Social Sharing Archives - Annex Cloud Blog

Beyond Word of Mouth: Share and Save SEO Benefits

May 19, 2022October 13, 2016 by Sean Ogino

Share and Save is perhaps the simplest way to enable your customers to share your brand and products through social media posts or emails. The key here is to reward your customers with some concrete and visible incentives such as discounts, loyalty points, or coupons. No doubt, it helps in converting your loyal customers into brand advocates as well as in creating word-of-mouth promotion of your brand along with enhanced customer engagement.

But the benefits of Share, Save, and Win are not limited to that only. It also positively affects Search Engine Optimization (SEO) rankings too, and in today’s world, SEO is the most prominent window through which people throw their first glance at your products. But to understand Share and Save SEO benefits completely, it’s a must to know how actually this solution works. There are four main steps…

How Share and Save Works:

A) Share and Save A Share, Save, and Win promotion on your site will direct visitors to share your brand with their friends.

B) Prompted Sharing: Once the user is done with clicking on the Share, Save, and Win button, he is now provided with the option to share it on a variety of social media networks.

C) Active Share: After the submission of the share from the user’s side, it will remain in his newsfeed for his friends to see.

D) Sharing Reward: When friends click the share, the person who shared your brand, as well as the person who clicked on it will receive a reward.

Now again have a look at the second step of the process. It says that users will be able to share your brand and product on all the social media platforms by posting whichever link you’d like them to, whether it’s a product page, blog page, home page, and so on. Now this is where Share and Save SEO benefits come into the picture. This is the step that opens up ways to boost your SEO ranking. So, the question, which naturally arrives in your mind is, how does social media help in SEO ranking? And that’s the real question because Share and Save solution makes use of social media platforms. Hence, we will dive into the innate connection that social media and thus Share And Save has with SEO rankings.

Share and Save SEO: Social Sharing is the New Link Building

One of the many factors that affect a high ranking in Google’s SERPs is how many linkbacks your website receives. Thanks to black-hat SEO techniques, like keyword stuffing, invisible text, and creating “fake” websites that link back to the website you’re trying to optimize, people started manipulating rankings. Google had no option but to give prominence to higher-quality links.

Links on social media are often considered higher-quality links due to the fact that social sites have a high web authority from the get-go. It primarily has to do with the enormous reach that they have. It’s one of the main reasons why many marketers believe that links to your website via social media accounts do have a major impact on your rankings.

It is very well reflected in the words of Brian Honigman, a marketing consultant, when he says, “Today, links are mainly achieved through developing original content that is in turn, shared across social media. Links to your content on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube and other social networks help the search engines understand what websites are credible and should be ranked for what keyword phrases.” What does it mean is links published on social media could be marked as credible backlinks and thus influence a page’s rank.

Share and Save SEO: People Search on Social

The customer journey now doesn’t just begin and end with Google. People now use social media channels to find what they’re looking for. And thus it affects your SEO ranking. How? Assume that your customer has placed a Share And Save link of your brand on his Facebook account. His friends may click on that link for more details, and then discover more about your brand. And thus, the new SEO norms do consider the search that happens on social media search engines

Share and Save SEO: Social Activity Accelerates Context Indexation

It’s an open fact that while indexing content, regardless of its type, Google relieson the number of social media shares. If your content gets quickly on social media, it gets noticed by these search engines and it gets indexed faster than content with weaker social media engagement. Naturally, if your Share And Save links get more shares, there are always chances of quick indexing of your web page. And believe me…content indexation plays a huge role in your SEO rankings because the faster you can get your content indexed, the faster you’ll get the organic traffic to your site.

Share and Save SEO: Twitter is Google’s Go-To

The World Wide Web is an ever-growing public library filled with content and no central filing system. Through its crawl process, Google goes through all these pages to index them. Considering the creation of the enormous amount of content on a daily basis, it’s a time-consuming and tedious process. Thus, to cut the time that Google takes to find content for your search query, it makes use of the Twitter to keep an eye on the content that has generated a lot of traction. Aspects such as total numbers of retweets, tweets, and the time frame of when the content was shared are all taken into consideration when indexing the content. Hence, there is a strong correlation between the number of tweets about a URL and its Google search ranking. The following chart speaks volume about that relation.

Now just imagine what more and more tweets and retweets about your Share And Save link can do to your SEO rankings!

Share and Save SEO: Google Prefers Google+

Google + was launched with an intention to give social nature to your personalized search and keep it revolving around your social circle. It works on a simple priority basis. For example, suppose that your friend has posted something about his new Samsung phone on his Google + profile. If you are searching on the same topic, you are most likely to get above post in your search results. What it means is if your followers are searching for a term in Google and if you’ve written on the same topic, then your content will get the top SERPs (for your followers).

Explaining it through the Share And Save framework, if you are a jewelry maker and your customer has shared your Share And Save link on his Google + account, and if his followers on that account are using the word “jewelry” in their Google search, your customer’s Share And Save link may appear at the top in their search results, as Google naturally prefers Google +. Undoubtedly, it will give you more online visibility. Besides, through that link, if those followers go to your website and “+1” any content on your website, it is most likely to show up in their search results and Google+ circles’ searches. It simply means that you can earn long-term SEO benefits through the shared Share And Save link on Google Plus…and it’s a huge boost for your future SEO scenario.

Share and Save SEO: To Conclude…

In today’s time, whether it’s a marketing campaign, a communication strategy or a promotional event, everything has to be landed on social media platforms. Online search and SEO activities are no exceptions.

In fact, Mark Zuckerberg has indicated that Facebook is planning to launch a social search engine powered by Facebook user activity. Clearly, with more than 1 billion search queries on Facebook every day, there is no doubt that the search will evolve more around Social Media in the future…and Share And Save is a perfect solution to make better use of that scenario due to its ability to operate singularly and seamlessly on social media!

Note: Indeed, Share and Save is more impactful than you think. Our latest case study shows how Vivobarefoot increased their email list size by 20% and boosted orders by 38% in a year thanks to Share and Save, Refer a Friend, and Social Login!

And if you’re planning ahead for next year, don’t miss out on our white paper, Acquisition in 2017: 12 Solutions to Ignite the Buyer Journey!

SEO

Instagram’s Event Video Channel Debuts

May 20, 2022August 18, 2016 by Sean Ogino

Apart from being pioneers and once giants in their respective fields, there is one more similarity between Yahoo and Orkut.

They both suffered premature deterioration solely due to their inability to put a foot on the accelerator of innovation. But it looks like Facebook-owned Instagram has seriously gone through their case studies. In the era where everything changes within a blink of an eye, Instagram has certainly done well by staying at the edge of flexibility and innovation almost at all the time. Instagram’s recent announcement of its Explore tab with a new event video channel can be considered as a march towards that vision of innovation. It will be a personalized channel for each user and will feature videos from concerts, sports games, and other live events around the world. The rationale behind this channel is that as long as a real life event is popular and has enough content to create a channel, it can become an event inside Discover.

Here’s what a lot of people are probably seeing now, during the Olympics.

That’s why like other explore channels, users will be the key provider of the content who will take a video and tag it with the event location. What it means is the football game of your favorite team or a performance by your favorite brand can feature in the channel if you take enough efforts to catch every glimpse of those events.

Of course, when you reach the level of Instagram, every move of yours is a calculated and planned one. This ushering into the event tab is no exception. For a long time, Instagram is trying to tell the world that it’s more than just photos; it’s about videos too. They have been heavily investing in that cause and this year’s addition of a video channel, which enabled users to find clips about 23 different categories, such as dogs, comedy and travel, was also a part of that endeavor. And it’s not hard enough to understand why Instagram is doing it. Videos are easily the most consumed and engagement generating content among all other content types that float in digital space. Between April 2015 and November 2015, the amount of average daily video views on Facebook doubled from 4 billion video views per day to 8 billion. Similarly, Syndacast predicts 74% of all internet traffic in 2017 will be video. It’s as clear as a mirror that videos are going to emerge as a channel with highest ROI generator mainly due to its incredible attention grabbing power. Naturally, Instagram is eying for monetization through this videolization. Another noteworthy point is these customized event channels will give Instagram a much needed competitive edge against competitor platforms like

Another noteworthy point is these customized event channels will give Instagram a much needed competitive edge against competitor platforms like Snapchat’s discover channels. Though they also feature curated user-generated videos from major events around the world, they cannot achieve the desired level of personalization due to the fact that Snapchat’s discover channels are still curated by hand. To grasp it completely, let’s assume that Snapchat has a special channel for one of the biggest festivals of heavy metal music. Now, everyone on the Snapchat platform isn’t going to be a fan of heavy metal music. But personalization for this Instagram’s channel will be done by analyzing what types of live events users are interested in, and what type of accounts the user follows. So, this video channel of Instagram will be in a much better position than others when it comes to provide the right content at the right time and more importantly to the right user.

Indeed, it will be interesting to see how this video channel of Instagram, which will be launched in the U.S for now and later in other countries soon, will perform. Social media platforms are constantly trying to find new and robust means of monetization. The failure of Twitter’s buy button isn’t a very old memory. If this event thing strikes gold, it may pave a new direction for social media’s monetization efforts.

event video channel innovation Instagram video

User Generated Content News: LeBron James, Snapchat, + More

May 16, 2022June 27, 2016 by Grace Miller

A few brands have made headlines recently with their innovative uses of UGC. Here’s what’s new in user generated content news! LeBron James Gets a UGC Video from Sprite Sprite congratulated LeBron James, one of their brand ambassadors, on the Cleveland Cavaliers’ finals win with a fan video. James, who’s known for his inventive handshakes with … Read more

Anya Hindmarch Coca-Cola Sprite

Word-of-Mouth Marketing & Referral Marketing: The Loyal Dynamic Duo

May 20, 2022October 7, 2015 by Grace Miller

It’s human nature to talk about things we like—that’s the beauty of word-of-mouth marketing. Millions of recommendations happen every day just because someone likes a product and tells someone, who then tells someone else, who in turn tells someone else. According to Nielsen, 84% of global consumers believe recommendations from friends and family are the most … Read more

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Holiday Shopping 2015: Get Ahead With Social Commerce

May 20, 2022August 14, 2015 by Grace Miller

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Or, at least, it will be before we know it. While it’s only August, the Holiday 2015 season is fast approaching, and retailers are already planning for it. Selfridges, a high-end British department store, has already opened their Christmas shop, reports ABC. The retail subsection, which the … Read more

christmas holidays mobile user generated content visual commerce

Woo Your Customers: Valentine’s Day Marketing Tricks To Make Them Fall In Love With You

May 20, 2022February 10, 2015 by Sean Ogino

Whether you love or hate Valentine’s Day, as a marketer, it’s hard to ignore the valuable opportunity it offers to connect with your customers. As a brand or retailer, this sentiment-filled holiday gives you an opportunity to engage and nurture relationships; creating a community around your brand with your loyal customers.
We’ve put together some Valentine’s Day marketing tricks to make your customers fall in love with you all over again.

Pin’em on Pinterest

Pinterest is a great platform to engage with customers (especially women) around Valentine’s Day. Encourage them to Pin their best date night outfit, a piece of jewelry they love, and recipes for home cooked meals they aspire to master for the holiday.

Give men a reason to finally adopt Pinterest by encouraging them to look for inspiration for gifts and unique date ideas. Not only does this open doors of inspiration for your male customers; you can grow your audience on the Pinterest platform when they realize what a valuable tool it is (especially for understanding the women in their lives).

Visualize it on Instagram

Engaging with your customers on visual platforms, particularly Instagram is a great outlet to connect around Valentine’s Day. Interact with the loving couples by creating a contest for them to post a picture of their awesome date night or commiserate with the Valentine’s day haters by encouraging them to share pictures of their “anti-valentine’s day” plans.

Single people need love too

Don’t forget about your customers who aren’t part of a couple and may be a little bitter about the holiday. Create opportunities for friends to send chocolates, flowers, and other gifts to each other instead of a significant other. These kinds of interactions are usually reserved for women but don’t be afraid to engage men in the same way, they like receiving gifts and candy too (maybe even more). The key to catering to singles is positivity and authenticity (avoid pity parties at all cost). Create contests and giveaways exclusively for singles celebrating their independence or mocking the Hallmark holiday. Stand out from the crowd of our couple obsessed culture and embrace your single, independent consumers.

Help out your romantically challenged customers

Create a community for people at a loss for ways to impress their significant others. Create a comments section or a hashtag for Facebook and Twitter, encouraging customers to share unique date night ideas, gift ideas, ask questions and look for advice from your brand experts. Drive customers to your site by creating a page dedicated to out of the box gift ideas, unique date locations and other ways to make Valentine’s day special.

Don’t make it all about selling

Instead of focusing solely on selling and your bottom line, use holidays like Valentine’s Day to truly connect with your customers on a personal level. Nurture your relationships and build a community around the hopeless romantics. Customer’s will appreciate a brand stepping away from the “Hallmark” selling tendencies and instead showing a genuine interest in helping them create a great Valentine’s day experience.

Don’t stop wooing after the 14th of February

Keep your customers engaged after the holiday by asking them to share their highlights; post pictures of their dates and girls nights, and share their great outfits and romantic home-cooked dinners. Create a conversation through Social Media by having them share what gifts were winners and which one’s were flops. Sometimes the best memories are the dates that didn’t go as planned, ask your customers to share their funny stories. Create a positive memory and start engaging them now so they think of you when they’re looking for ideas next year.

customer loyalty marketing tips valentine's day

Increase Shopper Engagement With Social Q&A

May 20, 2022January 9, 2015 by Sean Ogino

Recently I decided that I needed to purchase a power line adapter to increase my wireless internet range in my home. I narrowed down to the ones I wanted based on brand name and features that I was primarily interested in. Considering that I had no experience using one I decided to find out what others were saying about them. I visited the product listings on Amazon, Bestbuy and Google and spent the next couple of hours reading user reviews. I wanted to see what others had gone through and whether or not the product would meet my needs. Not only did I read the good and bad reviews, I also considered the amount of good reviews vs bad reviews. However, the most important part of the process for me was the conversations others were having about the product and if the brand itself was responding to customer questions.

In talking with friends, I learned that different people utilize Ratings and Reviews in different ways. There is no one good way to take advantage of them. However, this is for sure that not having ratings and reviews for a product can kill the sales for that product.

In previous articles I highlighted why Ratings and Reviews were important to a business, in this article I will focus on Social Questions and Answers (Q&A) and how it will increase shopper engagement for your brand and conversion for your products.

Social Q&A is a great engagement tool that e-commerce sites should take advantage of. Before buying a product, shoppers can ask questions about that product and have previous buyers of the product answer them.

I have found that most questions posted usually get answered within the same day. What makes Social Q&A effective is its ability to create a connection between customers. It has been well noted that people trust opinions of other customers as compared to the brand marketing.

So Instead of reading a long FAQ or carefully crafted marketing collateral, customers can use opinions of real customers using the products in real life before making decision to make a purchase.

So how does Social Q&A exactly help businesses?

Increases Your Sales

Social Q&A works by putting both potential customers and past customers in a position to speak with one another. When a shopper comes across a product they like and have a specific question about it they can post a question that is then sent to past customers. When they answer the question the shopper is then notified then driven back to the website where they can potentially make a purchase.

statistic_id308539_us-omnichannel-retailer-social-media-tools-2014.png — Increase Shopper Engagement With Social Q&A

Benefits Your SEO

Social Q&A is a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal. Because Social Q&A is an ongoing conversation between customers that can generate a massive amount of user-generated content. Because search engines like Google value content, it drives organic search traffic that leads to higher rankings.

Cultivate Brand Ambassadors

Social Q&A on your product pages makes it easier for potential customers to purchase the product they are interested in, by seeking the feedback posted by your past customers, allowing you to continually build a community of product experts. Customers, that come back to answer questions, help keep consistent engagement on your e-commerce site.

photo credit: theunquietlibrarian via photopin cc

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Cashing in on Social Shoppers

May 20, 2022May 23, 2014 by Sean Ogino

There are no agreed upon guidelines for determining the value of your brand’s social presence. If you put a group of eCommerce executives in a room and ask them how they measure the value of social, no two answers will be the same. Driving traffic from social and tracking it as new shoppers convert is … Read more

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Justifying Social Media in your P&L Report

May 1, 2022October 22, 2012 by Sean Ogino

It’s that time of the year again, where marketing people alike are gearing up to put together their P&L reports for their bosses. Not many people would think social media would tie into P&L reports but as social is evolving it’s becoming more relevant. If we were only addressing the issue of social media measurement, … Read more

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Transitioning into Social Commerce

May 1, 2022October 10, 2012 by Sean Ogino

Social Commerce has been slowly transitioning into businesses’ ecommerce sites with the evolution of consumer’s behaviors over the last year. Businesses’ alike have been implementing a new way for their consumers to shop via their websites. Although some have made the switch there are those that are hesitant to see what the real benefits of … Read more

eCommerce Holiday Shopping Social Commerce Social Discovery social engagement Social Sharing Social Strategy