#MDMC19: Rocking Visual Marketing as Non-Designers

By Patricia Knight


Jeff Sieh, Known as “Head Beard” Host for Manly Pinterest Tips and Owner/Creative Director at His Design, Inc. talked to us about visual marketing can be used without being a Graphic Designer. Visual is super important to describe what’s going on in the image that we view or create. Sieh discussed taking the graphics to the next level. He showed us an image of a Barbie doll wearing a shrimp on her head like a hat as a joke to the Australian phrase, “Putting shrimp on the barbie”. A picture of a cannoli dessert on the bottom of the word “I” and top of the word “imagine” to create a pun for the phrase, “I can only imagine”.

 

  • Collect Consistently

 

Pixar’s Instagram page is the best example of images that related to visual marketing since they are the best storyteller on their platform. Pinterest is a good place to share images to audiences to stand out your pinboards on your page. Taking photos can help you with ideas of storytelling later. Evernote is a great app to collect ideas for images when you’re out and about. Dribbble app is for designers to go get inspired and get hired as creative professionals.

A mental note is no note at all”

-Ken Davis

Adobe Capture CC app is used for capturing photos and turning into a scalable vector for use in a logo, illustration, animation, and more. You can even find your typography and capture light and color to turn into beautiful color grading profiles for your images and videos. Font Finder is a cool app where you take a picture or upload from your phone, tap the font that you want to identify and test it out with your own text.

http://Depositphotos.com is definitely a timesaver for finding ideas for content with royalty-free photographs, vector images, stock footage and editorial files available to use for customers that you work with. http://www.Ifttt.com is a website that you can visit to save ideas with connecting all of your different apps and devices, like automatically backing up your photos and sharing them online for you. Thanks to Ifttt, procrastination is Jeff’s main power. SPAR! app gets you to create or join a challenge for goals with your friends, make a proof that you achieved your goal(s), and winners get to split the pot.

  •  Condense Construction

The site, http://www.Canva.com is great for quick and easy graphics for social media headers and posts.  Another graphic site, http://www.easil.com allows you to create awesome Instagram story templates.

Templates are very important for creating images for flyers and signs. Photoshop templates are made in Adobe Photoshop program to create image contents that can include words or phrases.

The websites, www.creativemarket.com and www.mightydeals.com are best for photoshop templates. Creative Market-Scene Creator Mockup is great for adding a photo layer on top of an image background. There are free stock photo sites for people who don’t want to pay for anything, like pexels.com, unsplash.com, and librestock.com, while depositphotos.com and www.123RF.com  are the only paid stock photo sites for images that you want to use.

Video templates are created by using Adobe Premiere to create and edit videos with clips. Movable GIF-like ads on Pinterest are the coolest ways to get people engaged like Kohl’s Cash ad that can allow while you’re browsing on Pinterest. The video templates site, videohive.net, and digitaljuice.com have everything that you need to create videos on Adobe Premiere. Wave.video is great for creating Instagram Story with awesome music, watermark, and high-quality video. Slide.ly/promo is a quick video creator whenever you want to share videos to everyone right away.

Free video creator such as headliner.app and Adobe Spark let you create clips and graphics into stunning storytelling videos to share to the audiences on social media platforms. Enlight is a paid mobile app that is used for revitalize colors with two-toned gradients for a retro feel in images and decorative touches with add and customize text, doodle, borders of photos and other cool creative stuff.

Sieh used a self-portrait of himself on one of the image editing apps called FaceTune and use Brad Pitt’s head as a layer image to cover his entire head as an example of using an image layer in a photo. Afterlight 2 have cool filters to edit image brightness and contrast. Instasize app use filters that are similar to Instagram’s filters while you edit photos and videos. Apollo: Immersive Illumination is the only mobile app that allows you to add light sources to your Portrait Mode photos even after the photos is taken.

Enlight Photofox  is an app that I personally use that create sophisticated layers by combining photos and re-edit each layer at any time as well as making stunning double exposures and unique designs with graphic elements. Enlight Quickshot mobile app edits any photo and takes photos with a filter like Instagram, but you get to add neat special effects. Enlight Pixaloop mobile app helps you refresh your photos into life with photo element like adding clouds in the sky to move along with animations in seconds and easily created cinematic magic with your images. This app also allows your image to be animated.

Photoshop CC- Workflow is a program to use on the computer to edit images with special filters and layer images to make them unique for audiences to be engaged to your creation. Enlight Videoleap mobile app has cool features like mixing videos to make them creative, adding text and emojis, visually use Hollywood green screen to make Hollywood-level films, and adding fun & artistic effects. Slider by Word Swag app helps you easily turn your photos into a video story, brand your own posts with logo and colors, and twerking your posts to sing with your own music or exclusive TV-quality tracks. You can get access to over a million free photos in this app. Adobe Rush app allows everyone to shoot, edit, share videos with cool features to social channels.

  • Combine Creatively

Stephanie Liu works for Lights, Camera, Live as a host and she stands out her creativity by using her image on the computer screen for a graphic advertisement for her Facebook Live show. Colorzilla is a Google Chrome Plugin that allows everyone to use any color that they pick for their brands. The website, Paletton.com is great at letting visitors select any color in the color palette for their graphic images. Adobe Rush is similar to Adobe Premiere, but it’s free to use for everyone who wants to create videos.

“90% perfect and shared with the world always changes more lives than 100% perfect and stuck in your head.”

-Jon Acuff

Sieh also mentioned that image contents don’t have to be perfect, but with excellent quality and having people help you with creating good images can be a good thing. Creating image content can sometimes be hard for some people to do if they didn’t have knowledge of visual marketing.

I learn a lot of different programs that allow everyone to create images and videos to gain audiences to view their social media posts. It was very fun to hear good facts about visual marketing. Go follow Jeff Sieh on Twitter @jeffsieh and connect with him on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/jeffsieh/. You can also visit his website, http://manlypinteresttips.com for podcasts, blogs, and videos about Visual Marketing.

#MDMC19: Shane Barker Reveals Everything You Need To Know About Influencer Marketing

By Sarah Thomas


It is no secret that influencer marketing is extremely successful! I mean with 1 billion monthly users on Instagram spending an average of 53 minutes a day on the platform, influencers have a huge reach! Influencer marketing has completely taken off leaving a lot of businesses’ in the dark on how to use it to their advantage and just not using it at all.

Digital Strategist and Influencer Consultant, Shane Barker shared his influencer marketing expertise with us at MDMC this year. Shane shared everything from his experience consulting influencers, to the best ways for businesses to utilize influencer marketing. Keep reading for answers to your influencer marketing questions!

Influencer Marketing Works

Influencer marketing works because influencers have gained the trust of their audience. When someone you know suggests something, you trust their opinion and recommendations. This is why when an influencer shares a product, their audience is quick to try it! Even I have been guilty of impulse buying the electric toothbrush that my favorite youtuber swears by – haha!

 

Finding The Right Influencers

Shane shared four tools that can help you find influencers that best suit your business and goals.

  • Buzzsumo – Helps you find trending content ideas and relevant influencers
  • GRIN – Find influencers, and run and track your campaigns
  • GroupHigh – Find relevant bloggers and influencers, track and measure content reach
  • Insightpool – Identify relevant influencers with helpful tools like discovery, activation, and insights

How To Pitch Influencers

Before you send a pitch, you should get to know the influencer you are interested in. Do this by taking the time to follow and engage with what they share on social media. Look for any common interests that you can mention when reaching out. A pitch should be personalized to each influencer you are reaching out to so that the influencer gets the sense you genuinely want to work with them. Influencers are receiving a lot of pitches so be sure to make yours unique!

Successful Influencer Marketing

In order for influencer marketing to be successful, Shane shared a few key components to control.

  • Know your audience – this is the biggest thing to consider before choosing an influencer. Choose an influencer that has the same audience as your target audience.
  • Know your goals – in order to keep things clear with the influencer you should set specific goals and communicate those to your influencers.
  • Customize your approach – Your approach should be customized to each influencer you work with depending on their audience and personality

Now that you’re in the know on how businesses can utilize influencer marketing, take the leap and try it out! Be sure to check out Shane Barker, @shanebarker on Instagram and @shane_barker on Twitter.

#MDMC19: Instagram Expert Jenn Herman Shares How to Grow Your Instagram and Make More Sales

By Sarah Thomas


Here’s the undeniable truth about Instagram at the moment – it is POWERFUL. The engagement rates on Instagram are higher than all social media platforms making it is the best platform to build a community for your brand.

Instagram expert Jenn Herman, who you may know by her Instagram handle, Jenn’s Trends, shared everything you need to know to strengthen your game on Instagram at MDMC this year. Jenn is a social media marketing consultant, author, and speaker with a huge community of followers on Instagram. One thing is for sure, Jenn packed the room during her presentation and captured the attention of the audience with her vivacious personality and humor! Continue reading for a recap of the valuable steps Jenn provided to grow your Instagram and make more sales.

Clearly, you should not want to miss this, I mean look at how packed her session was!

Create a Profile That Attracts Followers

Jenn shared that the most important factors in your profile are as follow:

  • Name & username
  • Profile Photo
  • Bio Description
  • URL
  • Contact Info

These are the first impression of your audience so use them wisely! One thing Jenn stressed is the use of hashtags in your bio – do not overdo this. The only hashtags you should be using in your bio are hashtags that are specific to your brand, otherwise, you are sending viewers to a hashtag that has nothing thousands of photos with no relation to you.

Better Attention with Better Content

Jenn explained that less is more when it comes to content. The quality of your content is much more important than the quantity of content. A couple of posts a week that get engagement are much more effective than posting every day with little to no engagement. To get more engagement with your content, find ways to connect to your audience through emotion, this can be done using humor or relatable stories.

Get More Reach and Followers

Strategies you should be using to get a larger reach include:

  • “Tag” friends – have your audience tag friends in the comments, this gives more exposure to your posts
  • Hashtags – use hashtags that are specific to your brand or industry
  • Resharing to Stories – make sure your audience is able to share your stories to theirs, you can find this option in your settings.

With all of this in mind, you are officially ready to go step up your Instagram game and build your brand’s community! If you aren’t familiar with Jenn be sure to follow her on Instagram @jennstrends, there is no doubt you will benefit from all of the tips and tricks she is constantly sharing with her followers.

#MDMC19: Wilson Raj- Elevating your Customer Experience with AI

By Kyle Eggering


AI has begun to dominate the marketing discussion. Who better to give us a rundown on AI than Wilson Raj!? Raj is the Global Director of Customer Intelligence at SAS. SAS is a world-renowned data analytics company that’s been around since the 1960s. The quality of their company is clearly shown in Raj, a true leader in his field and an excellent speaker as well.

One of the main points Raj tried to emphasize is that AI does not do all the work for you. An example he used an ancient stone tablet of one of the first recorded transactions ever made. On it, it listed everything you would expect a transaction to list. The name of the buyer and seller, what was being sold, how much it was sold for in the end, all data that is easily stored. But what it didn’t have was what Raj called “haggling data.” Haggling data is the human part of the data that machines don’t tend to pick up. How aggressive was the seller? What did the buyer expect to have to pay in the beginning? How much debate was done between the two on the pricing? This is the type of data that would be considered haggling data.

What AI does allow us to do, is worry less about the statistical data, and focus on the human data. By learning what your customer is like, you can turn them from a customer, into an advocate. This is the main point Raj wanted to make, and AI can help with this. By learning data on the customer, AI can help you find out what you need to do to please them. But ultimately, humans know humans better than computers do, and it’s up to you to keep that customer. Just know that AI can give you a little bit of help with that.

Are you interested in MDMC? Be sure to check it out at https://bestmarketingconference.com/en/. And if you want to know more about Raj, be sure to check him out on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/wilsonraj/.

#MDMC19: World Exclusive: A Sneak-Peek at LinkedIn Live

LinkedIn_Live_Strub

By Kyle Eggering


On Wednesday, April 17, MDMC attendees got a sneak peek at the next big feature of the social media giant, LinkedIn. LinkedIn Live, LinkedIn’s competitor to other live video services like Facebook Live, will be coming to all LinkedIn users in time, but in the meantime, Chris Strub, author of 50 States, 100 Days: The Book, demoed the service in front of the conferencegoers.

The new service from LinkedIn is only available to a few hundred people right now, but Chris Strub was lucky enough to get his hands on it early. The new service is a little different from other services on the market. It requires a professional, 3rd party app to use, in order to keep the livestreams more professional, fitting the tone of the rest of the website. The streaming service has around 45 seconds of delay now, but this is common for streaming services like this and is acceptable for a more relaxed, person to person style streaming service. The service does have some kinks to be worked out, as the stream went down mid-presentation, but it shows a lot of promise.

Chris also made sure to emphasize how easy the service is to use. Anyone with a smartphone and a 3rd party app, many of which are free, will be able to use the service. LinkedIn wanted to make the service both accessible and professional, and it’s looking like their work will pay off.

If you don’t have a LinkedIn yet, or you want to keep up to date with LinkedIn Live, be sure to register here at https://www.linkedin.com. And be sure to keep up to date with all MDMC news at https://bestmarketingconference.com/en/.