This Week: Facebook Ads Restrictions, Vivid Visuals for Social Media & Using Content Marketing to Make Competition Irrelevant

Happy Tuesday!

In today's edition of The Week in Internet Marketing, we cover common blogger SEO mistakes to avoid,  tips to be productive on social media, the types of visuals for high engagement rates. We will also cover Facebook's new restrictions on low-quality ads and explain what "content core" is and how to use it effectively against your competition. Let's dive in!

Facebook Implements New Restrictions on 'Low Quality' Ads

When it comes to Facebook Ads, Facebook has specific rules and guidelines that need to be followed. Most recently, they have implemented a new set of guidelines, and penalties, that will affect brands with “low quality” ads. So what constitutes as a low-quality ad, you ask? Below are techniques that Facebook restricts, and that your brand should avoid:

Engagement bait: these posts-turned-ads use “like and share” tactics for promotions.
Withholding information: these types of ads lure in a user to click for more details but are not specific in any way.
Sensationalized language: these ads use exaggerated headlines and copy to solicit a reaction or comment from a user

According to Facebook, these three types of ads could be spam and this lead to poor user experience. Any violation of these guidelines can see a reduced distribution in the ad auction. Less reach means higher costs for performance so ensure that your ads abide by these new rules.

6 Ways to be Productive with Social Media Marketing

Many business owners seem not to be aware of various techniques that are involved when it comes to social media marketing and this can lead them to fail. Social media begins with planning out a strategy. Here, Adam Torkildson, lists out six ways a company can set itself up for success. First, implement a social media calendar. To make the most of your social campaigns, you need a plan. A calendar keeps track of activities, ensures consistency throughout visuals and messaging, and keeps efforts organized.

Plan a strategy around the appropriate social media platform. Not two channels are the same and so focus on those that will help grow your business. Create goals that are attainable and measurable. Understand why your campaign is not growing or is growing. Analyze your engagement rate and plan out a strategy to create more engagement.

Install a chatbot on your social media page to help your followers connect with you. Most chatbots are highly sophisticated and can handle basic inquires about your product or services. Identify your influencers and offer them incentives to promote your product or services to a wider audience. Lastly, recycle your social content. You’ve spent a lot of time researching so repurpose content that works.

How to Use Content Marketing to Make Your Competition Irrelevant

Good content marketing will help you build strong followers and keep you above your competitors. The rules for creating content is as simple as it comes and by following the “content core” framework, you’ll soon see a boost in traffic and conversions. The purpose of “content core” is to connect the dots for your customers between what they care about and the value of what you offer.

First, take a look at the content you’re creating at this very moment. Unlike content core, most businesses run parallel content. Meaning, that while the content may appeal to your audience, it fails to convert because there are no real CTAs to convert them into a customer. With content core, your content intersects with your core business.

The goal of this approach is to provide real value to your audience without the need to buy your product or service. But as you insert strong CTAs throughout your content, you can make it easy for them to convert. The content shows them how to get the promised results all on their own but your product/service is also there to make their lives so much easier.

When it comes to content development, some marketers hesitate to give it much value than necessary, but once they see results, they want to invest more in content marketing strategy.

4 Vivid Visuals That Will Increase Your Social Engagement

Social media is about two things, engagement and visuals. An excellent visual makes your followers come back to your page and engage with you. As algorithms change, it can become increasingly difficult to produce high engagement rates for your content. Marcus Ho, from Search Engine Journal, takes a look at the four types of visuals that will give your business the highest amount of engagement.

Artistic illustrations are vector-based graphics and are a perfect accompaniment to content copy.  They visually communicate what your content piece is about. Note that it’s important to make your visual stand out by using contrasting colours.

As informative as statistics are, they can sometimes be dull to look at. But when done creatively they can stand out among other visuals.

Quotes became quite popular but no longer yield the high engagement rates they used to. If you’re going to create a visual with text, the trick is to be creative with colours, typography and patterns. Lastly, apply filters to photography to make photos stand out in a newsfeed.

Creating visual images may seem a bit overwhelming as they require a lot of work and attention to detail. If done correctly, they provide a visually appealing look to your social media presence. For examples of these four types of visuals and how to execute them correctly, click here!

7 Common SEO Mistakes Most WordPress Bloggers Make

When it comes to blogging, WordPress is the go-to option. It provides various helpful features that every blogger is looking for. Despite all the help available online, as a new blogger, there are some common SEO mistakes that can be made. Lucy Barret lists how to avoid these mistakes if you’re new to blogging.

One of the best features WordPress provides is SEO optimized themes. You want your blog to be top ranking compared to your competitors so the first mistake to avoid is not selecting an SEO optimized theme.

Include a contact form for your readers to contact you. This is a conversion driver so ensure that your form is optimized for the right keywords so your followers can easily find you. Optimizing your images is very important and a common mistake bloggers make is not compressing images. Doing so will help your site load faster and even enhances your Google PageSpeed score.

Another mistake to avoid is choosing the wrong keywords. Ensure that you are using the right keywords that define your content and subject, are low in competition but will help a reader find what they are looking for. For more SEO mistakes to avoid, keep reading here!