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Inside 5 Horizons: It’s Organic! Growing Your Social Media Audience

April 28, 2023

Hear from our Lead Copywriter, Abigail Egan, as she discusses her favorite tips for growing social media audiences organically.

There is a lot of conflicting advice on the internet about how to grow social media–follow the trends, but be completely unique; stay true to your brand, but don’t overuse your logo or brand colors; create widely shareable content, but narrow your content for a specific audience.

Social media strategies should be unique to individual companies and organizations, but there are a few general tips all campaigns, of any size or focus, can utilize to increase success.

Grow your social media audience organically with these three guiding principles:

1. Set Goals for Your Growth

Growing your accounts organically can be a slow process, but setting goals will keep you on track for steady, high-quality growth. Maybe your goals are to utilize a new hashtag, find other companies in your industry to network with, or solidify your brand style more publicly. Expand your goals beyond just numbers and think about the broader impact and message your social content is making online.

2. Tailor Content for Different Platforms

Your audience across platforms is going to vary, so it’s safe to say your content should too. Do some research on your audiences and learn what type of content resonates the most on each platform. Different audiences, on different platforms, will react uniquely to different content.

Try to avoid pigeonholing your audiences. Give them a variety of content to interact with in new ways, emphasizing the areas where you see the most engagement. Do articles resonate on LinkedIn, but not on Instagram? Do video interviews have more reach on Facebook, rather than Twitter? Test your theories, collect your data, and adjust your platform-specific strategies to match the results.

3. Be Consistent & Have Some Fun

Prioritize consistency over perfection when you’re planning your content schedule. Consistent posts will get your account on users’ feeds more often, creating a feeling of familiarity with your brand.

The Marketing Rule of Seven states that a consumer is most likely to buy or interact with a product or company after seven separate, unique touchpoints. With social media being as saturated as it is, with advertisements, sponsorships, and brand deals, that number is likely higher than seven in 2023.

At 5 Horizons, we aim for three categories across our social content: Professional, Community, and Human. We know that a mixture of industry insights, current events, and fun content is a good balance of branded and approachable content. Creating a variety of content also allows us to produce more social assets on a consistent schedule.

Not every post should be branded or pushing for viewers to take an action—sometimes sales have to take a back seat. You want your audience to be authentic users, not just faceless followers, so consider having a little fun with your content. Maybe your brand allows for a little more personalization, or perhaps humor aligns with your company culture. Not sure what direction you should take? Create a few test posts and watch closely to see how your audience engages with the content, or give organic A/B testing a shot.

Grow your social media audience organically with these three guiding principles, or reach out to our team for assistance!

The Inside 5 Horizons series includes stories and perspectives from our amazing team. Get a glimpse into our company culture each month by hearing from the unique voices of our copywriters, strategists, project managers, and more.

Artificial Intelligence in Marketing

April 27, 2023

The future of AI and its effects on optimizing marketing services.

With ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence (AI) being the new buzzwords of the year, it’s impossible not to wonder about the future of AI, particularly its relationship to marketing.

People all over the world could not get enough of ChatGPT, the chatbot developed by OpenAI, ever since its launch in November of 2022. But with the fascination over the new technological advancement, came fear. Concerns rose over AI’s safety, ethical implications, and, of course, jobs.

The reality remains that the current job market will likely change, but not in a way people might expect. Instead of AI taking over people’s jobs, many roles will evolve into working together with artificial intelligence in a mutually-beneficial, somewhat symbiotic relationship.

We predict marketing to become one of the industries that will see a lot of AI-driven rapid change. Here are some examples of exciting possibilities for incorporating AI into aspects of marketing:

1. Optimized Workflow

With so many moving parts, advertisers can benefit from AI at different stages of the process. Copywriters and art directors especially can use AI to expedite their research before starting work on any campaign or creative project. A more precise and targeted supplement to search engines such as Google, ChatGPT provides detailed, tailored information that directly answers users’ queries. Moreover, AI can optimize consumer segmentation and forecast people’s behaviors, which results in delivering more constant and customized communications and ads to customers.

2. Content Marketing

One of the biggest attributes of working together with AI is its ability to optimize content creation. From determining the odds of a particular piece of content going viral to suggesting what content visitors would like to see, AI can serve as a never-ending source of strategy-driven ideas for content marketing. Over the recent months, machine learning engineers have been working to further optimize ChatGPT’s text-to-video and text-to-audio capabilities, which can further help brands and marketers customize their content to specific viewers and capitalize on the popularity of interactive visual media.

3. Social Media

As an ever-popular facet of marketing, social media can also be automated with AI. Beyond determining which content gets seen, AI can help brands by matching products and services with people who have already cultivated the desired targeted audiences. Playing such an essential part in influencer marketing, AI can further analyze those audiences, recognizing which ones will result in quality engagement. Results in general, from campaign metrics to ROI, are other tasks that can also be handled by AI, evaluating campaign performance and learning from the outcomes.

Artificial intelligence and its partnership with marketing will continue to evolve. With an array of future possibilities, we hope that such a relationship will continue resulting in more streamlined and optimized advertising efforts, benefiting brands, clients, marketers, and consumers.

Google Slides Presentation Tips

April 21, 2023

Giving a Google Slides Presentation in Google Meet, while still seeing your speaker notes and your audience, can be tricky. Our IT team has outlined the process to make your next presentation look professional and operate smoothly.

We recommend practicing these steps first before your actual presentation to make sure your technology is working properly.

1. Log into a Google Meet

At this time, you can adjust your visual layout to see the other attendees:

Click on the three vertical dots, then “Change Layout.”
Choose between Auto, Tiled, Spotlight, or Sidebar for how you want your layout to look. An Auto selection will allow your screen to adjust according to different attendees’ presentations.
Use the Tile Slider to increase the number of attendee tiles you will see based on the size of your screen.

2. Present a Google Slides Presentation

Navigate to the Google Presentation and click on the Video Camera icon in the top right of the screen.
Select “Just present this tab.”

Select the presentation under the “This Tab” heading.
Click “Share.”

3. Present from Google Meet

Presentation Controls

Navigate back to the active Google Meet.
The screen will now display your presentation and controls for you to conduct the meet directly in the Google Meet.

As you give your presentation, you can either use the forward and back (< >) icons in the Google Meet window to move through your deck, or you can navigate within the Google Slides Presentation window on your computer.

Speaker Notes

To view the speaker notes, click on the 3 horizontal lines icon to the left of the left arrow in the Presentation Controls.

Speaker notes will appear in the right column.

What is A/B Testing and How to Use It?

April 12, 2023

A beginner guide to A/B testing and achieving quick results.

What is A/B testing?

A/B testing, sometimes referred to as “split testing,” is a user experience research method that compares two versions of something to learn which performs better. When it comes to ever-evolving digital advertising, A/B testing is extremely important, as it helps us learn new strategies to improve our campaigns.

Benefits of A/B testing?

A/B testing can help you implement long-term strategies and solutions for your brand or your clients. A/B testing is highly customizable to fit everyone’s individual needs and goals, but here are some common benefits of A/B testing:

Make data-backed decisions

A/B testing takes the guesswork out of your advertising and marketing campaigns, enabling you to make informed choices when it comes to optimizing your content.

Reduce bounce rates

With A/B testing, you can try out different tactics of retaining your leads and audience on your website longer, increasing the likelihood of them interacting with your content.

Quick results

In a fast-paced world of digital marketing, quick and reliable results are crucial for increasing campaign effectiveness. Even a relatively small A/B test can provide significant, actionable results that allow for low-risk modifications and improved campaign performance.

How do you start A/B testing?

Carve out a portion of the budget to test with (percentage allocation will depend on the overall client budget). The remaining budget should be prioritized for the highest-performing campaign.
The A/B test campaigns should always run at the same time. The only variable that should be different is what’s being tested—everything else, such as flight, budget, and audience should be the same.
The testing period should be set for about 2-3 weeks, no matter which of the two tests (or both) you decide to move forward with.
The key performance indicator (KPI) of A/B testing for lead generation campaigns should be Leads/Cost-Per-Lead (CPL), and the KPI for brand or traffic campaigns should be website traffic or clicks.

Want to learn more about A/B testing for specific social media platforms? Read our blog on the importance of LinkedIn A/B testing or contact us to learn how our team can help your content stand out.

Inside 5 Horizons: A/B Testing on LinkedIn

Danielle Romano, Director of Performance and Analytics, shares her thoughts on the necessity of LinkedIn A/B testing.

A/B testing is an essential experiment for determining which form of content performs better on a platform and drives higher engagement and results. Here is what Danielle’s team has discovered through experimenting with LinkedIn A/B testing.

What can you A/B test on LinkedIn?

Through A/B testing, we learned that LinkedIn Conversation Ads performed best for our higher education clients and generated the most leads. We hypothesize that we saw such a significant increase in results because the Conversation Ad format provides just the right amount of context for people to act and request more information.

Things to keep in mind when considering A/B testing for this platform:

Copy Length

Short and long copy speaks to how much information and details someone needs to take action, and experimenting with different text lengths can help establish best practices for the future.

Ad Formats

LinkedIn offers a variety of ad formats to choose from, all of which can be put to A/B testing to find out which format is the most successful for specific objectives.

Text Ads

Text ads are a great format to use when the message is clear and concise—brand campaigns typically benefit from this LinkedIn ad type. When it comes to our practice, we don’t usually reach for this format because we run program-specific campaigns for our higher education clients. Through A/B testing, we learned that such campaigns perform better when additional copy and visuals are present.

Conversation Ads

Conversation Ads tend to succeed when used for a program that may be unique or requires additional context. This strategy also works well for smaller clients because it goes directly to the users’ inboxes without having to fight for space in the feed.

Document Ads

Document Ads are new to Linkedin, but we anticipate this format to become a new way of advertising program brochures or any relevant learning materials that can be easily formatted as a .pdf file.

Images

Images of people vs. images of objects: Sometimes a photo of a person in business attire works well for a client, other times a textbook with a client logo outperforms elsewhere.

Branded imagery vs. non-branded imagery: Well-known brands typically generate better engagement rates when there is a logo associated with the image, whereas local or smaller brands can blend in with the feed through a more organic image, without any branding.

These tips and resources can be used to start and better understand the importance of A/B testing for any brand or client. If you’re curious to learn more about LinkedIn, read our 2023 LinkedIn Updates and stay up-to-date on how to use the platform to its fullest potential.

The Inside 5 Horizons series includes stories and perspectives from our amazing team. Get a glimpse into our company culture each month by hearing the unique voices of our copywriters, strategists, project managers, and more.

Best Practices for Creating Effective Content Posts

April 2, 2023

Optimizing your web pages for specific keywords can increase page ranking and boost traffic, but it may not be enough to achieve your goals. Strategically written content pieces can help improve keyword visibility through internal links to the page.

At 5 Horizons, we recommend a hub-and-spoke model where content includes links to other pages on the site. This strategy should also include planning for links between content pieces to provide authority and keep visitors on the site for as long as possible.

Start with a Content Strategy

A good content strategy will follow a site audit for keyword ranking and visibility. Questions to ask in a formal or informal audit include:

What keywords is the site already ranking for?
What is the search volume for those keywords?
What is the search volume for related keywords?
What topics and questions show up for “people also search”?
What are the most important pages on the site for organic traffic to find?
Where is the most potential for increasing page ranking?

These answers will help you identify target keywords, create a list of topics that can attract searches for those keywords, and map out page links.

Create a Strong Foundation

While the actual content is quite important, there are several considerations that will make a big difference for the search engines.

Write Meta Titles That Matter

Meta titles should be limited to approximately 65 characters. This may require abbreviating the company or organization name, which is often acceptable since incorporating the keyword phrase into the supporting content is more important.

Create Compelling Meta Descriptions

The meta description is most often used as the text that appears on the search engine results page. These should be approximately 145-155 characters and contain at least one instance of the keyword or keyword phrase. Be sure to include compelling content that encourages users to click the link. If your page is missing a meta description, the search engine may grab text from the webpage that isn’t relevant, resulting in fewer clicks to your site.

Remember to Write for the Bots and for the Humans

Search engines may determine how to rank web pages, but it’s ultimately the human readers who will or won’t engage. Therefore, the content needs to be keyword-rich without simply being keyword-stuffed. It needs to be interesting, well-written, and easy to scan. Use headlines (h2s and h3s) to guide readers (and the bots) through the piece. Bulleted or numbered lists also aid in content consumption.

Say What Needs to Be Said

You will find plenty of recommendations about how long a content piece should be for maximizing ranking. The most important consideration in writing content is saying what needs to be said in the number of words it takes to do so. Too short and your reader won’t find what they’re looking for; too long and they won’t bother sticking around to find out.

General Recommendations and When to Split Up

Each content piece should be approximately 500 to 750 words and include at least three to five mentions of the relevant keyword(s). The emphasis should be on providing interesting content that appropriately addresses the keyword topic. If this greatly exceeds the recommended length, consider breaking into multiple pieces of content and linking between them.

H1s Get to Be Unique

Include the keyword in the main on-page title (h1). There should be only one h1 per page, and it should be unique within your site.

Provide Guideposts

Subheadings (h2) provide other opportunities for including the keyword or other variations and also guide readers through the content, whether they are skimming or searching for relevant information. We have provided multiple keywords for each content idea, and these should be included as h2s and/or within the content when it is easy to do so while maintaining readability. Preference should be given to keywords with higher search volume.

Include Variety and Avoid Cannibalization

Frequently, the difference between identified keywords and search volume is a matter of semantics and the monthly search volume may vary widely between phrases that appear quite similar. This is why we recommend including varied iterations within the content.

At the same time, it’s important to avoid cannibalizing rankings of other pages on the site by creating content pieces that overlap too closely or use too-similar keywords. If there isn’t enough differentiated content for a stand-alone post, consider using the related keywords as h2s within the larger piece.

Use Links to Drive Traffic

Use internal links on the keyword or keyword phrase to direct to the relevant website page. Links can also connect pieces of content to drive authority for those individual posts and for the site as a whole. Each content piece should have two or three links to other pages on the website.

Encourage Engagement with Strong Calls to Action (CTAs)

Each piece should end with a clear, prominent call to action (CTA) that ties back to the purpose of your site. This could be learn more, apply now, or another relevant action.

Get In Touch

Questions about your recent audit? Coming up blank on content ideas? Ready to review your site? Reach out. We’re happy to help.

Laugh at Work Week

March 22, 2023

April 1st through the 7th is Laugh at Work Week! LAWW is the annual opportunity to promote fun and laughter in the workplace. You’ve probably heard of the phrase “laughter is the best medicine”used to describe the feel-good endorphins released when we laugh. Endorphins can decrease your pain, improve your mood, and reduce your stress.

At 5 Horizons, we embrace humor and fun every day to keep stress low and morale high. Here are our top three tips for cultivating a workspace full of laughter:

Incorporate gifs, emojis, and jokes into your Slack or online company chats to add reactions and humor to your conversations
Use virtual or in-person meetings to foster a lighthearted atmosphere with funny anecdotes or pop culture references
When challenges arise, model the appropriate stress response for your employees by using lighthearted humor

Extend Laugh at Work Week by prioritizing humor in the workplace every week of the year. For more examples of how to foster a fun work environment, read our recent blog here.

What Does it Mean to be a Google Premier Partner for 2023?

March 14, 2023

This St. Patrick’s Day it’s not luck, it’s hard work.

5 Horizons has been named a Google Premier Partner for 2023. Many of our clients come to us for Google Ads assistance. Becoming a Google Premier Partner takes a lot of time and hard work.

“We’re excited to recognize your company as a 2023 Premier Partner and for being in the top 3% of partners in your country. Achieving Premier Partner status is an accomplishment worth celebrating, and distinguishes your company as a Google Ads expert to clients and the industry.” – Google

As a Google Premier Partner, 5 Horizons has achieved and exceeded all requirements, while demonstrating continuous success with:

Certifications
Ad spend
Performance

Our team is constantly looking to improve our skills with Google Ads and this recognition is proof of it.

How Does That Help Our Clients?

As a Google Premier Partner, we receive a variety of benefits from Google, allowing us to provide additional services for our clients.

Benefits include:

Dedicated Account Management
Google Partner Search Listing
Client Event Support
Networking with Other Agencies
Executive Business Trainings for Our Employees
Dedicated Support Representatives & Teams
Annual Partners Summit & Review
Google Partners Badge

Ready to Work With Us?

As Google Premier Partners, we know how to achieve success with Google Ads. Reach out to us today if you’re looking to improve your advertising strategy.

How to Make Google Calendar Meeting Guests Optional

March 10, 2023

Let your guests decide for themselves whether they want to attend a meeting with this feature.

In a company as busy as ours, Google Calendars can fill up fast. To lighten someone’s meeting schedule, you can mark a guest as “optional.”

Hover on the gray user icon to the right of the guest’s name and click it to mark the guest as optional. You can do so at the time you create the event or edit it afterward. With this feature, your staff can choose whether they want to attend low-priority meetings.

Follow our blog for monthly tech tips and insights into the world of digital marketing.

Inside 5 Horizons: 2023 Design Tips

March 4, 2023

Hear from our talented Design Team as they weigh in on the top trends expected for the upcoming months.

Design trends are constantly fluctuating. It’s up to us on the Design Team at 5 Horizons to try new things, keep an eye on current styles, and constantly learn new skills to deliver fresh, accessible designs to our clients.

There is a lot that goes into design aside from what something looks like. User experience, advanced technology, and accessibility are all areas that our team focuses on when designing eye-catching advertisements or lead-generating websites.

Here are our top five design tips for 2023:

1. Nostalgia

One popular trend for 2023 is the vintage style of past decades between 20 and 100 years ago. Recycling styles from the past evokes a feeling of nostalgia in viewers that’s both familiar and comforting. It can also help to identify and target certain age groups when those vintage styles were popular.

2. Dark Mode & Customizable Viewing Experiences

Customizable Viewing Experiences include responsive website sizing (based on browser size or mobile device) and also offers Light and Dark Modes. Dark Mode is a light-on-dark color contrast that eases eye strain, especially during night time. Dark Mode uses text, icons, and graphic elements in lighter colors against a darker background to make readability easier. Incorporating both of these practices allows for a more personalized user experience.

3. 3D & Holographic Elements

Designers use graphic elements of different shapes, colors, spacing, values, and textures to convey a certain type of message or emotion. Our team predicts that 3D and holographic elements will be particularly popular in 2023 for adding futuristic, eye-catching styles to websites, presentations, and advertising. 3D and holographic elements are made with modern, trendsetting technology to capture viewer’s attention and emphasize the content.

4. Bold, Bright, Loud Color Palettes

2023 is already showing trends of bold, bright, and loud color palettes. This may play into the vintage trend and the recent resurgence of 90s styles. Loud color palettes, typically associated with vibrant and youthful moods, are already popping up in many campaigns and advertisements from leading brands for 2023.

5. Accessible & Inclusive Design Practices

Accessible and inclusive design practices are integral for quality user experiences in 2023. Accessibility focuses on creating personalized experiences for people with disabilities, while inclusivity broadens that accessibility to individuals with situational handicaps or impaired abilities as well. Making design choices that are inclusive to all customers is imperative to operating a business in 2023.

Our design team is ready to hit the ground running throughout 2023 with these top five tips to deliver innovative and high-quality trends for our clients.