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Social Beat becomes Google Partner

Posted on by Rohit Uttamchandani
Reading Time: 2 minutes

The Team at Social Beat is excited to announce that Social Beat is now an accredited Google Partner for Google Adwords/Pay Per click Advertising.

Our newly acquired Google Partner badge certifies us as a company trusted by Google which is capable of providing the highest levels of service to clients.

 

Social Beat becomes Google Partner Social Beat becomes Google Partner

 

We have fulfilled Google’s three main requirements for being a Google Partner

Certifications

Google requires the team handling Adwords to prove their advanced AdWords knowledge by getting certified in AdWords.  All team members handling Adwords campaigns at Social Beat are certified by Google to have the required levels of competency and proficiency to run successful campaigns.

Best Practices

Google Partners are required to demonstrate that they have mastered the essentials covered in the Google certification exams and are maximizing their clients’ performance by implementing Google’s recommended best practices in client accounts.

Google reviews Partner agencies’ client accounts to make sure that their clients are getting excellent service, including the type and frequency of the changes being made, client retention, and whether they’re making the most of their clients’ budgets.

Spend

A minimum spend of at least USD 10,000 over the last 90 calendar days is required to indicate the state of an agency’s business health.

Being awarded the honour of being in the elite group of Google-approved marketing agencies reaffirms our expertise and ensures that our practices conform to Google’s advertising guidelines and are proven to drive ROI.

Contact us to get your Adwords campaign started or to optimize an existing campaign for better ROI.

Infographic – The AAP Donation Campaign

Posted on by Suneil Chawla
Reading Time: < 1 minute

AAP Donation campaign

The Aam Aadmi Party’s Donation drive has always been in the news for all the right reasons – it’s focus on clean money, complete transparency in the process and the use of innovative means and effective social media campaigns to raise funds (an excellent example of this being Arvind Kejriwal’s recent tweet for cash which raised more than Rs. 80 lakh in 24 hours after the tweet).

In this Infographic, we analyze the AAP donation campaign – the average donation per donor, the donations received and the candidates receiving the highest donations.

Have you donated to the Aam Aadmi Party?

Infographic: Indian National Congress on Twitter

Posted on by Suneil Chawla
Reading Time: < 1 minute

Indian National Congress on Twitter Indian National Congress on Twitter

In the last in a series of three infographics, we analyse the presence on, and effective use of Twitter by the Indian National Congress party.

Just in case you missed our earlier two infographics in the series, you can read the one on the effectiveness of Narendra Modi‘s Twitter campaign here and the other on Arvind Kejriwal‘s Twitter campaign here.

Do share your views below, on how Twitter and other social media is changing the way election campaigning is done in India.

 

Infographic – Arvind Kejriwal on Twitter

Posted on by Suneil Chawla
Reading Time: < 1 minuteArvind Kejriwal img-responsive center-block

In the second in a series of three infographics, we analyse the presence on, and effective use of Twitter by Arvind Kejriwal, former Delhi CM and the head of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Just in case you missed it, you can read the first Infographic on the effectiveness of Narendra Modi‘s Twitter campaign here.

Watch this space for our next infographic on how the Indian National Congess is faring on this social platform, in the run up to the elections.

Do share your views below, on how Twitter and other social media is changing the way election campaigning is done in India.

Indian Elections 2014 & the Obama Campaign

Posted on by Suneil Chawla
Reading Time: 2 minutes

 

Analysis - Narendra Modi's Presence on Twitter
Narendra Modi’s Presence on Twitter

In the first in a series of three infographics, we analyse the presence on and effective use of Twitter by Narendra Modi, the BJP’s Prime Ministerial Candidate for the 2014 Indian Elections.

Narendra Modi has been using Digital Media very actively and so have other leading politicians, including Arvind Kejriwal. Has the 2014 election campaign replicated the methods used by Barack Obama during the US elections? The BJP and Narendra Modi have definitely taken a cue, while most Congress leaders have stayed away. Here’s a comparison of the 2 US elections in 2008 and 2012 with Indian Elections 2014.

2008 US Election and Comparison with BJP vs. Congress

Barack Obama vs. John McCain is equivalent to BJP vs Congress. While Barack Obama pushed the boundaries of political campaigning online, from raising online contributions to active tweeting, his opponent, John McCain was hardly online. This is very similar to the Indian context, where multiple BJP leaders have built a strong presence and following online – specially Narendra Modi with 12 Million fans on Facebook, while the Congress has by-and-large stayed away, with Rahul Gandhi only having 125,000 Facebook fans.

2012 US Election

In the 2012 US election, Barack Obama was up against Mitt Romney. While Romney did spend approx. $5M online, Obama spent over $47 Million on his digital campaign.

One of the key components to the Obama’s digital campaign was his website barackobama.com, a ‘social network’ where volunteers could sign up, enroll their friends and neighbors and help increase the virality of Obama’s digital campaign.

AAP has taken a leaf out of this and launched https://donate.aamaadmiparty.org , where anyone can contribute to the party with amounts as low as Rs. 1. Similarly, the Volunteer section on the website promotes signups to its volunteer program.

Is the presence of Politicians in Social Media helpful? 

The active online presence of politicians and involvement of citizens helps democracy by initiating discussions and debates and helping citizens vote for the best candidate.

Further, this opens the platform to more active democracy, where elected representatives are more accountable to the voters. We have seen social media make businesses more accountable – the day is not far when social media also makes our politicians more accountable.

Watch this space for our next two infographics on the Twitter presence of Arvind Kejriwal and the Indian National Congress.

LinkedIn Showcase Pages – Why you must use them

Posted on by Rohit Uttamchandani
Reading Time: 4 minutes

The social media space has always been extremely dynamic with all players constantly rolling out changes to their platforms. It was LinkedIn’s turn last week when they announced that, from 14th April 2014, they will be doing away with the Products and Services tab from Company Pages.

Exit Products & Services Tab

The move has evoked mixed reactions from users with most being unhappy with it. A large number of businesses have invested a lot of time and effort to showcase all their products and services on the page and to get recommendations from their clients. Come April 14th, this page will disappear and all the work that has been put in will be gone. All the recommendations will be gone too, and the official Linked In announcement suggests you “copy them from the tab into your own document” or request a copy through a support request, if you want to keep them.

Another group of users believe that the move to do away with the tab makes perfect sense since a very small number of visitors to the page actually clicked on the Products & Services Tab. The tab also lacked images, and the Static content on it is not as much as viewed as content updates, which have a far greater reach. In fact, analytics for the Social Beat company page on LinkedIn show that barely 10% of page visitors clicked on the Product & Services tab.

 

Social Beat Product & Services Page Analytics Social Beat Product & Services Page Analytics

 

Many also view the change as LinkedIn’s attempt to do away with static content (which, once written, remains on the page for people to see), thereby forcing users to use dynamic updates to communicate with their follower base. These could be monetized much more easily using LinkedIn’s Sponsored Updates.

Either way, change has to be embraced and the best made out of it. So, now that the Products and Services page has been done away with, how do you showcase your businesses products and services and get visibility for them on LinkedIn? The answer lies in LinkedIn Showcase pages.

Enter Showcase Pages

Introduced by LinkedIn in November 2013, Showcase Pages are dedicated pages that allow companies to highlight different aspects of their business, products and services and build relationships with the right community. They are like sub-pages of the main company page and each of them can be used to promote specific products and services to a specific buyer persona.

LinkedIn is a powerful marketing tool and it is worth investing time and effort to make the transition to Showcase pages. Here are the advantages of Showcase pages, which is why you must use them.

 

SEO Showcase Page - Social Beat Social Beat – Showcase page for SEO

 

Why you must use Showcase pages

  • Build a Targeted audience – You now have a dedicated page to post updates for each particular aspect of your business and build a targeted audience for that product or service. And if your content is appealing enough for your audience to share it, you will be able to organically expand your reach for each product/service.
  • Focus: Showcase pages focus entirely on the product or service. There are no careers, products, or services tabs on them as they are on Company pages.
  • Analytics: Showcase pages have their own analytics on follower engagement, trends and demographics.
  • Two-column layout: Unlike Company pages, where updates show up in a single column format, Showcase page updates show up in two columns which make it easier for users to scroll through content. Showcase pages also have a larger and more prominent hero image.
  • All showcase pages branch off from the company page and link back to them, creating a centralized page structure. You can create upto 10 showcase pages.
  • Users can follow only that part of your business that they are most interested in and receive updates tailor-made for them.

 

Showcase Page Structure Showcase Page Structure

 

Teething Trouble

Showcase pages do have some limitations and constraints as well, a major one being the trouble with choosing a name for the page URL. Although LinkedIn showcase pages are centralized under a single Company Page, the URL for each Showcase page is not currently nested under the Company url. For eg, the Social Beat showcase page for Social Media carries the url  http://www.linkedin.com/company/effective-use-of-social-media while it should have ideally been http://www.linkedin.com/company/Social-Beat/effective-use-of-social-media. This has made it extremely difficult and challenging to choose names for Showcase pages.

Some other Showcase Page constraints include the need for each Showcase page to be managed, updated and edited separately, and the 10-page limit which may not work well for larger companies.

However, Showcase pages are still in their initial stage and these constraints could just be considered teething trouble which LinkedIn would definitely work on improvising as these pages become more mainstream and popular. For now, it is best to work through these limitations and focus on leveraging this new feature for business growth.

 

What is your take on LinkedIn Showcase pages? Have you begun building them for your business?

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