For any business to be successful today — no matter the type, size, or industry — it must create and share media content (images, videos, infographics, social media posts, podcasts, etc.) with its target audience members.

This is a large part of how you boost brand awareness, engagements, conversions, and revenue (among other things) for your business. Not to mention, media content helps you stand out from competitors and other businesses.

Here’s the issue: The sheer amount of media content most businesses produce and share on a regular basis to stay relevant among audience members can become confusing to keep track of, plan, organize, distribute, and analyze for them.

The best way to combat these issues is through media planning.

Based on this definition, it’s clear media planning has many moving parts — this is why the process can be difficult to get right.

By working through the media planning steps (which we’ll cover below) as well as implementing templates (we’ll discuss those shortly, too), you’ll keep any media planning challenges at bay.

But first, in case you need further convincing media planning is a worthwhile investment, let’s cover some of the specific benefits of the process.

Benefits of Media Planning

Media planning helps you with different parts of content creation and distribution including (but not limited to):

• Getting to know your target audience on a deeper level so you can effectively reach them through your media content
• Deciding which media channels and platforms you’ll share your content on
• Determining the timing and frequency of the media and content you publish and share
• Keeping up with the latest media trends and technology
• Sticking to your budget as you work to create, publish, and share high-quality and engaging media content
• Conducting analyses to measure the success of your media planning process

In addition to the benefits of media planning, it’s important to note how this process differs from that of media buying — although the processes are related, they have different purposes and are often confused with one another.

Media Planning and Buying

Media planning and media buying are closely related and work in tandem with one another. Depending on the size of your business and your budget, your team members who plan your media may also handle the media buying process.

So, what makes these processes unique?

Well, we already covered the definition of media planning — it’s a process focused on the strategy behind the media content that’s created, published, and shared among your customers and target audience. The media referred to here is all-encompassing, meaning it doesn’t have to include paid ads and paid content.

This is where media planning and media buying differ.

What is media buying?

Media buying is related to paid media — whether that means your business is buying campaign or ad space on various channels, paying to share targeted campaigns and ads, or negotiating with media vendors.

In a world where your business can create and share media on different platforms and successfully reach your audience for free, it’s clear media planning can happen without media buying. However, media buying requires media planning.

This is because media planning sets the tone and direction for the buying that needs to occur. Once ad space is purchased or content distribution plans have been negotiated, there needs to be a strategy (or media plan) for getting that media to your audience and customers.

Now let’s review the steps in the media planning process so you can begin developing your business’s strategy.

Media Planning Process

As you work through the following process, keep in mind that the way your business chooses to apply the results and conclusions derived from each step will be unique based on your needs.

1. Conduct market research.

The first thing you’ll want to do when developing your media planning process is conduct market research. Market research will allow you to tailor the content you create and the media plan you implement to your target audience and customers.

This entails creating (if you haven’t already) and studying your buyer personas as well as developing an understanding of who your target audience and current customers are.

This way, you can determine what media will be most successful in reaching, resonating with, and converting the greatest number of audience members possible. Additionally, it’ll help you decide which platforms and channels you’ll share your media on and through.

2. State your media planning objective.

As with anything in marketing, it’s crucial to maintain an objective — so, when developing your media plan, keep a goal (or a few) in mind to help you effectively navigate the process.

Here are some examples of media planning objectives you might have:

• Strengthen cross-team collaboration (e.g. content, graphic design, animation, video, blog, social media) while creating and sharing your media
• Enhance and streamline the publication and distribution processes for all media 
• Improve your media distribution timeline to ensure your content is shared efficiently and in a timely manner so it’s relevant to your target audience
• Amplify the success of all of your media content by allowing for ample time to analyze its impact and reach on your audience 

For instance, say you’re looking to create a media plan for your Facebook and Instagram social content. Your objective may be to streamline the content creation process in a timely fashion and then schedule posts on both platforms in advance. This way, you ensure your posts are relevant to your audience — who you learned about in the above step — so you can boost engagement and stay top of mind. 

3. Determine which media planning templates you’ll use.

There are a number of easy-to-use templates available to help you with your media planning strategy, such as editorial calendar templates and social media strategy templates — we’ll cover these options, and several others, in detail below.

Media planning templates exist to support you by ensuring you stay as efficient and effective as possible while working on all aspects of your media content. They allow you to keep your media content organized all while streamlining the processes of publishing and sharing that media content among your audience members.

Keep in mind that, due to the variety of templates that are available for different types and parts of the media planning process, the templates you incorporate will be unique to your business — so don’t be afraid to experiment with or combine different templates.

For example, if your business is looking to create that media plan for your Facebook and Instagram social media, you might choose to implement a social media calendar template.

This type of template will help you coordinate your content across both channels, boost engagement, and improve productivity among your team members — and therefore, achieve the objective you set in step two.

4. Implement your media plan.

Now it’s time to implement your media plan. Ensure all parties who need to be aware of the plan have the necessary details to help you execute it accordingly.

Additionally, it may be beneficial to share the contact details of the media-planning point person at your company in case anyone has questions or comments.

To get a better understanding of what I mean, let’s refer back to our example in the above step about your social media plan for Facebook and Instagram.

If you implement a social media calendar template as part of your media plan, ensure everyone who will be working on as well as creating the content and publication schedule for both platforms has access to it.

And above all, make sure those involved have a clear understanding of who makes up your target audience (as identified in step one) as well as what your main objective is for your media plan (as you did in step two). This way, everyone is aligned and focused. 

5. Evaluate your success.

Whether your media plan revolves around individual posts on Instagram or a month-long, company-wide campaign, be sure to measure the success of your plan.

Ask yourself and your team questions like, “Did this media plan help us achieve our specific goals?” and “Did the media planning templates and tools we used add value to our media creation and publication processes?”

The way you evaluate your media plan’s success should be directly tied to your business’s specific goals regarding your media and content, the teams who create the media, and the value you hope to derive from the media (e.g. boost conversions, engagements, revenue, etc.).

Let’s look back at our example from above one last time. Think about whether or not your social media content plan and the calendar template you implemented have helped you reach your target audience and achieve the objective you set.

Ask yourself whether or not your media plan helped you boost engagement on the social platforms you focused on as well as collaborate and coordinate more effectively to increase team-wide productivity. 

Next, let’s review some resources available to make your media planning process simpler.

Media Planning Templates

There are a plethora of media planning templates available online that you can purchase or download for free. The great part about using media planning templates is that you can customize and tailor them to your business’s specific needs and goals.

Depending on the media software your business uses, such as HubSpot’s (free) CRM, Marketing Hub, or SproutSocial, there may be customizable planning templates included (similar to this menu of options HubSpot offers).

You may also elect to create templates on your own with the help of Google Sheets or a similar program.

Either way, how you choose to implement and use media planning templates will be unique to your business and needs — so don’t be afraid to modify your templates over time as your goals evolve or business and audience grow.

Types of Media Planning Templates

To help get you started, here’s a list of common types of media creation and planning templates. (Click the links to be directed to an associated template resource.)

You might use one or several media templates based on your needs. Remember, there’s no right or wrong answer to which template you should use — it’s about preference and what works best for your business.

• Use a social media strategy template to align your media content with your audience in a way that provides value for your business.
• Use a social media calendar template to customize a timeline for when you’ll share your social media posts in a simple, organized, manageable, and effective format.
• Use an editorial calendar template to plan and optimize all of the marketing content you’ll publish and share including blogs, social media, and campaigns.
• Use a blog post template to simply fill-in-the-blanks and begin writing engaging, relevant, and well-optimized blog content for your audience (all while avoiding writer’s block!).
• Use an ebook design template to take the guesswork out of how to make your ebook professional, eye-catching, and beautiful all while saving yourself valuable time.
• Use an infographic template in Powerpoint or Illustrator to quickly customize the way you present data, share insights, and promote offers in a way that looks and feels professional.
• Use an analytics and reporting template for Excel, PowerPoint, and Google Drive to make the processes of pulling, organizing, and sharing data simple no matter which metrics you track.
• Use a budget template to manage and review your spending and budget with Excel or Google Sheets.
• Use an advertising template to help you plan and manage advertising campaigns in a way that’s sure to convert audience members into leads and customers.

Begin Your Media Planning Process

Media planning is an integral part of your business’s ability to successfully create, publish, and share media content. It’s how you streamline cross-team communication and collaboration around your media as well as ensure it’s shared with your audience in a timely fashion.

So, work through the media planning process steps above and choose which templates you’ll use to begin reaching and converting more audience members.

Let’s say you’re gearing up to make your pitch at a potential client’s office, a trade show, or even on Shark Tank.

Just a moment ago, you were fine.

Now, your legs are shaking, you can’t quite get enough air, and your heart is pounding in your ears. Your ability to manage this case of jitters can make or break your performance.

What’s happening is your body preparing itself to respond to danger. According to The American Institute of Stress, physical signs of your fight-or-flight mechanism kicking in include increased heart-rate and breathing, pale or flushed skin, and trembling.

Most people feel some level of physical reaction related to speaking in front of a group. These responses are our primal instincts responding as if the audience were lions and tigers that might attack us.

For some, the jolt is just enough adrenaline to sharpen the senses and create extra energy — which helps them perform better. For others, anxiety around giving marketing and sales pitches can be debilitating.

If your jitters (or fear of jitters) causes you to turn down pitching opportunities, you may be losing out on potential clients, inhibiting your career growth, or hurting your bottom line. Plus, if do you take those stress-inducing pitch opportunities, it will feel considerably better when you can manage your physical responses. That requires preparation, confidence building, and breathing.

As someone with plenty of experience public speaking as a former diplomat and a public speaking coach, I’ve curated a few tips you can use to excel at your next presentation without letting fear hold you back.

1. Prepare, practice, and bring notes.

I have found nothing so far that eases public speaking stress more than solid preparation and practice. Once you know what you want to say, you have to practice. Stand up and say it out loud. Say it into a mirror, make a video on your phone, and even practice in front of friends and family.

Additionally, it’s important you create notes to use in your pitch. Even if you don’t feel you will need them, just having notes on-hand makes you feel like you have a safety net. Tighten your notes to as few words as possible — if at all possible, I’d suggest bullet points. Use a big font, number the pages, and staple them together so they can’t get out of order. The better prepared you are ahead of an event, the better you will feel when the time comes.

2. Build your confidence through posture and visualization.

Next, it’s time to build your fortitude. What makes you feel like you have the strength to overcome a challenge? The fight song from your alma mater? Motivational quotes? I like to envision a parade where everyone is cheering for me as I walk into my event.

Another way to build confidence is power posing. Taking an expansive stance ahead of an event allows our body to send messages of strength and confidence to our brains. Power posing for just two minutes before a pitch can give you a psychological boost that will help reduce your nervous responses.

Finally, visualize success! Envisioning the positive — rather than imagining all the things that might go wrong — can have a transformational impact on the outcome.

3. Take deep breaths.

If your pulse is racing, you have lost your train of thought, and your symptoms are having their way with your smooth exterior, you have to increase oxygen flow to your brain. The quick, shallow breathing that goes with public speaking nerves is working against you. Ahead of your event, it’s critical you try a few breathing exercises (like 4-7-8 breathing).

During your pitch, slowing down enough to take a deep breath from your abdomen, rather than your shoulders, can make a difference. Taking this long breath can look to your target customers like a thoughtful moment and can give you the resources you need to get back in the flow.

It’s Go Time

The best thing you can do to help yourself overcome public speaking nerves that threaten to hold you back is to have a plan. Most marketers have some kind of physical reaction to speaking in public. Keep in mind that your audience wants you to succeed — even if for no other reason than because it is uncomfortable to watch someone who is outwardly nervous.

Preparation, confidence building, and breathing can empower you to fight those self-conjured lions and tigers. Next time the chance comes to tell your boss you will step up for the big pitch or secure a thought leadership public speaking opportunity to build your brand, take it. You’ve got the tools. Put them to work for yourself and your bottom line — trust me, it’s worth it.

The internet lets you reach billions of people around the globe, but if you’re like many small or local businesses, world domination isn’t really on your radar (not yet, anyway). What makes your business tick is your local community, whether on the town, city, county, or state level.

So with all the choices consumers have nowadays for where to get their products and services, how do you ensure they find your local business first?

You do everything in your power to get your website in the top search engine ranking positions! And luckily, there’s a lot you can do to tip the scales in your website’s favor. From on-page optimization to inbound link building to social media involvement, here is the ultimate guide for how to optimize your website for local search so you can dominate the search engine results pages (SERPs).

What is local search marketing?

Local search marketing is the process and tactics you use to reach your local audience online. This is the type of marketing that brick-and-mortar businesses use to reach potential customers on the web.

Any type of business with a storefront or service area is a local business, including small, medium, and enterprise level brands.

Local search marketing is all about raising brand awareness in a certain area. This can be done through organic SEO or paid methods.

Why optimize for local search? It’s in the numbers.

• Approximately 3 billion search queries contain local terms every month. (Source: comScore)
  
• 70% of online searchers will use local search to find offline businesses. (Source: Kelsey Group)
  
• 30% of Google searches are for local information. (Source: HubSpot via Google)

How to Optimize for Local Search on Your Website

1. Invest in content, content, content.

Every new blog post is a new indexed page for your site, a new page on which to target a geographic search phrase, and a new opportunity to get found in the search engine results pages (SERPs). If you’re having trouble coming up with geo-targeted content, consider highlighting customer success stories and case studies.

2. Write about complementary local services.

If you sell screwdrivers, talk about someone in your area who sells screws. It lets you write helpful content about your geographic area in a relevant way so you’re not faced with awkward keyword stuffing that Google’s algorithm punishes. Plus, it builds good will with local businesses that can introduce you to new customers, and possibly result in an inbound link in the future.

3. Optimize the 5 crucial on-page SEO elements.

That means your page title (see image below), URLs, page headers, internal links, and page content should be optimized with keywords. Here’s an example of a page that is well optimized for local search.

4. Target long-tail keyword variations.

If you’re selling unicorn costumes, you might want to cover unicorn costumes in Detroit, unicorn costumes in metro Detroit, and unicorn costumes in southeastern Michigan.

Cover all the ways people might refer to your city in your keyword research so you can capitalize on all the different ways people find you on the web.

You can perform long-tail keyword research in Google’s Keyword Tool, or if you use HubSpot software, use HubSpot’s Keyword & SEO tool to help find variations you might not have thought of before.

5. Have location pages.

If you are a franchise, for example, it’s crucial to tell users you have multiple locations. One way of doing that is to have a unique page for each location.

6. Tell people where you are.

Add your business name, address, and phone number on contact-specific pages like an “About Us” or “Contact Us” page.

7. Write about local and industry news.

Stay up to date on what’s happening in your community and in your industry for blog fodder. This will win you big points in the SERPs, as Google freshness update rewards timely content. Even if nothing has happened that directly relates to your industry or location, look for local spins on industry trends, and comment on how local events could affect your industry.

8. Mobile-optimize your site.

Local search and mobile search go hand in hand. Some of the most common ways people will use your site in a mobile environment is looking up reviews, finding directions to your location, and searching for contact information. Make it easy for them by making your site mobile friendly.

How to Optimize for Local Search Off Your Website

1. Register your business with Google My Business.

Google My Business provides a huge opportunity for local businesses to appear in the local search results for a given search term. Here’s everything you need to know to do it.

2. Add yourself to other listings.

The more local directories to which you submit your site, the more opportunities to get found and receive additional business citations. Make sure your business name, address, phone number, and website are consistent across all of them. For specific listings/directory types to which you should add your local business, use GetListed.org.

3. Get links online.

The more of a fixture you are in your community (both online and offline), the more people will talk about you. Be a guest blogger, talk to and about (positively, of course!) other people in your industry, and act as a resource provider for the community. If you’re an active participant in community conversations, the buzz around you grows in the form of inbound links, social media growth, and media coverage.

4. Get links locally.

Start with your own personal network, which may include the Chamber of Commerce, business improvement districts, licensing bureaus, trade associations, resellers, vendors, and/or manufacturers and other affiliates.

5. Publish your content on social media outlets, especially Google owned business pages.

Google considers content shared on social media more important now than ever before. And now that Google owns YouTube, it’s a good idea to show up on that platform. Most importantly for local businesses, Google My Business business posts are starting to show up in local search results.

6. Guest post.

The more places your business gets cited organically the better it is for your SEO. This means bylines or author profiles tied to articles you publish on various relevant blogs can help in addition to just having others write about you.

7. Get reviews.

77% of online shoppers use reviews to make a purchasing decision. If your customers are looking for opinions on you, make it easier for them to find out how awesome you are by embracing your presence on online review sites.

Claim your listings. Ask customers to post about their great experiences with you. Yes, some negative reviews may slip in there, but wouldn’t you rather be an active participant in achieving a positive online reputation than take a passive role in maintaining a lackluster one?

8. Check your listings.

Using GetListed.org as an accuracy report provides huge opportunity to see where you could add additional listings, claim listings, and update or add missing content like your website URL. Folks, there’s no point in having a listing if there is no URL.

Local businesses do have the power to have a top presence in the SERPs, but like any effort to gain and maintain organic visibility, it’s hard work.

If you can start checking a few of these tactics off your marketing to-do list every month, though, your website will see great improvements in online visibility.

If you’d like to learn more about how to improve local SEO for your business, check out this free, on-demand webinar with David Mihm and me.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in December 2011 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

At the beginning of 2020, millions of social media users took part in a #TenYearChallenge which encouraged them to post one photo of themselves from ten years ago up against a photo of themselves today.

But while the #TenYearChallenge showed us how much our friends have changed, have you ever wondered how much your favorite brands have changed?

As a social media user, looking back to see how the platforms you’ve used every day have changed can feel fun and nostalgic. As a marketer, looking at the evolution of these platforms can also give you insight into how the overall social media industry and internet trends have matured and how they might continue to pivot in the future.

In this blog post, we’re going to mark the beginning of a new decade by venturing back in time to 2010 and showing you ten-year comparisons of six of the oldest and most popular social media platforms.

While this post might be a blast from the past, it will also show you just how much the way we connect and share online has changed, and give you hints about where it might go next.

6 Social Media Platforms in 2010 vs. 2020

Facebook

2010

At the dawn of the 2010s, Facebook positioned itself as the next big social media platform following the MySpace era. The network, which originally targeted college students, had already reached millions of users in young adult age groups and had just gone through a few major redesigns since it first launched in 2004.

In 2010, Facebook grew from 400 million to just over 600 million active users. During this year, the social network also gained huge attention with the October premiere of the award-winning film, The Social Network, which chronicled how co-founders Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin launched Facebook and fought for ownership rights in an intellectual property lawsuit.

The News Feed

The Facebook News Feed was first launched in 2006. Prior to this launch, you’d simply see their profile when logging into the social network. With the addition of this page, you could suddenly see what your friends were up to all in one place.

By 2010, Facebook’s News Feed emphasized making connections on the platform as the left sidebar highlights friend requests and friend suggestions while the upper navigation bar included notifications, friends, and message buttons.

Here’s a screenshot I dug up of the 2010 News Feed:

Source: CheeseWeaselDay.com

Statuses and Updates

While the 2010 Feed was similar to what Facebook has today, it was still pretty basic and less intuitive when it came to updating you on your friends’ activities. For example, any time someone did something on the platform — such as playing a game or RSVPing to an event — their activity would pop up on the News Feed along with status updates.

When it came to status updates, you were limited to what you could post. The status bar merely allowed you to type in and share a quick text-only update. Once it was published, the status would show up directly next to your name. This led people to post statuses that began with the word “is.” For example, in 2010, I might have written, “Pam Bump is eating burgers,” or “Pam Bump is doing homework.”

Likes

In 2010, the same year that The Social Network came out, Facebook also made news when it unveiled its game-changing “Like” button. Before this, you could only interact with a post by commenting on it or sharing it. The “Like” enabled you to quickly communicate with your connections even if you didn’t have time to write a full comment.

While you could “Like” updates and statuses from your friends, you could also “Like” a business or fan page which would essentially enable you to follow its updates. Websites also began adding the “Like” icon to their pages, which encouraged users to click it in order to like their content or pages on Facebook.

Advertising

By 2010, Facebook Ads was still ramping up after being announced in 2007. While brands had started to make pages for marketing purposes, Facebook and Zuckerberg were hesitant about creating too many branded opportunities because they didn’t want a bombardment of ads to negatively impact the user experience.

A 2007 press release described the Facebook Ads as a platform with three parts: “a way for businesses to build pages on Facebook to connect with their audiences; an ad system that facilitates the spread of brand messages virally through Facebook Social Ads™; and an interface to gather insights into people’s activity on Facebook that marketers care about.”

2020

Despite all the new social media platforms that have emerged in the last decade, Facebook is still (by far) the biggest and most successful with 2.38 billion monthly active users.

Aside from the number of users Facebook’s gained, it’s also expanded its demographic. While the platform was originally created for college students and millennial teenagers, it’s now popular among a variety of age groups.

For example, when I started using Facebook in high school, my biggest goal was to hide my profile from my parents — who were still heavily suspicious of the internet and social media. Now, my mother texts me daily asking me why I didn’t “Like” her most recent post.

I’m not the only one in my generation who’s witnessed this pivot. Facebook is becoming the go-to network where parents and grandparents are connecting with family and friends. In fact, 45% of people over the age of 65 say they regularly use Facebook today — compared to only 20% of the 65+ age group who reported using it in 2012.

So, how has Facebook’s design and platform changed with its success? Here’s a look at it today.

The News Feed

While the shape of the layout hasn’t changed that much, the organization and type of content within it has changed drastically. Some of the more basic additions to the Feed include news ticker that highlights trending hashtags, a sleeker design, and more priority on photo and video posts.

Here are a few other tweaks you might not notice about the current layout.

The Notification and Friends icons have moved to the upper navigation bar. Additionally, events have been moved to the side navigation. This simplifies the pages of the site allowing users to focus on the Feed, interesting posts, and other important centrally-located items.

Behind the scenes, Facebook has also continued to tweak News Feed algorithms with the aim of showing users content that they’re actually interested in. For example, you now see more statuses, content, and other types of content due to the interests you’ve shown on the platform. Whereas, in Facebook’s early years, you might have just seen an endless stream of your friends’ high scores on the online game Candy Crush.

Additionally, although Facebook now offers a wider variety of marketing and advertising options for brands, its Feed now algorithmically prioritizes content from individual users before posting content from brands.

Statuses and Updates

Instead of the old status bar that would prompt users with text a simple text box, there’s now a text box at the top of the feed that more broadly asks “What’s on your mind.” At the bottom of the text box, you can now also see icons for “Photo/Video,” “Tag Friends,” and “Feelings/Activities.”

So, if you’re on vacation with family and friends, you can post a status that includes images of where you are, captions, a “happy” feelings icon, a geo-tag to show where you want, and tags of all the friends who were with you so their networks can see and react to the photos.

This shift makes the News Feed feel much more interesting, visual, and personal for users — which might allow them to surf through its content for a longer amount of time.

Likes and Reactions

After the success of the “Like,” Facebook launched additional “Reactions” such as a heart, a laughing emoji, a sad face, an angry face in 2016. These tiny tweaks have allowed users to interact with content in a more emotional and personalized way, even if they don’t have time to draft a full comment.

New Features and Platform Extensions

Aside from making the News Feed feel more personalized, Facebook, which is now a major social media corporation has also taken steps to expand its original platform and its ownership of other key social networks.

To start, Facebook re-launched its direct messaging system as the standalone Facebook Messenger app in 2011. On the desktop site, Facebook also made its Messenger tool accessible on every page of the site.

Later, in 2014, Facebook also acquired another popular messenger called WhatsApp. Although WhatsApp wasn’t generating much revenue at the time, Facebook and founder Mark Zuckerberg acquired the international messaging app because they saw it as an opportunity to reach global audiences that weren’t on Facebook yet, but still wanted to communicate and make connections online.

Most recently, in 2017, Facebook launched a Stories bar to its News Feed, following suit of Instagram Stories. This came shortly before Facebook purchased Instagram, in order to mature the Facebook Stories feature while tapping into Instagram’s millennial and Gen Z audiences.

Advertising

Facebook Ads is now a robust and incredibly popular advertising platform, in fact, marketers now spend most of their marketing budgets on Facebook Ads, along with Google and Amazon ads.

While the early Facebook Ads allowed basic audience targeting and page analytics, the platform now offers more intuitive versions of these features. It also allows you to launch ads around a handful of objectives, including website traffic or ecommerce purchases.

For companies that just wish to use a Business Page, Facebook has also improved features related to this, such as Facebook Insights which shows you how your page is performing against potential competitors.

In addition to ads on its platform, Facebook has also improved advertising options on platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp. To learn more about changes related to Instagram, keep reading.

Instagram

2010

Instagram was launched in 2010 as a social media app for photo-sharing. By 2012, the simple social media app was already seeing over 100,000 app downloads per day.

Layout

In the app’s infancy, it had a simple layout with a basic photo feed. Similarly to Instagram’s current feed, it showed a user’s name, then a photo, then the photo’s likes, and a description.

The below photo shows what Instagram’s main feed and camera looked like in 2010.

Source: Business Insider

However, while there were some similarities between the original and current layout, there were a number of crucial differences. For example, the app’s logo was a completely different font and took up the entire top of the feed’s page. Here’s a quick comparison of the logo then and today:

Original Logo Banner:

Current Logo Banner:

Additionally, the lower navigation options were also much larger and organized in a slightly different way than they are today.

Old Navigation

Current Navigation

Features

Aside from the design, Instagram had very basic features. It was primarily meant for posting square photos or short videos on a feed that your followers could see. To learn about other Instagram accounts, you could either search a person or hashtag, tap the Popular feed to see posts from influencers, or you could surf through a Newsfeed that showed posts from major companies and publications.

2020

Layout

Similarly to Facebook, the Instagram Feed’s core design is similar, but much sleeker, more intuitive, powered by better algorithms, and additionally has an Instagram Stories bar. It’s camera also still looks similar but has a cleaner, white design.

Within the last decade, Instagram has made its design look less busy by opting for a white background. It has also replaced the giant upper logo banner with a smaller logo and a navigation bar which includes a camera icon for Instagram Story recording, a TV icon which will bring you to IGTV, and a paper airplane icon for your direct message inbox.

Instagram has also adjusted its lower navigation, swapping out a Popular post feed with a more robust Search Tab which consolidated the Search bar and popular trending posts. With this adjustment, a user hoping to discover new accounts or content only has to go to one tab of the app.

Once consolidating the News tab into the Search tab, Instagram added a heart icon in the News Tab’s place. This tab now houses a user’s notifications.

When it comes to the camera, Instagram now allows video and photo recording, while still enabling the user to upload content from their library.

Features

Instagram Stories

Aside from the standard Instagram camera, there’s also a special camera for recording Instagram Stories, a game-changing feature launched by the platform in 2016.

By now, you’ve probably created or seen an Instagram Story. But, in case you haven’t, this feature allows you to film or upload images or video that tells a story about your life or your brand. If you have a verified business account or more than 10,000 followers, you can also link Instagram Stories to your website’s content.

When creating an Instagram Story, the app’s camera allows you to take vertical, smartphone-shaped shots or videos. Then, you can use its featured icons to zest up your content with text, sounds, GIF stickers, or color-overlay filters. You can also use a variety of video filters and AR features to zest up your content.

IGTV

Instagram’s current app also includes IGTV, launched in 2018. Currently, you can see IGTV content related to your interests by going to the Search tab and tapping the IGTV button.

With this feature, brands and influencers can upload or stream longer-form live content in vertical format. This content can then be highlighted on their accounts under an IGTV tab.

Shoppable Posts

After Instagram was purchased by Facebook, the app added a new feature that could be utilized by brands with a Facebook Marketplace catalog. The feature, called Shoppable Posts, allows brands to tag posts with product shots with a link to the product listing in their Facebook Marketplace.

Unlike Instagram Story swipe-up links, the Shoppable feature can be accessed by any Instagram Business account linked to a Facebook Marketplace catalog — regardless of the business accounts following.

Here’s an example of what a Shoppable post looks like on the platform:

Pinterest

2010

When Pinterest launched in 2010, the platform’s purpose was simple. It allowed you to save and store links to websites that you thought were interesting.

It was a place where you could save and present a “collection” of web content that you wanted to share with people similar to you. To keep your link collections organized, you could categorize them by creating a Pinterest board around an overarching topic.

Layout

Since it had a much more basic purpose, the original Pinterest website looked more like a very basic, photo-based blog. You could still add photos, tag posts with specific topics, and create inspiration-styled boards around specific categories, but the design was much busier and not mobile-optimized.

Source: Beebom

When the platform first launched, you also had to “Request an invite” to join since it was still in its beta phase. In fact, the platform was still invite-only through 2012, when Mashable described it as the year’s “hottest” social media platform and noted that it generated more referral traffic than YouTube, Google+, or LinkedIn.

2020

The current Pinterest design, and its mobile app, now emphasizes visuals even more than its first design. Because of its visual inspiration board aesthetic, Pinterest has also continued to position itself as a site people visit to find inspiration related to products, home designs, or even life experiences such as travel.

Layout

The platform is also more compact and mobile-optimized as the social media network’s logo has been minimized and the search bar has become a more natural fit into the upper navigation. Unlike the old design, you can also see notifications when someone shares or engages with one of your posts — also called pins.

Visual Search Features

Aside from the text-based search, which you could take advantage of in the original design, you can now also search for pins with a reverse photo search feature. For example, if you see a product you like in real life, you can take a photo of it and search for similar items.

The visual search feature seems like a low-hanging fruit for Pinterest which is a highly visual platform. Aside from allowing people to find products or images they’re interested in, it also might attract visitors who are interested in discovering information related products or images, rather than spending time creating inspiration-themed boards.

Advertising and Brand Awareness Features

With brands like Target already using Pinterest boards to highlight product lines, the platform has become a natural fit for advertisements. Currently, the Pinterest Ads Manager, launched in 2014, allows you to create PPC ads with its own audience retargeting and A/B testing tools.

To accompany the Pinterest Ads Manager, the platform also recently launched an Audience Insights tool in 2018. This feature gives businesses more data and analytical information about their audiences and how their content is performing.

At an event covered by Digiday, Pinterest’s Head of Agency Partners, Yolanda Lam, explained, “Agencies and clients know we have unique insights, but they don’t have easy access to it. … They need to call a salesperson to understand what is available. Now, you can go in there to pull those data sets.”

To learn more about how to create and test effective Pinterest ads, check out this blog post with tips from a PPC expert.

Twitter

Twitter was founded in 2006 with a similar positioning as today. It was a social network where you could fire off short thoughts about trends, topics, or events that were important to you. These thoughts came in the form of text-based tweets under 160 characters.

After being presented at SXSW in 2007, Twitter saw its first surge in traffic as it moved from 20,000 to 60,000 users during the event. Also that year, Dell became the first major corporation to join the social media platform, while Twitter was incorporated as a company.

After rolling out a number of simple features including follows, replies, and hashtags in 2007 and 2008, Twitter launched its first major redesign in 2010.

2010

Layout

Although the brand and platform’s mission hasn’t changed at its core, the layout has certainly come a very long way. Despite being considered one of the hippest social media platforms of its time and pioneering the trending hashtag, its initial 2010 design was actually quite clunky and visually busy.

The Twitter layout split the main homepage in half. On one side, you could find a Timeline that was similar to today’s Twitter feed. On the other, you could see details about how many tweets you’d sent, follower suggestions, your follower counts, and a long list of trending hashtags.

Source; Wired

Aside from seeing a Twitter feed on one side of the page and your own tweets on the left, you could also click on tabs like @Mentions to see when you’d been tagged in tweets from others, retweets to see when others retweeted you, or searches to see your past searches.

Like today’s Twitter platform, you could also add accounts you followed to specific “Lists” and then see their tweets by clicking on the “Lists” tab.

2020

In 2020, Twitter’s main page is a lot easier to navigate. While the feed is placed directly in the center, you can still access its key features, like Lists, and your profile by clicking on clearly marked buttons in the left navigation bar. The website still also prioritizes trends by dedicating the right sidebar to viral topics and hashtags and a “Who to Follow” box.

Similarly to the other social platforms on this list, the Twitter feed now emphasizes photos and videos more than it did in 2010.

Aside from the visual changes to the main homepage feed, Twitter has also become more personalized to each user. When you discover, follow, and engage with content or accounts through Twitter’s feed, Explore feature, and Twitter Topics, Twitter’s algorithms take that data into account when prioritizing content that you might enjoy on your feed.

A recent blog post about Twitter Topics highlighted Twitter’s mission to make feeds and content more personalized to users:

“Previously, all of the work was on you to figure out the best way to keep up with what’s happening by following certain accounts, searching for it, or looking in the Explore tab for the latest. Now, you have the option of seeing the most relevant and interesting Tweets about what you care about with a single tap, and the conversation will come to you.”

Reddit

Reddit was launched as a discussion-oriented social media network in 2005. However, it didn’t become a viral success overnight. In fact, to make the platform look like it was more popular, thousands of early posts were published by fake accounts created by the Reddit team.

“The first thing it did was it set the tone,” Co-Founder Steve Huffman revealed in a VentureBeat post. “We were submitting content that we would have been interested in seeing. That meant the content on Reddit … was good. And when you show up, you know exactly what the site is about.”

Despite Reddit’s early, and controversial, fake account strategy, the platform eventually did become popular. In its first two years, discussion communities — called subreddits — began to gain popularity. By 2007, some of the most popular subreddits were “NSFW” — which stands for “Not Suited for Work” “Programming,” and “Science.”

2010

Just before 2010, Reddit moved its website to Amazon Web Services servers which tripled its traffic. By 2010, the platform’s founders claimed that they were seeing roughly 8 million visitors per month.

Layout

Despite its unique discussion-oriented platform and growing popularity, Reddit‘s 2010 platform was pretty basic. The layout was primarily text-based as it encouraged users to discuss topics in subreddits, which were similar to public chat rooms.

Source: Reddit

Aside from the main feed that you’d see when logging on to Reddit, you could look at the very top of the page to see trending subreddits. When you were on a subreddit, you could toggle between tabs including, “what’s hot,” “new,” “controversial,” “top,” or “saved” to see different types of posts within the subreddit.

On the right of any Reddit screen, you could also see a box that would allow you to post your own links or text to a subreddit.

Similarly to today’s Reddit format, you could also “Upvote” posts you enjoyed to help them show up higher on Reddit feeds or “downvote” posts to lower them. If you wanted to participate in a conversation, you could simply reply to a post.

2020

Although Reddit’s formatting has changed a lot, it’s audiences are still interested in similar things. Although the most popular subreddits have evolved to more specific topics, such as “emerging technology,” many of them still loosely relate to the platform’s earliest most-popular topics of “science” and “programming.”

Layout

Reddit’s current platform now emphasizes a lot more visuals as it includes a Trending stories tab at the top with photos related to each topic, and more capabilities allowing users to upload high-quality photos and videos.

Reddit, which now has 430 million monthly active users, also recently launched a streaming feature that allows users to interact with others while on live video.

Aside from its streaming feature, Reddit has also added more advertising options, including native ad blocks in its right sidebar and promotional posts which are located higher in related subreddit feeds. This is part of a play to make Reddit more appealing to brands and marketers.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn launched in 2003 as a members-only networking platform that you had to subscribe to with a membership fee. By 2011, the network was free and had become the first and most popular professional social media network. That year, the company drastically increased its funding and brand awareness with an IPO.

But, at this point, the website’s platform looked suspiciously nascent.

Shortly after its IPO, I had my first experience with LinkedIn as a college sophomore. I suddenly started receiving plain-looking emails saying that my email contacts invited me to a networking site called LinkedIn. After ignoring these emails thinking they were spam, I started hearing more about this site and decided to visit it. When I did, the site looked as basic as the emails I received.

Here’s what it looked like:

Source: TechCrunch

The original design centered around a search bar and search results feed which you could use to learn about topics in your industry. To help you sift through your search results, the homepage also had a sidebar that offered an expansive list. Aside from the feed and filters, there was also a right sidebar showing off “Trending Content’ related to your searches..

2020

Ten years later, LinkedIn’s become an online networking necessity with a much more intuitive layout. Not only have I found amazing jobs on this social network, but I now use it almost daily. In fact, my optimized LinkedIn profile even led my HubSpot manager to find and reach out to me for an interview.

I’m not the only one who’s found career success with this social networking tool. A recent study found that over 122 million people have received an interview through the social network. It’s also become a vital tool for companies as it hosts over 20 million job listings.

With over 660 million users, LinkedIn has followed the similar theme of other platforms on this list by emphasizing more photos and video-based content. It also has continued to embrace trending topics in its right navigation bar, similarly to Twitter and Facebook.

LinkedIn has also adjusted its design to be more social-media friendly by adding a navigation bar with a Friends and Notifications tab.

Additionally, today’s layout includes a messaging feature which is crucial for both social and professional networking. This feature is easily accessible in the upper navigation bar and in a lower box at the bottom of the page.

What Marketers Can Learn from Social Media’s Evolution

As you’ve seen, all of these platforms have evolved to become more visual and personalized to users. This represents how social media audiences are interested in interacting with friends, viewing fast-paced feeds with valuable information, and consuming highly visual video or photo-based content.

If your marketing strategy hasn’t evolved to fit these strategies yet, you should be working towards tactics that allow you to better connect and communicate with your audience on these platforms. You should also begin to put an emphasis on the creation of shareable multimedia content such as informative blog posts with photos, marketing graphics, or high-quality video content.

To learn more about how you can leverage major social media platforms, check out this detailed guide on the five types of social media and the pros and cons of each.

During the last month or so, my husband and I have driven by this grand opening sign on our way to his parent’s house about a dozen times.

After a couple of weeks, we decided to look up what it was for.

We found out a new restaurant was opening, and we were pretty excited to have a new place to try (sometimes it gets boring going to the same places!).

Since we were looking forward to it, we told our families, and decided to give it a try for one of our weekly dinners.

This is exactly the result you’re looking for when you’re marketing your grand opening.

For local businesses, it can be hard to get customers through the door. As a marketer, the first step is to let them know you’re there.

Ultimately, your grand opening marketing should help your business build relationships and create buzz with your audience.

Below, let’s review where to and when you should market your grand opening.

Where to Market Your Grand Opening

Developing your marketing strategy for your grand opening can be daunting as a new business and marketing team.

After you’ve set your budget and planned the event, you need to discuss where you’re going to market it.

Below, let’s review some of the top areas to market your grand opening.

1. City Bulletins or Forums.

Most cities have bulletins or forums where community events are advertised.

For example, consider taking out an ad in the local parks and recreation activity guide. Or you can ask city officials to promote your event in their newsletters or official communications with the citizens.

Additionally, it’s a good idea to develop relationships with city officials. If you can get a few city officials to show up, you can use that as a marketing tactic.

2. Your Network.

The most obvious place to market your grand opening is to your own network.

Invite your family and friends and encourage your employees to do the same. You can even offer a friends and family discount as an incentive.

You can reach out to your networks on social media, or via email.

Once you create a Facebook event (more on that below), you can invite all your friends and connections. This should help you spread the word about your grand opening.

3. Local Press.

One of the most important components of your grand opening marketing strategy is the local press.

Make sure that you invite the local press to your event. You can even reach out to a local radio DJ or news anchor to cover the event. The more coverage, the better. Plus, if they come to your event, they’ll probably promote it on their own channels and to their own networks. You can use their local celebrity to appeal to your audience.

For news media that can’t attend, you can send a press release before and after the event to make it easier to cover it.

Additionally, forging a relationship with the press is a good long-term play. If the local media covers your business at all, more people will become aware of your business and can visit after the grand opening.

4. Traditional Advertising.

For local businesses, traditional advertising is still vital to a great marketing campaign.

You should hang up flyers wherever you can and use a good, old fashioned “Grand Opening” sign. After all, that’s how my husband and I found out about the new restaurant in our town.

Additionally, local radio and billboard ads are a great way to get in front of your audience. Since the local citizens don’t know you exist yet, it’s imperative they become aware of your brand.

Another traditional method is direct mailings. Direct postcards to a certain zip code is a great way to reach a local audience.

5. Social Media.

Most likely, not every citizen is going to drive by your billboard ad, see your flyer, or hear your radio ad. To fix this, you should also reach out to local audiences online.

Use social media to start. Create a Facebook event and invite everyone you know. Then, after you create your social media accounts, you can also run social media ads and target a local area.

If people don’t see your brand’s sign, they should become aware of you online. Plus, the more people who see your promotion, the more who will show up.

Additionally, you can create a branded hashtag for citizens to use during your event. This will help create buzz and more brand awareness among your audience.

6. Local companies.

Another creative marketing tactic is to advertise with other local companies.

For example, usually, coffee shops have a bulletin board dedicated to community events. You can use this space to post a flyer for your grand opening.

Additionally, many local companies, such as hotels, have brochures at the reception or front desk. You can reach out and see if they’ll let you place a flyer there and tell their guests about your event.

Other local places that might have advertising opportunities are schools. Yearbooks and sports fields usually showcase plenty of local ads.

It’s important to use your grand opening as a way to build a relationship with other local businesses.

How Soon Should You Market a Grand Opening

Before we dive into how soon you should market your grand opening, let’s rewind a little.

Prior to your grand opening, your company should have a soft launch, or soft opening, to work out any of the kinks.

Since there are bound to be some issues, a soft launch lets you figure those out without a huge audience.

This means that you might be open for one to two weeks before your official grand opening event.

On the other hand, your soft launch may not be open to the public. You could just invite a group of guests for a test run. In this case, you’d actually open your doors to the public for the first time at your grand opening event.

Either way, before you host a grand opening event, you should begin advertising two to three weeks beforehand.

This means you’ll probably make the creative elements and get those in place two to three months before the grand opening.

Before you advertise, you’ll need to have your ads written, graphics created, and local press contacted and lined up.

Hosting a grand opening event isn’t just important for brand awareness. It’s also a great way to start growing your audience and customers. During your event, you can gather emails, so when the day is over, you can send your audience marketing updates, discounts, and links to your social media.

Social media is an undeniably powerful marketing tool in 2020.

We’ve seen the stats that back up using social media as a legitimate business practice. And we’ve seen examples of companies that saw phenomenal ROI after a social media campaign.

But how are marketers managing multiple social accounts, encouraging proper engagement, and analyzing and proving their social platforms ROI?

With social media analytics tools.

In a nutshell, social media analytics tools are generally part of a larger social media management software platform. They collect data from connected accounts, such as engagement, reposts, and replies, and compile them into reports that break down the numbers, providing you with insights about the performance of your brand online.

Social media analytics tools are at the heart of knowing how to communicate with your audience online, where to target them, and how to prove the value of social media to decision-makers.

To cut the expansive search of social media analytics tools down, (there are a lot) we’ve made a list of seven top options that we recommend, depending on your business type. These choices have expansive features and tools, offer a trial period, and in some cases, are even able to integrate with your HubSpot account.

1. HubSpot

Price: Marketing Hub Professional: $800/mo.

HubSpot’s analytics tools offer social reports that compare the performance of multiple social channels to measure campaign performance. To aid with monitoring engagement, HubSpot’s software allows users to publish on the go directly through the CRM.

Below is a screenshot of an analytics report HubSpot provides. It offers expansive graphs and visuals that break down the numbers by specific platform features, like audience, session lengths, and impressions.

When monitoring performance using HubSpot, you’ll have insights on your customers through their entire journey, as well as which marketing messages perform the best among your audiences.

HubSpot is an excellent choice for businesses of any size, whose marketing teams want to keep all campaign functions in one place. Its integrations make that process more streamlined, and the detailed social performance reports break down and analyze the hard numbers for you.

2. Mailchimp

Price: Free, then $9-$299/mo.

Mailchimp is a full-service marketing platform that offers analytics for social media. I love Mailchimp because it’s easy to use for small marketing teams and requires little time to pour over the accompanying analytics.

Here’s a screenshot of how campaign data looks on Mailchimp. This is a sample report that gives a high-level overview of audience insights, demographics that are crucial when planning a social media campaign.

Source

With Mailchimp, you’ll also have an audience dashboard, which is a page dedicated to understanding audience behavior. Additionally, the software offers tools to look into smart targeting and mobile integrations. These tools can diversify a social strategy and deliver higher engagement numbers by helping you create content specific audiences will respond well to.

This platform is a great idea for teams that need social media analytics tools that guide you towards creating a more holistic, impactful strategy.

3. Databox

Price: $49-248/mo.

Databox is an expansive analytics platform that puts all business data in one place. The platform lets you set campaign goals with your account and track them for their duration.

This screenshot gives an audience overview from a social profile, including graphs and session data.

Source

The key performance indicators (KPIs) of success on social media channels will be shown on the same dashboard.

You can customize metrics that matter most to your campaign or social channels for your reports. For instance, if you wanted to track just Twitter replies, you can customize that. These tools let you remain focused on the metrics you need to have.

Any integration you have, such as HubSpot, will also be visible from the dashboard, as well.

Databox is a good choice for businesses that have many contacts and social accounts to keep track of, many specific campaign goals by channel, or manage social accounts for several clients.

4. Grow.com

Price: Contact for pricing

Users of Grow.com software are able to access full visibility of engagement for social accounts. The tool connects to HubSpot, Salesforce, Google Ads, Facebook, Marketo, and Microsoft Office, so you can combine the software with any other tools you use for social monitoring or listening.

Below is an example of a Grow overview for sales and marketing. Notice how the expansive options are similar to Google Analytics, offering audience location, behavior, and trends.

Source

Grow.com breaks down complex data into graphs and visuals. Another perk of using Grow.com is that social reports are sharable, and you can integrate your account with HubSpot’s ecosystem tools. This is helpful for multiple teams working on the same project at once, since it can provide consistent, accurate data to various team members at once.

If your team wants a full-service platform for marketing and sales data, Grow.com is a good option. Grow.com’s analytics reports are built with metrics chosen by the user, so it’s a great tool for customizing, too.

5. ActiveCampaign

Price: $9/mo

ActiveCampaign is email marketing software that provides a ton of social features, including reporting. You can connect Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and other social media platforms to gather insights of performance across those social media sites.

Here is a sample ActiveCampaign custom reports page. This is a blank slate, but you can see you have options to configure campaigns and templates onto your dashboard.

Source

Using this software, you can see how emails are performing, as well as campaign performance in general. Since you’ll have both social media and email metrics in one place, this is a good option for businesses with a heavy email marketing focus.

Additionally, another cool feature about ActiveCampaign is that its reports track what contacts do after they click through to your site. Further, if you’re a HubSpot customer, the software integrates with your HubSpot account.

6. CoSchedule

Price: $12.50/mo

Reports are CoSchedule’s specialty — in fact, CoSchedule gathers social network, campaign, and engagement reports for your social profiles automatically, and its software compiles real-time data and tracks engagement statistics.

These engagement statistics, like the example pictured below, are formulated and collected to diminish guesswork needed on how to connect with followers. You’ll be able to see the top fans of your social accounts, making it easier to create targeted content for them.

Source

On a CoSchedule dashboard, you can see a birds’ eye view of unique data from campaigns, old and new. That way, you can compare multiple campaigns to determine the evolving ecosystem of audiences. If that’s not for you, that’s no problem — you can opt-out of having it on your dashboard.

CoSchedule is a good choice for companies that depend on reports for ROI. Plus, it’s always a nice choice if you want to see the difference in audience behavior over time, to get a clearer picture of an ideal buyer’s journey.

7. Sprout Social

Price: $99-$249/mo.

Sprout Social is a social media planning service that, as do many other platforms, offers expansive analytic reports of the performance of social media accounts.

Additionally, if you’re a HubSpot customer, you can integrate HubSpot with Sprout Social to collect accurate social reports all in one place.

Here is an example of a Twitter Engagement report from Sprout Social. Notice how you can customize the report, add widgets, and switch between other social engagement reports.

Source

You can configure the metrics your reports provide, and choose options that scale with your business. For instance, you might not need to analyze ROI from an Instagram campaign now, but if needed in the future, you can have that option.

Sprout Social is beneficial if you are looking for a system that’s configurable and able to be integrated. It’s a flexible platform that offers reports curated to your specific social media goals with colorful graphs and expansive data.

Ultimately, choosing the right social media analytics tools for your business shouldn’t be a stressful process. The tools should align with your business goals and deliver the metrics you need to be successful.

Tools should also be able to work with the budget and time you have available, so if one of these choices seems to tick all of those boxes for you, check them out. Your social strategy will only be helped by having the correct tools on-hand.

If you’re a blogger, you’ve probably asked your editor “how long should this blog post be” more times than you’d care to admit.

And most of the time, you’ll hear an answer that sounds something like this: “However long it needs to be.”

There’s certainly a nugget of truth in there — you shouldn’t beholden yourself to a character count that’s either too low or too high. However, any experienced blogger will tell you that there is an ideal length or range for how long your blog posts should be, especially when you take certain criteria into account like your audience, the topic, the structure of the post, and what your main promotional channel is.

We’ve published thousands of blog posts here at HubSpot, and we analyzed our top-performing ones to see how blog post length impacts success in all of these areas.

Read on to see how long your blog posts should be in 2020.

Ideal Blog Post Length for SEO 2020

For SEO, the ideal blog post length should be 2,100-2,400 words, according to HubSpot data. We averaged the length of our 50 most-read blog posts in 2019, which yielded an average word count of 2,330. Individual blog post lengths ranged from 333 to 5,581 words, with a median length of 2,164 words.

But before you go writing your 2,300 word blog post, keep in mind that not all blog posts need to be super long — in fact, 16 of our top 50 read posts (or about one-third) were under 1,500 words, so there’s still plenty of opportunity to get your posts ranking even with a lower word count.

This can be accomplished by following SEO best practices, including:

• Proper backlinking.
• Attempting to capture Google’s featured snippet.
• Adding alt-text.
• Going after the right keywords.
• Achieving domain and topic authority.
• Incorporating media-rich content in your post body (videos, social media embeds, etc.).

For an overview of everything that goes into getting a blog post to rank on Google outside of word length, check out this blog post.

Ideal Blog Post Length for Lead Generation

Unfortunately, there’s often a disconnect between the posts that generate traffic and those that generate leads or new contacts for your business.

Typically, posts that get more traffic do so because they’re searched for by a wider audience, which sometimes means the topic you’ve written about is more generic and doesn’t align closely with your business.

To speak to this gap, we looked at the 50 posts that brought in the most net new leads for HubSpot in 2019 to see if there was a difference in average length, and to see if writers should adjust post length for posts written to generate leads.

Spoiler alert: there was, and they should.

Based on HubSpot’s data, the ideal length of a blog post intended to generate leads is 2,500 words. The 50 posts that generated the most leads in 2019 were an average of 2,569 words long and had a median length of 2,529 words, which is approximately 250 and 400 words longer than the average and median lengths of the most-read blog posts. The longest post in this cohort was 8,197 words, or approximately 2,500 words longer than the longest most-read post.

So, for a blog post intended to build your contact database, writing longer content definitely works in your favor. Longer content reinforces your knowledge and authority on a subject — particularly if it’s a keyword or a topic for a very specific audience. When your coverage is more in-depth for these ideas, you increase your chances of ranking better — and while your audience might be smaller, your chances of converting readers into leads are far greater.

Ideal Blog Post Lengths for Different Blog Post Types

We didn’t stop there: there are different types and formats of blog posts, so we wanted to see how blog post length impacted the performance of these different post structures.

How long should pillar pages be?

Pillar pages should be around 4,000 words, since they are supposed to cover significantly more content than an average blog post.

A pillar page is your attempt at being the all-encompassing guide to any given subject available on the Internet as a blog post. These posts serve as the “pillar” to a cluster of blog posts, all of which relate to the topic explained in the pillar. You can learn more about pillar pages by watching the video below.

To arrive at the suggested 4,000 word blog post length, we averaged the lengths of our most-read pillar pages in 2019 and found an average of 4,048 words and a median length of 3,639 words. Word lengths for these pillar pages ranged from 2,137 to 10,939 words.

That amount of words might seem scary, but keep in mind how extensive the work that goes into pillar pages — and the content that they cover — should be. Pillar pages should take several days to write, cite multiple sources, and link out to all of your related blog posts on the subject. The work will pay off, however, and you’ll likely see more traffic to the pillar post and the supporting cluster content.

Need help getting started with writing pillar pages? Try using our free blog post templates for organizing and writing your pillar pages.

How long should listicles be?

Listicles, or list blog posts, should be 2,300-2,600 words.

List blog posts are probably the most approachable blog post format for new bloggers. Anyone can make a blog post just by listing off and explaining a few examples, tools, resources, or ideas for a given topic. When it comes to the length of these blog posts, it seems that the rule of thumb is: the more examples, the better.

HubSpot’s most-read listicles in 2019 were an average of 2,574 words and had a median length of 2,332 words. They ranged between 1,040 and 5,581 words in length. All of these numbers are either around the same or higher than the lengths for the average blog post, suggesting that list blog posts perform better when they are longer.

And if you think about it, this makes total sense. When you search for a list of ideas or examples, would you rather see a list of five or a list of fifty? This post format demands plenty of list entries — preferably with images, explanations, and links to their original sources — so put in the effort to build an authoritative and complete list for your readers.

You can use these free listicle blog post templates to get started writing your list posts today.

How long should “how-to” blog posts be?

How-to blog posts should be between 1,700 and 2,100 words.

Because how-to posts describe, well, how to do something, the ideal length of the blog post depends on how difficult it is to do what you’re explaining how to do. For example, this blog post on how to type the shrug emoji is just over 300 words, while this blog post on how to start a business contains more than 8,000.

For our top-read how-to blog posts, we saw an average length of 2,151 words and a median of 1,669 words. While this a rather large range, it shouldn’t be too surprising, since readers don’t need too much — or worse — too little information on how to accomplish their desired task.

Writing a how-to blog post for the first time? Remember that they should be concise and clear, contain section headers, and leave little or nothing to the imagination. Readers are coming to you for instruction, not inspiration, so ensure the post succinctly covers your chosen topic. You can also use this how-to blog post template if you need help organizing and writing the post.

How long should “what is” blog posts be?

“What is” posts, or blog posts that answer a question (such as the one you’re reading right now), should be between 1,300 and 1,700 words (which this one is!).

This type of post is definitely the poster child for making blog posts “as long as they need to be.” When readers search for what, who, or when something is, they typically want a quick answer or explanation. Based on our data, bogging readers down with too much unnecessary information doesn’t always equate to more views — 30% of the HubSpot’s most-read “what is” posts are less than 1,000 words.

If you need help structuring these posts and keeping them short, try using these blog post templates.

Minimum Blog Post Length

Technically, there is no official minimum for blog post length, though Yoast recommends at least 300 words. That said, HubSpot data suggests writing longer posts should be the rule rather than the exception for your blog. This practice will help your website build authority in the eyes of search engines, which can help shorter blog posts rank better.

“Generally, it’s easier for longer content to rank,” says Aja Frost, HubSpot’s Head of Content SEO. “But unless you’re publishing hundreds of [blog] pages with less than 100 words, you won’t get dinged for thin content.”

While longer blog posts tend to perform the best, that’s not to say that every single blog post you publish must be more than 2,000 words. If you feel you’ve covered your topic well enough in 300, 800, or 1,000 words, then so be it.

Getting Started With Your Blog Posts

Now that you know how long your blog posts should be, it’s time to start writing! We’ve compiled a list of resources you can start utilizing today to make your blog more successful.

• A Guide on How to Start a Blog
• A Blog Post on How to Write a Blog (Please forgive us for being so meta)
• A Collection of Free Blog Post Templates [Download Now]
• CMS Software to Host Your Blog Content
• Marketing Analytics Software to Measure Blog Post Performance

Remember the TV show Mad Men?

For many in my generation, it opened our eyes to what working in advertising was like in the 1960s. When the show began, ad executive Don Draper‘s creative team was made up of only men, there were nearly no HR policies to protect employees in the workplace, women with creative aspirations were stuck behind secretary desks, and everyone smoked in the office.

Clearly — and luckily — workplaces have drastically changed. Today, I work with a diverse team to develop creative content for the HubSpot Blog. While I mostly work in-office, I occasionally write blogs from home. And, I’m not the only one. Roughly half our team is actually remote full time.

Although I love the flexibility of my job, the company culture is the reason I stay. I work with a corporation that values creative thinking while empowering all of its employees to “grow better.”

To me, HubSpot symbolizes what researchers call the “workplace of the future.”But HubSpot isn’t the only workplace changing to support a more modern idea of work. In fact, with the growth of technology and progressive attitudes around work culture, many other companies are following suit.

If you’re a people manager or entrepreneur, it’s necessary to look at where future workplaces are headed. This strategy can help you build your recruiting strategies, office policies, and overall company culture around forward-thinking approaches that will pull in competitive and talented job candidates.

Meanwhile, if you’re a marketer or advertiser, considering the future work landscape can help you make decisions about which work styles could be best for your career in the long run.

To help you visualize how the office landscape is changing, and give you an idea of which workplaces will enable talented professionals to thrive, here’s a list of how the job landscape will likely evolve in the next year and beyond.

8 Ways the Workplace is Changing for Marketers

1. The remote workforce will continue to grow.

If you think remote work is still a “new trend,” think again. In 2018, over 70% of professionals reported that they at least occasionally work remotely.

Remote work has benefited both employees and companies with more work flexibility. For example, companies can now hire more diverse talent from around the world now that they’re no longer limited to local recruiting for in-house positions.

Now that remote work has become a more of a traditional work style, companies are seeing positive results, In fact, research shows that remote employees can be more productive, happier, and will even work more hours as needed since they don’t have to spend time commuting to work.

As we see the growth of remote workforces, we also have seen the struggles remote employees face as well, such as loneliness and fears about not gaining valuable visibility. With these concerns in mind, we might also see more emphasis on company cultures as managers could be working more vigorously to keep their cross-continental teams connected and in the know of what’s going on.

2. Workplaces will offer more flexible perks.

Even if you or your team can’t work remotely, there will still be a growing expectation of flexibility-related perks at workplaces in the near future. These perks could include more or unlimited PTO and the ability to schedule your own work hours. Each year, more and more companies are embracing flexibility. In fact, 67% of small businesses now report that they offer some sort of flexible work arrangement. Meanwhile, 72% of recruiters and HR reps say this benefit will shape future workplaces.

The impact of flexibility on a company is apparent when looking at the data and stats related to it. Recent research shows that 73% of employees say their company’s level of flexibility directly impacts their level of satisfaction at work.

Additionally, flexible perks such as shorter workweeks have been seen to boost productivity. Here’s a chart from The Economist that shows the correlations between work hours and employee effectiveness:

Source: The Economist

Flexibility might greatly benefit both employees and employers, but it can still be challenging for more traditional companies to adapt to flexible scheduling at first. For example, it may be harder to coordinate meetings or you may have trouble with team building. To find tips on how to navigate the pros and cons of flexible perks, check out this blog post.

3. Soft Skills will be even more crucial to your career.

In a highly-connected world, soft skills will be the hardest for technology to replace. While a bot can do many mundane tasks for you, it can’t (yet) present a convincing business pitch, write a great video script, or create campaigns that play off of an audience’s emotions. Soft skills, however, are what enable marketers to do all of those things.

But what exactly are soft skills? While technical skills relate to completing a more structured task, such as math, coding, or physically assembling products, soft skills often rely on context, the mind’s ability to adapt to certain situations, and occasionally strategic planning. Examples of soft skills include emotional intelligence, adaptability, public speaking, writing, or other skills related to team management.

Soft skills are especially important for recent graduates or professionals just entering their field. According to a Cengage survey, over 70% of employers are primarily looking for soft skills when vetting entry-level employees. The study also reports that some of the most valued soft skills are related to good listening and solid communication.

Even when you’re a seasoned marketer, soft skills will still continue to be important in your highly-creative and analytical career. Think about it? Even at an executive-level position, you could still be expected to pitch new or innovative ideas, manage a team, and use emotional intelligence to create a campaign that your audiences can relate to.

If you feel like your lacking in the soft skill department, here’s a quick guide to key skills that you’ll want to brush up on — especially in the world of marketing.

4. Creativity will be particularly valuable to employers.

Out of all the soft skills, one of the most highly valued — especially for marketers — is creativity. According to LinkedIn behavioral data, creativity is the most in-demand soft skill in “short supply.” LinkedIn’s recent report also notes that the demand for creative talent will rise sharply by 2030 as artificial intelligence becomes more prominent in the workplace.

While artificial intelligence can’t develop creative skills or projects on its own, a creative mindset enables marketers to think innovatively, experiment, and try new projects that will keep audiences engaged and intrigued.

Don’t believe me? Check out these highly creative and thought-provoking campaigns that both awed audiences and generated significant conversions. These wouldn’t have been at all possible had it not been for creative or innovative thinking.

5. Artificial intelligence will take over marketing tasks, but not jobs.

In the past, when we thought about technology, we feared that robots would steal our jobs. But, as marketers, it’s now apparent that we don’t generally have to worry too much about job security any time soon. This is because artificial intelligence or any other technology isn’t yet capable of the valuable soft-skills noted above — especially creativity.

However, while a bot can’t pitch an award-winning campaign, it certainly can help you streamline mundane tasks to allow more time to brainstorm your next high-conversion ad.

At this point, AI can help content creators identify highly-searched SEO keywords, generate analytics reports, manage basic social media posts, send automated emails, and adjust online ad spend to prevent you from losing money. These are all things that would have taken up hours of your time years ago.

Business executives are also recognizing the power of AI and how it can help streamline processes. According to a multi-year survey of corporations in the U.S., AI implementation climbed from 48% to 72% between 2018 and 2019. Additionally, 67% of the companies that implemented AI in or before 2018 say they’re expanding the areas of their business that use the technology.

While AI is still inaccessibly expensive for some smaller businesses, it is continuing to get more affordable and easier to manage as technology evolves. In the future, we’ll likely see more investment in technologies that help employees work smarter rather than technologies that will render your job obsolete.

6. Recruiters will embrace more pre-screening tactics before job interviews.

While employers previously might have screened candidates for technical skills using quizzes or skill-related challenges prior to an interview, professional organizations like LinkedIn now encourage businesses to pre-screen individuals for soft and hard skills through tactics like phone and video interviews.

This strategy allows recruiters and employers to leverage technology to verify that a candidate is a solid job prospect before scheduling a full, time-consuming interview with them. But, while it’s great for employers, this type of process might make job candidates a bit nervous or frustrated with the job interview process. If you’re intimidated by pre-screenings, check out this blog post about how to navigate video interviews and various pre-screening questions.

7. Effective anti-harassment policies will be even more critical in the workplace.

For years, many workplaces didn’t have effective policies related to harassment. In fact, the Supreme Court didn’t begin to pass laws related to harassment in the workplace until the 1980s. Even when businesses were required by law to implement these policies, some in-office rules were ineffective as they made it hard for people to come forward with a complaint against someone of a higher power, such as a boss.

The abundance of in-office harassment issues came to light in the midst of the #MeToo movement, which encouraged people of all genders to share stories of sexual harassment in the workplace. Aside from sexual harassment, other forms of harassment, such as discrimination and bullying also became more apparent during this movement.

In a LinkedIn survey, 71% of recruiters and HR reps report that anti-harassment policies will continue to change and evolve to fit the modern-day workplace as these rules could impact a talent’s interest in a position. This follows another report from Harvard Business Review that highlights how harassment claims are taken more seriously in offices when company leaders properly acknowledge and enforce them.

As the workplace grows more progressive, expect to see companies aiming to develop effective anti-harassment strategies to make prospective job seekers and current employees feel physically and psychologically safe in the workplace.

8. Wages could become more transparent.

LinkedIn reports that 53% of HR reps and recruiters say pay transparency will transform workplaces of the future.

The statistic above makes sense. To many, it’s considered “rude” to discuss salary with friends, family, or colleagues. However, with the growth of political activism and news related to gender-based pay gaps, researchers now believe that pay transparency inside and outside of the workplace can help employees negotiate better and fairer wages.

Additionally, while some employers frown upon discussing pay with your colleagues, employees legally have the right to discuss work-related issues such as wages with coworkers.

Although pay transparency can cause employees to negotiate higher salaries, researchers suggest that it still benefits companies because it attracts talent and keeps employees at a business for a longer amount of time.

According to a recent study from The Creative Group, pay transparency is already becoming a major trend with over 70% of companies claiming to be partially to fully transparent about job role wages.

Preparing for the Future of Work

As you’ve seen above, some of the biggest themes related to future workplaces will relate to flexibility, embracing technology, and building a psychologically safe office culture filled with diverse talent. Here are a few tips that can help you embrace these themes.

• Don’t be afraid of flexible work. If you’re an employer, consider how flexible work schedules or remote options could benefit you and intrigue talented job candidates. If you’re an employee, consider how flexible work options could positively impact your career.
• Identify where technology can help you. If you’re a manager, consider investing in technology that can help your team have more time to be creative. If you’re a marketer, it can also be great to look into technologies that you could recommend to your boss.
• Zone in on soft skills. With the growth of technology, success in the marketing field will depend on your level of irreplaceable soft skills, including emotional intelligence or creativity.
• Listen to your colleagues. If you’re a manager, come up with strategies to stay connected to your team members and meet with them regularly, even if they’re remote. If you’re a marketer, look for opportunities to reach out to team members to gain insight from them. Strong communication will help your team be more productive while also helping everyone identify when an aspect of your processes or office culture isn’t working.

To learn more about specific aspects of the future of work, check out this post on jobs artificial intelligence will and won’t replace, this guide to successful remote work, or this post on cultivating psychological safety at work.

As a marketer, you’ve likely heard the buzz around popular social platform TikTok, which now has 500 million monthly active users and is the third-most downloaded app globally.

The video-based social app has incredible potential for marketers, particularly since it’s so popular with the Gen-Z and millennial demographic. But, despite its potential, many marketers are unsure how to approach marketing on the app.

Some brands are already making headway on TikTok, of course — for instance, Chipotle has over 55K fans on TikTok, while the NBA has an impressive 5.1 million.

But, despite a few early adopters, most marketers still haven’t figured out how to monetize TikTok … or whether it’s even worth it to do so.

If you’re considering investing in TikTok in 2020, we’ve got you covered. Here, Visme put together an infographic featuring 10 steps to generating leads on TikTok. Take a look to decide for yourself whether you’re interested in testing out these steps with your own social team./p>

But first — why use TikTok for lead generation at all?

Why use TikTok for lead generation?

There are a few good reasons TikTok can be a great platform to generate new leads: 

1. It allows for mobile-first campaigns. 

The 2010s has been the decade of mobile, and it doesn’t show signs of slowing. The number of mobile users in the world continues to grow, as even those from developing countries start to get their hands on smartphones at increasing rates. 

But what makes TikTok particularly enticing, aside from its increasing growth, has been its use of micro-videos that are easy to watch on mobile. 

The majority of mobile users allot their time to watching short videos. The way TikTok is built, users can create 15-second videos at most. It isn’t surprising, then, to see the platform grow the way it has over the years as its format is perfect with what mobile users prefer to consume.

Additionally, from an operations standpoint, the mobile format is relevant. You can run a business right from your phone, so investing in a mobile-based application like TikTok can fit right into your mobile-first campaigns.

2. It’s great for brands targeting a younger market.

From its inception, TikTok made it a point to target younger viewers. They understood the youth uses social media applications differently, and that directed most of their features and campaigns. Very quickly, they became the application younger audiences were addicted to.

To this day, the number of TikTok users online grows at a rapid rate, with a large chunk of those users in their late teens and early 20’s.

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This information is especially important for businesses who are trying to reach a younger audience. After all, the younger demographic is going to be the market with the most purchasing power in the future — in fact, it’s already projected at about 40% in 2020. 

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3. It enables your brand to produce authentic content.

Authenticity matters, especially to millennials and Gen Z. Keeping things real and genuine is key in getting buyers to believe your business does more than just get consumers to buy products.

Doing this can be difficult, but a great place to start is by focusing on storytelling. Focusing on narrative shows your business goes beyond money and emphasizes the human element to things.

In a nutshell? Authentic brands attract quality leads. And with TikTok paving the way for authentic brand building — especially with content creators who have huge influencing power — this platform is the place to be.

Next, let’s explore the 10 steps to generate leads on TikTok: 

When you think of viral marketing, your mind probably wanders to that Oreos “You can still dunk in the dark” tweet, which garnered an enviable 40,000 retweets and Facebook likes during 2013’s Super Bowl power outage.

Or perhaps you think of the Dove “Real Beauty Sketches,” a video with more than 67 million views to date.

When these global brands go viral, it’s not a huge surprise.

Global brands have agencies and well-staffed marketing teams standing by to handle the good, the bad, and the ugly that can result when they go viral. But what happens to the little guys? What happens to small brands that hit on marketing gold, kind of by accident?

Below, we’re taking a look at how small brands have handled their 15 minutes of viral fame. Some struggled, some succeeded, but all of them earned a spot on this elusive roster. Here’s what they did, and what you can learn from their stories.

16 Small Brands That Went Viral

1. Dominique Ansel Bakery (The Cronut)

Image Credit: CNN Traveler

Pastry chef Dominique Ansel was not a doughnut devotee. The French-born, New York-based bakery owner had tasted a few, but he was far more familiar with the croissants he had grown up eating. When someone pointed out that he didn’t have a donut on the menu of his New York bakery, Ansel decided to head back to his roots and invent a new kind of pastry.

Enter: the Cronut.

Ansel’s new confection really gained steam after a food blogger from Grub Street tried a Cronut and documented the experience. Traffic to the bakery website rose by more than 300 percent, and hundreds would line up every day to get their hands on the trendiest pastry around.

Viral best practice: Focus on quality, not quantity

Each batch of Cronuts took Ansel’s team three days to prepare. They could make about 350 Cronuts every day in their bakery, which meant the numbers were limited.

By managing the output of his pastries and avoiding the draw of producing more than his team and facility could manage, Ansel created controlled demand that he could meet without sacrificing the quality of his product.

Four years later, you’ll still find a line outside of Ansel’s bakery before their 8:00 A.M. opening. But the true secret to his success? Ansel claims that he’s had one Cronut every day since their invention. I’m really hoping that’s the key to my next promotion as well.

2. Eva Kor and Candles

When my colleague, Kayla, was in college, she went to a nearby Holocaust memorial museum run by Auschwitz survivor Eva Kor.

Hearing Kor tell her story at Candles during the tour touched so many hearts in the community, including Kayla’s. Kor’s story is why a visit to Candles is essential to anyone visiting the area.

In 2017, BuzzFeed did a profile on Kor and the impact of Candles. At the time of this post, the profile video has 15 million views on YouTube alone, and over 100 million views on Facebook.

BuzzFeed’s profile gave Kor a global platform to share a story of bravery and remembrance. A visit to the cherished local museum became a viral topic that captured the hearts of millions, just like it had in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Viral best practice: Local stories can capture the hearts of millions

A large number of people in Terre Haute will enthusiastically tell you about their first time at Candles. Now, millions of people know about Candles and get to spread that message. Additionally, to keep Kor’s legacy remembered for future generations, in April 2019, two Indiana natives teamed up with PBS to release a documentary about Kor.

Everyone has a story to tell. Candles’ story is one of bravery, passion, and perseverance, feelings to which everyone can relate. By telling your story, you could capture the hearts and attention of the masses, as well.

3. ALSA (The Ice Bucket Challenge)

Image Credit: Iconosquare Blog

In 2014, the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Association launched one of the most successful viral campaigns of all time. Justin Bieber, Oprah Winfrey, and Bill Gates were a handful of the celebrities who took the challenge and dumped buckets of ice over their heads to raise funds and awareness for ALSresearch.

By the time the videos had stopped filling newsfeeds around the world, the campaign had raised more than $220 million for ALSorganizations worldwide. Awareness of the disease rose and it reached the fifth most popular Google search for all of 2014.

In 2015, a year after the the ice bucket challenge went viral, money from the campaign was said to fund research that identified a new gene, NEK1, that contributes to the disease.

Viral best practice: They looked outside their target audience

True, most of those who made a donation during the video craze have never made a second. But overall A.L.S. contributions have stayed about 25 percent higher than the year before the challenge, and the average donor age has dropped from above 50 to 35.

By shooting outside of their target demographic and trying alternative marketing tactics (video) that might normally take a backseat to more traditional fundraising efforts (galas, email marketing, etc … ) A.L.S.A. was able to bring in millions in one-time donations, raise brand awareness, and gain an overall contribution baseline of 25 percent. I’d say that’s enough incentive to shake things up in your next campaign.

4. Roman Originals (The Dress)

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What happens when your company isn’t even the one behind a viral sensation?

“We woke up one morning and had the world and media coming down upon us,” says Peter Christodoulou, the co-founder of Roman Originals. It started with a wedding photo posted online. A young woman was pictured standing next to a bride, and no one could agree on what color her dress was.

What followed was an international debate dubbed #DressGate.

Christodoulou explained that his company had hoped to sell 200 of the lace-detailed dresses per week, but the UK-based retailer sold 3,000 in just 10 days. Celebrities, global brands, and just about everyone else was tweeting, sharing, and talking about “The Dress.” At its height, the controversy sparked 10,000 tweets per minute.

Viral best practice: Other brands can and will capitalize on your success

Brands around the world capitalized on the craze and amplified the popularity of “The Dress.” Dunkin’ Donuts, Legos, and Tide were just a few of the brands that came out with clever dress-themed ads of their own.

A few months later, Christodoulou said his company “won the social media lottery. We’ve had a brilliant year … Hopefully our spring/summer 2016 range will be well-received.”

While the line might not have sparked the global frenzy the original $74 dress had, Roman Originals showed the marketing world that virality can happen to anyone. And retailers everywhere showed that jumping on trending topics can do as much for you as it does for the company that originated the trend.

5. Blendtec

In the early days of YouTube, there was some interesting content floating around — cat videos, sketch videos, and, of course, a guy in a white lab coat blending a whole chicken and can of soda.

 

Tom Dickson, CEO of blender company Blendtec, saw early on that YouTube could be a great marketing tool. With the platform’s emphasis on funny and quick content, the infomercial series “Will It Blend?” was the result of a minimal marketing budget and an experiment.

The series was built around Blendtec’s flagship high-speed blender. To show the blender’s power, the CEO decided to advertise that users could even blend household items. So, he put on a white lab coat, found a box of matches, and turned on a camera.

Dickson puts everything from golf balls, Amazon Echos, and my personal childhood favorite, Thanksgiving Dinner, to the test while cheesy game show music loftily plays in the background. (Spoiler alert: It always blends).

Gaining billions of views and great interest in the high-speed capabilities of a Blendtec blender, the company has now flourished into one of the most reputable brands in its industry. Popularity of the series led to the company’s CEO appearing on an episode of NBC’s “How I Made My Millions” , a show about startups that quickly found great success.

Viral best practice: Leveraging YouTube to create content that connects to the platform’s audience

Having little resources as a startup, Dickson stumbled upon a hidden gold mine. His story shows how adoption of YouTube as a digital marketing platform can skyrocket a company, even without a high budget or television ad slots.

Eventually, themed content, such as holiday episodes (Christmas Dinner smoothie, anyone?) began rolling out to expand its reach among YouTube’s audience.

Today, you can still go back and watch the “Will It Blend?” series on their YouTube channel. And of course, you can still purchase the blender and produce a few videos of your own (something else that became popular in light of the show’s success).

6. Metro Trains Melbourne (Dumb Ways to Die)

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Are you already humming that catchy little song in your head? You’re welcome for that all day.

Melbourne’s metro system didn’t have a safety campaign in market before “Dumb Ways to Die” (DWTD). They had information at stations, but nothing that was really influencing safe behavior or showing that the company cared, so they brought agency McCann Melbourne on to help.

Metro Trains’ Chloe Alsop explained, “We kept coming back to the same thing: it’s really hard to get hit by a train. A wrong or careless behaviour is required.” Without a serious tone or tugging at heartstrings, an impactful, memorable, and shareable campaign was built.

By April 2014, the campaign had been viewed 77 million times on YouTube. The accompanying game became the No. 1 free app in 101 countries, and in six weeks, DWTD had garnered an estimated $60 million in earned media. The most important stat that came out of the campaign? A 21% reduction in railway accidents and near misses following the campaign.

Viral best practice: Launch outside your target market to build buzz

McCann created the original campaign using North American voices and characters because “the video had to go viral first, later it would catch the attention of the real target audience.”

Today, the campaign has become a franchise used by metro transit around the world. The takeaway for us? As McCann spokesperson John Mescall says, “It used to be ‘Think global, act local.’ That’s no longer true; we need to think and act global.”

The next time you launch a campaign, try thinking about where you might launch outside of your target market to build buzz.

7. Invisible Children (Kony 2012)

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Invisible Children was around for eight years before Kony 2012 turned them into a household name. They got their start by showing a short film called “The Rough Cut” at high schools and community centers around the United States.

The goal was to raise awareness of Joseph Kony, a war criminal responsible for a decades-long civil war in Uganda and surrounding countries, and most maligned for his kidnapping and use of children as sex slaves and soldiers.

The group flipped Kony 2012, a 30-minute YouTube video, to public on March 5, 2012. It was not their first or their last video but it was their loudest. In six days, it garnered more than 100 million views becoming (for the moment) the fastest growing viral video of all time. As the days passed, however, criticism of the video, the organization, and its founders grew.

The San Diego-based company wasn’t ready for the deluge of attention, traffic, or critique the video brought upon them. Invisible Children’s co-founder and star of Kony 2012 received the brunt of the criticism, culminating in a public mental health breakdown a few days after the video’s infamous launch.

Viral best practice: Have a PR plan in place

In 2015, three years after Kony 2012 ignited the internet’s attention, the company shuttered most of its US operations. Joseph Kony is still at large, and Invisible Children’s downsized African programs have honed their focus to early warning systems and defection messaging.

Kony 2012 is still a divisive subject, but it’s also a cautionary tale for organizations whose aims to go viral may not match their infrastructure or readiness. Site traffic, man-power, and the lack of a PR agency/strategy all contributed to the chaos in the days following Kony 2012’s launch.

8. Netflix’s Bird Box

During the winter of 2018, it was pretty much impossible to access a Netflix account that didn’t have an ad for a thriller starring Sandra Bullock plastered across the home page. We’ll touch more on that a little later. First, some background history.

When Netflix released its original movie “Bird Box,” the movie was watched by 45 million viewers in seven days. In tandem, viewers took to social media with memes and reactions. While the social media attention could be a huge culprit of some of the movie’s widespread attention, it also could be something else.

Netflix’s marketing team has an effective strategy outside of traditional marketing channels: the platform’s own user interface (UI). Netflix decision-makers have complete control over what viewers see when they log in, so when “Bird Box” released, they made sure viewers knew about it, pushing the ad in the homepage slot.

To illustrate, this is how much space a homepage ad takes up. Users see this every time they want to watch or search for something. Someone who watches Netflix after work everyday sees this ad — at least the movie title — at least 5X a week.

Mix an ad that’s virtually impossible to ignore with automatic playback, and viewers with more time to stream content due to the holiday season, and the result is a perfect viral storm.

Viral best practice: Leveraging UI to be advantageous in a campaign

Netflix recommendations are tailored to what viewers want to see, but everything else about homepage design is decided by the company’s team and gives great potential for their original content to go viral. For a streaming service with over 100 million subscribers, it’s excellent exposure.

Sometimes, the perfect aid to a campaign starts with what you can do in your own wheelhouse. Marketing for “Bird Box” created interest for viewers with an auto-play ad on the site homepage. Maybe you can leverage one of your popular webpages, e-books, or social channels to similarly shine light on an upcoming product or service launch.

9. Sphero (Makers of BB-8)

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How did a small, Boulder, Colorado-based robotics company become the creator of spherical droid BB-8? Sphero was part of the inaugural class of Disney’s Accelerator tech-development program, which helps companies expand creatively using Disney’s impressive resources.

They happened to be in a meeting with Disney CEO Bob Iger as he was scrolling through offerings for Force Friday, a September 2015 toy and merchandising event held in anticipation of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Iger asked the crew if they could make the rolling droid, BB-8, and they spent the next 10 months working on the product in time for a Force Friday launch. They sold more than a million robots in 2015 alone, more than doubling their all-time selling record.

Viral best practice: Use social media in new ways (and it doesn’t hurt to have Disney on your side)

Sphero hit the jackpot with their Snapchat marketing campaign for Force Friday. The droid’s creators waited in lines with throngs of Force Friday patrons, snapping the hype and excitement of fellow fans.

They leveraged the cast of The Force Awakens, along with Snapchat influencers at five flagship Disney stores around the world to build buzz about the movie and their robot.

It’s been labeled the first global product launch using Snapchat, and the results were impressive with 10.3 million views, 4.76 thousand screenshots, 69.1 million seconds watched, and 411 thousand social engagements.

Sphero also handled media requests and newfound attention with Brandfolder, a Digital Asset Management (DAM) platform that kept their product photos, company information, and tech specs easily accessible and accurate. For your next product launch, how could you leverage social media in unexpected or nontraditional ways?

10. Niantic Inc. (Pokemon Go)

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Are you still recovering? Is it still too fresh to talk about?

Niantic Inc. was as surprised as you likely were when Pokemon Go became a global obsession. The company had prepared their server load for game launch with a ‘worst case’ estimate of five times the normal volume.

What they got was an astounding 50 times the expected traffic —within 24 hours of the game’s launch. But frustrated players and downed servers eventually gave way to 2016’s hottest trend.

Viral best practice: Focus on quality and innovation

After launch, the creators of Pokemon Go ironed out those kinks and continued to innovate on their product. They still release special, limited-time offerings like their ghost-themed Halloween event which saw a 1.3 billion increase in Pokemon caught by players, and a user spike of 13.2 percent globally.

Niantic also resisted the urge to monetize things too soon on a large scale. Instead, they focused on “core game mechanics, learning things on the technical side, the ops and customer support side, the community and marketing side.”

A more natural way for them to monetize early on? Quigley says, “We’re encouraging people to get out and about in their neighborhoods, their cities, their communities —what more natural way to integrate someone into the game than to have these paid sponsor locations that are interleaved among their other locations?”

Pokemon Go is a success story of a company that wasn’t expecting success but, by focusing on creating a quality product and resisting the urge to monetize too soon, was able to create not only a global sensation but a lasting one.

11. Popeyes’ Chicken Sandwich

So much has been said about the Popeyes chicken sandwich storm that exploded on social media in 2019. According to the CEO, because of taste and word-of-mouth, they just got lucky.

After a well-performing tweet, it seemed as if overnight, everyone had to get their hands on this sandwich.

Craze over the chicken sandwich grew to be so large that Popeyes ran out of chicken, drove sales up 16%, rose profits 13%, and caught the eye of their competition. Additionally, the response was so great that competitor Chick-fil-A got involved.

… y’all good? https://t.co/lPaTFXfnyP

— Popeyes Chicken (@PopeyesChicken)
August 19, 2019

Needless to say, Chick-fil-A’s response to Popeyes’s turn in the chicken sandwich spotlight backfired.

Viral best practices: Use social media user-generated content to spearhead a campaign.

In essence, the CEO was right: they were just lucky. One viral tweet about the chicken sandwich inspired others to post their reactions, participation from competitors only helped, and online tutorials were popping up everywhere.

Now, the team at Popeyes knows their audience behavior, and they’ve learned that posting on social media, where their audience is active, is the way to drive sales. Take the creation of their clothing line, for instance.

Announced on Twitter as a thinly veiled response to Beyonce’s athleisure brand Ivy Park, That Look From Popeyes was a real launch, and every item sold out. Social media is at the forefront of their campaigns, mixing pop culture into their brand to be more relatable to audiences.

The chicken sandwich wars showed that knowing your audience and connecting to them can yield great results. Though every tweet might not go viral, you’ll build a loyal customer base that feels understood by your brand with consistency and relatability.

12. Cards Against Humanity

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You know it, you love it, and you’re embarrassed by it when your mom asks what it is. Your answer is invariably, “It’s like Apples to Apples … but different.”

This self-proclaimed “party game for horrible people” did not come from some hip Silicon Valley incubator. Instead, it was the brainchild of eight friends who’d known each other since grade school in their hometown of Chicago. They had no major outside investment, unless you count their one small crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, and it took them a while to even have a business address. “Our main priority is to be funny — and to have people like us,” says game co-creator Max Temkin.

Viral best practice: Know your brand voice (and stand by it)

Cards Against Humanity has always taken an unorthodox approach to marketing. You can download the full game for free on their website (something more than 1.5 million people have done). They once ran an anti-sale for Black Friday where they priced the game, normally $25, at $30 a box. With a tagline of “Today only! Cards Against Humanity products are $5 more. Consume!” the company inexplicably sold more cards. Their marketing strategy (or anti-strategy) would make most marketers cringe, but it works for them.

2016’s Black Friday campaign featured live video of the company “digging a holiday hole” and asking people to donate to its “cause.” They raised close to $30,000 with the stunt. Most recently, they launched their first-ever Super Bowl ad featuring nothing but a potato and a clever article about why the ad “failed.”

Cards Against Humanity is one of the clearest cases of knowing your brand voice and sticking with it. Their copy, creative, and campaigns are uniquely their own, and uniquely unapologetic about it, just like their game.

13. Chubbies

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Love ’em, hate ’em, or loathe ’em, Chubbies is here to stay. The founders were four Stanford buddies who bonded over their mutual love of short shorts. Says co-founder Tom Montgomery, we noticed that “If you had a really cool pair of shorts, people would talk about it.” They decided to test their idea for Chubbies out at a Fourth of July beach party before going all in. They donned their “Chubbies,” headed to Lake Tahoe, and quickly found “the shorts struck the same emotional chord with other people that it struck with us.”

Their website launched in September 2011, just a few months before winter, giving them time to prepare for the busy spring months. Chubbies’ team spent that time building up inventory and marketing to their target audience: fraternities.

Witty emails, unapologetic copy, and bro-friendly photography set them apart, and their guerilla-style email tactics spread their name and their product through college towns everywhere.

Viral best practice: Build a strong narrative before you go viral

In 2014 they raised a $4.4 million round of funding and a steady growth curve followed. They’ve expanded beyond their signature shorts but continue to build the brand around what made them successful in the first place — the weekend. “We’re constantly building this brand around the weekend and the feeling you get around Friday at 5 p.m. When a guy throws them on, the stress and rigors of the work week can be put on hold for a bit.”

That connection to their brand identity creates a strong narrative in their marketing efforts across channels. They speak to their audience unwaveringly, and their audience responds.

14. James Frey (A Million Little Pieces)

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Author James Frey had an explosive product launch in 2005. His book, A Million Little Pieces originally marketed as his memoir, was catapulted to overnight success after being named on Oprah’s television book club.

Two million copies were sold, making it the fastest-selling book in the club’s 10-year history. It topped the New York Times Best Seller list for 15 straight weeks and was published in 28 languages by 30 different publishers all over the world.

Unfortunately, months after Oprah lauded his bravery as well as his book, it was revealed that his memoir was more fiction than fact. Winfrey publicly chastised Frey on her show, famously asking “Why would you lie?” Frey was dropped from his publishing house and he was hit with lawsuits from many readers.

Viral best practice: It’s never too late to refresh your brand

Frey continues to write books, with successes like I Am Number Four being made into movies. Even Oprah apologized for how she turned on him so suddenly. While he enjoys renewed success, Frey maintains a life decidedly out of the spotlight. The lesson here? Well, make sure your marketing isn’t full of lies, and be prepared to stand by your content if Oprah ever picks it up. But it’s also never too late to reinvent yourself and still have a successful career, even after a bad viral moment.

15. Dollar Shave Club

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At this point, Dollar Shave Club‘s (DSC) inaugural video is legendary. My first reaction to a shaving subscription service was, “huh?” But with a single video, DSC flawlessly spoke to shaver pain points, poked fun at themselves, and announced to the world that they were ready to shake up a previously forgettable industry

Co-founder Michael Dubin wrote the video, starred in it, and had a friend shoot it in a single day for less than $4,500. It crashed the company’s servers 90 minutes after it went live and catapulted the company to become the second-largest men’s razor seller in America.

Viral best practice: Don’t be afraid to poke fun at yourself

That video has been viewed over 22 million times, and DSC has 1.1 million subscribers and growing. They earned a $615 million valuation in 2015, and in 2016 they were acquired by Unilever for $1 billion dollars cash. They continue with successful marketing, expertly branded packaging, and a unique presence in an industry that has finally been woken up. All thanks (in part) to a video that poked fun at the company while educating their consumer.

16. Chatbooks

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A four-minute viral video? It goes against every 15-, 30-, and 45-second best practice in the book, but boy did it pay off for Utah-based subscription photo service Chatbooks. The video educates its viewer on how to use a relatively new app that turns your photos into albums so you don’t have to.

Why was it so successful? They nail their buyer persona. The video features a busy, realistic mom. She speaks to the audience with all the advice, sarcasm, and “I get it, I’ve been there” relatability that you’d look for from a fellow cool mom. It closes with a catchy tagline: “done is better than perfect.”

Chatbooks sold 1 million subscriptions in its first 18 months. It’s racked up over 1 million views on YouTube and the company is pushing 200,000 “likes” on Facebook. They continue to put out honest, pain-point driven videos featuring the same now-recognizable mom.

Viral best practice: Get detailed and personal with your personas

It’s easy to phone in your user personas. Instead of just targeting “moms,” Chatbooks clearly thought through how that mom thinks, what she worries about during the day, how she’s spending her time, and how photos figure into her hectic schedule. The result? A video their target audience couldn’t help but share.

The Next Time Your Boss Asks for a Viral Campaign …

It’s nearly impossible to know what will go viral, and trying for that elusive result will usually come across as forced and futile.

Instead, research your target audience, decide if you can expand that audience, and create campaigns that are thoughtful, actionable, and relevant. But before you launch, make sure you’re prepared for the maelstrom that could follow. It’s always smart to have a PR plan in place should the worst (or the best) happen.

Check out the webinar below by HubSpot Academy featuring a member of BuzzFeed’s video team, and how she’s managed to amass more than half abillion views from her content (with the right defenses for potential backlash).

As a final send-off, keep in mind that you shouldn’t expect every piece of content you release thereafter to be equally successful. Continue to create content that resonates with your audience and you’ll do just fine.