Tag Archive: Social media

  • SEMrush – marketing toolkit for digital marketing professionals

    Here at TBI, it’s important for us to keep up with the latest technology developments in order to advise clients on tools that may help them achieve their goals. That’s why we were very excited to trial SEMrush recently, incorporating it in our day to day SEO and marketing activities!

    What is SEMrush? What does it do?

    SEMrush, simply, is an analysis tool, dubbed “all-in-one marketing toolkit for digital marketing professionals”.
    Keyword research, competitive audits, keyword tracking, social monitoring, and local listing monitoring are just a few of the features available.

    Keyword research to inform strategy

    Keyword research is extremely important in optimising your website pages to rank higher in both organic and paid search. Being able to see which keywords are driving to a specific domain, as well as the keywords that their competitors are ranking for, is invaluable to our clients, and with this data we’re able to assist in developing a truly competitive strategy.

    Social media insights

    As we manage social media accounts on behalf of our clients with SEMrush we can easily track the total engagement numbers, our best performing tweets, and any accounts that have mentioned us to boost our social media strategy. Again, data informs strategy and through the insights we are able to retrieve using the tool, we can advise on iterative improvements that deliver higher returns.

    Streamlined reporting

    We really appreciated the reporting features of SEMrush. The reports are fully customisable and use a simple builder tool to quickly make professional and data-rich reports in minutes.

    Contact us here to find out more about the digital marketing projects we’ve recently undertaken.

     

     

  • BrightonSEO

    “Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside. Oh, I do like to be beside the sea.” So sang our Marketing Manager, Amy Card, as she travelled to one of the largest bi-annual search marketing conferences in Europe last month – BrightonSEO.

    BrightonSEO is a one-day event that brings together experts in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, search engine optimisation (SEO), and digital marketing strategy with a strong focus on social media channels.

    Sarah Bradley, Head of Student Engagement and Communications at Oxford Student Union, spoke early in the day on her experiences of engaging “millennials” on social media. (Slides available here:https://www.slideshare.net/SarahMBradley1/getting-students-attention-on-social-media).
    Sarah has conducted several experiments over recent years, notably staging a week-long student takeover of the University of Nottingham social media channels. Her takeaways? Students are often labelled and pigeonholed – do make the effort to understand their circumstances and engage with their interests and the return on your time investment will be enormous.

    Another talk of note came from Stacey MacNaught, (slides:https://www.slideshare.net/staceycav/securing-your-links-before-producing-your-content-stacey-macnaught-brightonseo-september-2018) who shared her positive experiences in validating ideas for resource-intensive content pieces (such as market research) before investing in production. Pitching an idea to a journalist at the earliest possible moment enables testing of the potential reception to a piece, offers an opportunity to iron out potential pitfalls and can secure coverage in principle before you commit any resources to creation.

    From a search marketing perspective, a keynote from marketing, tech and start-up industry leader, Rand Fishkin, echoed the sentiments heard throughout the day with two difficult truths for marketers:

    1. It’s never been harder to earn organic traffic from the web’s major players.
    2. It’s never been more important to mark your website (and email list) the centre of your campaigns.

    Businesses must now actively include SEO and website performance as a priority in their digital marketing mix. At TBI Communications we are trialling various technology solutions that streamline website keyword auditing and tracking backlinks, just two pieces of an increasingly complex puzzle our clients are facing in an effort to keep their site in front of their customers. Events such as BrightonSEO enable us to advise clients on best practice and suggest new strategies that maintain their competitive edge.

    Contact us here if you would like to get a better understanding of how we can help you increase your organisation’s SEO performance.

     

     

  • Getting the most out of social media – Facebook

    Social media is still a relatively young technology in the context of scholarly communications, with many organisations still trying to find the right way to maximise the strengths of the most popular networks. If you’re still finding your way in social media, there are a few simple – yet often overlooked – tactics that can make the difference between making a conversation spark or fizzle.

     

    Facebook’s immense popularity – with roughly one in seven people worldwide maintaining a profile – means that it’s often the first port of call when building a social media strategy. But are you making the most of your followers’ connection with your brand?

     

    One of the defining factors of Facebook is that, in most cases, people tend to use the site as a respite from professional life. That’s not to say that content aimed at ‘the day job’ doesn’t gain traction, as there are countless journals and learned societies that do a great job of engaging their audience through Facebook. Rather, it’s a question of choosing the right stories to feature.

    Put simply, the content on Facebook that gets the most traction is that which generates an emotional reaction, whether that’s a gasp of admiration, laughter at a punch line, or a grin of acknowledgement as people interact with a story that impresses them. Announcing the publication of a new journal issue might not get those reactions from your followers, but putting a spotlight on a ground-breaking article, challenging opinion, or thoughtful editorial piece within tends to increase re-posts and comments – extending that post’s reach beyond direct followers. (Unsurprisingly, posts relating to serious society/company business – aside from conferences and other events – tend to generate significantly fewer interactions.)

     

    Tone of voice is also an important consideration. All too many organizations use the same uniform tone across all communication channels, but the personal touch is far more appropriate in social media. Whereas a brochure or email campaign might need to speak for your organization as a whole, keeping a light-hearted, conversational tone in Facebook posts will make them feel less like a one-way broadcast and more like part of a conversation – which is the precise strength of social media. Don’t be afraid to add some personality to your organisation’s Facebook posts!

     

    If your social media strategy needs a further boost, TBI can help with anything from communications audits to staff training. Melinda and Charlie have also written about how to integrate social media in a campaign communications mix to achieve optimum results.

  • Why don’t publishers prioritize digital influence?

    Why don’t publishers prioritize digital influence?

    In TBI’s recent Heatmaps survey, we were a little surprised to find that advocacy and digital influence campaigns were scored as a relatively low priority by publishers for 2013. It’s a very hot topic in consumer marketing circles, so why do we not seem to be giving it much attention in academic publishing?

    Here’s why we think advocacy and digital influence should be on your priority list:

    • Because people value personal recommendations more than they do organizational ones
    • The emergence of social media and altmetrics makes it easier to identify influential members of our communities and give them advocating tools
    • Digital has the power to dramatically amplify influence, so engaging with influential members of the communities that we serve is becoming a critically important part of marketing strategy

    It’s about achieving the perfect mix of the right influencers, with the right conversation in the right place at the right time – see Melinda’s article for more advice on how to put together a digital engagement plan. TBI is also running a webinar about digital influence and advocacy marketing.