How to Generate More Leads Through Your Online Marketing Campaigns

Are you happy with the number of leads your marketing campaigns are generating? Or, do you wish they were a bit more effective?

If you’re serious about growing your business—whether it’s a B2B company, an e-commerce store, or a startup—increasing the number of leads should be a top priority. Setting up online campaigns is a good start, but it’s not enough. You need to optimize those marketing campaigns to squeeze every last lead from your funnel.

Are you ready to get to work? Here are seven strategies to generate leads like never before.

Why Are Leads so Crucial to Business Growth?

Two of marketers’ top priorities are generating leads and converting those leads to customers. Only increasing customer satisfaction comes close to the importance of getting new leads.

A bar graph of the top marketing priorities in the next 12 months.

It’s no surprise that lead generation is a top priority. Without a continuous flow of new leads, sales dry up. Without sales, there’s no revenue. And without revenue, your business folds.

What’s more, most people who land on your site won’t purchase right away. You need to constantly collect leads so you can nurture them and convert them into buyers in the future.

Not just any leads will do, however. Referrals, conferences, and cold calling are all great lead generation strategies, but they aren’t enough. You also need to learn how to generate more leads from your online campaigns.

Why are advertising leads better? Using targeting you can gather better leads faster and even automate parts of the process. How do you make sure your ads are driving quality leads?

How to Generate Leads Online: 7 Strategies to Drive More Leads

If you aren’t sure how to create a lead generation campaign, I have previous articles to walk you through the process. What I’m going to do is show you how to generate leads online by improving your existing ad campaigns.

Optimize Your Landing Page

Your landing page (or squeeze page) is one of the most important elements of your online lead generation campaign. The goal is to leave the visitor with no choice but to hand over information in exchange for something valuable.

Landing pages convert better than most other ads or offers. The average conversion rate is 2.35 percent, but some have conversion rates in excess of 10 percent. If your landing page’s conversion rate isn’t pushing double digits, you should look to optimize one or more elements ASAP.

I recommend looking at your page’s copy, including its headline, first. Make sure your copy is short, sharp, and engaging. Users need to understand exactly what your product is and how it helps them within a few seconds of landing on your site. Make sure you focus on the benefits of your product to the user, not its features.

Spend more time tweaking and testing your headline than anything else. This will be the first thing a user reads and one of the biggest deciding factors in whether they continue browsing the rest of the page.

You can speed up a user’s understanding of your product by including a video on your landing page. A good chunk of your audience would rather watch a video than read your copy, which is why 76 percent of sales teams say video is key to securing more deals.

Finally, remove all distractions from your page. The layout should be as simple as possible and there’s no need for a navigation bar or links to any other pages on your site. This leaves the user with two options: close their browser window or sign up.

ConvertKit’s Creator Pass is a fantastic example of how to create a great landing page. There’s no headline navigation, the headline copy offers a clear benefit, and there’s an enticing call to action right in front of you.

Generate more leads by optimizing your landing page.

Offer Real Value

Arguably the most important part of your landing page isn’t the copy, image, or CTA. It’s the piece of content, tool, or resource you offer in return for each lead’s email address.

For most brands, gated content takes the form of a PDF download, something like an ebook or a whitepaper. But it doesn’t have to be. Case studies, surveys, webinars and video series are all excellent types of gated content.

Whatever form your gated content takes, it must deliver tremendous value. Otherwise leads will leave your funnel as quickly as they entered. How do you deliver value? By solving a problem your leads have. What are their pain points? Where do they get stuck? What expertise can you leverage to make their lives a little bit easier?

Delivering value also means presenting gated content in the best way possible. Make it visually appealing, with images, videos, and other forms of multimedia content. The nicer it is for your leads to consume, the more they’ll engage with it.

Here’s an example of a non-ebook lead magnet from Leadpages:

Generate more leads by offering real value to the consumer.

They know their leads often struggle to create high converting pages, so they created a training course to solve that issue.

Use Automation to Nurture Leads

Collecting leads is just the first step of the process; you also need to nurture them. Only two percent of sales are made at first contact, yet most salespeople give up after the first attempt. If you automate the follow-up process, you don’t have to worry about a thing.

I recommend using email to nurture when possible. It is a great way to drip feed messages to your leads, it also generates massive ROI. According to research by the Direct Marketing Association, the ROI of email marketing is £42 for every £1 spent.

If you don’t have an email automation platform yet, check out my review of the best solutions. Then integrate your landing page’s form so every email is automatically added to your mailing list.

Next, create an automated series of emails that is sent out at regular intervals. Your goal is to take leads through each stage of the buying process—and that means providing them with the right educational content at the right time. Start by educating them about your wider industry and their general problems. A couple of emails later, you can start to focus on your product and service and how you can help.

The more emails you send, the more you can make your product the hero of the email, and the more direct you can be with the lead.

Use Chatbots to Turn Conversations Into High-Quality Leads

Your salespeople aren’t the only ones who can nurture leads. Chatbots can automate almost every part of the lead generation process. They’re incredibly effective at it, too. Over half of businesses that use AI-powered chatbots generate better quality leads.

Start by replacing forms on your landing page with a chat bot. Forms can be long-winded and rarely offer a great user experience. Chatbots make it easier for prospects to fill out their details. In some cases, users may not even be aware they’re filling out a lead form.

You can also use chatbots to respond to leads at lightning speed. Response time matters in lead generation. A study by Harvard Business Review shows businesses that respond to leads in under five minutes are 100 times more likely to convert them. With chatbots, you can automate the response process and send a message as soon as a lead fills out a form.

Finally, use chatbots to nurture and qualify leads. Chatbots can ask the same qualifying question as your salespeople to separate the wheat from the chaff. The best can be sent directly to sales, while everyone else is added to a nurturing sequence.

Drift’s chatbot is an excellent example of this. It asks a qualifying question as soon as someone lands on the site, putting them straight through to a sales rep if they’re ready.

Generate more leads by utilizing chat bots.

Use Multi-Platform Campaigns

How many platforms are you using to advertise your landing page and gated content? You probably aren’t using enough.

Today’s customer journey is long. Most don’t convert to customers the first time they land on your site. The majority probably won’t sign up on your landing page, either. A recent Google study found it takes between 20 and 500 touchpoints to become a customer.

The solution is a multi-touch campaign, where your message is delivered in multiple formats across multiple channels.

Advertising on a range of channels maximizes the chances that potential customers will see and click your ad. It’s a numbers game at the end of the day. The more shots you take, the more chances you have to score.

Leverage Personalization

If you want an easy way to increase conversion rates at every stage of your online lead generation campaign, try personalization. In a survey of B2B sales and marketing professionals, over three-quarters (77 percent) said personalization made for better customer relationships, and over half (55 percent) said personalization led to higher sales conversions.

How can you add personalization into your funnels to generate leads?

Start by personalizing your ads. While Apple may have made creating hyper-personalized ads a lot harder, Google still makes it relatively easy to personalize paid search ads with dynamic ads.

Next, personalize your landing page, particularly the call to action. Research shows personalized CTAs achieve 202 percent better conversions. Marketing tools like HubSpot and Unbounce can help you create dynamic CTAs that change depending on who views them. But you could also go old school and create several different versions of your page for each ad group and personalize the copy accordingly.

Finally, build personalization into your email automation tool. Every major email marketing tool makes it easy to automatically insert the recipient’s name into the subject line and body copy, so there’s absolutely no excuse not to personalize your nurturing emails.

Target Your Ads Carefully

There’s no point wasting resources nurturing leads who will never buy your product. That’s why you need to target your lead generation ads carefully.

I’ve written extensively about how to find your target audience and identify target markets for paid campaigns, so I’m not going to cover old ground here.

I will say it’s important not to be too hasty when judging the performance of your landing page ads. When pruning and optimizing ad campaigns, don’t just judge performance based on how many people they send to your landing page that sign up. That’s a good measure, but it’s not as important as how many people actually convert into customers.

Think about it. One ad campaign could have a ridiculously high signup conversion rate of 20 percent. But if only a tiny fraction of those people make a purchase, it’s not a particularly effective ad. An ad campaign with a much lower signup conversion rate could be far more effective at generating high-quality leads.

Of course, this means you’re going to have to wait longer to collect relevant data. But the end result should be a much more targeted and effective ad campaign.

The best way to target ads effectively? Target keywords with higher buyer intent. These are search terms that indicate the user is closer to conversion.

Frequently Asked Questions About Generating More Leads

How do you build a lead generation campaign?

Start by having an objective and defining your target audience. Create a valuable piece of gated content and drive traffic to it using paid ads. Collect emails and then use email to nurture those leads.

What is an example of a lead generation marketing campaign?

A gated whitepaper is an example of a lead generation marketing campaign. Webinars can also be used as a lead generation marketing campaign to acquire leads and nurture them using video

How do I optimize my lead generation campaign?

There are several strategies to optimize lead generation campaigns. Improve your landing page copy, put your emails on autopilot, use chatbots to speed up response time, and personalize messaging.

Where should I advertise for my lead gen campaign?

Social media platforms are one of the most cost-effective places to advertise your lead generation campaign. But the important thing is to advertise wherever your target audience hangs out online.

Conclusion: Generate More Leads to Improve Marketing ROI

Improving your online marketing campaigns and optimizing how you generate leads are the keys to growing your business. But you don’t have to use all of the strategies I’ve listed all at once.

Optimizing your campaigns should be an ongoing endeavor, so pick one or two of these strategies to implement at a time. Pretty soon you’ll send your ROI skyrocketing.

Now you know how to generate leads online, which strategy will you start with first?

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Sprout on Sprout: How to communicate social media marketing priorities to outside stakeholders

Social media management isn’t an easy feat. Social media marketers know the work goes beyond simply scheduling a post with funny GIFs or crafting viral-worthy content. Many social teams, including ours, are usually smaller, but their impact on the business is large.

LinkedIn reported that social media managers are the third most in-demand marketing position by job posting volume in 2022, while social media coordinator roles have the third most year-over-year growth of all marketing titles.

Social media teams often interact with multiple stakeholders from all levels and departments across an entire organization. This makes it difficult to manage everyone’s requests or needs, while staying true to your social strategy and marketing priorities.

That’s why it’s imperative to prioritize and communicate what’s on your plate outside of your social team in an effective way. But how can you develop a prioritization strategy that works for you and your team? How do you speak up when a stakeholder’s request doesn’t align with your goals? And how do you explain you’re overwhelmed with your workload because of a surplus of requests?

Here’s a quick look into how Sprout’s social team maneuvers marketing priorities to help inspire your own processes. I’ll also drop gems about which methods and data reports in Sprout Social will equip you to communicate your priorities and stand your ground.

Ownership over individual marketing priorities

Our social media team consists of three people, one senior manager and two strategists. My teammate, Jonathan Zuluaga, and I are both Social Media Strategists. Our team model uses a platform-specific approach: Jonathan handles the engagement networks (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and messaging apps like WhatsApps) while I manage the awareness side of our strategy (YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok). Our manager, Rachael Samuels, oversees the entire social strategy.

This setup allows us to own our workload and methods for handling our marketing priorities. I’ll explain our four methods for executing our marketing goals: dividing responsibilities, using the action priority matrix, time blocking and project planning.

Dividing responsibilities

Dividing responsibilities makes setting priorities easier. For visibility, Jonathan and I will add notes in the Sprout Calendar, saying, “this is an initiative I’m owning and here’s the publish date for it.” This way we can see what we’re each working on.

Having a designated strategist for each set of networks also makes it easier for stakeholders who have questions and requests. They’re able to get their answers faster with the expertise they need to move forward. If someone from an outside team wants to promote a webinar on Twitter, they know who to reach out to and the collaboration process can begin immediately.

Using the action priority matrix

Since each person owns a piece of our strategy, we’re able to create individualized methods for meeting our goals. However, we all use the action priority matrix to help complete tasks and projects. The action priority matrix is a productivity tool that ranks tasks and/or projects by their impact on the business and the amount of time it takes to complete them. First, we focus on high impact, low-effort tasks and go from there.

For us, high impact is any type of project that connects to our overall marketing goals, or anything that will help us reach results on a project that is behind or needs immediate attention. Lower lift projects might only need an hour of our time, but it will have a significant impact. In a nutshell, anything we do is guided by the broader organization.

As a manager, Rachael must balance completing her own work while keeping business needs top of mind.

Rachael says, “I ask myself: what is going to move the needle for the business that day? And what needs steady attention versus what needs a short burst of energy?”

“Whatever is high impact, low effort, I do that first. Then I complete medium impact, low effort tasks. If something is high impact, high effort, I examine and see if I can take that out into chunks and then I prioritize those chunks over a longer period of time,” she adds.

Time blocking and project planning

Time blocking is one of Rachael’s biggest prioritization tips for social media marketers.

“There’s just nothing like it. Just force yourself to shut off and stop multitasking. It’s not helpful for anyone,” she explains.

Along with time blocking, she implements project planning. She sets a plan with action items for each day of the week, no matter how small the task.

“Project planning is so important. If you lay out the dates of every tiny thing you need to do upfront, it actually makes things so much easier,” says Rachael.

Similar to Rachael, I like to use project planning to manage my workload. I use a spreadsheet to lay out all of the things that I want to publish that month and use it to keep track, like a progress report. My “inputs” come from various initiatives and I use them to plan out social content. I’ll include everything I need to publish on social, such as video or creative resources. I’ll tell myself, “Okay, I’ve produced five of our planned TikTok launch videos for the month,” and mark that on the calendar to keep track of each piece of content.

The spreadsheet provides flexibility because I can adjust if a shift arises. Our team keeps adaptability in mind when project planning because social is innately ever-changing. Adaptability in social media is necessary, but Rachael notes this becomes easier when there’s a plan in place.

“Social moves really fast so priorities change really quickly, like daily or even on the minute. Something could go viral and you need to hop on right then. That’s okay. But you have to make a universe where it’s okay. Creating pockets of time for the steady work, knowing that you might have disruptors, and figuring out what that looks like for you is really important,” she explains.

Aligning team marketing priorities

We have team-and department-wide prioritization tactics as well. For example, we meet with teams and leaders at the beginning of the quarter to discuss each team’s priorities. Communicating the importance of our social strategy to stakeholders is essential to collaborating with other teams effectively.

“It’s important for stakeholders across the organization to understand that we have a specific strategy in which we have these multiple networks and those are what are available for distribution. It’s also important to have an understanding of who we’re trying to reach on each network,” Rachael says.

She notes it’s crucial to communicate the pillars of our strategy to stakeholders so they can have an understanding of our goals. If a request doesn’t fall within those pillars, we examine if it fits within our strategy.

We keep ourselves open to collaboration by offering an internal form, which stakeholders use to submit ideas and requests. It’s a framework that helps our team better understand the idea or initiative so we can explore how to connect it to our strategy. The form also shows others how our team approaches projects because we communicate our thought process and how it connects to our strategy and overall goals.

Although we value collaboration, sometimes we have to push back and our team has several methods for those situations.

How to stand behind your social media marketing priorities

Many social media marketers are familiar with the experience of having a flood of requests coming in from various departments. It’s common for a variety of teams to contribute to their organization’s social strategy.

But, let’s be honest, not every request should be added to the top of your to-do list. You might even face some pushback if you decline.

Most likely if you’re pushing back on something, it’s because you know it’s not going to be successful. If someone really wants you to promote a webinar or a certain event, and you don’t think that it aligns with your Instagram or TikTok audience, it’s okay to say no.

As social media marketers, we know best what our audience wants on every network.

Here are some tactics we like to use that may help you stand behind your marketing priorities while not burning bridges:

1) Find a point of compromise

Jonathan says choosing compromise will help you navigate necessary relationships and build rapport. Given the nature of how social works, it’s super important for social media managers to build relationships across various departments to gain visibility and respect. Having those strong relationships and using them to establish expertise will allow you to have an open conversation when pushing back.

“Be able to throw someone a cookie once in a while. I’ll tell them, ‘Okay, I’ll try it this time, but let’s touch base and see if it does work based on the data.’ That might help you prove that you are able to build relationships, but you also have data that maybe it doesn’t work, because social is all testing and learning,” he says.

Use A/B testing as a means of compromise. If someone insists on an initiative, you can propose an A/B test to see which content performs the best. This shows your openness, but also allows an opportunity for the data to show if it’s an effective approach.

If you find something doesn’t resonate with your audience on one network, then maybe it would fit better on another network. You can select which audiences and networks would best suit different initiatives. It lowers the lift on your end because you’re not creating content for every network, while still supporting an important stakeholder.

2) Embrace the opportunity to educate

In some cases, Rachael recommends not viewing it as pushing back on a request but examining the opportunity as a way to educate the stakeholder. Explain why the task isn’t high priority in terms of the team’s workload, or consider providing an alternative that would enhance the opportunity. It’s a proactive measure that will help both parties down the line.

“If someone’s like, ‘I want to post about this webinar,’ but it doesn’t really make sense for us to do…It’s less about pushing back and more about educating on why something would work or something won’t work, ” she says.

If you don’t decline completely and end up compromising, she urges social media marketers to further this education.

“You can say, ‘Here’s what we could have done had we had more time,’ or ‘Here’s what we could have done had we had more information or more context or more images.’ Just be straight up about that so people don’t repeat the behavior in the future.”

She also encourages being honest about your time commitment, adding “You can even say something along the lines of ‘Hey, I know social looks easy, but it can take three hours to pull a story together. And it’s not something I can have up by 11 am.’ This is actually a really good educational way to approach social management and mitigate that type of behavior from other people.”

The more educated stakeholders become in the craft, the more confident you will become in standing your ground.

3) Be a resource of truth for other teams

Since social media marketers have a better understanding of social, use your expertise when managing requests from stakeholders.

“Have strong reasoning why you are pushing back or why you can’t do a certain project. Social ends up being the catch-all place for a lot of organizations. I’ve experienced that in the past in my career, but nowadays, that’s not the case because we are building more sophisticated strategies and have a better understanding of our audience. Making sure that you understand what your strategy is, what your goals are and who your audience is will give you a way better case of why something’s not going to work and why you’re pushing back,” Jonathan says.

Essentially, be open about what you’re prioritizing and what your audience is looking for on social, so it can inform other teams and what they prioritize too.

4) Be honest and connect with your manager

If you’re ever in a situation where you feel overwhelmed, don’t hesitate to advocate for yourself.

You can’t throw everyone a cookie. Some will want a flavor entirely different from what your baking, while others may want to take more than their share from the jar.

“It’s all about just being truthful with yourself. How much is it going to help and does it need to get done right now? Is this only a passion project? Or will it help me reach the results and goals for our business needs?” Jonathan says.

The other step is being honest with your manager about what’s on your plate and why you’re pushing back on something. If someone’s trying to push an initiative, and they really want social support, check in with your manager and ask, “Hey, I have all of these other things that are priorities right now. So what can I take off of my plate?”

It’s impossible to juggle everything without getting burnt out. Be honest about what you can take on and what you can’t.

Use data to back up your marketing priorities

Data is your best friend when it comes to communicating your priorities. It’s hard to fight against data because numbers don’t lie. Be confident in your social discernment and then root everything you can in the data to support your decisions and thought process.

“For us, data reporting guides the way we prioritize projects. It helps us understand what is moving the needle and what’s not, so we can gauge where we should be focusing our time or pushing a little bit more,” says Jonathan.

Along with using data, keep in mind that since your social team’s priorities are based on what their audience is craving, this insight can help inform what the rest of your company is focused on as well. The more you can merchandise your work to inform other teams in your organization, the better.

Our social team uses Sprout’s various reports to guide our marketing priorities and illustrate our initiatives. Here are some of the reports we use that can help you anchor your reasoning in data as well:

Custom Reports

Custom Reports are probably the most beneficial for showing leaders what you’re doing, because of their shareability.

If your leader wants a holistic view of what you’re doing on social, Custom Reports can be shared as highlights in an email, exported as interactive PDFs or as a shareable link going directly to Sprout for a full snapshot. Plus, you can annotate and leave notes in different portions of the report to further explain what the data means.

“I’d say the most beneficial report would be the Custom Report because it’s going to have listening data. You can include information around paid, organic and include post performance data. There’s a full story to be told,” Rachael says.

“Listening is really great because your priorities can change based on what we’re hearing from our audience. Listening can be helpful because it challenges assumptions,” she adds.

Profile Reports

We use these reports frequently. The network profile reports help us see how our strategy is performing, because we can look at our KPIs per network to get a gut check on our progress to goals.

“The network profile report answers: Which network is going to pull the most levers? Where should we be investing more specifically? It can also help with planning. What type of video equipment investment are you going to have to make? What type of budget do you need to have for creators or influencers? The network profile reports can be helpful for that type of discussion with leadership,” Rachael says.

Post Performance Reports

We use the Post Performance Report a lot because it’s truly a powerful tracking tool. The report helps us understand what content is resonating with our audience by extracting the “why” and “how.” It lays out how many people are actively engaging via comments, likes and shares.

It’s a great way to help illustrate impact through data. If someone asks, “Is this specific initiative making the most impact for what our goals are?” Your team can pull several posts that illustrate why and how it’s creating impact.

We also like to use it when we’re experimenting, because we can filter by various metrics and use tags to track campaigns.

We use filters to see what posts created the most awareness, garnered the most engagements or had the highest engagement rate. We adjust these filters based on the metrics we’re looking for and use those insights to reflect and brainstorm next steps.

For example, if a video about a particular topic garnered the most views and impressions, our team thinks about how we can recreate the idea in a different way. We try to pinpoint what we think made the video earn so many views.

The Post Performance Report also includes qualitative data. You can see people’s reactions, comments and how they engage with that type of content. Qualitative data is valuable when communicating to stakeholders because they’re able to see success points at a glance. It’s also helpful if a stakeholder isn’t 100% fluent in social media metrics.

Using data to influence future marketing priorities

Along with using data to back up your claims, use data to inform or adjust your future priorities. The numbers constantly inform what type of content we want to create.

We saw that on Twitter and Instagram, video views were blowing the previous six months out of the water. It was clear video was something we needed to heavily invest in and keep testing.

We knew we had to iterate how to create more high impact videos based on that insight. We also had to consider what other video series we were doing to ensure we weren’t stretching ourselves too thin.

The takeaway here is to let the numbers inspire your next steps and use it as an opportunity to experiment and grow your network.

Why you should over communicate marketing priorities

Over communicating is very important when it comes to collaborating with multiple stakeholders, especially leadership. It might feel like you’re sharing too much, or you don’t have enough information, but even just letting someone know the status of a project can go a long way.

If I’m waiting on a piece of creative and I say it’s a blocker before I can move forward, it gives leadership a good idea of what I need to be successful. Defining blockers helps them support you a little bit better because they know if you need more resources or not.

Rachael advises social media marketers to set deadlines for progress updates and to communicate these to avoid confusion down the road. Avoid waiting until people ask questions to communicate about your work because it can create backup.

“From a prioritization standpoint, that’s where people get messed up a lot. They had the time blocks, they had everything all planned out, but then someone had a question. So, then they had to send a report and stop what they were doing. Next thing you know, it took five hours to put a post up that no one knew about. Stuff like that can be super disruptive,” she says.

Giving frequent updates benefits the entire team in the long run because it allows stakeholders more opportunities to reach out and ask questions sooner.

Using Sprout to manage marketing priorities

We’ve broken down our social team’s prioritization strategy and how we use Sprout to back up and inform our strategy. If you want to learn more about our reports, and try out these tips on your own, sign up for a free one-month trial today.

The post Sprout on Sprout: How to communicate social media marketing priorities to outside stakeholders appeared first on Sprout Social.

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No, RadioShack's Twitter wasn't hacked. It sells cryptocurrency now.

"If you find a squirter marry her."

That's the tweet currently taking over Twitter, with shocked reactions in the replies and quotes tweets asking, "What in the world is going on?"

The tweet wasn't accidentally sent by a politician or a hacked company's account.

RadioShack's "squirter" tweet went viral on Wednesday. Credit: Mashable Screenshot

It was tweeted by RadioShack... on purpose. 

But why would RadioShack tweet such a thing? It's simple: RadioShack is a cryptocurrency company now. 

A screenshot of the Radio Shack Swap homepage. Credit: Mashable Screenshot

That's right. RadioShack has pivoted to the blockchain and launched its own crypto exchange called Radio Shack Swap. The company even has its own token called $RADIO, currently trading at around a penny. (The crypto crash seems to have knocked it down by two-thirds of its pre-crash value.)

Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab)

Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab)

If you visit RadioShack's website right now, you'll see that it still does sell some electronic odds-and-ends. But, front and center on the main page is the RadioShack cryptocurrency platform.

Radioshack's main website is focused on promoting its cryptocurrency platform right now. Credit: Mashable Screenshot

In order to appeal to the libertarian-leaning crypto "degens," (crypto slang for "degenerates," which some crypto advocates refer to themselves as) the 100-year-old electronics store has also pivoted to posting "edgy" content on Twitter. And while the since-deleted "squirter" tweet may be its biggest attention-grabbing success so far, it's not the first time the account's gone viral due to the shock value of seeing your dad's go-to outlet for old ham radio spare parts slum it up online with some tweet-then-delete edgelord humor.

"who else high af rn" tweeted the @RadioShack account on June 16.

Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab)

"Taking the second half of an edible after feeling nothing from the first half is always a bad idea. This chocolate bar got me out here fighting for my life," it posted on June 28.

Edgelord RadioShack. Credit: Mashable Screenshot

"This guy fucks," @RadioShack replied to a user who posted a photo of their old RadioShack "Battery Club" card.

"congrats on the landing of your new giant metal cock elon" the account sent as a reply to Elon Musk on June 17.

RadioShack's move from your grandpa's electronic retailer to its current incarnation as a cryptocurrency pumper occurred after the company was bought out by Retail Ecommerce Ventures (REV) in 2020. This was after a tumultuous period for the company, during which it closed a slew of stores and filed for bankruptcy. When REV purchased the company, RadioShack had just 400 physical retail locations, down from its peak of 7,300.

REV is owned by Tai Lopez, who YouTubers know as the internet marketing guy that has long filled the platform with pre-roll video ads promoting "get rich quick" schemes. Perhaps his most well known YouTube video advertisement is "Here in My Garage," which features Lopez showing off his Lamborghini. It currently has more than 71 million video views.

This isn't Lopez's first endeavor in the crypto space. He launched his own line of NFTs earlier this year, which was quickly labeled a scam by critics who claimed that Lopez "siphons out the funds" as soon as a user would mint an NFT. 

SEE ALSO: Seth Green paid nearly $300,000 to get his stolen Bored Ape NFT back

If REV is successful in its crypto vision for a relaunched RadioShack, perhaps we'll see other companies make the pivot, too. Over the years, Lopez's REV has acquired a number of legacy brands, which include Modell's Sporting Goods, Dressbarn, Linens 'n Things, and Pier1.

Wicker Basket Coin, anyone?

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How to Analyze Competitors on Instagram to Reach Your Goals

Circa 2010, Instagram was a casual photo-sharing app for silly selfies and over-saturated food pics. In just over a decade, the app has evolved into one of social media’s most prominent platforms with over 1 billion users. Some 90% of users follow a brand on Instagram and there are over 200 million business accounts on the app as well. According to the 2022 Sprout Social Index™, 49% of consumers and 59% of marketers anticipate using IG in the next 12 months.

It’s imperative for brands to craft a game plan to stand out against their competitors. An Instagram competitor analysis can help brands compete with rivals in the marketplace by highlighting pieces of their strategy from content gaps to publishing behavior.

You can seek opportunities in the data to outperform your competitors and think about what is most valuable for your followers. This will save you time because you aren’t reinventing the wheel, but rather using what you know will work.

Let’s break down how an Instagram competitor analysis can help level the playing field so you can reach your goals.

What is an Instagram competitor analysis report?

Competitive analysis refers to the process of strategically researching, evaluating and comparing the strengths and weaknesses of rival companies. It involves taking a deeper look into every aspect of your competitors’ businesses from pricing to marketing strategy. A competitor analysis can also help you establish what makes a product or service unique, including the attributes that attract your target audience(s).

To enable brands to understand their competitors’ Instagram strategy at the profile level, Sprout Social created the Instagram Competitors Report—available in Professional plans and above. Similar to the Facebook Competitors Report, you can use this report to track fundamental metrics, such as audience growth and engagement, for any public Instagram profile.

Why should you do an Instagram competitive analysis?

Whether you’re a seasoned pro or starting a new account, an Instagram competitor analysis report provides insights that inform and improve your social strategy, so you can maintain an edge on the network. Here’s several reasons why you need to conduct an Instagram competitive analysis:

Establish your own KPIs through competitive benchmarking

Benchmarking your brand against competitors and related businesses will help you see how your business stacks up against others in the industry. Comparing your brand to a business of comparable size and resources can assist with setting goals on Instagram.

By analyzing key performance indicators (KPIs), your brand will be able to determine what type of content performed best, how often to post and more. Tracking your Instagram competitors’ KPIs will also help you keep a pulse on industry and social trends. Even better, you’ll be able to spot what doesn’t work for your peers and identify ways to stay ahead of the competition.

Which Instagram competitive metrics are important?

Sprout’s Instagram Competitors Report includes average metrics for followers, engagement, audience growth, publishing behavior (the different types of content posted) and top posts. Interactive graphs and accompanying data charts showcase trends over time, making it easy for you to visualize growth patterns. You can also use Sprout’s Advanced Listening tools to learn about industry trending topics and hashtags.

We have plenty of metrics for your brand to learn from. Here’s a quick overview of what they mean and why they’re important:

1. Followers

A company’s number of followers represents social proof and brand affinity. Although follower count is a good indicator of audience size and brand loyalty, think of it as a complementary metric for engagement. In the early days of social, follower count was the main goal, but things are more complex now.

If an account has thousands of followers, but consistently low engagement, chances are they aren’t truly connecting with their audience. Conversely, a brand could have fewer followers, but consistent engagement, which could indicate they are tuned in with their audience and produce quality content.

2. Engagement

Sprout offers several different metrics for measuring engagement, including competitor averages. Engagement is one of the top metrics because it reflects how well your brand’s content resonates with your target audience. Engagement includes likes and comments, and each plays a different role in your analysis.

A post with a lot of likes and comments validates its quality. Likes show if users enjoy the post, while comments are more open ended . Instagrammers flock to the comments to share reactions and feedback, indicating common sentiment—both positive and negative.

3. Audience growth

Remember that follower count is a form of social proof and brand affinity. More followers mean more eyes on your products and services, along with increased reach and engagement.

Use the Audience Growth section to pinpoint peaks in new followers, and pair with the Sent Messages Report to understand what posts drove that growth. You can use this data to help inspire your upcoming content.

4. Publishing behavior

Publishing behavior refers to the different types of Instagram posts published during a selected time period. These include photos, carousels and video posts. Sprout Social offers an Optimal Send Time feature, but viewing the frequency of your competitors’ posts can help you determine if you’re publishing enough content.

5. Top posts

Like engagement, analyzing top posts is an important metric because it highlights your competitors’ best content. Along with seeing high-performing posts, you can view how many engagements the post received. Use the Competitor Posts Report to dive deep and draw conclusions about why a post was so successful.

Did the post perform because it’s a valuable product tutorial? Was it part of a campaign? Find out what these posts accomplish that your content doesn’t and get back to the drawing board to improve your strategy.

6. Hashtags

Many brands use hashtags to boost their organic reach, so knowing which tags are the most relevant is key. Hashtags can drive growth to your page over time and capture brand sentiment.

Avoid copying competitor hashtags verbatim. Aim for a mix instead and try generating new ones, such as branded hashtags. Along with the most popular hashtags, pay attention to the number of hashtags per post.

You can view your competitors’ top three hashtags underneath the Profiles tab of the Instagram Competitors Report. Hashtags are ranked by the total number of public engagements the competitor received on all posts that use the hashtag. You can conduct further hashtag analysis with Sprout’s Advanced Listening tool. With Advanced Listening, you can learn more about relevant hashtags by using the Competitive Analysis Topic Template. This is a great tool for finding trending hashtags and conversations you might be missing out on.

Identify content gaps by analyzing competitors on Instagram

Analyzing your Instagram competitors will help you identify content gaps in your strategy. For example, if you notice your competitors’ top posts include videos with high engagement, then you should consider investing more in video.

On the other hand, you can use an Instagram competitor analysis to identify where your competitors are falling flat. If you notice your rivals aren’t posting frequently or never respond to comments, take it as a sign to fill a gap for your audience.

Even the biggest brands have room for improvement, which leads us to our next point about crafting better content for your audience.

Create better content for your followers

Although they are your rivals, your Instagram competitors can help you craft better content for your followers. Look to your competitors for inspiration and add your own spin to it. If you notice a brand telling a story well, brainstorm a different angle.

If you notice an industry trend on Instagram, how can you use that to promote your products or services while showcasing your brand’s personality and value? What brands aced the trend and why did their content gain so much attention?

Consider the always-popular Instagram giveaway. They typically encourage followers to enter by completing several tasks such as following the brand and tagging a friend in the comments. In this situation, you would look at brands within your niche and take note of the type of prize, the call to action, and which companies received the highest engagement and largest audience growth. After determining the top brand giveaways trending in your market, ideate how to stand out based on your analysis.

How to analyze competitors on Instagram with Sprout

Sprout’s Instagram Competitors Report is intuitive and simple, yet extensive enough to provide the insights you need to build your brand and engage with your audience. If you need a metric defined, simply hover over the word and a definition will appear.

To view the report, click on the Reports icon on the left hand side of the screen. Click on Competitors by Network and select “Instagram Competitors.”

Select the timeframe you would like to analyze by clicking on the calendar icon in the top right corner.

Click on Your Profiles and Competitor Profile to select the Instagram accounts you would like to compare.

 

From here, you can simply scroll down to view various metrics.

If you would like to see more Top Posts, click View Competitor Posts Report. To view an exact post on Instagram, click on the timestamp at the top of the post.

Understanding your Instagram competitor analysis

Now that you have an Instagram Competitor Report, you can begin your analysis. Take the time to soak in the details and reflect on your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. Pay attention to high engagement rates and top posts to pinpoint potential tactics in your strategy.

If you notice any major spikes or dips, see if the brand has been doing anything differently. For example, if you notice increased followership, look at their profile to see if they have partnered with any influencers or completed giveaways.

Sweep the competition with analysis reporting

The Instagram Competitor Report is part of Sprout’s analytics suite. Share competitive insights—as well as your brand’s Instagram Profiles Report—with stakeholders by emailing PDF reports from Sprout. By doing so, you can demonstrate your brand’s success or secure buy-in for future campaigns.

To learn more about our Instagram Competitor Report, get hands-on and sign up for a free 30-day trial.

The post How to Analyze Competitors on Instagram to Reach Your Goals appeared first on Sprout Social.

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How to go live on TikTok and engage your followers

There’s something about livestreaming that feels so authentic and unfiltered. This makes it great for engaging your followers. TikTok’s LIVE feature is perfect for connecting with your audience and reaching new people on the app. In this in-depth guide, we show you how to go live on TikTok and use the feature to boost your brand’s TikTok engagement.

What is TikTok LIVE?

TikTok LIVE is a feature that lets you stream live broadcasts on the app. This creates an opportunity to interact with your audience in real-time. Like your regular TikTok videos, you can add filters and effects using LIVE.

The biggest difference with LIVE is that the video streams in real-time and can be any length. Meanwhile, regular TikTok videos can only be up to 10 minutes long and are pre-recorded before uploading to the platform. Additionally, there are certain restrictions on who can use LIVE, while every user can upload a regular video.

How to go live on TikTok step by step

Now it’s time to take TikTok LIVE for a spin. If you’re familiar with how to make a TikTok and you’ve gone live on other social networks, you should have no trouble learning how to livestream on TikTok. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to go live on TikTok.

Step 1: Tap on the “+” button to open the camera. This is the same button that’ll let you record or upload your regular TikTok videos.

Step 2: From the navigation bar at the bottom, swipe and then select the option to go “LIVE.” If you don’t see this option, you may not be eligible to access the feature yet.

Step 3: Next, add details about your LIVE such as the title, topic and thumbnail. This step is super important as those details will give people an idea of what your stream is about. The right thumbnail and title could convince people to watch your TikTok LIVE even if they’ve never heard of you before.

As you can see below, the thumbnail is the first thing that will catch the eye. The title of the LIVE video tells people what the stream is all about and further entices them to tune in.

Step 4: Once you’re ready to start your TikTok LIVE stream, tap on the red “Go Live” button at the bottom of your screen. That’s it. You’re finally going live on TikTok. During your broadcast, you’ll have the option to add effects and filters or flip your camera. TikTok even lets you add moderators or turn commenting on or off.

The benefits of TikTok LIVE

If you’re already getting significant engagement on TikTok, you may be wondering if going live is really all that necessary. Here’s a look at why you should consider adding TikTok LIVE to your social media video marketing strategy:

Authentic, real-time engagement

With TikTok LIVE, interactions are happening in real-time. You can truly be your authentic self and relate to your audience. This allows for a genuine connection between you and your viewers, resulting in trust and loyalty. Your viewers can see you more as a friend they’re interacting with in real-time rather than a creator or a business account.

Free to use

The TikTok LIVE feature is free to use. That means any user can go live on the platform as long as they meet the requirements. In other words, you have a free tool to connect with your audience and boost your engagement.

Takes less time to produce

Let’s face it–TikTok videos aren’t easy to produce. There’s a lot of time, effort and brainstorming that goes into creating the perfect TikTok video. LIVE videos are more unplanned and spontaneous. They happen in real-time, which means they take much less time to produce than regular TikTok videos. So if you’re running out of video ideas or need an easy way to instantly engage your audience, going live on TikTok could be the answer.

Opportunity to earn money

If you’re a part of the TikTok Creator Next program, you’re also eligible to activate the LIVE Gifts feature and earn money from livestreaming. This feature allows your fans to send virtual Gifts such as a hand wave or a doughnut.

The Gifts will help you collect Diamonds, which you can then redeem with real money. So the more engagement and Gifts you receive on your livestreams, the more money you can earn.

Restrictions on TikTok LIVE

You don’t need to have a creator or business account to go live on TikTok. However, there are some age and follower count restrictions to access the TikTok LIVE feature. That means most users should be able to use the feature if they meet the minimum age requirement and have the minimum follower limit.

Who is eligible to go live on TikTok?

Users who are at least 16 years of age can launch a TikTok LIVE. While 13-year-olds can have an account, they’re limited to the TikTok for Younger Users ecosystem and can’t go live. This is one of the many measures that TikTok has in place to keep the platform safe for users of all ages.

Keep in mind that having the LIVE feature doesn’t automatically make you eligible to receive Gifts. To receive Gifts from fans during your livestream, you must be at least 18 years of age.

How many followers do you need on TikTok to go live?

In addition to meeting the minimum age requirement, you should also have at least 1000 followers on TikTok to go live. So if you plan on using this feature, you need to start by growing your following.

That said, the process of building a following takes time, which most people don’t have. If you want to use TikTok LIVE but you don’t have 1000 followers, one alternative is to join someone else’s livestream.

TikTok LIVE tips and ideas for better engagement

Since the ultimate goal of going live is to engage your audience, here are a few TikTok LIVE tips and ideas to help you drive better engagement:

1. Interact with your audience

The whole point of using TikTok LIVE is to engage with your audience. And more often than not, the live chat box is often bursting with questions from viewers. For example, the following TikTok LIVE about snakes is getting a lot of questions from curious viewers.

So take the opportunity to actively interact with them. Respond to their comments or answer their questions to let them know that you’re engaged, which could get them to reciprocate. You could even have entire livestreams dedicated to Q&A sessions.

Answering your audience’s questions is especially important during livestream shopping sessions. Viewers might have questions about the features and other product details before deciding to buy the item. So make sure to proactively respond and interact with relevant questions and comments.

2. Hold a discussion around a specific topic

One effective way to keep your audience engaged is by holding a discussion around their topic of interest. Choose a topic that’s relevant to your audience and use it as a subject of discussion for your LIVE session. You could then add your commentary or ask viewers to pitch in their thoughts, experiences or viewpoints. This is a great way to spark engagement among your viewers and get them to tune into the whole livestream.

3. Give shoutouts to your top fans/viewers

When you publicly acknowledge your biggest fans, it makes them feel valued. This gives them more reason to continue engaging with your TikTok LIVE. Give your top fans or viewers a shoutout during your livestream and let them know you appreciate them. This is especially important if a viewer sends you a Gift. Make sure you publicly thank them, which might even inspire others to also send you Gifts.

4. Provide a look into your creative process

The spontaneous and real-time nature of LIVE offers a great way to take your viewers behind the scenes into your creative process. Use your livestream to show them what you’re working on or how you typically create your content.

For example, an artist could launch a livestream as they make a new art piece. A food content creator could live-stream their trip to the grocery store as they pick up items for a new video. If you’re running a TikTok account for your business, you could also give viewers a tour of your store or your factory.

5. Start out strong

The first few seconds of your LIVE session give people an idea of what to expect. So avoid starting out with uncertainties such as, “Can you hear me?” or similar phrases. Instead, start out strong with a cheerful and structured greeting to welcome your viewers and make them want to keep watching.

6. Make the most of a moderator

While responding to your audience is important, that doesn’t mean every comment deserves an answer. Paying attention to rude or harassing comments can ruin the whole vibe of your livestream. Instead, have a moderator remove inappropriate comments and maintain a safe and fun environment.

7: Choose your timing wisely

It’s not too likely that you’ll attract tons of viewers if you go live while everyone is sleeping or at work. Make sure you go live at a time when your audience is most likely to tune in. Use the Sprout Social TikTok analytics report to find out which post timings work best on the platform. This will give you a better sense of the right time to launch a TikTok LIVE.

Ready to go live on TikTok?

Now you know exactly how to go live on TikTok and how to use the feature to boost engagement. You can further improve your TikTok strategy by closely monitoring your TikTok analytics to see what works with your audience.

 

The post How to go live on TikTok and engage your followers appeared first on Sprout Social.

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Donald Trump melts down on Truth Social over Cassidy Hutchinson's Jan. 6 testimony

Just when you thought you knew everything there was to know about the January 6 attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, some new revelation comes along.

But this last-minute bombshell testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows, is unlike anything we've heard before.

And the former president is none too happy with what Hutchinson shared to the Select Committee and the public, if his posts on Truth Social throughout the televised hearing are any indication.

"I hardly know who this person, Cassidy Hutchinson, is, other than I heard very negative things about her (a total phony and “leaker”)..." posted Trump on his social media platform in his first of a dozen rants. "She is bad news!"

During Hutchinson's testimony on Tuesday, we discovered that Trump apparently urged the Secret Service to remove the metal detectors from the area where he was giving his speech on the morning of Jan. 6. The attendees were, after all, his supporters, and Trump said they were "not here to hurt me," Hutchinson testified. 

Trump's response on Truth Social? Denial.

Trump ranted about Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony in real-time. Credit: Mashable Screenshot

"I didn’t want or request that we make room for people with guns to watch my speech. Who would ever want that?" he posted on his social network, which he only started using last month. "Not me! Besides, there were no guns found or brought into the Capitol Building…So where were all of these guns?"

However, Trump's defense is incorrect. A number of his supporters were found to be carrying firearms while storming the Capitol that day and are being charged accordingly. Other Trump supporters were carrying knives, bats, and other weaponry that day too.

Hutchinson also testified that Trump had apparently thought he was going to be escorted to the Capitol building on Jan. 6, to join the rioters after his speech had finished. Once he got into the presidential limousine, he found that the Secret Service were refusing to let him go. Irate, Hutchinson said Trump then lunged for the limo's steering wheel and scuffled with his security.

The former top White House aide also says she was privy to interesting tidbits that occurred prior to the events of Jan. 6. In December 2020, Trump became so enraged after finding out that then-Attorney General Bill Barr dismissed his election fraud claims that he threw his lunch at the wall, she testified. Hutchinson found a shattered plate and ketchup dripping down the wall in the White House dining room.

So Trump shared responses on Truth Social to those portions of Hutchinson's testimony as well.

"Her Fake story that I tried to grab the steering wheel of the White House Limousine in order to steer it to the Capitol Building is 'sick' and fraudulent, very much like the Unselect Committee itself," wrote Trump. "Wouldn’t even have been possible to do such a ridiculous thing." 

"Her story of me throwing food is also false…and why would SHE have to clean it up, I hardly knew who she was?" he continued.

From there, Trump proceeded to demonstrate how he would never act out in a fit of rage by…acting out in a fit of rage.

The 45th president just kept posting his disapproval. Credit: Mashable Screenshot

"Her body language is that of a total bull…. artist. Fantasy Land!" posted Trump.

"A Total Phony!!!" he said in another Truth Social post.

The 45th president also denied saying that his vice president, Mike Pence, "deserved" to be hanged for not helping Trump overturn the 2020 presidential elections which he lost to the current president Joe Biden.

Trump proceeded to call the hearing a "Kangaroo Court!" because there was no "cross-examination of the witness." It's important to note that this is not a trial. Also Trump and the Republican Party have refused to take part in the hearings.

All-in-all, if you wondered what Trump's behavior would've been like on Twitter during these hearings if he wasn't banned, Trump is showing you right on Truth Social: pejoratives and trash talk with some classic Trump-isms peppered in. But being that its on his own social media platform, he's now monetizing it as well…at least while he can.

A federal criminal investigation is currently threatening the merger deal between Trump's social media business and Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC), a publicly-listed shell company. The merger would essentially fast-track Trump's business into becoming a publicly traded company. DWAC's shares have plummeted based on the news.

Between the Jan. 6 Select Committee and this investigation, expect more angry tweets…err…"truths" from Trump in the near future.

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