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Robyn Ackerman

Robyn Ackerman
In , Instagram, LinkedIn, Marketing, , Tips

5 Ways to Grow a Nonprofit Through Social Media in 2023

In today’s digital age, social media has become an essential tool for nonprofits to reach and engage with their supporters. It provides a platform for nonprofits to tell their stories, share their mission, and connect with their audience in a more meaningful way. However, simply having a social media presence is not enough to grow a nonprofit organization. Here are five ways nonprofits can leverage social media to grow their organization in 2023. By following the tips in this blog post, you can use social media to connect with potential donors, volunteers, and partners, and raise awareness for your cause.

  1. Audit your current social media platforms.

Before you can start growing your nonprofit organization on social media, you need to audit your current platforms. Take some time to assess your current social media presence and identify any areas that need improvement. Are you posting regularly? Are you engaging with your followers? Are you using the right hashtags? Once you know where you stand, you can start to make changes to improve your social media strategy.

  1. Prioritize video content.

Video content is becoming increasingly popular on social media. In fact, video is expected to account for 82% of all internet traffic by 2022. If you’re not already using video in your social media marketing, now is the time to start. Video is a great way to engage your audience, tell your story, and promote your products or services.

  1. Use social media to tell your story.

Social media is a great way to share your nonprofit’s story with the world to raise awareness for your caus. Share photos and videos of your work, interviews with your staff and clients, and behind-the-scenes footage of your events. The more people see your story, the more likely they are to get involved with your organization.

  1. Engage with your followers and potential donors.

Social media is a two-way street. It’s not just about broadcasting your message to the world. It’s also about engaging with your followers and responding to their comments and questions. The more you engage with your followers, the more likely they are to stay engaged with your organization. Nonprofits can use social media to connect with potential donors and volunteers by sharing stories about your work, posting updates about upcoming events, and running online campaigns. For example, a nonprofit that provides food to people in need could post photos of the food they distribute, or a nonprofit that works to protect the environment could post updates about their efforts to clean up litter.

  1. Use social media ads.

If you want to reach a wider audience and grow your business quickly, you can use social media ads. Social media ads can be a great way to promote your non-profit or services to a specific audience. You can target your ads based on demographics, interests, and even keywords.

Growing a nonprofit through social media requires effort, dedication, and a clear strategy. By developing a strong online presence, creating meaningful relationships with supporters, and using social media to share your mission, you can make a real impact and grow your organization. Embrace the power of social media in 2023 and take advantage of the opportunities it offers to expand your reach and achieve your nonprofit’s goals. With persistence and a personal touch, your nonprofit can thrive and make a difference in the world.

Robyn Ackerman
In Advertising, , Instagram, , Tips

How Facebook’s Latest Change Will Significantly Impact Ad Targeting

Meta for Business and Facebook just announced that beginning Jan 19, 2022, they are removing “detailed targeting options” from the Ads Manager Tool that would be considered “sensitive topics” such as: 

  • Health causes (e.g., “Lung cancer awareness”, “World Diabetes Day”, “Chemotherapy”) 
  • Sexual orientation (e.g., “same-sex marriage” and “LGBTQ+ culture”) 
  • Religious practices and groups (e.g., “Catholic Church” and “Jewish holidays”) 
  • Political beliefs, social issues, causes, organizations, and figures 

For clients of PDM, many of which provide services in the healthcare, education or professional service  industries, this can have a negative impact on personalized ad reach. 

Thankfully, there are still ways to reach your audience: 

5 methods your company can implement to still drive conversions through Facebook Ads in 2022 

  1. Engagement Custom Audiences: Reach people who have liked your page or people who have engaged with your posts in their News Feed. These people have already expressed a direct interest in your services or products and ads will yield a higher success rate if shown to them. 
  2. Location Targeting: If you own a brick-and-mortar or are advertising a local event, you can reach people in a specific vicinity using location targeting.  For businesses that offer services in the home, or companies that ship products, you may set your radius around serviced zip codes and your ad will be shown to people in those targeted areas. 
  3. Lookalike Audiences: Similar to Engagement Custom Audiences, Lookalike audiences can be built to target Facebook/Instagram users that fall under the same user categories as a seed audience.  Use this option if you want to broaden your reach to people who share interests, locations and have purchased products or services similar to yours.
  4. Website Custom Audiences: You can build a list on Facebook Ads that retargets anyone who has previously visited your website. Using Website Custom Audiences is a powerful remarketing tactic that will increase your conversions by 56%. 
  5. Customer Lists. If you have already built customer email lists in your own CRM tool and have permission from subscribers to use their information, you can upload your lists into Facebook’s Custom Audiences. This tool will help you target, retarget, and stay top of mind with old and new customers.   

Initially, once these changes take effect in January, you may experience a drop in conversions. However, if you set up your ads using any of the above approaches, you can avoid a big decline and keep your engagement and conversion numbers growing. 

Looking for help getting your ads set up? Reach out to a Pop Digital Marketing specialist and Get Discovered. 

Robyn Ackerman
In Blog, Marketing, News, , Tips, Training

Creating a Positive Virtual Culture for Your Company

Remote Company Culture

As 2020 wrapped over 50% of the American workforce had gone remote. According to a growmotely.com survey, 74% of employees expect to continue to work remotely indefinitely.  This has shifted the workforce to providing remote work from a once or twice a week perk to a full job expectation.

Organizations and companies who spent a good portion of the last 10 years building a positive in-person culture to attract and retain talent, now have to figure out how to transfer that culture online. To many, online access means more communication. To others, it leads to less interaction, less time to acquaint on a more personal level with co-workers, and ultimately less of a working relationship that generally builds comfort and positivity among staff.

One of the most underutilized marketing tactics is internal marketing. Get your team to love their work, their culture and they will organically market your company. So how do we modify our efforts of creating an in-person positive culture to that of an almost permanent positive virtual culture?

5 steps to create a positive virtual company culture:

  1. Revisit your company values, and make sure they still align with how you now function remotely. If employees feel that their work experience is not aligned with what your values state, there will be a disconnect. If need be, rewrite your company values to support your new way of internal efforts.
  2. Encourage open communication. Not like before. But really this time. Have an online wall of suggestions to make the company better and increase internal satisfaction. Microsoft Teams offers an excellent option for this through its “Channels”.
  3. Change your language. The way in which you refer to simple internal terms subconsciously sets the tone for each member. Take away terms like “daily tasks” that have a negative connotation to them. Use “Daily Goals” in your morning meeting language and end your days with each member noting their “Daily Accomplishments”.
  4. Create a positive online news board. Start progress tracking through a project management system like ASANA or Monday and share wins. This is where your employees get to share their accomplishments, co-employee gratitude, and more.
  5. Keep planning company events. Just because your company is mostly remote now, does not mean you have to cancel all events. You can hold a slew of online team-building activities or if enough of your team is local and comfortable, you can still continue quarterly/yearly outdoor events. The goal is to keep the fun current and the excitement ongoing.

What’s great about implementing all these ideas within your culture, is that these steps are all marketing tactics to increase internal brand happiness. Once your employees become accustomed to generating positivity virtually, it will trickle to their online actions as well. Those who were once reluctant to promote their work online are now embracing it and using the steps they found rewarding internally to promote where they work externally.

Ready to Get Discovered?

 

Robyn Ackerman
In Marketing, News

POP DIGITAL MARKETING NAMED ONE OF THE “BEST ENTREPRENEURIAL COMPANIES IN AMERICA” BY ENTREPRENEUR MAGAZINE’S 2019 ENTREPRENEUR360 LIST

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Robyn Ackerman
Pop Digital Marketing LLC
[email protected]
(224) 307-5240

POP DIGITAL MARKETING NAMED ONE OF THE “BEST ENTREPRENEURIAL COMPANIES IN AMERICA” BY ENTREPRENEUR MAGAZINE’S 2019 ENTREPRENEUR360 LIST

Skokie, IL, Pop Digital Marketing LLC (PDM) was recently recognized as one of the “Best Entrepreneurial Companies in America” by Entrepreneur magazine’s Entrepreneur360™ ranking, a premier study delivering the most comprehensive analysis of private companies in America. Based on this study forged by Entrepreneur, PDM is recognized as a well-rounded company that has mastered a balance of impact, innovation, growth leadership and value.

“Pop Digital Marketing is thrilled to be a part of an elite national list of fast-growing companies named on the Entrepreneur360 list. Our dedicated team works hard each day to ensure our clients’ needs are met and exceeded.” -Robyn Ackerman, CEO of Pop Digital Marketing.

“Every entrepreneur knows that a healthy business isn’t just about growth. It’s about being well-rounded—growing your culture and your systems as strongly as you grow your revenue,” says Jason Feifer, editor in chief of Entrepreneur Magazine. “That’s why we’re excited to celebrate these companies with our fifth annual Entrepreneur360™ ranking. The companies that make the list have pushed boundaries with their innovative ideas, fostered strong company cultures, impacted their communities for the better, strengthened their brand, and grown impressively as a result.”

Located in Chicago, we provide small, medium and large sized businesses the expertise, knowledge, creativity, and implementation of web marketing solutions to help “pop”, stand out from the competition and get discovered by customers.

Honorees were identified based on the results from a comprehensive study of independently-owned companies, using a proprietary algorithm and other advanced analytics. The algorithm was built on a balanced scorecard designed to measure five metrics reflecting major pillars of entrepreneurship—innovation, growth, leadership, impact and business valuation.

To learn more about Pop Digital Marketing, visit www.popdigitalmarketing.com.

For additional details on the E360 List and the companies recognized, visit: entrepreneur.com/360

###

Pop Digital Marketing is a fast paced and dynamic digital marketing company located in the heart of Chicago land. Established in 2013, we work with many prestigious organizations and companies, and are proud to share our expertise with companies that want to get discovered. We specialize in digital campaigns, including social media, optimization, email and PPC (Pay per Click), website design, and consultative services. Contact us at popdigitalmarketing.com.

ABOUT ENTREPRENEUR MEDIA INC.

For 42 years, Entrepreneur Media Inc. has been serving the entrepreneurial community by providing comprehensive coverage of business and personal success through original content and events. Entrepreneur magazine, Entrepreneur.com, GreenEntrepreneur.com and publishing imprint Entrepreneur Press provide solutions, information, inspiration, and education read by millions of entrepreneurs and small business owners worldwide.

 

Robyn Ackerman
In Advertising, Marketing, , Tips

How to use ‘Competitive Advantage First Language’ in your Marketing

The guidelines around how to develop effective messaging in your company’s ads have evolved considerably over the past 100 plus years. Fans of the TV show ‘Mad Men’ would be aware of the ad creation process in the 60s, which revolved heavily around storytelling via visual marketing collateral. And while that method is still well used, we now additionally rely on digital space advertising.

In the past, our ads drew on teasers, click-bait, and short descriptions in order to prompt prospects to click through to our product or service. As of the latest research, you have less than two seconds to grab the attention of a potential customer online – two seconds and they’re gone, they’ve already continued scrolling.

This means that the very first words a person sees on your posts, your ads and/or your website need to grab their attention immediately. One effective way to do this is by utilizing a competitive advantage first focused approach.

What is ‘competitive advantage first’ language’ marketing?

The competitive advantage first approach focuses on prioritizing your unique offerings, your differentiators in the very first copy of your ads – preferably at the beginning of the sentence.

If you’re unsure of what makes your company different, you’ll need to take a step back and do some hard research. Poll your current customers about what keeps them coming back, looks at what people are saying about your business in reviews, mentions on social, etc. What is it that comes up as the key defining feature that you want to be known for, and that others consistently refer to?

Why it works?

Very few businesses are entirely unique. There are likely hundreds or thousands of companies that do what you do, so you need to stand out to succeed. Catching the customer’s eye with your competitive advantage can be key to giving them a reason to click through.

Your secret sauce needs to be exactly what the customer needs, thinks he/she needs and/or doesn’t yet know they need yet. You are the answer to the question they’re asking.

Once you can adequately identify your competitive advantage, you can start working on the copy to place on your digital marketing campaigns. Your campaign language should visibly state how your service/product brings value.  If you only have those two initial seconds, it’s vital that the first words people see outline a value.

Remember to try and steer with positive adjectives, and to tailor each campaign to the audience you’re targeting.

Examples of Competitive Advantage First Language Ads:

Monday.com

This ad is a prime example of presenting its value to a select audience. Their Competitive Advantage? They’ve done research on their audience and know the demographics they are targeting respond to adjectives like “new generation”.  They lead with that claim.

Additionally, Monday.com claims to be the project management tool for Mac users.  Visually, they fill in their logo with the Mac brand colors to connect the two even further.

Allbirds.com

Allbirds successfully uses competitive advantage first language in this ad.  Look how they structure the ad copy under the video. Machine Washable is the biggest value and they placed that at the beginning of the sentence.  Normally it would be phrased, “When life gets dirty, you need machine washable shoes”.  But Allbirds took the value and restructured the sentence to grab the readers attention.

You can see how, by defining your key traits, you can boost your ad responsiveness. If there’s a key element you serve, it makes sense to highlight that in your copy – and with so little time to stop the scroll, you need to do so quickly.

 Need help with identifying your company’s Competitive Advantage? Let Pop Digital Marketing help you Get Discovered.

Robyn Ackerman
In Blog, , LinkedIn, Marketing, SEO, , Tips,

5 Free Tools to Monitor your Competitors’ Digital Marketing Campaigns

Creating a holistic digital marketing strategy can take months.  Effectively executing the strategy after tweaks, minimal fails and multiple learning curves can take up to a year.  One stage often omitted from this important plan is monitoring competition.   Watching your competitors online holds unparalleled benefits such as identifying market opportunities, connecting with companies you should be cross promoting, back-link insight, social listening and more.

Monitor Online CompetitionHere are 5 Free Tools to monitor your competition:

  1. Google Alerts: One of the most underused tools, Google Alerts allows you to monitor the internet for “interesting content”. You can set up alerts for your industry keywords or even for mentions and articles on your competition.  Google alerts lets you customize the email reports you receive by how often you’d like the notifications, type of sources, the origin of source, and languages. Use alerts to drive trending content ideas and see how well your competition is doing with PR.
  2. Facebook Pages: Facebook offers page admins the opportunity to “watch” competitor Facebook pages. To add a competitor page, simply go to your page insights, scroll to the bottom and type in the name of the business you’d like to watch.  You can see the company’s follower growth, engagement and even the competitor’s top post from the past week.
  3. HootSuite: HootSuite is a simple social media publishing tool that also offers numerous in-platform apps to increase the overall user experience. One of the free apps, TrendSpottr enables you to set up multiple “streams” in your HootSuite to watch trending topics, keywords, brand reputation and even identify industry influencers.  HootSuite is also an excellent “social listening” tool for when potential customers are unhappy with the competition.  Below is an example of great social listening in action.  In this instance, I had tweeted dissatisfaction to Xfinity and within minutes received this tweet from their competitor: social listening example
  4. Alexa: Alexa is a brilliant tool that my company uses prior to working with any company to analyze their overall reach. It can also be used to analytically measure competition.  You can see how the competitor’s website ranks globally, what keyword searches are driving traffic to the site, which pages generate the highest engagement, and which sites link to the competitor’s site.
  5. SEM Rush: SEM Rush offers great analytical reporting on all aspects of digital marketing performance. With a free account, you can see how your competition ranks, the keywords that generate high traffic, and even view their AdWords and video ad campaigns.

Once you have all this data at your fingertips, it is time to utilize it wisely by crafting new campaigns.  Contact websites that link to your competitors to build new relationships, start focusing on keywords that drive heavy traffic to your competition’s site, avoid social media snafu’s that failed on your competitors’ platforms, and contact your competitor’s dissatisfied customers through social listening.

Robyn Ackerman
In Blog, , Marketing, , Tips

Employee Brand Ambassadors | Why and How

A couple of years ago, we posted an article on Word of Mouth Marketing https://popdigitalmarketing.com/word-mouth-marketing/.  The article explained the new wave of marketing tactics utilizing current “brand fans” through social media.

To reiterate, studies have shown that consumers are 65% more likely to choose a brand based on the recommendation of another customer or employee than buying from a brand based on an ad or company promotion.  Customers today rely on trust.  They trust other people, like them making every day decisions.  They trust people, not companies.

Benefits of an Employee Brand Ambassador Program

employee brand ambassadorBuilding your brand takes consistency, time and a strong brand strategy.  It also takes a strong community of fans.  Your employees play a fundamental role in promoting your brand.  If your company is listed as the employee’s workplace on Facebook, LinkedIn or other social media platform, each and every time your employee engages in anything, they are representing your company.  Once your brand strategy and brand promise have been developed, you must train your employees in what your brand story is.  What your company represents.  The problem your service or product solves.

Employee Silence is Loud

Your employees have the potential to expand your reach exponentially.  Silence speaks volumes.  If your employees never endorse your brand, that sends a very clear message to customers.  They don’t love it. They do not believe in it.  If your employees are engaged in and passionate about promoting your company, they will “sell”.   It makes people excited to be a part of something everybody loves.  It’s also great for recruitment.

How to Build Your Employee Ambassador Program

  1. Develop your brand. This is the backbone of your program.  You cannot continue until you have this set in stone.
  2. Train your team. Your entire company must learn, understand and believe in your brand.  If they do not, it may signal that you aren’t delivering your brand promise and need to re-evaluate either your brand promise or the process of your services/products.
  3. Choose an Ambassador Leader. The Ambassador Leader is someone in your company that loves everything about coming to work. They already show their ambassadorship, share your company news online, have a strong following online and are an “influencer” online and off.  This person does not need to be in your marketing department and can be at any level of management.
  4. Make the program optional. You only want people participating if they choose to. If it is forced on everyone, it will show.  The Ambassador Leader should assemble an Ambassador Team of employees that are excited to be a part of this new program.
  5. Set expectations. Make sure the program has very clear and easy guidelines.  The easier the program is to participate in, the more employees will want to join.   If you are using an ambassador management system, provide each participant with a tutorial.  If you are not using a system, make sure create your own standard process.
  6. Don’t write scripts…..but have materials ready. Allow each team member to promote the materials in his or her own words.  Again, we want to work off trust.  If customers see everyone writing the exact same script, it becomes an ad, not a genuine referral.   If you are not using an Ambassador system, you can use google docs to place all the types of content/materials you want promoted, and track employees’ efforts there.
  7. Lead by example. Don’t expect employees to be passionate about your brand if your top executives are not.  The leaders of your company do not necessarily need to participate in the program for rewards, but they absolutely should use the material to promote on across their various networks.
  8. Measure and Reward. Make sure you have a measuring system set.  Hashtags are an excellent tool for measuring.  Choose a specific hashtag such as “PopDigitalMarketinglife” and check it on a weekly basis.  Your Ambassador Program should provide rewards as well.  Rewards must be attainable and set on a short term basis (people like immediate results).  Rewards can range from praise and recognition, gift cards, group lunches to elaborate gifts.
Robyn Ackerman
In , How to, Marketing,

Boosting a Facebook Post | Best Practices

Facebook offers a wonderful way to “boost” or “promote” your content by paying a bit extra money (as low as $5).  This is separate from Facebook ads, which requires a higher level of online marketing expertise to generate success.  Facebook has made it quite easy to set-up a boosted ad post which creates an attractive option to those not as skilled in online advertising to try out.  I see a lot of small and medium sized business utilizing this tool lately, yet only about 1/3 of them are doing it correctly.

What is a “Post Boost”?

When your company page writes a status, shares a picture or uploads a video you are given the option to “boost” that post.  See below for a visual on where the option is.  Boosted posts will appear higher up on the newsfeed (note: not in the right ad column) to increase viewership.

Facebook Post Boost

Why you should Boost a Post?

By promoting or boosting a post, you are reaching more people.  If you choose to have the post boosted, you can check a box to have it show up to people who like your page and their friends, or you can target it to anyone on facebook.  You can target people based on location, age, gender and interests.  This will guarantee your post is seen by those who find your business relevant.

What type of posts should be “Boosted” or “Promoted”?

First, it’s important to track your facebook insights to learn which content engages your fans.  Those types of posts will perform the best as a promoted/boosted post.

Second, you have to strategically plan the desired goals and outcomes of this campaign.  Are you trying to generate more likes on your page?  Bring about greater brand awareness?  Highlight a service or event?  Generate traffic to your website?  Knowing this in advance will ensure a higher return on the investment.

Currently, statistics show that boosting a facebook post works best for:

  • Increasing visits to your facebook business page
  • Creating awareness about events
  • Generating interest in online offers
  • Spreading updates and news
  • Contests or Sweepstakes

Best practices for boosting posts:

Make sure that the post you are paying to run has timely information.  For example, do not boost a post that states a date in it: “It’s Wednesday, and we are giving away 5 free….”.  By putting a date on it, anytime it runs after that day, people will ignore it.

Boost a post that generates “likes” and engagement.  Don’t boost a post that requires no action from the viewer.  Make sure there is a question to be answered, a page to be taken to with valuable information, or a hot topic to “like” or even disagree with.  The more action (clicks, likes, shares) the post gets- the higher up it will go with Facebook EdgeRank.

Robyn Ackerman
In Blog, Marketing, Tips, Web Development

5 Questions to ask when Building a New Website

Building a new website is a project many companies take on with excitement.  However, after countless hours of confusing proposals from web designers, the project can quickly turn tedious.  In order to ensure you are getting the most out of this endeavor, I have compiled a list of 5 important questions you should ask when interviewing potential website designers.

  1. What platform do you recommend for my business?

building a websiteThere are many different website building platforms out there and understanding which one your designer is most skilled in is very important.  More so, you want to know why they would recommend your site to be built on a specific platform.  If you work as a photographer, Square Space may be best for you. Whereas if you have high traffic online store, Drupal may be the top option as it has the highest rating for multiple users at a time.  WordPress works great for many CMS (Content Management Systems) needs and is usually Pop Digital Marketing’s “go-to” platform due to its versatility.

Your site should reflect the needs of your customer!  Not solely the expertise of the web-designer.  A web-designer must be well-versed in all the top options in order to best evaluate which one would fit the needs of your site while also assessing what type of online experience your customers are looking for.

  1. Does my package come with a responsive design?

A responsive design refers to a site providing an optimal viewing experience across a range of devices (computer, phone, tablet etc.) while minimizing the need to re-size words or navigations.  In April, 2015, Google began to boost ratings and positions of sites that had a responsive design.

In today’s world – you should not be charged extra for a mobile ready site.  Any theme created in the last 5 years is already made with a responsive design option and all custom designs should include that in the package.  Paying extra for a responsive site in 2017 is like paying extra for air-conditioning in a car after 1970.  The demand is that 100% of sites need it, therefore it should not be an optional “add on”.

  1. Will you be using a pre-made template or custom building one?

This question is important because the price between the two options varies immensely.  If your designer is using a pre-made template or a “theme”, it means they do not have to build the infrastructure of the site, rather they are just using modules or plugins to “fill the pieces in”.  If the designer is custom building the site, they are doing everything from the ground work up.

There are certainly pros and cons to both.  Overall, a pre-made template will cost you a lot less.  Using a pre-made template means updates are done by the theme designer- not your website designer, at no extra cost and requires little from your end.  If you have an employee on your team that can routinely press the update button on the site when prompted, this may be the best choice for you.

A pro to building your own custom site is that it is made exactly how you choose.  You do not feel constricted by what a theme can or cannot do.  A con to building a custom site however is you will likely have to pay your web designer an ongoing fee to maintain the site.  What if they go out of business or show a lack of responsiveness?  You do have to consider how a long term relationship will play out with this web designer.

  1. How will the site be optimized?

The whole goal of a website should be to attract leads and develop them into a customer.  If your site is not optimized from the backend with meta data to the front end with on page relevant keywords and call to actions, your site will fail you.

As a result of search engines now measuring on-site engagement in their rankings, you must also ask your designer what they plan for the “user experience”.  Will there be a user flow plan?  What actions do you anticipate the potential customer to take on each and every page and how will your site nurture their interest?

  1. Who will update it and how often?

It is important to understand the ongoing expectations before you sign any contracts.  If you have someone on your team that can manage the sit-e great!  If not, make sure to ask your website designer what type of retainer fees/programs they offer to maintain your site updates.

This will help you avoid the common issue of possessing a great website but not knowing how to add to or edit it.  Ask your designer to include an hour or two training session as part of your contract once the site is done, but before you go “live”.

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