Section 5 Media Marketing Blog

The heyday of free-to-cheap websites is pretty much over.

There are at least 27 million American entrepreneurs.

This past year has been a whirlwind of exciting ventures in the world of digital marketing. We've seen Instagram become the leader of the pack and discussed how to deal with Facebook's news feed algorithm. Social media has changed, brought new trends, and implemented some unspoken rules each time a new year starts. It's not like these changes are sudden or unexpected. They're usually gradual and pretty predictable. I mean who was all the surprised when Google+ shut down?

It's been almost three years since Instagram launched their stories feature. Back then Snapchat had already been the leader when it came to ephemeral (disappearing) content. But back in 2017, Snapchat when their IPO hit the public, their user growth hit a wall. This was when Instagram Stories' user growth reached a rapid increase. Now, in 2018 they're holding steady at over 400 million users! This is double the amount of Snapchat users.

Back in 2016, Instagram implemented a new algorithm. Surprisingly, the algorithm actually delivers one of the most consistently relevant content compared to other social media platforms. However, this switch wasn't well-received by its users. In fact, it led to Instagram users only seeing about 90% of their friends' posts. Which is definitely a good thing, because prior to the update they were missing 50%!

By now, we all know that the best social media strategies are ones that have consistent follower growth, engagement, and likes/clicks. And Instagram is one of the best platforms to quickly achieve this! Building your brand on Instagram doesn't have to be difficult. When you compare it to SEO, it really is one of the best ways to compete against bigger brands.

Marketing has a lot of moving parts, but when it comes down to it, there are some core concepts to it. And relevancy and personalization are some of the most-implemented ones. In fact, targeted, personalized messages are proven to increase customer engagement by at least 74%. The same thing goes if you want to improve lead generation. It's a great way to nurture specific needs and interests of a brand's target audience. As well as providing incredible value.

As a growing brand, you need to ask yourself if you're building links the right way. Maybe you still using outdated practices. Here's the thing, there are a lot of link building tactics that still matter. And there are some that are actually just a waste of time. Today we'll cover the rules of link building, as well as, the top three ranking factors in Google. Let's dive in, shall we?

Content strategies have one function, and one function only, to gain valuable insights into customer behavior. Customer insights are an essential part of any highly-effective content. The main goal is to convert. In today's digital landscape, we can end up with a little too much customer data at our disposal. Even with all this data, it can still be difficult to identify your audience. Or worse yet, know who they are or what they want.

We all know that trends come and go (I'm looking at you parachute pants!). And digital marketing is no different. A lot of these trends end up turning into permanent fixtures in the world of digital marketing. But there is a lot that gets tossed aside and forgotten. So what creates a digital marketing trend? The reason that most trends start is due to reactions about new technologies or new consumer behaviors. That means that they'll fill a need that's already emerging.