You’ve seen the minimal, graphical representations known as emojis everywhere – even if you don’t send emails or text frequently. Popular as addendums to notes; or sometimes used as messages all by themselves, emojis are now forging a new niche in advertising, where their capacity for communication has already been employed by industry giants such as Domino’s Pizza and the World Wildlife Federation.

First of All: What Is an Emoji?

An emoji isn’t merely a picture – it’s a character of text in the form of an image. Your browser actually treats it like a language, and the images are uniform in this way. For example, Domino’s might tweet pizza emojis to followers; if you wanted to send a pizza emoji to a friend, you could use the same one as Domino’s. There are, of course, multiple different kinds of pizza emojis; the point is that the same ones available to the pizza giant are also available to you. The word emoji, itself, comes from the Japanese and means “picture, writing, character.”

The verdict is in: people love emojis. They’re a succinct and visually-appealing way to convey a quick message, as well as to immediately identify the company in the breakneck pace of mobile advertising. If your local zoo, for example, tweets out a message with 5 lions as emojis, this could quickly suggest that they just got an import of five new lions – and now would be a great time for that zoo visit you’ve been putting off.

Making Sure Emojis Work for Your Brand

While it’s true that brands can make and use their own emojis, these won’t be considered a part of the official emoji language supported universally by mobile applications and browser. And since the whole point of a company sending out such messages is for public consumption, sending one out that browsers can’t recognize defeats the purpose of advertising.

As is clear, the best way to utilize emojis is on social media platforms. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words, right? The right combination of the two energizes your message, and gives it priority over all the other businesses out there that send out the same entirely word-based tweets and Facebook Wall message week after week.

Businesses That Have Seen Success with Emoji Advertising

There’s a general rule of business: if you want to know what’s successful, watch what the giants are doing. After all, they’ve got expensive and robust analytics at their disposal, and rarely do anything without tons of market research strongly suggesting success. Dove – the soap-maker – uses emojis liberally; in fact, the company made its own, and then made these available for download so that others could use them. Here are a few others:

• Burger King made chicken fries emojis as part of a campaign to announce the return of this food item upon customer request.
• NBA 2016 champions the Cleveland Cavaliers made a string of emojis featuring their current roster of players
• Celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and rapper Wiz Khalifa have made emojis bearing their likeness
• Auto giant Ford Motor Company has also gotten into the emoji spirit

By all accounts, then, it seems as though emoji advertising is beneficial. They make it easier to convey a message in the limited space available for getting your message across on a Smartphone or tablet, and some say that they could form a big part of the future of mobile advertising.

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Although it might not seem so at first glance, beauty is one of the more dynamic properties throughout history. From thin to plus-size, you can see different representations of what men and women find desirable in different eras. There was a time when “extra” size was especially attractive, because it suggested wealth and prosperity, for example. Today, in a time when social media and the ubiquity of internet access has made multiple forms of beauty very apparent, the people are responding positively to many of the unique results that are emerging.

Hashtag HonorCurves

Let’s face it: up until the last few years, during which social media has exploded as a primary means of business-to-consumer and consumer-to-consumer communications, you were inundated with images of super-skinny models as the overriding standard of beauty. Although both men and women have to deal with looking at models, and then looking at their own body and feeling subpar; most would agree that this is an issue that especially affects women.

Facebook user Sara Sofia Almeida grew tired of always having to compare her body to the popular mass media images. Using the hashtag #honorcurves#, she sought to have all the people out there appreciate their bodies and realize all the amazing things it can do – swim, run, hug people, love, laugh, and enjoy life. Basically, her body positivity contribution was that you should manage your perception of yourself, and don’t let the media define you. Her post received thousands of likes and dozens of comments; the hashtag itself was created by a young lady name Honorine, and has been used nearly 300,000 times to date.

Hashtag BigFinesBreakTheInternet

Yet another movement that celebrates larger women; the Big Fines Break the Internet hashtag was started to help women feel more positive about their bodies; particularly to help combat the results of studies showing that 54% of women between 18-40 feel dissatisfaction with their bodies. The 2014 survey done by Glamour showed that body negativity was actually growing worse, since back in 1984, a similar poll showed that just 42% of women in this age-range felt unhappy. The cause? Big magazines and social media – which proliferate the message that one kind of body is attractive. #BigFinesBreakTheInternet# is seeking to help change that perception.

Dove Gets Into It

Soap and body care company Dove jumped into the body positivity fray and launched a campaign that may be the largest yet. The #ChooseBeautiful# hashtag caught on like wildfire, when it was revealed in a study that 96% of women don’t choose the word “beautiful” to describe their bodies. This social media campaign has springboarded off the success of the Choose Beautiful hashtag to launch the Speak Beautiful variant, which encourages women to talk positively about their bodies with each other, to help realize their gains in self-esteem and self-perception.

A Celebration of Culture and Modesty

Melanie Elturk is Muslim, and despite that religions staunchly conservative appearance requirements for women, she’s taken to social media to show that girls can be attractive even in conservative garb. Her Haute Hijab movement is big on Instagram, where she showcases herself and other Muslim women wearing fashionable headscarves and other accouterments.

To celebrate your business on Social Media, please contact Blast Creative today.

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Draft and Revise.  Writing is an art of precision.  A writer has the ability to shape the world in their writing, to give his or her world shape and dimension.  In a broad scale, think one sentence holds up the one before it, and, also the one that follows it.

On a smaller scale consider that every word in the sentence is responsible for holding up the entire sentence.  One weak word can denigrate the entire thing.

For most writers—suspecting them all, of course, but leaving some room for anomaly—perfection didn’t happen in a single draft.  To realize something to its conclusion takes time.  Weaknesses in the work need to be made strong, the irrelevant should be omitted, or made relevant.

A Writer Learns

A writer learns of his or her weaknesses and drafts the work again.  Of course this could end up in a continuous loop of drafting—some novelists have claimed that they will write one hundred thousand words before they find a stories beginning (this is a lot of work, considering the average novel’s length is only ninety thousand words).  But, considering the microcosm of the word to the sentence, writing is a process.

Mark Twain once said, “The difference in the right word and the almost right word is really a large matter. ‘tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”  The way to draft is up to you, it’s up to your writing process, and how you work.

Writing’s an individual practice.  However, if you are unsure of how to draft your writing, consider this process as a start.  First, write your initial draft with regard for little perfection.  Find your story.  Even if what you are writing is a school paper, when you write it out, you might find that the most interesting parts, are areas to which you gave little importance.

Once you have found your story, find the shape of it.  Finally, clean it up, polish it, give each word a reason to shine.  If you are frustrated by the time in which it’s taken you to write something, remember that every minute put into perfecting a piece of writing, should only make the writing better, or at least hopefully better.

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How do you measure accomplishment at the end of a day of writing?  Is it pages, words, or time?  Ask yourself that question because it is different for all writers.  The prolific writers, the ones we turn to for advice, even for something as small as a quote, have mostly all spoken about accomplishment.  While Hemingway was in Montana he wrote most mornings, and spent his afternoons fishing for trout or hunting.  Other authors start and don’t finish until they’ve hit some predetermined goal—Steven King’s five pages every day, or the gold standard one thousand words, or Karen Russell’s goal of maximizing quality time spent engaged within her story (she’s not a word robot).     

Why do we listen, then?  Do we plan to copy Hemingway’s write-only-in-the-morning style?  Will adhering to Steven King’s prolific writing style make us as celebrated an author as the man himself?  No.  At least for the most part I believe no.  We listen to them, because being in the room at the desk alone can feel daunting.  For the most part, writing is not a team activity.  It’s just us.  There’s no one to whom the writer can compare himself against but himself.  It’s an activity that entirely self-motivated—unless of course you have a deadline or a job which requires you to write—and the reason we look to other authors for advice is that these are the people who discovered something about themselves.  They all discovered who they are as writers. 

Start easy, start a journal.  Don’t simply walk away when things get difficult—if the right word is not coming, or if you’re simply stuck staring at the screen—keep writing.  You’ll be amazed at the ideas you will find yourself capable at times of the greatest stress.  Those ideas might not flesh themselves out with perfect articulation, but they might be there.  Keep writing and determine the things that work best for you.  Consider the amount of time you need to stay focused every day, or even every other day.  Understanding what will keep you focused, keep you at that desk for those ours or those pages or that word count will, eventually pay off.    

If you need a content writer or a copywriter, please contact Blast Creative today.

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When you think of social media, the uber-site Facebook is probably the first thing that comes to mind, given the billions of profiles on that platform. However, with an Alexa rank of 2, Youtube is actually ranked higher than that eponymous network. With this knowledge alone, it’s pretty much a certainty that you should be doing everything you can to create a presence on the ‘Tube for your brand; and it all starts with creating a YouTube channel and making your first video.

Youtube: A Method to the Madness
You might wonder – how the heck can I get any videos I make seen by many people? This is a good question; after all, there are hundreds of millions of videos on there, and you’d need to find a way to distinguish yourself from the chaff. So – where do you start?

First of all, YouTube has a subscriber system; this is the key to views. When someone watches a video that you’ve made, there’s a good chance that they’ll subscribe to it. Of course, the better the video, then the greater the likelihood that people who watch it subscribe. But this isn’t the only factor; after all, you may watch 20 videos a day on YouTube – you certainly aren’t going to subscribe to every single one of them, right?

Keywords matter, too. Each of your videos should incorporate a choice word or two that describes your product into the title and in the description box. That way, your video will also show up with a batch of videos with similar content, thereby increasing your view rate.

3 Must-Dos for Building a YouTube Family
This realization leads you to the next thing: you must continually put out good videos. People are even more likely to subscribe to your channel if you consistently put out good content, which then means that videos from your channel will show up on their personal YouTube landing page every time they navigate to the website. So, in sum:

1. Make videos that you would want to watch (which means that pure promotion is out. How many people do you know who skip the show to watch the commercials? Exactly).
2. Remind people to subscribe if they like your video – this is the call-to-action, and it’s as important for videos as it is for copy.
3. Devise a schedule for making videos regularly, so that you increase the rate at which people subscribe, as well as the total amount of money you make from people clicking on the small banner advertisement that show up at the bottom of each video, and at the far right hand side of the page.

As for what kind of videos to make? You’ve got a lot of leeway here, but that doesn’t mean some aren’t generally better than others. Comedy, for example, draws in viewers like honey does flies. Although most businesses can incorporate comedy into their pitch, this isn’t always easy to do consistently, and sometimes, the actual business message can get lost in the laughter.

A tried-and-true method of drawing in viewers is making how-to videos. People are ALWAYS looking for help in that respect; for example, if you’re an air conditioner repair company, you can release a video showing people how to check for problems with their home comfort system, to determine if they need an inspection. For stuff like this, it’s better to target locally, by using geo-targeted keywords such as “air conditioner repair New York.”

The takeaway? Add YouTube to your slate of social networks. If a picture’s worth a thousand words, then imagine how much a video’s worth.

Contact Blast Creative if you are interested in our Social Media Marketing Services.

If you are a business owner in any of these genres, financial, photographers, dentists, hotels, restaurants, construction, HVAC, hardware stores, real estate, or any business owner and want more information on Internet Marketing, please contact Blast Creative today!

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Blast Creative specializes in Roofing Contractor Marketing, we assist roofing companies just like yours to get to the top of the search engines. We are one of the first companies in Billings, Montana to offer search engine optimization as well as Social Media Marketing.

Roofing Contractor SEO Services should consist of more than content writing!  True SEO consists of links, keywords, blogs/content writing, social media and backlinks. You need to be doing all of those things if you want your website to come in the search engines.

If you want to know why your competitor is beating you in the organic search, it’s a simple fact that they are doing more SEO than you! You can’t buy your way to the top of the search engines. You have to earn it, with a lots of White Hat SEO!

Are there broken links on your website? Is your website mobile or responsive? At Blast Creative we do a complete site analyzes and fix what’s broken. We plan out a strategic Marketing and SEO Plan that fits your needs.

If you are a Roofing Contractor in need of Marketing and SEO Services, we are here to assist you. Our program is month to month, there are no long term contracts. Without a contract, we have to deliver month to month.

With so many companies offering Roof Contractor SEO these days, we know that it’s hard to decide what type of Roofer SEO is best for your business. Most monthly services can be quite expensive and you’re required to part with your money in advance with no guarantee you’ll see results.

We not only do SEO for Roofing Companies, but for any company wanting to come up in the search engines, increase phone calls & web leads. If you are looking for SEO Services, please contact Blast Creative today!

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There is a famous saying that goes like this “you only have one chance to make a good first impression.” Nothing could be truer when it comes to writing headlines for your blogs, articles, eBooks or any other online content.  Without magnetic headlines, you may not be able to grab the attention of your reader and motivate him/her to continue reading past your headline.

Statistics show us that an average of eight out of ten people searching for information online will first read the headline, and out of these ten only two will be persuaded enough to read the rest of your content. These statistics, clearly answer the question “what is in a headline?” the answer being “power.” So, if you are an online content marketer or a copywriter, developing magnetic headlines is a valuable skill you should possess if you want to create clicktivism.  Below are some tips on how you can write magnetic headlines:

Start with the Headline
While the headline might seem like the most challenging part of writing (at times it is), you should always try to start your writing with the headline first. That is because the headline is the promise you will give to readers, so it must clearly communicate what you intend to deliver to the reader. Of course, before creating the headline you need to have a clear understanding of your subject matter. Once you have identified your subject matter or what the content of your writing will be, go ahead and create a headline. If you write the headline last, you will be looking for the promise within your content, instead of first making the promise and delivering it through your content.

Newsy headlines, grab attention
Newsy headlines are the type that makes announcements such as discovery, new product release, finding, invention and more.  You can use these headlines to introduce new services or products in the market and to make press releases. People are usually captivated by the concept “new” and are, therefore, more likely to read on to discover “what’s new.” Examples of newsy headlines are those that begin with words such as “announcing”, “introducing”, and “at last.”

“How To” headlines are magnetic
One of the most used headlines is “how to”, simply because this is a magnetic headline that is sure to grab and retain the attention of the reader. These types of headings answer the question, “what is in it for me,” which most readers will ask themselves before reading any content. So, if your content answers the question “how to,” consider creating a “how to” headline such as ‘How to Write Magnetic Headlines.”

The benefit headline will get your content read
A benefit headline is like a carrot dangled in front of a rabbit. The reader will immediately identify “what’s in it for them” from your headline. This kind of headline excites the curiosity of readers, and they will want to read on or click the headline for more details. So, when creating a magnetic headline identify a compelling benefit from your content, and serve it up in your article topic. For instance, “Get Your Online Business Noticed Today, With This Amazing SEO Tool.”

When it comes to writing content especially for online marketing, your headline is your lifeline; because a magnetic headline is what will determine whether your content will become a hit or miss.

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Almost every writer has been faced with the mind blowing process of “how to create high-quality content, quicker.”  This is especially true for new writers and those that work in the content marketing field where the demand for new and fresh content is constant.  New fresh content is important in social media marketing as it engages the target audience, hence the need to develop this content in a fast manner.

The reality is, coming up with high quality, persuasive content will take some time; however, it does not have to take “all your time” as there are useful tactics you can apply to increase your writing productivity.  Here you will find kickass tactics that you can practice daily to improve your writing speed:

1) What do you believe?
Writing starts from the “inside”; how you feel about a given topic will greatly influence whether you are motivated to write about it or not.  For example, if you have been assigned a writing task about IT, and you find such topics too “technical” and lets face it down right boring, then you will probably write this article at a snail’s pace, and it might not even be high quality. It may just be flat out lousy!  Your subconscious mind has great influence on your writing speed and the quality of article you will deliver, so believe that you can write any given topic brilliantly and you will.

2) Begin with your writing goal
Even before picking a pen or launching MS word or note, you should have a clear goal of what you want your target audience to take away from your article. Your article needs to be killer. Ask yourself, what is the ultimate goal that you are trying to achieve from this piece of writing?  What information or action do you want your readers to absorb?  What do you want your target audience to walk away with from your article?

Once you have a clear goal of what you want your writing to achieve, you can start writing with this in mind.  By beginning with your intended purpose in mind, you will save time and won’t be horrified at the amount of time you are spending on writing.

3) Keep your article short and sweet
There is a common phrase used in the marketing industry, abbreviated as “KISS” (Keep It Simple, Stupid). This concept should also be applied in writing. High-quality content means “high quality”, and not necessarily long. Most writers have the tendency to be “wordy”, but simple, short and sweet content can be quite engaging and even informative. I recommend 450 to 700 words.

This essential concept applies mostly when you are writing online content where the majority of people searching for information usually want it served up in a simple and easy format that is inspiring and persuasive. Remember that most of the online users will want the information they are looking for to be served up quickly.

4) Have an ideas diary
Generating ideas for articles is one of the most time-consuming parts of creating high-quality content. Most experienced writers will tell you that if you have an idea or concept that you want to cover in your piece of writing, words will often come easily and therefore, you will write quickly. 

One of the ways you can generate great ideas quickly is by keeping an ideas diary, that way if an interesting idea snaps into your brain at any time or place, you can record it on your smartphone or simply write it down in your diary.  You can also write ideas you get from reading blogs, newspapers or by simply watching TV, to use later in your writing.

5) Keep a topic list
Coming up with topics for your content can also be quite a challenge and time-consuming task. Come up with a potential topic list before you begin to write, to help you write faster. Ask friends and family to give you a list of questions that they have about what you do and use those for your topics. Simple, but BRILLIANT!

6) Plan
If you want to write high-quality content fast, you really need to plan your writing. When you plan which sub-headings or topic you want to cover, you will limit the time you are likely to spend rearranging paragraphs that are out of place (due to failure to plan).

7) Write First, Edit later
Writing as your edit can waste a lot of time. So, put all your ideas down first, before you start editing to save on time.

8) Set a deadline
Set a deadline of what you want to achieve within a particular time frame.  When you have a time limit, you will work harder and faster to complete your tasks within this set time.

Writing high-quality content quickly is important in today’s fast society; especially in the social media marketing field where there is constant demand for high quality and inspiring content. Use the above tips to create high quality, inspiring content as quickly as possible.

If you are looking for a copywriter, please contact Blast Creative today!

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Some people believe that search engine optimization is dying. Not only are Google’s algorithms changing almost too fast for SEO experts to keep up, but SEO itself may soon be replaced by social media as the main source of information online. This is of course a huge exaggeration. Social media is far from our main source of information online. People still use Google, and search engine rankings and hits are still important.

That doesn’t mean that social media should be ignored, though. Social media may not be a replacement for SEO, but it does have a huge effect on it. Google’s last algorithm update included Social Media Ranking. If your business isn’t active on Social Media, you could be doing damage to your listing on Google. Here are just a few ways Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter are affecting your SEO efforts.

Social Shares and Link Building

Link building has always been one of the cornerstones of SEO, and in most respects that hasn’t changed. Google still looks at the number of links on a site to determine if it is a quality source of information, but social media has changed the way these links are being shared. These days, links are being achieved through original and compelling content that is shared across social media. For example, if someone finds an interesting article, they will be likely to post it onto their Facebook wall or Twitter feed for all of their followers to see. Many of those followers will in turn post the article to their followers, and so on. Eventually, thousands of people will have seen that article, which translates to page views for the website or blog the in which the article originally appeared.

Links that are shared via Facebook, Google+, Twitter or even YouTube will rank higher according to Google’s search algorithm. Google will assume that this content is being shared for a good reason, and it will show up near the top of a typical search result.

Social Media and Credible Sources

If your content is shared on your social networks and you have several followers, Google is more likely to see you as a credible source. This will mean that your content will always rank higher and be seen not just by your followers, but by potentially thousands of others viewers who will help build your brand and increase your social media presence.

Branding

A large part of social media marketing is branding, which definitely has an effect on SEO as well. Having your brand merely mentioned on a site is often enough to get a boost from Google, even if it is only a mention and not actually a link. In many ways, this is closer to “old fashioned” advertising in that it gets your brand’s name out even if it doesn’t technically involve SEO link building.

The thing to remember when it comes to social media and the changing face of SEO is that content is king. Social media Marketing Billings MT is all about real people reading and sharing content, so SEO experts have their work cut out for them. It’s not about keyword stuffing and other questionable techniques anymore; content has to be genuinely engaging if it is to spread across any social network.

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If you don’t know what Youtube is by now, you’ve most likely been living under a rock the last ten years. The video sharing site grew tremendously quickly and was bought by internet giant Google for $1.65 billion less than 2 years after it went live. Since then, the site has continued to expand.

Earlier this year, a new video sharing service called Periscope was officially launched by Twitter. The app was spotted by Twitter in the early development stage and the company quickly swooped in, reportedly purchasing the app for just shy of $100 million. Periscope has been called a game-changer, much like Youtube was a decade.

Businesses are paying attention and many are wondering which of the two platforms will be more effective at promoting their brand. The answer, of course, depends on your individual businesses needs. Here’s a guide to how Youtube and Periscope stack up against each other.

Youtube

Youtube has been around for a decade and is very well-established. Users create, watch, and share videos. Businesses have some great advantages when using Youtube to promote their brand.

Wide Audience

Youtube videos garner more than 4 billion views every day and it’s the third most visited website in the world. The website is particularly strong with users ages 18-34, outranking even cable television networks.

Easily Re-purpose Content

Business can re-use content they’ve already created, such as blog posts or podcasts, and re-purpose them into videos to post on Youtube. Essentially, you are getting more bang for your buck.

Periscope

Periscope is the new kid on the block, so it doesn’t have nearly as many users and a lot of people still have not even heard of it. It’s based on mobile live streaming, meaning people can broadcast the video they record live, allowing them to easily share with viewers around the world. Users can follow each other and receive notifications when your stream goes live. Old videos are archived so people still have the chance to view previously recorded videos.

Gain Followers Quickly

While Youtube does offer video streaming, users must use an invite link to watch. Periscope on the other hand offers instant following and viewers can tune in to whatever they want, making it easy to gain followers quickly.

Open Market Spaces

Since Periscope is new, there are no heavy weights really and there’s room for shifting. Users can ‘like’ your content up to 500 times, meaning that good content can bring you up quickly and you have a chance to become a top Periscoper.

Works Well For

Periscope’s unique platform makes it a great place to share cutting-edge events, interactive games, situations that need instant feedback, how to’s, recipes, natural phenomena, and interviews.

Which Platform Is Best for Your Brand

Both platforms can be useful and it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. Brands that are already well established and have the resources to pursue both should. For smaller companies, Periscope presents a great opportunity to gain followers quickly and become an established authority from the ground up. Once you are more established you can use the Periscope following to break into Youtube.

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