What to Do to Prevent a Crisis While Being Successful on Social Media [Easier than you Think!]

You are successfully running a social media account for your company and you want to attract more attention to it, but you don’t want to accidentally cause a social media crisis. I’m here to help you learn how to prevent a social media crisis and if one does occur, then you will know what you should do to handle the situation with care.

No matter how anybody looks at it, including you, every person or company that has a social media account is susceptible to experiencing a social media crisis. It's something that can't be fixed normally and sometimes, you might have to take extreme measures. Here are a list of things you can do right now to help protect your account(s) and to help prevent any crises from happening.

Creating Policies for Your Social Media

Sometimes, in your company, you may have an employee that either intentionally posts something that's not good at all to say, or your employee accidentally posts something wrong that you can't undo. This is where your company policies come into play. You need to make sure that your employees know how to handle customer comments online and that they don't expose any confidential data too. Lastly, according to Oracle Netsuite, make sure that they know how they should (Get approval for company-related posts, comply with copyright laws on social media, include or withhold company information on social media profiles, and react to PR crises on social media.)

Make your Accounts Secure!

The main thing you should do here is make sure the passwords you choose to make are strong ones that nobody will find out. After that, I highly suggest that if a website offers Two Factor Authentication, then set that up immediately afterwards! That way, it will add an extra layer of security to make double sure hackers can't get into your account.

Being Proactive with Hashtag Campaigns

Hashtags are a great thing to use on any posts you make on social media, or even YouTube videos! Just make sure you do your research on the currently trending hashtag before you decide to use it in any of your posts, because it could, and might, be talking about the exact opposite meaning of what you originally thought it meant, and using it wrong could backlash your company severely.

Don't Capitalize on an External Crisis

What this means is that if there is something serious going on somewhere in the world right now and a hashtag was created and used to relate to it, do not use the hashtag to promote your own business because it will never go over well.

Define what a Crisis is according to Your Company

Not every little thing that happens can be considered a crisis, especially if a customer that didn't have a very well received phone call decides to take their anger out by posting something not so nice about the company on social media. Something like that can easily be fixed by contacting that customer directly to help solve their problem and hopefully clear things up.

Create a Crisis Plan for Emergencies

Going in, head first, without any idea as to how you'll solve your social media crisis is definitely not a good idea. You should make a plan for your company to follow if something like this were to arise, that way; you can try and resolve the problem quickly before it gets any worse. Usually, a social media crisis does not need to involve your whole company; this is where you can create a team to help fix those problems. Make sure though that as you're building your team, that you think about what their responsibilities will be which are: (Looking out for and monitoring cases, actively managing social media and answering questions, guiding the overall strategy and updating key leadership, and responding to questions from other channels such as email and handling media requests.)

 

What to do During and After a Crisis

First thing to do is not panic because you have a plan for what you'll do. Regarding what to do in and after a crisis, you need to acknowledge that there is an actual issue occurring. This is where customers would like to know if the company is aware of what's happening and if it affects the customers at all too.

Secondly, stop any scheduled posts from posting. It will just look bad on your part if you don't remember to stop your scheduled posts because it might look to your customers like you're just ignoring what's happening around you.

Usually when people post negative comments online, you do not answer them at all because they're just trying to be heard or vent off on you. If you do answer the negative comments, then limit the amount of answers you reply to to one or two responses. In this case, the public will notice that you are responding.

Make sure that you keep your team up to date on what's happening before they find out through a series of posts online before you get to tell them. You should tell your team what's happening, where it's happening, and if the team should take any action.

After the social media crisis is all over, you can review what happened with your team from start to finish. The point is, if a social media crisis happens, then there is definitely room for improvement and you can figure out what happened and how it can be improved upon by you seeking input from your other team members. I hope all of this new material will be useful for you to use if you're just starting up a company or if you're just looking for some insight on what to do. :D

How to Make Paid Search Advertising Easier to Understand [Fun and Easy Steps Everyone Can Follow!]

Have you ever wondered what paid search advertising is and wanted to know more about it? Then you have come to the right place! Not only will I tell you more about it, but I will also help to make it easier for you to understand so that it will become second nature to you!

Paid Search Advertising

What is paid search advertising? According to AdRoll, it is a marketing tactic in which advertisers pay search engines for ad placements on SERPs and SERP stands for Search Engine Results Pages which means anything that shows up on a web page when you are searching for something on the internet.

When it comes to figuring out where your advertisements are going to be placed on SERPs, there are 6 different things that help determine its placement.

1. Bids
2. Ad & Landing Page Quality
3. Ad thresholds
4. Popularity of Keywords
5. Context of Search
6. Impact of Ad Extension
   

Bids

For a bid, it works like an auction between businesses. Each business bids on keywords and phrases that relate to their products and services. How they work is by PPC, which stands for pay-per-click and the businesses only have to pay money when someone clicks on their advertisement.

Ad & Landing Page Quality

Ad & landing page quality. With how smart phones are a thing this day in age, the more mobile-friendly a website is, the better quality score it gets especially with how relevant and useful Google considers it to be. If you know how to create a website with HTML and CSS, then I would say you're golden!

Ad Thresholds

For ad thresholds, there is not a whole lot I'll be able to explain about it, but I'll try my best to teach you about it. The ad quality, ad position, user signals and attributes, topic and nature of a search result, and related auctions are all part of ad thresholds. I believe this is all of what makes up an advertisement and each part should be taken seriously when you are considering how your audience will see your finished advertisements on the internet because those ads will reflect how they see your company.

Popularity of Keywords

In terms of the popularity of a keyword you have added to your advertisement and website, if another advertisement has the same exact keyword, then it all comes down to who can pay more money for it because that higher bidder will win the auction at that point.

Not only does Google take into account what you are searching, but it also is considering how and where you are searching. What I mean is is that your location, time, search term, what type of device you are on, what the nature of your search is, what other advertisements are competing with you, and search results from your search are taken into account to help you get the best result they believe you were looking for.

Ad Extensions

Ad extensions are very helpful in ways that you would have not ever thought of before. There are many different extensions that do many different things. According to HubSpot, here's how they describe each extension. There's the call out extension which allows customers to highlight specific points about a person's business, products, or services that can be shown alongside the company's advertisement on a Google search. A site link extension is what appears beneath your text ads and directs users to specific pages on your website. An example of one might be a "Buy now" link to a product that shows up as a result on Google. A price extension shows prices of products or services to help make informed decisions about the product or service. This might also include showing the availability of a product currently and the rating along with how many ratings it has.

The location extension provides an extra line in your businesses advertisement and highlights where your businesses location is. Structured snippet extensions are provided by the advertiser, but show information in a structured format that they show with your advertisement. Promotion extensions are what make it easy for a business to keep up with their promotions without having to create a whole new advertisement. The good things that paid search advertising brings to fruition are that there are always high-intent audiences. In other words, no matter what keyword you might try researching on the internet, there will always be a way to reach the type of audience you desire. You save money when making your advertisements because the market is what dictates the price for ads. Lastly, you'll start seeing results right away since there's no need for you to persuade any new customers online since you'll be the one giving them a shorter path to checkout.

How To Successfully Create a Targeted Advertisement [3 EASY STAGES]

Before ad targeting really became a successful thing everyone used, putting out an ad to show off your current business, for one thing was all the same price, no matter how big or small the ad was. The price, on the other hand, was very expensive to afford and not a whole lot of people utilized ads because of that reason. Once people started realizing that we needed advertisements to keep our businesses going and to spread the word about them too, then I believe that's also when the prices for buying an ad actually started reflecting what they cost today. This is just a little back story of how ad targeting used to work, and I am here because I want to put your mind at ease and teach you that you can easily create an ad in 3 easy steps towards the audience you want!

Before you get started following the steps to create a successful targeted ad, you need to make sure you set a goal. Think to yourself right now, 'Who am I, and what do I want to accomplish?' This is something I came across from a website called AdRoll and I think it's important to know who you are and what you would like to accomplish when you make this advertisement. Now that you have figured out who you are and what you want to accomplish with your ad, let me teach you these three easy steps to creating a successful targeted advertisement!

1. The Awareness Stage

Using the resources I have collected from the website HubSpot, this is what they call The Buyers' Journey and it is separated into three different stages (or steps if you prefer). The first stage is called the Awareness Stage. This is when you should look to see if your company is struggling anywhere and if they are, then you need to address that problem and make sure to utilize that problem in the next stage.

2. The Consideration Stage

There is a reason why I mentioned that you need to use your company's problem in this next stage. This stage is called the Consideration Stage. During this process, this is when you will need to figure out how to explain to the people that are viewing your advertisement how you will be going about solving your company's problem. I would highly suggest making sure you explain it thoroughly to the public and not leave out any details you believe would be very important for them to know.

This is one of the most important stages in my opinion because it gives the viewer just the right amount of information that they would need to understand how you go about solving your company's problems and these targeted advertisements help you to create a relationship with your brand, not only just with people you have interacted with before. These ads should be pointing more towards branded content just to reiterate that if I was not clear enough. All in all, every stage is equally important.

3. The Decision Stage

The last stage in creating a successful targeted advertisement is the Decision Stage. The decision stage is actually quite common that you would not even realize that you see one all the time. They are on television, YouTube video advertisements, and more! Catch where I'm getting at yet? Commercials! The decision stage is when you communicate to the public what your company has started to offer. This can be anything you want to bring to the light. For instance, I love Nintendo products and they have some pretty good commercials on TV. They showcase what each game or console they are selling has to offer to us. That can be showing off what features the products have that we would not notice right away or they could be announcing a brand new game that is coming soon, like a game called Splatoon 3.

Just for Fun!

This last part is extra and you can have as much fun as you want with this. Be creative when going through each stage of creating a successful targeted advertisement. Even copy off of what trends are currently popular right now and that will most likely give you the starting boost you need to make this successful! Even possibly put some money into your advertisements if you are feeling a little bit adventurous because even if the advertisement fails, you will hopefully have a somewhat better idea of how much you should spend on it in the future and how much you should change the way the advertisement looks to better suit your targeted audience.

 

How to Create Successful Blog Posts [5 Important Blog Post Recommendations]

When a person starts off thinking about creating a blog, they will usually come to the conclusion that it will take forever to make one, and on top of that, it will also be impossible to keep up with the content that they are creating. I'm here to tell you how you can create a successful blog with my five best recommendations on how to catch a reader's attention.

1. Create an Eye-Catching Blog Name

In order for a person to attract attention, the first thing you need to do is create a name for your blog that readers will remember. The name of my blog is "Jacob's Corner". I think it's best if you keep your blog's name simple because if it's hard to remember it yourself, then your readers will only have an even harder time trying to remember what it was called also.

2. Write about Things People Are Unaware Of Yet

It might sound strange to mention something like this, but no one in the whole universe knows everything about everything. The only person, and by person, I mean superior being, that should and does know about everything ever is our Almighty God!

To start off, do some research on what is currently trending right now on the internet. Not one thing stays trending on the internet forever. Most items or ideas will go through a fad and then disappear forever. For instance, virtual reality devices, like the Oculus Rift S, aren't as popular right now because it costs too much money for the public to afford. If they were able to find out more on what those VR devices offered, then the public would most likely be more receptive of the price and be more willing to give them a try.

3. Narrow down Your Blog Post Topics

Just like with the blog name being eye-catching, you need to look from the readers' perspective and ask yourself if the topic you chose for your post will make readers want to read more after just reading that. To give more insight into what I mean, HubSpot Academy gives us this idea: When you pick a topic, do not just use a generic one like "running shoes", you need to narrow it down to even better titles like "best running shoes for marathons" or "lifetime of running shoes". It gives more character to your post and it also shows that you spent your time doing research for your blog's post and did not just put something together thoughtlessly because you felt like you had to.

4. Slow Your Roll on Trying to Solve Everything Right Away

Once you find your topic that you would like to talk about in your blog post, make sure that you slow down and take your time explaining what exactly it is that you would like the reader to know and learn. If you try and tell them everything all at once, it will start to get confusing and the reader will not know how to interpret what it is you are saying to hem and they will most likely look elsewhere for insight on the topic they are researching.

Try to explain what you would like to get across to the readers in thought-out steps. For instance, on my YouTube channel, Mariojacob7red, I have tried making my own How-To videos because the ones I have researched and used before were not very detailed on what I should be expecting to see when doing what I was doing. What I did was I decided make videos of the same type that those other YouTubers made, but I wanted to make sure I added the needed details that they left out and thought was unnecessary to show and tell us and it still helps viewers to this day.

[My example of a video where I explain in detail what to do.]

5. Make it Look Good!

Lastly, you need to make your whole entire blog look amazing and to where it will draw in more people to read your blog and its posts. What I do for anything I make is I love using vibrant or vivid colors! An example of where I utilize this is my YouTube channel. Along with making sure I get my point across in the thumbnails, I believe adding color to those posts will draw in more viewers. This is also how I think blogs and YouTube videos work in a similar way.

Besides using colors, the way you have your blog laid out is also another key factor in attracting new readers to read your posts. I kind of like how the old Google Sites website worked because you used to be able to set your website up however you wanted. Designing it the way you want is what makes your blog and the content it has unique from everyone else's and nobody can copy you exactly because you are you!

If you follow these five simple steps, then I guarantee that you will be able to create a successful blog!

Happy blogging!

Sources used for research in this post:

https://www.theminimalists.com/blog/