An Event Apart: “Digital Marketing Strategies for the Busy ‘Web Master’”

Sarah Parmenter speaking at An Event Apart Seattle 2018 on April 2, 2018.

Reaching through the screens of our customers and holding their attention is becoming increasingly difficult thanks to the pace at which online content now moves and our dwindling attention spans. Nowadays the job of the multi-faceted web designer is to not only know the latest techniques for building in Grid but also know how to get that work seen amongst the saturated world of digital marketing. In this talk Sarah will be discussing the idea of quarterly website design reviews with a “design once use everywhere” mantra, plus digging into the ever changing world of Instagram algorithms, Facebook marketing, and topical social media takeaways for immediate implementation.

Notes

  • We’re still in the first 10,000 days of the web
    • Social media is only 3,000 days old
  • 33% of jobs don’t exist right now that will in 2020
  • “There is no social media. Social Media is a slang term for a collection of apps and websites that now dominate the end consumers attention in our society.” — Gary Vee
  • Consensual hallucination
    • 960 grid back in the day
    • Social media today
  • How can I help you? What can I do for you?
    • Our businesses need to get into this mindset
    • Instead of “Look at what I’ve got.”
  • The average time spent on social media per day is about 1 hour 48 minutes — the average time spent on the kinds of websites most of us make is 15 seconds
  • Quarterly design reviews — Strategically designing social campaigns, review successes and failures
  • Vanity metrics — Increasing number of followers rather than conversion rate
    • No different than site counters everyone used to add to their sites
  • Check your personal bias — There is no place for personal bias in social media
    • Don’t dismiss certain social networks because of personal feelings
  • 85% of Snapchat’s 158 million daily active users are between the ages of 18-34
  • By 2019 video will account for 80% of all internet traffic
  • Make sure you are:
    • Using https
    • Mobile ready
  • Stop using overlays and popups
    • Google has started to lower the ranking of websites “where content is not easily accessible” (a.k.a. pop-ups)
  • You’re better off being open about discount codes rather than losing customers looking for discounts
  • Start designing for long tail conversions
    • Things people take a long time to decide on
    • Expensive items
  • Facebook
    • Facebook Pixel — This needs to be on your radar
    • Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users
    • Facebook is so cheap right now
    • 50% of Facebook video content is viewed on mobile — 85% are viewed without sound
    • Facebook Live Videos — 6x engagement of regular videos
    • “…you’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard — it should encourage meaningful interactions between people” — Mark Zuckerberg
    • It all comes down to the creative — If Facebook isn’t working for you, something in your creative is not working
  • Google Adwords
  • Instagram
    • 700 million monthly active users
    • Social networks change their algorithms to deal with the “problem of success”
    • The quality on Instagram has gone through the roof in recent years
    • Hashtags are the plumbing of the Instagram ecosystem
      • Hashtags are not for users to read, they’re for discoverability
      • Posts with relevant hashtags have 12.6% higher engagement
      • Optimal amount of hashtags is 11
    • You can archive content and bring it back if you want
    • Planoly — the end to end Instagram visual management platform
  • Influencer marketing — Pay people for natural product placement
    • A survey from Nielsen showed only 33% trust advertisements, while 90% put their faith in peer recommendations
    • Average sponsored cost is $180
  • Design once, use everywhere
    • Keeping up with content creation
    • The brands dominating social media right now are those with the most agile teams who have exceptional storytelling capabilities, while bringing value to their users
    • Plan for the year, shoot images early
  • Ensure the networks you are strategically pursuing make sense for your business
  • Find your story for social media longevity

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