Over 75% of Americans age 15 and up are on Youtube and the platform boasts over 2 billion active monthly users. Let’s learn more about YouTube marketing.

So when it comes to social media marketing, here’s a channel that can’t be overlooked- Youtube. Over 75% of Americans age 15 and up are on Youtube and the platform boasts over 2 billion active monthly users. Let’s learn more.

Just like every other platform we’ve discussed, the first step in marketing on this channel is to set up a business account.

Since YouTube is part of Google, you’ll need a Google account in order to sign up for YouTube. Managing your YouTube channel with a Brand Account is the best practice. A Brand Account lets multiple people in an organization manage and update the company YouTube channel.

Once your account is set up, make sure to add your “About” information, upload channel art and a profile picture, and add in your social media and website links. Check out this step-by-step walkthrough from Hootsuite for more details.

In addition to visual branding, if you already have content on your channel, make sure to group your videos into playlists organized by topic and create a channel trailer. A trailer is like a commercial representing what your channel is about.

Now that your channel is optimized, it’s time to start creating more content. Before investing time and energy into creating videos, make sure you have a good sense of what your ideal audience wants to see.

Spend some time researching who your target audience is already following on YouTube and get a good sense of what types of videos they are already watching.

Analyzing your competitors gives you insights into their number of subscribers, the average number of views per video, how often they post, the main topics they post about, and their top-performing content.

If your company already has a YouTube channel set up, check out the Analytics tab to gain insights into your audience’s demographics and interests. You also can see how your audience is currently finding your videos. It’s helpful to know if they are finding your content on Youtube, or from another platform like LinkedIn.

In this lesson, you’ll learn more about the factors that determine high-performing videos and how you can leverage this information to grow your channel.

Like all other social media platforms, the algorithm determines the types of content that is seen by users. 

According to TikTok: “The system recommends content by ranking videos based on a combination of factors — starting from interests you express as a new user and adjusting for things you indicate you’re not interested in, too.” Let’s learn more about these factors and how you can leverage this information to grow your channel.

The more engagements and views a TikTok video receives, the more likely it will be served to larger audiences. Positive indicators include likes, comments, shares, and re-watches.

TikTok is great at categorizing content based on user interests, which is why it’s so important that you find and stick to your niche on the platform. TikTok determines subject matter from caption keywords, sounds, hashtags, effects, and video subtitles.

When a video includes a trending sound or song, the algorithm will use this to categorize your content and serve it to relevant audiences. Tapping into trending audio is a great way to reach new audiences, as the algorithm will serve your video to people who have already engaged with the trend.

The TikTok algorithm is always trying to serve high-interest videos to every user. They consider videos you’ve marked as “Not Interested,” users you’ve hidden, and videos you skip through.

Each of these factors is weighed by TikTok’s recommendation system which means each For You page is completely unique.When creating content, keep these factors in mind — it’ll help you optimize your TikTok videos and get more views.

Having your content seen on multiple For You pages (FYPs) is one of the best ways to get more views on TikTok. The FYP is the app’s homepage, filled with an endless feed of algorithmically curated content tailored to a user’s interests.

Unlike other platforms that require large numbers of followers, anyone’s content can be featured on your FYP.

Prioritizing the following factors will help ensure your content has the best chance of being seen and watched by a large number of TikTok users.

1) Make sure to use relevant keywords or hashtags in your captions. 2) Create content for your niche. If you are a social media marketer, creating content about social media marketing and only social media marketing will give you the best chance for success.

3) Prioritize shorter videos and keep your content under 15 seconds long. 4) Lastly, make sure to post at optimal times.

Just like Instagram, TikTok has built in analytics that show you when your audience is online. From your business account homepage, tap on the three bars in the top right hand corner of your screen and then tap on “Business Suite.”

From there, tap on “analytics” and then “followers.” This will then show you where your audience is from and when they are online. Unlike Instagram, the analytics display follower activity in your local time zone.

Tracking your analytics will give you a thorough understanding of how the content you’re creating is performing.

Like with Instagram, TikTok has a helpful built-in analytics dashboard you can use to see metrics like video views, profile visits, and your follower count.

By monitoring your performance trends, you’ll be able to identify areas of growth, decline, and opportunity. For instance, if your behind-the-scenes videos get the most views, you can consider prioritizing more of this type of content.

Also check to look for trends to determine whether you get more engagement when you post on a certain day or at a certain time.

Use this data to inform your future content strategy, but keep testing and soon you will have a good idea of what and when you need to post to ensure your content gets seen by the most people.

In this lesson, we will get granular and walk you through the exact steps for putting together your first video.

In our last lesson, you learned about setting up your account and considering your goals and what types of content your audience wants to see. In this lesson, we will get granular and walk you through the exact steps for putting together your first video.

Before hitting record, always start by storyboarding your concept.The next video will walk you though exactly how to do that.

Once you are done storyboarding, it’s time to record! You can either shoot content directly in TikTok, or upload form your camera roll. To shoot directly within TikTok, press and hold the large red button on the creation tab.

When creating content directly within TikTok, you can take advantage of the app’s built-in features like sound, speed, filters and timers.

Alternatively, you can upload clips directly from your camera roll. This is great for when you have footage that you want to use across multiple platforms. To add clips from your camera roll, tap the “Upload” button on the right-hand side of the screen.

Next, it’s time to get busy editing! TikTok’s video editing tools allow you to add text, apply the “text-to-speech” feature, add stickers or voice effects, and more.

The next video will walk you through all the ways you can customize your TikTok video.

Once you are done editing, it’s time to publish your content. Like Instagram Reels, you can select a section of the video to create a cover image.

Unlike other social media platforms, the caption limit on TikToks is short- only 150 characters. Keep the caption to 1 or 2 lines and plan on using 1-2 hashtags. If you are looking to hop on a trend, make sure you use those trending tags.

In this lesson, you will learn more about setting up your business account, creating a strategy, and how to figure out what your audience needs.

A TikTok business account is designed specifically for brands and companies, and gives you the ability to partner with influencers, run ads, and assess your analytics.

If you want to be successful on TikTok, you’ll need to have a strategy in place. The next slides will cover how to create one.

Step 1: Determine your goals. Whether you want to build brand awareness or drive traffic to your website, list out your SMART goals for the channel.

Think about who your target audience is, what content will resonate. Do they want tips and tricks? How to’s? Behind-the-scenes? Personal stories or anecdotes? A tutorial or recipe?

Next you need to consider what content works well on TikTok. Unlike other social networks, popular TikTok videos follow trends. So, content that is easy to replicate by the masses, or can be spun-off into a new trend typically works well.

There are TikTok trends for almost everything: lip syncs, fashion and beauty transitions, and more. If you’re looking for trend inspiration, you can browse TikTok’s Discovery Page, use TokBoard to find trending sounds, or check out Later’s TikTok Trends blog.

What works on TikTok is likely to be different than what works on platforms. So, don’t be discouraged if initial posts don’t perform well. Experimentation is key to figuring out what content your audience will like best.

Like other platforms, it’s important to be consistent. There are several tools you can use to schedule your TikTok content.

Like Facebook, TikTok has a built-in scheduling tool. Simply go to tiktok.com on your computer, upload your video, and hit schedule. You can schedule up to a week of TikToks at a time.

With over one billion active users TikTok has quickly become one of the best platforms for marketing brands. In this lesson, you’ll learn more about the platform.

We couldn’t talk about social media marketing without talking about the new kid on the block, TikTok. With over one billion active users TikTok has quickly become one of the best platforms for marketing brands.

Users of all ages have joined the TikTok phenomenon, with celebrities, influencers, and brands.

TikTok is experiencing a period of exponential growth right now — which means there’s a huge audience ready to be tapped into by fast-thinking brands.

Here’s three benefits to leveraging TikTok marketing for your business. 1) Increasing brand awareness 2) Building community 3) Selling products and services

Brands who’ve successfully pivoted to TikTok early have reaped huge rewards. This list spotlights several brands who have successfully leveraged TikTok to their advantage.

Unlike Instagram or YouTube, even accounts with zero followers can get millions of views.

TikTok thrives off niche communities — whether it’s for books, art, pop culture, sports, fashion, self-care, or cars — there is truly something for everyone. TikTok is a great community-builder, so don’t be afraid to go all-in on your brand’s niche.

TikTok is becoming a huge player for generating leads and driving sales — the #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt hashtag has over 12B views!

To grow your audience and generate revenue from Pinterest, make sure you are following best practices. This lesson covers what those are.

No matter what platform you are publishing content on, make sure you are thinking about how you can humanize your brand and give it some personality.

This means reaching out directly to your audience members to answer their questions and thank them for their support.

You can create a strong sense of community by inviting people to join your boards and give them the opportunity to add content to your board. This is a great way to increase engagement and interaction on your profile.

With a Pinterest community, you can count on your followers and fans to interact with your boards, consume your content, and click through to your linked sites.

There are millions of people who use Pinterest every month. By treating your Pinterest board as a two-way street through which you can interact with and engage users you can build a loyal community of Pinterest users who may become customers, too.

When it comes to the posts themselves, a good rule of thumb is to avoid excessive white space in your images — images with 30% less blank space in the background are pinned most.

Additionally, keep your videos between 30-90 seconds long.

When it comes to written content, make sure to use keywords throughout your profile, posts, Pins, and boards. This makes it more likely you’ll organically appear in users’ feeds and searches.

Just like keyword research for search ads, keywords are helpful for Pinterest as well. If you sell suitcases, you might use keywords and phrases like “international travel” or “organized traveler” on your profile and in your Pins. 

This way, when a user searches one of those terms, your profile and images of your suitcases will appear on their feeds.

When performing keyword research on Pinterest, start by searching terms related to your niche within the platform itself. For additional insights, consider using Google plugin Keywords Everywhere to see the search volume for terms. This helps you understand the level of demand for the keywords you’re using.

Here are some locations in which you can insert keywords on Pinterest to improve your chances of organically ranking through search 1) Your bio and profile 2) Pin descriptions 3) Board titles & descriptions 4) Adding Alt-Text to your images 

If your company is investing in Pinterest ads, there’s also an option to use the platform’s keyword targeting tool to help you reach your audience through your ads.

You can also link your Pinterest profile to your Facebook and Google accounts so you can easily add and find friends, share content across networks, and more.

Lastly, make sure to analyze your results. Pinterest Analytics provides you with four major types of information including metrics about your profile as a whole, insights about the number of people who save and re-Pin your content, platform metrics to understand how people interact with your content via both desktop or mobile, and data about your most popular Pins.

Keep track of your high-performing content and the high-performing content of your competitors’. Tracking this will give you a good idea of what your audience wants to see and will help guide your content creation and curation.

So, just like any other platform, you need a strategy for creating content. This lesson will cover what makes a strong strategy for Pinterest content.

So, just like any other platform, you need a strategy for creating content. Let’s learn more about what makes a strong strategy for Pinterest content.

Before marketing on Pinterest, your first step will be to sign up for a business account. Here’s a quick overview of how that is done.

Choosing a business account will allow you to gain access to Pinterest Analytics and other features including a visual search tool, a native video player, and the ability to run Pinterest ads

To make the most of the platform, you will need to have a strategy for both creating your own content and also sourcing content from other accounts.

If you aren’t sure where to start, take a look at any competitors who are using the platform. You might consider posting tutorials, infographics, how-tos, and product photographs.

Remember, because Pinterest is such a visual platform, creating visually compelling content is critical. Using Canva, you can easily create graphics or edit photos and videos for your Pinterest channel.

Unlike Instagram, Pinterest allows you to link your content to the site of your choice. If your goal is to increase web traffic, you will want to send your audience back to your website. 

Alternately, you may choose to send users to a landing page where they can sign up for your lead magnet or take advantage of a promotional offer.

In addition to creating and publishing your own content, your strategy also needs to involve re-pinning others’ content to your boards. Doing so will increase the chances that others’ re-pin your content and is a good way to grow your audience.

Follow the 80/20 rule of creating 80% of your own content for the platform and re-pinning the other 20%

If Pinterest is going to be a big part of your marketing strategy, make sure your organization is using Tailwind.

Tailwind is the social media tool for marketing on Pinterest. Tailwind makes it easy to pin and re-pin content. The video will give you an overview of how Tailwind works.

Pinterest may not be a platform that first comes to mind but may provide amazing results. This lesson gives an overview of this social media channel.

When it comes to social media marketing, Pinterest may not be a platform that first comes to mind. However, with over 433 million active users, marketing on Pinterest may be provide amazing results. Let’s learn more about the platform.

Pinterest is a social media platform in which users explore, share, and store visual content they find inspiring, helpful, or entertaining

Once you have set up your Pinterest account and selected your interests, you will be shown a variety of content that the algorithm thinks you might want to see.

If you haven’t yet opened a Pinterest account, learn more about that process here.

Once you see content that you like, you will Pin it, or save it. Unlike other social media platforms, Pinterest makes it extremely easy to organize your saved content.

With Pinterest, users can create boards with a common theme and save related content to a particular board. For instance, someone planning a wedding might have different boards for florals, wedding hairstyles, and another for dresses.

You may also choose to create specific boards to share images of your company’s most helpful data through infographics and other visualizations. This is an easy way for your audience to understand your data.

Pinterest also helps you tell a visual story about your brand. Through pictures and videos, you’re able to show your audience what you’re about as a company, the things you value, what and who you support, and the types of products and services you sell.

Pinterest users have the highest purchase intent of any other social media users, and 83% of users have made a purchase from content they’ve seen on Pinterest.

So, for the right brand, Pinterest marketing may be an important thing to add into the mix. In the next lesson, you’ll learn more about Pinterest marketing best practices.

Participating in LinkedIn groups is a great way to build your reputation and brand awareness. In this lesson, we’ll walk you through the steps you can take to make the most out of LinkedIn groups.

When it comes to generating leads for your company, a great way to showcase your expertise is in LinkedIn groups. 

There are thousands of LinkedIn groups on a variety of topics where professionals go to gain industry insight and interact. Let’s learn more.

Groups represent a great opportunity for businesses to put themselves right in front of potential leads and engage with them directly.

Unfortunately, far too many marketers overlook LinkedIn groups in their marketing strategy because they don’t know how to use them properly.

The first step to generating leads in LinkedIn groups is finding the right group to post in.

There are two options when posting to LinkedIn groups: you can either create your own group or join already existing groups.

It’s often better to join an existing group because you’ll have access to an established audience you can interact with.  

Starting your own group takes a lot of time to set up, grow, and maintain, but it can also be a viable approach to generating leads on LinkedIn.

When looking for groups to join, look for groups where your buyer personas (target audiences) are likely to spend most of their time.

You can start finding these groups by joining groups created by competitors or the ones your existing customer is already a part of. This will give you an idea of what qualities to look for during your search.

You should also consider joining groups relevant to your industry, as this can help you grow your network and reach your buyer persona.

There are some cases where you’ll come across a private group that requires you to request membership and be approved before you start posting.

Before requesting to join a private group, consider factors such as the group size and group description.

You don’t want to join a group that’s too small because that can decrease the potential number of leads you may reach. At the same time, you want to avoid groups that are too large because your message can get lost easily.

In most cases, you should evaluate the level of activity before joining a group. If the group is active and the conversations are ones you can contribute to, go for it, but if there’s little activity or a lot of spam being posted already, you may want to look elsewhere.

Next, make sure you check the group description carefully.

Some groups don’t allow you to post any promotion content, or they might have a completely different purpose to what you might think. Breaking group rules could result in you getting banned.

Once you’ve found the right groups to join, the next step is to connect with potential leads and drive traffic back to your site without spamming everyone.

You should make sure all the content you share in LinkedIn groups serves to educate its members rather than promoting your business.

For example, instead of sharing your company’s service pages or offers, focus on blog posts geared towards the awareness or consideration stage of the buyer’s journey or even sharing content from other sources.

A good measure of how much of your own content to share is to follow the 80-20 rule.

This means that 80% of the time, you should focus on activities that will add value to the group with activities like posting industry information, offering your opinion on posts, asking questions, etc. The other 20% can be spent sharing your company’s content, as long as it will bring value to the group.

If you’re a member of a string of related groups, chances are some members will overlap between groups.

To avoid sounding like a robot, mix up how you’re posting in each group based on the group description, the kind of content people post, and the overall “tone” of the group.

Doing so will make your message resonate more closely with what the group members want to learn about, and increase your chances of generating clicks and shares.

As with any social media marketing strategy, one of the key factors to encourage click-throughs is to lead with a headline that will entice your audience to share, click, or interact with your message in some way.

However, because LinkedIn is meant to share thought-provoking, professional content, you have to take extra steps to ensure your message doesn’t sound spammy.

Check periodically to see which of your LinkedIn group posts performed the best, or what groups generated the most leads.

Adapt your strategy based on these metrics, and you’ll improve your strategy over time and become a pro in LinkedIn Group marketing.

Engaging your audience on LinkedIn is all about posting the right content, at the right time, to the right audience. In this lesson, we’ll explore the different strategies you can use to boost user engagement.

As a marketer on LinkedIn, your main focus should be to increase your Company’s user engagement with every post.

It’s not enough to simply post a bunch of links and articles to your Company page and call it a day. You have to think of ways to refine your LinkedIn strategy so that your business can achieve its goals. Let’s learn more.

The first thing you can do to increase user engagement on LinkedIn is to post a variety of compelling content, and not just promotional material or industry news.

Try posting articles that would interest your audience, links to your company’s blog posts, visuals, exclusive content about your company and industry news.

Sum up whatever you are sharing with a concise intro and snappy headline, or share an interesting quote from the article as a way to spark interest.

Including a call to action with a link will drive 2x the engagement, so make sure you include one whenever possible.

LinkedIn also likes it when you post videos to their platform. In fact, videos usually result in a 75% higher share rate.

You can post videos directly from Youtube or embed them into your LinkedIn post so that it plays as a native video.

When someone does eventually comment on your posts, be sure to respond to keep the conversation going. This will help increase your post’s engagement and allow you to reach a wider audience.

As with any other social media platforms, the performance of your LinkedIn posts will also depend on the time of day you post.

LinkedIn consists primarily of a B2B audience, which is most likely the reason the highest engagement rates are during weekdays and business hours.

However, you’ll also want to post updates throughout the day –even on the weekends – to increase post visibility and engagement with those logging in throughout the day. Some professionals do engage all week long, so consider an always-on approach.

An easy way to increase engagement is to post LinkedIn updates on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The best times to post are between 7 – 8 a.m. and 5 – 6 p.m. (beginning and end of a typical work day).

Posts get the most clicks and shares on Tuesdays between 10 – 11 a.m. 

LinkedIn’s Company analytics will allow you to track engagement on posts, follower growth, and key metrics and trends. You should use those valuable insights to optimize, refine, and customize your content.