Marketing meme

Liking Isn’t As Instant As It Used To Be

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Instagram has announced that it will hide likes for “some” users in the United States, its CEO Adam Mosseri said on Friday, November 8th. In an attempt to stamp down on competitive pressure on the platform, like counts won’t be displayed to followers anymore and won’t appear in the public feed. Instagram is not getting rid of likes altogether. As a user, you will still be able to see how often a post has been liked.

Here are the questions we’ve received so far, with answers below:

Why is Instagram doing this?

Mosseri has said the change is to ‘depressurize youth’ which, in our opinion is a parallel attempt to create a non-judgmental space for authentic expression. We think this change will be extremely beneficial to lessen cyberbullying and improve cultural mental health. We have friends and colleagues who have said they will post more frequently once this change is in effect. The reason? Users will have the ability to post impulsively without the fear of “low likes.”

What does this mean for Business profiles and influencers?

We don’t know yet, but we do know that both will need to focus on increasing followers and producing excellent content. Of course, there are some downsides to this, but overall the change will diversify the consumer’s buying decision by alleviating white noise and replacing it with transparency. The buyer-seller relationship won’t be as socially influenced and more direct.

The next question we’ve received is:

“…How will I even get in front of consumers and differentiate myself as a brand?”

This is the question being asked across America as we patiently wait to learn more.

 

Our Chief Revenue Officer, Jamie Gonzales, is a Social Media Marketing Expert and has worked with hundreds of clients to improve their presence across all social media platforms. She is passionate about social media and its positive impact if done correctly. She loves to educate our clients and keep them informed on news and updates. Watch her video to learn the latest announcement from Instagram!

 

Marketing meme

Meme Marketing Is Here to Stay

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What is a Meme?

You’ve probably heard this word being thrown around, particularly in the social media realm, but what does it really mean? By definition, a meme is an image, video, or phrase with text then shared across social media. Typically, memes carry a hidden meaning referring to something socially or culturally relatable.

Studies have shown that a person typically spends over two hours per day on social media, constantly surrounded by content, including eye-catching memes. This is an enormous, ever-evolving market that advertisers would be foolish not to tap into.

Why Use Memes?

Memes have the ability to connect with a universal feeling, humor. When a consumer discovers a meme they find funny, they immediately want to share it on social media. This causes a kind of chain reaction. One person shares a funny meme, then their friend shares it, then on and on. In a matter of no time, the meme has gone viral.  People love laughing and love sharing those laughs with friends even more. Memes can sometimes be so profoundly relatable that consumers can’t resist sharing them.

Resonating with consumers, and more specifically your target audience, is digital marketing 101. Memes are a perfect medium for reaching those audiences. Memes are capable of going past branded content and reaching an audience on a more entertaining or even personal level. Marketing research has shown that the percentage of engagement with memes has the potential to surpass engagement of standard photos or videos on social media. For example, a study was conducted on Chipotle Mexican Grill’s social media to see which had a further reach and stronger engagement, memes or regular content. The results concluded meme posts reached over two million more people than regular content, leading to an effective rate of 33% more than general content.

Memes Are Not Just a Trend!

Critics may say meme marketing is just a trend and will disappear from marketers’ eyes as fast as they came about, but we are here to tell you this is not the case. Memes are like fine wine; they only get better and evolve with time. The use of memes in social media has not plateaued nor decreased since their debut; however, advertisers and marketers are just scratching the surface when it comes to utilizing them for their brands.

Looking for a digital marketing team in the New Orleans area at the forefront of all the latest social media trends? Contact Velocity Digital Advertising today. Our experts will keep your brand up-to-date with the latest and greatest digital marketing movements.

YouTube computer graphic

YouTube Advertising & Your Brand

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Everyone knows YouTube. You’d have to be living under a rock not to. People spend hours watching an array of content including music videos, tutorials, and so much more. Since the first video upload in 2005 to today, YouTube has become a global phenomenon. So much so, in fact, consumers now watch over 1 billion hours of YouTube videos a day, that’s more than Netflix and Facebook videos combined.

With all this content being pushed out in front of so many people, it seems this would be a great medium for advertisers to get their brand out, right? Correct! Advertisers have a gigantic audience pool to choose from. In fact, YouTube has over 1.9 billion users logged in monthly and is the second most popular social media platform. YouTube is also the world’s second largest search engine as well as the second most visited site after Google.

With such a large audience pool to choose from, how do advertisers sift through and find the right audience to target? Well, another benefit of video advertising campaigns on YouTube is the immense targeting abilities. General targeting options include pinpoint location targeting, age, gender, language, parental status, and household income. However, with the power of the Google Display Network, targeting can get even more detailed. For instance, advertisers can target certain placements and content as well as certain audiences with an affinity for your brand. Advertisers can also target by in-market audience as well as certain life events. The combinations are endless!

YouTube video campaigns also offer a number of different video and non-video formats that can be utilized according to the objectives of an advertiser’s campaign. Is the campaign objective brand awareness? Is the objective product consideration? What about sales, leads, or website traffic? There are definitely formats for that.  Formats include TrueView in-stream ads, where viewers can skip a video after five seconds. One benefit of these videos is that the advertiser only pays when the viewer has watched at least 30 seconds or the entirety of the video if the video is under 30 seconds. Other formats include non-skippable pre-roll ads, non-video discovery format, and short, six second bumper ads. Along with the correct targeting as well as the right formats, advertisers are sure to get their brand in front of the right audience.

Are you looking to get your brand in front of the right audience on one of the largest social media networks on the planet? Contact the Velocity team. Our experts have successfully launched multiple YouTube video ad campaigns with phenomenal results! Learn how Velocity can help your brand today!

2018 American Excellence Award

Velocity Agency receives 2018 American Excellence Award

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Here at Velocity, we strive to hold the highest standards in the industry. From our start in 2012, we have worked extremely hard to be the best in the business! We are so proud to receive this award from the US Institute of Trade & Commerce!

 

 

“March 8th 2019 –  Velocity Agency has been selected for the 2018 American Excellence Award amongst all its peers and competitors by the US Institute of Trade & Commerce (USITC).

Each year the USITC conducts business surveys and industry research to identify companies that have achieved demonstrable success in their local business environment and industry category. They are recognized as having enhanced the commitment and contribution of small businesses through service to their customers and community. Companies of this caliber enhance the consumer driven stature that USITC strives to recognize.

Velocity Agency has consistently demonstrated a high regard for upholding business ethics and company values. This recognition by USITC marks a significant achievement as an emerging leader within various competitors and is setting benchmarks that the industry should follow.

As part of the industry research and business surveys, various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the selected companies in each category. This research is part of an exhaustive process that encapsulates a year long immersion in the business climate of its industry.

About USITC

The USITC is a leading authority on researching, evaluating and recognizing companies across a wide spectrum of industries that meet its stringent standards of excellence. It has spearheaded the idea of independent enterprise and entrepreneurial growth allowing businesses of all sizes to be recognized locally and encouraged globally.

Particular emphasis is given to meeting and exceeding industry benchmarks for customer service, product quality and ethical practices. Industry leading standards and practices have been developed and implementation of the same has been pioneered by the dedicated efforts of the business community and commerce leadership.

This isn’t our first award! Learn more about our recognized success here.

 

Five Types of Content

Five Types of Content Every Brand Should Post on Instagram

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Creating a cohesive Instagram brand is becoming more and more important in the world of social media marketing. Learning how to build your Instagram can still be a challenge and that’s why you need the social media team at Velocity Agency on your side! Here are five types of content that every brand should be posting to Instagram:

Content That Communicates Your Personality

The line between professional and personal on Instagram is beginning to blur because audiences love to see the faces behind the brand! Try posting content that allows your audience to know who you are. You can even include facts about yourself in your caption!

Content That Shows Off Your Brand Values

Always try and include things that you care most about and things that influence how you run your business. When it comes to your brand, you want to make sure that you show your audience that it’s not all about a sale. For example, if your brand helps a charity, you want to include that on your IG feed.

Content That Tells Your Story

Every brand has a story and a journey. Think about how you can put your story into your message. This could be anything such as posting a picture of your humble beginnings for your next #throwbackthursday. You can even put your story in your Instagram bio.

Content That Offers Advice

Showing your audience how you or your products are successful will definitely garnish an audience. This is why  nutrition and food influencers can build followers so easily by sharing recipes.

Content Promoting Your Services

Now we have come full circle, and of course, you still want to show your audience that you have a service to provide! Make sure that your feed isn’t bombarding visitors with promotions but sprinkling promotions through your content.

Here at Velocity Agency, we know how to show your brand in the best light! If you need help with your Instagram, contact us today! You can learn more about our social media team and experience here

 

tracking Facebook phone calls

Moe Questions, Moe Discoveries.

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Moe Ahsan, our digital marketing manager, is always researching and trying to strengthen our company. Recently, through the power of research and deduction, he has solved another digital marketing mystery behind Facebook ads.

Facebook is one of the best social media platforms for businesses and advertisers looking to reach a large and fairly engaged audience. Every day there are hundreds to millions of campaigns running on Facebook for brands large and small. Each one of these campaigns has various objectives, some of the objectives give a call option where marketers can add a “call now” button to their ads. This feature is extremely useful for businesses that see their highest conversion rates through phone calls, as is the case for some of our clients. Recently, Moe and Velocity’s digital marketing team started running multiple campaigns that with a reach objective including a “call now” option on the ads, allowing potential new clients to call directly from Facebook. However, this raised, what we discovered, a big question: How do we track the phone calls made on Facebook? 

“At Velocity, we pride ourselves on being a result-driven firm; for each and every one of our clients, we rely heavily on data and analytics to determine the next steps forward and how to best achieve the highest ROI (Return on Investment). After becoming aware of the lack of Facebook’s ability to measure phone calls, it was imperative for us to find a solution, so I decided to deep dive and see if there was a way to measure phone calls directly through Facebook. I contacted our Facebook representative who also did not have an official Facebook solution to track phone calls, besides maybe setting up a vanity number just for Facebook or using a third-party software which can cost hundreds of dollars. I decided to find an alternative since vanity numbers and third-party software are not always viable options. In my research, I studied the definition of a Link Click and how it differs from a Click.”

Link Clicks according to Facebook are “the number of clicks on links within the ad that led to destinations or experiences, on or off Facebook.” This means that since calls are technically defined as an experience and sometimes a destination within the ad, a link click could be utilized as an estimation of phone calls on an ad. Moe called our Facebook rep to confirm his theory, and it was proven correct after he discussed it with his superiors. Surprisingly, according to the Facebook reps, no one else had thought of this as long as they had worked there as most agencies encourage their clients to buy vanity numbers or use third-party software after marking them up. The Velocity team believes in providing the highest ROI for our clients and therefore we thought we would share this and help small businesses and anyone else who could benefit from this. Do you have any new discoveries in digital marketing? Share them in the comments below!

careers for the disabled

Startup Work for You as a Disabled Parent

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careers for the disabled

 

Here at Velocity Agency, we believe in careers for the disabled. We know that many people with disabilities face ableism and discrimination every day. We believe that if you dream big enough, you can achieve it! We are so lucky to have a special person on our team: Chase Treadway. Chase has faced many obstacles and still produces amazing results for us as our web designer. Learn more about his story and how his disability launched him into his digital marketing career here. This week, we would like to share an article from Patrick Young, the founder of AbleUSA. We appreciate his work towards enabling those who are disabled to work. Read more below.

Being a parent can leave us with little time, and having disabilities can complicate things even more. One of the benefits of starting your own business is the ability to control your schedule. If you’re looking to start working for yourself, here is what you need to know to be successful.

Get Funding

If you need some extra funding to help you start, don’t overlook government grants that may be available to you. Make sure that any grants you apply for are specific to your needs. Some cover the social aspects of business, such as training, while others are focused on technology. Check with your local small business association to see what they may have available. You may be able to get a grant to help further your education through a university or other school. If nothing else, there are loans you might qualify for, so don’t overlook those options as well. Check out the US Small Business Administration’s (SBA) website, as they have a comprehensive guide for people with disabilities.

Be Honest

If you want to be a successful business person, you need to be honest with yourself. This sort of career is not for everyone, and it isn’t going to make everyone happy. Do you have the characteristics of someone who was born to run a business? Are you self-motivated? Can you give 100 percent of your free time, every day, to this new business? How are you at solving problems quickly? You need to have high amounts of energy and always be ready to work. One of the benefits of being a parent is you’ll most likely have more patience than the average adult. You’ll need plenty, and a positive outlook, to stay afloat as a small business owner. You also need to be able to budget well and have passion for whichever field you choose.

Do Your Research

Start by making a business plan. What do others do well, and how can you do it better or in a new way? Figure out what you’ll need to at least break even over a period of time. Remember, what you don’t make initially will need to be made up as your business progresses. Get as much advice from others who have had success as you can. SCORE, a nonprofit, can help you find others in your field with experience who will act as mentors. You’ll also need to decide what sort of online presence will be best. Depending on your direction, you may want a website. You’ll need some sort of social media account, and you’ll be better served if you have several accounts across multiple platforms.

How to Attract Customers

The first way to attract clients is to figure out just whom you’re trying to attract. What sort of client will use your business? Why will they use it? What can you offer them that they cannot get elsewhere, or what will be pulling them in from others who offer a similar product or service? You’ll need a good marketing approach. Will you advertise through email, on websites with banners as pay-per-click ads, or will you do direct mail? As a disabled parent, finding time to make fliers and send out envelopes can be difficult. Starting online may be the best way to get word out for your business initially. You can bring in customers (and build a competitive advantage) by creating an attractive logo for your business. You can use an online business logo generator to come up with some ideas. 

Once you have customers, ensure that they are happy clients who will want to rave about your business. If you meet your customers in person, be sure you always arrive at least a few minutes early to wherever you’ve agreed to meet; if you have a home office where you’ll host customers, give it a professional feel by having a designated entrance that doesn’t require them to walk through your home to have a sit-down with you. Give incentives to leave reviews on your various social media platforms, which will be especially important early on as you establish yourself. Not only can happy clients be used as references for others, but they may become repeat consumers who are loyal to your new company.

It takes a good deal of courage to start a business, especially when your time is already stretched thin. Being a disabled parent can be difficult, but being in control of your own schedule can be the best way to get everything done. With the right research and investment opportunities, you can fulfill your business ambitions.

 

No Pass Interference

The No Pass Interference | A Marketable Moment

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No Pass Interference

It was a letdown that the whole city felt immediately when the Saints lost due to a no pass interference call on the Rams. In the midst of the loss, there have been petitions, suggested lawsuits, and even other states putting up billboards stating “Saints were robbed.” Outside of that, many local businesses in New Orleans have lost big time as well, while others jumped on the opportunity to use the sad event as a way to market to their consumers. Velocity Agency knows how to seize opportunities whether the circumstances are bad or good. You ALWAYS have an opportunity to reach your consumers. Here are five ways the Saints loss affected local businesses.

Black & Gold Sports Shop

Pam Randazza, owner of Black & Gold sports shop had already pre-printed NFC Champion New Orleans Saints hats and shirts so that they could be bought immediately by overjoyed fans.

Destination Management Inc

An entire month of hard work was put towards creating Super Bowl Packages for Destination Management, a well-known travel agency. In fact, 100 people had already signed up.

Dorignac’s

Dorignac’s would have seen a massive sales increase through selling food for cookouts, but there was already many Super bowl Sunday sains-themed items in the works.

Everyone knows that New Orleans has a way of turning any bad happening into something humorous. Many local businesses went straight to turning their tears into money.

Haydel’s Bakery

This bakery was baking up some major comfort food to ease the pain of the missed pass interference call that saints fans say cost the team the NFC Championship. The bakery began selling No ref cookies to poke fun at Bill Vinovich. Now, everyone wants to take a bite out of the referee. They also baked cookies with a blindfolded cellphone that said: “Missed Call, Who Dat.”

Louisiana Family Eyecare

A local eye doctor in Covington, LA issued the following Facebook statement. “We will GLADLY provide no-cost eye exams to all NFL officials prior to next season to prevent the atrocity that occurred tonight, we would hate for someone else to feel our pain.”

Here at Velocity Agency, we love the spirit of our city and our home. If you are looking for a marketing team that will take advantage of any situation to highlight your brand, contact Velocity Agency today!

Netflix Data Harvesting

Netflix Data Harvesting and The Future of Interactive TV

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Ok, so we have talked about Netflix Data Harvesting, but what about Interactive TV? Black Mirror is one of the most popular Netflix shows out right now and they just released a movie of sorts. On December 28th, Bandersnatch was released and has revolutionized the way that we stream tv. It stands as one of the first attempts at narrative-driven gameplay.

Instead of passively watching the movie, you get to chose as the viewer what the main character does next. At first, the choices seem to be simple ones such as what type of cereal you will eat for breakfast. As the movie goes along, the choices get deeper and darker.

Many experts believe that the choices that you made during the time that you watched Bandersnatch has been collected. We already know that Netflix keeps a log of the type of shows that you watch and uses that information to recommend content to you. So, how will they use this data to their advantage.

In September of 2018, Netflix had accumulated 137.1 million subscribers who were plugged into the recommendation algorithm. Users are in fact more likely to watch programs that have been recommended to you. This changes how you perceive the world. The same goes for when you are using social media. Facebook’s algorithms delivers content to you that they know you will enjoy which limits you to the other content.

The irony of it all is that Black Mirror is all about big data having control of their audience yet is using it right before our very own eyes. As the average consumer watches Netflix mostly every day, it is no wonder that they would take advantage of data harvesting through monitoring streaming. Bandersnatch might be the first of its’ kind but it signals a change in the way that we are watching TV in 2019.


As ratings on Netflix have gone through the roof, Netflix has now announced that they will be raising their rates and many consumers have declared they will be abandoning ship. Netflix will increase the price of its most popular plan 18% to $13 a month from $11. That plan allows users to stream from two screens at the same time. The most basic plan, which allows a single stream in standard definition, will go up one dollar, or 13%, to $9 a month.

Bird Box

The Success of Bird Box and The Suspected Army of Twitter Bots.

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We hate to start the new year off with spreading gossip, but this one is worth talking about. If you haven’t been living under a rock lately, you’ve heard about the movie Bird Box: a post-apocalyptic thriller starring Sandra Bullock. Conspiracies have been circulating on Twitter about the astounding amount of Bird Box memes. Hundreds of memes that became viral were coming from accounts with less than 50 followers.

Some marketing experts have speculated that Netflix has created a team of memers and bots to boost promotion of the film. Regardless of if Netflix was launching memes or not as a way to promote their original film, it is obvious the memes made it successful.

Most people spend more time on social media today than they do watching Television. For a brand to stand out amidst an ocean of other brands, meme marketing has been proven effective. Memes can visually associate their brand with an amusing video or image that is humorous and catchy and which helps enhance the brand’s image.

However, as successful as meme marketing can be, brands can make the wrong steps in meme marketing. Brands should know that being provocative may not always be the best way to make an impact on an audience. A meme is not supposed to be an advertisement or promote a brand in an obvious way. A meme should engage users by being funny, clever or irrelevant.

When it comes to Bird Box, Netflix has shown us that data-driven programming combined with social media buzz has led to it being more successful in the first week than any other film. Another genius aspect of the meme marketing behind Bird Box is the timing. More people were on their phones during the Holiday season than ever due to lack of work and being at home with their families.

Since Bird Box was a trending topic on the internet, more and more memes were made and they are still rolling out. Here at Velocity Agency, we make sure that our staff stays on top of all the trends that make marketing campaigns successful. We can learn a lot from Netflix as it continues to roll out with more and more original content. Do you believe the rumors about their twitter bots?