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You can upload the most interesting video on YouTube, but it might not get the views it deserves if you’re relying on a simple freeze-frame to tell viewers what it’s about.

Thumbnails, the small, clickable snapshots that viewers see when they search for videos on YouTube, can be just as important as a video’s title. They provide a preview of your video and entice viewers to click through.

Creating vibrant YouTube thumbnails can also instantly grab people’s attention and this can help you differentiate yourself on a platform clogged with standard thumbnails all screaming for attention.

Thumbnails can affect your search ranking on YouTube, too. Since your video’s click-through rate is one of the most important ranking factors in YouTube’s search algorithm, especially during its first hour on the platform, an eye-catching thumbnail can make a huge difference in ranking number one for a query and not ranking at all.

If your video has an ordinary or sub-par thumbnail, it won’t persuade anyone to click through. YouTube could deem the video irrelevant and won’t rank it in the search results or distribute it through the “Recommended Videos” feed.

Fortunately, pulling freeze frames from your YouTube videos isn’t the only way you can create thumbnails. There are online tools, made specifically for people who might not have a ton of design experience, that can help you craft custom thumbnails — all for free.

Below, we’ll guide you through an easy five-step process for creating visually appealing YouTube thumbnails that will cut through the noise, boost your video’s click-through rate, and lift your rankings.

1. Visit a free online YouTube thumbnail maker.

There are seven free online YouTube thumbnail makers listed below, but we featured FotoJet in this guide because it’s one of the only YouTube thumbnail makers that doesn’t make you sign up for a free account before you can create a thumbnail. Their robust thumbnail maker lets you customize and download your thumbnails completely for free — no email address necessary.

The free version of this online app lets you download small and medium-sized image files, but large and extra-large are premium features. This means you’ll get to be creative with your designs to ensure they appear as crisp as possible on YouTube.

2. Upload a photo or choose one of the thumbnail makers’ templates.

YouTube will let you upload any picture from your computer as your video’s thumbnail. But if you don’t have a vivid visual on your computer or you need some inspiration, Fotojet’s got you covered. It has over 23 free templates that can serve as your thumbnail’s foundation.

To create striking a thumbnail in Fotojet, consider including a talking head. People are naturally drawn to human faces because it’s an ingrained survival mechanism to help us quickly gauge someone’s emotions and determine if they’re a threat or friend. Research Gate also discovered that Instagram photos with faces are 38% more likely to receive likes and 32% more likely to receive comments.

3. Add text, clipart, or a background to your thumbnail.

Once you’ve picked your picture or template, you can make your thumbnail stand out even more by adding text, clipart, or a background to it.

To further clarify your video’s subject matter, consider adding your video’s title to the thumbnail. Additionally, if your photo, graphic, or text is bright, consider placing it on top of a dark background. The color contrast will make your thumbnail pop. The same logic applies to dark objects and bright backdrops.

4. Download the finished product to your computer.

In Fotojet specifically, after you finish polishing your thumbnail, press the Save button at the top of the page to export your thumbnail.

Last, title your thumbnail and save it as a JPG or PNG. Its resolution will already match YouTube’s recommended resolution — 1280 x 720 pixels — so you don’t have to worry about resizing it later.

8 YouTube Thumbnail Makers

Along with Fotojet’s free online YouTube thumbnail maker, there are seven other thumbnail makers that can help you customize your own YouTube thumbnails. Before you create a thumbnail with these tools, though, you need to sign up for a free account on their websites.

1. FotoJet

FotoJet is a leading YouTube thumbnail maker that comes with templates to help you summarize your video into a click-worthy image. You can get started with FotoJet as soon as you land on the homepage — no email or account set up required. Choose from a variety of stock images, font styles, and clipart elements to customize your design, then export it in either a JPG or PNG format. 

2. Canva

With more than 2 million images in their library, hundreds of fonts, and customizable backgrounds and colors, Canva gives you more than enough resources to unleash your creativity.

You can sign up for the free or paid version of the online design tool, but be prepared to take your own images as Canva’s image gallery can cost up to $1 per photo. Don’t let that deter you, this robust tool is jam-packed with free design elements that can help you create click-worthy YouTube thumbnails.

3. Adobe Spark

Adobe Spark lets you select from thousands of photos on the web and a variety of built-out themes with their own unique layouts, colors, and fonts to craft eye-catching YouTube thumbnails. Although the free version does come with a watermark on all content you download from the system, you can always upgrade to the paid version to have unique thumbnails that are truly your own.

4. Crello

With Crello, you can create engaging thumbnails by blending a multitude of designs, photos, backgrounds, text, and objects together. When compared against other popular design tools, Crello emerges as a less expensive option, but bear in mind that resizing your thumbnails could be a pain due to some improvements that need to be made within the app.

5. Visme

Choose from a wide selection of templates, photos, graphics, colors, and fonts to create a thumbnail in Visme. This app was made with video thumbnails in mind, so you won’t have to worry about sizing and finding the perfect layouts. Visme offers creators various templates to choose from so you can spend more time adding your finishing touches.

6. Fotor

Fotor provides templates under certain themes to help you create captivating thumbnails. It includes all the trending YouTube thumbnail features like photo frames, the lomo effect, and background remover. The options are virtually limitless with Fotor as the canvas for your YouTube thumbnail.

If your workflow can’t be completed all in one session, Fotor’s premium version allows you to save version history of your thumbnails so you can pick up right where you left off.

6. Picmaker

With over 100,000 graphics, 1,000 stock photos, stickers, borders, backgrounds, text, icons, and filters, and an automatic background remover, you can create a gripping thumbnail on Picmaker. If you have set brand colors, the free options won’t be the easiest to work with since you can’t save colors, logos, or fonts. But upgrading to just the starter tier opens up a variety of benefits including a brand kit, premium photos, and multi-sized designs.

8. Snappa

Snappa has over 500,000 stock photos, an assortment of professionally designed templates, and customizable graphics, shapes, and text to help you create a YouTube thumbnail. If you’re making more than three thumbnails per month, Snappa might affect your workflow as the free version only allows three downloads per month. If three is enough for you, you’ll be glad to know there’s a drag and drop functionality to help you create your own custom thumbnail template.

Create Scroll-Stopping YouTube Thumbnails

Just like a peephole, the subject line of an email, and even caller-ID, a YouTube thumbnail gives the viewer a peek behind the curtain to see what’s on the other side. It’s a major component in a search result that will determine whether someone clicks and watches your video. Taking the tips and examples in this article, you’ll have to know-how to make scroll-stopping YouTube thumbnails that will draw in new subscribers.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in November 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

It’s no secret that business opportunities are quickly growing on Instagram.

Approximately 90% of Instagram’s 1 billion active monthly users follow a business account on the platform. And, while Instagram hasn’t reported its current number of business users, the platform reportedly hosted more than 25 million of these accounts in late 2017.

As the platform continues to grow and develop more interactive features, such as Instagram Stories and Instagram Live, businesses are regularly using it as a tool to humanize brands, recruit future employees, showcase products and company culture, delight customers, and generate new business.

But here’s the deal: Unless you’re famous, it’s really hard to amass a huge following on Instagram without some hard work.

For the average person or business, growing your following takes daily time and attention.

Luckily, there are a few things you can do right away to collect at least 1,000 quality followers for your personal or professional Instagram account. It’s all about knowing where to invest your time and effort.

Let’s discuss a few strategies that will help you gain those followers, from creating a follow-worthy Instagram profile to using contests, to staying true to your brand.

Whether you’re gathering your first 1,000 followers or you just want 1,000 more, keep reading.

1. Create and optimize your profile.

First thing’s first: Customize your Instagram profile to make it look good. Tell your potential followers who you are, and give them a reason to follow you.

How? Start by making sure your username is recognizable and easily searchable – like your business name.

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If your business name is already taken, try keeping your business name as the first part of your username so that people searching for your business are more likely to come across you. For example, the Australian activewear line Lorna Jane uses the username @lornajaneactive.

Setting Up Your Account

Step 1. Add your full business name to the “Name” field in the “Options” section. To find “Options,” tap the three lines in the top right corner of the iOS app, followed by “Settings” which will appear at the bottom of the screen next to a gear. If you’re on Android, tap the three dots in the corner. Your business or name will appear under your profile picture and your username in search.

Step 2. Make your profile public. To make your profile public, open Instagram, open “Options,” and make sure “Private Account” is turned off.

Step 3. Choose a profile picture that’s on-brand with your other social networks, like your company logo.

Step 4. Fill your bio with delightful, actionable, and informative information about your brand. Information like this lets people know what you’re about and gives them a reason to follow you. Include who you are and what you do, and be sure to add a hint of personality.

Here are a few examples for inspiration:

• @cheekbonebeauty: “Less waste. Ethical and safe ingredients.”
• @Oreo: “Playful moments from your favorite cookie.”
• @mrsbrittanyhennessy: “Helping Influencers go beyond #sponcon and create sustainable businesses.”
• @CalifiaFarms: “Something different, something better. Let us show you what plants can do.”
• @coragedolls: “Elevating, educating, & encouraging girls of color to be unstoppable with dolls that finally look like her.”

Step 5. Add a link tree to your bio to make it easy for people to go straight from Instagram to your other platforms if they want to. The space allotted for URLs is precious real estate. When you receive 10,000 followers, you can add swipe-up links to your Instagram Stories.

Until then, your bio is the only place within Instagram where you can place clickable links, so use it wisely. We recommend using a shortened, customized Bitly link to make it more clickable.

Step 6. Enable notifications so you can see when people share or comment on your photos. This’ll let you engage with them more quickly – just like a lot of companies do on Twitter. To enable notifications, go to “Options” and then “Push Notification Settings.” Select “From Everyone” for every category.

A word to the wise: We don’t recommend you link your Instagram account to Twitter and Facebook (or other social media platforms) for automatic posts. Because every platform caters to a different audience and requires different types of posts.

2. Designate a content creator.

Just like there should be one (maybe two) people managing your other social media accounts, there should only be one or two people managing your Instagram account.

If possible, choose someone with experience on the platform who will “get” it — and be sure they stay updated on all new features Instagram has to offer.

If you work for a large organization, you might find that a lot of people want a say in what’s posted. That’s when an organized request or guidelines document comes in hand.

This document should inform people how to request a post on your Instagram account, when, the value of the post, and why.

3. Follow photography and editing best practices.

On Instagram, post quality matters. A lot. Your Twitter followers might forgive a few bad tweets, but a bad photo on Instagram is a big no-no.

Fortunately, you don’t have to take a photography course to be a good Instagram poster — nor do you have to practice for weeks before you start. But you should get familiar with basic photography tips and photo editing apps.

Photography Best Practices

Since Instagram is a mobile app, chances are, some content you post to Instagram will be taken on your mobile device. That’s expected.

If your budget allows, consider investing in professional photography for your Instagram photos, as that will elevate your profile. Otherwise, a smartphone and a few editing apps will do.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Indigo Arrows (@indigo_arrows)

Focus on one subject at a time.

• Embrace negative space.
• Find interesting perspectives.
• Look for symmetry.
• Capture small details.
• Make your followers laugh.

Edit photos before you post.

Instagram has some basic editing capabilities, but oftentimes, they aren’t adequate to make visuals really great.

Most of your photos should go through at least one or two photo editing apps on your mobile phone before you open them on Instagram.

Additionally, consider creating a cohesive Instagram theme across your feed, so anyone visiting your account for the first time can get a sense of your brand.

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4. Set a regular posting schedule.

Once you’ve created and optimized your profile, have someone managing it, and have your creative assets ready, it’s time to start posting.

It’s a good idea to have a solid number of great posts up – maybe 15 or so – before you start engaging people and working down this list. That way, when people visit your profile, they’ll see a full screen of photos and will know you’ll post great content regularly.

To start posting on Instagram, download this social media content calendar template first and plan out your posts. It’s best to build a backlog of content ready a few days or weeks ahead of the publishing date.

This will ensure you always have content during holidays, vacations, and even creative blocks.

Keep your target persona in mind as you plan out your posting schedule, as that can drastically impact your posting timing and frequency – especially if you’re targeting an audience in a different time zone. (Download this free template for creating buyer personas if you don’t have a few already.)

Optimizing your schedule for your specific audience might take time and experimentation.

Experiment with these times and days to see what works with your audience. You may find that your target users are most active and engaged at different times.

5. Allow outside contributors to curate your content.

Although it’s best to have only one or two people manning your account, one or two people can’t be everywhere at once taking photos. What about that fun sushi night the engineers had last night? Or the event your head of sales spoke at earlier this week?

There’s a whole breadth of content you’ll want to post to Instagram, and more often than not, one person won’t be able to keep track of it all.

One solution? Create a system where you can curate photos and content from members of your team.

There are a few ways to do this. The first option is to create a specific email address for employees to send their photos, short videos, memes, hyper-lapses, and so on.

Encourage people to add a descriptive subject line so you can easily sort through the content they’re sending. While this doesn’t seem like the smoothest way to curate photos, it’s actually the easiest for the people sending you photos — and the easier you can make it for them to send content, the more content you’ll get.

If your team shares a Box or Dropbox account, you could also create a shared folder where people can automatically drop their photos and videos.

6. Use a consistent, platform-specific brand voice.

Photos and videos might be the most important part of your Instagram posts, but captions, comments, and other text should never be an afterthought. If you’re managing a channel for a brand or have more than one Instagram manager, consider developing a consistent voice that humanizes your brand.

This shows potential followers that you are credible and relatable, rather than formal or intimidating.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by NYCxStudio (@nycxstudio)

When developing a voice, you should keep the platform and your audience in mind.

For example, many influencers and prominent accounts on Instagram have a very casual voice and style but remain professional and on-brand. Once you’ve got your voice down, make sure it stays consistent and natural in your captions, comments, messages, and your bio.

7. Write engaging, shareable captions.

Captions are an essential part of your post — the icing on the cake if you will. Consistently great captions can do wonders for humanizing your brand, winning over followers, and making your content more shareable — thereby giving you more exposure.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Wendy’s 🍔 (@wendys)

Here are a few things you might see in a winning Instagram caption:

• Clever or witty comments
• Calls to action
• Relevant emojis
• Hashtags

More on that below.

Clever or Witty Comments

Some brands and influencers have used clever or witty captions, or even audience-appropriate jokes to further humanize themselves on Instagram.

My colleague Kelly Hendrickson, HubSpot’s social media team manager, says that she loves Netflix’s account and sub-accounts, particularly because of the post captions.

“They have such a clear brand voice, and you laugh along with them. They’re in on the joke, just like one of your friends,” she says.

Netflix’s voice is casual, trendy, and humorous while still staying on brand.

In the post above, the caption is funny, authentic, and relatable. Who hasn’t flipped through a friend’s Instagram Story with the hope that you’ll be featured?

Calls to Action

Another way to increase the shareability of your caption and engage your followers is to ask questions or have some sort of call-to-action in the captions of your photos.

For example, you might write, “Double-tap if you find this funny,” or “share your story in the comments.”

In the example below, we asked followers of the @HubSpot Instagram account to leave a comment with a book that’s had a positive impact on their work, along with tagging the author:

Relevant Emojis

Adding just a few relevant emojis can add even more personality to your posts. It could also make them even more noticeable on an Instagram feed. In the post below, Danielle Gray, a beauty expert with over 50K followers, (@Stylenbeautydoc) includes witty text with relevant emojis to make the post pop.

Along with the three items listed above, you’ll also want to include hashtags.

8. Optimize posts with relevant hashtags.

On Instagram, a hashtag ties conversations from different users who wouldn’t already be connected into a single stream. If you use relevant hashtags, your posts will gain exposure to a wider audience and help you become discoverable to potential customers.

The key to using hashtags effectively is to be selective and use them sparingly. Try to limit the number of hashtags per caption to around three. Similarly, don’t use “like for like” hashtags, like #like4like or #like4likes.

This is a shortcut tactic that’ll only leave you with low-quality followers.

To find the hashtags your audience might be using, do a little research on relevant hashtags in your niche or industry. The easiest way to do this research is in the Instagram app itself, in the Explore tab (i.e., the magnifying glass icon).

When you search for one hashtag, it’ll show you a list of related hashtags at the top of your screen.

For example, when I search for #digitalmarketingstrategy on Instagram, it shows me relevant hashtags like #digitalmarketingexpert, #digitalmarketing, and so on.

To help relate to your followers on a personal level, you might consider hopping on hashtag trends like #tbt (“Throwback Thursday”), #MotivationMonday, #TransformationTuesday, or other trending hashtagsHere’s a post from @fanmdjanm, a headwrap collection and lifestyle brand with over 150K followers on its Instagram account, using the #HappyMothersDay hashtag:

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by www.fanmdjanm.com (@fanmdjanm)

Once you build up a bit of a following, you can try creating your own hashtags — like your company name or a slogan that applies to your content. This is a great way to build up your brand on the platform and build a more cohesive presence.

1. Engage with users through follows, likes, and comments.

Instagram is very much a community, and one great way to get involved in that community is to find people who post pictures that interest you, and follow their accounts and interact with their content. It’s the most natural way to draw attention to your own Instagram account.

This accomplishes two things: for one, when they get the notification that you’ve followed them, there’s a good chance they’ll check out your profile. This goes back to the importance of having great content on your account before you start reaching out to others.

Secondly, it means you’ll be seeing their recent posts in your feed, so you can Like and interact with them if you choose to.

As you build a following, celebrate your followers by responding to and pinning their comments, and even reposting their posts for user-generated content.

2. Cross-promote with influencers and brands with similar audiences.

Once you build rapport with the folks behind accounts with similar audiences to your own, consider collaborating with them.

Partnering with influencers and brands helps with discoverability, reach, and social proof.

For instance, influencer @sweetlikeoyin who has around 60K followers, posted a sponsored image of herself on the beach wearing a dress from Lulu’s. The clothing brand then published the same image.

With this partnership, both accounts can expand their reach and gain new followers. It’s a win-win. However, be sure to create content that seems natural and makes sense for your brands and collective audience.

3. Run Instagram contests to encourage engagement.

Another great way to expand your reach while increasing engagement on your photos is to run a contest or giveaway. As part of your contest, you can ask users to follow your account, like, and/or comment on the post to be eligible to win.

I mean, come on. Who doesn’t love winning free stuff?

You can also add a user-generated content (UGC) element to the contest, too, where people post a photo of their own and use a specific hashtag.

Here’s an example from @PlayaBowlsNortheastern, where followers were asked to follow Playa Bowls as well as their brand partner, Scoop and Sushi, and tag a friend in the comments. In exchange, followers had the chance to win a free bowl:

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Playa Bowls Northeastern (@playabowlsnortheastern)

4. Explore Instagram Stories’ interactive features.

Instagram has always given brands the platform to share beautiful, curated photos to represent their companies.

However, with the introduction of ephemeral Instagram Stories, brands can also share on-the-fly, behind-the-scenes looks for 24 hours that may not be as polished as a published photo, but give your brand more personality on the platform.

Just look at how Snapchat exploded a few years ago. Once platforms like Instagram and Facebook introduced similar features, it made those apps more valuable and interesting in the eyes of users. Although Snapchat pioneered this feature, Instagram Stories now has over 500 million daily users.

Along with sharing video clips and static images through Instagram Stories, users can also use polls, event reminders, and the “Ask a Question,” tool to gain more engagement and learn more about their audiences.

Once a user is verified or has over 10,000 followers, they can even include a link to a webpage within a story.

How Brands Can Use Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories disappear after 24 hours unless they are marked as a “Story Highlight.”

Highlighted stories will show up at the top of your profile between the photo feed and your bio.

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Here are a few other brands we recommend following to see what they’re sharing:

Dana Shultz (@miniamlistbaker) publishes easy vegan and gluten-free recipes on her blog. Her Stories feature neat how-to videos of her making breakfast and testing out new recipes in her kitchen. The behind-the-scenes aspect of her Stories provides a lot of human context for her blog’s brand, and everybody loves a good how-to video.

Casper (@casper) publishes quirky Instagram content to advertise their mattresses – without overtly doing so. The main theme of their content? Staying in is better than going out (because you can stay in and lay on a comfy Casper mattress, naturally).

They’ve even created a gallery for followers to use as backdrops for their Snapchat and Instagram stories to make it look like they’re out at a party when in reality, they’re laying in bed.

One of their latest Instagram Stories featured someone watching “The Sopranos” in bed, with the caption: “Who needs plans when you have five more seasons?”

This video supports Casper’s campaign to stay in bed with a very real look at what millions of people do when they’re hanging out at home.

Here are our tips for using Instagram Stories for your brand:

• Whether it’s funny, sad, or unique, be authentic. Your photo gallery is where content can be perfect and polished. Instagram Stories are for the raw, unscripted, and unretouched. Use Stories to share the other side of your brand that followers might not be able to see elsewhere. Do you have a dog-friendly office? Is your team trying out the latest challenge? Start filming to showcase the more human side of your brand.
• Go behind the scenes. These are by far our favorite types of content for ephemeral video sharing. Show followers what goes into the planning of an event or the launching of a product, and make it fun. Your followers want to feel included and in the know. You could also use Stories to cultivate a brand loyalty program that only rewards people who check out your content.

5. Use the Live Video feature.

Instagram also lets users record and share live videos, another content format that’s proven to be hugely popular on other social networks. What’s unique about live videos on Instagram? They disappear when users stop filming.

This authentic, bi-directional experience lets brands share unscripted, raw moments with their audience to incorporate human elements into a social media platform that’s highly edited and polished in its traditional use.

Since the Live feature launched, Instagram has added even more features that may enable further engagement or interactions from viewers, such as:

• Request feature to go live with the live account
• Pinned comment
• Q&A box
• Up to four accounts on Live at a time
• Filters

Live video is a growing trend across a variety of social media platforms, so if something interesting is happening, start rolling. Whether it’s an event, a team birthday party, or behind-the-scenes footage, your devoted followers want to see what you’re up to.

6. Share your profile link on your website and social media channels.

Have a website? Newsletter? YouTube channel? Make sure you include a link to your Instagram on every single platform.

The first place you’ll want to make sure to add an Instagram badge is your website, specifically your footer and “About Us” page.

Here’s what the badge could look like:

If your brand has brick-and-mortar locations, put out a good ol’ print call-to-action letting people know you have an Instagram account and encouraging them to follow you. You can also place them on your business cards. You might even offer a discount code for doing so.

Also, be sure to promote your Instagram account on your other digital platforms. Chances are, the folks who already follow you on Facebook and Twitter will also follow you on Instagram without much prodding.

Let those followers know you’re on Instagram and encourage them to follow you there.

In this example, wine company The McBride Sisters encouraged their email subscribers to follow them on Instagram with a simple CTA: “Join the community.”

7. Post user-generated content.

Similar to cross-promotion, brands can publish user-generated content to show appreciation for existing customers and generate social proof at the same time.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Puzzle Huddle (@puzzlehuddle)

If I see a regular person endorsing a product on Instagram, I’m more likely to believe they really like the product.

The same is true for most consumers. That’s why sites like Yelp are so popular.

Ultimately, user-generated content can be an excellent strategy when trying to increase brand awareness and trust in your products or services.

For instance, @bevel reposted a video from blogger Rickey Scott using and recommending their products to their 600+ followers.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by BEVEL (@bevel)

Posting Scott using Bevel is a smart move.

Firstly, the product is designed with black men in mind. Having Scott, who is part of the brand’s target demographic, recommend the product serves as the social proof the brand wants.

Furthermore, part of Scott’s audience will likely fall within Bevel’s target audience. Simply put, the two brands have similar audiences and brands that align well, which is why it’s a good opportunity for Bevel to promote Scott’s content.

8. Diversify your audience to resonate with different types of users.

As your followers grow, it can be tricky to identify what content types will resonate with them. With this in mind, divide your audience into sub-groups and target your content to various demographics.

For instance, if you have 200K followers, those followers probably come from different regions of the world, have different interests and hobbies, and likely different careers. Rather than post all-encompassing content that will satisfy all your followers at once, conduct some analytics research to separate them into smaller sub-groups.

Take Starbucks as a good example of this. @Starbucks has close to 18 million followers. There’s no way the global coffee brand can post content to satisfy 18 million people at once — and it doesn’t try to.

Instead, Starbucks regularly posts more exclusive content geared towards particular groups, such as this post they published recently celebrating #TeacherAppreciationWeek:

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This post won’t appeal to the majority of Starbucks followers who aren’t teachers, but that’s OK.

You don’t always need to post content to please everyone. Instead, demonstrate your company’s ability to connect and engage with sub-groups and post what aligns with your own brand’s values.

Education is something that matters to Starbucks, so by posting about teachers, they’re doing more to demonstrate their values than they are appealing to everyone. Which is kind of the point, isn’t it?

9. Apply for a verification badge.

When an account on Instagram is verified, it has a blue dot, called a badge, next to the username. When another user comes across this profile or finds the verified username in search, the blue dot confirms to them that the account is the business, individual, or brand that it’s claiming to be.

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While Instagram has a list of eligibility requirements for the badge, the platform does allow users to apply for one. You can learn more about that process on Instagram’s Help Center.

Quality Over Quantity Still Matters

Ultimately, it’s important to focus less on the number of followers you have, and more on the quality of content you create. Your audience will grow naturally if you put effort and time into creating engaging, informative, or inspirational content without worrying about “quick fixes” for boosts in followers.

Plus, if you think about it, your followers don’t continue to follow you because of the size of your audience. They continue to follow you because of the content you create.

Sure, maybe I’ve initially followed an influencer because she had 200K followers, which signified to me that she was worth following — otherwise, why would 200K people be looking at her content?

But that doesn’t mean I’ve continued to follow influencers and brands because of the size of their audience. I’ve unfollowed plenty of mega-influencers or brands with thousands — if not millions — of followers, simply because I was no longer impressed with their posts.

You want to play the long game on Instagram, and that starts with focusing on what you can control: the quality of the content you produce, the messages you promote, and the brand you build.

Ironically, I’m willing to bet the less you worry about the number of followers you have, the more community members you’ll attract.

Imagine this: You’ve done everything you can to optimize your website.

From optimizing your images and conducting keyword research to setting up a site structure and internal linking strategy.

Yet, you’re still struggling to rank on Google.

It may be because you’ve only completed one half of the puzzle. What’s the other half? Off-page optimization.

While your website is vital to your SEO strategy, there are additional actions to take outside of your website that will help you rank.

Search engines weigh many factors when determining a page’s ranking. While some of the factors are based on website content and performance, Google also gathers its understanding of your website through sources outside of your domain. That’s why off-page SEO is so valuable.

Link building, for instance – an effective off-page SEO strategy – is one of the top ranking factors. That’s because Google is built on PageRank, an algorithm that looks at a page’s backlinks for quantity and quality.

An off-page SEO strategy supports your website efforts (i.e., on-page SEO) and works to add credibility, relevance, trustworthiness, and authority to your domain.

On-Page SEO vs Off-Page SEO

In the simplest terms, on-page SEO encompasses every action you take on your website to affect your ranking on search engines. Off-page, on the other hand, happens outside of your website.

What actions specifically? Here’s a quick visual guide:

This list isn’t exhaustive, but it should provide some clarity on the difference between these two SEO strategies. The key takeaway is that both are equally important to gain and maintain a high search ranking.

1. Link Building

Links from other sites on the web server as votes of confidence in your domain.

The more votes you get, the more likely you’ll rank on search engines. Conversely, the fewer votes you have, the harder it will be to convince Google that you’re a trustworthy, authoritative site.

You need other pages to vouch for you — that’s what backlinks do. Building an external link is an off-page strategy that should be number one on your list.

There are several types of links you can gain:

• Natural or earned links, in which editorial publishers or consumers mention your brand organically.
• Built links, which require some effort on your end, such as reaching out to publishers for link attribution or mention.

It’s important to use white hat strategies to gain backlinks, as methods like flooding forums and comment sections with links to your webpage can get you penalized by Google. For creative ways to gain backlinks, check out this backlinks strategy guide.

You can also jump to this section where we cover what to look for in a backlink opportunity. 

2. Social Media

You’ve probably thought of social media as a brand awareness tool, more than an SEO play.

But social media is a great way to gain domain authority and increase your search engine ranking.

When you share content on social media and direct traffic to your website, it shows Google that you’re gaining traffic from diverse sources and must have interesting high-quality content.

This is why it’s important to consistently engage your community on social media and use it for content distribution. More engagement will likely result in more shares, backlinks, and clicks, which helps build domain authority.

3. Local SEO

Local SEO is a strategy that involves optimizing a site for local search results. This is typically used for brick-and-mortar businesses or those that serve consumers in specific geographic areas, such as hair salons, air conditioning companies, or supermarkets.

For this to work, you must send signals to search engines that service consumers in local areas. How do you do this? Here are few key ways:

• Add your company to local and national business directories, namely Google My Business.
• Claim your listing on review sites, like Trip Advisor and Yelp, and respond to reviews.
• Encourage your customers to leave positive reviews online.
• Have consistent contact information across all digital platforms

For a comprehensive guide on local SEO, check out this article.

4.Content Marketing

Content marketing helps you reach your target audience and attract them with information that addresses their needs and pain points.

In addition to your on-page content marketing efforts, like blog posts, you can also leverage methods like guest blogging, downloadable offers, surveys, and reports.

These practices are great ways to drive traffic to your website, generate new leads, and improve your search engine ranking.

Take guest blogging, which offers multiple benefits. The first is the ability to reach a new audience that falls within your target market. The second is the value of the backlink you can earn by being published on another high-authority domain. Lastly, guest blogging can earn you more website traffic — another important ranking factor.

Off-Page SEO Factors for Link Building

Over the years, Google and other search engines have gotten stricter in what actions they reward and penalize. Once everyone knew link building was a key ranking factor, people were using all kinds of strategies to get backlinks. From posting their links on forums to paying for links.

Then, search engines wised up and started penalizing the use of unethical or unnatural link placements. Today, here’s what you’ll want to consider when developing your link building strategy:

• The number of referring domains – The more domains you have directing to your website, the more votes of confidence you have, according to Google.
• Link authority – It’s not enough to have a lot of referring domains, you want to be referenced by domains with high authority.
• Relevance – The link needs to be relevant to your site. Say you’re a pet toy company. A link from the National Dog Association weighs more than one from a lifestyle blogger.
• Anchor text – The specific text that’s hyperlinked and points to your website should be descriptive and relevant, without sounding spammy.

What to Look for In Off-Page SEO Tools

So, you want to work on your off-page SEO strategy and you need a tool. Before you pick out a tool, it’s important to know what features you should be looking for.

The first thing you’ll want to look for is an SEO tool that includes a backlink checker. It should offer details on your referring domains, anchor texts, their linking authority, and more.

SEMrush, for instance, has a backlinks analytics tool that allows you to compare your website to your competitors and identifies areas of improvement.

 

You’ll also want to look for a tool with a brand monitoring feature. HubSpot’s Social Media Management Software allows you to track your brand mentions as well as your competitors’.

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This complements the CRM’s SEO Marketing Software, with on-page SEO features like the website audit and recommendation, topic development, and keyword data tools.

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In addition, look for an SEO tool that makes identifying good guest blogging opportunities easy. For instance, the MozBar extension from Moz allows you to get instant metrics on any webpage and determine if it could be the right fit for you.

Developing a robust off-page SEO strategy is just as important as your website efforts. Both work hand in hand to give search engines a full picture of your brand to determine your ranking. So, don’t neglect it, as it may be the key to your success.

There’s no question that building great inbound links to your site is hard work. While many site owners resort to spamming blog comment sections to get their backlinks, that’s neither necessary nor effective for your SEO efforts.

Although there’s much talk about generating inbound links, the nitty-gritty ways to actually do that are rarely discussed.

Thankfully, link building strategies aren’t as tough to implement as many people say they are. Think of it like social media — if you’re a source of great content, and you get it in front of the right people, they’re going to share it.

With that in mind, we’ll get you started with tested and effective tricks to help you build legitimate inbound links. Read on to see how to use these link building ideas in your SEO strategy.

What are backlinks?

Backlinks, also called inbound links and incoming links, are a form of off-page SEO where you earn links from other websites that direct readers to your own site.

The person receiving the link is the one who refers to a link as a backlink.

Backlinks are different from outbound links (links from your website to another website) and internal links (links from one page on your website to another).

The right backlinks can do two great things for your website:

• They can drive traffic to your website. If someone posts a backlink to your website on their website or blog, their readers might click on it — and you’ll benefit from that referral traffic.
• They can help you rank higher in search. Backlinks tell search engines that your website is an authority on a certain subject — so the more backlinks you earn from high-quality, high-authority sites, the better your website will rank in search engine results pages (SERPs).

A good inbound link comes from an authoritative website, and uses natural anchor text. Anchor text is simply the text copy that’s hyperlinked. For example, if I link to our blog post about backlink strategies, the anchor text is “backlink strategies.”

Natural anchor text means you’re not just hyperlinking keywords left and right. Google understands the context of a link, so more generic “learn more” and “click here” anchor text can be just as valuable as keyword-optimized anchor text.

1. Maintain a steady blog with great content.

Consistently creating great blog content that people naturally want to link to is one of the most tried and true ways to organically generate inbound links.

You should publish content that’s directly related to your industry and that helps your reader. That way, they feel compelled to share it. They might even link to it from their own website, if they own one.

Learn how to start a successful blog with our free guide and checklist.

2. Link to other blogs on your blog.

A blog is meant to be a social tool. The more you link to others — especially when you do it in a consistent, opportunity-driven way — the greater likelihood one of those bloggers will return the favor.

Plus, you can’t cover everything about everything on your blog. It makes sense to leverage the wealth of resources on the web to make your blog’s experience better and more rewarding for your readers.

3. Write guest blog posts.

Write a great blog post, and shop it around to blogs it’d be a good fit for. If one accepts, they should be willing to give you an inbound link in the post. Guest blogging is a great way to both promote your expertise and earn quality white-hat links.

Don’t know whom to write for? Most media outlets allow people to submit original articles on topics relevant to their readership. You should start, however, with publications directly in your niche. If you’re a branding agency, you might inquire with branding publications.

4. Curate and publish helpful resource lists.

Resource lists are both great link bait and helpful content for your readers. If you create a comprehensive resource list, it’ll be easy for other bloggers to link to it in their own posts instead of rehashing and curating all that content themselves. To give you an idea of what one might look like, here’s an example of a list of resources we curated for beginner SEO’s.

5. Do expert roundups to build relationships.

Expert roundups can be a great tool for building relationships with influencers. While these roundups may not get you a lot of inbound links or leads right away, building relationships with influencers will help you get solid backlinks from authoritative sources down the line.

After they contribute to your roundup, you can reach out to them later to ask about a guest post opportunity or something else — while thanking them again for contributing to the previous expert roundup.

In one of our expert roundups, we reached out to successful marketers and asked them to share their top content marketing tips.

6. Write newsjack posts.

Newsjacking is when you capitalize on the popularity of a news story to amplify your own sales and marketing success. If you’re the first blogger to comment on a news event, you’ll rise to the top of the SERPs due to the “freshness” component of Google’s algorithm, and others will link to your content in their own accounts of the story.

If you’re not sure what newsjacking can look like, take a look at a few newsjacking examples we found across the web.

7. Create case studies about your most impressive clients.

If you make your clients look good in case studies about their business, you can bet they’ll be linking to your site. But you’ve got to make them good. This means choosing companies that have seen the best results, are enthusiastic, and know your product or service well.

It also means asking the right questions and laying out the case study in an attractive, comprehensive way.

Download three free case study templates to get you started.

8. Volunteer to be the subject of a case study.

Why not get on the other side of the case study link love? Companies are always looking for customers who are willing to be the subject of a case study. Volunteer your time for one of your major vendors, and get a backlink from the case study once it’s published.

9. Administer surveys.

If you conduct research, promise to share the data with others. If you do the data collection and crunching and give some high authority sites access to the findings afterwards, you can bet they’ll do some promotion and inbound linking for you to make sure you have a great sample size.

10. Write book reviews.

If you provide a comprehensive review about another author’s content, there’s a good chance they (and others) will link to it. Here’s an example of a book review from our blog, which sums up The Challenger Sale in a five-minute read or less.

11. Conduct free webinars, and post archived copies online.

If it’s informative, your attendees will absolutely share it. One easy way to do this is to turn your PowerPoint presentation slides into a SlideShare presentation, and then embed that presentation into a blog post. You can also embed it into the webinar’s landing page so that anyone looking to sign up for a webinar that’s already over can check out the presentation.

For an even better shot at backlinks to these archived webinar pages, partner up with another company, brand, or influencer for the webinar. Not only do two well-aligned brands make for a powerful presentation, but it’ll widen the audience — even after the webinar is over. (Learn tips on creating a webinar in this blog post.)

12. Create free tools.

Remember when I talked about curating and publishing resource lists for your blog? What do you think people include and link to on those resource lists? Free tools are a big one. You can get on the other side of those resource lists by creating free tools that are really helpful for your target customers.

Here at HubSpot, for example, we created Website Grader, a tool that has won links from many agencies, partners, and others in our industry.

13. Create shareable templates.

Like free tools, templates are another thing people will find useful enough to link to. Before you create a template, think about what kind of templates would make people’s jobs easier. A designer, for example, might create a library of downloadable business card templates to which others could link to over and over. Bookmarkable content is often the kind of content that gets tons of inbound links.

14. Create compelling infographics.

People absolutely love to share infographics. If you create an original infographic yourself, people will link back to you as the original source. To increase the likelihood of an inbound link, you might also share your design with the sources you cited, and make the embed code for your infographic easily accessible.

Not a designer? Anyone can create professional-looking, high-quality infographics — and quickly with templates like these free infographic templates. Before creating an infographic, you’ll want to come up with a topic that can actually be visualized and that relates to your industry.

15. Create other forms of visual content.

Cartoons, content visualizations, charts and graphs, and the like are an important part of a visual content marketing strategy and a great way to win inbound links. Since they take time and money to make, others will probably skip the fuss of creating their own visual content and link to yours instead.

You can use free online design tools to create your own graphics, regardless of how tech-savvy you are.

16. Create SlideShare presentations.

Slice one of your infographics into pieces or repurpose one from your last speaking gig. You can put these up on your blog, in your website’s resource center, or even on a SlideShare account for more links.

Keep in mind that the most shareable presentations are the ones that are the most compelling. That means great content and great design. Read this blog post for a start-to-finish guide on nailing your next PowerPoint presentation.

17. Do something funny.

Funny things spread like wildfire. Think about the funny inside jokes in your industry, and capitalize on it with some humorous content that’s linkable. You can create a meme, a short video, or a tweet that captures the joke. Just be careful that you understand your audience and how they’re likely to respond so that nothing is taken offensively.

18. Write press releases about interesting company news.

By turning your PR strategy into an inbound one, you create opportunities that weren’t there before and carve out a place for your company, building meaningful mindshare in the process with your target audiences.

Once you write a great press release, post it up on your website and then push out your releases to one of the big newswires to get more coverage.

Download our inbound press release templates for free.

19. Send out a joint press release when your news involves another company.

This can help reach thousands of other related sites that, in a press release about just your company, may not have linked to your site. This will give you a chance to reach a larger number of people — and get more backlinks as a result.

20. Do some outreach when you have big news or a great piece of content.

Gaining attention from the press and getting published in industry publications can help you build your brand, increase your visible expertise, improve your credibility, and, of course, get backlinks from authoritative sources.

First, create a dedicated page about the story on your website for them to link to. Then, reach out to a handful of journalists and/or publications that you can see really valuing your story. Be sure to give context to your request, follow their rules, write a compelling subject line on your pitch email, and be helpful, not boastful.

21. Set up press request alerts and look for opportunities to send quotes.

Press request alerts are requests for sources of information from journalists. These journalists are constantly looking for quotes from specific people to feature in their article, and there are several mediums they use to send requests and find those quotes.

Here’s a list from HubSpot’s VP of Marketing Matthew Barby of the services you can sign up for to receive alerts from journalists in your inbox:

• HARO (one of the most popular free services)
• Muck Rack (paid service)
• Gorkana (paid service)
• Source Bottle (free service)
• #JournoRequest (Twitter hashtag used by journalists)
• #PRrequest (Twitter hashtag used by journalists)

Because of the high volume of requests you’ll receive, Barby also recommends creating email filters or folders to keep yourself organized.

22. Write and pitch op-ed articles.

If you have an interesting opinion to share and can express it clearly and persuasively in an op-ed article, you could have the opportunity to reach a lot of people, earn recognition for yourself and your organization, and get authoritative backlinks to your website. I find the most effective op-ed articles make a single point, embrace the author’s personal voice, and then offer specific recommendations.

Once you write the article, target online versions of industry newspaper and magazine publications for an extremely valuable inbound link.

23. Partner with companies in complementary industries.

It’s common practice for corporate channel partners to link to each other’s great content, because they have a vested interest in one another’s success.

You might consider assessing how much traffic a partner can drive to your website by taking a look at their overall web presence on Alexa and SimilarWeb. These sites can help get a rough idea of traffic, bounce rates, keywords, and sources people are using to find that site, as well as the next action they take after visiting.

24. Do some co-marketing.

You can also go a step further and build co-marketing partnerships. This means partnering up with another company to promote a piece of content or product and then sharing the results of that promotion. When you leverage the relationship and reach of a partner, you’ll get more links and more buzz with less work.

Effective co-marketing doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive, either. You can reach out to a similarly-sized brand in another space and pitch the project to them. You can start with something as simple as a few tweets, then build your way up to creating marketing collateral.

25. Ask for reviews.

You can ask users of your product and industry experts or analysts to review new features you’re rolling out, for example. Not only will you receive an inbound link, but you’ll also get great feedback and strengthen your relationship with those you asked to write reviews.

Don’t know where to ask for reviews? Check out our list of the best product review websites for B2B and B2C companies.

26. Make friends with other webmasters in real life.

Strengthening your relationship with other webmasters will open the door for relevant inbound link requests when future opportunities arise, and make it more likely those requests don’t go ignored.

Networking is an unparalleled skill to have. The wider and more open your network, the more opportunities could be unlocked that you didn’t even know existed. Here are helpful tips on networking like a pro to get you started.

27. Search for and monitor mentions of your brand.

Contact webmasters about turning those mentions into inbound links, but only when it’s warranted — like when they’re citing data of yours, for example. This is a tactic called “link reclamation.”

Monitor brand mentions by setting up alerts using tools like Mention or BuzzSumo, and adding keywords related to your brand or products. Just make sure you exclude any mentions from your own website within the alert, which you can do in these tools’ settings.

Here’s an email template for reaching out to ask for a link from our VP of Marketing:

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28. Identify broken links through site-crawling tools.

Similar to the step above, some webmasters may link to your site but use old or broken links. This is natural as you change and update your website over time. However, these inbound links are still valuable — and you can update them.

Use tools like Dead Link Checker, Link Juice Recovery Tool, and Screaming Frog to scan for broken links on other websites. Then, using the above template as inspiration, reach out to webmasters with a correct link as replacement.

29. Search for and monitor your competitors’ backlinks.

Find opportunities where you can get similar links. This is a great way to find high-value link opportunities fairly easily. Run competitor research weekly or monthly to find new opportunities you can take advantage of while they’re still fresh.

Use a link analysis tool like Arel=”noopener” target=”_blank” hrefs, Majestic, or Moz’s Link Explorer to get a list of the backlinks for one of your competitors. Then, check out what types of posts are earning backlinks and benefiting from that off-page SEO.

For example, if one of your competitors is writing guest posts for certain publications, there’s a high likelihood those publications would be interested in guest posts from you on similar topics.

30. Incorporate “Tweet This” links into your content.

Part of getting inbound links is getting your content out to the masses. Including “Tweet This” or “Click to Tweet!” links for tweetable nuggets in your content will get people sharing your content socially more often.

The result? Greater visibility in search engines, news feeds, and Twitter streams — and thus more opportunity for your data to be referenced in other people’s content.

Here’s what one of these links can look like:

Researchers found that colored visuals increase people’s willingness to read a piece of content by 80%. [Tweet this stat!]

You can easily create tweetable links using the ClickToTweet service — without having to learn any custom code.

31. Install social sharing widgets.

Just like “Tweet This” links get your content out there, so do social sharing buttons and widgets. Put them on your marketing content like case studies, whitepapers, ebooks, and blog posts. The more often your site appears on other social media sites, the more likely someone will see it, share it, and link to it from their website.

32. Sponsor or speak at an event.

Events usually give their speakers and sponsors great website publicity. They’ll either list you on their sponsors page or introduce you as a speaker on a blog post. You can also negotiate inbound links into your terms to be sure your time and resources yield a beneficial inbound link.

If you’re speaking at an event, make a really awesome, shareable presentation that people will want to find, share, and even link to later.

33. Help another webmaster fix an error on their site.

Remember when I said you should get to know other webmasters? This is another time those connections will come in handy. When you find broken links on others’ sites, let them know (politely, of course), and provide them with a piece of your own content that would be a suitable replacement for that broken link. Be personal, friendly, and helpful, and this could be an opportunity to start building a relationship with that webmaster, too.

34. Give away free trials and sneak-peeks of your product.

When people get to see your product beforehand, they will want the world to know they’re part of the VIP crowd, and might write a review with a link back to your site about it.

There are a few ways to give away free trials. You could create some call-to-action buttons for your website or blog. (Download these free, customizable CTA templates to help you out.)

You could also send a new product announcement email to folks who you think might be interested, like current customers. If you’re not sure how to announce your product, check out our guide on how to create a great product launch email.

Build Inbound Links the White-Hat Way and Increase Rankings

The days of spamming comment sections and paying for link-building services are over. With the tips and methods I’ve shared, you’re well on your way to building high-quality backlinks the white-hat way. As more links point to your site, you’ll rank much higher in the SERPs, boosting organic traffic and attracting more potential leads and customers.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in April 2012 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

In more ways than one, branding is a pillar of success.

It helps you develop a set of features unique to your business, like a logo and brand name, which allows customers to come to know your brand and associate it with what you have to offer.

Branding is impactful in and of itself, but co-branding brings additional opportunities and benefits to businesses that engage in it. In this post, discover the advantages that come from generating brand individuality for your business, and the added benefits that come from co-branding with a partner.

1. Branding is often the deciding factor for consumers making purchasing decisions.

Branding is often the deciding factor for consumers when making a purchase decision. In fact, consumers report being more likely to buy from brands that they know or know and already have a positive experience with.

This is especially true for social media, as 89% of consumers say they’ll buy from a brand they already follow and recognize over a competitor. Given this, having a recognizable and unique brand gives you a leg up with customers, as they would feel safer buying from a business they already know.

2. Branding gives your business an identity.

Branding gives your business an identity beyond just the products and services you sell. You become more than just a name, especially if you develop a brand mission separate from your products.

For example, if your brand is committed to social responsibility, you’ll become associated with those interests in addition to your products. Your business develops a personality outside of your sales, which consumers appreciate.

3. Branding sets you apart from competitors in a saturated market.

There’s no way to quantify how many brands there are globally, but there are certainly a lot. Given this, branding helps you stand out from the crowd and gain an edge in an increasingly competitive market.

Your brand identity differentiates you from your competitors, especially in industries where it’s not easy to stand out because you offer similar products. If you have a unique identity, you can still offer those similar products, but your unique brand personality and reputation are what seals the deal.

4. Branding makes your business memorable.

Strong branding makes your business memorable and recognizable to consumers.

They’ll be able to quickly discern that content you create belongs to you, especially if they see it on channels you don’t own, because it looks like and is in line with the content and content style they know you create.

Being memorable is also helpful when it comes to ad spend. A memorable brand can devote more resources to product promotion and less to brand awareness because consumers already know who you are. For example, Coca-Cola doesn’t need to get the word out that they exist because their brand already has universal awareness. Instead, they can focus marketing efforts on advertising a new drink.

5. Branding supports your marketing efforts and promotes consistency.

When you have consistent branding, future business efforts always have a clear path to follow. You’ll spend less time coming up with ways to present yourself and more time ensuring that you’re consistently delivering high-quality content, products, and experiences that customers desire.

Here are some stats that support the benefits of branding consistency:

• Uniformly presented brands are 3.5x more visible to customers.
• Consistent brand presentation has been seen to increase revenue by 33%.
• Inconsistent branding damages a company’s reputation and credibility.

Consistency also helps build trust with your audience, which we’ll discuss further below.

6. Branding builds credibility and trust.

Inconsistency confuses, but strong branding does the opposite.

Customers don’t have to guess how or why your content and products relate to your business because it’s clear. This helps build credibility because you show consumers that you stick to your word and don’t engage in practices that seem misaligned with what you stand for.

When you build credibility, you also increase trust in your business, which influences consumers making purchasing decisions. As mentioned above, a customer is more likely to do business with a company they recognize and trust because they already know who you are and what you stand for.

7. Branding inspires customer loyalty and retention.

Branding increases trust, and trust is a pillar of customer loyalty.

Your identity attracts customers because they can tell what you stand for, which helps them feel connected to you. When customers feel connected to a business, they’re more likely to be loyal. Loyal customers, in turn, drive revenue, as they’re more likely to make repeat purchases and draw in new clients to your business.

8. Branding encourages word-of-mouth marketing.

Having consistent branding makes customers loyal, which makes them more likely to practice word-of-mouth marketing.

Word-of-mouth marketing is when consumers promote you to their friends, family, and even strangers online. This is highly beneficial for all businesses, as people trust other consumers more than marketers because they believe they have an agenda. Consider these statistics:

• 39% of consumers build trust in a brand from peer-to-peer conversations compared to 23% from a brand’s paid ads.
• Consumers report that a person like themselves (another consumer) is 14% more credible than a brand employee.

When you build a following of loyal customers, they provide your business with free marketing to draw in new clients and increase revenue.

9. Branding helps you share your values.

Customers are more interested than ever before in buying from companies that share their same values, so having a consistent message to share is critical. In fact, if customers believe you’re making a positive impact on the world, they would pay 31 to 50% more for products and services.

Branding helps you appeal to this new consumer interest, as it goes beyond just a recognizable logo — it enables you to communicate your brand mission and values.

10. Branding builds internal employee morale and pride.

Branding is beneficial for outward conceptions, but it also impacts internal employee retention, morale, and hiring processes. Consider these statistics from LinkedIn Business on the impacts of strong employer branding on hiring and retention:

• Well-regarded brands can bring down training expenses by as much as 50%.
• 72% of recruiting leaders worldwide say that the employer brand has a significant impact on hiring.
• 50% of employers report more qualified applicants.
• Strong branding is associated with a 28% reduction in organizational turnover.
• Inconsistent branding has been found to embarrass employees and lower morale.

The statistics show us that branding helps you position yourself as a reputable source, making employees feel like they’re working for something big and authentic. They’re proud of representing your brand and business, ensuring that everyone is continually working to satisfy your customers.

11. Branding helps you easily introduce new products.

Branding helps you easily introduce new products to market and drive sales for those products.

Firstly, you already have consistent branding, so it doesn’t take much legwork to market a product, so it aligns with your existing products and brand message. You don’t have to sit at a table and figure out how everything will fit in or rebrand your business; there is already a path for you to follow.

When you launch these new products, customers already loyal, familiar with, and appreciative of your quality of service will be eager to try what you have to offer, generating sales and driving revenue.

12. Branding brings a high return on investment and increased profits.

Being profitable is the ultimate goal as it allows you to keep your business running, continuously innovate, and provide the delightful experiences that customers expect and desire.

As branding is a significant factor in achieving high ROI, it makes sense to invest in the practice.

The benefits discussed above are relevant to all businesses, regardless of size or maturity. Co-branding can bring about additional advantages, which we’ll discuss further below.

Benefits of Co-Branding

Co-branding is a partnership between two businesses where one company’s success contributes to the success of the other. Co-branding partnerships are most impactful when they involve two similar companies working together, as audience members obtain unique value from their relationship. An example of co-branding that you may already be familiar with is a sports company partnering with an athlete.

1. Co-branding is exciting for consumers.

When two businesses work together, the partnership is exciting for consumers. They may have never expected your collaboration, so they’re eager to see what’s to come.

Co-branding attracts interest and increased attention, as it is not a common practice. You may have customers refreshing your social media feeds or checking your websites on launch days because they’re incredibly excited about what’s to come.

2. Co-branding brings exposure to new audiences

Although you may operate in the same industry, you and your partner likely target different audience segments. When you work together on a co-branding campaign, you gain exposure to their audience, they gain exposure to yours, helping both of you increase brand awareness, draw in new clients, and grow your overall reach.

3. Co-branding helps you generate trust with new audiences.

When you’re advertising alone and emerging into new markets, it is your responsibility to build trust with your audience. However, a benefit to co-branding is that your partners vouch for your credibility.

Your new audiences may not trust you 100% off the bat, but the trust that they have in your partner tells them that they wouldn’t expose them to a brand that they disagree with or don’t find credible. Essentially, your partners are telling their audience that they can trust you because they trust you.

4. Co-branding is cost-effective

When you work with another brand, you’re both committing to sharing resources and putting money into your advertising efforts. This means that you can save money and spend more than you may have had access to with your individual budget.

For example, if you and your partners agree to share ad costs, you can use double the money to access resources to create your campaigns. If you’re a small brand, this can be highly beneficial, as you have the opportunity to branch out in ways you couldn’t do alone.

At the end of the day, your business’ branding, regardless of whether you’re working with a partner, is the first thing consumers will see about your business. If you take the time to prioritize strong branding for your individual business, you’ll find sales growth, and retain new audiences when your co-branding campaigns go live.

In 2019, DoorDash was losing money on the average order and reported an operating loss of $616 million on $885 million in revenue. By the end of 2020, their revenue jumped to $2.89 billion — a 226% gain.

Why the sudden success?

For one, the global pandemic spiked the demand for food delivery. But DoorDash also responded to customers’ needs right from the start. They delivered COVID test kits and launched the #OpenforDelivery campaign to support restaurants by the end of March, made it easier to filter customer ratings in April, and released a Gifting feature to send loved ones food over the holidays.

Simply put, they figured out what customers desired and rapidly delivered.

Now more than ever, customers expect brands to understand and respond to their needs. In a survey of global consumers, 58% of people remembered a brand that quickly pivoted and 82% ended up doing more business with that company as a result.

But a lightning-fast response only happens if your team can handle abrupt change.

Agile marketing is a strategic approach that focuses on quickly executing projects by working in short sprints. It makes room for marketers to shift their focus, adapt to customer needs, and change priorities alongside expectations.

With Agile, what once took months to deliver can take weeks.

Adopting this approach takes work, but this post shares how to get started with Agile marketing by explaining the process, sharing examples, and showing you how to automate your efforts.

What is Agile Marketing?

Agile marketing is a strategic marketing approach that prioritizes creating high-value deliverables, working in short, intense bursts to achieve goals, and rapidly iterating.

By the end of each burst — often called a ‘sprint’ or an ‘iteration’ — teams complete their outlined deliverables and begin testing so they know how to improve during the next iteration. Data collection and analytics allow teams to incrementally refine and improve the results over time.

Agile marketing embraces failure. It also requires teams to learn from their mistakes and make adjustments to continuously get better. This mindset isn’t always easy for teams to instantly adopt. That’s why it’s important to understand the core values outlined in the Agile Marketing Manifesto before switching to this approach.

1. Validated learning over opinions and conventions.
2. Customer-focused collaboration over silos and hierarchy.
3. Adaptive and iterative campaigns over Big-Bang campaigns.
4. The process of customer discovery over static prediction.
5. Responding to change over following a plan.
6. Many small experiments over a few large bets.

When these values play out in real-world projects, the impact can be massive.

Research by McKinsey found that digital marketing organizations using Agile have seen a 20-40% increase in revenue. Agile has also cut down the time it takes for companies to turn an idea into an offer — from multiple months or weeks to less than two weeks.

You may think this acceleration leads to sloppy deliverables and disappointment. It’s the opposite. Agile marketing can improve performance and quality by creating space for clear goals, frequent feedback, continual testing and iteration, on-time deliverables, and inevitable impact.

To get those results, you have to dive into the nitty-gritty details.

Agile Marketing Process

No marketing team follows the exact same Agile approach. Some stick to the traditional frameworks while others pick and choose which parts work for them to create a hybrid method.

The method you choose can depend on the goals you want to accomplish. While its roots are in web and software development, 77% of companies using Agile rely on it for creative services, content creation, and operations.

The main methodologies for Agile marketing teams are Scrum and Kanban.

Scrum

The Scrum framework revolves around sprints. Each sprint lasts for two to six weeks and is organized by the team doing the work. Depending on the size of your project, you may need to break it up into multiple smaller sprints to tackle it bit by bit.

The goal of each sprint is to rapidly deliver small projects that can be combined into a larger project over time. Once a sprint is set, the team shouldn’t change its goals or reprioritize until the sprint is complete.

To make sure your sprints stay on track, you need to establish a few key roles and meetings.

Roles

1. Scrum Master
This person is responsible for keeping the team on task. They know the Scrum framework and use it to facilitate meetings, remove roadblocks, help team members use the framework, and make sure everyone on the Scrum team is collaborating and communicating.

2. Product Owner
This person understands the reason for the work and makes sure the process is being done at the right time. They understand the customers better than anyone else, and they collaborate with the stakeholders and team to ensure the deliverables provide value to the business and to customers.

3. Developer
Everyone else on the team falls under the Developer role. Ideally, the people in this role are cross-functional and contribute a unique set of skills needed to accomplish the sprint. You want to choose at least one person from each department that your project touches.

Meeting

1. Planning

A planning meeting kicks off every sprint to decide what the team can achieve. Everyone looks at the priorities the Product Owner has put together and agrees on which to include in the sprint.

The project(s) are divided into tasks, given deadlines, and assigned to individual team members so people know exactly what to work on when they leave the meeting. These meetings take time, so dedicate at least one hour per week of the total sprint time (i.e., a three-hour meeting for a three-week sprint).

At your first planning meeting, emphasize that Agile is a new way of working and the typical rules don’t apply. Reiterate the need to focus on the customer above all else and highlight the need for speed, collaboration, data, and accountability.

2. Stand-up

The daily stand-up gets your team together for a brief (15 minutes or less) check-in. The aim is to make it very clear where everyone is on progress, roadblocks, and tasks. Everyone on the team answers:

• What they accomplished yesterday
• What they plan to do today
• Any blocks in their way

3. Review

The review is the time to show off what your team has achieved during the sprint. It’s open to anyone interested in the results and is a good time to show off campaign materials, demo content, or share early testing data.

Make note of feedback and add or adjust your priority list as needed, but don’t get wrapped up in additional approvals or new ideas. The point is to share insight into what your team is working on and highlight the impact.

4. Retrospective

Headed by the Scrum Master, this meeting is a chance for the Scrum team to reflect on work from the latest sprint. Everyone shares what went well, what didn’t, what can be improved, and lessons learned. Make sure people don’t point fingers in the meetings, and assign action items as a way to continually improve before the next retrospective.

Kanban

If your marketing team is full of visual learners or does work that won’t fit well into a predetermined sprint timeline, Kanban may be the Agile framework for you.

Kanban is made up of three main components: visualizing workflow, setting WIP limits, and meeting cadences.

1. Visualizing workflow

Unlike Scrum, Kanban uses visual cues to track progress. A Kanban board is how people track the progress of user stories (i.e., tasks) to be accomplished. The board is divided into columns, each their own stage in a workflow.

The simplest boards have To-Do, Doing, and Done columns, but the more complex your workflow, the more columns you may need. (One of my favorite tools for building boards and tracking progress is Miro).

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Each card on the board represents a task to be completed. For example, if you’re planning a social calendar for the upcoming quarter, you would list each task that needs to be accomplished on its own card (i.e., choose topics, assign copy, write copy, schedule posts, and so on).

As the task is being completed, you move the card into the corresponding column. A quick glance at the board and everyone on your team knows how the project is progressing and what still needs to be done.

2. Setting WIP limits

When people have too much on their plates, nothing gets accomplished. This is why Kanban uses WIP limits — boundaries that outline how people will work on the tasks within each column on the Kanban board.

Placing limits on how many tasks can be in one column or how much time people have to accomplish a task. Let’s say you want your social coordinator to schedule the posts for each month before they begin reviewing posts for the following month. That rule means they can’t move the “Review posts” task into the “Doing” column before the “Schedule posts” are in the “Done” column.

Setting ground rules helps people focus on finishing a specific goal or task before starting another one. In a world of context switching and mental burnout, limitations are a way to achieve your goals without juggling too many tasks at once.

3. Meeting cadences

Similar to Scrum, Kanban is designed to help teams work better and accomplish their goals. It incorporates planning meetings, daily stand-ups, and retrospectives to make sure a project is on task and continually refined.

The one meeting that’s different from Scrum is the delivery meeting, a time to plan when to release the content or project. Since Kanban works on longer timelines than Scrum, the delivery meeting is the place to bring in other groups that may need to help get the work out.

While a small team may own a project, a successful Agile marketing strategy relies on everyone. It’s helpful to bring in outside team members to collaborate on timelines, share feedback, and assist in launching the work your team accomplishes.

Agile Marketing Examples

Most Agile marketing efforts break down into a few simple steps.

1. The team makes a list of priority projects to work on.
2. The steps to tackle a project are planned out in a sprint.
3. The team checks in every day in a stand-up meeting.
4. Everyone accomplishes their specific tasks and testing begins.
5. Data from the testing is collected and used to improve the project.

Let’s look at how this process can play out in real-world Agile marketing examples.

1. Scrum Example

The United Kingdom-based Santander bank struggled to produce efficient marketing campaigns due to long production lead times and expensive creative costs. In an effort to increase efficiency, they adopted an Agile marketing method for their “Unlock you London” campaign. The bank’s goal was to convince customers to download and use their mobile app.

They “put everyone together around shared objectives, shared KPIs, and a budget in the middle of the table” and agreed to tweak the campaign on a weekly basis. Instead of dedicating a massive spend working with a creative agency that would take months to develop everything needed for the campaign, they began spending a few thousand pounds at a time. This swap allowed them to make changes quickly and test an idea on customers.

If something resonated, they’d keep it. If not, they’d make a small change and test again.

The new Agile approach produced incredible results. By the end of the campaign, the bank saw a 12% increase in loyalty, a 10% increase in account satisfaction, the highest Net Promoter Score in 17 years, and the highest positive sentiment (90%) among customers.

2. Kanban Method Example

A technology startup recently revamped its brand and wants to update essential marketing materials. The creative team puts together a small Agile team to revamp the website and create new marketing materials.

They include a designer, copywriter, sales rep, creative director, product lead, content coordinator, and a member of the legal team. The team chooses tasks to be completed, decides on a six-week timeline, and lays out the work in a Kanban board.

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The team lays out the individual tasks associated with each task in a project management tool and tracks the progress of each project in a Kanban board.

Six weeks later, the Agile team has designed five new web pages, six one-pagers, and two decks. While more complex projects like the website will need another sprint or two in order to build out simpler materials — like the one-pagers — for the sales team to use. What once took an entire quarter to complete has been condensed into several weeks.

Agile Marketing Automation

Having the right type of technology for Agile marketing automation is crucial for collecting data and conducting analytics.

A well-designed CRM platform can help you collect, organize, test, and manage data about your customers and sprint iterations. It can automate campaign delivery and send messages to customers, feeding tracking and performance metrics back to you.

Above all, automation improves your ability to react to customer requests. In a survey of C-suite executives, 41% said they hoped to implement more digital technology in order to respond quickly to customer needs. So if you need to convince your boss that automation technology is worth the investment, explain how it’s essential to collect data that allows you to share the most relevant messages and offers.

Let’s say you decide to turn an idea for an email campaign into reality using your newly established Agile marketing team. You gather a copywriter, designer, analyst, developer, operations lead, and email lead. Before starting the sprint, you’ll want to make sure you have the following tools to automate your efforts.

• A collaboration tool
• A tool to review copy, design, and development
• A way to collect feedback
• An email marketing tool
• A way to gather data and analyze it

Look into the following Agile marketing automation tools to see which one works for your team. Evaluate the features, user interface, customer support, integrations, resources, reviews, and pricing.

• HubSpot
• Marketo
• Agile CRM
• NetSuite
• Pardot

Once you have the technology you need to automate your Agile efforts, you can focus on the tasks at hand and make sure every sprint or board stays on track.

Switching from a traditional project management approach to Agile marketing may seem intimidating. But the switch will be simple if you keep a few rules in mind. Start with what you want to accomplish (your goals), get buy-in from the senior marketing leaders who can advocate for you with the rest of the team, bring together a small group of people, and explain this new way of working to them. Finally, set up the technology you need to collaborate, collect feedback, and analyze data.

Soon, you’ll be finished with your first project — and gaining momentum that lets your Agile marketing efforts stay focused, grow faster, and get better results than ever before.

Ever click on a website, take one look and say “Hm, that’s going to be a no” while you look for the exit button?

For me, it’s usually because of three reasons: the site looks outdated, crowded, or hard to navigate.

Bad design can keep your target audience from gaining any interest in your brand.

That’s why it’s important to understand the key design principles that will help you draw your audience in, keep them on the page, and generate conversions.

Here’s an easy guide on a specific design principle: visual hierarchy. We’ll cover all the elements that contribute to visual hierarchy and look at good and bad examples.

Visual hierarchy affects what you look at and focus on in a design, whether it’s an image, graphic design, or web design. It’s a key player in ct (i.e., how information is organized and displayed for easy understanding and navigation) and can greatly impact the user experience (UX).

When thinking about visual hierarchy, you want to ask yourself a few questions:

• What do we want to draw attention to?
• What actions do we want our users to take?
• Where does the eye naturally go to and where do they land?

Asking these questions will help you use the principles outlined below to create a clear visual hierarchy.

What constitutes bad visual hierarchy?

When it comes to visual hierarchy, there’s a golden rule: If every element appears important, nothing will seem important.

Visual hierarchy serves as a way to rank the information you’re consuming. If there is no way to differentiate between the elements, that is considered poor hierarchy.

Take this example:

On the left, there’s a lot much going on. The two main elements are the same size, there are many different colors. It makes it hard to know where to look. Your eyes glaze over everything, creating some uneasiness and lack of direction.

On the right, your eye is automatically drawn to the main blue box on the left, then naturally goes to the elements on the right before landing on the orange call to action (CTA).

A poor visual hierarchy:

• Confuses the user.
• Makes it unclear where to look.
• Creates a bland design.

Instead, create a visual structure that facilitates understanding and guides the user.

1. Consider reading patterns.

When designing, you want to note your target audience’s natural eye patterns.

Across all cultures, we read top to bottom. However, there is some variation in how we read horizontally. Western cultures tend to read from left to right, while some Semitic and Indo-Aryan languages, such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Urdu are read right to left.

With this in mind, it impacts how we scan and understand designs. For instance, Western users usually follow an F or Z reading pattern.

Knowing this information will help you design projects that convert, particularly in landing pages.

2. Users notice bigger elements more easily.

Size plays an important role in visual hierarchy. It’s one of the main ways to rank elements in a design.

Take this example from Netflix.

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The first thing you’ll read when looking at this image is “Unlimited movies, TV shows, and more.“

Then you’ll read the next line, and then the next before you explore the other elements on the page.

Size signifies importance. The bigger an element is, the more attention it draws, and then more likely you’ll look at it first.

As you design your webpage, consider what you want your audience to look at first and use that to guide your strategy.

3. Color and contrast draw the eye.

The second principle to keep in mind is color.

We know that color can evoke emotion and can have certain cultural and social connotations. Just look at logos by industry, and you’ll notice a trend. Food brands tend to have reds and yellows, while financial institutions tend to be in blue.

In design, color is great at drawing attention.

In the example above, you’ll see that the elements that stand out the most are in orange. It’s only after looking at them that you’ll scan the other elements on the page.

On a website, you can use this to draw focus to your CTAs.

In the example below, the CTA that stands out the most is in the middle. The brand likely wants users to choose this option. The other CTAs are still visible but muted compared to the orange.

To create the most visual impact with color, use it sparingly. That will make the elements stand out more, as seen in the above example.

4. White space creates emphasis.

White space refers to the empty space within a design.

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Sometimes, there is a desire to fill the space with as many elements as possible. However, this goes back to the concept of importance: If they all seem equally important, none of them are perceived as important.

This is why adding white space to your web design is key in pulling in your visitors.

Apple is also well known for its use of white space.

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The brand offers a simple user interface, which creates more emphasis on the elements on the page. Apple’s use of white space also reflects a brand’s identity.

5. Proximity and repetition create unity.

When you put several elements together, it tells the user the concepts are related.

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This design offers many examples of proximity.

Take the elements under “Master The Basics.” By having these boxes all grouped closely together, the visitor can understand they fall within the same category.

The same goes for the icons under “Follow Us.” If the icons were all spread out randomly on the page, it would be difficult for users to understand their purpose.

If you’re not sure how to group certain elements, you can employ certain UX research strategies, such as card sorting, to group elements based on your audience’s expectations.

Examples of Good Visual Hierarchy

1. Visme.co

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Visme.co has a striking pop-up that encourages users to sign up for their newsletter.

The brand successfully uses white space, color, size, and contrast to make key elements stand out. You’ll also notice that the elements are designed following the Z-pattern, making it more likely that users will convert.

2. Studio 8AD

In designing their website, this brand leverages white space to focus users’ attention on three key elements: the image and the two CTAs located on the bottom left.

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3. Predominantly Black

This brand offers a great example of proximity to create visual hierarchy.

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By organizing all products under the main title and leaving little space in between, visitors quickly understand that these products fall within the same category.

Visual hierarchy is all about ranking your elements by order of importance. Once you narrow down what you want to focus on and consider your audience’s needs, you can create designs that produce the desired impact.

Instagram has been around for 11 years.

While the app was initially meant for still images, content creators and everyday users can now share photos and videos in various forms, like Story posts, Instagram Reels, and longer-form videos on IGTV.

Although there are many content types to post on the app, simply leveraging one of the options isn’t enough to find marketing success on the platform. This is because, no matter how high-quality the content you share, the Instagram algorithm determines what succeeds on the app and what doesn’t.

While Instagram doesn’t disclose all the factors that the algorithm uses to assess content, they have released general information about what the algorithm looks for. In this post, we’ll explain everything you need to know about the algorithm to succeed on the app, from the factors that play into it and tips and tricks to use to make sure your content doesn’t go unnoticed.

As a business, unless you’re entirely reliant on paid ads, it’s essential to understand how the algorithm works and what you need to do to ensure that it favors your content and shows your posts to your target audience.

Below we’ll explain how the Instagram algorithm works and the factors it assesses when surfacing your content in news feeds.

 

How does the Instagram algorithm work?

If you’re a frequent Instagram user, you may have heard people say something like “Bring back reverse chronological order!” when talking about the algorithm. What they’re referring to is when Instagram showed the most recent posts at the top of someone’s feed and older ones at the bottom.

It was great for creators and Instagram users because, at some point, your post would be at the top of all of your followers’ feeds, so they would be guaranteed to see it.

However, in March 2016, the algorithm changed. Instagram said, “People miss, on average, 70 percent of their feeds. As Instagram has grown, it has become harder to keep up with all the photos and videos people share. This means you often don’t see the posts you might care about the most.”

It’s no longer a question of when you post, but a variety of factors that we’ll discuss below: relationship, timing, frequency, following, usage, interest.

 

Instagram Algorithm Factors

Relationship

Perceived relationships are the most important ranking factor.

The algorithm prioritizes sharing content with you based on the relationships you have with the accounts you follow. The more you comment, like, and interact with an account on Instagram, the more likely you will see their content, and see it often.

The algorithm also notes people you direct message, accounts you search for, and photos you’re tagged in.

The relationship factor applies to brands as well. If a consumer regularly likes your content and interacts with it, repeat engagement will make your posts shown to them more often and closer to the top of their feed. This means that it’s essential for you to inspire engagement in your content, which we’ll discuss further below.

Timing

Although feeds aren’t chronological, the algorithm still wants users to see the most recent and relevant posts, especially from accounts that you have a stronger, established relationship with.

Timing just means that you’re not as likely to see a post from three weeks ago as you were before 2016.

You can leverage this factor to your advantage by using your profile analytics to discover the best time to post on Instagram, helping you meet your followers when they’re most active on the app and more likely to engage.

Frequency

Frequency refers to how often a user opens the Instagram app.

Frequent users will see a more chronological feed, but those who seldom open the app will see posts most relevant to their interests and relationships since last opening the app.

Following

Following many people means that the algorithm has more content to choose from when surfacing posts in a feed. When this happens, they prioritize relationships, engagement, and perceived interests.

Again, this factor emphasizes the importance of generating a relationship with your audience, encouraging engagement, and posting at the right times.

Usage

The usage factor is similar to frequency, as it relates to how much time is spent on the app.

Those who do quick browsing sessions will see what the algorithm determines to be the day’s highlights based on the factors mentioned above, while those who spend more time on the app will see a more significant number of posts.

Frequent browsers may even run out of content to see, at which point the algorithm will suggest new posts and accounts based on your interactions and engagement history.

Interest

Instagram makes many content recommendations, so a portion of the content users see is based on the app’s understanding of their interest in specific topics.

If it detects that you always like, comment, and interact with posts around similar topics, you’ll see those posts first. Users who engage with content similar to what you post are also more likely to be shown your posts, and vice versa.

While not a direct factor that Instagram has noted as an algorithm factor in 2016, engagement does play a significant role in the algorithms process.

 

How Instagram’s Algorithm Uses Engagement

In addition to all of the above factors, engagement plays a significant role in how the Instagram algorithm prioritizes and surfaces content to users. The most important engagement metrics are comments, likes, shares, and video views.

Here is a breakdown of how engagement factors into the algorithm:

1. When you first post a photo, it’s shown to a small percentage of your audience.

2. Instagram measures how quickly that photo is interacted with, i.e., comments and likes.

3. Instagram compares the engagement that your post gets to other content you’ve shared at similar times and days. For example, is your post from today at 10 am getting more or less traffic than your post from last Monday at 10 am? The app compares to similar times to ensure accuracy when evaluating your engagement metrics, especially since certain times bring better results.

4. If your photo attracts a lot of engagement, Instagram will show it to a higher percentage of your audience and maybe even share it on explore pages.

5. If your post continues to attract engagement, your photo will stay at the top of your audience’s news feeds and reach more people. If it doesn’t attract a lot of initial attention, less of your audience will see your post.

 

Instagram Algorithm Update 2021

The 2016 algorithm update was almost a complete overhaul to how the algorithm works, so it is the most notable, publicized, and confirmed by Instagram.

Unfortunately, since then, Instagram doesn’t always make it public when they’ve changed the algorithm. So, if you notice changes to your engagement and reach, it is most likely not the result of an algorithm change but most likely due to the app’s growth.

There are so many accounts on the platform, and as people follow more and more users, competition on the app grows. It becomes more difficult to quickly generate a significant amount of engagement, which in turn impacts how, where, and when your posts are shown in your audience’s feed. This is one of the many reasons why it’s important to monitor your Instagram analytics.

Instagram Algorithm Recent Changes

That being said, the most recent update to the algorithm as of 2021 is the removal of like counts on people’s photos.

The update hasn’t yet been made available to all Instagram users, but it would effectively remove a total like count from a user’s photo and instead display only the usernames of people that have liked the post. Users who post a photo still have the option to see the number of likes a photo has received, though.

Instagram is making this update because they believe it will do numbers to diminish bullying on the app and protect users from being influenced by social pressure that says they need to get a certain amount of likes on their posts.

 

How to Get Your Posts Shown Higher on Instagram

Although there is not much you can do to beat the algorithm, or so to speak, there are ways to get your posts shown higher on Instagram.

Post when you know your audience is most active.

Like all social media platforms, one of the easiest ways to generate immediate engagement is to post content when you know your followers are most active, as they’re already browsing the app and ready to see what you have to offer.

To get this information, you can use the native Instagram Analytics tool available to all users with business accounts or another option like Marketing Hub. 

If you’re new to the app, it will be challenging to get this information right away, so come back to this tip after you’ve spent enough time on the app to get valuable, actionable analytics.

Post content you know your audience likes.

Again, use your analytics. Understand the content that your audience engages with the most, whether it’s high-quality product photos, behind-the-scenes content, or Instagram Reels. Use this to your advantage, and continue creating content that they enjoy as they’re more likely to interact with something they like.

Use business-relevant hashtags.

Hashtags are a great way to signal to the algorithm about your content, which can help surface your profile to audience members interested in the hashtags you use.

Don’t overload your hashtag use, but aim to use them in all of the content you share on Instagram, from Stories to IGTV to photo captions.

Encourage engagement and interaction.

Interaction on your profile will come naturally, but encouraging engagement and interaction with the content you share can be valuable in getting the algorithm to work for you.

Create engaging captions that entice users to comment on your posts, ask for likes and shares, and be in conversation with those who interact to inspire loyalty and entice them to return.

You can also place interactive elements in your Instagram Stories, like polls, stickers, and emojis. The benefits of this are twofold, as your customers will be interacting with your content, and you’ll also learn more about their interests and desires based on the responses they give.

Stay consistent.

One of the most important things to do to take control over the algorithm is to stay consistent on the app. Develop an Instagram-specific posting schedule, and stick to it.

It’ll help you stay continuously active on the platform, which allows your followers to continuously engage with your content, which helps the algorithm learn more and more about your account. The more information they have, and the more engagement they see, the higher you will be on your followers’ feeds.

 

Instagram Story Algorithm

Instagram Stories appear at the top of a user’s feed.

The Stories algorithm prioritizes timeliness, and you’re most likely to see the most recent stories from the accounts you engage and interact with the most. The accounts that the algorithm thinks you have the strongest relationships with will always have their Stories shown before all other stories.

For businesses, this means that it’s essential to maintain an active presence on Instagram Stories and to encourage engagement within your Stories, like polls and asking questions.

 

Instagram Explore Algorithm

The feed algorithm and Explore page algorithm are relatively similar, as they both show content that Instagram thinks you’ll be most interested in based on your previous app activity. The main difference is that feed content features accounts you’re familiar with and following, while the Explore page is content from new accounts.

You can think of it like this: if one of your favorite things to do on Instagram is watch food videos, your feed will display content from the accounts with food videos that you interact with the most. Your explore page would also contain food videos since the algorithm knows you like them, but you won’t follow those accounts already.

The explore page is based entirely on interests, so, as a business, it’s important to share content related to your brand and utilize elements that would tell the algorithm who to show your content to, like relevant hashtags.

Succeeding on Instagram is not just about posting content regularly. You also need to understand how the algorithm works and leverage its makeup to your advantage. While changes to the algorithm will always happen, staying on top of the trends will help you ensure that you’re prepared for them when they do.

With almost 4 billion people worldwide currently connected to the internet, there has never been a better time for businesses to include blogging in their marketing strategy.

Not only does blogging drive website traffic and promote your products and services, but it also helps you build trust with your potential customers.

In this post, we’re going to highlight the many benefits of blogging for business and how you can get started with creating relevant content that drives inbound links and traffic to your site.

Let’s get started.

The Benefits of Blogging for Business

One question many people ask after starting a business is whether blogging is worth it in 2021.

Short answer: Yes! And here the reasons why we say so.

1. It helps drive traffic to your website.

Raise your hand if you want more website visitors. Yeah, me too.

Now think about the ways people find your website:

• They could type your name right into their browser, but that’s for an audience you already have. They know who you are, you’re on their radar, and that doesn’t help you get more traffic on top of what you’re already getting.
• You could pay for traffic by buying an email list (don’t you dare!), blasting them, and hoping some people open and click through on the emails. But that’s expensive and, you know, illegal.
• You could pay for traffic by placing tons of paid ads, which isn’t illegal but still quite expensive. And the second you run out of money, your traffic stops coming, too.

So, how can you attract new traffic or readers to your site? You can through blogging and optimizing your site for search engines.

Here’s how it works.

Think about how many pages there are on your website. Probably not a ton, right? And think about how often you update those pages. Probably not that often, right?

Well, blogging is a great way to solve both of those problems.

Every time you create and publish a blog post, it’s one more indexed page on your website, which means one more opportunity for you to show up on the search engine results page (SERP) and drive traffic to your website in organic search.

We’ll get into more of the benefits of blogging on your SEO a bit later, but it’s also one more cue to Google and other search engines that your website is active, and they should be checking in frequently to see what new content to surface.

2. You can repurpose blog content for social media.

Blogging for your business also helps you get discovered via social media. Every time you create a new article, you’re creating content that people can share on social networks — Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest — which helps expose your business to a new audience that may not know you yet.

Blog content also helps keep your social media presence going.

Instead of asking your social media manager always to create brand new content for social media (or creating that content yourself), your blog can serve as that repository of content.

You’re strengthening your social reach with blog content and driving new website visitors to your blog via your social channels. Quite a symbiotic relationship, I must say.

3. It helps convert traffic into leads.

Now that you have some traffic coming to your site through your blog, you have an opportunity to convert that website traffic into leads.

Like every blog post you write is another indexed page, each post is a new opportunity to generate new leads.

The way this works is straightforward: Just add a lead-generating call-to-action to every blog post.

Often, these calls-to-action lead to things like free ebooks, whitepapers, fact sheets, webinars, trials, or basically, any content asset for which someone would be willing to exchange their information.

To be super clear for anyone unfamiliar with how traffic-to-lead conversions work, it’s as simple as this:

• Visitor comes to website
• Visitor sees call-to-action for a free offer
• Visitor clicks call-to-action and gets to a landing page, which contains a form for them to fill in with their information
• Visitor fills out the form, submits information, and receives the free offer

If you scroll down in this blog post, you’ll see a call-to-action button.

In fact, 99.9% of the blog posts we publish have call-to-action buttons, and yours should, too. That is how you turn your website traffic into leads for your sales team.

Note: Not all blog readers will become leads, and that’s okay. No one converts 100% of the people who read their blog into leads. Just get blogging, put calls-to-action on every blog post, set a visitor-to-lead conversion rate benchmark for yourself, and strive to improve the benchmark each month.

4. It drives long-term results.

The best business blogs answer common questions their readers and customers have.

If you consistently create valuable content or articles for your target audience, it’ll establish you as an industry leader or authority in their eyes.

Can you imagine the impact of sending an educational blog post you wrote to clear things up for a confused customer? Or how many more deals a salesperson could close if their leads discovered blog content written by their salesperson?

“Establishing authority” is not a vanity metric as concrete as traffic and leads, but it’s pretty powerful stuff. You can use it to measure sales enablement.

Because at the end of the day, that’s what many of your blog posts are.

Think about it:

• Suppose prospects find answers to their everyday questions via blog posts written by people at your company. In that case, they’re much more likely to come into the sales funnel trusting what you have to say because you’ve helped them in the past — even before they were interested in purchasing anything from you.
• Prospects that have been reading your blog posts will typically enter the sales funnel with more knowledge of your products and services, your place in the market, and your industry. That makes for a far more productive sales conversation than one held between two relative strangers.
• Salespeople who encounter specific questions that require in-depth explanation or a documented answer can pull from an archive of blog posts. Not only do these articles help move the sales process along faster than if a sales rep had to create the assets from scratch, but they position the salesperson as a helpful resource to their prospect — thus helping to build trust.

5. Blogging helps with link building.

Inbound links or backlinks are among the 200 factors the Google algorithm considers when ranking a site on its search engine result page. Many experts and small business owners also believe backlinks to be the 3rd most crucial factor in search engine optimization.

Although generating inbound links is essential, 41% of SEO experts say link building is the most challenging part of search optimization.

When you create articles that are not only valuable to your potential customers but also to other companies that your audience sees as industry leaders, it’d be easier to gain relevant links.

Links for authoritative websites serve as a vote of confidence or recommendation from other websites. And it signals to Google that you’re trustworthy and an expert in your industry.

Another benefit of backlinks is that they help you build your domain authority, which helps improve your overall discoverability in search engines.

6. It drives long-term results.

It would be fantastic if you could take a trip to Hawaii, go to the gym, and sleep for as many hours as you want, and still be able to drive traffic to your site.

Good news, though! That’s what blogging does — primarily through search engines.

Here’s what I mean:

Imagine you sit down for an hour on Sunday to write and publish a blog post. Let’s say that blog post gets you 100 views and ten leads on Monday. You get another 50 views and five leads on Tuesday as a few more people find it on social media, and some of your subscribers get caught up on their email and RSS. But after a couple of days, most of the fanfare from that post dies down, and you’ve netted 150 views and 15 leads.

It’s not over.

Since that post is now ranking, it means that for days, weeks, months, and years to come, you can continue to get traffic from that blog post. So while it may feel like day one or bust, in reality, blogging acts more like this:

So while you’re hitting your snooze alarm, surfing in Hawaii, and pumping iron, you’re also driving traffic and leads. The effort you put in yesterday can turn into hundreds of thousands of views and leads in the future.

What’s more, you can monetize your blog content in many creative ways. Business models such as affiliate marketing mean you can generate an income from blogging on just about any topic — from makeup and beauty to camping and motorcycles.

There’s a wide variety of affiliate programs out there where you can generate an income from referring people to relevant products and services.

When it comes to blogging, most of your sales will likely come from your older articles.

More than half of the traffic generated each month on the Hubspot blog comes from posts published in previous months. They come from old posts.

The same goes for the leads generated in a current month — about 90% of the leads we generate every month come from blog posts published in previous months. Sometimes years ago.

We call these types of blog posts “compounding” posts. Not every blog post will fit into this category, but the more evergreen blog posts you write, the more likely it is that you’ll land on one of those compounding blog posts.

In our research, we’ve found that about 1 in every ten blog posts end up being compounding blog posts.

To me (and hopefully to you), this demonstrates the scalability of business blogging.

While you might not see immediate results, over time, you’ll be able to count on a predictable amount of traffic and leads for your business without any additional resource investment — the work to generate that traffic and those leads are already done.

If you’d like to learn more about the long-term impact of blogging and how to reap even more benefits from the blog posts that are ranking in organic search for your business, check out this article, “The Blogging Tactic No One Is Talking About: Optimizing the Past.”

7. It helps you share company news.

Another benefit blogging affords every big, and small business is a medium to share their company news and stories.

Blogs can contain not only articles but also news that highlight what a company is up to.

Have you hired a new content marketing manager? Share it on your blog.

Interviewed online marketing and industry experts? Post it on your blog.

Have a brilliant case study that showcases how your products and services help customers? Tell your audience about it on your blog.

Are you hosting a local fair or trade show? Drum up attention for the even through your blog.

Not only does sharing company news on your blog humanize your brand, but it also helps your audience see that you’re not always about selling.

Secondary Benefits of Business Blogging

There are other reasons businesses might want to blog, but I think they’re smaller and stray from the core benefits of blogging.

For example, I love to use our blog to test out extensive campaigns on the cheap before investing a lot of money and time into their creation. I also love to use our blog to help understand our persona better.

And while this shouldn’t be their primary use, these are all significant usefulness of a business blog, but they’re secondary benefits to me.

How to Start Blogging for your Business

You’ve seen the benefits your business blog can get you — more traffic, leads, authority, and a better relationship with your audience. And you’re undoubtedly itching to get started.

But how?

Our guide on how to start a successful blog has everything you need.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in November 2020 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

The number of podcast listeners in the United States is expected to reach 100 million by 2024. (For context, there are 82.7 million listeners in 2021.) 

Podcasts provide a source of convenient and intimate entertainment that’s only continuing to grow in popularity. While today’s
most popular podcasts
might vary significantly in terms of their content and hosts (
among other things
), they all share at least one thing in common — they each have their own website where fans can check out their latest episodes and seasons, info about live shows, biographies about the podcast’s hosts, and more details.

If you’re a host or producer, chances are you’re busy managing your podcast — and building your own WordPress website may sound like a daunting task. However, creating your site can be quite simple with a WordPress podcasting theme that allows you to share your episodes, seasons, host bios, and any other content you want to provide your visitors and fans.

We’ve curated this list of our favorite podcasting themes to help you share your content on your site and make lasting connections with your fans. To determine which theme best suits your needs, review these 15 options, their unique features, and our key takeaways. Afterward, check out the WordPress Theme Directory if you’d like to explore more podcasting themes.

1. Viseo

Viseo is a podcast theme with a “latest show” section for your site pages so your fans can quickly locate and listen to your newest content. You can also easily upload and add high-quality videos to the theme’s Locally Hosted Video Player feature. Customizing your site pages and sections requires no coding knowledge due to the theme’s drag and drop builder.

Key Takeaways:

• Visitors can browse the “Latest show” section for new content
• Share high-quality video content with the locally hosted video player feature
• Customize your site with the built-in drag-and-drop page builder

2. Audonic

Audonic supports several commonly-used audio players so importing your podcasts is a hassle-free process. The theme offers dark and light-colored layouts and audio players to help you achieve your desired look. Your visitors can also check out your site while on the go since the theme is mobile-friendly.

Key Takeaways:

• Upload several audio players to showcase your podcasts
• Customize dark and light layout and audio player designs
• Experience better responsiveness with the mobile-friendly layouts

3. Podcaster

Podcaster is specifically made for broadcasting and managing podcasts — it has an unlimited number of podcast episode archive pages so you can maintain your shows and seasons over long periods of time. The theme’s homepage contains an audio and video player feature that allows visitors to experience your latest content the moment they enter your site. There are also a variety of color palettes to customize your site with to match your branding.

Key Takeaways:

• Add unlimited podcast episode archive pages
• Utilize an audio and video player feature on the site’s homepage
• Access a variety of color palettes to customize pages

4. Tusant

Tusant is compatible with all major podcast plugins to make managing and designing your podcast’s site as straightforward as possible with increased functionality based on your specific needs. The theme is compatible with the Elementor plugin which allows you to edit and update your site pages and review the changes in real-time prior to publishing them.

Key Takeaways:

• Integrate your favorite major podcast plugins
• Design your pages with the Elemntor plugin
• Display content in multiple layouts

5. Promenade

Promenade’s homepage offers two types of formats: a static web page where the same content remains in one place unless you manually change it and a dynamic web page in which your latest content is moved to the top of the page so your visitors automatically see your latest posts. The theme has grid layouts for your audio and videos to keep your content organized.

Key Takeaways:

• Format your pages with two homepage format options — static or dynamic
• Organize your audio and video using the grid layouts
• Arrange your site with custom navigation and menus

6. Life Coach

Life Coach is a podcast theme with an ecommerce store where you can sell your merchandise — the theme has WooCommerce integration to make managing your store simple. It includes an events calendar feature where you can highlight the dates for your latest episode releases, live shows, and more. Life Coach also offers MP3 (coding format for digital audio) support so you can easily import and manage your podcasts.

Key Takeaways:

• Integrate your podcast site with WooCommerce
• Notify visitors of upcoming events with the calendar feature
• Leverage MP3 support for your audio files

7. Vice

Image Source

Vice gives you the ability to incorporate video backgrounds on your web pages to create an interactive and fun experience for your visitors. The theme’s responsive design automatically changes your site’s format to fit the screen it’s being viewed on, whether that’s desktop, mobile, or tablet. Vice also has pre-made podcast page templates with players that support Soundcloud, MP3, and Mixcloud audio so you can import and share your podcast in a matter of seconds without having to change its format.

Key Takeaways:

• Incorporate video backgrounds on site pages
• Change your site’s format depending on the device it’s being viewed on
• Make changes quickly with podcast page templates that support audio players

8. GeneratePress

GeneratePress is a free and open-source theme — speed, usability, and accessibility are the features that set it apart. There is an unlimited number of custom color combination options to achieve any look you desire on your website. Performance and design aren’t mutually exclusive with this theme, GeneratePress prides itself on providing podcasters with both to bring an immersive experience to their listeners.

Key Takeaways:

• Get started easily with an open source theme
• Customize your site pages with unlimited custom color options
• Integrate this theme with the top audio plugins

9. Satchmo

Satchmo is ideal if you’re looking for a podcasting theme where you can also share blog content in addition to your audio. Whether you’re an experienced blogger or someone who simply wants to share information about your podcast in a personal and accessible way, then Satchmo’s blog template pages will come in handy.

You can add icons in your headers and footers that direct your visitors to your social media accounts to promote your content and increase your follower base. There are also over 700 different Google Font options for you to choose from and customize the typography on your pages.

Key Takeaways:

• Choose a podcast or blog theme for your site
• Attract more followers with the social media account icons in headers and footers
• Customize your typography with 700+ Google Font options

10. Castilo

Castilo has a contact form template that you can add to a site page so your visitors can easily get in touch with you. The theme offers a podcast stats feature to help you determine the short and long-term success and popularity of each of the podcasts on your site as well as monitor who’s listening to your podcasts. Your custom logo will also be placed in the header and footer of your pages to make for a professional and branded look and feel.

If your theme does not come with a contact form plugin and you’re looking for a simple way to add a form to your site, check out HubSpot’s WordPress Contact Form builder.

Key Takeaways:

• Add a contact form to capture visitor data using the available template
• Capture podcast data with the statistics feature
• Add your custom logo in the header and footer of your site

11. Sonus

Sonus has a customizable audio player that you can design to include buttons that fast-forward and rewind episodes, skip episodes, share episodes, change episode speed, or skip to a specific time in an episode. The theme’s pages are all formatted in a grid to keep your audio and written content organized. Sonus has responsive audio players that automatically change formats to match any screen and device.

Key Takeaways:

• Include customizable audio players
• Design site pages with a grid format
• Add a responsive audio player that changes its format to work for any device

12. Castpod

Castpod includes a MailChimp integration so you can manage all of your email-related content for your fans and subscribers in an organized fashion. With Castpod you can submit your podcast to an external service such as iTunes or Google Play with the click of a button. The theme’s Retina-ready design ensures all of your images are high-definition and look professional.

Key Takeaways:

• Integrate MailChimp on your site to manage emails
• Submit your podcast to external services like iTunes and Google Play with one click
• Get a high-definition and professional look with the Retina-ready design

13. Onair2

Onair2 is a podcast and music theme with an ecommerce store feature where you can sell your merchandise to fans. Managing your online store is also straightforward due to the theme’s WooCommerce integration. There is a customizable podcast page template that you can implement on your pages with an audio player that’s integrated with YouTube, Mixcloud, Soundcloud, and more. Social sharing icons are customizable and give your visitors the ability to find and follow your accounts in a matter of seconds.

Key Takeaways:

• Use the podcast and music theme with ecommerce store feature
• Design your podcast page template with YouTube, Mixcloud, and Soundcloud integration
• Increase your social media presence with social sharing icons

14. Audioatro

Audioatro has a unique, full-width audio player, called the “Audio Visualizer,” that’s placed on top of a full-width, background image on your page. The audio player includes a bunch of 3D bars that run across the bottom of your page to show listeners their timestamp in the podcast. These bars also rise and fall with the podcast’s volume levels to add another entertaining and interactive visual element. Audioatro also has two podcast-specific templates to choose from and expert customer support in case you run into a challenge that you need help troubleshooting.

Key Takeaways:

• Incorporate the unique, 3D, video-like audio player
• Choose from two podcast themes

15. Megaphone

Image Source

Megaphone supports multiple shows, episodes, seasons, as well as videos and music content. The theme requires no coding knowledge so you can quickly and simply design your sections in any way you want. To give your visitors the full listening experience before they download your podcast, Megaphone includes a sticky audio player that follows them as they browse the site.

Key Takeaways:

• Upload multiple shows as well as videos and music content
• Build faster and easier without coding
• Keep the visitor listening to a podcast preview with a sticky audio player

Back To You

WordPress podcast themes will help you share your hard work on a website that you’re proud of. These themes make it easy to manage your seasons and shows, include descriptions about your hosts, stay in contact with fans, and share the latest information about live shows and events all in one location.

With a wide variety of features, layouts, and customization options, you can achieve virtually any look and design you want with podcasting themes on your WordPress website no matter your level of web development knowledge. Download and install a podcasting theme today so you can begin sharing your content and building lasting relationships with your fans.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in December 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.