Is your brand using Facebook ads?

In this blog post we’ll discuss two different Facebook ad types: Standard (like) ads and Sponsored Stories. A standard ad is to designed to increase a Facebook page’s fans while a Sponsored Story highlights the actions taken by the page’s fans to their network.

A great example of success with a Facebook Sponsored Story ad campaign is with a 90octane client who wanted to increase fan growth in three key countries through targeted Facebook ads.  After successfully testing a Sponsored Story ad alongside a standard ad in one of the select countries, it was  decided to run the campaigns in the other two countries.  Messaging, imagery, interest level and demographic targeting were identical in each country for both the Sponsored Story ad and the standard ad.

Utilizing the same targeting techniques, the only remaining variable to test was which ad, the Sponsored Story ad or the standard ad would yield more “Likes”.

After running both ads for four months, we collected sufficient data to see if any interesting details stuck out.  When comparing results from the standard ads to the Sponsored Story ads, it was clear that Sponsored Story ads were the overall winners.  Not only did each country experience a significantly higher click-through rate with Sponsored Story ads, but conversion rates increased across the board. This  allowed for a lower cost-per-acquisition.  Although the average cost-per-click was anywhere from 7-37% higher with Sponsored Story ads, the notably higher conversion rates more than helped to account for this increase.

These images illustrate how Sponsored Story ads performed compared to the standard ads for these three countries when considering click-through-rate and cost-per-acquisition.

Facebook Sponsored Story Ad Performance

The Sponsored Story ads generated a higher response in each country’s campaign and achieved a lower cost to acquire new page likes.  One interesting note not shown above was the larger variations in conversion rates among the Sponsored Story ads. Canada had a 28% conversion rate, while the U.S. had a 60% conversion rate and Italy had a 45% conversion rate.

However the traditional ads had an average conversion rate between 20-27% in all three countries.

As we can learn from the data above, certain countries are going to respond more strongly to Sponsored Story ads based on, perhaps, their trust level or reliance on the opinions of their peers.  Overall, the key learning here is to continually optimize and test Facebook campaigns to meet and understand the needs of each individual market.  Whether you are targeting geographical areas, interest levels, or different demographic audiences, it is important to segment out each target market to account for any behavioral differences.

Update on Facebook advertising: This past week, Facebook announced that they will be simplifying ad product offerings within the next six months. They are planning to streamline the number of ad units from 27 to less than half that amount. With these changes, Sponsored Story ads will no longer be separated out from standard ads.  As shown in Facebook’s example below, social context will be placed at the top of each ad unit with future ads. Facebook has noted that these specific changes will happen in the fall. We will all have to wait to see how the new “social context” ads perform compared to the previous sponsored story ads!

Facebook ad update (Image courtesy of Facebook)

Our case study found that Google Grants advertisers now receive about half the clicks they were prior to January 28th of this year, yet fees remain the same.

One of our clients saw a 41% drop in click volume with a 73% increase in average cost-per-click. Another saw a 37% drop in clicks coupled with a 105% increase in average CPC.

Major changes to Google Grants and its effects on nonprofit search marketing programs

Google has, understandably, placed a number of limitations on its nonprofit accounts. Unfortunately, some of these limitations also hinder Google Grants advertisers in their ability to respond to declines in account performance. With a $2 cap on keyword bids and a set maximum daily spend, Google Grants advertisers can neither adjust campaign budgets nor raise keyword bids in order to compete more effectively. They also cannot truly compete against paying advertisers as paying ads always appear above Grants ads, regardless of bid.

All hope is not lost, though. There are a number of things that Google Grants advertisers can do to optimize their PPC accounts. Here are just a few of the ways nonprofit advertisers can make up for some of the declines seen over the past few months.

1. Get creative with account structure.

The key to a successful account structure is breaking campaigns and ad groups into tightly knit, thematically related groups of keywords and ads. More advanced advertisers sometimes take this a step further, creating different ad groups or campaigns for the same keywords with different match types.

One idea is to structure campaigns or ad groups by average CPCs, placing keywords with low CPCs in one campaign and those with high CPCs in another campaign. Grouping high cost keywords together would allow a Google Grants advertiser to limit campaign budget on expensive keywords, while giving more of the limited daily budget to lower cost terms, leading to more bang for the buck.

2. Get aggressive with keyword expansion.

The Google Keyword Tool and new Keyword Planner provide helpful insight when doing keyword research, especially when looking for low cost and low competition terms. Both tools allow for filtering suggestions by approximate CPC and competition.

Google Grants advertisers can use these tools to find keywords that are more cost-effective. Simply take existing successful keywords and plug them into the tool. Add keyword filters to limit the suggestions to terms by desired cost and competition levels.

The Google Keyword Tool and new Keyword Planner provide helpful insight when doing keyword research, especially when looking for low cost and low competition terms.

While the estimated average CPC and competition level Google provides may not be 100% accurate, this information can help identify additional keywords where Google Grants advertisers are more likely to have success.

Like all advertisers, Google Grants participants should routinely examine search query reports and add relevant long tail terms that appear in searches to their account.

3. Test, test, test – and then do even more testing – of ads.

Like paid advertisers, those participating in Google Grants should routinely test ad messaging. Ads should always be highly relevant to the keywords in the ad group, but there is room to experiment too.

Use a free version of an online competitive tool and do some searches to look at ads competitors are running on your most important keywords. Look at the themes in messaging and think about how your ad might be able to stand out from the crowd.

Be sure to A/B test with only a small piece of the message at a time, so that results can be measured and incorporated for the next round of ad testing.

4. Don’t be afraid of advanced targeting options.

One of the benefits of Google’s Enhanced Campaigns is the ability to both positively and negatively modify keyword level bids based on a number of data points. Bids can be multiplied based on the searcher’s geography, day of the week, time of day and device type.

Google Grants accounts can reap some of the benefits of Enhanced Campaigns, though it will work a bit differently given the $2 keyword bid cap. For example, if all bids are set to the maximum of $2, rather than using positive bid modifiers, negative bid modifiers can be used to reduce the cost of clicks that are not as likely to convert into a lead or donation.

Look at your data – when do you have low conversion or click-through rates at a high cost? Are users in certain states less likely to convert than others? Do mobile users ever donate, or is it still too cumbersome for them to do so? Consider adding a bid modifier of -10% or -15% to reduce keyword bids during times, within geographies and on devices that are not providing a good return on investment. Perhaps even consider turning PPC off during certain hours, to preserve your daily budget for the times that are more successful based on your organization’s goals.

5. Integrate Google Grants with other channels.

Ideally, Google Grants should never be used alone. People often touch multiple channels before they convert into a donation, lead or other type of conversion. Think about how you can integrate Google Grants into your organization’s overall strategy, especially organic search, email and social.

Are there terms that are driving traffic to your website in organic searches that you might be able to give additional lift to through Google Grants? Studies have shown that PPC clicks are incremental, meaning that ad clicks are not replaced with organic clicks to the advertiser’s site when they stop running PPC. Even when an advertiser is in the number one organic search position on Google, having paid ads on the page doesn’t replace the organic clicks 50% of the time. Focus on top SEO terms and experiment with bidding on these terms and similar variations to see if there is additional lift. You can do the reverse as well by integrating high performing keywords into SEO strategy.

Think about how Google Grants can be coupled with your social and email strategy, as well. If there’s a message you are pushing on social channels or in an email blast, you can supplement it with related keywords and messaging.

6. Get out ahead of upcoming trends.

Google Trends can be your best friend. Looking at historical trends for important keywords can help you identify when search volume is likely to start to rise and competition is likely to increase. This works especially well for seasonal events or around major holidays.

Knowing when search volume rises and competitors start entering the market on your key terms can help you plan ahead and gain visibility early before costs rise above $2 per click and paid advertisers flood the market.

Google Trends can be your best friend.

7. Ask for help from Google.

It never hurts to ask Google for a little extra help, especially when it comes to participating in beta offerings. If you notice something on a PPC ad that seems to set it apart from all the others, take a screen shot of it and do some research into what it is. Often, Google tests new PPC features on a select number of advertisers, and there is no reason Google Grants advertisers should limit themselves from being a part of beta tests. Betas can help set your ad apart from the crowd, giving it a chance to counteract search engine user “ad blindness,” especially when your ad falls in the middle of other listings.

Google also offers a Google Grants Help Forum and Google for Nonprofits Help Center that can help answer questions and guide PPC optimization strategies.

These are just a few of the ways nonprofits can meet the challenges of the new Google Grants structure. Like with any paid search campaign, the key is to implement changes and measure results and continue to adjust your strategy in accordance with findings and market trends.

Don’t forget to read Nonprofits and Google Grants: Part I in case you missed it.

First, some background: Google Grants is part of the Google for Nonprofits program, which allows registered 501(c)(3) organizations to take advantage of a handful of Google products at reduced rates or no cost. While the Grants program provides nonprofits with in-kind pay-per-click (PPC) advertising through AdWords, it comes with a few limitations.

Major changes to Google Grants and its effects on nonprofit search marketing programs

Before Google’s changes to Grants, nonprofits could run keyword-targeted text ads on Google.com, limited to a maximum cost-per-click (CPC) bid of $1 and a max daily budget of $330, or $10,000 per month. Google also provided organizations that consistently met the $10,000 per month spend an opportunity to apply for GrantsPro, which raised advertisers’ max daily spend to $1,330, or $40,000 per month. As of this writing, Google still honors existing GrantsPro accounts, but is no longer accepting new applications for the program.

On January 28th, 2013, Google changed Grants in two major ways. First, the maximum keyword bid was doubled to $2, which created quite a bit of excitement among Grants advertisers. Second, in order to “balance the interests of businesses who pay to advertise on Google search,” as Google said in an email to Grant account owners and admins, the PPC auction format was altered so Grants ads will always appear below paying advertisers’ ads. This second change caused widespread concern that Grants advertisers would lose the ability to appear in coveted top ad positions, particularly for competitive keywords.

Based on the trends we have seen in clients’ Google Grants accounts here at 90octane, the fears many marketers and nonprofits had about the changes seem to have been well founded. In general, we have seen clicks increase in cost, while average ad position has declined. Also concerning is that as average CPCs have risen, the number of clicks advertisers are able to receive before hitting the daily maximum spend cap has been cut nearly in half. Overall, Google Grants advertisers are now able to get about half the clicks for the same cost, with a lower average ad position, than they were prior to January 28th.

Below are two charts illustrating the effect the program changes had on two clients’ Grants accounts in terms of click levels and average CPC. These clients were selected for analysis because they have both consistently met the maximum daily and monthly spend, but have different targeting settings and keywords. In both cases, we see a huge change in performance almost immediately after January 28th.

Client A: Clicks vs. Average CPC

For Client A, average CPCs ticked up slightly but remained fairly flat for approximately a month following the change, due to a strategy of very slight increases in CPC bids at first. Their click performance, however, became extremely volatile after being mostly flat for months prior. By early March, when most of Client A’s keyword bids were raised to $2 to better compete with other Grants advertisers, we saw average CPCs nearly double, from less than $0.80 before January 28th to about $1.40 by the end of April. Clicks started to level off, ranging between about 1,000 to 1,200 per day in March and April, but down from around 1,800 clicks per day in January. Overall, Client A experienced about a 73% increase in average CPC and 41% drop in clicks from January to April.

Client B’s account tells a similar story. Before the Google Grants program change, average CPCs hovered under $0.80 while click levels varied, hitting between around 800 and 1,800 clicks per day. Unlike Client A, Client B raised their keyword bids to $2 almost immediately, with apparent affects starting in early February. Like Client A, Client B’s average CPCs nearly doubled, hovering between $1.40 and $1.60 over the past three months. No longer as volatile, their click levels dropped overall, hitting a maximum of between 800 and 1,000 per day. Since the change, it is no longer possible for client B to reach 1,600 to 1,800 clicks per day as it had in January. For Client B, this represents a 105% increase in average CPC and 37% drop in clicks from January to April.

However, clicks and cost are only a part of the story; Google Grants advertisers have also seen a decline in average ad position. Using Clients A and B as an example here once again, we can see that Client A’s average ad position declined from 3.48 in January to 4.08 in April. Client B also saw declines, though much less drastic, dropping from 2.69 in January to 2.91 in April.

Client A vs. Client B: Average Position

Unfortunately for these clients and many other Google Grants advertisers, it looks like the changes to the program are here to stay. While some Grants advertisers may now be able to appear for keywords previously out of reach with the $1 cap, the detrimental effects on clicks, cost and ad position likely outweigh that benefit.

The question, then, is what can be done to optimize Google Grants account performance with these new challenges in mind? Stay tuned – we’ll tackle that topic in part two of this blog series.

The revitalized look of Facebook's News Feed (Image courtesy of Flickr user Thomas Hawk)

In March, Facebook announced its new mobile-inspired news feed which has again sparked conversations surrounding the vital importance of visual elements in social media marketing. “Visual Marketing” was coined as a breakout trend of 2012 with the growing popularity of social media sites like Pinterest and Instagram. With pictures being shared and liked more than text, links and videos it’s clear that more images equals more engagement. This is not surprising considering the brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text alone, 83% of all learning is visual, and 93% of communication is non-verbal.

If you’re not yet convinced that visual marketing is here to stay, take it from the experts. Detavio Samulas (EVP & Director of Client services at GlobalHue) explains that pictures are similar to movie trailers for written content. They provide insight into what a piece of content is about so the user can quickly decide if they want to continue to engage or not. Additionally, Ekaterina Walter, Intel’s Social Media Strategist, also stated, “Brands that can rock visual media will find themselves market leaders.”

The fact is that content length has been steadily shrinking – with the online consumer moving from lengthy blogs to Facebook statuses to 140 character tweets. This is not to say that content does not have its place; content is an integral piece of the puzzle that should accompany engaging visual elements.  It is important to also consider that search engines now take social conversations and sharing into consideration when ranking sites – meaning that the boost visual marketing can give social campaigns will also help SEO rank.

Now that you know why images are a large driver of behavior it’s time to brainstorm how to utilize visual marketing in your own campaigns. Think about your industry – are you a travel company? Incorporate destination images into your marketing scheme and encourage customers to share their pictures with you by re-posting user-generated content. Are you a retail brand? Showcase your merchandise. Are you an interior designer? Show off your work and share what inspires you. Consider if user-generated content is right for your brand. For example, if you are marketing a local bar or restaurant encourage patrons to share their experiences via images with your social channels – and re-post to encourage further engagement.

Legendary journal maker Moleskin runs user-submitted image contest. (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

A great example of utilizing user-generated content is the “What’s In Your Bag? campaign from designer paper/analog brand Moleskine. Users were encouraged to upload images of the contents of their bags into a Facebook album (which always included Moleskine notebooks).

Ultimately visual marketing has the potential to boost almost all aspects of a brand’s online presence, and when integrated into a content marketing campaign, can have killer results.

Image courtesy of Dell's Official Flickr Account

Identifying ailing digital marketing strategies can be challenging. Even if you are posting content on a regular basis and gaining followers, are you meeting goals and generating a return on investment? In order to answer these questions, you have to evaluate your social media strategy.

Build a Strong Foundation with a Plan

While social media engagement is dependent on sharing time-sensitive content such as breaking industry news, you must take time to plan posts for social channels. With planning you can lighten the daily workload and plan out posts for days, weeks, or even months at a time. Create a social calendar and integrate it with your overarching marketing strategy to improve social presence and engagement.

Do You Know Your Audience?

By paying attention to how your social channels’ audience interacts with your content, you can schedule posts that your followers are more willing to engage with on your page. This will also provide a stronger foundation of what types of content (such as photos or quotes) encourage your fans or followers to interact. To learn more about your customer you first should identify:

• Time of day they interact the most
• Social sites they frequently visit
• Types of content that engages the user
• What emotionally connects

Engaging Fans, Friends, and Followers

When using social media, you can positively impact the page’s performance by taking the time to respond to comments or questions from followers. This is only the tip of the iceberg; don’t forget to know what types of content  keep them engaged.

• Videos & Audios
• SlideShare
• Links to webinars
• Graphics
• Relevant news articles
• Downloadable items
• Questions

Remember to listen and respond to any negative feedback or interactions. It is best not to ignore or delete the disgruntle comments as it can lead to severe backlash.

Analyze Traffic and Behavior

Social channels can often drive traffic and high levels of interaction to a website or landing page. When measuring traffic, shared pages can yield valuable insights to what content is worthwhile. Using tools such as Google Analytics can help identify if any social media channels were the referring media.  Additionally, it’s important to keep in mind that many of the social media platforms have their own algorithm that can affect how your content is displayed. For instance, Facebook’s Edgerank can impact how your content surfaces in your fans’ newsfeeds.

While the few key subjects listed above aren’t the entire marketing puzzle, it will help identify how your social strategy health is performing. If you find that your strategy is in need of help, feel free to contact us and we can help you get back on the proper track.

The Golden Circle creator, Simon Sinek. (Image courtesy of Flickr user Cea.)

Rarely will a company prioritize “gaining prospect and customer trust” as a top goal for its marketing campaign. However, trust is one of the most crucial aspects of any relationship: romantic, platonic, familial or professional. If little or no trust exists in a professional relationship, projects will likely not meet goals and will waste time, effort and money. On the other hand, a trusting professional relationship enables both parties to communicate openly so that work is accomplished efficiently and effectively. At 90octane we believe trust is a differentiator. In fact, it’s our why.

Speaker and author Simon Sinek created The Golden Circle, described as “the model that codifies the three distinct and interdependent elements (Why, How, What) that make any person or organization function at its highest ability.” After hearing Sinek speak, 90octane partners Sam Eidson and Jim Grinney decided to explore how The Golden Circle applied to the agency.

90octane’s what and how were simple to define: we’re a conversion-driven marketing agency that uses a variety of tactics (relying heavily on online channels) to help clients reach their revenue goals. We use 90m, a framework of proprietary tools and process to do so (how). Then came the tricky part: isolating the why that fuels 90octane. Eidson and Grinney needed to put their fingers on what gets us all up in the morning fired up to come to work.

Following many brainstorming sessions, a brand audit and a call with Sinek himself, the partners defined 90octane’s why. Our core belief is that trust is a differentiator. Honesty and transparency differentiate our clients and us, and drive all of our business practices.

It’s easy to say, but how do we practice it? By creating and maintaining a set of standards, specific practices and initiatives that our Values Board drives. By empowering our staff to build trust amongst one another and with our clients. And by working with our clients to create campaigns that are transparent. This helps them differentiate themselves in the marketplace so that their prospects and customers know these businesses as trustworthy partners.

View Simon Sinek presenting The Golden Circle at TED.

Image courtesy of SEOPal

The search engine marketing community has been abuzz over the last week analyzing signs that a potentially game-changing update to Google’s algorithm is about to take place. No one knows exactly when the new version of Penguin will be implemented, or how it will affect SEM efforts, but Google has made it clear that this isn’t just another minor change – it’s the next step for Google in search engine marketing.

For those that don’t know, over the past few years Google has two MAJOR updates to their algorithm code named Penguin and Panda.

• Panda was originally released in February 2011 to penalize websites that used black-hat tactics and to help integrate SEO efforts across an entire websites, not just individual pages. There have been a total of 25 updates since it’s release and more than 15% of all search queries have been affected by it.
• Penguin is a link quality filter that sits on top of the core algorithm and is designed to penalize sites that use black-hat techniques to improve search visibility. It was released in April 2012 with the goal of penalizing websites that are in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines such as link farming and duplicate content creation. All in all, Penguin has affected 3.5% of English-language searches.

Experts believe that the upcoming Penguin update will further crackdown on black-hat linking strategies. They will also be taking this opportunity to integrate Penguin and Panda together so that future Penguin updates can be automatically applied to Google’s algorithm rather than having to push out the updates manually.

Most websites will need to shift their attention away from old-school SEO tactics and focus on what Google will be considering more reputable tactics instead. For example, the following tactics may be penalized once Penguin is updated:

• Link Trust: Being linked to by suspicious sites, penalized websites, free directories, paid links, unrelated sites, or duplicate content
• Link Velocity: Gaining lots of new links in a short period of time
• Intentional keyword stuffing in advertorials and press releases
• Content with poor grammar/spelling/punctuation designed for a bot
• Spamming forums, directories, or link-building sites with your URL

In the end, Google is trying to improve their user experience and provide high-quality search results that understand what the user wants to see instead of what marketers want the user to see. They call this “user intent”, and it will be critical to search engine marketers in the years to come. The following factors are expected to play a larger role in a strong SEO program moving forward:

• Social signals (content and trends in the social media space)
• Relevant links, anchor text, and site content
• Traffic metrics
• Responsive design
• User created content
• Friendly website architecture (i.e. rel=author, schedme.org, etc.)
• Content related to a given search that aligns with business/industry/products
• Niche directories
• Relationship-based links
  • Become a guest blogger
  • Leverage your key influencers and brand advocates
  • Engage on social media
  • Attend relevant events
  • Involve the press
  • Become a regular contributor to a site/cause
  • Cannibalizing competitive links

Even though the newest version of Penguin hasn’t been released yet, it is always smart to be prepared for any changes to Google’s algorithm. As news unfolds we will continue updating our valued customers with this information so that you can make the most informed decisions possible.

How are you presenting yourself? (Image courtesy of Slideshare)

Social media users love images. The popularity of Instagram and Pinterest along with Facebook’s redesign forecast an image-saturated future for social media. This should come as no surprise since research shows that between 60-65% of people are visual learners, meaning this portion of the population prefers visual stimuli over text.

With 80 million pages viewed per month and 28 million visitors per month, the 293^rd most popular site on the Internet, SlideShare, is picking up steam. Touted as the “world’s largest community for sharing presentations,” marketing gurus cannot stop talking about it. With its built-in social components and public sharing abilities, SlideShare offers businesses the opportunity to demonstrate their industry knowledge and expertise by creating robust, easy-to-view presentations.

Beyond its capabilities of demonstrating how innovative and brilliant your company is, SlideShare’s additional benefits include:

• Increased search engine visibility
• Lead generation
• Social network growth
• New channel for content promotion
• Higher quality blog content
• Increased engagement with mobile users

Not sold yet? Take it from award-winning brand specialist David Brier, a Slideshare expert with over 200,000 presentation views. In an interview with Forbes contributor Steve Olenski, Brier said, “SlideShare is a great resource, but more importantly, businesses can use SlideShare to get its message out in a venue that is already primed for and seeking information, insight and useful strategies.”

SlideShare is simple to use and can add new life to your old presentations. Illustrate the messages you want to convey to your audience with visual storytelling tools, like SlideShare, to see increased engagement and interest in your brand, while providing the kind of visual content social media users enjoy.

Examples of industry-specific SlideShare use:

• Nonprofit Marketing
• Travel Marketing
• Fast Casual Marketing

When a Google user searches for a nonprofit organization by name, the right sidebar will now contain information about the charity pulled from Wikipedia, Google+ and other sources around the web. Organic search and pay-per-click results still appear in the main column of the search engine page, though fewer PPC ads are visible.

On smartphones, the Knowledge Graph information appears in the main column of the search engine results page, either at the top or somewhere in the middle following the first organic search result.

The Knowledge Graph information for nonprofits includes:

• The organization’s name and logo
• The number of followers the nonprofit has on G+
• A short description of the nonprofit, taken from Wikipedia
• The organization’s tax ID number and financial information
• The date the organization was founded and the name of its founder
• The category of the nonprofit, e.g. Human Services or International Relief
• Recent posts from the organization’s G+ page with a “follow” button
• Knowledge Graph results for related nonprofits

Each piece of information is clickable, taking the searcher to the source of the information on the web. Clicking the nonprofit’s logo or recent G+ posts, for example, will take the user to the group’s G+ page, while clicking on the headings for tax ID, assets, founders, and so on, will take the user to a Google search page with results for that query. Clicking on a related nonprofit will take the user to a new page of search results for the related organization, with a Knowledge Graph Carousel of charities across the top.

Though many large charities are already included in Knowledge Graph, Google has said that they have “just started to add information about nonprofits” and that they intend to expand it further as time goes on.

With these changes, it’s important for nonprofits to think about the implications for both their search engine optimization and paid search strategies.

For one, Google’s added emphasis on Google+ and Wikipedia information means that nonprofits will need to optimize these pages. Nonprofits that do not already have a Google+ page should create one, and those that do should ensure they maintain an active presence on the site, posting well-optimized content regularly.

For paid search, nonprofits that are enrolled in the Google Grants program may see a drop in first-page PPC visibility for some brand terms, since paid advertisers appear above Grants advertisers and fewer paid slots are available when Knowledge Graph data appears.

Overall, being included in Google’s Knowledge Graph will help nonprofits gain visibility on search engine results pages, especially when Knowledge Graph information is placed directly next to that organization’s organic listings and paid search ads. It also creates an opportunity for nonprofits to gain valuable social followers and visibility for their Google+ content, which is great for SEO.

(Images created by Author)

How is your brand using Vine?

Have you been following the progress of Twitter’s new social platform Vine? Well, it has been nearly two months since Twitter announced Vine and it is continuing to gain popularity with not only the everyday user, but top brands as well. This social app allows users to create a 6-second max video loop and then share it across various social media platforms.  There are numerous ways that brands are able to utilize Vine to share content and engage with their audience.  Brands can use Vine to highlight a product launch, run a product/service demo, create contests, or simply just create engaging content that can reach a mass audience.  Learn how some brands are already using vine to leverage their products and services in this recent article from PRNewser.