Tag: Production & Total Quality Management BMS Notes

The Government of India issued an Ordinance on 19 January 1956 nationalising the Life Insurance sector and Life Insurance Corporation came into existence in the same year. The Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) absorbed 154 Indian, 16 non-Indian insurers and also 75 provident societies 245 Indian and foreign insurers in all. In 1972 with the General Insurance Business (Nationalisation) Act was passed by the Indian Parliament, and consequently, General Insurance business was nationalized with effect from 1 January 1973. 107 insurers were amalgamated and grouped into four companies, namely National Insurance Company Ltd., the New India Assurance Company Ltd., the Oriental Insurance Company Ltd and the United India Insurance Company Ltd. The General Insurance Corporation of India was incorporated as a company in 1971 and it commenced business on 1 January 1973.

The LIC had monopoly till the late 90s when the Insurance sector was reopened to the private sector. But now there are 23 private life insurance companies in India. Before that, the industry consisted of only two state insurers: Life Insurers (Life Insurance Corporation of India, LIC) and General Insurers (General Insurance Corporation of India, GIC). GIC had four subsidiary companies. With effect from December 2000, these subsidiaries have been de-linked from the parent company and were set up as independent insurance companies: Oriental Insurance Company Limited, New India Assurance Company Limited, National Insurance Company Limited and United India Insurance Company.

The nationalisation of life insurance is an important step in our march towards a socialist society. Its objective will be to serve the individual as well as the state. We require life insurance to spread rapidly all over the country and to bring a measure of security to our people.: Jawaharlal Nehru

The first step towards nationalisation of life insurance was taken on 19 January 1956 by the promulgation of the Life Insurance (Emergency Provisions) Ordinance, 1956. In terms of this Ordinance, the management of the ‘controlled businesses of insurers were vested in the central government. The period between 19 January 1956 and 31 August 1956 was utilised as a period of preparation to facilitate the subsequent integration of the various insurers into a single State-owned  Corporation.

Before nationalisation, the insurance industry was organised into 243 autonomous units, each with its own separate administrative structure of office and field staff, its own separate set of agents and of medical examiners. Their offices concentrated in the large cities and their field of operation was confined to the major urban areas. Out of 145 Indian insurance companies, as many as 103 had their head offices in the four cities of Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi and Madras.

When the Corporation was constituted on 1 September 1956, it integrated into one organisation, the controlled business of 243 different units, Indian and foreign, which were engaged in the transaction of life insurance business in India.

The total assets of the above 243 units as on 31 August 1956 were about Rs 4,110 million and the total number of policies in force was over five million assuring a total sum of more than Rs 12,500 million. The total number of salaried employees was nearly 27,000. These figures give a broad idea of the magnitude of the problem involved in setting up an integrated structure.

When parliament set up LIC as a monopolistic public undertaking, it was argued and believed that elimination of competition and the malpractice that competition has given rise to, would lead to:

a) Better and more economical management of the Business of life insurance.

b) Reduction in administrative expenses.

c) Improvement in the quality of service.

d) Increase in volume of business.

e) Maximisation of social advantages that insurance can provide through higher returns on investments of life fund, consistent with safety and liquidity of the invested funds.

The Corporation had an Executive Committee consisting of the Chairman, two Managing Directors and two other Members of the Corporation. There was also an Investment Committee consisting of the Chairman, a Functional Director, and five other persons, to advise the corporation in matters referred to it relating to the investment of its funds.

By the end of 1955, life insurance touched only a fringe of the urban population. The immense benefits of modern concepts of life insurance remained largely unknown to the large sections of the people and thus the country did not derive full benefit from the system. The shortcomings noticed in the insurance business were due to the unscrupulous business practices of some insurance business magnates. Also, a large number of foreign insurers charged a much higher premium compared to the Indian insurers, thus catering to only the higher income groups. It is believed that insurance is a type of business that ought never to fail if it is properly run. But it was found that during the decade 1945-1955, as many as 25 life insurance companies went into liquidation and another 25 had so frittered away their resources that their business had to be transferred to other companies at a loss to the policyholders’ savings. Hence, effective mobilisation of people’s savings was given as one of the major reasons for nationalisation as a nation’s savings are the prime mover of its economic development.

Definitions:

• “Act” means the Insurance Act, 1938 (4 of 1938), as amended from time to time.
• “Agreement” for the purpose of these regulations means an agreement entered into between a web aggregator and an Insurer;
• “Authority” means the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority established under the provisions of Section 3 of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority Act, 1999 (41 of 1999);
• “Distance Marketing” for the purpose of these regulations refers to the process of solicitation or sale of insurance products or services where the consumer is physically not present at the point of solicitation or sale or the conclusion of the sale, and the process is accomplished through telephone or Short Messaging Service (SMS) or e-mail or Internet or web services;
• “Lead” for the purpose of these regulations means information pertaining to a person who has accessed the website of a web aggregator and has submitted contact information of any kind, for obtaining information on prices or features/benefits of insurance products;
• “Lead Generation” for the purpose of these Regulations, is the process of collecting the details of the prospects to ascertain their intention to purchase insurance, before proceeding with solicitation of insurance products;
• “Lead Management System” (LMS) for the purpose of these Regulations refers to the Software implemented by the Web Aggregator for recording, filtering, validating, grading, distribution, follow up and closure of leads from the enquiries received on the website of the Web Aggregator;
• “Outsourcing”: for the purpose of these Regulations means activities which can be carried out by the Web Aggregators to the extent as specified by the Authority.
• “Person” means
• A company formed under the Companies Act, 1956 (1 of 1956); or
• A limited liability partnership formed under the Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008 (6 of 2009) with no partner being a non-resident entity/person resident outside India as defined in clause (w) of section 2 of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (42 of 1999) FEMA, and not being a foreign limited liability partnership registered there under; or
• Any other person recognized by the Authority to act as a Web Aggregator;

j. “Principal Officer” means

• A director / partner, who is responsible for the activities of the Web Aggregator in the case of a body corporate; or
• The chief executive officer appointed exclusively to carry out the functions of a Web Aggregator;
• “Solicitation” for the purpose of these Regulations is defined as the approach of a Prospect by an insurer or an intermediary with a view to convince the Prospect to purchase an insurance policy;
• “Tele caller” for the purpose of these Regulations is a person engaged by a Telemarketer for carrying out the Telemarketing and Distance Marketing related work;
• “Telemarketer” for the purpose of these Regulations, is an entity registered with Telecom Regulatory Authority of India under Chapter III of The Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2010 (as amended from time to time);
• “Web Aggregator” for the purpose of these regulations is a person licensed by the Authority under these Regulations;
• “Website” is a set of related web pages served from a single web domain. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet address known as a Uniform resource locator. The word ―website‖ includes a web portal and/or a mobile site for the purpose of these regulations;
• “Designated Website” for the purpose of these regulations is a website(s) with domain name(s) registered, owned by and used exclusively for the functions of the Web Aggregator;
• Words and expressions used and not defined in these Regulations but defined in the Insurance Act, 1938 (4 of 1938), the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority Act, 1999 or in any of the Regulations made there under shall have the meanings respectively assigned to them in those Acts or Regulations.

Eligibility criteria for License of the Web Aggregator:

1. For the grant of License / Renewal of license of the web aggregator, the applicant shall ensure the fulfilment of the conditions including but not limited to the following:
2. The applicant is a person as defined under regulation 1 (i).
3. The Memorandum of Association of the company or such other documents of applicants shall have the business of web aggregation of Insurance Products only as its main object.
4. The applicant is not engaged in any other business other than the main object (Web Aggregation of Insurance Products) of the applicant;
5. The applicant shall not be licensed / registered as an insurance agent, corporate agent, micro-insurance agent, TPA, surveyor, Loss assessor or any other Insurance Intermediary under the relevant Regulations framed by the Authority.
6. The applicant shall not have a referral arrangement with an Insurer.

The applicant shall not be a related party of an insurer, insurance broker, corporate agent, micro-insurance agent, TPA, Surveyor or a loss assessor or other insurance intermediary at any time.

1. The Principal Officer shall possess the required qualification as specified by the regulator
2. The Principal Officer of the Web Aggregator should have undergone 50 hours of training initially and 25 hours of renewal training at the end of every three years thereafter.
3. The Principal Officer / Directors / Promoter(s) / Shareholders / Partners / Key Management Personnel should fulfil the conditions in the FIT and PROPER criteria notified by the authority from time to time.
4. The web aggregator should not have violated the obligations and the code of conduct as specified by the regulator.
5. The Authority is of the opinion that the grant of license will be in the interest of policyholders.

Application seeking Grant of License.

1. An applicant, seeking grant of License as Web Aggregator shall make an application to the Authority in the specified application Form.
2. The application shall be accompanied by a non-refundable fee of rupees ten thousand paid by way of a bank draft drawn in favour of ‗Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority‘ payable at Hyderabad.
3. Applicants seeking permission for Outsourcing and Telemarketing functions/facility shall mention the same specifically in the application Form.
4. The applicant seeking grant of license as Web Aggregator shall fulfil all the eligibility conditions as specified under the relevant sections of these regulations and fulfil the conditions mentioned in these Regulations.
5. The application for grant of license as Web Aggregator shall be dealt by the authority as per the applicable provisions and under these Regulations.
6. On the applicant fulfilling all the eligibility criteria and requirements mentioned in these Regulations; the authority shall grant License to the applicant to function as a Web aggregator
7. A license once issued shall be valid for a period of three years from the date of its issue, unless the same is suspended or cancelled pursuant to these Regulations.
8. An application, which is not complete in all respects, shall be liable to be rejected.
9. Application seeking Renewal of License:
10. Web Aggregators interested in continuing in the business shall apply with the Authority for renewal of the License at least THIRTY DAYS before expiry of the previous License. The application for renewal of license should be accompanied by a fee of rupees ten thousand Applicants seeking permission for Outsourcing and Telemarketing functions / facility shall mention the same specifically in the application Form.
11. No Web Aggregator shall be allowed to carry out the functions of the Web Aggregator, after expiry of the license.

The application for renewal of license as Web Aggregator shall be dealt with by the authority as per the applicable provisions and under these Regulations.

1. A Web Aggregator, before seeking a renewal of license, shall ensure that their Principal Officer has received at least twenty-five hours of theoretical and practical training from an institution recognized by the Authority from time to time.
2. The Authority, on being satisfied that the applicant fulfils all the conditions specified for renewal of a license, shall renew the license for a period of three years and send intimation to that effect to the applicant.
3. Wherever it is found that the Web Aggregator is not doing any amount of business during the entire/part of the previous licensed period, the Authority may refuse to renew the license.
4. Employees of the Web Aggregator:
5. The employees of the Web Aggregator involved in insurance solicitation and verification should have completed the fifty hours of theoretical and practical training on insurance from an institution recognized by the Authority from time to time and passed an examination, at the end of the period of training mentioned above, conducted by the National Insurance Academy, Pune or any other examining body recognized by the Authority.
6. Tele-callers deployed by Web Aggregators to solicit business should be employees on the rolls of the Web aggregator and should have undergone training as prescribed by Authority.
7. Web Aggregators shall be responsible for all acts of commission and omission of the employees deployed on their behalf.

Capital requirements

1956. The capital of the web aggregator shall be issued and subscribed in the form of Equity Shares where the web aggregator is a company registered under Companies Act, 1956.
1957. The web aggregator shall have a net worth not less than Rupees ten lakh at all times.
1958. The Web Aggregator shall submit to the Authority a net worth certificate duly certified by a Chartered Accountant every year after finalisation of books of accounts.

Duties and Functions of web Aggregators.

1. a) The Web Aggregator shall
2. Display Information pertaining to the Insurers who have signed agreement with the Web Aggregators.
3. Carryout the activities for the purpose of Lead Generation for insurers.
4.  Ensure that the information systems, (both hardware and software) including the aggregation website(s) / portals, Lead Management System and the Data Centers hosting the website(s) / Portal(s) / Lead Management System are in compliance with the generally accepted information security standards and procedures in force in India from time to time.
5. Ensure that the leads and other data is transmitted to the insurers and others using secured layer data encryption technologies like 128 bit encryption.
6. Use only RBI licensed payment gateways for collection and transfer of premium to insurers when the web aggregator is authorized by the insurer to collect the premium on behalf of the insurer.
7. Ensure to get the information systems (both hardware and software) including the aggregation website(s) / portals, Lead Management System and the Data Centers hosting the website(s) / Portal(s) / Lead Management System Audited by CERT-In empanelled Information Security Auditing organisations once in a financial year and submit a copy of the Audit Certificate/Report to IRDA and the insurers with whom the web aggregator has entered into an agreement, within 15 days from the date of receipt of the same.

b) The Web Aggregators shall not:

1. Display any information pertaining to products or services of other financial institutions / FMCG or any product or service on the website
2. Display advertising of any sort, either pertaining to any product or service including insurance product or service, other financial products or service / or any other product or service in the Web Aggregators Website.
3. Operate multiple websites or tie up with other approved/unapproved/unlicensed entities/websites for lead generation / comparison of product etc. subject to few exceptions.
4. Operate the websites of other Financial / Commercial / marketing or sales or service entities or use other Social Media sites etc. for comparison of products etc.
5. Operate in any other manner for the purpose of transmitting leads to any entity engaged in insurance business except these following regulations.

Nomenclature of Web Aggregators

i) All Web Aggregators shall have the word `Insurance Web Aggregator‘ or Insurance Web Aggregators` in the name of the Insurance Broking Company to reflect its line of activity and to enable the public to differentiate IRDA licensed insurance Web Aggregator from other non-licensed insurance related entities. The application of the new applicant companies making an application to seek the license to act as web aggregator shall not be considered in the absence of the compliance of the nomenclature requirement.

ii) Every licensed insurance Web Aggregator shall display in all its correspondences with all stakeholders its name registered with the Authority, address of the Registered and Corporate Office, IRDA license number and validity period of the license.

iii) Insurance web aggregators are not permitted to use any other name in their correspondence/literature/letter heads without the prior approval of the Authority.

• Agreement of Insurer with a Web Aggregator:
• An Insurer desirous of obtaining leads from web aggregator shall enter into an “agreement” with the web aggregator approved by the Authority which shall necessarily include details relating to, though not limited to, the following:

i) Time-frame and mode of transmission of leads to be shared

ii) Onus of complying with regulatory and other legal requirements on both the parties to the agreement.

iii) Identifying the different data elements to be shared (viz., name of prospect / client (visitor of the web site), contact details etc)

iv) The timeframe for providing the premium and feature tables of the agreed products to the Web Aggregator after concluding the agreement and keeping them up to date.

• The agreement between an insurer and web aggregator shall be valid for a period of three years from its date, subject to the validity of license of web aggregator.
• The web aggregator shall file the agreement with the Authority within fifteen days from the date of entering the agreement.

Step 1: Select Your Campaign Objective

Now, on Facebook you can choose from a handful of campaign objectives that match your advertising goals. For example, if you are looking to drive traffic to a physical location you would use “Local Awareness”. If you’re driving traffic to a website, you want to use “Conversions”.

Here’s the complete list of Facebook campaign objectives available:

• Brand awareness
• Local awareness
• Reach
• Traffic
• Engagement
• App installs
• Video views
• Lead generation
• Conversions
• Product catalog sales
• Store traffic
• Messages

Step 2: Give Your Ad Campaign a Name

After we have decided our campaign type, let’s give our campaign a name. This may seem like a fairly simple step, but it is actually very important to adopt useful naming conventions for your campaigns when you start with Facebook advertising so you can easily organize your campaigns as you scale and run more of them. It also sets you up for hyper-efficient reporting later on when it comes time to analyze your results.

For example, you should always include the date range the campaign will be running in your campaign name. Depending on whether you are advertising for your own business or for clients, you can add more elements in your campaign name:

• Client name/ website
• Target Audience/ Location
• Custom Audiences
• Creative Type ( Video? Carousel?)
• Facebook Page, etc

Step 3: Set Up the Audience Targeting

Facebook offers a lot of powerful ways to target audiences, and we’ll talk more at length about creating these different audience types in Chapter 6.  The next step is where you will create your adsets, or audiences.

If we think back to the last chapter, you should recall your main ads manager screen has a campaigns tab, adsets tab and an ads tab.

The ads and adsets are contained within your campaign, with the ads containing a specific combination of creative and an adset containing a specific audience and budget.We’ll discuss this in greater detail in Chapter 7 when we review budgets, but for now let’s focus on building our audience.

In this phase of your campaign setup, you have two options:

• Create a new Facebook target audience
• Use a Saved Audience

Step 4: Set Up Your Ad Placement

By default, Facebook will have “automatic placements” selected which can include Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network, but generally will use the placements optimized to give you best results. You can also choose to edit your placements if you have some data on what placement works best for you.

The full list of placements are:

Facebook

• Feed
• Instant Articles
• In-stream videos
• Right column
• Marketplace
• Stories

Instagram

• Feed
• Stories

Audience Network

• Native, banner and interstitial
• In-stream videos
• Rewarded videos

Messenger

• Inbox
• Sponsored messages

How to select your Facebook ad placements?

If you’re setting up your first campaign, we recommend that you use the Automatic Placements.

However, if you’re trying to get people convert on your website and it’s difficult to navigate on mobile, de-select the Mobile Newsfeed, Instagram and Audience Network placements.

Here are the ad placements recommended by Facebook for every campaign objective:

• Brand awareness: Facebook and Instagram
• Engagement: Facebook and Instagram
• Video views: Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network
• App installs: Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network
• Traffic (for website clicks and app engagement): Facebook and Audience Network
• Product catalog sales: Facebook and Audience Network
• Conversions: Facebook and Audience Network

 Step 5: Set Up Your Campaign Budget and Bidding

Your Facebook ad budget and bidding options are such important topics, that we’ve devoted the entire Chapter 7 to it.

Step 6: Set Up Your Facebook Ads

The actual ads are what users on Facebook will see, and you want them to look good. This is the final step of your campaign creation process, you can select your preferred Facebook ad type and insert your ad images and copy.

There are two options here: you can either select an existing Facebook Page post or create new ads:

YouTube marketing is often overlooked by social media marketers. Some think YouTube counts as a social media network. Others see it as more of an online video platform.

Either way, there are countless marketing opportunities on YouTube especially if your audience is on the platform and your competitors aren’t. YouTube counts two billion logged in monthly users worldwide, and ranks as the most widely used online platform among U.S. adults.

So, in that sense, whether or not YouTube meets social network criteria is irrelevant. It’s more popular than all of them. But with more than 500 hours of video uploaded every minute, effective YouTube marketing is easier said than done.

Fortunately, we’ve put together this 10-step YouTube marketing strategy to get you started. Learn how to optimize your channel, grow subscriptions, and expand your reach with YouTube ads and influencer partnerships.

5 YouTube marketing tools for business

YouTube Audio Library

Just about every successful YouTube video is backtracked with music and sound effects. But that doesn’t mean all songs and sounds are free to use. Avoid infringing on copyright by sourcing directly from YouTube’s free audio library.

Hootsuite

YouTube’s platform includes built-in scheduling and analytics tools. But if you manage multiple social media channels or work with a team, Hootsuite takes a lot of work out of the workflow.

With a central dashboard, it’s easy to keep track of content calendars and assign tasks to different team members. Schedule videos for YouTube and your other social networks simultaneously, and see how your YouTube marketing fits into your broader social media strategy.

Want to save even more time? You can also moderate comments on your YouTube videos from the Hootsuite dashboard.

Canva

Create channel and video art with pre-sized templates from Canva. This tool offers access to an expansive stock photo library, and features that allow for full customization and branding. The best part is you don’t have to sweat the specs. Canva takes care of that for you. Bonus: the app can be integrated into the Hootsuite dashboard.

Channelview

Channelview and its companion tool Channelview Insights monitor up to 10 different YouTube channels. This is ideal for YouTube marketers who manage multiple clients, or for brands that have multiple channels for different verticals. Channelview lets you streamline your workflow and measure your YouTube marketing efforts across the board. Get the full picture on how your YouTube channels work in tandem so you can refine playlists and boost subscribers.

Mentionlytics

Hook Mentionlytics up to your Hootsuite dashboard and start tracking every mention of your brand on YouTube. With this tool, you can keep tabs of videos created about your brand, comments that mention you, and more. Show your appreciation for positive comments, and show up for negative feedback, too. Customers appreciate it when companies take their feedback seriously.

10 Step YouTube marketing strategy

Step 1. Create a YouTube channel for business

Start by opening a Brand Account on Google.

You can create a YouTube channel with your regular Google account, but if you do, only you can access it. Plus, the account will be under your name and depending on your settings, may connect viewers to your personal email address.

With a Brand Account, multiple authorized users can log in simultaneously. Even if you don’t need this right now, it’s a good option to keep available as your business grows. With a Brand Account, you can also open and manage multiple YouTube channels.

Step 2. Learn about your audience

If you’re just starting out on YouTube, set aside some time to learn about YouTube demographics.

This includes quantitative data, like where the majority of users live (nearly 15% of site traffic comes from the U.S.), predominant age range (81% of 15–25 year-olds ), and viewing preferences (70% of watchtime is on mobile). If your audience skews younger, it might be worth noting that Gen Z viewers are most likely to search for short-form content.

Step 3. Research your competition

Next up: Competitive analysis. Like any platform, YouTube is a competitive space. By conducting an audit of competitors, you can see how your channel measures up and identify opportunities.

Identify competitors

Start by identifying three to five competitors. If you’re not sure, try Google Ads’ free Keyword Planner to see which companies rank for keywords associated with your brand. Or see what channels appear in searches on YouTube for the same keywords. (After hitting Search, filter results by Channel.)

Record key metrics such as subscriber counts and viewership stats so you can use them as benchmarks for your channel. Look at titles and descriptions to see what keywords they use. Read the comments on these videos to see what people are saying. Chances are their audience will overlap with yours.

Conduct a SWOT

Conduct a SWOT analysis to identify the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats presented by each competitor. This is a good framework for spotting what’s working and not working, and where you can carve out a niche with your YouTube channel.

Pro tip: Make sure your competitors aren’t serving ads on your videos! If they are, it’s possible to block them in Google’s ad manager. More on that here.

Step 4. Learn from your favourite channels

Scroll through your subscriptions and your YouTube history. As you do, take note of the techniques and formats that hold your attention. What keeps you coming back to these channels? How do the most popular channels drive views, subscriptions, and engagement?

Step 5. Optimize your videos to get views

YouTube is a video search engine. Like Google which happens to own YouTube videos results are ranked by titles, keywords, descriptions, and other factors. Then there’s the YouTube recommendation algorithm, which determines 70% of what people watch.

Optimize your videos so that they stand the best chance to show up in search results and get more views. We’ve created a detailed guide on how to get views on YouTube. But here are a few SEO pointers to start with:

Write a strong title

The title is one of the primary signals YouTube’s algorithm and viewers look at to evaluate your video.

Include relevant keywords. Check what words people use to find your channel in Traffic Sources in YouTube Analytics. Take a look at Google Trends and Google Ads’ Keyword Planner, too. See if any of these popular search terms can be added to your title.

But avoid clickbait. False advertising typically leads to lower retention, which in turn leads to lower ranking. If the keywords you find don’t match your topic, dig a little deeper in your keyword research. Focus on the topic and content.

Write a keyword-rich description

Prioritize the first few lines of your description to provide a brief summary of your video topic. As early as possible, plug in the keywords you’ve zeroed in on. Try not to sound too spammy. Write in coherent, natural-sounding sentences.

YouTube shows roughly 300 characters (about three lines) above the Show More button users need to click on to see your full description. This is where you should add more context for your video. For example, if you feature several products, provide links to them.

Add cards, end screens, bumper ads, and watermarks

Cards, end screens, bumper ads, and watermarks are clickable CTAs you can add to your YouTube videos. These elements help your videos drive actions and keep people on your channel.

Here’s a rundown of your different options:

Cards: Small, transparent CTAs that expand when clicked. Up to five can be used per video to direct viewers to your website, fundraiser, playlist, and more.

End screens: Up to four clickable frames that appear in the last 5-20 seconds. Use them to promote related content, your website, subscriptions, etc.

Bumper ads: Unskippable six-second video ads appearing at the start or end of a video.

Watermarks: Custom subscribe buttons visible only to non-subscribers. To add them to your videos, follow YouTube’s instructions.

Step 6. Upload and schedule your videos

Now that you’ve created and optimized your videos, it’s time to schedule them for publication.

For most 18-34 year olds, YouTube has replaced traditional network television. But it hasn’t necessarily replaced expectations. People still expect videos especially webisodes and series to be available on a reliable schedule.

Check your channel analytics to see if there’s a day or hour that tends to have a high amount of viewership and engagement. Once you’ve pinpointed the best time to post, aim to publish regularly within this window.

Step 7. Optimize your channel to attract followers

Make it easier for people to find and follow you on YouTube by optimizing your channel. Here are a few ways to prime your account for search, views, and follows.

Complete your YouTube profile

If you haven’t yet, add finishing touches to your YouTube profile. Fill out or add some polish to the following areas:

Channel description: In the “about” tab of your profile, provide a keyword-rich overview of what people can expect when they subscribe to your channel. Include links to your website and social accounts here, too.

Channel icon: Upload a high-res version of your logo.

Channel art: Use this banner space to welcome viewers to your channel. This area is a good place to promote your channel schedule, or an upcoming exhibit, product launch, or service. Master channel art and nab free templates with this guide.

You can also add a list of Featured channels to your profile. Feature your other owned YouTube channels, or give subscribers easy access to other YouTube resources they might be interested in. By doing this, you align your brand with complimentary companies and add value to your page.

Add social media links to your banner

Your YouTube banner is a prime position to add a few key links. Use this area to link to your website, other social channels, or even an auto-subscribe prompt. Put what matters most to your company upfront.

Create a channel trailer

Just like a movie trailer, your YouTube channel trailer is an opportunity to preview your channel. Channel trailers auto-play when an unsubscribed visitor lands on your page. So, it’s best to assume they’re new to your page, and possibly your brand.

Step 8. Try YouTube advertising

YouTube advertising can be an effective way to expand your reach beyond your channel. Looking to grow your channel? Target an audience you think might be interested in your content.

Want to promote your brand, an event, or a new product? YouTube ads are good for that, too. People are three times more likely to pay attention to online video ads versus TV ads.

YouTube ads are available in these four categories:

Skippable in-stream ads

Non-skippable in-stream ads (including bumper ads)

Video discovery ads (formerly known as in-display ads)

Non-video ads (i.e., overlays and banners)

For more info on YouTube’s ad formats and how to use them, check out our detailed guide to YouTube advertising.

Step 9. Try working with an influencer

One of the best ways to showcase your brand and reach a wider audience on YouTube is by working with an influencer.

According to Google, 60% of YouTube subscribers are more likely to follow shopping advice from their favourite creator over their favourite TV movie personality. Why? It’s often a lot easier to relate to creators. With the right partnership, creators can transfer that reliability and trust to your brand.

When it comes to these partnerships, let the influencer do the talking. The more control you try to exert over the partnership, the more you’ll impact the influencer’s brand. This makes the whole effort less genuine and their followers will see it from a mile away.

Step 10. Analyze and adapt

With your YouTube channel up and running, it’s time to start measuring your success. And failures. Getting YouTube marketing right involves testing and experimenting. Not everything will work, and that’s okay as long as you learn from it.

Use YouTube Analytics to monitor the growth of your channel and track the performance of your videos. When you publish a new video, keep an eye on:

• Significant changes in subscriber count
• New or changing audience demographics
• Video playback locations and traffic sources
• Device reports (mobile, desktop, smart TVs, etc.)

Monetization

• Advertising revenue: Get ad revenue from display, overlay, and video ads.
• Channel memberships: Your members make recurring monthly payments in exchange for special perks that you offer.
• Merch shelf: Your fans can browse and buy official branded merchandise that’s showcased on your watch pages.
• Super Chat & Super Stickers: Your fans pay to get their messages highlighted in chat streams.
• YouTube Premium Revenue: Get part of a YouTube Premium subscriber’s subscription fee when they watch your content.

Qualify for YouTube Monetization

First, to qualify for monetization, your channel has to have at least 4,000 hours of public watch time within the last year and at least 1,000 subscribers. This policy went into effect at the beginning of 2018 and is another way for YouTube to prioritize watch time.

3 Easy Steps to Enable Monetization on YouTube

You’ve reached the required number of subscribers and watch hours, and you’ve checked your channel for red flags now what? It’s time to learn how to enable monetization on YouTube.

• Click on YouTube Studio in the dropdown after you click on your icon in the top right corner of the screen.
• Once you’re in YouTube Studio, find the Channel menu on the left-hand side of your screen, and click on Monetization.
• Finally, in the Monetization window, click Start.

Channel Trailer

Your channel trailer offers a preview of your channel so viewers can learn more and subscribe. By default, ads won’t show on your channel trailer, unless your video contains third-party claimed content. If the viewer is already subscribed to your channel, they’ll see your featured video.

• Sign in to YouTube Studio.
• From the left menu, select Customization and then Layout.
• Under Video spotlight, click ADD and select a video for your channel trailer.
• Click Publish.

Customize your channel

• Sign in to YouTube Studio.
• From the left menu, select Customization.
• Use the tabs to customize your channel:

Layout: Use this tab to organize your channel trailer, featured video, and channel sections.

Branding: Use this tab to update your profile picture, banner image, and video watermark.

Basic info: Use this tab to customize your channel name, description, and site links.

Featured video for Subscriber

You can highlight your video or any video on YouTube for your subscribers to watch when they visit your channel homepage.

• Sign in to YouTube Studio.
• From the left menu, select Customization and then Layout.
• Under Video spotlight, click ADD and select a video to feature.
• Click Publish

Create a section

• Sign in to YouTube Studio.
• From the left menu, select Customization and then Layout.
• At the bottom, click ADD SECTION.
• Use the Down arrow to select your content.
• Videos: Choose to highlight posted videos.
• Popular uploads: Choose to highlight your live, past, and upcoming live streams.
• Playlists: Choose to highlight single, created, and multiple playlists.
• Channels: Choose to highlight subscriptions and featured channels.
• Click Publish.

Edit a section

• Sign in to YouTube Studio.
• From the left menu, select Customization and then Layout.
• At the bottom, Click Options on the section you want to edit and select Edit section contents.
• In the edit screen, change the content of the section.
• Click Publish.

Reorder sections on your channel

• Sign in to YouTube Studio.
• From the left menu, select Customization and then Layout.
• At the bottom, click the vertical bar on the section you want to move, then drag-and-drop to reorder.
• Click Publish.

Unlocking the potential within YouTube means you can access millions of viewers every day. This gives you a new channel for your promotional videos along with your more generally helpful content. In return, you can boost your overall online presence.

Ok, so a lot of YouTube is soppy cat videos and watching people inadvertently hurt themselves. But the platform does offer quite a bit for businesses to take advantage of, presenting those who embrace it with ample opportunity to:

• Capture more attention
• Garner better integration with social media content
• Nurture a highly-engaged, loyal audience
• Take advantage of the inherent benefit from better search engine rankings

Below, we will see how TOP can help you optimize your videos to increase your YouTube rankings, create engagement and why should you promote and embed your branded videos in your website’s

• Targeting your videos: Understanding searcher intent, keyword research and video creation.
• Optimizing your videos: Creating a branded presence, optimizing titles, tags and descriptions.
• Promoting your videos: Getting real, engaged views on your videos, building links and embeds to your videos.

YouTube ranking factors

YouTube has cited Audience Retention as one of its main ranking factors. In short, this is how long people watch your videos before exiting.

The Audience Retention report analyses:

• Average view duration for all videos on your channel
• Top videos or channels listed by watch time
• Audience retention data for a specific video for different time frames
• Relative audience retention for a video compared to the YouTube average for similar videos

Other YouTube ranking factors surrounding engagement:

• Video comments
• Subscribers after watching a video
• Video shares
• Click-through rate
• Thumbs up/Thumbs down

The most important aspects of ranking well on YouTube are:

• Watch time
• Channel authority
• Positive sentiment & engagement
• Broad match keyword targeting across title, description, and keyword tags

Keyword research

The YouTube SEO process starts just like any content creation process, with a keyword, search query and topic research.

The goal you are trying to achieve here is to understand searcher intent, what kind of information users are looking for and which search terms are relevant to your business and your audience.

As highlighted in MOZ’s keyword research, you should ask yourself…

• Is the keyword relevant to your website’s content?
• Will searchers find what they are looking for on your site when they search using these keywords?
• Will they be happy with what they find?
• And, will this traffic result in financial rewards or other organizational goals?

Unfortunately, the free version is fairly limited and you need a pro version in order to unlock the following awesome features:

• Keyword suggestions (variants stemming from your entry)
• Related keywords (not keyword variants, but related, e.g. same semantic area)
• Questions (similar to Answer The Public and the likes, great for Featured Snippet opportunities. etc)
• Prepositions (again, similar to Answer The Public and the likes, great for increasing your site’s chances of appearing in Featured Snippets and ‘People Also Ask’ query suggestions)

Strategies

1. Rename your video file using a target keyword.

Just like you would when optimizing written content, you’ll use an SEO tool to first identify keywords you’d like your video to focus on (you can browse popular YouTube SEO tools below these tips, or just click that link earlier in this sentence).

2. Insert your keyword naturally in the video title.

When we search for videos, one of the first things that our eyes are drawn to is the title. That’s often what determines whether or not the viewer will click to watch your video, so the title should not only be compelling, but also clear and concise.

Although your keyword plays a big part in your video title, it also helps if the title closely matches what the viewer is searching for. Research conducted by Backlinko found that videos with an exact keyword match in the title have only a slight advantage over those that don’t.

3. Optimize your video description.

First things first: According to Google, the official character limit for YouTube video descriptions is 1,000 characters. And while it’s okay to use all of that space, remember that your viewer most likely came here to watch a video, not to read an essay.

If you do choose to write a longer description, keep in mind that YouTube only displays the first two or three lines of text that amounts to about 100 characters. After that point, viewers have to click “show more” to see the full description. That’s why we suggest front-loading the description with the most important information, like CTAs or crucial links.

4. Tag your video with popular keywords that relate to your topic.

YouTube’s official Creator Academy suggests using tags to let viewers know what your video is about. But you’re not just informing your viewers you’re also informing YouTube itself. Dean explains that the platform uses tags “to understand the content and context of your video.”

That way, YouTube figures out how to associate your video with similar videos, which can broaden your content’s reach. But choose your tags wisely. Don’t use an irrelevant tag because you think it’ll get you more views in fact, Google might penalize you for that. And similar to your description, lead with the most important keywords, including a good mix of those that are common and more long-tail (as in, those that answer a question like “how do I?”).

5. Categorize your video.

Once you upload a video, you can categorize it under “Advanced settings.” Choosing a category is another way to group your video with similar content on YouTube so it winds up in different playlists and gains exposure to more viewers who identify with your audience.

It might not be as simple as it looks. In fact, YouTube’s Creator Academy suggests marketers go through a comprehensive process to determine which category each video belongs in. It’s helpful, the guide writes, “to think about what is working well for each category” you’re considering by answering questions like:

• Who are the top creators within the category? What are they known for and what do they do well?
• Are there any patterns between the audiences of similar channels within a given category?
• Do the videos within a similar category have share qualities like production value, length, or format?

6. Upload a custom thumbnail image for your video’s result link.

Your video thumbnail is the main image viewers see when scrolling through a list of video results. Along with the video’s title, that thumbnail sends a signal to the viewer about the video’s content, so it can impact the number of clicks and views your video receives.

7. Use an SRT File to add subtitles & closed captions.

Like much of the other text we’ve discussed here, subtitles and closed captions can boost YouTube search optimization by highlighting important keywords.

In order to add subtitles or closed captions to your video, you’ll have to upload a supported text transcript or timed subtitles file. For the former, you can also directly enter transcript text for a video so that it auto-syncs with the video.

Adding subtitles follows a similar process, however, you can limit the amount of text you want displayed. For either, head to your video manager then click on “Videos” under “Video Manager.” Find the video you want to add subtitles or closed captioning to, and click the drop-down arrow next to the edit button. Then, choose “Subtitles/CC.” You can then select how you’d like to add subtitles or closed captioning.

8. Add Cards and End Screens to increase your YouTube channel’s viewership.

Cards

When you’re watching a video, have you ever seen a small white, circular icon with an “i” in the center appear in the corner, or a translucent bar of text asking you to subscribe? Those are Cards, which Creator Academy describes as “preformatted notifications that appear on desktop and mobile which you can set up to promote your brand and other videos on your channel.”

You can add up to five cards to a single video, and there are six types:

• Channel cards that direct viewers to another channel.
• Donation cards to encourage fundraising on behalf of U.S. nonprofit organizations.
• Fan funding to ask your viewers to help support the creation of your video content.
• Link cards, which direct viewers to an external site, approved crowdfunding platform, or an approved merchandise selling platform.
• Poll cards, which pose a question to viewers and allow them to vote for a response.
• Video or playlist cards, which link to other YouTube content of this kind.

End Screens

End screens display similar information as cards, but as you may have guessed, they don’t display until a video is over, and are a bit more visually detailed in nature.

YouTube analytics allow you to measure the success of your YouTube marketing efforts. You can use them to monitor your progress toward achieving specific goals like growing subscribers or increasing video views, and identify what works and what flops.

Marketers can track just about everything from the YouTube Studio dashboard, from YouTube channel analytics right down to real-time video metrics. But just because you can track everything, doesn’t mean you should. Especially if you don’t know how to translate raw data into meaningful information.

YouTube Metrics

YouTube analytics tools let you measure just about everything. But it’s not enough to simply record numbers. We breakdown what each YouTube metric measures, why it matters, and how it fits into your overall performance outlook.

YouTube Channel Metrics

Chart your overall channel performance, identify average trends, and get a snapshot of what works best with these YouTube channel metrics.

• Subscribers:

The number of people who have subscribed to your YouTube channel. From the overview section of the YouTube analytics dashboard, you can see how many subscribers you’ve gained over a selected period. Hover over (or tap) the icon to see how this figure compares to your typical subscriber growth.

• Realtime views:

The number of views your last published videos have received in the past 48 hours. This metric is a good way to track the performance of a YouTube Live or YouTube Premiere or recently published video.

• Top videos:

A snapshot of your top performing videos based on views, over a given period. By adjusting the timeframe, you can identify your all-time best performing videos. Or, opt for a shorter time period to see if certain videos have resurfaced.

• Channel Views:

The number of views your channel amassed over a given time period. Beside this metric, hover over (or tap) the icon to see how it compares to the average amount of views your channel receives.

• Channel Watch time:

The total amount of time, in hours, people have spent watching videos on your channel over a given period. You can also compare this stat to your average watch time, by hovering over or tapping the icon.

Audience metrics

Use YouTube audience metrics to understand who watches your videos. Use these insights to inform your content and community management strategies.

• Unique viewers:

An estimate of the total number of people who watched your videos over a given period. Unlike channel views, this metric does not include multiple views from the same person.

• Average views per viewer:

An average of the number of times a viewer watched videos on your channel. This metric includes both views of multiple videos, and multiple views of the same video.

• When your viewers are on YouTube:

A bar chart that displays the days and times most of your viewers are on the platform. Use this info to schedule uploads at optimal times. If you have an active Community Tab, make sure an admin is available to create posts and respond to comments at this time.

• Audience demographics:

Take into consideration the age, gender, and location of your audience on YouTube. This information can help you plan content geared toward viewers, or create content for a segment your current audience is missing. Look also to see if viewers are using subtitles, and what languages are most used, so you can accommodate accordingly.

YouTube Discovery Metrics

How good is your YouTube SEO? Learn how people are discovering your videos, on and off YouTube, and adjust your promotion, algorithm, and keyword use accordingly.

• Impressions and CTR:

An impression is recorded each time someone sees the thumbnail for your video. Impressions click-through rate measures the percentage of people who clicked on the thumbnail to view your video.

A high click-through rate is a good indication your thumbnail and keywords are effective. But you’ll need to check watch time and average view duration stats to see if your video seals the deal.

• Bonus:

Download the free 30-day plan to grow your YouTube following fast, a daily workbook of challenges that will help you kickstart your Youtube channel growth and track your success. Get real results after one month.

• Tip:

Look for similarities between videos that have high or low click-through rates. Do they have anything in common?

• Traffic Sources:

See where and how people are finding your videos. YouTube traffic sources include search, browse features, playlists, and suggested videos—all of which are powered to varying degrees by the YouTube algorithm.

Other sources include Direct URL or External. Click on each source to see a breakdown and drill down further. If you were expecting to see more traffic, consider these tips to promote your channel.

• Tip:

See if people watched your video on YouTube or embedded on a website. Go to the Reach tab and click Advanced Mode. From there, click the More dropdown menu below the date, and select Playback Locations.

• Top YouTube search terms:

Under Traffic Source: YouTube Search, you can see the top search terms that led people to your videos. This should give you a good indication of whether your SEO strategy is effective or needs to be tweaked in some areas. If a video is searched for often, consider adding it to a playlist to help people discover your related content.

YouTube Video Metrics

Whether a big production or a no frills livestream, it’s worthwhile to track individual YouTube video metrics. When you click on a video, you’ll land on a similar dashboard with Overview, Reach, Engagement, Audience, and Revenue tabs only all the data pertains to the video in question.

• Views:

The number of times your video has been watched, including repeat views from the same person.

• Video subscribers:

The number of people who subscribed after watching your video. This metric provides one of the strongest indications that your content connected with viewers. On the flip side, you can also see the number of subscribers lost with a certain video, too.

• Watch time:

The cumulative amount of time people have spent watching your video (or videos). Click See More to have a look at how this figure changes over time. Has your watch time been consistent since you published the video, or are there spikes you can correlate to specific events?

• Audience retention:

See how far people made it through your video. The audience retention report provides you with an average view duration. It also shows you where the views drop off. Notice a big dip? Watch your video to try to understand why people may have left around a specific mark.

• Tip:

Retention will always gradually decline, so focus on abrupt drops. If you see peaks, they indicate viewers are re-watching certain parts of your video.

YouTube engagement metrics

See how and what people are engaging with on your channel. On desktop, engagement metrics can be found under the Engagement tab. On mobile, tap on the Interactive Content tab.

• Likes and dislikes:

While often considered vanity metrics, likes and dislikes can give you a sense of what people thought about your video. If a video receives a lot of dislikes, set aside some time to read the comments and analyze people’s sentiments. Comments are another form of engagement, and can be an invaluable source of qualitative data.

Tip:

Under the Watch Time chart on desktop, click See More to see how many times your video has been shared.

• Card and end screen reports:

If you’ve added interactive content to your videos, these reports will give you an idea of the elements that work best. Have a look at your Top cards and Top end screen element types overall. To see how often people clicked on a card or end screen of a specific video, look at Clicks per card shown and End screen element click rate.

Find definitions for specific card and end screen metrics here.

Top playlists: See what playlists are in high rotation. Track your most popular playlists, total views, average view duration, and watch time. Take a look at Playlist starts and Playlist exit rate for more detail on engagement. To improve overall retention, YouTube suggests putting the videos with the highest retention upfront.

Tip:

Add relevant popular videos from other creators to your playlists to improve discoverability and retention. See what playlists your videos have been added to in traffic sources.

The Overview tab shows you key metrics for your channel. The main graph shows watch time, views, and subscribers. If you’re in the YouTube Partner Program, you’ll also see your estimated revenue over the last 28 days.

In this tab you’ll also see 4 reports:

• Top videos: Your videos ranked by views.
• Realtime activity: Your performance over the last 48 hours or 60 minutes.
• Latest videos: Your performance from your 10 latest videos.
• Typical performance: A comparison of your latest video to your channel’s typical performance.

Reach

The Reach tab shows you your music’s overall reach. The main graph shows how many people saw an impression of your videos or videos containing all or most of your song across YouTube, and how many people then clicked through to watch the videos.

In this tab you’ll also see reports for:

• Traffic source types: Where viewers found the videos on YouTube.
• Top external sources: Traffic from websites and apps that have the YouTube video embedded or linked to.
• Impressions and how they led to watch time: How many people saw the video on YouTube and who then went on to watch the video.
• Top YouTube search terms: Search terms that led viewers to the videos.

Engagement

The Engagement tab shows you what your viewers are watching. The main graph shows you the total number of watch minutes, and on average, how long viewers spent watching one of the videos.

In this tab you’ll also see cards for:

• Top videos and playlists: Videos and playlists featuring your music with the most watch time over the last 28 days.
• Top cards and end screens: Your top cards and end screens over the last 28 days.

Audience

The Audience tab shows you who’s watching. The main graph shows your returning & new viewers, unique viewers, and subscribers.

In this tab you’ll also see reports for:

• Top geographies: Your audience by geography. Data is based on IP address.
• Top subtitle/CC languages: Your audience by subtitled language. Data is based on usage of subtitles/CC.
• Age and gender: Your audience by age and gender. Data is based on signed in viewers across all devices.
• When your viewers are on YouTube: Your audience’s online activity across your channel and all of YouTube. Data is based on your viewers across all devices in the last 28 days.
• Other videos your audience watched: Your audience’s online activity outside of your channel. Data is based on your viewers across all devices in the last 7 days.
• Other channels your audience watched: Your audience’s online activity across other channels on YouTube. Data is based on your viewers across all devices in the last 28 days.

Revenue

The Revenue tab is only available to creators in the YouTube Partner Program  and will show data only for videos uploaded by you.

 The Revenue tab helps you track your earnings on YouTube. The main graph shows how much you’re estimated to earn, the number of videos that are monetized, and your estimated average gross revenue per thousand plays.

In this tab you’ll also see reports for:

• Monthly estimated revenue: How much your channel has earned in the last 6 months. For ongoing months and months without finalized payments, revenue is estimated and subject to change.
• Top-earning videos: Videos with the highest estimated revenue for the time period.
• Revenue sources: How you’re making money with YouTube.
• Ad types: The format of the ad and its buying platform. This breakdown is only available for YouTube ad revenue and impression-based metrics.
• Transaction revenue: Estimated net revenue from transactions, such as paid content and Super Chat, deducting any partner charged refunds for the selected date range and region.

Reasons why Facebook Advertising is hugely exciting for marketers:

• Audience size: Facebook now boasts over 1.13 billion daily active users on 1.03 billion of which access the social network via mobile devices.
• Attention: People spend a lot of time on social networks. The average user spends about 50 minutes just on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger every day.
• Organic reach decline: Organic reach on Facebook has been in decline for a few years now and has almost hit zero. If you want to break through now, Facebook is all but a pay-to-play network.
• Targeting: The targeting options within Facebook Ads is incredible. Business can target users with by location, demographics, age, gender, interests, behavior, and much more.

Social media targeting

Social media targeting is a form of online advertising that focuses on social media. Retailers can use this type of advertising and take advantage of the users’ demographics, location, interests, and so forth and target their ads accordingly.

Some of the available targeting options include:

• Location
• Education
• Work
• Financial status
• Generation
• Parental status
• Ethnicity
• Languages
• Connections to specific Facebook pages
• Behaviours

Types of Facebook ads

Image ads

These simple ads are a great way to get started with Facebook paid advertising. You can create one with just a few clicks by boosting an existing post with an image from your Facebook Page.

Image ads may be simple, but that doesn’t mean they have to be boring.

Video ads

Video ads can run in the News Feed and Stories, or they can appear as in-stream ads in longer Facebook videos. Video ads can show your team or your product in action, like this quick demo video ad from IKEA.

Poll ads

This mobile-only Facebook ad format incorporates an interactive component by adding a two-option poll to an image or video ad. You can add a separate link for each poll choice.

Both you and those who answer will see the tally of responses to each poll option.

Carousel ads

A carousel ad uses up to 10 images or videos to showcase your product or service.

You can use this format to highlight different benefits of one product, several different products or even use all the photos together to create one large panorama image.

Slideshow ads

Slideshow ads offer an easy way to create short video ads from a collection of still photos, text, or existing video clips.

Slideshow ads have eye-catching motion, just like videos, but use five times less data. So, they load well even for people on slow internet connections. They’re an easy, low-impact way to draw attention.

Collection ads

These Facebook paid ads, which are offered only for mobile devices, allow you to showcase five images or videos that customers can click to buy a product or service.

Collection ads pair with Instant Experiences (more on those below) and allow people to buy your products without ever leaving Facebook. This makes online shopping easy when people are on-the-go.

Instant Experience ads

Instant Experience ads used to be called Canvas. They’re a full-screen ad format that loads 15 times faster than a mobile website outside of Facebook.

Lead ads

Lead ads are only available for mobile devices. That’s because they’re specifically designed to make it easy for people to give you their contact information without a lot of typing.

They’re great for collecting newsletter subscriptions, signing someone up for a trial of your product or allowing people to ask for more information from you. Several automakers have successfully used them to encourage test drives.

Dynamic ads

Dynamic ads allow you to promote targeted products to the customers most likely to be interested in them.

For instance, say someone has visited a product page or placed a product in their shopping cart on your website, but then abandoned the purchase. With dynamic ads, you can advertise that specific product in their Facebook feed.

This reminds the potential customer to complete the purchase, and can be a very effective Facebook marketing strategy.

Messenger ads

Facebook Messenger ads give you access to the 1.3 billion people who use Messenger every month. When creating your ad, simply choose Messenger as the desired placement. You also need to select Facebook feed.

Stories ads

Mobile phones are meant to be held vertically. Stories ads are a mobile-only full-screen vertical video format that allows you to maximize screen real estate without expecting viewers to turn their screen.

Augmented reality ads

Augmented reality ads use features like filters and animation to allow people to interact with your brand.

For example, the filter could help users see what a shade of lipstick would look like on their lips, or how a pair of glasses might fit their face.

Pros

• Campaigns are easy to track
• Immediate influx of traffic
• Complete control over your daily budget and maximum Cost-per-click
• Instant return on investment (You can easily define a cost per conversion and understand what your profit is)
• More targeting options, including, towns, regions, age, likes/interests, income bracket, and other demographics
• Easier to set up than Google AdWords
• The ability to reach people early on in the buying process, before they are aware of their need, while capturing those who are aware of the need in a subtle way
• You can use images and videos to capture the interest of your target market, helping you to sell your products and services
• CPC is relatively cheap, depending on your industry (On average, no more than $0.61 per click)

Cons

• There is no option to target your ads at certain times within the day or on certain days of the week unless you choose a lifetime budget
• If set up and managed incorrectly, it can be costly, but less so than Google AdWords
• Depending on your target market, the majority of the large potential audience can be irrelevant (For instance, we would not recommend Facebook Advertising if someone only served or supplied their products and services to one town)
• Most suitable for those operating in B2C markets
• Reaching people too early in the buying cycle could potentially reduce your goal conversion rate

Facebook offers a variety of paid ad options and placements, but all ads can be broken down into three elements:

• The campaign houses all of your assets.
• Ad sets. If you’re targeting separate audiences with different characteristics, you’ll need an individual ad set for each.
• Your actual ads live within your ad sets. Each ad set can hold a variety of ads that vary in color, copy, images, etc.

As an advertiser on Facebook, you can choose the audiences you want for your ads. We offer tools that help you reach people based on traits and categories like:

• Where they live
• Demographics: Like age, gender and more
• Interests: Like shopping, gadgets and more
• Behaviors: Like shopper profiles and offline interests

When people are on Facebook, they may see your ad in News Feed the personal stream of updates from their friends, family and things they care about. Since your ads reach people based on who they are and their interests, they’ll be more relevant to the people who see them.

This is a fairly straightforward process and involves the following four steps:

• Set Up Facebook Business Manager. First, you create a Facebook page for your business. From there you can create a Business Manager account that allows you to run ads for that page. To start go to the home page for Business Manager and click “Create Account” Then log in using the email and password you used to set up your business page account.
• Install the Facebook Pixel. Go to your website and install the Facebook pixel that allows Facebook to identify people who visited your website, create custom audiences comprised of those visitors, and then show ads to them.
• Create Audiences to target users. This tool allows you to create and save audiences that are most relevant to your brand. Go back into Business Manager and select the “Audiences” option from the assets column.
• Create a Facebook Ad from a Facebook post. Now you can try it out. First decide what you want to accomplish do you want more clicks, sales, video views, or leads?

How each tool works is essential to shaping your campaign.

• The Plan section contains tools that help you learn things about your audience and give you creative ideas for running your ads. With the Audience Insights tool, you can find out a lot of information about different audiences on Facebook.
• Create and Manage. Here you find tools for creating your ad and managing your campaigns.
• Measure and Report. When you want to analyze how your ads are performing, check out the tools in the Measure and Report section. For example, here you can create those custom conversions to track whether ads are meeting your business goals.
• This section gives you quick and easy access to key assets that you’ve used to build your ads, including audiences that you’ve saved for ad targeting, images you’ve used, your Facebook pixel, and more.
• The settings area is where all of your account information is stored. Go here to update payment information, your email, and so on.

How to Get Started with Facebook Ads

Ad transparency is important for figuring out the algorithm. The ability for any user to see exactly what ads a Facebook page or Twitter account is running is particularly useful for marketers and businesses. There are three key ways that marketers can leverage this information to their advantage:

• Research competitor campaigns and consumer markets. Seeing all the ad campaigns your competitors are running is invaluable as you consider your own campaign. Visit their landing pages and assess their call to action. What special offers are they running? How long are their videos? Are they trying to attract clicks, drive purchases, or just create awareness?
• Get inspiration for using new ad features. New ad features roll out all the time on Facebook and Twitter. Look to major brands like Home Depot, Target, or Airbnb to see how they’re using new ad features; it’s a good way to see what each feature does and how it works without investing your first dollar.
• Share active campaigns with customers and prospects. Because users can engage with the ads in the same way they would if the ad appeared in their news feed, customers and prospects now have an opportunity to begin a purchase or a signup they might have missed out on.

Strategies

• Provide free content to warm up your audience. Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to differentiate your business and warm up cold audiences. Provide free valuable content that entertains, educates, or inspires your ideal customer. You could use videos, lead magnets (guides, checklists, coupons, etc.), or blog posts, for example.
• Engage people on your email list. Delivering your message via your Facebook ads and email marketing is twice as effective. Customers will see your message in their inbox and when they browse Facebook.
• Retarget website visitors. If you install the Facebook pixel on your website, you can target people who have recently visited your site.

Currently, Facebook says it has over 800 million users in the Marketplace. The plus of Facebook Marketplace is that it’s where people are actively looking for a specific good, which means you have immediate access to an audience that is looking for you.

• Create a campaign objective. Marketplace offers five objectives: reach, traffic, conversions, catalog sales, and video views. Once you pick one you can give your campaign a name.
• Choose placement. Where do you want the ad to appear? Scroll down to the Placements section and pick the settings.
• Create a video ad. In the Ad Creation section, you can upload images as well as a video. Videos tend to outperform static images in Marketplace, so that might be your best option.
• Analyze placement results. Check out how your ad is performing in comparison to other placements. You can do this by filtering your ad reports by selecting “Placement” from the Breakdown drop-down menu.

Targeting

Several experts suggest that Facebook Ads acts purely as a tool to generate demand and spark interest. Generally, we don’t check Facebook with the same intention as browsing on Amazon, Ebay or other similar sites. We probably go to the latter with a clear intention to buy or at least find out more information about a specific product that we already have in mind.

Concerning targeting, possibilities on Facebook are pretty unrivalled. You have the option to narrow down your audience based on demographic variables, including:

• Age
• location
• gender
• spoken languages
• relationship status

You can even choose your advertising audiences based on their level of education, field of profession, and occasion-based information like:

• Birthday month
• expecting parents
• engaged for 1 year
• expats, and many more

Bidding & performance

Similar to Google Ads and other advertising platforms, Facebook operates a real-time digital auction. However, Facebook auctions evaluate advertisements slightly differently – based on their competitive value.

Unlike other advertising platforms, this is not solely made up of the maximum amount you are willing to bid, but also the intrinsic value of the ad: level of engagement that the ad attracts, user experience (for example, likes, comments, negative feedback ). For example, should you bid €3 to have your ad shown at your chosen placement, the magical and mysterious algorithms of Facebook Ads then weigh your ad’s relevance against other competing ads and organic content. The more relevant your ad is to your target audience, the less you need to bid for its delivery.

How do you know if your ad is performing well?

Start with establishing what your goal with Facebook advertising is. Is it purely to maximise the number of clicks and landing page views? Alternatively, is your aim more concrete, and you want people to take a particular action once they get directed to your landing page?

Your next step once you have delineated your goal is to instruct Facebook Ads to begin optimising to deliver your adverts to people who are more likely to take the required action.

Once you have set up your campaign accordingly, the ad will then enter the learning phase, that does precisely what it says on the tin – Facebook uses its algorithms to learn whom to show your ads, to maximise your chosen results. Ad delivery during the learning phase usually is more expensive; however, it should normalise after reaching circa 50 conversions (i.e. your desired actions taken by Facebook users).

If you are only starting with Facebook Ads, you must know some basic terms, that help you  evaluate your ads’ performance:

• Impressions: The number of times your ad gets delivered to a Facebook user for the first time
• Reach: The number of people that your ad has been delivered to on Facebook
• Clicks: The number of times your ad has been clicked on
• CTR or Click Through Rate: This is the percentage of clicks on your ad out of all the impressions it has received
• CPC or Cost per Click: The average cost that you have paid for each click
• CPA or Cost per Acquisition/Action: Average cost per whichever action you have defined as a conversion. This can be a newsletter signup, website purchase.
• Frequency: The average number of times that your ad was shown to a Facebook user
• Attribution: Different marketing-related steps that a user takes before making a purchase

An online community is a group of people who interact with each other on an online platform. These communities can range from the 1+ billion-person Instagram community to a 10-person community of coffee lovers that rates artisan cafes in their city through a private Facebook group.

There’s a huge range in how an online community can scale, and understanding what type of online community is the most beneficial for your brand is the first step in building your own community.

Branded communities.

This type of community is the opposite of a public social network. You’ll need to provide more than an email address and password to get inside of the community. Imagine SOHO house, or a private members club, but online. You’ll need the right credentials (experience, common interests, location, etc.) to have access to the community even if it’s on a public social media platform.

Public social networks.

Think Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok even Vine (RIP) was a massive online community. Public social networks are online communities that only require someone to have an account to be part of the community. There aren’t many guidelines or restrictions when it comes to who gets to be part of this type of community.

Advantages

Increase engagement.

Online communities can boost your engagement in several ways. If you’re the blogger we wrote about earlier who has grown a substantial following on Instagram, having your community tag you in their Instagram story to share a daily win, how they’re using a product, etc., boosts your engagement. You can also have people comment on your Instagram posts, post in your Facebook group, reply to your tweet, etc.

Product feedback.

Similar product complaints or questions in your online community should never be passed over. While they are great for reducing your support costs, they’re even better at improving your product in exactly the way that your customers want.

Don’t let these complaints and questions get lost take note of them and put them on your “Product Improvement Notes” to-do list.

Reduce support costs.

Inside your online community, look for patterns about the before-state of your customers as well as their after-state. Their after-state comes once your product has solved their problem. Your goal after-state for your customers and the actual after-state may differ if your customers are running into issues with your products.

Your online community can not only be used to answer questions that customers might have, but can also be used to see what reoccurring issues customers are having and fix them. This will reduce the number of tickets coming into your customer support team.

Get to know your customers.

You can also use this megaphone to understand the before-and-after state of your customers. You’ll notice patterns in the way they describe their problems that you can use to improve your copy. This makes the copy more relatable to your customer avatar and shows them that this product is the one they’re looking for.

Drive product innovation.

Your customers are the best people to tell you what product improvements need to be made. They can tell you what they love, what they hate, and what they never use. Your online forum is a megaphone for your customers as to what you can do to improve your product for them.

Public community:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• G2 Crowd
• GetApp
• Quora
• Discourse
• Glassdoor
• Slack

Building Process

Choose a platform for your community.

There are two types of forums: one revolving around shared interest and the other that is more informational in nature.

With a shared-interest forum, you’re bringing together people who happen to be interested in a common topic where they can explore and connect with each other on a larger range of topics. Collaboration between members is key here.

Informational forums are largely used when you want to create a space for the community to search for and share content related to your product, service, or designated topic in one location.

Once you’ve identified the use case and the type of engagement you’re after (i.e., customer support operations or brand loyalty), you’ll want to start looking at detailed features that would support your community goals. These can range from:

• Deeper analytics
• Ease of use and good user interface
• Customer support
• Platform flexibility
• Integrations
• Mobile

2. Develop a launch framework.

When determining what business problem you want to resolve with your community, consider the following.

Are you looking to:

• Increase your customer satisfaction ratings?
• Decrease costs related to customer support?
• Increase demand of your product/service?
• Identify and mobilize influencers and advocates?
• Increase collaboration?

Knowing these answers will make it easier for you to identify why you are launching your online community and help you align its purpose to your intended goals.

3. Identify key internal stakeholders for the community.

After determining the need for forming your community, your next step is to identify your company’s stakeholders. You can consider three categories of stakeholders:

1. Those who will be managing the community. For external facing communities, this group of stakeholders may include the community manager, marketing department, and/or customer support. The stakeholders may vary greatly for internal communities.
2. Those who will be impacted by the community. If your community is external facing, marketing is generally involved because the answers you are seeking will have the most impact on them. If there is feedback from the community regarding product improvements, product management may also be involved.
3. Upper management. This stakeholder is the person who is responsible for the community and all that are affected by it. Usually, an executive could be an operations manager or a CMO who oversee all digital experiences.

Another way to go about identifying stakeholders is to lump the role of the community manager along with the social media management role. Your marketing team, operations department, customer service, or perhaps a specially created department may be put in charge of the community launch. In this instance, each department is likely to put focus on key performance indicators (KPIs) that are meaningful to them.

Marketing KPIs

• Market share
• Customer sentiment
• Mobilizing influencers and advocates
• NPS: Net Promoter Score

Operations

• Operational efficiency
• Reducing support costs

Customer Service

• CSAT: Customer Satisfaction Score
• NPS

Product Management

• Product testing
• Market research
• Beta testing
• Customer feedback

Typically, only one person will be tasked with the community launch. However, by leveraging resources and other talent within your company, your launch can be less stressful and more successful.

4. Set up your community.

Making a decision on what platform to use for your community is the first step. If you are launching the community on your own or taking a team approach, you will want to make sure that you or your team are familiar with the software you will be using. This is a good opportunity to play with a demo or go through some hands-on training.

After you and your team have a good understanding of the software you’ll be using, you can move on to making some setup decisions. These include:

• Keeping your community pre-launch private. You do not want outsiders having access to your community until you are ready, so make sure to enable your privacy settings.
• Displaying a list of recent discussions for the forum on the “homepage view.” New members or first time visitors may be more apt to join in the discussion if they see what is trending in your community.
• Creating your initial categories. Remember, your initial category list is not carved in stone and you should avoid creating too many categories at the start. Keep it simple and let your categories evolve. This will help keep a handle on discussion noise.
• Reviewing the sign-up process for members. The easier the process is, the more likely people will want to sign up for your community. You should consider a setting up a single sign-on (SSO). It is also important to thoroughly test your sign-up process before the pre-launch.
• Defining the roles your staff and members. Decide what roles will be included within your community, such as moderators or super members. Consider who on your staff will be the community’s admin, moderators, or community manager.
• Assigning permissions for roles. You will need to assign and test permissions to the roles you create. For example, you may restrict new accounts from posting pictures or links.
• Deciding which features will be enabled. This includes plug-ins, add-ons, and other features that are integrated into your online forum. Some features may not be needed right away, but others may be crucial to getting your team the data they need.
• Setting up gamification. Start thinking about the perks you want to reward your members with. This could be badges or other types of recognition for different achievements, such as being a beta-tester.
• Implementing your theme. You will want to tie your forum into your brand. Do not settle for impersonal default settings. For example, utilize your company’s color scheme and add other personal touches.
• Configuring spam controls. Take advantage of your software’s spam controls. Test the controls against a baseline of your trusted users. Adjust the settings as needed if you find that valid content is being labeled as spam.
• Setting up outgoing email. Decide what email address will be used for forum notifications. Review your welcome and registration emails to make sure they say what you want.
• Testing. You need to test everything before over and over until you are happy with all the parts of your forum. As you get closer to launch-time, your testing should become more stringent. Consider all types of probably scenarios and prepare yourself beforehand that not everything will be perfect. Get ready to decide on a launch date.

5. Begin a soft launch.

Once you are satisfied with the workings on your community, it is time to get ready for a soft launch. The purpose of a soft launch is to get your community ready for your full and public launch.

A great example of a soft launch is from BigFish Games with the introduction of their new game: Dungeon Boss. While preparing for the launch, they placed their app in the Apple Canada store and drove users to their community forum in a closed and private environment. They got a lot of customer feedback, some of which was incorporated into the Dungeon Boss game title. Consequently, when they launched worldwide, it became one of their most downloaded games.

Your soft launch should occur in three stages:

1. Preparing for the Soft-Launch

At this point, your community should be ready to be launched. All test content has been removed and any known issues have been fixed or have been scheduled to be fixed. It is time to pre-populate your community with quality content that will spark discussion and make good use of your existing content. Start off with at least 10 discussions using your existing material. Recruit your colleagues to get the ball rolling with these discussions. Tone is important, so you will want to set the right tone before moving on to the internal soft-launch.

2. Internal Soft-Launch

The purpose of the internal soft-launch is to identify problems using trusted people from your organization, colleagues, and friends before your forum goes public. While they are trying out your community, they can provide you with valuable feedback and report errors they find before moving to the full launch. This phase will allow your moderators an opportunity to learn how to use the tools that will be used in your forum. Any training deficiencies should be addressed and additional training provided if needed. Request feedback from your internal users. Then, set a deadline to move to the next phase: your public soft-launch.

3. Public Soft-Launch

This launch should be limited to a select audience that you will encourage to give you feedback on your new community forum. To form this group, try requesting volunteers from trusted customers, creating a banner on your website, or including a mention of it in your company newsletter. During your public soft-launch, address the following questions:

• Who should you include in this group?
• What problems do you want to solve while in this beta stage?
• What is needed to transition the community to live status
• What is your hard deadline to take your community to fully live?

Your goals should include:

• Getting the public involved
• Refining your community
• Receiving feedback
• Ensuring that your moderators and team are comfortable with the platform

6. Promote your community.

Once you have your date set, it’s time to get the word out to your target audience. The best way to do this is to take advantage of your existing presence online. Promote your launch all over your website, through email communications, and by having your sales team and customer service reps tell your existing and potential customers about the launch.

Here are some more tips that will help you drive the first 100 members to your community:

• Invite your contacts. No, it’s not always fun to bombard your family members, friends, or professional contacts about something you’re working on … but it works.
• Discuss with everyone and anyone. Get in the habit of talking to people everywhere you go, especially if your community is centered around a broad product or service that has value for many people.
• Enlist the help of new members through gamification. Ask your growing, early group to help you broaden the network by inviting their friends, colleagues, and digital connections. You can encourage this through contests or reward systems integrated into your platform.
• Partner with influencers. Collaborating with a related and complementary company can be an effective way to promote your new community and welcome new members who like both products and services.