THE STRATEGIES OF DIGITAL MARKETING

What they are and how to adapt to the latest updates from Google & Facebook.

 

According to the digital marketing institute (DMI) , the Digital Marketing it is that form of marketing which, through the use of digital channels, promotes and / or markets products and services to consumers and businesses.
With the term Digital marketing, we therefore refer to a form of interactive marketing whose main objective will be to:

• Engage in the promotion of the products and / or services provided and of its brand.
• Always reach new contacts and convert contacts into customers.
• Increase sales through various channels such as internet, mobile, TV and radio.

Various activities are included in digital marketing, including search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), e-commerce marketing and marketing campaigns, social media marketing, social media optimization, e-mail marketing.
But it also extends to non-internet channels that deliver digital media, such as mobile phones (SMS and MMS).

 

 

SEO & SEM: What are they?

 

 

They represent two of the cornerstones of digital marketing.
The term Search Engine Marketing (SEM) refers to a branch of web marketing that applies to search engines and which includes the implementation of all those web marketing techniques that are able to generate qualified traffic to a particular site web.
The aim is to bring to the website an increase, through search engines, of incoming traffic, the greatest number of visitors who are really interested in its contents by searching for one or more keywords.
While for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) "we mean all those activities aimed at obtaining the best detection, analysis and reading of the website by search engines through their spiders, in order to improve (or maintain) a high ranking in response pages to web users' queries regarding the keyword searched. "

From a first analysis it can therefore be said that SEO is an integral part of the SEM and consequently they will have some elements in common and others not.

The connecting points between them are:

• availability on search engines.
• keywords: doing SEO and SEM always means choosing carefully the keywords that will mark a web content.
• planning: both are part of a medium and long-term planning plan aimed at achieving ROI

Instead we can say that the elements that differentiate them can be traced back to only one: TIME.
Doing SEO looks at both the short and the medium and long term, due to the continuous evolution of search engines:
the more Google and other search engines update their ranking parameters, the more optimization techniques we were aware of may no longer be enough.

So those who work with SEO "build online content so that it is more easily available today, constantly update what they produced yesterday and know that everything they have done may not be enough tomorrow."

Instead, those who deal with SEM tend to build their work on the present time, trying to improve the results that are required of them in that portion of time.

Consequently, investments will also have a profound difference, as those who invest in SEO mostly invest in human resources, thus acting in the long term and amortizing the cost incurred by a company.

Contrary to SEM, it means managing budgets that are allocated and spent with a certain speed.
Furthermore, it will invest in professionals who will dedicate themselves to the SEA, this will mean that the costs will not be amortized if the investment does not pay off in the short term.

From all this, it will be possible to understand the importance of the perfect integration between the two activities in order for both to give satisfactory results.

 

 

 

REACH

 

 

As previously mentioned, digital marketing, in addition to SEM and SEO, is made up of various activities.
Among them, social media marketing assumes a very important value.
Obviously speaking of social media, the first one to which reference is made is Facebook, and it is precisely this social network that we will deal with, by organizing digital marketing strategies in social networks.

When you come across the term reach, you are talking about reach: "the number of" unique "people who see (and therefore can interact with) your content." As not all “fans” of the page will see the content and not everyone who sees the content will be fans of the page.
Shares, likes and comments are not ends in themselves but influence the Facebook algorithm, increasing the ability of the post to be distributed on the social network.

There are three types of reach:

• organic: how many people your post reached, as fans of the page;
• for a fee: after publishing a post, you sponsor it, that is, you use money as if it were doping to increase its performance and therefore reach more people (chosen with the "create audience" tool);
•  viral: the number of people who have seen your post (or page) mentioned in a story posted by a friend, or who have simply received likes and comments from friends who are fans of your page.

 

 

 

ELEMENTS ON WHICH TO DEVELOP DIGITAL MARKETING ON GOOGLE AND FACEBOOK

 

A good digital marketing strategy must therefore be structured around some essential elements:

• As far as Facebook is concerned, the scope will be fundamental: It will be influenced by various factors, as the social network takes into account likes, comments and shares.
  Photos are also very important, for example with respect to links, as Facebook does not really want to let you "escape outside" and users are more likely to look at photos rather than open links.
  Furthermore, the algorithm takes into account factors such as the previous obscuring of some types of posts or advertisements by a user, people (and therefore their interests) who have chosen to unfollow (therefore they no longer appear in the home page. ), priority and / or greater interaction with some types of pages to the detriment of others.
  So a satisfying social media sharing system will be able to better advertise my website and guarantee me constant views.

 

• Instead, the investment in search engine optimization is very long.
  If I have a website and I want it to improve its ranking with respect to the keywords that characterize it, it can take months before the site itself meets all the necessary characteristics.
  I will not be able to base the entire digital marketing strategy only on the creation of an AdWords campaign, I will above all have to choose my SEA and SEM campaigns well.
  If the site is written with poor quality content, if the navigation between the various sections is incomprehensible or difficult, if the construction in html does not take into account the mobile traffic being heavy to load for those who arrived via a search on the smartphone, the the result will be that that large turnout will cease when I no longer invest in SEA because I will not have done anything to make myself credible and favor the permanence in the present and in the future on my site.
  If I do SEO correctly a certain content, be it brand new or dated, it will always be repeated at the top of the SERP whenever the keywords chosen to connote it will be searched for by a user.
  In short, doing SEO means working with the credibility of an editorial product, creating content that pleases the engine and at the same time also pleases the reader.
  But credibility is worthless if I can't get the maximum exposure of my content on a regular basis.
  Doing SEM means attracting new traffic to my website, we could say that it decrees how popular a content is with respect to certain keywords.

 

 

 

THE CHANGES AND INNOVATIONS OF GOOGLE AND FACEBOOK

 

As mentioned above, good programming must still be monitored and renewed frequently, as both Google and Facebook are always subject to improvements and changes.
In evaluating a page, Google has begun to consider the iconographies and this means that the search engine has understood that simplicity can also be declined through multimedia.
Other significant changes concern the links to the sitemap of a site, with the creation of a web page that has the sole purpose of guiding a visitor to navigate within it with ease.
These are variations that underlie a single purpose: linearity and cleanliness from an SEO perspective.
The more a page is rich in content but "poor" in rambling html commands, java plug-ins that are not decisive, the faster it will be able to be consulted, especially on mobile devices, and this will have an increasingly higher weight in the evaluation of web content. .

One of the latest Facebook innovations concerns precisely reach and in particular the organic one.

A study by EdgeRank Checker found a 9.4% decline in organic reach of Facebook posts between February 2012 and March 2014.
Another study, from February 2014, conducted by Social @ Ogilvy found that the pages with more than 500,000 likes have, on average, a percentage of organic reach of 2%.
Also, as of April 2014, the total number of pages that each user likes has grown by an average of 50%.
It thus becomes a war in the news feed, where the only valid and effective weapon is called "money".

So the organic reach is having difficulties because the Facebook algorithm (EdgeRank) is changing due to the user base that continues to grow.
The accounts increase, the pages multiply, the groups are swarming so you won't be able to have everything on your page and you will have to sacrifice something.

 

 

 

LIVE FOREVER WITH GOOD DIGITAL MARKETING

 

 

Reaching a user, interested him and making sure that you are always traceable in the universe of the network is a requirement that cannot be ignored.
A digital marketing strategy cannot therefore do without investments in search engines and social networks.
If creativity is a necessary condition for your post to be read, shared and lead to a transaction with a potential customer, it is by no means a sufficient condition for your editorial product to be competitive.
You will never be able to reach every single fan with your own updates, but you can optimize your content strategy with small tricks like:

• Build lasting relationships.

• Publish each time with a goal.

• Change your editorial plan often.

This is why a Digital Marketing strategy integrated between SEO and SEM and a good use of social media are the ABCs of digital marketing: to have results you must necessarily be credible and popular at the same time.