24% bounce rate.
K’necht said:
“I’ve been warning my clients for over five years that bounce rate shouldn’t be a KPI – that taken out of context, it is a meaningless number.
I was happy when Google removed it from GA4. But they heard the complaints and put in something and called it ‘Bounce Rate.’”
9. Become Friends With BigQuery & SQL (Or At Least Be A Friend Of A Friend)
Suppose your site is subjected to data sampling (even if it’s not), and you want increased flexibility regarding report building and analysis. In that case, you must get familiar with BigQuery and SQL.
While this is beyond the need or ability of most small to medium small businesses, larger businesses will now be able to leverage BigQuery and bring data from other sources (contact management software, for example) and combine the data to get a whole picture instead of just a window into the web-only aspect of Universal Analytics.
Inigo Belosio (also from NordicClick), who’s performed his share of GA4 implementations this last year, said, “The good news is that GA4 connects to BigQuery natively and for free – unlike UA – and SQL is a relatively easy programming language to learn.”
Belosio added, “Unfortunately, most of these concepts are unknown to most marketers, so I highly encourage you to get familiar with them as your ability to squeeze GA4’s potential may depend on it as your site grows.”
K’necht concluded, “Using BigQuery will also allow segmentation over larger amounts of data without the issue of data sampling that happens when using UA or GA4 on its own, and fortunately, there are tools like Google’s DataStudio which can be used to simplify this effort in the creation of various reports and dashboards.”
10. You’ll Need To Level Up On Your Analyst Skills (Or Bring In A Resource Who’s Already There)
K’necht said, “Ultimately, Google has aligned their analytics product more closely with Adobe Analytics, a tool that is not for the faint of heart or untrained user.”
He added, “If you plan on continuing to use Google Analytics (GA4), it’s time to either take a course in GA4 configuration & management or engage a resource to handle it for you.”
Editor’s note: Google Data Studio connector is already available and really helps to make analyzing data easy. So one can learn GDS to compose beautiful reports from analytics data.
11. Get To Know Your New Friend: Data Modeling
Data modeling in GA4 is finally here and has the potential to help fill the data loss gaps of those sites most impacted by users opting out of any cookies.
While some basic requirements exist to qualify, websites (especially those subjected to GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation] and other privacy regulations) will want to start testing this modeling feature.
Bellosio explained, “For example, it may be able to account for user traffic drops which, in some cases, can be very noticeable as we have already seen with several clients impacted by regulations and browser and operating system privacy updates (for example, iOS).”
12. Last – Set The Proper Expectations With Your Stakeholders
Many of the metrics your stakeholders may have been used to with Universal will change once you begin using GA4.
Make sure you set their expectations of:
What changed.
Why it has changed.
What metrics they should be paying attention to.
What they’ve gained with this new view of their web analytics.
I hope this was helpful.
GA4 will continue to evolve, so make sure you stay on top of it all!
If you have been doing SEO for a while, then you know how important anchor text optimization was back in the day for getting your websites to rank high in search engines. But is it still important today?
This article will give you an overview of everything you need to know about anchor text, from best practices to what not to do.
What Is Anchor Text?
Anchor text is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. It is what allows users to navigate from one webpage to another.
Regarding SEO, anchor text is important because it can help search engines understand what a webpage is about.
Before the Penguin update, having keyword-rich anchor text links was one of the best ways to get your website to the top of the search engines.
For example, if I were managing SEO for Rei.com and wanted to rank for outdoor clothing, I would get as many links as possible from related sites with high authority, with the keyword-rich anchor text of outdoor clothing – and boom, you would get first page rankings.
Back then, anchor text links using exact match keyword-rich anchors would get you first page rankings. Now it will trigger a penalty from Google and just does not work anymore.
Types Of Anchor Text
There are many different types of anchor text. Here is a breakdown of the different internal and external link types.
Exact Match
Anchor text is “exact match” if it includes the exact match of the keyword you are targeting. For example: “seo services” links to a page about SEO services.
Partial Match
Anchor text that includes a variation of the keyword on the linked-to page. For example: “SEO Content Marketing Services” links to a page about Content Marketing.
Branded
Use of a brand name in the anchor text. For example: ‘LinkedIn’ linking to an article on Linkedin.com.
Generic
Use of a generic keyword link “Click here.”
Images
If you use an image, Google will use the text in the image alt attribute as the anchor text.
Naked Link
A URL that is used as an anchor. For example, “www.searchenginejournal.com” is a naked link anchor.
Best Practices For Anchor Text
There are a few best practices that you should keep in mind when it comes to anchor text.
First, ensure your anchor text is relevant to the page you are linking to. Irrelevant anchor text can confuse users and search engines alike. Second, vary your anchor text usage.
Using the same anchor text repeatedly can be spammy to both users and search engines.
We often don’t have any control over who links to your website and what anchor text they use as a link to your content.
Keep the anchor text to a few words if possible, and don’t provide a long sentence that does not look natural. The anchor text should describe the page you’re linking to and help entice end users to click on the link.
Finally, keep your anchor text natural. Do not stuff keywords into your anchor text to game the system; this will only result in a potential penalty from Google.
“With regards to internal links you’re giving us a signal of context. So basically you’re saying, in this part of my website you’ll find information about this topic.
And that’s what you would use as the anchor text for those internal links.
So that’s something where on the one hand usually that’s something that you want to kind of give that context to users as well.
The kind of internal links that you would use for users usually matches what you would use for SEO as well.
That’s something where luckily there’s a nice overlap there.”
Some great videos can be seen in this article by Roger Montti.
Google’s Advice For Anchor Text
Not sure what counts as “natural” anchor text? Luckily, Google has provided some guidelines.
According to Google, your anchor text should be descriptive and succinct.
It should provide context for the user and help them understand where they are being taken when they click on the link.
In short, your anchor text should give users a good idea of what they can expect to find on the linked-to page.
What Not To Do With Anchor Text
Now that we have gone over some best practices for anchor text, let us look at what not to do with it.
First, do not use exact match keyword-rich anchors excessively. This looks spammy and unnatural and will trigger a penalty from Google.
Second, do not use generic anchors such as “click here,” “read more,” etc. These provide no context or information about where the user will be when they click the link.
Finally, do not use excessive cross-linking; too many links going to and from the same pages looks suspicious to both users and search engines alike.
Format links so they’re easy to spot. Make it easy for users to distinguish between regular text and the anchor text of your links. Your content becomes less useful if users miss the links or accidentally click them.
It’s good advice. I can recall reading several articles on the web, hovering over the content with my mouse, and getting taken to another website.
Most of the time, I did not know that the text was a hyperlink because it looked like regular text.
Avoid:
Using CSS or text styling that make links look just like regular text.
Another point to keep in mind is to be careful who you link to. You can confer some of your site’s reputation to another site when your site links to it.
If you do not want to pass any value to the page you’re linking to, always make sure you’re using the nofollow attribute.
Conclusion
Anchor text is an important part of any successful SEO strategy.
When used correctly, it can help improve both your website’s ranking and visibility. However, it is important to avoid over-optimizing your anchor text, as this can lead to penalties from Google.
Stick to using keyword-rich anchors sparingly, and ensure that the rest of your anchor text is natural and informative.
Keep these tips in mind next time you create anchors for your website for linking internally and externally.
Social media has become a massive part of brand marketing strategy. And managing multiple accounts can be pretty overwhelming.
How do you stay organized? What tools should you use to manage social media accounts?
Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, have evolved into a significant source of information for millions of people around the globe.
As such, they play a crucial role in shaping public opinion.
In addition, these platforms also provide businesses with powerful marketing opportunities to connect with and grow their audience.
Since scheduling posts and analyzing social media insights is now a must for any content strategy, it’s vital to equip yourself with the right tools.
So now, let’s break down the top tools for social media management:
MeetEdgar is fun and easy to use. You can pick topics like recipes, humor, or questions and schedule these types of subjects to publish on any day you want.
Screenshot from meetedgar.com, August 2022
If you ever get into a content lull with social media, which everybody does, MeetEdgar is an excellent solution.
MeetEdgar will add a bit more fun to your social media calendar. It only publishes content that Edgar thinks is worthy of engagement.
One of the best features of MeetEdgar is that once your favorite topics are defined and scheduled, Edgar ensures the content will never run out, so you don’t have to refill or pick new topics constantly. Instead, Edgar does it for you.
Once everything from a topic has been published, Edgar starts to reshare old content that people may have missed the first time around.
So, considering the limited amount of organic reach on social media, resharing content gives it another chance for engagement.
Pricing Tiers: Free trial, then $29.91 or $49.58 monthly.
Post Planner is one of my personal favorite social media content tools. To see what types of content are shared around a specific subject or person, search by:
Topic.
Trend.
Keyword.
Hashtag.
Facebook.
Twitter handle.
Search their recommended feeds based on industry and interests and explore new content ideas.
The tool will also give each piece of content a performance engagement ranking. Based on Post Planner’s custom algorithms, this ranking helps determine whether a post is worth sharing.
Post Planner can determine such ratings by reviewing past performance and predicting future engagement specific to your audience. You also get a scheduling calendar with Post Planner. And it has numerous pricing tiers for any budget.
Pricing Tiers: $6, $19, $39, $79, or $349 monthly, with a discount when paid yearly.
Agorapulse has numerous products, such as kits for social media publishing, social media inbox management, and social media monitoring.
Screenshot from agorapulse.com, August 2022
In addition, it has options for multiple levels of integration and tools to help a brand manage and analyze its social media accounts.
Pricing Tiers: Initial free account, then $79 or $199 monthly. It also offers custom packages at the enterprise level and a free trial.
Sprout Social is one of the best social media management tools. More than 30,000 companies, like Glassdoor and Shopify, trust Sprout for:
Social media scheduling.
Engagement reports.
Analytics.
Brand monitoring.
Whether you’re a small business focusing on a few social media networks, an agency managing multiple brands, or an enterprise company needing it all, Sprout Social will help you save time and accomplish your daily social media tactics.
Pricing Tiers: Free 30-day trial, and then it’s on to a monthly plan of $99, $169, or $279.
Hootsuite allows you to connect, monitor, and schedule posts for numerous social networks. This tool is fantastic and offers an array of social media features.
This platform can integrate over 150 apps into your social media strategy.
In addition, the platform is available in six languages if you have an international team and following.
Pricing Tiers: 30-day free trial, then $49 or $179 monthly. If you’d like enterprise management, you’ll need to request a demo to grant access to Hootsuite’s custom solutions.
Sensible understands the ever-changing world of social media and aims to stay on top of trends and insights to help brands thrive.
Screenshot from sendible.com, August 2022
It also recognizes the importance of authentic storytelling and offers opportunities to optimize your profiles across multiple platforms. It is also a Meta business partner.
In addition, Sendible highlights its customer service.
Pricing Tiers: Free 14-day trial, then $29, $89, $199, $399 monthly. You can save by paying yearly.
When it comes to social media tools for Pinterest, there aren’t a lot of options. But there is Tailwind.
Tailwind provides data for both Pinterest and Instagram, the two image-based social media networks.
Once you have the tool, you’ll be able to track when someone pins an image from your website or engages with an Instagram post.
In addition, it lets you generate hashtag data, monitor brand mentions across the two social sites, and more.
You can start a free trial to see if this social media measurement tool is right for your Pinterest and Instagram accounts.
Pricing Tiers: $9.99, $19.99, and $39.99 monthly. It also offers a free version so you can test its tools.
Buffer is a famous social media tool. You can share content and schedule posts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google Plus with one easy click.
Buffer allows you to stagger content throughout the day so that your social media feeds are consistently updated. Plus, you can schedule ahead of time, which is handy.
Also, you can use Pablo Image Creator to create custom graphics. And you can review analytics about engagement and reach of your posts.
If you own or work for a registered nonprofit organization, you must look into Buffer. It offers all registered nonprofit organizations a 50% discount (on what is already competitive pricing).
Pricing Tiers: Free, $6, $12, or $120 monthly. It also offers yearly discounts and a 14-day free trial.
Crowdfire is a super cool app. It’s designed to help drive traffic to your website and landing pages while increasing social engagement.
Screenshot from crowdfireapp.com, August 2022
Crowdfire will make recommendations designed to help improve your social media strategy. Here’s how:
Crowdfire connects to your social networks and begins to get to know your brand.
Then, Crowdfire takes you through a few quick daily tasks that are personalized to your goals.
Finally, it begins to create and find content that your audience will love and posts for you once you give it the thumbs up.
Pricing Tiers: Free or $9.99, $49.99, or $99.99 monthly.
MavSocial is for brands with multiple locations. This platform helps you consolidate management all in one place while offering tools to take your brand to the next level.
You can manage publishing, engagement, reviews, and advertising for your locations at MavSocial. It also uses two-step verification and AI Image Recognition tools to secure the platform.
Pricing Tiers: 14-day free trial and then $78, $199, and $499 monthly.
Later helps brands get full coverage through auto-publishing, hashtag suggestions, and insights for the best times to post.
Screenshot from later.com, August 2022
It also has options for brands to add Linkin.bio so customers can quickly check out your website.
Pricing Tiers: $18, $40, and $80 monthly. It also has a free plan; you can save by paying yearly.
Manage multiple Twitter profiles? This is the perfect Twitter tool for you!
The dashboard may remind you of Hootsuite, but it’s different and customized just for your Twitter needs. TweetDeck:
Organizes your Twitter account by building collections, filing lists, searches, activity, and more.
Tracks topics, events, and hashtags to help brand monitor and stay in the know of trending conversations.
Manages multiple Twitter accounts and lets you tweet, monitor, and follow from one dashboard. In addition, TweetDeck completely removes the hassle of logging in and out.
SOCi is another excellent scheduling tool for social media. However, it offers something slightly different than the normal Hootsuite and Sprout Social plans.
If Post Planner and Sprout Social combined, the result would be named SOCi.
One of the best parts of SOCi is the Content Center. This is where SOCi scores the social web with its unique algorithms to tell you what social content is engaging and what’s not.
SOCi then provides a numerical score and recommendations to you on what to post, similar to Post Planner.
In addition to content ideas and scheduling, it also socially provides review and reputation management, lead generation, reporting, and more.
Pricing Tiers: Unfortunately, SOCi doesn’t offer pricing details to the public. You’ll have to schedule a demo and discuss your exact needs to get a custom quote.
I’m a bit biased here as I work for the company, but Semrush is one of those one-stop-shop tools that recently improved its social portion.
Screenshot from semrush.com, August 2022
Its emphasis is on keyword research and SEO. Still, the tool has over 55 features for content marketers, link builders, social media marketers, and every digital marketing role.
In addition, Semrush has numerous SEO, content, social media, competitive research tools, and an agency growth kit.
Pricing Tiers: $119.95, $229.95.95, or $449 monthly. Discounted rates are available for yearly plans.
Ecommerce businesses and Instagram users will love Foursixty. This tool is designed just for retailers who want to share user-generated content from Instagram on their websites to help increase sales and monitor their brand.
The idea behind Foursixty is to showcase a company’s products by featuring Instagram posts that users share and tag about the company.
The product display from Instagram can be customized and displayed across shopping pages, email newsletters, and just about anywhere you can embed code.
Seeing these Instagram posts help encourage shoppers to add additional items to their cart and follow along on Instagram.
Aside from the UGC angle and sales increase, Foursixty also lets you schedule Instagram posts from the platform.
Pricing Tiers: There’s a 21-day free trial, and then $50, $300, or $500 monthly.
This is a tool every social media manager should have.
Regardless of what scheduling tool you use, this is a tool you’ll want to log into daily to access everything you need to know about your social profiles.
With Emplifi, you get real-time insights for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
In addition, you can track engagement, share reports, and see social advertisement results on one platform.
But this social media tool does more than measure analytics. You can generate reports to compare the performance on social media profiles or industries, which means you can track your competitors and the industry’s social performance.
What an incredible opportunity to one-up your social competitors!
Pricing Tiers: You can request a free trial or book a demo to uncover options for pricing.
Need to know how your Twitter or Facebook account measures up?
Screenshot from brandwatch.com, August 2022
Brandwatch offers everything you need to know about performance and engagement for multiple social platforms.
Pricing Tiers: Book a meeting here to get information on pricing.
Finding it difficult to find people to collab with? BuzzSumo is the perfect place to connect with the right influencers for your brand.
BuzzSumo can help you:
Find influencers.
Assess the best ones per platform.
Manage notifications for when they post.
Consolidate and download analytics.
Another bonus? You can search for key influencers by topic and start following them directly inside BuzzSumo.
Once you have followed a few key influencers, you can see what content and topics they share most often and the domains they share.
See what’s happening here? You can follow and see influencer and competitor data within the tool.
Pricing Tiers: Free 30-day trial, then $99, $179, or $299 monthly. You can also have them bill annually at a discount.
Bitly is a must. Not every tool allows you to shorten your ugly URLs, but Bit.ly does, and it has done so for over 30 billion links so far.
With multiple social media networks, you will want a unique tracking parameter on each URL, not one that the social media users will see.
Bit.ly allows you to shorten, customize, and track URLs, making lengthy coded URLs into neat, pretty little URLs.
Pricing Tiers: Free initial account and then $8, $29, or $199 monthly. It also offers custom plans and a yearly discount.
Final Thoughts
Social media has become an integral part of modern communication. And if you want to use it effectively, you need the right tools.
Many apps and services can help you manage and analyze your accounts.
Now, it’s time to take a deeper look into the platforms I’ve mentioned so you can alleviate some of the heavier aspects of social media management.
It’s no longer an option to offer your customers mediocre digital customer experience. They expect a personalized and seamless experience across all your channels. And to provide this, you need to understand and prioritize them.
In our article you’ll learn:
What is Digital Customer Experience?
Digital customer experience, or digital CX, refers to all digital or online interactions between your brand and your customers. Communication can start anywhere your company is present:
Website,
Mobile app,
Live Chat,
Social Media,
Email, and
Any other channels where the touchpoint is virtual.
All of your digital touchpoints are parts of your digital customer experience and contribute to the overall impression of your company. From placing an order to the loading time of your website, everything counts.
Why is Digital Customer Experience Important?
When we say “digital”, we don’t mean only desktop websites anymore. And as we move toward the all-digital world, more and more customers adopt a multi-channel approach, and your business needs to keep up the pace.
People fall in love with the experience, not the technology behind it. Customers are more engaged, satisfied, and loyal to brands that combine exceptional products, powerful digital experiences, and human interactions. And if you’re unable to meet their expectations, you can bid them farewell.
And it’s not only that, but businesses lose up to $4.7 trillion a year due to experiences that fall short of expectations. Understanding your digital touchpoints and how they affect consumer perception and brand loyalty is crucial.
Let’s take a look at some statistics on digital customer experience:
Digital Customer Experience Influences Almost Every Industry
Positive customer experiences influence purchasing decisions in almost every industry, but according to PWC, they’re more powerful in
healthcare (78%),
banking (75%),
restaurants (74%), and
hotels (74%).
With Good Experience Comes Loyalty
Experiences that create strong emotions will affect purchasing patterns and brand loyalty more than prices or products.
A customer’s lifetime value increases by 306% when they have an emotional connection with a brand. They’re also more likely to generate word-of-mouth marketing by leaving a review and recommending it to their friends.
Customers Willing to Pay More
75% of American consumers pointed out that knowledgeable staff, friendly service, and efficient and convenient usability matter most to them. And they’re willing to pay more for a greater experience. To be exact:
67% would pay more for a great experience,
43% would pay more for greater convenience,
42% would pay more for a friendly, welcoming experience.
One Bad Experience is Enough to Abandon a Brand
“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Even if customers love your product or service, 50% of them will stop buying your service/product after a couple of negative experiences, and 32% after even just one bad experience.
And to top it off, they’re 4x more likely to switch to a competitor than if you had raised the price or sold a mediocre product.
The Benefits of Digital Customer Experience
To sum up the above-mentioned things, the benefits of delivering a great CX include:
Increased customer loyalty
Increased retention
Increased customer satisfaction
Increased repeat purchase
Increased positive reviews, and recommendations
Reduced cost of service and marketing
Reduced customer complaints
Reduced product returns
Reduced churn
The message is clear: your brand needs to provide an outstanding digital customer experience, or your audience will switch to your competitors.
What Makes a Good Digital Customer Experience?
Good digital CX isn’t just about the usability of your product, it’s a powerful differentiator. And when we say “good” we mean it’s:
Fast,
Convenient,
Consistent,
Frictionless,
Personalized, and
Friendly.
And what connects them: human touch. Promote positive interactions by making technology feel more human. Also, empower your employees with the technology and knowledge they need to provide better digital customer experiences.
With the right tools, they’ll be able to gather insights into your customers’ unique experiences from the past and present. Thus understand your customers’ needs, provide relevant information, resolve issues faster, and personalize the digital experience across all channels.
The challenge: Making the digital customer experience more human and less frustrating with a customer-centric mindset.
The first step toward excellent digital CX is providing good UX. And we at UX studio always design experiences with the users in mind. Book a meeting with us and let’s discuss how we can help you create an outstanding experience for your customers.
What is the Difference Between UX and CX?
In short, UX is apart of CX. Although CX and UX designers do plenty of research, CX focuses on the whole brand while UX designers usually only on the product. But as our daily lives become unimaginable without technology, CX and UX are getting more and more intertwined.
Let’s take a closer look at them.
CX focuses on the overall experience with the brand. It includes:
All interactions the customer has with the company (website or mobile app, marketing, the sales process, customer service, support, etc.)
Nurtures the user journey with the brand.
Concentrates on large groups of customers, not only the target audience.
Increases customer satisfaction and improves the brand’s reputation at the same time.
Digital CX is all of the above, but in a digital environment:
All digital interactions. Live chat, newsletter, etc.
Involves some kind of human interaction or a perception of it at some point.
UX focuses on the experience with the product, digitally:
All digital interactions on the product interface.
If it’s easy to use, functional, enjoyable, and solves the users’ problems.
Nurtures the user journey with the product.
Works with user personas or specific target audiences.
And that’s why it’s difficult to separate UX and digital customer experience. After all, the customer can be the user as well. Every digital touchpoint the user interacts with should be designed from a UX perspective to be engaging, simple, and enjoyable for the user. Because this experience will influence how they think about the brand.
So, why does the difference between CX and UX matter? Well, it’s important to define the roles, responsibilities, and who works on what exactly. The UX team should concentrate on improving product usability. While usability is key in CX, it’s only successful if you provide a positive brand experience. Thus you need separate but interconnected strategies for both.
How Does UX Help Digital CX?
Understanding the relationship between UX and CX can have an impact on your company’s overall success in increasing its profitability.They work together to create a smooth customer journey without frustration. Furthermore, both prioritize the consumer’s level of satisfaction when interacting with a company.
Customers use many channels to gather information, make purchases, and solve problems. And they expect seamless experience across all devices and channels. If they encounter any flaws with your website or mobile app, it leaves an unpleasant impression on your company as a whole. That’s when UX comes into play.An outstanding UX design can noticeably enhance customer satisfaction and differentiate you from competitors. When we say outstanding, we mean it’s fast, interactive, easy to use, has smooth navigation, offers well-organized information. And of course, provides good experiences across all devices.
In conclusion, without good UX, you won’t be able to create a positive customer experience.
UX is the first digital touchpoint your customers have with your brand. Its credibility, conversions, customer retention, and overall digital customer experience is rooted in it. If it’s impressive enough, you’re halfway there.
If you feel something is missing from your design to be absolutely superb, you can always reach out to us. Let’s discuss how we can help you reach your goals.
What Does a Good Digital Customer Experience Strategy Look Like?
As shopping habits shift, the difference between digital and physical customer experience becomes blurred. Therefore, digital CX touchpoints, like chatbots and online forms, are becoming more significant in supporting overall customer experience strategies.A digital customer experience strategy identifies and provides opportunities, improves digital customer interaction, and creates a consistent customer journey.
A good digital CX strategy focuses on customers and adopts a long-term mindset. But it’s a neverending project. The perceived experience continuously has to be improved.
Try to think differently about how you engage with your customers and how you can improve their digital CX journey. Evaluate your current digital customer experience based on the following areas:
Flexibility and Consistency
Consumers expect to easily switch between digital channels. Fun fact: 52% of all worldwide website traffic is on mobile devices. The experience of moving from web app to mobile app to chat app and back has to be seamless and frictionless. Furthermore, they also need consistent information everywhere.
Simplicity and Ease of Use
Consumers don’t like complicated digital experiences. Make your platforms intuitive, help your consumers with simple and guided journeys, and other digital solutions like wishlists, savable credit card information, etc.
Convenience
Simple solutions can make your customers’ digital experiences more convenient. Just to list a few: Make every piece of information accurate and easily accessible. Provide chatbots or live support that can solve problems quickly. And make it possible that customers can carry out their interactions from start to finish.
Personalization
Just a few little things are already enough to make the experience personal for the user. For example, greeting them by their name. But of course, there are more complex options like recommending products based on their preferences. Fun fact: 60% of consumers report that they’ll become repeat buyers after a personalized purchasing experience.
Reachability
As we already know, people use multiple channels. Therefore you have to offer them several channels like a mobile app, newsletter, social media, etc. where they can engage with your brand.
If there is room for improvement in any of those areas, you can include it in your digital CX strategy. In 2022 hyper-personalization and individualization will be driving factors in digital customer experience strategy. Thus it’s essential to create engaging online experiences that meet the needs and expectations of your customers.
Best Practices for Improving Digital Customer Experience
If you want to grow your business and stay ahead of your competitors, make sure you meet your customers’ expectations. And to help you with that, we gathered the 10 best practices on how to improve your digital CX.
1. Know Your Audience
Without knowing your customers, you won’t deliver a good digital customer experience. You must be able to answer: what do they want? What issues are they facing? What channels do they use? You need a strategy that works for everyone. But it’ll show your customers that you listened.
2. Use Analytics
Analyze what your customers do on your website. You can get valuable insight when they don’t know you’re watching them. Track which features and pages customers use most, identify obstacles, and refine your digital CX strategy.
3. Analyze the Customer Journeys
With the power of analytics, you can also find out which digital touchpoints are most important for your customers. What’s their primary goal? Look for obstacles and drop-offs. Understand and make the customer journey easier, effortless, and convenient.
4. Ask and Observe
You can also ask your customers for their feedback. Send out various surveys to collect qualitative and quantitative data about your digital consumer experience.
But don’t just listen, observe them too. Because they might say they want one thing, but the real need usually emerges during using the product. There are different methods for this, but the most common is usability testing.
5. Improve the UI/UX Design
Your customers’ digital experience with your brand usually starts on your website. Thus it’s vital to impress them. And 88% of users are unlikely to return after a bad experience. Make your company website intuitive, easy to navigate, and engaging.
6. Pay Attention to Mobile Experiences
People use their phones more than their desktops, so the first impression you make will be on their mobile devices. Make sure your website is mobile-responsive. If your website doesn’t provide a consistent user experience, 89% of users will either switch devices or just leave.
7. Create an Omnichannel Experience
Customers don’t rely on one device anymore. With an omnichannel CX, you provide more channels for them to engage with you. Make sure that the experience is seamless and consistent on and between the different channels.
8. Personalize the Experience
If your customers give you their data, use them well. Send them personalized newsletters or show them product recommendations based on their search history. 60% of customers will become loyal to a brand after a personalized purchasing experience.
9. Communicate the Improvements
If you’ve implemented any digital CX improvements based on your customers’ feedback, communicate them. This way they’ll know that you care and it makes a good impression on your brand.
10. Adopt a Long-term Mindset
As time goes by, new trends, solutions, and needs will emerge. Continue analyzing and improving your digital customer experience. Prioritize your customers and give them the experience they expect. This way you’ll ensure their loyalty and happiness which ultimately make your business bloom.
Searching for Someone Who Can Help in UX and CX?
At UX studio, we’re a trusted choice for creating exceptional experiences. We’ve worked with many startups and industry leaders worldwide like Google, Netflix, and Zignaly. Still not sure? Let’s talk. We’re happy to help you figure things out.
Today, we’re releasing Yoast SEO 19.8 into the world. In this release, we’re focusing on general improvements and fixing several bugs. One of the main improvements this time concerns our Schema structured data output. Structured data helps search engines to understand your site, so they better get the right things to read!
Schema structured data improvements
In Yoast SEO 19.8, we’re improving two small but impactful issues with structured data. These both concern the output of BreadcrumbList structured data. One of these fixes a bug where poorly coded themes/plugins sometimes result in Yoast SEO outputting empty values in the breadcrumb schema. This, in turn, would lead to warnings in Google’s reporting tools.
Other enhancements and fixes
Of course, that’s not all. There’s a long list of changes in this release. For instance, we’ve added a X-Robots-Tag: noindex, follow header to all comment feeds to prevent them from being indexed. This will reduce duplicate content and index bloat. It will improve crawl quotas for sites that do not disable comment feeds.
We’ve removed two notifications from the Yoast SEO dashboard: the one suggesting enabling auto-updates and the one suggesting activating an add-on that is installed but currently inactive. This makes the experience a bit less overwhelming.
For some time, Twitter only uses the large card format, so it’s time for us to deprecate the wpseo_twitter_card_type filter, and we now only output summary_large_image for all twitter:card meta tags.
In Yoast SEO 19.8, we’ve improved our compatibility with Elementor. We’ve fixed a conflict with Elementor’s new Container element feature when Yoast SEO Premium, News SEO, or Video SEO is active, throwing errors.
The keyphrase in title assessment helps remind you to add your focus keyphrase in the title of your article or page. In some cases, this assessment wouldn’t work properly if you had snippet variables activated for the SEO title field. Today’s release fixes this.
You will find the complete list of fixes and enhancements in the changelog for this release.
Update now to Yoast SEO 19.8
Today’s release comes with a long list of bug fixes and enhancements. We’ve focussed on a couple of structured data improvements that make the Schema output of Yoast SEO a bit more robust. Update now to Yoast SEO 19.8!
