Reddit CEO Steve Huffman took a shot at TikTok during a conference this week, calling it “fundamentally parasitic” and comparing it to spyware. His specific concerns appear to be based on the fact that the platform uses a form of “device fingerprinting” to track user behavior. Huffman was responding to a question about what startups could learn from TikTok‘s success, saying, “I can’t even get to that level of thinking with them.” He also said, “I actively tell people, ‘Don’t install that spyware on your phone.'” [Read: TikTok addict? Slow your scroll with time limit settings] There is some merit to his…
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As a social media professional, presentations are an inevitable part of your job and a vital part of yourcareer growth. If that gives you nervous butterflies, not to worry! Honing your presentation skills takes time, patience and practice.
Presentations can be a challenge, but they’re also an opportunity. Whether you’re presenting a newsocial strategy, proving theROIof a campaign or pitching business to a new client, the basics of successful presentation are the same. Follow these tips (and use this template) to create a compelling social media presentation that keeps your audience engaged from start to finish.
Do your research
The first and most important part of any presentation is research. It’s the backbone of the story you’ll be telling. Rather than heading to Google and scouring the web blindly, use these questions to guide your research:
What’s your focus and objective?
You don’t usually just give a social media presentation for kicks and giggles. Perhaps you’re trying to get executive buy-in for a new social tool, or you want to pitch a new strategy to your social team. Whatever your focus may be, your presentation should be mission-driven, intentional and working toward a solution.
Some of that research may come from digging into your previous social efforts. Find concrete examples of social posts that worked in the past to support future goals and projects. Uncover content gaps and growth opportunities by listening to your audience. Hone in on yourKPIsand look for markers of social proof and ways to assign value to your insights.
Pulling in proof-points and data to support your thesis is important but don’t lose your focus. Use your research to narrow in on two to three key takeaways that will ground your presentation.
Who is your audience?
Research for your presentation shouldn’t be limited to your topic. You’ll need to do a bit of research on your audience as well. Who you’re speaking to should inform why and how you’re speaking to them.
If you work in-house and represent a single brand, chances are you’ll be presenting internally to peers and leaders that know you, your work and background on your topic. But social media marketers that work in an agency have different challenges that likely require a bit more research.
If you’re pitching a social media plan to a new client, a deep understanding of their brand, industry and business needs is crucial. Beyond their brand background, you’ll need to narrow in on the client’s pain-points, who their competitors are, their current social strategy and more.
Create your deck
Just as social media connects us to a wider world, so do stories. Great storytelling in your presentation will help keep your audience captivated from start to finish.
The “deck” you’ll be presenting acts as the outline for your story arc and your slides are your illustrations. Use this free, customizable social media presentation template to create a polished slide deck.
As you begin building and customizing your presentation, keep these best practices in mind to avoid presenting like Michael Scott.
Introduce yourself and your agenda
There’s a common piece of advice for speakers that goes, “Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Tell them. Then, tell them what you told them.” Following this framework will help set expectations with your audience and make sure you start and finish with impact.
At the beginning of your presentation, add a slide introducing yourself and any presenting partners. After that, include an agenda slide that gives a high-level overview of your presentation.
Consider also sharing your agenda ahead of time. This gives stakeholders an opportunity to respond with preliminary notes that could help you tweak your presentation so that it’s aligned with their expectations. This also gives your audience time to prepare questions ahead of time.
Start with a hook
Engaging your audience early on in your presentation will help hold their attention throughout. With a good hook, you’ll lure people in and intrigue them from the get-go. A few of the most popular examples include shocking statistics, rhetorical questions, an interesting anecdote and inspirational quotes.
Make slides succinct
Each slide you present should be simple, focused and void of unnecessary distractions. According to Paul Jurczynski, aTED Talkcoach and cofounder of Improve Presentation, “The golden rule is to have one claim or idea per slide. If you have more to say, put it on the next slide.”
Use colors with a purpose in mind
In many cases, your presentation should incorporate the color schemes found within your agency or brandstyle guide. For example, let’s say you’re giving a social media presentation to a new customer or client on behalf of an agency. The audience may not know you as an individual, but they have an existing relationship with your brand. Colors and fonts are a simple way to set off those brand recognition triggers and remind your audience that you’re a subject matter expert.
If you’re going to branch out, your colors need purpose. Consider theemotions associated with colors. For instance, people associate yellow with warmth and energy, whereas red is often associated with excitement and passion. No matter what color scheme you choose, it should be consistent throughout your presentation.
Incorporate data visualization
Social media marketing presentations often come down to provingROIfor stakeholders. Data visualization like graphs and charts are a compelling way to make your case.
In data journalist David McCandless’sTED talk, he explains that the beauty of data visualization is that “that we can seethe patterns and connections that matterand design that information so it makes more sense, it tells a story, or allows us to focus only on the information that’s important.”
Don’t get bogged down in mapping out every single data point you uncover during your research. The best graphs are simple graphs with takeaways that are easy to spot. Try highlighting key numbers or data points by using color, bolding or another visual treatment that makes them pop, like the example above from theSprout Social Index.
Show your work
It’s a social media marketing presentation, so naturally, you should share examples of your work on social media. Pull in screenshots of successful social posts to show how your tactics have worked for the brand(s) you represent.
Wrap it up with a call-to-action
A powerful CTA always ties back to your original goal and encourages an action your audience can take once your presentation is over. Essentially, it’s your way to serve up a final take away and leave the ball in your audience’s court.
Plan your delivery
You’ve done your research, you’ve created your deck, now it’s time to plan your delivery. With the right approach, tone, prompts and pacing, your presentation could be about “nothing” and still be compelling. Just watch as Will Stephens does this masterfully.
Generate emotional responses
As the great Maya Angelou once said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Data points and numbers are great but hitting points that generate an emotional response is even better.
For example, if you’re pitching to new clients about growing their social communities and you’ve grown a social audience by say, 50% in the last six months, that’s incredible! Don’t be afraid to share your excitement.
Not every point of your story is going to be exciting. Decide what emotions you want to tap into ahead of time. Are you trying to inspire, inform, engage or entertain your audience? The best presentations combine a little bit of each.
Pump the brakes
While you may feel the need to get through everything as quickly as possible, don’t be afraid to pump the brakes. A lot of people tend to speed up when they’re nervous. Nerves are normal, just remember to slow down, enunciate and take deep breaths.
Take a few moments throughout your presentation to check in with your audience throughout the presentation so they can ask questions or have a point clarified if necessary. If the people you’re presenting to aren’t familiar with an industry term or social media metric, they may need a bit more explanation.
Work out the kinks ahead of time
Practice, practice, practice. Don’t just skim through your deck. Treat your practice runs like they’re the real thing. If possible, present to a friend or coworker you trust to give honest, constructive feedback. The more you rehearse, the more confident and comfortable you’ll feel.
You’ve finished your presentation, but you’re not finished yet. After you present, send your audience and any stakeholders the final deck, remind them about next steps and action items that came out of the presentation, and finally, thank them for their time.
Are you ready to create your next social media presentation? Use our free social media presentation template to get started.
Welcome to the Social Spotlight, where we dive deep into what we love about a brand’s approach to a specific social campaign. From strategy through execution and results, we’ll examine what makes the best brands on social tick — and leave you with some key takeaways to consider for your own brand’s social strategy.
Overview
We’ve said it before (and we live it every day!), but B2B social marketing comes with a set of unique challenges. One of the most daunting is that it can feel like many “best practice,” foundational social tactics just aren’t available to you because your audience is businesses and not consumers. It’s certainly not as straightforward, but taking cues from proven B2C tricks to build your B2B strategy is possible and can be very effective. Take Adobe, makers of the cloud-based software suite that creatives across the globe rely on to bring marketing, advertising, photography and videography work to life. By taking a tried-and-true tactic from the B2C playbook, Adobe has built a social content juggernaut that’s a daily inspiration to its richly diverse audiences.
Many B2C brands rely on user-generated content, or UGC, to supply them with a real-life look at how consumers are interacting with the brand and its products. Ever since Burberry launched The Art of the Trench in 2009, B2C brands have been encouraging (and sometimes incentivizing) their customers to use social to show others how a brand or product fits into their lives. In the Insta-driven landscape of 2020, this is a piece of cake for many B2C brands. But what if your customers are businesses, and your product isn’t something that’s inherently ‘gram-able?
Adobe realized that the key was to focus not on its products as the highlight of UGC, but rather what its products enabled its users to create, achieve and celebrate. By focusing on end users instead of software buyers and opening the brand’s social channels to them to share the inspirational, beautiful and memorable things they created using Adobe programs, the brand was able to create the want from the bottom up. Not to mention, providing a digital home to a community of like-minded professionals who share ideas, feedback and admiration with each other–all in the context of Adobe’s brand.
Other software companies would be wise to look at Adobe’s adoption of B2C tactics as inspiration to rethink their own social approach.
What you can learn
1. Put yourself in your end user’s shoes. We often focus on the needs of the business and how our software products meet them. But what does your product’s end user get out of using your product every day? How does it make them feel, and how can you use social to champion that?
Getting started: Use social to ask your audience what they’re creating with your product or to tell you about how your product helped them do something they’re proud of. Then think about how you can bring those stories to life on social.
2. UGC can mean many things, especially in B2B. Even if your software doesn’t enable beautiful end products like Adobe’s does, you still have the opportunity to let your users speak for your brand.
Getting started: Use a text overlay on relevant visuals to share a quote from a user about how your product helped them do something remarkable.
3. Don’t be afraid of emotion. Too much of B2B marketing is functional, devoid of basic human emotion. Whether you acknowledge it or not, your product makes people feel things when they use it. Maybe it’s elation that they can be more efficient at work, or pride in what they’re able to create. Don’t be afraid to ask them about those feelings–chances are they’re not alone in feeling them, and that groundswell of emotion can define new opportunities for your brand.
Getting started: Interview a group of end users 1:1, either in person, via social, email or on the phone. Ask them about the feelings they encounter in their daily work, and explore together what role your brand and products play in those emotions.
Landing pages are easily one of the most important pieces of your social media marketing strategy, they’re unfortunately easy to overlook.
That’s because marketers are often so laser-focused on attracting customers and followers.
However, what happens to those customers once they click through your promotions? Are they moving through your funnel or are you letting those precious clicks go to waste?
If you’re not 100% sure whether your landing pages are up to snuff, don’t sweat it.
We’ve put together a comprehensive list of social media landing page examples and best practices to inspire you and help boost your conversions.
What is a landing page used for, anyway?
Before we get into the nitty-gritty, let’s break down what a landing page is.
A landing page is a destination page that’s part of a specific marketing campaign or promotion.
When your followers or subscribers click through a promotional link (think: social bio, email link), a landing page is quite literally well, they, land.
Here’s a straightforward example from a TOMS email promo. Upon clicking through the coupon, we’ve brought to the shopping page that’s specific to the promotion in the email.
Note that landing pages are different than generic homepage links. Generally, landing pages include some sort of specific call-to-action such as signing up for a list or purchasing a particular product.
These pages work to guide visitors to take action rather than just “browse.” Also, tracking promotions with landing pages make it easier to attribute behaviors and metrics. This might include clicks, purchases, time spent on page and bounce rate.
Let’s look at a social media landing page examples from Skullcandy. Their trackable Bitly link in their Instagram bio points to a landing page for a particular product. Rather than point visitors to their homepage, they use their Instagram to highlight their latest offer.
After clicking through, customers land on a page for that offer.
See how that works? Brands typically create new landing pages for product launches and new promotions. Over time, companies can understand what types of content and tactics perform well and can more quickly roll out new landing pages by plugging in new copy and creatives.
What makes a “good” landing page?
Hey, “good” question!
Businesses have tons of creative freedom when it comes to putting together their landing pages.
That said, there are some common threads between top-performing pages which we’ve highlighted below.
A good landing page guides visitors from Point A to Point B
No secrets here. Ideally, your landing page should keep visitors reading (and scrolling) as they naturally want to learn more and eventually click through your call-to-action (CTA).
Through elements of design, copy and CTA placement, brands manage to keep readers glued to the page without losing interest.
Below’s a good example from Zenni. The landing page is naturally broken up into sections, with attractive icons and photos of actual people to hold the reader as they educate themselves on the company’s offer.
Rather than hit readers with a wall of text, brands are tasked with coming up with landing pages that find a balance between education, entertainment and usability.
A good landing page isn’t too “busy”
Piggybacking on the last tip, landing pages are the last place you want to overwhelm people via information overload.
Landing pages typically follow the rule of “less is more.” You’ll notice that many of them are minimalist when it comes to copy and color schemes, using only a couple of colors and brief copy to make their offer easy to digest at a glance.
For example, this landing page from Host Gator is a great piece of landing page design inspiration. The page’s rapid-fire points are coupled with a blue and orange color scheme that makes their CTA can’t miss while also being easy on the eyes.
A good landing page is mobile-friendly
Conventional wisdom tells us the majority of web and social traffic is mobile.
Meanwhile, recent social media statistics point to the need to appeal to customers on-the-go.
That’s why your landing pages should be mobile-friendly by default. Responsive design can take care of some of the legwork for you, but any social media landing page in particular needs to be scroll-friendly. The previous two tips can help make that happen.
That doesn’t mean you have to make your landing pages bare-bones, though. For example, this social landing page from Xero is effective while still including product screenshots, video and animations.
15 social media landing page examples (and why they work)
Now, onto the good stuff!
Below are some of the best landing page examples from social media broken down by industry.
And although many of these landing pages look totally different, they manage to get the job done in terms of driving clicks. No matter what you’re selling, these examples can inspire you.
Ecommerce landing pages
As highlighted in our guide to social media for retail, ecommerce landing pages should make the purchasing possible as direct and painless. Your end-game here is to guide shoppers to relevant product pages ASAP.
1. Black Milk Clothing
The beauty of a shoppable feed is that it makes the process of selling on Instagram a cinch. That’s the approach Black Milk takes, with its Instagram landing page serving as a feed of promos and user-generated content. Also, note the email opt-in to gather more information from prospective shoppers.
Not necessarily unique to our other landing page examples, this one also featured a discount pop-up for first-time visitors. Although the use of pop-ups is hotly debated, free shipping pops are still all-the-rage for ecommerce in particular.
2. Liingo
This landing page for a desktop Facebook ad from Liingo is brilliantly designed, separated into three sections as we scroll through. Note the bright orange call-to-action buttons as well as the animation from the “Virtual Try-On” section, both serving to catch the eyes of anybody scrolling through.
3. Beardbrand
Anything you can do to make your landing pages interactive is a plus. That’s exactly what Beardbrand does with its quiz-based landing page.
Upon gathering your email address, the quiz dives into questions to help guide you toward the right products.
Although a quiz might require a bit of legwork on the part of shoppers, taking the time to do so results in personalized product recommendations that require less browsing. Note also that by going through a quiz, your leads provide audience insight by giving you responses about their personal preferences. In short, a win-win.
SaaS landing pages
A crucial piece of any SaaS marketing strategy, landing pages should be straightforward in that they encourage visitors to download or request a demo. However, landing pages for SaaS aren’t always that simple.
4. Sprout Social
Sprout’s Facebook ad landing page is far from suit-and-tie. Featuring a friendly face above-the-fold and language that emphasizes our values and need for connections, we’re looking to prove to prospects that we’re about more than just software.
The green CTA buttons are easy to see here. Meanwhile, video is noted to boost engagement and conversions and is why you’ll see it throughout our landing page examples.
5. Salesforce
Another Facebook ad landing page, Salesforce does a good job of breaking down exactly what their product does in plain English.
Coupled with imagery, actual screenshots and testimonial video below the fold, this landing page does a little bit of everything while providing essential information up-front.
6.Hyke
This Instagram ad landing page presents Hyke as a helpful tool, highlighting money saved without mincing words.
The remainder of the landing page includes social proof, testimonials and crystal clear pricing, while the purple CTA is can’t-miss.
Hospitality and travel landing pages
Simply put, social media for travel is all about scoring bookings. These landing pages highlight how some of the biggest players in the travel industry make it happen.
7. Southwest
Coming from a Twitter video ad, this Southwest landing page is about as simple as they come.
But again, landing pages doesn’t need to be inherently complicated. Shouting “Hey, we’ve got good rates!” with a single, bright call-to-action that helps draw the reader to the natural conclusion to click-through.
8. Four Seasons
If you’re in the travel industry, you know that style points matter. This Instagram landing page from the Four Seasons is minimalist but bold, offering clear call-to-actions which contrast with the rest of the landing page’s text.
9. Disney Vacation Club
Well-organized and stylish, Disney’s landing page features videos and accommodation highlights for visitors who want to learn more than what’s above-the-fold.
Landing pages for courses, courses and guides
From freebies to paid courses, these types of landing pages typically highlight benefits and present themselves as being time-sensitive.
10. Foundr
Foundr’s course landing page sort of feels like an old-school sales page but with some bells and whistles that make it more effective. For example, the offer countdown timer is a classic example of urgency marketing that still works today. Note also its use of video.
Coupled with a ton of data, social proof and testimonials below-the-fold, this busy landing page succeeds in selling itself to skeptics.
As an aside, Foundr promotes the course with a pinned tweet: a smart move for any business looking to promote a static or long-term office while still linking to their homepage via social.
11. Shopify
This landing page represents a style we see quite often for e-books, but this time-tested format works.
Sitting atop accompanying stats and data points, downloading Shopify’s guide doesn’t require any digging here. You know exactly what you’re getting and where to find it.
12. Skillcrush
If you’re promoting a webinar, perhaps the most important piece of your landing page is reinforcing the date and time. Skillcrush manages to do this while also highlighting its host with a human touch. The title and tagline of the webinar are all that’s really necessary to seal the deal for sign-ups.
Charity and nonprofit landing pages
Although social media for nonprofits is less about selling per se, landing pages for charity organizations are centered around driving donations. Here’s how they do it.
13. charity: water
The counter that’s front-and-center here helps highlight who’s contributed, serving as a sort of bandwagon effect for new donors. The clear, static donation box is also a nice touch. A simple color scheme and long-form video make this a clean, professional landing page that gets the job done.
14. UNICEF USA
Not unlike a shoppable Instagram feed, this landing page allows visitors to browse and donate products that correlate with different photos. This is a creative way to encourage donations while also double-dipping your charity-related content.
15. Greenpeace
Stunning imagery and a bright, static opt-in form make this landing page visually striking. The “signatures so far” bad is also a subtle touch to encourage visitors to get involved.
As you can see, there’s a lot of room for creativity when it comes to these landing pages examples. This serves as good news as you can format and design your page based on your brand, all the while ticking the boxes of what makes a page “good”
How to optimize landing pages over time
Feeling inspired and ready to freshen up your landing pages?
Awesome! Your head is in the right place.
But before you consider scrapping your current pages or coming up with new creatives or copy, it’s important to understand what landing page optimization actually looks like.
To wrap things up, let’s talk about how to come up with a baseline for landing page performance and what you can do to give your numbers a must-needed boost.
Track the behavior of your landing page traffic
For starters, start by seeing which of your landing pages are performing well via Google Analytics.
Which pages are consistently attracting new visitors? Is there a specific call-to-action or page which drives the most clicks. You can not only set such goals in GA, but also monitor them over time to make sure they’re ticking upward.
Regardless, having this data available allows you to set expectations and goals as you look to improve your conversion rate.
Also, tools such as Sprout Social can assist in monitoring clicks and conversions via your social media landing pages. With our URL tracker, you can identify and gather analytics for social-specific links. This includes not only bio links but also specific posts and promotions.
A/B test your landing pages
Let’s say you’re ready to roll out a new landing page or want to make some changes to an existing one.
Maybe you want to try a new call-to-action or button placement. Perhaps you want to switch up your color scheme.
With tools like Unbounce, you can start with proven landing page templates and optimize them to your liking. You can also run multiple versions of the same page side-by-side, allowing you to A/B test them to see which one is the “winner.” Regular testing does double duty of refining your pages over time while also ensuring that you’re meeting your own standards in terms of performance.
Make sure your creatives and copy are consistent
A quick tip, but definitely worth mentioning!
Double-check that your and marketing messages are consistent not only across landing pages but also across marketing channels.
For example, creatives (think: imagery, calls-to-action, promotions) should ideally be consistent on your homepage, email and social platforms.
This ensures that your traffic is being sent where they’re supposed to be and likewise isn’t cause for confusion. Someone clicking through an autumn offer shouldn’t wind up on your summer landing page, right?
And with that, we wrap up our guide!
Ready to build better landing pages for your promotions?
Listen: there’s one “right” way to put together a winning landing page.
However, it’s key to understand what effective ones look actually like in the wild.
Hopefully, this list of landing page examples and best practices can help you start brainstorming your next destination page. Any landing page tips or tricks you’d like to share with our readers? How have you increased your conversion rate? Let us know in the comments below!
If you’re looking for a simple solution to organizing and reporting on your social marketing success, check out our toolkit of social templates to level up your day-to-day.
Businesses battle to appear on page 1 of Google search results. Their goal: Get consumers to visit their website and buy.
But, according to a study by Forbes and Yext, only half of consumers believe brands give accurate information in search results.
And 68% of adults in the U.S. say that trust in a brand has “a great deal” or “a lot” of influence on their decision when making a big purchase, according to another study by SurveyMonkey.
Ranking in Google search results isn’t enough. Your content also needs to quickly create trust.
Lee Odden — international speaker, B2B marketing strategist, and CEO of digital marketing agency Top Rank Marketing — joined AWeber’s FWD: Thinking Show to explain how to earn trust and website traffic with SEO and content marketing.
His approach: Connect with influential people who have attention, credibility, and authority. These influencers should be able to produce and promote content their fans — and your potential customers — will love.
“Consumers trust content from influencers more than content that ranks in search. They even trust influencers more than they trust friends’ opinions,” shares Odden.
Collaborating with influencers on content not only makes your brand easier to find, it increases your credibility. And it’s easy to start, says Odden. “The search terms you want to rank for will be the same keywords you use to find influential partners.”
Watch the episode on-demand to hear more of Lee’s thoughts on earning trust through optimizing your marketing channels.
For more than 20 years, AWeber has supported entrepreneurs and small businesses with powerfully-simple email marketing solutions. Get your free trial today.
Conspiracy theorists are infecting YouTube and Facebook with bogus theories that 5G mobile internet is responsible for the coronavirus. One prominent anti-5G Facebook group has shared a number of erroneous posts, claiming 5G is the culprit behind a virus that has infected more than 80,000 people worldwide. Its creator, Dutch “UFO researcher” John Kuhles writes: “I challenge anyone to watch this video at least twice and claim there is nothing to it, [or] it is all a coincidence. Yeah right. Certainly not.” The video Kuhles is referring to resides on the YouTube page of a conspiracy theorists named Dana Ashlie. In…
