A First Look at New Instagram Business Tools (And What They Mean for Your Business)

Businesses have been using Instagram as a way to build their audience and connect with customers for a while now without too much insight on how their content is performing. But soon, they'll be able to dive way beyond total likes and views.

Instagram has officially announced the launch of its tools for business users, including new business profiles, analytics and the ability to create ads from posts directly within the app.

The Facebook-owned company worked with hundreds of business users to understand what was needed to enhance their Instagram experience, and three key needs became clear-stand out, get insights and find new customers.

Most importantly, they found that businesses want the ability to stand out on Instagram. Secondly, they realised that businesses needed more insights into their post-performance. During their research, a retailer in Austin explained that many analytics are overwhelming and hard to apply to its marketing. And third, businesses want to reach even more customers.

With these insights in mind, the company developed new Instagram Business Tools and we'd love to share what's coming with you.

Let's jump in!

Business profiles

Business profiles are a free feature for accounts wanting to be recognized as a business on Instagram. As noted previously, brands with a business profile can choose how they want their customers to get in touch with them: call, text or email with a tap of the contact button as well as get directions.

Business profiles will only be open to those who already have a Facebook Page for their business. Instagram's Global Head of Business and Brand Development, James Quarles explained the reasoning behind this decision to TechCrunch: “In doing that, it gives us the payment credentials, as well as if they want to prepopulate some of the information like their street address, the phone number, and the website.”

The 'Contact' button will appear next to the Following button in the profile information section of the page. Upon clicking the button, users will have the option to get in touch with the business or get directions to their location.

The 'Location' tag will be displayed underneath the current website link on a business page and when tapped, will open up a map showing the business location and enable users to get directions from their current location.

Insights

Insights on Instagram give businesses actionable information about who their followers are and which posts resonate better than others-all from within the mobile app. By learning more about the behavior and demographics of your audience, Instagram believe you can create more relevant and timely content.

Insights will feature metrics like top posts, reach, impressions and engagement around posts, as well as more data on your followers like their gender, age, and location. Here's a look at how the Insights will be displayed on iOS, as reported on Later.com:

Instagram business users will be able to identify where their followers are from, even going as deep as the city they're in. This will be incredibly valuable for marketers, especially when it comes to figuring out when to post content to their profiles to maximise reach and engagement. The new Insights will also show you the most popular times of day your followers are using Instagram.

Later also report that you'll able to view the top posts sorted by Impressions for both a 7 day and a 30 day period. This will help business users to work out an engagement rate based on how many people have seen their post and how many decided to engage with it.

Here's a quick video showing Instagram's new Insights in action:

Promote

The ability to promote lets you turn well-performing posts into ads right within the Instagram app-helping you connect with even more customers.

To run an ad, you'll be able to simply pick a post you've already shared on Instagram and add a button encouraging people to take action. You can select a target audience or allow Instagram to suggest targeting for you. After that, your post will be promoted as an ad for any length of time you choose.

The new ads functionality is designed to let business get started with ads in just a few taps. Speaking to AdWeek, Jim Squires, director of market operations at Instagram, said: “The way I envision this is there are a lot of businesses on the platform that may be new to advertising, or not advertising yet, and this is a straightforward, easy way to start advertising on the platform.”

The simplicity of this tool means that businesses may not have the flexibility and targeting options available using tools like Facebook's Ads Manager or Power Editor. Though, as TechCrunch reports, advertisers will be able to define and save custom audiences based on data from Facebook users' profiles such as gender, age and location and interests.

Over to you

Instagram business tools are just some of the ways Instagram say they hope to make growing a business on much easier. Business profiles, insights and the ability to promote will be rolling out in the US, Australia and New Zealand in the coming months, and will be available in all regions globally by the end of the year.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on these new features and how they may make your Instagram experience smoother. Feel free to leave a comment and I'd be excited to jump in and join the conversation.

from Social http://ift.tt/1Y1jXoE

rgh–

Make Money Online posting articles, videos like this
A First Look at New Instagram Business Tools (And What They Mean for Your Business)

6 Simple Tricks To Make More Money From Your Blog

Are you getting traffic to your blog, but still struggling to make a good income?

Blogging is a great career option but only if you do it the right way. Of course, everything starts with providing great content to your readers and steadily growing your traffic. Once you have decent traffic to your blog and a loyal audience, it's time to focus on the revenue.

You may have heard a lot of people say that your blog revenue is directly proportional to the traffic coming in, but that's not really true. It's all about executing the money-making ideas in the right way.

So here are six marketing tips to make more money from your blog:

1. Place your ads better

Placing ads on your website is not enough, you have to place ads where your readers are more likely to click on them.

Before placing an advertisement, ask yourself why the readers are here and where exactly you should place the ads so that they don't hamper the user experience and yet, are starkly visible.

Here are a few ideas for ad placement for a better click-through-rate:

• Sidebar banner


• Above a blog post title


• Right below the post title


• Between different sections of your post


• At the end of your post, above the author bio

But, of course, every website is different, and that is why I would recommend checking your website's heat map which could tell you where exactly your users tend to click more, and that is where you should place the majority of your ads.

I also recommend checking Google's ad placement policies at regular intervals so you can stay on top of any changes. Also, it's in Google's best interests to make sure the user experience isn't affected, so you won't have to worry about bothering your readers either if you follow their guidelines.

Here is an image that depicts the best places to put ads, the darker the orange the better the placement;

Image Source: Shout Me Loud

2. Go beyond AdSense

Yes, Google AdSense generates the most intuitive ads for your readers, since Google already knows what the readers have been searching and surfing. But, with a minimum payout threshold of $100 and a difficult approval process, it doesn't hurt to look at some other options as well.

Here a few ad platforms you should definitely consider (all of them work alongside AdSense):

Infolinks

With in-text and in-frame ads, Infolinks can monetize your blog in a completely different way. Getting approval on Infolinks is extremely easy and there is a minimum payout of $50 through PayPal.

BuySellAds

This is one of the premier ad platforms which gets you direct advertisements from clients and takes a 25% commission charge. With a minimum payout of $20, the only downside to BuySellAds is that it's not that easy to get approved.

Viglink

What Viglink does is, it monetizes your outbound links. It turns your ordinary links into affiliate links, so when a reader clicks on your link and buys something, you get a commission through it. This brings the power of affiliate marketing to natural link building.

3. Explore native languages

With so many languages in the world, why should you only focus on English? Google AdSense now supports over 35 languages, and this gives you no reason to ignore native languages.

While English might be one of the most popular languages on the internet, there is an array of readers looking for blogs in their regional languages and you can be the first few to exploit that market.

I launched my blog's Hindi version, ShoutMeHindi, back in June 2015 and I've been getting great feedback ever since.

You don't need to make it exclusively in your local language – you can mix and match English terms, as people tend to be familiar with the digital marketing terminology in English.

4. Collaborate with brands for sponsored posts and reviews

This is the quickest way to earn some good cash, but at the same time, you have to be very cautious about it.

Sponsored posts are where you talk about a product in general, or you try to incorporate something associated with the product naturally into your content. Sponsored reviews are when the company pays you to write reviews about their products.

Sponsored posts should only be done when you can talk about products or brands that your readers would be interested in. I don't need to tell you that when you attempt blatant advertising, readers' trust evaporates.

Now, sponsored reviews are a very sensitive ground. You might be getting paid by the company, but you don't have to completely sell the product. It's important to be unbiased and write your honest thoughts about the products.

Test the product extensively, and then list down all the pros and cons. Be sure to let the company know beforehand that you would be writing an honest review.

To connect with brands, you can create a media kit explaining what advertisers can expect from sponsored posts and reviews and how much you would be charging them.

Suggested networks;

• Famebit (Popular among Youtubers but not limited to it)


• Tapinfluence


• Fango.me


• Blogmint (Popular brand to get sponsored posts for blogs & social media channels.)

5. Implement affiliate programs

Affiliate marketing, in a nutshell, is where you refer your readers a product and when they buy it through your recommendation, you get a commission out of it.

Our very own Jeff described affiliate marketing as one of the top ways to make money by blogging in 2016. Every affiliate program has a different commission rate and minimum payout. But the reason why it's so popular among bloggers is because you only have to set it up once and you can get paid from all your posts, whether they are old or new.

Even the traffic doesn't matter so much, because it all depends upon the readers buying products through your recommendation.

There are many different kinds of affiliate programs available, and you can select the ones that relate the most to your blog niche.

6. Write an impressive Ebook

One of the best ways to get revenue from your blog is by developing premium content for your readers. Creating ebooks are cheap, and they also make you a niche expert, which can drive in more business later.

You can also build up your subscriber list with an ebook by providing the book – or the first few chapters, depending on your inclination and the worth of the information – free of charge for every subscriber.

But, there is a burning question plaguing every blogger who creates an ebook – should you sell it on your blog or Amazon?

Well, the answer is not as simple as you would want it to be. To make the right decision, you should definitely check out this post by Jeff.

Your turn

Now that you have some amazing tips for how to make more money from your blog, it's your turn to implement them. Remember that what might not work for some, might work for you. You need to be patient, monitor your analytics and keep a track of all the revenue being generated by every method.

What are the techniques you currently use to increase blog revenue? Please share in the comments.

Guest Author: Harsh Agrawal, a blog scientist and CEO of ShoutDreams Media, started blogging in 2008 and since then has written numerous posts on Blogging, SEO, Social media, Technology, Affiliate Marketing and more. He has also partnered with various international companies, helping them promote their online businesses. His blog ShoutMeLoud has more than 832K subscribers and receives 1 million Pageviews per month.

The post 6 Simple Tricks To Make More Money From Your Blog appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

from Jeffbullas's Blog http://ift.tt/1RFEgk7

rgh–

Make Money Online posting articles, videos like this
6 Simple Tricks To Make More Money From Your Blog

Facebook, MSQRD Kick Off Custom Filters for Copa América Centenario 2016

The U.S. will host the Copa América soccer tournament for the first time, and Facebook and MSQRD have fans covered, literally.

Soccer fans can use custom-created filters via MSQRD or the Copa América Centenario 2016 Facebook page to “paint” their faces with their country's flag and create video selfie animations or still images, which can be shared with friends or set as temporary profile pictures.

Copa América Centenario 2016 kicks off June 3 and runs through June 26.

Readers: Are you ready to represent your country?

Facebook, MSQRD Kick Off Custom Filters for Copa América Centenario 2016

from SocialTimes http://ift.tt/25wB4Ex

via
rgh–

Twitter investors were sharply divided over Jack Dorsey's stock plan

---

While Twitter's shareholders approved CEO Jack Dorsey's plan to give his stock to employees last week, an unusually large number of investors voted against the plan hinting at the continued divisions over the company's leadership.

Twitter revealed the vote totals from its annual shareholders meeting in a document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange commission on Friday. While there were four items on which shareholders were asked to vote on this past Wednesday, the most notable on the list was a plan Dorsey announced last fall when he returned to the company as CEO.

At the time, Dorsey said he would return 6.8 million shares to the Twitter stock employee pool to be given out over time to employees old and new. It was gesture intended to show the deep faith Dorsey had in the future of Twitter at a time when many on Wall Street were questioning its future and there was large turnover in the executive ranks.

Turns out, it wasn't a slam dunk with investors.

According to the filing, 223,121,744 shares of stock were voted in favor of the proposal, while 123,907,045 shares voted to “withhold” their approval. Another 1,847,614 shares abstained from voting, and there 202,867,909 shares held by brokers who were not authorized by the shareholders to vote on any proxy matters.

Approval of the plan required the affirmative votes of a majority of the votes cast. The abstentions were counted as a vote against, while the non-votes were not counted.

While it wasn't exactly a nail-biter, the level of opposition was clearly high. In general, it's highly unusual for corporate shareholders to buck the recommendations of a company's board or executive team on any proxy vote.

Compare those results on the stock issue, for instance, on another proxy matter: The appointment of the company's accounting firm. There were 544 million shares voted in favor, and only 4.5 million voted against. That lopsided vote total is more typical of proxy matters.

Twitter signaled that some shareholders were restless about Dorsey's proposal in a previous filing on May 20. The company said it had agreed to change the terms of the plan to prohibit the price of the options from being repriced, something that could affect the value and also trigger some potential tax issues.

“We appreciate the stockholder feedback we have received on our proposal to approve the Twitter, Inc. 2016 Equity Incentive Plan at our 2016 Annual Meeting of Stockholders,” the company said in a filing. “Based on discussions with our stockholders, we have committed to amend the 2016 Plan after the Annual Meeting to prohibit the repricing of stock options, including through an option exchange program or cash buyout, without the consent of Twitter's stockholders. We recognize the importance of protecting the value of your investment in Twitter and we also endeavor to be responsive to stockholder feedback on our compensation programs.”

That apparently was enough to win the necessary approval this past week. Still, the fact that Dorsey was working so hard until the final minutes to sway votes shows that investors are not ready to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Get more stories like this on Twitter & Facebook

Twitter investors were sharply divided over Jack Dorsey's stock plan

from Social – VentureBeat http://ift.tt/1skdh94

via

rgh–

Twitter has paid security researchers over $300,000 in 2 years

---

As services like Twitter have become critical infrastructure for people to communicate and share ideas, maintaining security and uptime is essential. But these companies can't do it themselves and some have turned to bug bounty programs to solicit the help from the public. For Twitter, it has found its program to be “an invaluable resource for finding and fixing security vulnerabilities.”

The company announced today that in the past two years, it has not only received 5,171 bug submissions from 1,662 researchers, but also paid a total of $322,420 in rewards. From this payout, the average amount was $835 and the highest was $12,040. In honor of its history, Twitter pays in multiples of 140. It was noted that last year, a single researcher received more than $54,000 in rewards for reporting vulnerabilities.

Started in 2014, Twitter enlisted the help of HackerOne to manage its bug bounty program. The minimum payout is $140 and the company is looking for any possible vulnerabilities relating with remote code execution, authentication issues, cross site scripting, cross site request forgery, and more. And it's not just with Twitter's core service, but also with Vine, Periscope, Fabric, MoPub, ZeroPush, and its mobile apps.

Above: Chart displaying the trend of bug bounty submissions and payouts by Twitter from 2014-2015.

Image Credit: Twitter

Twitter's bug bounty program isn't unique as other companies like Facebook and Google also offer ways for researchers to inform them of vulnerabilities. However, Twitter's payout isn't exactly the most that one can receive. In January, Google revealed that it had paid security researchers over $6 million over the past six years - in 2015, more than 300 different researchers received over $2 million after finding 750 bugs.

Facebook shared that it has paid out more than $3 million since it started its bug bounty program in 2011, with $1.3 million given out in 2014 to just 321 researchers worldwide. The average amount received was $1,788.

While there's a difference in payouts among these three companies, the likely reason is because Facebook and Google are more diverse in their services and have hundreds of millions of more users than Twitter that there's a greater chance of having a vulnerability be exposed.

Get more stories like this on Twitter & Facebook

Twitter has paid security researchers over $300,000 in 2 years

from Social – VentureBeat http://ift.tt/1TKtAoG

via

rgh–

Gordon Ramsay Cooks Up Facebook 360 Video

A new 360-degree video on Facebook was cooked up by none other than Gordon Ramsay.

The chef, television host and producer teamed up with immersive entertainment studio Surreal to showcase his newly renovated kitchen by posting a 360 video (embedded below) of himself and his youngest daughter, Tilly Ramsay, also a chef, creating one of their favorite meals-a full English breakfast.

Readers: What do you think of Ramsay's new kitchen?

Image courtesy of Gordon Ramsay Facebook page.

Gordon Ramsay Cooks Up Facebook 360 Video

from SocialTimes http://ift.tt/25fii0I

via
rgh–

6 Simple Steps to Lower Your Cost Per Facebook Fan

You probably know some people that endlessly brag about acquiring Facebook fans for pennies. Don't listen to them.

Sure, having a lot of fans is great, but how do you drive down the cost per fan while increasing the quality of fans? We had a chat with Sarah Sal, a Facebook ads expert, and she gave us some key insights:

A friend of Sal's asked for help lowering her cost per fan from $2.70.  After following Sal's advice below, her CPF decreased to $0.24-$0.57. What was Sal's advice?

Instead of targeting only one interest, try targeting five to 10: Sal found that the quality and cost per fan will vary for each of the targeting options–that's why she goes granular. She suggests having only one ad set for each interest (behaviors, education, job title, etc.).

Looking at the campaign below, you'll notice that the cheaper ad sets convert 2.6 times better than the most expensive ad set:

Come up with three to five reasons why someone should like your page: Sal's friend's original ad:

Think like a business owner that is scrolling through Facebook. Your ad has such a short period of time to catch a user's attention. Make sure your ad offers an immediate and relevant benefit to your target audience.

Alternative ad texts might be:

• “Helping time-starved entrepreneurs get more clients.”


• “How to improve your marketing in only five minutes per day.”


• “We help women business owners drive more sales.”

Compare mobile vs. desktop vs. right-hand-side placement ads: Different ad placements often result in different costs per fan. Check out these articles on mobile and right-hand-side placement to learn more.

Breakdown by age, gender, region, country, etc.: You might find that some demographics convert at a lower cost per fan depending on your market. Play around with them until you find a CPF you're happy with.

Once you've done all the above, make sure you are gaining quality fans.

If you gain a lot of fans but they don't consume your content, they're not going to convert later.

Jon Loomer was spot-on in his article, How to Build a Facebook Audience From Scratch:

The key problem should be attacking how you get relevant Facebook fans. It's about quality, not quantity.

Ask yourself this question: Are the fans I'm gaining consuming and engaging with my content? Looking at the campaign above, we find that the ad set with a cheaper cost per like is getting proportionally fewer website clicks, post shares, etc. Even though we gained more fans, we didn't gain more quality fans.

We have a litmus test for measuring the quality of a page's fans: Count up the number of likes and comments for the most recent post, which is the number of interactions. Divide that by the number of fans they have. If it's less than 1 in 200 (0.5 percent), then the engagement rate is low.

If you're worried about a confounding variable when it comes to your fans' engagement: ask them to engage: If you truly have quality fans, they'll have no problem with sharing a post, leaving a positive review or any other simple task you ask them to do.

Take a look at this study Dan Zarrella from HubSpot posted:

Even though this study was geared toward Twitter, the base message is the same for Facebook: Good fans will share your post if you ask them to.

Remember: If you only optimize your fan ads for a lower cost per like, you can end up gaining lower quality fans. It is always better to choose quality over quantity.

On Base Marketing founder and CEO Justin Lafferty, former editor of SocialTimes, said:

The best way I've heard the quality vs. quantity debate framed is picturing your social fan base like a party. If you have lots and lots of people, but no one is interested in anything you're offering or interested in talking with other guests, you have a boring party. Instead, try to find the people who love your company's content and would be more than happy to share it–think a lower head count, but enjoyable and intimate celebration. Especially as social platforms are optimized for engagement, don't get too caught up in the gross numbers of likes or followers and find ways to incentive fans to share your message.

Readers: What techniques have you used to ensure you gain quality fans while keeping your CPF low?

Image on homepage courtesy of Shutterstock.

6 Simple Steps to Lower Your Cost Per Facebook Fan

from SocialTimes http://ift.tt/1WUjhm6

via
rgh–

Facebook's Windows 10 app will soon let you broadcast live video from your desktop

---

Windows 10 users will soon be able to broadcast live on Facebook right from their PCs. The social networking company has begun rolling out the Facebook Live feature for its universal Windows 10 app. This marks the first time Facebook's livestreaming technology has become available on the desktop.

Spotted by WinBeta, the Facebook Live feature does exactly what people have been doing on mobile: broadcasting live from their tablets or PCs. Its inclusion perhaps isn't that surprising as the promise of a universal Windows 10 app is that it can work across many devices, so if you have livestreaming in one app, it'll work on other gadgets and computers with the operating system installed.

Since its release in August, creating broadcasts in Facebook Live was only possible on the company's mobile apps. Now you'll be able to do that right from the desktop. And while this is a first for Facebook, it follows along a pattern started at the F8 conference when chief executive Mark Zuckerberg introduced an API that enables developers to integrate their products and services within Facebook Live. Some current partners include Mevo from Tastemade, Vidpresso, DJI Robotics, and Cape.

At March's Build conference, Microsoft executive vice president for Windows and Devices group Terry Myerson announced Facebook was investing more in universal Windows 10 apps, such as launching not only its core service, but also Instagram and Messenger. Adding livestreaming is an icing on the cake.

There's no word about whether Facebook Live on the desktop will extend to Macs or Chrome OS in the near future, but it's something we shouldn't put past Facebook.

AI. Messaging. Bots. Arm yourself for the next paradigm shift at MobileBeat 2016. July 12-13 at The Village in San Francisco. Reserve your place here.

Facebook's Windows 10 app will soon let you broadcast live video from your desktop

from Social – VentureBeat http://ift.tt/1NOdH1a

via

rgh–