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You’ve just spent thousands of dollars, countless hours, and have had more organizational nightmares than you’d care to admit, but you’re done.

The brand new site design you’ve been working on is finally finished — and it looks great.

However, after a few weeks, you notice something’s missing. Maybe it’s a simple design error, or perhaps, a feature doesn’t work or was overlooked.

Whatever it is, it’s missing and you’re not sure how to fix it.

Hiring an agency or directing your developer’s time to fix it are investment-heavy solutions that’ll eat up more of your budget and time.

Fortunately, there are tons of awesome website plugins that can quickly and easily improve the functionality of any site. Here, we’re going to explore 14 of them.

But first — what is a website plugin?

What Are Website Plugins and Why Are They Important?

Website plugins are individual services that improve a specific functionality of your site.

You might use a website plugin to quickly change visual elements, add extra information or content, offer smoother integration between your site and a favored tool, or even add a completely new feature and function to your web property.

The beauty of website plugins is in their simplicity. The name’s pretty apt, since all you do is download and install, or “plugin.” Simply set one up, and your site can run smoother and offer features your users want.

How to Assess if a Plugin is the Right Solution for You

I’m going to run through a couple of fantastic plugins for different goals below, but first, let’s dive into some general rules on how to find the best plugin for your site.

1. Understand your website platform.

If you’re running your website on Shopify, then a WordPress plugin isn’t going to be of much use.

This typically won’t be a huge issue for you, since a lot of the almost-done-for-you platforms (like WordPress and Shopify) come with simple built-in plugin libraries.

However, whatever your situation, it’s critical you ensure you know what your site’s running on to save you time looking into a solution that’s incompatible.

2. Know your goal.

What are you trying to achieve?

You need to know this upfront so you can look for the plugin with the right functionality.

When you’re figuring this out, go deeper than goals like “more money”. Instead, get specific and outline the issue people are facing on your site, and the action you can take to fix the problem.

For example, “The messaging on the site is too general. If we personalize the messaging we should see conversions increase by X% within [timeframe]”.

3. Conduct research.

Once you’ve narrowed down on your goal, you want to conduct research to find a solution best-fit for your specific problem.

Ideally, you’ll want a plugin that has good reviews, is compatible with your site’s platform, and offers the actual features that can help you achieve your goal.

Once you’ve found a good option, it’s time to get it onto your site for your first test.

Having trouble finding an option? Fortunately, we’ve conducted some of the research for you. Keep reading to learn about our 14 favorite website plugins for 2019.

1. Proof

Good social proof elements can be the difference between a user committing to buy, or exiting your site.

Proof allows you to add social proof in different forms across your site, including current live visitor numbers, notifications of current purchases, and reports of how many people have recently signed up. Ultimately, this is a good tool for you if you feel your site’s viewers could benefit from visualizing how popular your products or services are.

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2. HubSpot WordPress Plugin

HubSpot’s WordPress plugin gives you an all-in-one marketing and lead generation tool to help you collect leads, create popup forms, live chat with visitors, and send all that data back to a free CRM to use for campaigns.

Of course, the HubSpot platform offers many other growth tools, some of which start free and many others that can help you accelerate your marketing, sales, and service operations.

With the WordPress plugin, you can install it quickly, get started easily, and it’s all free to get going.

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2. RightMessage

RightMessage is a tool focused primarily on better serving your customers through personalized content.

It has a few key features that make it a fantastic solution. First, you’re able to segment users based on slide-in questionnaires, acquisition source, or tags from your email service provider or CRM. Then, based on those segments you can dynamically change messaging and CTAs to better appeal to that segment and increase conversion rates.

Additionally, the plugin integrates with a ton of site platforms including HubSpot, WordPress, and Squarespace.

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3. LimeSpot Personalizer

LimeSpot is an ecommerce-specific plugin that’s available through the Shopify app directory.

It runs on powerful AI that analyzes user behavior as both an individual, and as part of a cohort to build out their user profile.

Once the AI’s analysis is complete, it makes dynamic product recommendations that are specific to each user — massively increasing relevancy and conversions.

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4. HotJar

Knowing how your users are interacting with your site is key to understanding where there are UX issues and design problems.

HotJar’s heat maps provide you with an overview of user engagement on the whole. It can help highlight which CTAs and links are too vague, where you’re losing people in long-form content, and even allows session recordings for real-time analysis.

As an extra bonus, HotJar offers feedback polls for more explicit data collection.

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5. Qualaroo

Simply put, Qualaroo takes the feedback element of HotJar to the next level.

With Qualaroo you’re given a suite of features that automatically collect user data through more advanced targeting. You also have the option of including elements like decision trees to dig deeper with your questions.

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6. Jumper.ai

Jumper.ai is technically a social commerce tool that allows brands to sell directly through their social media channels without the need for a store.

However, Jumper.ai also offers a plugin that takes their checkout bot and allows you to run it directly on your site. With Jumper, you can add a conversational checkout bot directly on your product or service landing pages.

For instance, here’s how it would look on a blog post:

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Ideally, a checkout chatbot can help you increase conversions and improve your site’s user experience.

8. Intercom

Intercom allows you to install a small widget in the bottom right corner of your site to engage users with live chat solutions.

You’re able to have operators jump in to help users with live chat, or set up automated chatbots. Additionally, you can use the tool to offer in-app support if you’re running a SaaS solution.

Best of all, Intercom also comes with an email marketing solution to further meet your business needs.

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9. OptinMonster

OptinMonster is a lead generation service that gives you the ability to target your offers to specific user segments.

You can ensure that your OptinMonster offers and forms only show up when someone has been on your site for a set period of time, displays exit intent, or have visited certain pages. Ideally, this will help you guarantee your offers are reaching people once they’re eager to learn more.

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10. Yoast SEO Plugin

SEO is a complex discipline to master, so every bit of help you can get will save time for you and your business.

Yoast’s SEO plugin isn’t a perfect solution, but if you’re not a professional SEO expert and just need a good overview of your actions, Yoast’s plugin can help you keep things on track and ensure you’re truly optimizing your site for search.

For instance, the tool can amend meta descriptions for you, so you know you’re only showing key information in search results and social shares. When you’re busy or don’t have the resources to dedicate to SEO, Yoast can help you level-up.

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11. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is one of the bigger ecommerce solutions out there. If you have a WordPress website and want to add ecommerce elements, WooCommerce is an incredibly useful solution.

WooCommerce is a pretty large service with a big user base. It’s a perfect addition for WordPress users who want to start selling their own products.

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12. Drift Conversational Marketing Platform

Drift has taken the concept of conversational marketing to the next level, and is a great addition to other marketing tools in your arsenal.

With its ability to target based on account, the messages you can send with Drift will be far more personalized and detailed than they would otherwise.

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13. VWO A/B testing

Testing different elements of your site, from headlines and images to CTAs and messaging, is key to improving your marketing strategy over time.

However, running individual A/B tests can be time-consuming and difficult. Fortunately, the VWO A/B testing tool is an all-in-one solution that automatically runs A/B tests on your pages, and improves the overall optimization of your website.

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14. Prooffactor

Prooffactor adds social proof elements, including who recently bought a product and live visitor counts, to your site to ensure new visitors can quickly visualize the popularity of your products or services.

Best of all, Prooffactor also offers gamified pop-ups to add another lead generation element to your site and further engage new prospects.

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What Website Plugin Will Work for You?

There are countless website plugins out there, and each one aims to solve a unique website problem.

Generally speaking, your goal with your website should be making your purchase or sign-up journey as frictionless as possible for your users — ideally, a plugin can help create a simpler process for your site visitors.

If you’re looking for a free website plugin that’ll help you generate more qualified leads, check out HubSpot’s free solution here.

When you create an email using a drag-and-drop or module-based tool, you’re actually generating an HTML email.

There are two main types of email you can send and receive: plain text emails (these are exactly what they sound like — any email that contains just plain old text with no formatting) and HTML emails, which are formatted and styled using HTML and inline CSS.

HTML emails are easy to spot — most of the styled, multimedia marketing emails in your inbox are HTML emails.

For context, here’s a visual comparison of a plain text email and a basic HTML email:

As a marketer, you’ve probably discovered that there are different benefits to each type. HTML emails aren’t inherently better than plain text emails, and in different situations, both types can be part of a successful email marketing program.

In this article, we’ll cover how you can get started creating HTML emails, regardless of your experience level and comfort with coding, and some free templates you can use to get started. Let’s dive in.

How to Create an HTML Email

There’s good news if you aren’t an HTML expert: most tools that create and send email (like HubSpot) will offer pre-formatted, ready-to-go HTML templates that enable you to design emails without ever needing to access the actual code on the back-end.

As you make changes in the email editor, those changes will be automatically coded into the final product. Email building tools like this are an ideal option if you don’t have an email designer on your team, but you still want to send professional-looking marketing emails. You can check out our complete list of email newsletter tools right here to find one that’s right for your specific needs.

If you’re comfortable with HTML and want more direct control over the code of your emails, most email tools will allow you to import HTML files directly for use as custom email templates. There are a wide variety of free HTML email templates available on the web (some of which we’ll share below), and if you know your way around an HTML file, it’s usually quite straightforward to adapt the template to the email building tool of your choice.

To create an HTML email completely from scratch, you’ll need to have an advanced knowledge of HTML (or work with a developer who does). This guide offers a solid overview of coding a basic HTML email. Because the process of creating an HTML email from scratch can be quite involved, we recommend working with a developer or using a pre-made HTML email template.

Developing an HTML email specifically for HubSpot?

If you’re developing an HTML email template specifically for use in HubSpot, you’ll want to make sure you include the required HubL tokens (these ensure your emails can be customized and are compliant with CAN-SPAM laws). You can find a complete guide to coding HubSpot-specific HTML email templates here. Or alternatively, just use our simple what-you-see-is-what-you-get email editor.

HTML Email Best Practices

Now that you understand the basics of what goes into developing an HTML email, let’s go over a few important best practices you should keep in mind. No matter what method you plan to use to create HTML emails, these best practices will help improve the design, user experience, and deliverability of your emails. 

1. Make sure your HTML email is responsive for different screen sizes and devices.

As Chad S. White explains, the way your email looks in a user’s inbox is complex and depends on a wide variety of different factors — which can make coding an email an even more difficult and involved ordeal than coding a web page.

“A print campaign has one rendering. Website rendering is significantly more complex, since sites can look different depending on the device’s operating system, browser, and screen size. But even that is no match for the complexity of email rendering.” – Chad S. White,
Why is email rendering so complex?

One of the biggest and most obvious factors that can impact the way an email loads within an email client is the screen size of the device it’s being viewed on. An email that looks amazing and well-formatted on a desktop can easily devolve into a tangle of illegible, overlapping text and images when viewed on a smartphone screen.

To ensure your HTML emails look the way you intended across a wide spectrum of screen sizes, the best thing you can do is keep your layout simple and straightforward. When you start adding more complex elements like multiple columns and floated images, it becomes more difficult to translate the format of your email for different screen sizes.

If you do decide to develop a more complex layout, make sure you’re actively solving for how the elements will be rearranged to suit different screen sizes. For example, if your email displays as multi-column on desktop, that same structure won’t fly on mobile — you’ll need to use media queries to define how elements will be displayed on different screen sizes.

Remember, developing truly responsive HTML emails goes beyond the structure and format of your message. Think about how the overall user experience of your email will be perceived on different devices. Make sure your font choices are just as legible on mobile as they are on desktop, and use mobile-friendly buttons or CTAs in place of hyperlinked text (have you ever tried to tap a little line of hyperlinked text on mobile? It’s not very easy).

You can find our more in-depth guide to mobile email best practices right here.

2. Make sure your styling works in different email clients.

Another big factor that heavily impacts the way your HTML emails appear in your subscribers’ inboxes is the email client they’re using to open the message. Every email client loads emails slightly differently, so an email that looks a certain way in Gmail will likely look different in Outlook.

Luckily, if you know how most popular email clients load particular HTML and CSS elements, you can create a pretty consistent experience across different users’ inboxes. It’s all about knowing which unsupported tags to avoid and adapting accordingly. This comprehensive guide explains how 11 of the most popular email clients (including Gmail and multiple versions of Outlook) support and render different styling elements.

You can also check out an article we wrote on optimizing emails for different email clients right here.

3. Be conscious of how long your HTML emails take to load.

How long your email takes to load could very well be the difference between gaining a new customer and losing a frustrated subscriber. While it can be tempting to take advantage of all the different styling options and opportunities to incorporate visuals that HTML emails offer, at the end of the day, none of that matters if your email takes too long to load.

As you design your HTML email, remain conscious of how long your email will take to load — especially if someone is say, opening your message on their morning subway commute with a weak data connection. Here are a few little steps you can take that will go a long way towards improving load time.

– Use images sparingly to bolster the message you want to get across to subscribers, and always use an image compressor (like Compressor.io or Toolur) to reduce the file size as much as possible. Most image compressors can significantly reduce the file size of an image without compromising on quality, so taking this extra step won’t hurt the visual integrity of your email.

– Use standard web fonts. Custom fonts are great for spicing up a landing page, but they can add an extraneous layer of complexity when added to an email. As we talked about above, all email clients handle style elements differently, and this especially extends to fonts. To be safe, use standard web fonts and check to make sure the email client most of your subscribers use supports a particular fonts.

– Try an HTML minifier. An HTML minifier (like minifycode.com and smallseotools.com) automatically removes code that isn’t needed in an HTML file. Repetitive, extra elements will be stripped out, but the actual rendering of your email should remain the same (always test it out!). Each character in your code impacts how long an email takes to load, so taking the time to remove extra characters can have a positive effect on load time.

– Keep your message focused on a single objective. The best way to reduce email load time is to reduce how much content you add to each of your email sends. It might seem obvious, but too many marketers try to stuff too much content into their emails. Not only does that lead to an off putting user experience (nobody wants to read a novel in email form), but it can send your load time off the charts and cause users to abandon your email. Keep it simple, and your users will thank you.

4. Plan (as much as you can) for user-end inconsistencies.

Screen size and email client aren’t the only factors that can alter the way your HTML email renders in your subscribers’ inboxes (no — that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?). Elements like the version of their email client, their operating system, their unique user-side settings, their security software, and whether or not they’re automatically loading images can all impact how your email loads.

As you can probably guess by that hefty list of factors, trying to solve for all of them (every single time you send an email) would probably be enough to make you throw your computer across the room. But you don’t have to be completely helpless in the face of these variables — you just have to do a little pre-planning.

– Consider creating a web page version of your email. This is kind of like giving your email a fail-safe button. If for some reason — due to one of the many factors discussed above — your lovingly designed email renders like an absolute mess when a subscriber opens it, they will at least have the option to click “view as web page” and see the email as you intended it to be. Since style elements render much more consistently across web browsers vs. email clients, you’ll be able to have way more control over the web page version of your message. In HubSpot, there’s an option you can turn on that will generate a web page version automatically.

– You should also add a plain text version of your email. A plain text version is exactly what it sounds like — an alternative version of your HTML email that renders in completely plain text. Adding a plain text version of your HTML email is important because some email clients and user settings can’t (or choose not to) load HTML. If this is the case, the client will look for a plain text alternative version of your HTML email to load for the user. If one doesn’t exist, it could signal to the recipient’s email server that your message is spam — or potentially dangerous.

Most email tools like HubSpot will automatically provide a plain text version that displays if a recipient’s email server requires it, but if you’re coding an HTML email from scratch, you’ll need to create something called a multipart MIME message.

A multipart MIME message is a an email that contains both a plain text and HTML version of the same email. If a recipient’s email client or security system doesn’t allow HTML email, the plain text version will be displayed. This is a process that requires an advanced knowledge of coding, so we recommend working with a developer.

– Make sure your email still makes sense if the images — for whatever reason — don’t load. Some users have automatic image-loading turned off, which means they’ll see your email without images when they open it. For this reason, don’t rely entirely on images to get the meaning of your message across, and always add alt-text to the images you do include. Alt-text will load even when images don’t, so your subscribers can get the general idea of what the visuals include.

5. Conduct thorough testing.

Finally, you’ll need to test your HTML email at every stage of development to ensure it works across different email clients, operating systems, and device types. Don’t wait until the very end of the process to test out your email — testing as you work is the best way to spot inconsistencies between different email clients and ensure you’re creating the most consistent experience possible for your recipients.

Some email tools (like HubSpot) offer in-app testing within their email builders to make the process easier. If you’re working from scratch, you can use a tool like HTML Email Check or PreviewMyEmail to get a better idea of how your email will look in different email clients and devices.

Free HTML Email Templates

There are an overwhelming amount of HTML email templates available on the web, and they vary in quality, responsiveness, and price. We’ve pulled together a selection of free HTML email templates that provide a responsive user experience. Be sure to read the terms and conditions on each individual template before use. 

1. Free Material Design HTML Email Template

This modern template from designer Paul Goddard is sophisticated and minimal. The bright, engaging color palette and simple design make it a versatile option for many different industries and purposes, and it’s been tested on 33 popular email clients and devices to ensure a consistent user experience across different platforms.

2. Free HTML Newsletter Template

This clean, muted template from Mailto is a great way to display content your team has created and connect subscribers with your most recent products or blog posts. The design features two fully responsive columns with multiple color scheme options, and room at the top to highlight your company’s logo.

3. MINImalist Free HTML Email Template

Proof that sometimes less really is more, this easy, fully responsive design makes the most of whitespace and keeps the focus firmly on your words and visual elements. Without design distractions, your content can really shine — on any device.

4. ZURB Responsive Free HTML Email Templates

 If you’re looking for an HTML email template with more room for customization, ZURB’s responsive email templates are a great place to start. With these basic HTML templates as a starting place, you can be confident that the templates you design will be fully responsive on any device.

5. Free Responsive HTML Email Templates from Dyspatch

This collection of completely free, open source templates are completely responsive and tested across popular email clients. Because they’re open source, you can edit and build on them to your heart’s content.

These are an ideal option if you want a more styled, polished starting place, but you still want to be able to customize the design to fit your company’s needs. Each template is available in multiple formats for different marketing purposes, like transactional emails, NPS collection, and email subscriber re-engagement.

6. SliceJack Free HTML Email Template

This sleek, responsive design from SliceJack would be perfect for sending your design portfolio out via email, but we think it could also serve as stylish way to showcase your latest products to email subscribers. 

Creating a video (or video series) to help market your product or service is a no-brainer. It’s an easy, shareable way to communicate your company’s core message. It can also lead to a strong ROI. In fact, product videos increase the chance of a purchase by 144%.

Like many companies, you might not have the in-house resources to create a clip or much time to waste on learning video editing software yourself.

If you don’t have a ton of experience in video production, it may seem like your only options are to pay a lot of money for someone else to do it, or hack together a bad video on your own.

Good news: there’s a third option. Even with limited resources, companies launch with great video campaigns all the time.

To help you build solid, but affordable, content, here are six tips to create a great video.

1. Craft a production plan.

When you enter video production, it’s good to plan as much as possible before you start rolling. This will make the production and editing process flow much more smoothly.

How to do it

Identify your goals and mission for making a video, and then make a plan that aligns with them. Create a script or a storyboard that explains what you will show in your video and what major points you’d like to get across to your audience.

Share this with team members involved in the video so every gets to give feedback and contribute. This will also help your team stay on the same page and track your progress if you’re on a deadline.

2. Showcase your personality.

Whatever it is you’re producing, you’re likely not the first one to do so. The number one marketing challenge you’ll face during launch is standing out from competitors in your field.

What sets your productivity app or hilarious slogan t-shirt or handcrafted eco-friendly wooden rocking horse apart from the pack?

Customers may not want to read your long written explanation about why your wooden rocking horse is more eco-friendly than the others. Visual content is much more digestible, accessible, and shareable to the average person.

Infinite bonus points if you can figure out a way to showcase the personality of your product (or your company, or just yourself) in a way that’s relatable and memorable.

Have you ever made a purchase just because you loved the personality of the brand? Chances are, it was a piece of visual content—perhaps a video—that you instantly connected with because it was just so likable.

Aim to create that kind of video content. If people decide they like you, they’ll show you by becoming customers.

How to do it

Be honest with yourself about your on-camera skills. Is your business partner more charismatic? Put him or her in front of the camera, instead.

Talking into a mic and speaking to an unseen audience may seem easy, but it often isn’t.

Do several takes, upload them all, and edit out awkward pauses. Practice trimming and splitting clips until your transitions look natural.

People love to learn about the personality of a brand by getting a glimpse behind the curtain.

If you’re making a physical product, some footage of the manufacturing process is an excellent way to make your product relatable.

Don’t be afraid to whip out your cell phone if you’re missing a moment, be it putting the final touches on a great-looking product or your lead developer falling asleep at his desk.

Example: Dollar Shave Club

3. Clearly explain your product or service.

Have you ever joked about being married to your work? Like a regular marriage, you’re incredibly familiar with your “spouse.” You know things about each other that no one else knows.

You know your product better than anyone else. That’s great, but you may make the mistake of assuming everyone else knows the ins and outs of your product, too.

Don’t jump right to marketing “Awesome Thing About My Product Number Five,” just because you assume Things one through four are obvious.

Look at your product as if you know nothing about what it is, what it does, or what kinds of problems it can solve. Tell yourself the story of your product as if you know nothing. Then, take that story and tell it to everyone else.

How to do it

If you’re marketing a digital product, it’s time to learn how to create a quality screen capture video. Demonstrate the typical use of your product, but don’t jump right into it—use screen capture to demonstrate a problem or pain point that your product solves.

If the viewer can identify with the problem you’re showing them on-screen, they’ll be much more engaged when you introduce your product. Use repetition, and don’t go too fast.

This is the first time they’re seeing your product in action, and you want to give the viewer the chance to experience the full effect of its genius.

If your product is physical, focus on showing them what your product does and how it can help. Think about demo videos or commercials you’ve seen for popular pieces of technology.

They don’t spend two or three minutes talking about battery life and storage capacity. They use that valuable video real estate to show the product in action, being used as the average consumer wants to use it.

Be helpful in your video, and err on the side of over-explaining. Use captions or video annotations (think Pop-Up Video) to explain anything that isn’t obvious, or use them to supplement your voice over narration.

Example: PadMapper

4. Add both entertaining and informational value.

Believe it or not, not everyone will want to sit through your video, even if it is short. Why should they? There are millions of other videos on the Internet, and some of them even have cats in them.

Figure out what value your video is going to offer to your audience. Does it tell a great story? Does it explain how to solve a problem?

Does it give them an insider reward, like a discount code or a clickable link to a free trial? Or is it just three minutes of you ranting into the camera about why non-eco-friendly wooden rocking horses are the worst thing ever invented?

Add some value to your video, and watch it get shared beyond just your inner circle of friends and fellow rocking horse enthusiasts. Believe it or not, most people are altruistic—if they see a clear benefit to be gained from watching your video, they’ll want to share that benefit with their friends and connections.

How to do it

Think back to the last video you shared. Why did you share it? Chances are, if you’re like most people, you wanted to establish your authority on the topic. You wanted to be the first to present that piece of information to the people in your circle. It’s why most content is shared—for the social credibility.

You can give people the social credibility they want by creating smart, informative videos for them to share. If your product solves a problem, present the solution in a way that sounds revolutionary.

For example, if your product speeds up a task that your target customer must perform often, use picture-in-picture editing features to demonstrate how much quicker they can accomplish the task using your product.

It’s great to tell someone that they can save 30 seconds searching for the best rate on their next flight, but if you can show the typical process side-by-side with your innovation, you can actually make them sit through those 30 seconds. It will be excruciating. They will buy your app.

If you decide to go with a more tangible benefit such as a discount code or a free trial, make it easy for the viewer to get. Put a clickable link right in your video.

Don’t tell them to go to another website (or do anything else at all). They won’t do it, and you’ll lose that opportunity. Keep it simple if you want your videos to convert leads.

Example: Moov

5. Tell a story that engages the customer.

Think back to high school English class, when you learned about the components of a story—there’s an introduction, conflict, climax, and resolution. If you leave out any of these crucial parts, you’re left with a collection of sentences that have been smashed together for no apparent reason.

Not only should you tell a coherent story (and this will require some pre-planning, writing, and editing), but you should make sure it goes somewhere. A nice, tidy ending is great, but building suspense is better. Are you going to produce another video to continue the story? If so, why should your viewers be excited to watch it?

How to do it

You thought this would be all visuals? You’re going to have to write. If you don’t plan your story, it won’t materialize out of the ether. Make a plan for your video content, and look beyond video number one.

Rather than one explainer video, is your product suited to a series of instructional videos? Can you help people create something with your product? Break that “something” into pieces, and create a series of short videos.

You can even record the entire series in one go, and use an easy editing tool to break the footage out into logical sections. Keeping your audience waiting for more (as long as it’s great content) is an excellent way to stay top-of-mind.

If you’re more of a storyteller, you can keep a video series looking cohesive (and cut down on your workload) by reusing clips.

Remind your viewers of the product benefits you explored last time, and build on the story you’ve already told. Just be sure to store your edited video somewhere safe—the cloud is your best bet—so you don’t have to repeat all your hard work each time you make a new video.

Even if your story doesn’t end at the end of the video, that chapter does. Make sure you leave your viewer with something concrete to do.

There should be a call-to-action at the end of every video, even if you set an expectation that another video will follow. You never know when a viewer will disengage from your content, so give them opportunities to become a customer or subscriber while you have their attention.

Example: WatchSuperFoods

6. Title and promote the video.

You’ve created a great piece of video content that showcases your personality, explains what you’re doing, has a clear benefit, and tells a great story. What do you do next?

It’s time to promote the heck out of it. We don’t have to tell you why you want to do this step. We do, however, want to help you do it well.

How to do it

The best way to ensure people watch your video is to give it a great title.

After Google, YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world. You put a ton of research and consideration into your landing page titles—do the same for your video, or your clickthroughs will be dismal.

The same goes for your description and tags. Try using hashtags in your title to ensure you’re getting found with the right keywords. You’re also going to want to put some time into selecting the right thumbnail for your video.

This is all the potential viewer will see before they decide whether or not to hit the “play” button, so make that one image extra-compelling.

Export your video to more than one platform. Some people watch on YouTube, some might prefer to watch Facebook. Don’t limit yourself to one platform, or you’ll miss out on a huge number of potential viewers.

If you’re interested in filming videos for platforms like Instagram, check out these great examples for inspiration.

Making Marketing Videos

Regardless of the topic of your video or your amount of resources, be sure to follow these simple, but vital best practices when making a marketing video:

• Clearly explain your service or product, as well as why it might be valuable to the customer. For example, if you sell a technology, you should use this video to explain what this technology does and why it might save a customer time and money. You could also use this video to show a demo of the product. 
• Be sure your video looks professional. Film in a properly lit environment with low background noise, if any. If you work in an open office, move your production into a quiet conference room or hallway. If the lighting is poor and it effects how the film subjects are seen on screen, try moving around lamps, or consider purchasing an affordable light at a home-goods or hardware store.
• You don’t need to buy an expensive video camera, but try to use a lower-priced video camera, a digital camera that takes video, or a newer smartphone for a crisp image.
• Hold your film device on a tripod or another surface to limit shakiness. Nothing ruins a great video like an unprofessional, unsteady image. Too much movement can also cause blurry visuals as a camera tries to auto-focus.
• Use a video editing tool to put the video together so it looks clean and professional. When it comes to finding software, there are plenty of affordable options. Some computers, like Macs, already come with an easy-to-use program called IMovie. Once you settle on the technology you’ll use, check out this guide to editing Youtube videos.
• Export your finished product in high-definition. Exporting to HD allows your viewers to see a crisp clean image, rather than a blurry one, on most devices. Here’s a quick guide to editing Youtube videos.

That’s it! With these tips in mind, you can market your business like a seasoned video producer. Go forth and convert!

Want to learn more about video marketing? Download WeVideo’s guide on Tips For Creating The 6 Most Common Business Videos.

Welcome to The Science Behind Success — a new blog series that explores the best ways to help our brains perform better at work. With psychological research and interviews with leaders in the field, we’re showing you how psychology can help you overcome workplace obstacles and excel in your career. Because a little mindset change could go a long way.

Nowadays, it’s becoming increasingly common to communicate almost entirely through digital devices — and the workplace is no different.

On any given day, you likely respond to colleagues on a variety of channels — including email, Slack, Zoom, Chanty, Facebook Workplace, and other internal messaging tools. On rare occasions, you might respond face-to-face.

With instant messages constantly flooding your inbox, you probably don’t pay too much attention to the responses you send out: “Yes!! :)” “I think that would be ok.” “Is that a good idea??”.

But have you paused to consider how your digital responses are being perceived in the workplace … and the potential effect they’re having on your in-person relationships?

To explore how digital communications influence our in-person interactions in the workplace, I spoke with Erica Dhawan, the world’s leading expert on connectional intelligence and digital body language. She is the co-author of the bestselling book Get Big Things Done, host of the Masters of Leadership podcast, and founder of Cotential.

Here, we’ll explore how to build trust and empathy through digital channels, the biggest digital communication mistakes someone can make, and how to cultivate a sense of belonging even within virtual teams. But first — why does in-person communication even matter?

A Loss of Empathy Through Digital Communications

We all know the importance of nonverbal communication on interpreting meaning. When someone is speaking, you don’t just internalize what they’re saying — you also take note of body language, tone of voice, facial expressions, and eye contact when deciding how to make sense of a conversation.

Additionally, science suggests observing another person’s emotions can help us experience what the other person feels — a theory known as emotional contagion — and, as a result, better understand the intentions and actions of the other individual.

For instance, if your colleague is slouched and he frowns when he tells you about the results of his latest Facebook campaign, you’ll likely internalize his sadness or frustration as your own — making it easier for you to empathize and understand his perspective when communicating with him.

Alternatively, if he sends you a Slack message — Facebook campaign only collected 10% leads, which is less than I thought — you might not sense that he feels remorse over the decline.

The theory of emotional contagion isn’t just limited to one-on-one interactions, either. In fact, studies have found group emotions can influence how an individual feels, and vice versa — for instance, one study of professional cricketers found the happy moods of individual cricketers were linked to the upbeat mood of the entire team, regardless of the game’s outcome.

Additionally, touch and physical proximity have been shown to increase trust. For instance, an experiment conducted by researchers at the University of Chicago and Harvard found that negotiators who shook hands were more open and honest, and reached better outcomes, than those who didn’t.

All of which is to say — nonverbal cues are critical for evoking empathy and connection between two people or within a group, which means a sense of understanding is often lost when communicating digitally. So, while it’s impractical to assume every workplace interaction can happen in-person, it’s nonetheless critical we learn how to assess someone’s “digital body language” to find other ways to connect with our colleagues.

To create stronger connections and combat a loss of empathy in the workplace, let’s explore some of Erica Dhawan’s suggestions for building trust among a digital team.

How to Generate Trust in a Digital World

More than likely, the majority of your workplace communication happens online. It’s effective and easier than constantly organizing in-person meetings or interrupting coworkers at their desks.

Plus, remote work is becoming increasingly common, with 70% of professionals working remotely at least one day per week — which often makes in-person impossible.

Fortunately, a digital-first team doesn’t need to lose empathy and trust. The team just needs to learn how to foster it in other ways.

For instance, Dhawan recommends leaders think about how they might create structures that remind and enable their team to slow down. She urges leaders to remember it’s critical the pace of business, at times, take a backseat to the health of the relationships on the team.

“One way this can be done,” Dhawan says, “is by structuring meetings with short but specific time for simple connections. When people are able to interact with each other in a non-hurried, authentic way, it makes for a more enjoyable workplace and increases productivity and creativity dramatically.”

In addition, Dhawan suggests using video calls to increase familiarity and deepen connections among remote and in-person employees (as opposed to phone calls, or email chains).

Lastly, Dhawan notes it’s critical teams still practice “celebration and appreciation — anything from an email acknowledging hard work, to a quick two-minutes at the beginning of a conference call to wish someone a happy birthday.”

Unfortunately, the loss of in-person communication results in a lack of spontaneous conversation or “water cooler discussions”. To combat this, leaders need to create space and time solely dedicated for team members to connect, break down barriers, and find ways to empathize with one another.

The Biggest Digital Communications Mistakes You Can Make

Personally, I’m guilty of overusing smiley faces, exclamation points, and other friendly punctuation in my workplace emails and Slack messages. While it certainly helps me avoid seeming rude, I’m sure another argument might propose my communication style signifies an immaturity I should try harder to avoid.

When I asked Dhawan about the biggest ‘mistakes’ someone can make when communicating digitally, I expected her to point out something along these lines.

Instead, she told me, “One of the most common mistakes I see in digital teams is hastiness.”

“The time between send and receive doesn’t exist anymore. And the space between receive and reply is tightening.”

She has a point — particularly, as she notes, with the advent of the read receipt, as well as instant messaging forms such as Slack, it’s easier than ever to feel compelled to answer an email or message immediately. But, typically, the time we receive the message is not always the best time to respond to it.

Dhawan says we all need the equivalent of a digital pause, which she compares to the person in a meeting who says, “Hey, can we step back for a minute to look at the larger picture?” She urges people to fight the notion that you must respond to an email within 30 seconds.

“If we can step away from our impulses to respond first or immediately,” Dhawan says, “We can find real power and control in the silence.”

To avoid responding to all your digital messages in haste, try blocking off time in your calendar to diligently and patiently respond to your emails, even if you don’t have the time until the end of the day. Or, if it’s a Slack message, perhaps you can respond, “Hey, I’ll answer your question in a bit” if you don’t have time immediately.

Additionally, re-read what you’ve written before you send it — and, Dhawan notes, “Always double-check the CC’d box!”

How to Cultivate a Sense of Belonging Among a Virtual Team

Having a sense of belonging is a critical component to psychological safety in the workplace, which can increase employee engagement and foster creativity and innovation. But it’s easier said than done, particularly when your team is largely remote.

To cultivate a sense of belonging among your team, Dhawan suggests first identifying the three types of distance that impede a sense of belonging when it comes to a virtual workplace — “the physical distance, of course, but also operational distance, which is the type and quality of communications, and lastly, affinity distance, which is the cultural difference between members, including generational and hierarchical variances.”

The last type of distance — affinity — can have the greatest long-term effect on your sense of belonging, or lack thereof, Dhawan notes.

To combat this distance, Dhawan suggests teams “regularly share stories about yourself that help others learn more about you (especially when they can’t read your body language).”

Additionally, it’s crucial you make an extra effort to create shared context. “Instead of asking what the weather is like on a call, ask questions to your team about their work ethic and lifestyle — e.g. ‘How do you like to work? What’s important about the work? How do you experience success?'”, Dhawan told me.

“This can be organic, or you can ingrain it into a process. If you don’t have shared context, it’s likely you aren’t looking at a problem the same way, and that’s a critical gap to first deal with.”

Finally, let’s explore three rules each member of your team should follow to increase the efficiency of your digital communication.

Common Sense Rules For Digital Teams to Follow

Here are three common sense rules for effective communications Dhawan believes each digital team should follow:

1. Speed matters more than your words in terms of indicating respect, so write apologies and thank you’s quickly. On that same note, acknowledge requests quickly and be sure to provide a timetable for when you’ll be able to re-engage in the conversation.

2. Don’t rely on one channel of digital communication for your team. In fact, use three. Using various platforms allows for diversity in context especially among generations and personalities. Three is also great since it’s not too many, which could create confusion or lose communications along the way.

3. Don’t beat around the bush. The best online communicators are clear and direct and that’s how you need to be, too. While being direct may sometimes seem blunt and detract levels of empathy, the clarity they provide is of the utmost importance in digital communication today. Everyone needs to be on the same page for the team to be effective. Clarity also promotes openness and provides for the ability to be innovative in a group setting. Say what you mean and mean what you say, and don’t be ambiguous.

Here’s the thing: technology isn’t going away — and we don’t want it to. It can help us connect with people globally, and undoubtedly increases efficiency, speed, and innovation for our businesses.

But, while there’s a long list of benefits to technology, there’s an equally long list of potential disadvantages our businesses could face as a result of technology — and a loss of empathy and trust is at the forefront.

Fortunately, there are plenty of opportunities for leaders to combat those challenges, as outlined above. Ultimately, slowing down and re-reading your message before you click “Send” could be the difference between misunderstanding, and a stronger sense of belonging.

The best billboards demand your attention with bold fonts, in-your-face messages, and bright, eye-catching graphics. The best Facebook ads take the exact opposite approach.

If you want to reach and engage with potential customers on Facebook, you need to create ads that blend as seamlessly as possible into the rest of the content on their newsfeeds. This means focusing on simple, high-quality images, straightforward messages, and most importantly: minimal text.

Facebook knows that the best performing ads include images with little to no text, which is why they created the 20% rule. This rule states that in order to run an image-based ad on Facebook, your image(s) must contain less than 20% text.

For a complete guide to creating Facebook ads, check out our article here.

It’s important to note that the 20% rule only applies to text that covers images attached to your ad. It does not include text on your ad outside of images, like the description copy or call-to-action button.

There are a few exceptions to the 20% rule, including images of book covers, album covers, event posters, video games, and some product images that contain text (e.g., a cereal box). Text-based logos are not an exception to the 20% rule, and will be counted as text when Facebook reviews your images.

So, why exactly does the Facebook 20% rule exist? It all comes down to what users want to see and engage with in their newsfeeds. Ads with less overlay text actually perform significantly better than images crowded with text, so the rule actually creates a better experience for both users and advertisers.

Facebook Text Overlay Tool

When Facebook reviews your ad images, they examine how much of your images are covered by text. While you’re creating an ad, it can be tricky to evaluate the exact percentage of text covering your image — fortunately, Facebook provides a tool you can use to check before you even submit your ad for review. You can access that tool right here.

Here’s an example of an image with an ideal amount of text:

Your best approach when creating a Facebook ad is to use little to no text. In this example of an ideal ad image, there’s only a small text-based logo and no other copy. An ad with a simple image like this will blend more easily into users’ newsfeeds and is much more likely to gain exposure and engagement among your target audience.

In the next example, there’s an extra line of text:

This image technically passes the 20% rule, but the extra line of text means you risk your ad being seen by fewer people. Instead of adding copy to your image, try adding it directly into the body copy of your ad.

This final example is exactly what Facebook does not want to see:

This ad contains too much text over the image. The information displayed here could easily be incorporated into the body copy of your ad, creating a much cleaner look in users’ newsfeeds. While it’s tempting to throw important information onto your images like this, you risk having your ad rejected by Facebook or alienating users who are turned off by the busy copy.

Here’s a simple rule to remember: the best way to capture users’ attention on Facebook is to use an eye-catching image with no text. The 20% rule isn’t just an arbitrary standard — it helps advertisers reach their target audiences more effectively, and prevents users’ newsfeeds from becoming overwhelmed with disruptive advertisements.

Pop quiz: If you had to define product marketing right now, what would you say?

A lot of folks have difficulty answering this question — but don’t worry, it’s not your fault. Although product marketing is a prominent department across both B2B and B2C companies, it’s pretty hard to find a good definition of it anywhere … even on Google.

What makes it especially difficult is that it’s one of the few job functions that touches product, marketing, and sales. It all comes down to knowing the target customer and testing to find ways to learn more about them and how best to interact with them.

The thing is, product marketing doesn’t stop once the product has gone to market (if it did, well, product marketers at a one-product company wouldn’t have much to do after the product’s launch). The process of marketing a product lasts well after its launch to ensure the right people are aware of the product, those people know how to use it, and that the needs and feedback of those people are being listened to over the product’s lifecycle.

Inspired by HubSpot’s former product marketing director, Rick Burnes, let’s talk about where to start in product marketing, the steps you need to take to launch a product, and what other aspects of your business can support this product as it grows.

For Rick’s entire SlideShare, explore the presentation below.

Now, let’s get into it. What does product marketing process look like before, during, and after a product is launched?

Product Marketing Starts With Your Customer

As Rick Burnes shows us in the slides above, HubSpot’s early years faced a challenge that lots of small businesses face: product ambiguity. Except for the slight majority of people who perceived HubSpot as “marketing services” — which is indeed part of our product stack — our perception consisted of numerous other terms that our audience used to describe us.

This is a chief reason businesses implement a formal product marketing operation, and it starts with your buyer persona.

A great product means nothing if it doesn’t get the attention of the people who would benefit from it. So, who’s your audience for this product? How (and where) are you reaching them, and what’s the story you’re telling to present this product to them? When preparing to launch a product, working with the rest of your marketing team to identify your customer and this messaging is critical.

Seven Critical Steps of Product Marketing

When product marketers know exactly whom their product caters to, the marketing can begin. Here are seven things product marketers may do before, during, and after their product enters the market:

1. Product Research: A helpful and well-made product isn’t made in a vacuum, and it also isn’t marketed in one. In the weeks and months prior to a product launch, product marketers work with the product’s developers to test the product both internally and externally through controlled beta environments.
2. Product Story: Products are also brought to market in the form of a story. What problem does the product solve? Who’s facing this problem? How does it solve this problem? What does it do that competitors don’t?
3. Product-Focused Content: Product marketing’s next stop is the desks of the content creators. Here, product marketers may create and A/B test various marketing copy, blog content, case studies, and landing pages on their website — all dedicated to literally describing the product.
4. Product Launch Plan: No product marketing team is complete without a written launch plan, spelling out every last stage of the marketing process and who’s responsible at each point.
5. Product Launch Meeting: When the product is launched, everyone involved meets the day it’s rolled out. Much like a rocket launch, this is the product marketer’s finest hour — it’s the climax of a product marketing campaign.
6. Community Engagement: As product marketing generates enough buzz around the product within the industry, it’s common for the marketing team to capitalize on what the market is saying about them. This includes reaching out to partners, influencers, and existing customers for commentary.
7. Sales Enablement: As a product is being prepared for the marketplace, the sales team is waiting in the wings to develop a sales strategy around this new business opportunity. It’s the product marketing team’s job to meet with sales staff before, during, and after the product is rolled out to the public. This ensures the messaging created for this product is consistent all the way through to the first sales call.

As you develop your product marketing team, and your product marketing strategy, think about how the elements above might take shape, and who you’ll need to work with to make it a success. Want more information on product marketing? Click below.

 

Over 97% of marketers are now using social media to engage with their audiences. But if you’re tasked with starting a social media strategy for your company, you might be wondering which type of platforms you should be on.

The list of social media platforms is growing, and well-known platforms like Facebook are always evolving and adding new features. With a greater and greater need for a social presence and an overwhelming amount of platform choices,

it can be hard to pick which social channels to use. You might not want to spread yourself too thin by managing a channel on every imaginable platform, but you also don’t want to miss great brand-awareness opportunities.

To help you make informed decisions about which platforms to use, this post will guide you through some of the coretypes of social media, examples of platforms within each category, and the pros and cons that each type might present. By the end, you should have a much clearer idea of what kind of social media strategy will work for your business.

Social Networking

Major Platforms

• Facebook: 2.38 billion monthly active users
• Twitter: 126 million daily active users
• LinkedIn: Over 500 million users

Social networking is possibly the most traditional form of social media.

Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are often called “networking” platforms because they allow user accounts to interact with each other in a variety of different ways.

If you’re a small business, like a restaurant, a platform like Facebook could be a great place to start your social strategy. With Facebook, you can build a business profile that includes links to your website and details about your menu.

Once you’re profile is all set up, you can post regular updates about your business, “like” other pages, and answer customer post comments or messages. Business profiles also allow other Facebook users to give you reviews.

For companies looking to offer a professional service, B2B or publishing companies, LinkedIn is another great way to grow your following. LinkedIn emphasizes career-related networking.

Brands looking to build an audience of professionals from a certain industry can create a business profile there, categorize it with an industry type, and then use posts and messaging to publish updates. They can also use messaging and comment features to interact with their audiences, or users who comment on their posts.

A Twitter account could be helpful to companies in a wide spectrum of industries, from entertainment to e-commerce. This platform similarly allows you to create a profile where you can list and link company information.

You can then use Twitter to post about company updates, tag companies or customers in posts, retweet positive customer tweets, and respond to customer questions via tweet or direct messages. Like Facebook, you can also post content like photos or videos.

On all three networks, users can easily communicate with others through simple actions like tagging, hashtagging, commenting, private messaging, reacting to posts, and re-sharing content.

Aside from social interaction, newsfeeds on common social networking platforms are designed to show off a mix of text and visuals, rather than one primary content type.

This flexibility makes social networking platforms easy to begin a social strategy on because you can experiment with different forms of content before branching out to platforms that require more specific content types.

Here’s an example of Facebook’s newsfeed:

For those who want to dabble in video or graphics, these platforms could be a great place to test this new content. With the growth of video marketing, many have begun to launch more advanced features like Facebook Stories and Twitter’s live streams.

Platforms like Facebook and Twitter have also started to encourage native video and photo uploads more heavily. Recently, Facebook even adjusted its algorithms to favor live video and image uploads. This has caused these types of native content to gain greater user engagement.

If you’re still not sure where to get started, check out our beginner’s guides for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are some of the most prominently used forms of social media
• Social networking sites often integrate with scheduling tools like HubSpot, Hootsuite, and TweetDeck software
• All platforms have capabilities for photo and video.

Cons

• Those interested in just posting links may have a harder time getting engagement than those uploading photo and video.
• Some platforms, like Facebook, put individual user posts higher than business posts in newsfeeds.

Photo Sharing

Major Platforms

• Instagram: Over 500 million daily active users
• Pinterest: 250 million daily active users
• Youtube: Over 1.9 billion monthly active users
• Vimeo: 240 million monthly viewers

Two of the biggest platforms that specialize in photo sharing are Instagram and Pinterest.

Instagram offers a visual feed with posts showing photos and short videos followed by a caption. Users can also post live video or create Instagram Stories that disappear after one day. Like the social networking platforms above, users can interact with others through tags, likes, comments, or direct message.

This platform would be helpful to companies like restaurants or stores that want to photograph and display and update followers about their food, goods, or products in a crisp, clean way.

Instagram has become a home to influencer marketing, as 93% of influencer campaigns took place on the platform in 2018. It also offers opportunities for advertising and ecommerce because of its highly-visual layout.

Unlike some social platforms, Instagram emphasize visuals and doesn’t allow link sharing directly in posts. Basic users on Instagram can only share links in their bio. Verified users, or accounts with over 10,000 followers, can post links in their Stories.

To show you how visual the platform is, here’s a look at Instagram’s search feed:

Although basic users have minimal linking options, Instagram has tried to make the platform even more friendly for ecommerce businesses with the addition of Shoppable posts.

Pinterest is well-suited for ecommerce companies, such as those who sell home goods, and businesses that would like a place to share crisp standalone product images with links.

It similarly offers a photo-based feed with posts that can include a photo and short description. Unlike Instagram, it allows all users to link directly to websites or product landing pages in posts.

One interesting aspect of the platform is that users can heart posts from others, or assign them to a themed “board.” For example, users might make boards centered around topics like “Inspirational Quotes” or “Bedroom products.”

Once a board is created, other users can also follow it. A business could potentially make a board with their own product posts, or find their products on another user’s board.

Here’s an example of what a board looks like:

Before getting started on one or both of these platforms, you’ll want to determine whether your goal is to gain brand awareness or link-based traffic.

While Instagram and Pinterest can both be helpful tools for product shots and brand awareness, Instagram’s active audience is much larger than Pinterest’s. Instagram has also hosted over 25 million business profiles.

When choosing a platform, you may want to consider your content-related bandwidth. Both require visual imagery, but you might also need to include video creation within your Instagram strategy. Here’s a great guide that demonstrates what it takes to gain followers on Instagram.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Platforms like Instagram help with brand awareness. Approximately 60% of people say they’ve learned about products or services on Instagram.
• Pinterest and Instagram provide an outlet for showing off visual content or product shots.
• Platforms like Instagram also allow you to experiment with visual or short video content

Cons

• Upkeep on these platforms might require a photo budget or dedicated production time.
• Some platforms, like Instagram, require you to post from a mobile app.

Video Sharing

• Youtube: Over 1.9 billion monthly active users
• Vimeo: 240 million monthly viewers

Roughly 83% of marketers say video gives them a strong ROI and 90% feel the level of video competition has increased. Adding a video platform to your social strategy could make your brand look relevant and keep you up to speed with your competitors.

Video can be helpful to a wide range of industries. While a restaurant could have a vlog with cooking tips, a technology company might focus its video strategy around product demos.

To help you pin down a strategy that’s right for your industry and service, check out our video marketing guide.

When it comes to long-form video, Youtube and Vimeo are the leading platforms. While Youtube has the bigger audience base and better SEO capabilities, Vimeo’s smaller platform is very community driven.

Youtube also seems to have better opportunities for advertisers and monetization, while Vimeo offers viewers the perk of no pre-roll ads.

For a longer list of similarities and differences, check out this head-to-head piece where we compare the business capabilities of Vimeo and YouTube.

Along with Youtube and Vimeo, the more traditional social networking platforms have also begun to embrace video marketing more aggressively. In the last few years, Facebook launched Facebook Stories and Facebook Live, and added a tab on their mobile app dedicated to video. Meanwhile, Twitter has allowed users to launch live video streams which are powered by its Periscope software.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Videos can be longer than on other social platforms.
• Both platforms have website linking capabilities.
• Platforms like Youtube and Vimeo often offer analytics.
• Both Youtube and Vimeo have search optimization features.

Cons

• Content might take more time and money to create.
• These platforms require more backend tasks like SEO.

Interactive Media

Major Platforms

• Snapchat: 190 daily active users
• TikTok: TikTok does not specify user numbers, but reportedly has 80 million app downloads.

Apps like Snapchat and TikTok allow users to share photos and videos, they also have a variety of unique interactive and highly experimental features. These two apps include AR/VR filters, musical overlays, and interactive games. Their audience bases are also prominently Gen-Z.

Because mainly large companies are just starting to experiment with these new applications, marketers who are just beginning a social strategy don’t need to prioritize these interactive apps before traditional social networking platforms.

The large companies on these platforms tend to produce high production-level content. Brands with large followings might also publish Snapchat Stories, or videos that are curated from fans. Without a high-budget or giant online following, these strategies might be difficult for a company that’s just starting out on social.

Brands and influencers on these apps tend to cater their content to the platforms’ younger audiences. For example, on Snapchat, you might see stories that present beauty tutorials, wellness tips, news, or trendy new products.

If you’re really interested in interactive media, there are still a few viable ways you could get involved with Snapchat or TikTok.

While major brands, like VICE and BuzzFeed have become Snapchat Discover partners, the average business can still create a Snapchat business account that can be searched and friended by users. This account allows you to send publish temporary stories, just like individual accounts can. However, those with a business account can also purchase ad space.

Here’s a quick video that shows someone using some of Snapchat’s basic features:

To be embedded: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=14&v=cfqABVVN9ck

If you’ve set up an account, check out this guide to getting started on Snapchat.

TikTok, which offers short, repetitive clips — similarly to Vine, has begun experimenting with testing ads with GrubHub as their first client. According to Digiday, these video ad spots will run for about five seconds and can be skipped instantly by the user.

Outside of ad space, Guess is one notable brand that has used its account to create trending campaigns with trendy hashtags. Universal Pictures has also had influencers create posts to promote its films.

If you do test out these platforms, you might want to make sure your industry and content fits in with the young age demographic. You should also try to properly estimate the time and money that might go into keeping these accounts up to date and relevant.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• These platforms are very creative and experimental.
• They have young audiences, which can help brands better target Gen-Z.
• Stories can be used to give your following a behind-the-scenes look at your brand.

Cons

• Producing regular content could be expensive and time-consuming.
• Business accounts aren’t promoted up-front on the Snapchat interface. You may want to promote your channel on your website or other social channels because users will need to search for you with your Snapcode or username.
• Snapchat and TikTok are limited to mobile and aren’t as easy to use.

Blogging/Community

Major Platforms

• Tumblr
• Reddit

Tumblr and Reddit both allow users to post about interesting niche topics, like memes, events, politics, and pop-culture. When users publish a post, these platforms allow other users to share them or add to the conversation with their own commentary.

Both blogging and community building platforms could be helpful to those who want to encourage discussion around very niche industries or topics. For example, on these platforms, you might see discussion about anything from alternative health to machine learning.

By blogging, you can write posts about topics in your company’s industry and link them to your product or site. While many people have a blog on their website, platforms like Tumblr might be great to use if you haven’t set this feature up — or just want to see what others in your industry are blogging about.

With a discussion site like Reddit, you could share a link or a post about a specific topic on a discussion board related to your industry and see how users respond. You could also start your own board if a topic you’re looking to encourage discussion on doesn’t have one yet.

These two platforms specifically encourage web chatter and post shares from users that care about the same topics.

Both also allow users to follow you or subscribe to your blogs or Reddit boards so your content could show up on their feeds. Here’s an example of what Reddit’s feed looks like.

When someone publishes something on Reddit, other users can up-vote or down-vote it. Up-voting makes a post show up higher in Reddit feeds while down-voting does the opposite.

On Tumblr, the feeds are organized by time. However, a post can show up higher when it is re-shared by other users. When a user shares or interacts with your Tumblr content, they give it a note. When they reshare, they have the option to post a comment with the post that gets added to a thread.

Here’s an example of how notes and threads can be used to encourage discussion:

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Both platforms allow you to share text posts, photos, and videos about your business, brand, or individual thoughts.
• These platforms enable you to start conversations about a topic.
• Both platforms allow linking to outside websites.

Cons

• Longer blog posts might take time to craft or write.
• Getting downvoted on Reddit or no reaction from Tumblr users means your posts may go unseen.
• Your audience might be too niche or limited to just those on the specific platform you use.

A Few Things to Consider

Before you start logging in and setting up your accounts on a bunch of platforms, be sure to consider these factors:

• How much time do you have to devote to strategizing around a social platform?
• Do you have resources for creating graphics or videos?
• Do your goals involve boosting brand awareness, or traffic and revenue?
• Will you need an additional staff member to run this platform, or will it be easy to maintain?

Once you’re on a platform or two, be sure to stay in the know of how it’s changing and what marketers are doing. For a current outlook, check out our Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing.

A good calendar plugin is necessary for any company — the more events and appointments your business requires, the more likely it is that you need a visual way to lay them out to avoid confusion.

But separating your calendars from the rest of your website or software is an ineffective way to run your business, especially since planning meetings through back-and-forth emails can waste a ton of your time. This is especially true of individual appointments, and large events.

Choosing the right calendar for your needs will make your company more productive and efficient when communicating with clients and potential customers. And, ultimately, a calendar plugin can free up your time so you can spend more of it improving your customer experience, conducting experiments, or testing other high-value activities to grow your business.

If your company uses a WordPress website, you’re in luck — there are plenty of calendar plugins you can use, and we’ve made a list of 13 here.

But before we dive in, let’s explore the characteristics you’ll want to find in any WordPress calendar plugin.

The Characteristics of the Best WordPress Calendar Plugins

The best calendar plugins in 2019 do several things:

• Display your availability for client bookings or events.
• Allow clients or groups to self-book in those free times.
• Request and store customer data in a customer database for future use.
• Record the event in your calendar.
• Send confirmation notifications to the involved parties of the event’s creation.
• Send updates in the event changes.

It’s also critical your calendar plugin includes important information such as the event time and date, how many people are involved, what equipment will be needed, who needs to be present, staff required, and other relevant logistics.

Next, let’s take a look at some of the best WordPress calendar plugins in 2019 to help schedule your workflow and smooth out your clients’ booking experience.

1. HubSpot Meetings

Price: Tiered pricing, free to $3,200 per month, depending on your needs

HubSpot Meetings is a standalone meeting scheduler, although it integrates with WordPress through the HubSpot WordPress plugin.

While the freemium version allows you to create a unique meetings link with your calendar and availability, the paid version lets you set up and embed a calendar on any website (including your WordPress website).

The real benefit of this tool is that it pipes the data and meetings into a free CRM, so you don’t have to worry about stitching together data from multiple sources. When you have to wear many hats, that level of organization and seamless integration is a huge productivity benefit.

2. The Events Calendar

Price: Tiered pricing ranging from free to $299 per year

The Events Calendar plugin is designed to help any user plan large events. Events are displayed in SEO-friendly microformats, which eliminates the need to click on the event.

You can export your events to other relevant platforms. The plugin allows calendar view and list view for events. It’s compatible with iCal, Google Maps, and Google Calendar. Search functions make finding the right event easy and intuitive — even from your mobile device.

This calendar is ideal for venues that regularly host events, including bookstores, philanthropies, concert halls, cafes, and other public gathering places. It’s also good for performers or artists on tour.

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3. Events Schedule

Price: $35 one-time fee

This mobile-friendly plugin is the perfect scheduling tool for people hosting conferences and other group gatherings. It’s ideal if you need to translate for an international audience and is optimized for SEO purposes.

You can choose from five different styles of calendar and select how you want to filter the events you create — including custom colors and design capabilities. Those who want a more active role in event management can edit, add, or delete events as needed in the Visual Schedule builder.

Compatible with WooCommerce, this plugin offers tons of integrations with outside tools too, such as other WordPress plugins and themes.

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4. MotoPress Timetable and Event Schedule Plugin

Price: Free

MotoPress Timetable and Event Schedule is a wonderful WordPress calendar plugin for spas, gyms, or other industries that rely on client bookings and mobile website traffic.

It has a color-coding system that allows you to classify and categorize event types, and shortcode makes it easy to embed on your website. Calendars can be edited for size, color, time zone, label, category. Additionally, language and filters can be applied to make the calendar searchable.

Multiple calendars on a page are easy to find as they’re assigned an individual ID. Upcoming events are displayed via widget, which is crucial for encouraging attendance.

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5. Responsive Timetable

Price: $26

Responsive Timetable acts like many calendar plugins for WordPress in this list, but one of its main features is that it can display four events in the same time slot simultaneously, which makes this a good tool for conferences or breakout sessions where multiple events are happening at the same time.

Each event displays fields for price and reservations links, and there’s no cap to the number of events you create. The calendar is visually customizable with the Live Editor tool, and shortcode is provided to embed calendars on your site. You have three design layouts to choose from and can filter as you need.

Responsive Timetable has a unique feature — it allows a pop-up to appear on your site for your chosen upcoming event, which can help drive traffic. Alternatively, you can even customize the event pop-up for your brand’s needs. Users can also download a PDF of the event details if they choose.

The plugin is optimized for SEO and mobile devices.

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6. Simple Calendar – Google Calendar Plugin

Price: Free

Simple Calendar is a solid choice for users who just need basic calendar functionality without all the special effects.

It integrates smoothly with Google Calendar, and all changes from Google Calendar will be synced with the calendar on your WordPress site. Several calendars can be combined into one if needed. Calendars automatically adjust to the local time zone and date of international users. Events are easy to display in list or calendar form, and they’re easy to embed directly into your website or newsletter.

There’s limited individual coding needed to be done, but you can customize things including category, color, and event tags. Their event tags are one of their strongest features. For more complex features, they have add-ons worth checking out.

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7. Event Calendar WD

Price: Prices range from free to $100 per year

Event Calendar WD is a fantastic plugin for those who need mobile-friendly and SEO-friendly calendars capable of showing recurring, multiple-day, and single-day events. The number of events created has no cap, so create as many as you need.

There are five different themes you can choose from, and each of them can be adjusted to the user’s needs. Filters and headers can also be changed. More than 14 premium add-ons make this a Swiss Army knife of plugins, with various functionalities designed to tailor your website to your business.

Events Calendar WD integrates with Google Maps and lets you add categories, locations, tags, and videos to your event directly from your website. Events are easy to create and even easier to share.

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8. Event Organizer

Price: Approximately $52 for the personal plan, $105 for business, $157 for developers

Event Organizer is a strong calendar plugin option for users — particularly, developers — who need to create recurring and multi-day events using their calendar plugins. Paid add-ons are available as needed for extra functionality.

The software is compatible with these payment options:

• PayPal
• Stripe
• iDeal
• Pro-Offline

Users can add, edit, or delete events from the backend administrative portion and translate calendars. The software defaults to deleting past events. Event Organizer offers customizable ticket booking templates for you to design, and the plugin includes three individual widgets in addition.

It’s important to note — when searching for it, spell “Organizer” like “Organiser”, as its creators used the British English spelling.

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9. EventON

Price: $24

The EventON WordPress plugin helps you design calendar events but letting you select the address, time, and date. It’s simple to promote your events — this is probably the best plugin to do that.

Photos and Google Maps can be added to your events as well, and you can select the colors for your calendar to the rest of your site. EventON has different views, so if you want to see from day-to-day or month-to-month, you can.

The whole calendar is searchable, so finding the event in question shouldn’t be difficult. If you want to pay more, you can buy the WooCommerce integration for ticket selling.

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10. All-in-One Event Calendar

Price: Tiered pricing, ranging from free to $99 per month

All-in-One Event Calendar is a good option for people wanting to sell tickets on their website. It allows you multiple views of your calendar — by event, day, week, or month — all of which you can easily filter. Google Maps is integrated and the plugin is SEO-optimized.

Once you fill out the initial form, the calendar creates an event. Events can include:

• Tags
• Categories
• Contact info
• Color codes
• Dates
• Times
• Locations

All of these are gathered from the intake form. The plugin integrates with Outlook, iCal, and Google Calendar. It’s worth checking out if you need to reach a large audience.

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11. My Calendar

Price: Free

This calendar plugin has some truly unique features. For instance, My Calendar is a developer’s dream when is comes to creating custom calendars and templates.

Creating an event triggers an email notification to be sent to the participating parties, and the settings can be set to post your new event directly to Twitter as needed.

This is a good option for users who need to manage multiple sites and calendars. The main appeal is that the plugin enables many sites to host the same calendar, or one site to host many calendars, all through the same WordPress page. You can also display your calendars in a miniaturized version on your website.

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12. Modern Events Calendar

Price: Free to $39+ per month for the Pro version

The appeal of Modern Events Calendar is mostly that it doesn’t require a ton of customizing to function well and look good. However, if you need a complicated ticketing support system, this may not be the one for you.

The plugin provides list and calendar views and well as a countdown. The free version lets customers book directly in your calendar for single and recurring events. There’s no cap on when events have to end in the calendar. If you want to get fancy with your functionalities, invest in the Pro to get weather updates, show maps, and localize time zones.

This plugin works with Stripe and PayPal if you need to accept payment from customers.

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13. Stachethemes Event Calendar

Price: $35 one-time fee

Stachethemes Event Calendar is a mobile-optimized calendar with WooCommerce integrations that offers a single-page admin feature. It allows you to directly sell merchandise related to your events from the calendar event itself.

There’s a quick auto-update feature and direct customer booking based on your availability.

Event booking options are integrated with WooCommerce, iCal, and ICS, and calendars are available in six different types of views. Every calendar is customizable with colors, fonts, and design.

Some calendar features include:

• Easy to set up recurring payments
• Easy to share on social networks
• Works across multiple sites

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Ultimately, any one of the WordPress calendar plugins above would be a solid choice for your WordPress site, although some are better than others depending on your context and specific needs.

Aside from decreasing time wasted emailing back-and-forth to find workable dates, these plugins simplify the process and smooth out the day-to-day kinks.

Whichever you choose, just make sure it works best with your project management workflow. If you want to check out a free tool that’s easy to test out, try HubSpot Meetings.

When your website experiences a 502 Bad Gateway Error, it can be like solving a mystery. You don’t know what exactly happened or why — all you know is that something’s wrong and you need to fix it.

What causes a 502 bad gateway error?

To guide you through the hassle of fixing the dreaded 502 Bad Gateway Error, let’s go over what it exactly is and its most common causes and solutions.

Picture Credit: Arm Mbed OS

Fortunately, there are seven common and effective solutions for analyzing and fixing most of the causes of 502 Bad Gateway Errors.

The tactics discussed below provide general fixes for 502 Bad Gateway Errors. If you have a WordPress site, this issue may require WordPress-specific solutions.

1. Reload the page.

Sometimes server connectivity issues are resolved relatively quickly. Before you dive deep into what’s causing the problem, take steps to insure that this is actually a major error and not just a blip.

Wait a minute or two. Then reload the page. If the page loads with no error, this might’ve been a temporary connection problem.

If the page is still giving you an error, clear your browser cache and then try refreshing it once more.

If that doesn’t work, move on to investigating the error.

2. Look for server connectivity issues.

Most websites live on multiple servers or third-party hosting providers. If your server is down for maintenance or any other reason, your website could serve visitors a 502 Bad Gateway Error page.

The only way to troubleshoot this issue is to wait for your server to finish maintenance or fix the problem causing the error.

If you don’t want to contact your hosting service, one quick way to make this determination could involve running a ping test to see if messages are reaching your IP.

3. Check for any DNS changes.

If you’ve recently changed host servers or moved your website to a different IP address, it’ll make changes to your website’s DNS server. This could cause your website to serve its visitors a 502 Bad Gateway Error page.

Your website won’t be up and running until these DNS changes take full effect, which can take a few hours.

4. Sift through your logs.

Server logs will provide details about your server’s health and status. Sift through them to uncover and respond to any alarming information.

5. Fix faulty firewall configurations.

Your firewall is your website’s gatekeeper, protecting your site from malicious visitors or distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

Sometimes, a faulty firewall configuration will cause your firewall to deem requests from a content delivery network as an attack on your server and reject them, resulting in a 502 Bad Gateway Error. Check your firewall configuration to pinpoint and fix the issue.

6. Comb through your website’s code to find bugs.

If there’s a mistake in your website’s code, your server might not be able to correctly answer requests from a content delivery network. Comb through your code to find bugs or copy your code into a development machine.

It’ll perform a thorough debug process that will simulate the situation that your 502 Bad Gateway Error occurred in and allow you to see the exact moment where things went wrong. 

7. Contact your host.

If you can’t figure out the problem on your own, or if you think your host company is the culprit, give them a call. They may be able to look deeper into what’s going on and shed some light on the situation.

If the issue is on their end, they might be able to easily fix it. If the problem is something related to your website specifically, they might also be able to walk you through the solution.

 

Instagram Stories has extended the amount of time people spend in the app by approximately ten additional minutes. But, while that extra time means more attention and focus on your brand, it won’t translate to much if you can’t get that traffic back to your site.

If you have over 10,000 followers or you’re a verified user, you have an incredibly effective tool at your disposal — the swipe up link. This link enables you to post exciting content regarding a new product, service, or event, and then encourage those users to “swipe up for details.”

But with all that power comes some responsibility. How do you add a link to your story, and how can you use it to its fullest advantage? Let’s dive into that now.

How to Add a Link to Your Instagram Story

I used HubSpot’s official Instagram account for these instructions, since my personal account isn’t verified (I also, you’ll be surprised to hear, don’t have 10,000 followers … ).

1. Take a photo or upload one to your Instagram Story, and then click the icon at the top right that looks like a chain.

2. Here, click “+ URL” to add a link to a web page. If you were interested in linking your Story to your IGTV video, you could choose that option, instead.

3. Type the URL into the text box. When you’re finished, click “Done” in the top right.

4. When you’re ready to publish, click the “+ Story” button at the bottom right of your Story. Now, your published Story has a “See More” swipe up link.

Instagram Swipe Up Link Examples

1. @Detoxinista Recipes

Food bloggers such as @Detoxinista use Instagram Stories’ swipe up link to embed recipes on the platform. They wisely post images of delicious-looking food, which incentivizes users to swipe up to learn how to make it themselves. The link isn’t a direct advertisement, but users are directed to Detoxinista’s website, where they can find her cookbook and become familiar with her brand.

2. @Alifedotowsky Clothing Items

If you’re a Bachelorette fan, you might’ve noticed the growing trend among Bachelor and Bachelorette contestants to become product influencers and embed swipe up links in their Stories. As a fashion and style blogger, Ali often takes pictures or videos of outfits she’s wearing, with swipe up links so users can buy the items online. She also often incorporates discounts if users swipe up, further incentivizing a user to purchase an item from a brand’s website.

3. @Popsugarfitness Summer Sculpt Series

One of the most effective ways to use the swipe up feature is to offer your followers something of value, for free. @Popsugarfitness, for instance, introduced a Summer Sculpt series with a tempting offer — “Swipe Up for a 10-Minute No-Equipment Booty-Shaping Workout”. Who could say no to that? Ideally, as users obtain more value from your site, they’ll spend longer on it and become stronger brand advocates.

4. @Reebok Be More Human Campaign

Reebok created a powerful and timely campaign called “Be More Human”, celebrating women’s empowerment through fitness. On their Instagram Stories, they raise awareness for the campaign by showing famous women like Gigi Hadid or Danai Gurira, and when you swipe up, you learn more about Reebok’s campaign and how you can get involved. On the site there are opportunities to purchase t-shirts or donate money, but it’s evident Reebok is committed to staying focused on their messaging above all else, a noble pursuit.