In order to take maximum advantage of Instagram and its useful features, marketers are advised to come up with an infallible strategy to use this platform as a revenue-generating tool. If you are looking for some amazing hacks to generate sales from Instagram, here are some easy ways to gain brand visibility and achieve your revenue goals.

Related Read: How Can You Get Verified on Instagram?

Post-High-Quality Images

Your followers want to know what your brand is all about. It is prudent to post compelling and creative images that beautifully highlight your brand and the quality of your products or services. Make sure that the images you post align with your brand strategy to paint an authentic picture of your brand. Choose a color scheme and stick to it. Don’t switch between different colors or visuals. Remember, consistency is key. Make sure your brand’s visual representation is great; it will create a positive first impression on your potential customers.

Harness the Power of Instagram Shopping Feature

If you are an e-commerce brand, you can make the most of Instagram shopping feature to help users shop for their favorite products within the app. It makes shopping easier and hassle-free for users while allowing brands to directly sell through Instagram. By using the Instagram shopping feature, you will have an option to mark products that you want to sell with a shopping icon.

By using the Instagram shopping feature, you can increase sales, strengthen your relationship with your customers and create an awesome user experience for your followers.

Take Advantage of Instagram Ads

Instagram advertising is a great approach that can help you reach a wider audience. It is a great tactic for both small businesses and established brands that want to promote their products and services to their target customers. One of the best benefits of running Instagram ads is that it allows you to reach customers who are actually interested in doing business with you.

Let’s Look at Lacoste – the French sportswear company that is famous for its classic Fit Polo shirts emblazoned with the green crocodile logo. The brand created an attention-grabbing Instagram ad to show their audience that they can also create high-quality home products.

By harnessing the power of Instagram Stories, the brand ads persuade users to tap and swipe through cards to check the latest collection of bath and bedding. The brand showcases its product range by incorporating vibrant colors, eye-catching imagery and attractive features of their products. Lacoste received 2x more ROI, 61% increase in click-through rate (CTR) and a 32% lower cost-per-click (CPC).

Instagram Retargeting Campaigns

Instagram is the ultimate place to run your retargeting campaigns and provide users who have visited your website with relevant ads. When you deliver ads based on their previous interaction and behavior, it can make it easier for users to complete a purchase process. In addition, you can also target users and persuade them to view your products or service pages.

The Instagram remarketing campaign allows you to promote the right product or service to the right audience at the right time. When users visit your website and bounce off without making a purchase, they will be delivered an ad that promotes related products that they searched for on your website. You need to install Facebook Pixel on your site or app, upload products, and the ads will automatically be delivered based on the users’ interests and needs. Facebook’s intelligent backend system identifies the most relevant content and shows the right product to the right person with dynamic and creative targeting.

Promote Your Brand usingInfluencer Marketing

Instagram is an effective platform to partner with industry influencers to reach potential customers and increase your sales. Influencer marketing is the most genuine and reliable advertising technique as people prefer to purchase products from brands that have been endorsed by influencers, trusted bloggers and celebrities.

By partnering with industry influencers, you can take your Instagram marketing campaign to a whole new level and successfully achieve your revenue goals.

Create Interesting Instagram Stories

Brands can take advantage of Instagram stories to generate more sales and engagement. There is a wide array of content that brands can post to their Instagram Stories. From running polls to showcasing testimonials, sharina g brand story to promoting company culture, featuring behind-the-scenes and UGC, partnering with influencers to introducing your team and promoting your upcoming product or company event, your marketing team can brainstorm hundreds of ideas to create interesting Instagram Stories.

Use the Right Hashtags

Believe it or not, using the right hashtags can help brands extend their reach, increase brand awareness and audience engagement. Creating an effective hashtag strategy is important for achieving your marketing goals. In fact, choosing the right hashtags can make your brand discoverable on Instagram while allowing users to find the relevant content they want to see.

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#Berlin! Did you join us for our recent #DesignBetter or #DesignPlus Drinks events? Take a look at photos from our visit and learn how you can join us next time (link in bio)

A post shared by InVision App (@invisionapp) on May 8, 2018 at 10:01am PDT

If you are aiming to attract more target audience and double your sales, start using the hashtags that are relevant to your services and products. You can experiment with different hashtag combinations to attract more users.

Final Thoughts

Instagram provides your brand with a great opportunity to differentiate itself from competitors, market your products or services and increase your chances of conversions. It allows marketers to tap into a wider audience base, express their brand, and generate more profits. A professional digital marketing agency in Dubai will help you create an awesome Instagram strategy that you can follow to persuade people to prefer your brand over others and achieve your sales goals.

The post Smart Hacks to Achieve Your Sales Goals with Instagram Marketing appeared first on Branex Official Blog.

Whether you want to give your career a significant boost, brush up your skills, or simply learn the basics, there are many online web design courses available that you can take online. These courses will not only help you improve your skills but also keep you up-to-date with the latest design trends and technologies.

Branex – a professional web design Dubai company – is featuring seven best online web design courses that can help you get to grips with different aspects of web design and development. Whether you are a beginner, an intermediate or expert, these courses will hone your web design skills and help you implement the latest technologies in your web design project.

Let’s get started.

1. Udemy Web Design Courses

Whether you want to learn JavaScript programming, WordPress theme development, landing page design, conversion rate optimization, CSS, user experience design, HTML, or Photoshop, enrolling in Udemy web design courses can help you learn the various facets of web design under one umbrella. You will find web design courses on myriad topics that can help you improve your skill set and advance your career.

Enrolling in Udemy web design courses can help you build responsive, functional and interactive websites. These courses help you learn how to develop a highly-convertible landing page design that generates more leads. With Udemy web design courses, you can learn important design rules to create intuitive user interfaces. You will also learn how to create stellar websites, and functional apps with Adobe Illustrator CC as well as learn cross-device compatibility, CSS3, and HTML5.

2. Bolc Web Design Training Courses

If you want to learn how to research, design and build modern web-applications, enrolling in theBolcprogram is a worthwhile option. Bolc is the first online coding boot camp that helps you learn the essential skills and techniques required to pursue a rewarding career in the web design industry. Bolc’s online training programs in design and development are a perfect combination of written and video lessons that make it easier to learn web design and development, anywhere, anytime. The best part of enrolling in Bolc’s web design and development training courses is the expert instruction and guidance you receive. You can also join their weekly group discussions and take three classes per week.

3. LinkedIn Learning Web Design Courses

If you want to stay abreast of the trailblazing web design trends and master CSS, HTML and JavaScript, LinkedIn Learning training programs are your go-to instructors. From responsive web design to interactive web content, web standards to typography, you will find more than 500 training courses on a wide array of topics, inculcating you in the ins and outs of web design and development industry. These courses will help you learn the latest features of Adobe Animate CC, Flash professional, PHP, React, Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, WordPress and more. Get to grips with web design flow, GitHub for designers, designing and testing, Google Web Designer fundamentals and a lot more.

4. Coursera Web Design Courses

Coursera’s responsive web design course is tailored to cultivate skills required to develop an intuitive, responsive, and professional website. You will learn how to create wireframe mockups and webpages. By enrolling in Coursera’s online course, you will also brush up essential skills, such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and responsive web design. Furthermore, it educates you on advanced topics such as animation, APIs, data visualization, front-end coding, and more.

5. Skill Crush Web Design Course

Enrolling in a Skill Crush Web Designer Blueprint course will allow you to learn all the skills you need to become an expert designer. You don’t need any previous design or coding experience to join in the course. From web design fundamentals to HTML and CSS, Git, GitHub and Command line to coding responsive websites, you will learn how to design and code your own responsive websites. By successfully completing the Skill Crush web designer blueprint course, you will gain an official web design certificate that helps you showcase the skills in your resume, helping you impress your future employers and secure a lucrative job.

6. Pluralsight Web Design Courses

Enrolling in Pluralsight web design courses is a great choice to learn valuable skills to pursue a career in the web design industry. Whether you want to learn HTML5, graphic design, CSS, ASP.NET, Illustrator CC, mobile first responsive web design, Web API design, or A/B testing for web design, you will find a number of courses on different topics.

7. Udacity

It is another useful resource to get web designing certification online. Udacity courses are not only available for beginners and intermediate but even experts that are focused on teaching specialized skills to help people in the web design and development to take their careers to the next level. Courses are focused on HTML and CSS Syntax, responsive web design fundamentals, artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, AI programming with Python, natural language processing and more.

Concluding Thoughts

If you want to give your UI/UX design career a significant boost, enrolling in any one of these courses is a good choice. These seven best web design courses, certifications, and training programs will help you learn and excel at web designing and development, enabling you to create more feature-rich and aesthetically pleasing websites.

The post 7 Best Online Web Design Courses to Polish Your Technical Skill Set [2019] [UPDATED] appeared first on Branex Official Blog.

TikTok, formerly known as Musical.ly is a short-form video app that is gaining massive popularity all over the globe. The Chinese video-sharing app, also known as Douyin, has received more than 80 million downloads in the U.S. and 795 million installs across the world. It is one of the most popular apps of 2018 that allows users to create 15-second videos. The fastest-growing app is ranking on top in the Google Play Store and third on the Apple App Store.

Lip synch contests and hashtag challenges have become the platform’s vernacular, and Bytedance is is highly driven by artificial intelligence, translating into the fact that the algorithm learns and adapts quickly and is tailored to each users’ individual tastes. This is how TikTok is able to churn out an endless stream of interactive and highly riveting content every time a user logs in. Genuine and unedited videos and lack of sponsored ads are what’s drawing the young adults away from Instagram (where their parents probably have an account by now).

With that in mind, TikTok is providing a massive marketing ground—specially to brands that market to young people.

How to Use TikTok?

Whether you care to believe it or not, TikTok is the next Instagram that can promote your business and give your brand a significant boost. To make the most of TikTok, marketers need to clearly understand how to use it to their benefit. It works like any other social media app with followers who like and comment on content. Users can record a video clip of 15 seconds. You can use relevant hashtags to make your content discoverable. To make your videos more interesting and fun, you can use default editing and sound tools, filters, stickers, and interesting animation features. The Duet feature has made this app extremely interesting which allows users to create lip-syncing videos.

According to Josh Tucker, Senior Director, Social, and Digital at New York-based Endeavor, “The content is driven by creativity and community. It’s fast-paced, truly snackable, and fun. The new camera tools and music integrations are refreshing and creator-friendly. As a result, it has energized a new wave of young creators. The focus is on the community — engagement and challenges are inclusive and positive. I haven’t seen brands be successful yet, but in order to do so they will need to be authentic to the platform with natively created-content, and I believe an influencer approach will be the key to early success.

How Can Businesses Use TikTok to Promote their Products and Services?

More than 500 million people use TikTok which has made this platform a larger marketing platform than Pinterest and Twitter. This is why many established brands have started experimenting with promotions on the app to give their brand a significant boost. Businesses that are targeting millennials and generation Z who value individuality and authenticity can tap into the power of TikTok. If you create content that specifically targets this specific demographic, it will become a valuable marketing tool for your agency. You can show the human side of your brand by using TikTok and to make your brand look more authentic and transparent.

You have a few choices for marketing on TikTok: generate original content, jump on influencer marketing, create challenges or leverage hashtags.

From baking to makeup videos, TikTok is full of people who are always up to something. There are some huge TikTok influencers in these spaces—believe it or not, some have millions of subscribers. These influencers have amassed a huge following and some of their audiences want to buy from you. Why not partner with them and craft a stellar influencer marketing campaign. You can pay them to promote your brand subtly in some of their videos, or better yet, use your products on-camera. Once you get your products in front of new eyes, you will see your consumer base grow. One in three consumers trust an influencer’s opinion more than what a brand says, so use that to your advantage.

The other way is to fabricate your own content. Making your own content can be a powerful TikTok marketing strategy. However, it will take lots of resources, creativity, and time. TikTok is largely based on viral content, so your content needs to be able to make them watch twice. Otherwise, it will likely be ignored by TikTok users.

Similarly, A lot of promotions are leveraging TikTok’s “challenge” concept by creating their own challenges and even going the extra mile by providing new music clips for users to interact with that could win some of the users big prizes.

For instance, in Malaysia, McDonald collaborated with TikTok to create a contest called the #BigMacTikTok Challenge. To participate, TikTok users would have to dance to one of the many pre-recorded #BigMacTikTok music clips that were uploaded to the service and submit their entry via the official McDonald’s mobile app. All entries won a free Big Mac, and a few select winners danced away with actual cash prizes.

Integrating TikTok into your Digital Marketing Strategy – Is It a Good Idea?

Currently, there is no standard method for monetization, which makes the user experience smoother and more enjoyable. For brands, it is the right time to start creating a userbase and take the maximum advantage of organic advertising tactics to promote their products and services. Simply create a challenge for your followers using your product and watch the responses flow.

Keep in mind that TikTok doesn’t allow brands to display sponsored ads, however, digital marketers can create authentic content and promote their brand organically. Brands can harness the power of influencer marketing on TikTok to increase brand awareness and promote their products and services. In addition, you can make the most of user-generated content and team up with content creators to engage with TikTok users and create an authentic brand image.

There is no denying that TikTok is an interesting platform that brands can use to elicit emotions. If you are seriously considering using this new platform to strengthen your marketing efforts, have a look at these examples for your inspiration.

Guess – a fashion-forward apparel brand launched the #InMyDenim challenge on TikTok that prompts users to post videos with the hashtag. The hashtag campaign is specifically tailored for young demographics who love to share their images and videos on social media. The #InMyDenimcampaign received more than 34 million total views which are the biggest achievement for the brand. Guess was the first fashion brand that partnered with TikTok to launch its first branded content in the U.S in an organic way. With the help of branded hashtags, your brand can also launch a successful marketing campaign.

@jimmyfallon took on the #tumbleweedchallenge on TikTok! Check it out https://t.co/imkG0gy6Vh pic.twitter.com/SVsaH4fVUV

— TikTok (@tiktok_us) November 9, 2018

Jimmy Fallon, the host of NBC Tonight Show, created the #TumbleweedChallenge on TikTok which has generated more than 19 million views. In this challenge, people have to drop to the ground and roll around like a tumbleweed when they hear a sound. Fallon and his team received more than 8,000 videos in response to the challenge.

Here is another example.

Haidilao – China’s biggest hotpot restaurant chains have come up with a unique idea. They encouraged food lovers to create and post videos of their soup bases and dipping sauces by using a number of ingredients. It is a great strategy to generate online and offline user engagement.

Is Your Brand Ready to Experiment with this Innovative andWidely Popular App?

Since TikTok is still in its infancy, brands can try innovative techniques to take the maximum advantage of the platform. If executed smartly, a TikTok marketing campaign has a real potential to get the attention of a massive user base. TikTok is growing at a faster pace; it is a great idea to use this effective marketing platform that will definitely bring results that you never thought possible.

The post TikTok – How Can Marketers Capitalize on this Video-Sharing App appeared first on Branex Official Blog.

It’s no wonder that sensations and emotions have a profound impact on the customers’ purchase decision. Consumers usually make buying decisions based on the sensory pleasure that reminds them of a particular brand.

According to some studies, decisions customers make about which brand to trust and which product to buy are truly driven by their subconscious and emotional factors. Consumers decide which brands deserve their commitment based on what they see, read and feel about them.

In today’s fierce business world, businesses need to come up with some out-of-the-box marketing strategies to encourage people to convert and drive sales. Online marketers should develop brand campaigns that develop brand awareness and evoke the emotions of the customers. With sensory marketing, you can appeal to customers’ senses and build a strong relationship with them. By giving the buyer a great experience, you can create brand loyalty and an impressive brand image.

Here’s why brands should implement sensory marketing in their brand strategy, how to make the most of it and some awesome sensory marketing examples for your inspiration.

The Science of Sensory Marketing

Sensory marketing is all about connecting with your customers on both a conscious and subconscious level. It is not new in the digital marketing field. Many established brands such as Coca-Cola have been implementing this strategy for long and taking their brand marketing to a whole new level. The ultimate goal of sensory marketing is to engage all the five senses of your customers with your marketing techniques. Brands are using sensory marketing as a psychological way of influencing customer behavior and purchase decision with the end goal of generating more sales.

Implement Sensory Marketing inYour Brand Strategy

When it comes to creating a sensory marketing strategy for your brand, it is important to figure out the sole purpose of your brand’s existence, your value proposition, mission statement, and brand story. Think carefully about how you can convey your brand message to your target audience and how to use sensory marketing to achieve the desired results from your marketing campaigns.

Keep in mind that sensory experiences trigger emotional responses while engaging customers with the product and setting your brand apart from your competitors. Appealing to multiple senses of consumers – touch, smell, sight, taste, and sound, can make your sensory marketing campaign more effective and help your brand stand out.

5 Awesome Sensory Branding Examples

Appealing to the five senses of your customers is not an easy task. With a little innovation and unique idea, you can come up with a great idea to emotionally connect with your prospective buyers and generate more sales. If you want to build a strong connection with your target audience, grab their attention and provide them with a memorable brand experience, have a look at these great sensory branding examples.

Starbucks

The brand has been using multi-sensory branding strategy for increasing their revenue and profits for years. By leveraging sensory marketing framework, Starbucks satisfies the five senses of their customers that help them create a strong relationship with them. From the iconic flavors to tranquil notes floating in the air, the earthy aroma of coffee wafting through the nose, the tantalizing taste of freshly grounded coffee, and mesmerizing aesthetics, Starbucks customers don’t simply enjoy a cup of coffee; they get an amazing sensory experience of the brand.

The Sweet Bakery

The Sweet Bakery has come up with a unique approach to sensory marketing by creating edible business cards that not only allow potential customers to taste their products but also provide them with the necessary information printed on the card. The packaging was chocolate coated, and the business card was a biscuit!

Apple

Apple, the technology giant, is renowned for creating an iconic sensory experience that communicates its brand values and quality. The stores are designed in a way which stimulates customers to touch and play with their products. The brand provides an interactive experience to its customers by offering highly-immersive in-store experience. Apple stores are decorated with their standard color – white – that gives your eyes a soothing effect, packed with devices that evoke customers to touch and play with. In a nutshell, Apple stores are using sensory marketing strategy to advertise their products to their audience.

Marriott Hotels

Virtual and augmented realities are playing a great role in providing outstanding marketing experiences. These technologies allow brands to connect with their customers faster and on a deeper level. Marriott Hotels are smartly using virtual reality to create a 4D sensory experience, allowing customers to see popular vacation destinations. Guests can travel from a Marriot Greatroom lobby to different cities of the U.S. which will help them decide if they want to experience a particular destination in real life.

Dunkin Donuts

The famous brand is intelligently using sensory marketing to make consumers aware of the brand, engage their senses and create a positive impact on their bottom line. The brand launched a sensory marketing campaign to attract more customers through the sense of smell. They installed aroma-releasing atomizers in commuter buses in South Korea that emitted the aroma of fresh coffee whenever the jingle of Dunkin Donuts played on the radio. This sensory marketing campaign generated a 30% increase in sales.

Over to You

Sensory marketing is a valuable technique that your business can use to improve its growth, brand awareness and connect your audience on an emotional level. Providing multi-sensory experiences to your customers will give them confidence that they are buying the right product and turn them into loyal customers. It helps brands create unique experiences for consumers, which will eventually influence their purchasing habits. If you want to increase your conversion rate, you need to pay attention to sight, sound and smell to effectively promote your business and maximize your brand impact.

Has your brand tried multi-sensory marketing technique yet?

The post How Can Sensory Marketing Improve Your Conversion Rate – 5 Examples for Your Inspiration appeared first on Branex Official Blog.

Integrating animations in mobile app design is a great strategy that makes your app look intuitive and easy to use. Furthermore, adding animations to mobile UI design will help you win more users. It exudes a feeling of interacting with real physical objects.

If you are working on a mobile app development project, it is the right time to create an app imbued with animations. Here are some smart ways to use mobile app animations and enhance the mobile user interface and functionality of your app.

Visual Feedback Animation

Visual feedback is the best form of communication that informs users that a particular action is in progress or successfully completed. Using animated visual signs, switches, ticks or other such connotations in your mobile app UI will help you inform the user about the status of each action. It will help you capture users interest and give them a feeling that the app is under their control.

For instance, mobile apps that deal with food cooking, recipes, or food delivery can take a dose of inspiration from Giedrius Butkus’ mouthwatering pizza preloader design that would lend great charms to any pizza delivery app.

Mobile app developers are advised to use animated feedback signs when a new element is installed, or an action is in progress or completed. You can choose an animated progress bar or circular or liner activity indicators for actions that may entail the users to wait.

Animated Navigation Menu

The mobile app navigation menu is the most important part of your UX design strategy that has a direct impact on your app retention rate. Your app navigation helps users explore the myriad sections and features of your product. Adding animations to your navigation menu makes it clearer and more intuitive. With motion graphics, you can direct users to the most important features and sections. It is a great tactic to save the precious time of your users and help them skim through the most important navigational elements. An animated navigation menu can also be used to help users understand how elements are arranged on the screen.

For instance, this vegan recipe app enables users to choose the dishes based on vegetarian principles and throw in all the ingredients required to the shopping list. Notice the basic set of interactions including the use of horizontal swipe to choose between recipes. When users tap on a specific recipe, detailed information on its nutrition and ingredients pop up. The tab bar includes simple icons which helo to navigate in the app.

Related Read: How to Make an App Like Foodonclick in Dubai

Animated App Launch Screens

Today’s consumers can’t seem to hold their horses; they want instant results and expect apps to load quickly. Integrating animations when your app launches is a smart way to keep your users interested in your app while making the load time shorter and more engaging. Since splash screen is the first thing users notice, you can make your users feel genuinely excited and keep them interested in using your app. You can create a positive first impression of your app even before it is launched by using a number of animated options for the splash screens.

For instance, see how  Édouard Puginier has leveraged an animated logo in his design for the launch screen of Wit. While Anton Drokov went up a notch and animated a spacecraft traveling to the stars in this loader design below.

Custom Animation

This kind of animation can be used to enhance user interaction and make your app stand out. It will not only make your app feel alive but also draw the attention of your users to the most important features of your app. Furthermore, animations can give your app a visual edge, add life to the features and imbue an added flavor to it. To put it in a nutshell, fancy animations and great mobile app designs can make your app a huge success.

Hint Animations

Animation are an essential design element that can improve the user experience big time. Using animations to provide visual hints will make the transitions feel real and help users understand how to use the app properly. By giving clues, you can highlight the most important features of your app.

Animated Onboarding Screens

Remember, your onboarding screens are a great opportunity to make the first impression. Obviously, you don’t want to miss out on this huge opportunity and make a great impression. To make your app tutorial informative and engaging, adding animations is a sensible strategy. Motion makes the key points quickly noticeable while delighting users.

Showing static slides to users has always been used in the onboarding experience, but animated walkthroughs are much more engaging, as this calming onboarding animation from ZhenyaRynzhuk proves.

Loading and Progress Animations

While using your app, users want to know where they are and how long is the process. Screen indicators, progress bars, and other animations are an effective way of guiding users about the process which gives users a sense of control.

Animated Notifications

Another amazing way to improve the UI of your mobile app is to use animated notifications. It is undeniably an amazing way to attract users’ attention to the most important updates. Animated notifications will ensure that your users won’t miss any important piece of information while using your mobile app.

Final Thoughts

So, these are some really amazing ways to use animation in your mobile app design. It is the right time to start planning early on and experiment with this amazing strategy to create a compelling UX for your upcoming mobile app.

The post Some Smart Ways to Add Animations to Your Next Mobile App appeared first on Branex Official Blog.

Brands are harnessing the power of social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter to engage with their customers. Many established brands are also tapping the power of mobile apps, engaging games, video content and other channels to reach their target audience.

If you are looking for some innovative and effective ways to supercharge your digital brand engagement, here are some winning marketing strategies to achieve maximum engagement.

Let’s get started.

1. Harness the Power of Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is one of the best strategies that brands can leverage to attract a wider audience, boost engagement, promote their services and products and earn more profits. Influencer-created content has an enormous potential to boost the effectiveness of your ads. When it comes to increasing your brand engagement, influencer marketing is the ultimate workable strategy that can help you create an engaged consumer base and encourage them to buy from you.

As a result, more and more brands, agencies and entrepreneurs have started using this tactic to nurture a community of brand ambassadors and loyal fans.

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Post gym fuel + today's outfit details! @nakedjuiceuk #ad

A post shared by Kate Spiers (@kate.lavie) on Feb 20, 2017 at 8:54am PST

Lifestyle blogger Kate Le Vie is promoting Naked Juice in this post along with her beauty essentials and daily outfits. The post gained more than 3,500 likes.

2. Ask Questions

Asking questions is one of the best ways of getting people involved and creating a sense of community that will eventually help you increase brand engagement. In fact, asking questions can help you receive more likes, shares,and comments than usual posts.

Consumers love to share their stories and asking questions give them an opportunity to share their experiences. Besides getting maximum engagement, you will also get the opportunity to know the likes, dislikes, interests and pain points of your audience that will help you improve your services and product quality.

The long weekend starts now. What are your plans?#AirbnbLongWeekend

— Airbnb (@Airbnb) January 16, 2016

If you had intro music, which song would it be? Why?

— Crowdfire (@Crowdfire) September 16, 2017

Whether you post polls, survey, questions, Snapchat stickers,Instagram stickers, or any other option, make sure to create interesting questions that compel your fans to answer and help you boost brand engagement.

3. Offer Incentives and Giveaways

Offering special discounts, coupon codes, membership offers, free shipping,and giveaways is another smart trick to nurture strong connections with your customers and prospects. You can experiment with diverse types of offers and find the one that your customers like the most.

Offering deals and discounts will not only increase customer engagement,but also increase conversions, customer loyalty, and customer acquisition rate. You can use any of these deals and discount offers to create maximum brand engagement.

• Percentage discount
• Free shipping
• Prelaunch offers
• Weekly/monthly offers
• Product giveaways
• Holiday offers
• Seasonal offers
• Email subscription offer
• Influencer offers
• Customer loyalty offers
• Referral offers
• First time shopping offer
• Product bundling
• Value-added offers
• Cart Abandonment Offers
• Exit Intent Offers

4. Create an Effective SEO Strategy

In this technological world, it’s no wonder that people use search engines to find the information, products or services that they need. Brands can strengthen their SEO game to increase their brand visibility on a search engine and reach a wider audience. When your website ranks at the top of the search engine page results, you will gain greater reach and engage with new potential customers.Brands should invest their efforts and energy in creating quality content in different formats such as blogs, guest posts, podcasts, webinars, infographics, slideshares, videos and more.

5. Post Content at the Right Time

To supercharge your brand engagement and connect with your audience on a deeper level, it is advised to post the right content on the right platform at the right time. Keep in mind that social media users are not active all the time, so what’s the point of posting content at times when nobody is looking?To maximize your engagement opportunities, it is highly recommended to diligently check when your followers are most likely to be online and then schedule your posts to get more likes, shares,and comments.

Since the best time to post may differ due to many factors such as target audience, demographics behavior, time zone and social media platforms you are using, it is important to conduct thorough research to see what timing will work best for you for different channels.

6. Create an Online Community

By actively participating in online communities and educating your customers,you can build brand credibility and enhance brand engagement. You can create discussion threads and forums and educate users about your products and services. Participating in online communities will help you identify the problems your customers are facing and provide them with effective solutions.

7. Tell Your Brand Story

There is a story behind every brand. Sharing it with your audience will make people love your brand and create brand loyalty. Sharing your vision, mission, and the sole reason behind your brand existence is a wonderful way to foster connections and evoke a sense of emotion. So, narrate your brand story and give your audiences a reason to actually love your brand and foster engagement.

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Fun fact: DST was first proposed by Benjamin Franklin in his 1784 essay “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light.” He suggested people get up earlier to make better use of available and save the use of… candle wax. Thanks, Ben Today we're powering through with all things , like Grady's Cold Brew and @eatyour.coffee java-spiked energy bars Hit the link in bio to check out our faves : @gradyscoldbrew

A post shared by Mouth (@mouthfoods) on Mar 12, 2017 at 6:40am PDT

Final Words

Working to increase your digital brand engagement is an ongoing process. You should experiment with these strategies to see what efforts will give you the best results. This way, you can increase your brand engagement, earn more sales and grow your business efficiently.

The post 7 Marketing Hacks to Build Digital Brand Engagement appeared first on Branex Official Blog.

Instagram has rolled out a branded content partnership program, which will allow marketers to promote their branded content and make the influencer marketing process more transparent. This feature connects online advertisers and influencers on a deeper level, fostering stronger relationships.

Instagram, now owned by Facebook, is working on the new ad format that will allow small businesses to sponsor influencers’ posts while giving them an opportunity to promote these posts as their branded content.

The new branded content ads format makes it easier for advertisers to pay influencers for promoted posts to increase the reach of their content and promote their branded content to a wider audience.

Until now, brands used to nurture relationships with micro-influencers and then leverage these contacts to promote their products and services with branded content. The downside of these posts was that they only reached the followers of the influencers and not the audience brands can traditionally target in their ads.

Thanks to the branded content ads, now marketers will be able to promote these branded posts just like any other ad campaign and reach a wider audience.

Instagram Branded Ads – What Does It Mean for Brands?

Brands are taking this new feature of the branded content as a great opportunity that helps them to overcome the challenges they usually face to promote their organic branded content. Online marketers are looking for more innovative opportunities to amplify branded content; Instagram is providing marketers an amazing opportunity to agencies and small businesses to promote their content to a wider audience.

View this post on Instagram

I can, so I did. This is @revlon newest campaign championing women's achievements, big and small. #icansoidid

A post shared by Gal Gadot (@gal_gadot) on Feb 15, 2019 at 9:16am PST

Brands on Instagram find different and interesting ways to cultivate relationships with influencers to promote content. But brands can’t see the posts which feature their products and services. This makes it more challenging for many brands to target and scale their organic branded content.

The new ad format of Instagram makes it easier for brands to promote their content with the help of influencers and widen their brand reach. Currently, the most effective influencer marketing content format is Instagram Stories that is gaining more popularity than any other type of content format.

More and more digital marketers are planning to increase their influencer marketing budget in 2019 and thinking to add Instagram as a crucial part of their digital marketing strategy.

How Can Marketers Take Maximum Advantage of this Branded Content Program?

Instagram is one of the top platforms for influencer marketing that brands are using to sponsor their branded content from celebrities and social media stars. It is a workable marketing strategy that can generate brand awareness, maximum engagement, and interest among your target audience.

By promoting their Instagram sponsored posts just like any other ad campaign, brands have greater chances of driving more engagement, likes, and comments. Instagram’s branded content partnership program is a result-oriented marketing strategy that allows brands to connect to new and engaged fans.

Why Instagram has expanded its Branded Content Program?

In 2017, Instagram released its first branded content tools to promote products and services without revealing their direct relationship to advertisers. These posts can only be seen by the influencers’ followers. Therefore, Instagram has come up with a solution for advertisers and influencers both and allow influencers to tag the brand name and clearly mention that it is a sponsored post.

View this post on Instagram

Excited to unveil the new @tudorwatch Glamour Double Date, live from Hong Kong. #BornToDare

A post shared by David Beckham (@davidbeckham) on Nov 14, 2018 at 8:40am PST

Instagram is offering more transparency and authenticity with their brand content partnership program by offering a tag which helps influencers disclose the brand name and marketers to check the performance of their branded content campaigns.

If a brand wanted to take the post from the celebrities and sponsors and invest more money to reach more and more people, it could not be possible within the old branded content partnership program.

Instagram wanted to prevent brands from fake influencers that have fake followers and engagement. When a brand invests on influencers who have fake following and engagement, chances are you won’t get the desired results.

All Instagram users will be eligible to join the partner program and make the most of this feature.

How Can This New Ad Format Increase Transparency between Influencers and Advertisers?

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Awesome evening at #sihh2019 with @montblanc. My watch is the Geosphere 1858. #Reconnect1858 @isabelifontana

A post shared by Hugh Jackman (@thehughjackman) on Jan 15, 2019 at 9:16am PST

There is no denying the fact that the Instagram’s move brings more transparency and authenticity among brands, influencers, and the community. Now followers of social media influencers and celebrities will get the idea that they are seeing sponsored content.

Authenticity in terms of genuine followers is also a major factor that helps advertisers ascertain whether it will actually yield substantial results if they collaborate with an influencer. What this means is that now Instagram will formalize the relationship between influencers and brands. Previously, this relationship was maintained outside Instagram’s ecosystem and brands had no option to verify the authenticity of the engagement stats provided by the influencer.

With the arrival of the branded ad feature, now advertisers will get real-time insights about the number of people reached and know if the influencer has used phony tricks to increase his followership. This would be a huge leap and secure brands from spending huge chunk of their ad spends on pseudo-influencers who have garnered fake fan base by exploiting the technical loopholes.

Is it equally beneficial for Consumers?

These sponsored posts benefit consumers, creators, and brands equally. Today’s consumers are very smart; they can instantly smell whether a content is sponsored or not. The new ad format allows creators to disclose the sponsorship and agencies and small businesses to increase their reach and give their content a significant boost.

The post Instagram Rolls Out Branded Content Ad Format – How Online Marketers Can Take Advantage of It? appeared first on Branex Official Blog.

If you want to increase brand awareness and build loyal and long-term relationships with your target audience, let them know that your brand exists on social media networks and incorporate social media icons on your business website.

In essence, social media icons are the registered trademarks of social media networks that are used to link your social profiles to your website. They are one of the most important parts of your overall digital marketing strategy. Incorporating social media icons in your website and marketing materials is a worthwhile strategy to grow your following and connect to a wider audience on different social media channels.

Why Embed Social Media Icons in Your Website?

Today consumers are savvy enough; they expect brands to have icon links on their business website. They use a brand’s social accounts to find information about their company, products, services, upcoming offers, and special discounts. Companies are using social media networks to increase their brand reach, solve their customers’ problems, gather feedback, and connect to a wider audience. Using them right will help you strengthen your digital marketing efforts.

Here are some easy tips to place social media icons across different channels and take maximum advantage of them.

Places Where You Should Use Social Media Icons

Websites

Placing your social media icons on your website is a smart strategy that marketers can use to strengthen their marketing efforts. These icons can be placed on the header, footer and right sidebar of the website. The key is to place them somewhere where they are conspicuous and catch the attention of your website visitors. When visitors land on your website and see the icons of their favorite platforms, chances are they will follow your brand on social media networks.

If truth be told, your website is a key place that should be used to convince your potential customers to follow your brand on social media and become your loyal fans. If you are not using social media icons on your website, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to grow your following base.

Emails and Newsletters

A well-placed social media button can increase your brand reach and makes it easier for your content to be shared by a massive audience. It is a worthwhile strategy to use your social media icons that connect your business’ Linkedin page, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest account in every email or newsletter you send. These buttons give your subscribers an opportunity to connect with your brand on social media and get the latest updates, upcoming events, discounts and special offerings of your products or services.

Whether you use social media buttons on the header, sidebar or the bottom of your email or newsletter, make sure that the icons are visible to the subscribers when they open your email.

Marketing Collaterals

Social media icons can be used on your marketing collaterals such as brochures, business cards, and print ads to strengthen your corporate branding efforts. Since you can’t hyperlink on paper, make sure to use the domain name and link to your company’s page, such as

Tweets by branex_ae

What to Consider Before Adding Social Media Icons to Your Marketing Materials?

Before you start using these amazing buttons, here are some important points that you should keep in mind:

• Use Approved Logos

All social media icons are a trademark, so make sure to download from the official social network websites. Don’t try to rotate, recolor or edit, as it is not permitted.

• Use the Correct Size

Maintain the size and resolution of all social media icons and don’t try to stretch the icons larger than your company logo.

• Maintain a Clear Space

Make sure that all icons are evenly spaced out, interspersed with ample white spaces to enhance visibility.

• Don’t Gluttonize on Icons

It is pertinent to use the icons of no more than four or five networks that are the most important to your brand. Adding too many icons will simply make your website footer, business card, brochure or any other marketing material look cluttered while creating design fatigue.

• Use Updated Logos

Since social media networks undergo logo overhauls from time to time, make sure to use their updated icons. Using outdated logos only shows that your business is not relevant.

• Locate Strategically

Make sure that the social media icons are located at the most prominent position and are visible on your marketing materials. Double check their place on your website, blog, brochure, business card or print ad to ensure the best color contrast.

Signal Your Company’s Presence on Social Media

Give your prospects an opportunity to connect with your brand and share your content by adding social media buttons on your website, emails, and newsletters. Using these effective tips and tricks will help you show off your social media presence and widen your brand reach.

The post How to Use Social Media Icons to Achieve Your Marketing Goals appeared first on Branex Official Blog.

Colors are a powerful tool that plays a key role in attracting attention and influencing your customers’ feelings and perceptions. If done right, colors can establish the right mood in your website design. Therefore, it is important for every web designer to be acquainted with the psychology and symbology of colors.

Choosing the right color palette for your website design needs diligent planning, as it can make or break the impression of your brand. If you are thinking of revamping your website or creating a website from scratch, here are some smart strategies that will help you come up with an impressive color palette for your web design project.

Use Your Website Color Palette for Brand Recognition

Your website truly defines who you are, and what you have in store for your customers. Selecting the right color scheme will help you effectively represent your brand while creating a positive first impression. If your color scheme is consistent across your website, business cards, billboards and anywhere else, it helps visitors recognize your brand immediately.

A study suggests that 90% of snap judgments made about your brand are based on the colors you use on your website design and marketing collateral. Different studies have revealed that humans prefer to buy from recognizable brands. Therefore, it is important to choose the right colors to create a unique brand identity that helps you stand out from your competitors. In short, colors are the most important branding elements that have a powerful ability to communicate your brand’s persona and help your customers identify your brand.

Let’s take an example of Dropbox, a cloud-based file sharing platform.

The brand leverage a blue palette to instill a feeling of trust, authority, and reliability. The consistent color scheme and hand-sketched style graphics across all communication platforms make their brand more recognizable while setting it apart from their competition.

Colors Entice Customers to Take the Desired Action

Colors serve as a fundamental component of your website that not only gives your business a unique personality but also defines the quality of products or services you are offering. Your website’s color palette can make or break your customers’ assessment of your brand. More than 85% of shoppers’ purchase decisions are influenced by colors. A poor choice of colors will have a significant impact on your website conversion rate. So, using the right color scheme is critically important to convince people to buy from your brand and earn more leads and conversions.

Colors can be used to entice customers to make a purchase. This is why more and more brands are choosing their brand colors strategically, keeping color psychology and consumer color preferences in mind to improve the conversion rate of their websites.

BigTop is an online community that connects startup networks. The website uses a visually-appealing blend of cool and warmer hues of purple, blue, bright orange and yellow. The orange and yellow colored CTA button will immediately capture your attention and compel you to click on it.

BarkBox homepage uses the dominant pink color that perfectly contrasts with the blue color CTA button. They smartly use complementary colors to grab the attention of users, get them excited and persuade them to take the desired action quickly.

Colors can Drive Emotional Reactions in Your Visitors

Colors have an outstanding power to trigger a reaction. If you want your business to be memorable, make sure to use the right color palette. By using specific colors, you can trigger the desired emotions in buyers and leave a mark on their minds. Furthermore, brands can tap into the power of colors for strengthening their marketing efforts.

Different colors evoke different feelings. Red is associated with passion and power, yellow exudes creativity, happiness, and optimism, while white can create a sense of peace and trust. Brands can experiment with different colors to a nurture an emotional connection with their customers and incite action when needed.

When it comes to choosing the color scheme for your website, carefully think about the feelings you want your products or services to incite. Every business wants to create a strong emotional connection with their audience. By using the right colors, you can win your customers’ hearts. As color psychology has a profound impact on your customers’ emotions, perceptions and behaviors.

Take a look at Caring Village’s website.

Their website color palette incorporates green, purple and blue hues which depict the mission of their company. Green color denotes health and care; blue evokes a friendly feel while purple is a luxurious color that creates a sense of royalty and elegance.

The Take-Away

All in all, colors can make a difference. Adding the right colors to your website is a sensible way to spark visual interest among your audience and help your branding elements and content stand out. Prudent use of colors can help you come up with a stellar website and differentiate your brand from your competitors.

The post Choosing the Right Color Palette Can Help You Create a Stellar Website – Here’s How appeared first on Branex Official Blog.

Website localization allows you to target a wider audience and promote your products and services to the global market. Creating localized SEO campaigns can have a positive effect on your search engine rankings, which will eventually drive more traffic to your website and generate more conversions. Furthermore, website localization makes your website easily accessible to a larger audience, making it easier to read and absorb your content.

Here are some easy strategies for effective localization that can help you convert your website from a single language to multi-language.

Choose Multilingual Content Management System

When it comes to translating your website into multiple languages, it is advised to use a multilingual content management system. If you want to promote your business globally, it is important to choose the best multilingual CMS for your website. Make sure to choose aCMS that packs the following features:

• Global Site Architecture

This feature allows CMS to generate country sites and decides what needs to be translated regionally or globally.

• Translation Workflow

This feature allows you to start the translation process whenever you want or schedule it, but you can’t make this content go live unless you are sure it’s accurate. With the help of pseudo-localization, staging sites, and in-CMS testing, you can verify and test the result of the translation process.

• Uni-Code Support

One of the major benefits of using a multilingual content management system is that it portrays a unified brand message in all languages. The Unicode support makes it easier for CMS to display, edit and manipulate any language accurately and support all characters from different languages such as Arabic, Japanese, Russian and more.

• API Integration

A multilingual CMS can save you time by simply eliminating manual efforts for localization. It allows you and your translation services agency to easily pull and push website content automatically through an API integration or CMS connector. You don’t need to copy and paste or export and import source and translated content.

WordPress, Drupal, Craft CMS,and Adobe Experience Manager are a few top open-source CMS platforms that brands can use for their multilingual websites.

Translating Website Content

Translating your website content is the most effective website localization strategy that will help you reach an audience who is eager to know about your brand and products in their native language. Investing in website localization to translate your website content is a sensible approach to drive more conversions and leads from international markets.

When it comes to translating your website content, there are a variety of options available to choose from. Depending on your needs, preferences, and budget, you can choose the best translation management system.

• Google Translate
  

Google Translate is a free tool that quickly translates your website content in more than 100 languages. When a visitor lands on your website from a different state or region, Google Translate widget will translate your website content into the selected language.

There is great news for businesses working in the Middle East and Arab countries that Google has greatly improved its automated Arab translation services.  Google’s updated Neural Machine Translation system can now create more natural translations with increased accuracy and fluency. If you are running an online business in Dubai or any other country, you can use the Google Translate tool to translate your website content from English to Arabic.

• Weglot

Weglot is one of the best WordPress translation plugins that make it easier to translate your website content into different languages. The plugin uses machine translation to generate a translated version of your website in over 60 languages. The best part of this translation plugin is that it is compatible with all the WordPress themes and plugins.

• WPML

WPML is a famous translation plugin that has an intuitive interface that makes it easy to create and edit your translated content. This plugin is mainly focused on manual translation and works by assigning Translator users. It allows you to translate your website content in more than 40 languages.

Final Thoughts

You have spent a lot of effort, energy, and money increating your brand. Obviously, you don’t want to kill your brand image by poor translation efforts when you promote your products or services globally. Your website is the most important part of your business marketing strategy, and website localization will provide you with great results. It is a great strategy to improve your online presence in a particular niche or market. Localizing your website into the local language of the country you are aiming to promote your products or services will increase traffic from the particular region and drive high-qualified leads and more sales.

Regardless of which content translation strategy you choose, a localized website is indeed an effective SEO factor that will attract targeted traffic, boost your domain authority and improve the ranking of your website on SERPs.

The post Go global, act local; Leverage Google Translation to Make your Website Appeal to the Local Audiences appeared first on Branex Official Blog.