MARKETING
When Is the Best Time to Post on Instagram in 2022? [Cheat Sheet]
![When Is the Best Time to Post on Instagram in 2022? [Cheat Sheet] When Is the Best Time to Post on Instagram in 2022? [Cheat Sheet]](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/When-Is-the-Best-Time-to-Post-on-Instagram-in.jpgkeepProtocol.jpeg)
If you want to find the best time to post on Instagram, you’re probably trying to reach a specific goal. Maybe you want to maximize the number of likes you get on each post. Or you hope to improve brand awareness by getting new followers.
If you’re new to social media you might start posting as often as you can and see what happens. But what if you add some scientific thinking to the process? For example, you could try posting at different times of day and jotting down the likes per minute for each post.
That experiment could have value over time, but it’s also pretty intense and time-consuming. Is there an easier way to figure out when to post on Instagram?
In this post, you’ll find everything you need to start posting at the best times on this popular social media platform. Keep reading, or jump to the section you’re looking for with the links below:
What are the best times to post on Instagram?
- Monday: 7-9 p.m.
- Tuesday: 8-9 p.m.
- Wednesday: 8-9 p.m.
- Thursday: 9 p.m.
- Friday: 9 p.m.
- Saturday: 6-11 p.m.
- Sunday: 4-9 p.m.
The times above are for Instagram engagement in local time — meaning that your audience is in the same time zone as you are when you post. So, if you live in Los Angeles and your primary audience is also in Los Angeles you would post at the times above. If you live in Los Angeles and your target audience is in New York, you’ll want to shift these posting times three hours forward.
Best Time to Post to Instagram Cheatsheet
How We Found the Best Instagram Posting Times
This data comes from two sources. First is HubSpot’s 2022 Instagram Engagement report. This extensive report reviewed 110M posts across 1M Instagram users. The report also has several sections specific to English-speaking countries. They analyzed data from close to 85M posts from North America alone.
This post also contains more original research from the HubSpot team. They surveyed 300 professionals from 16+ industries about their preferred days and times to post on Instagram.
Why post on Instagram at a certain time?
According to global Statista data, mobile users spend an average of 11.2 hours a month on Instagram. That’s about 1% of their time each month, or one in a hundred chances that you will catch your users when they’re on the platform.
So, posting when your top users are online will make a difference. It will give you more time to connect with your most important followers.
But for many marketers, social media posting is just one more thing to do on a busy day. It can be tempting to post whenever it’s convenient or to schedule posts for a time that feels logical, even if there isn’t any data to back it up.
These are a few reasons why it’s important to post to Instagram at specific and consistent times.
Increasing Reach
Some users on Instagram focus their feeds on the friends, businesses, and influencers they already follow. But many others use Instagram for inspiration and discovery. This post from a machine learning engineer outlines some of the factors in helping new users discover your posts.
One of those factors is recent engagement. This post from the Instagram blog also outlines how important fresh and recent content is.
So, if you post when your top users are online, your new content is more likely to be one of the first things they see. This can also boost engagement, another ranking factor. This combination increases the chances that new users will discover your account and posts on the platform.
Check out this post for more tips on how to grow your reach on Instagram.
Building a Loyal Audience
Loyalty takes time and effort to build. It’s especially tough for small businesses that have to compete with big brands on social media.
Posting during peak times on Instagram helps you connect with more of your followers at once. It shows your audience that you want to engage with them and keeps your brand top of mind.
It also helps set expectations. Building loyalty is about more than great products and customer service. It’s about being a consistent presence in their feeds that helps you build relationships.
For example, say you run your media business in the Pacific time zone, but a third of your customers are in the Australian Eastern time zone. If you post all your content from 9 a.m-5 p.m. PST, those posts will appear between 3-11 a.m for your Australian customers. Chances are your Australian audience won’t see many posts from your brand.
And what if an unhappy customer in Australia posts a story about your brand? That one post could shape that entire audience’s perception of your brand.
To build a loyal audience, it’s important to understand when your audience is online and to use that information to choose the best time to post.
Increasing Engagement
According to 2022 HubSpot research, the global average Instagram engagement rate is almost 6%. That’s more than double the average engagement rate in 2021.
Instagram engagement creates a ripple effect, like throwing a rock in a still pool. The first ripple is obvious — if you get immediate likes, comments, and saves after posting, it’s more likely that your post will show up in more feeds.
The next ripples come from other Instagram features like Favorites, Search, and videos. Each feature has an independent algorithm. And each feature weighs engagement differently. For example, becoming a favorite for your followers means your posts will show up at the top of their feeds every time they log in. Engagement rates factor into which posts get bumped to the top of Search pages.
So, posting at the right time doesn’t just mean more comments, messages, and saves. It creates more opportunities for engagement too.
Testing New Algorithms
Like most online tools, Instagram launches constant updates to shape the user experience. As a business, your team needs to quickly understand how each update could impact your users and strategy.
Algorithms are complex. Instagram leaders say that each part of the app uses an independent algorithm.
So, one day your latest videos might show up in the feed but not surface on Discover, and it may be tough to figure out why. This can have an immediate impact on your business.
There are a few ways that you can manage these updates. For example, you can keep up with the latest social media news. But the best way to understand the latest algorithm changes is to run tests with your own posts.
So, what do you need to run reliable and useful tests that can help you understand which content your users see after an update? Number one is a consistent posting schedule. The fewer variables your test has, the more trustworthy your results will be.
Better yet, you should post at the best times for your audience on Instagram. This way, you’ll have consistent timing and a wider test group. That strategy can help you get more reliable results.
Understanding New Features
Your posting schedule can also help you understand new Instagram features. Carousels, Stories, and Reels are all unique parts of Instagram. And depending on your content and industry, they’ll each have different rates of engagement.
If your business is investing time and resources into Instagram, it’s important to have a strategy. Strategies usually include different types of content. Whether you want your posts to show up as suggested content or to boost your shoppable stories, you want useful eye-catching content.
When Instagram releases new features, it can take time to understand:
- What the new feature does
- When users see new features
- How they interact with each new feature
- Resources needed for feature content
The sooner you understand a new feature, the more likely it is that you’ll make the most of that feature before your competitors. For example, this post on the Instagram blog tells users how to see more of what they want on their feeds.
Like testing an algorithm update, knowing the top posting times for your niche can help you test new features for your users faster. Social testing is most useful when you know your test audience, which makes posting time important.
Streamlining Your Posting Schedule
Choosing the right times for your audience can make it much easier to schedule your posts. Many social media and marketing managers take advantage of social scheduling tools. While these tools can make the process of social media posting much easier, it can be tough to get results if you’re not posting at the right times.
It’s all about creating the right content at the right time for your audience. And set posting times can also help you create a more personalized social media calendar for your ideal buyer personas.
Here are a few more ways that choosing the best posting times for Instagram can help you simplify your posting schedule:
- Creates focused times for content planning and tracking
- Limits the need for “always on” social media management
- Offers opportunities to batch-create targeted post content
Finding Your Best Customers
A 2020 Instagram Trends research study says that 44% of people surveyed use Instagram to shop weekly.
That’s an incredible incentive to connect with your best customers on Instagram right away. But how can the best posting times help you find those shoppers?
You may be new to your industry. If that’s the case, the industry-specific posting times below can help you understand when your users are online. This can help you start seeing from their perspective and you can use those insights to improve your content.
For example, people in financial services are easiest to reach on Instagram on Sunday nights. This is just before the next work week begins. It may be a way to wind down the weekend and prepare for what the next week will bring.
But workers in agriculture are easier to reach on Saturday mornings, and mostly skip Instagram during the week. These professionals might be in spots with limited service during the week. Safety is also a concern, so it may be difficult for them to use mobile devices while on the job.
You can also block out these times on your schedule to engage with users who follow your business. Comment on posts, ask authentic questions, and watch videos from your target audience.
These times are when the biggest pool of your users is active online, so it’s the best time to start a conversation. It’s easy to send a message on Instagram, but not every message gets a response. If you can be there to engage in real time, you’ll get much more value from the time you spend on the platform. You’ll also have a better chance of connecting with top customers.
Is there really a best time to post to Instagram?
It’s clear that posting time matters on Instagram. But is there really a best time to post to get the results you’re looking for? To answer this question, let’s hear from some members of the HubSpot social media team.
Content Quality
It can be tempting to churn out content to meet ambitious deadlines in the hopes that the right customers see your posts. But content quality is what creates the most value for your audience.
Community Management & Growth Specialist Mathew Cruz says,
“It sounds obvious, but making your content as engaging and optimized as possible for the platform it’s being published on is key. “
So, begin each post with the best possible content, then optimize to make sure that followers get to feel the impact of your efforts.
“Start with your target audience, and what types of content and information is most useful to them. What kind of content might they save for later? What might they share with a friend? What might incentivize them to comment on your content? Start with these questions and work backwards in order to improve your reach and performance.”
– Annabelle Nyst, Senior Content Manager, Social Media
You can also get some inspiration from top influencers and brands on the platform.
Another way to create quality content is to line up with recent trends and news. But this strategy isn’t the right fit for everyone. Here’s more useful advice from Annabelle Nyst:
“When it comes to posting around tentpole moments, events, and trending conversations, you should ask yourself: Does this make sense for my brand to be a part of this conversation? Are we adding value here?”
Instagram’s Algorithm
The best posting time isn’t really about when you post, it’s about when you want users to see your content. But that’s up to the algorithms that are unique to each part of Instagram.
So, the care you put into posting time is only one part of a more complex system that delivers your content to people on the platform.
According to Mathew Cruz: “Instagram’s algorithm and UX changes have made an impact on the effectiveness of posting at specific times. Unless your users are consuming their content in the “following” view, the time your audience will see your content can vary.”
To optimize the chances that people will see and engage with your content, check out these tips:
“Look at what the Instagram algorithm appears to be prioritizing at any given moment – for example, Reels. We know that Instagram has been leaning into Reels as a format in order to compete with TikTok, so how can you incorporate Reels into your strategy?
The more you adhere to what Instagram wants to see, the more the algorithm will favor you. Also, always optimize for value and engagement first.” – Annabelle Nyst
“With Instagram, understanding the UX and algorithm changes can be more effective in strategizing content publishing rather than simply timing.
For example, with Instagram’s shift to pushing video over images, the types of content you choose to create and publish may impact the chances of it being pushed out to users.
Additionally, feeding the algorithm with what your content is about helps it know where it should go. For example, adding relevant captions, hashtags, and sounds can help increase chances of it appearing on the feeds of users that enjoy specific types of content.” – Mathew Cruz
Content Consistency
Social Strategist Erin McCool says: “Quality and consistency of content is more important than timing.”
Consistency is key to taking advantage of social media opportunities. Whether you’re amplifying your stories at the same time each week or posting with branded hashtags, a steady schedule is essential.
If you don’t have a clear brand voice on Instagram, it won’t help you to reach more audience members. Without consistency, it’s unlikely that users will recognize and connect your content to your brand no matter how many times they see it.
So, don’t just post at the best times. Use the best times to post as a guide for a consistent posting schedule. This strategy can help you reach the right audience at the right time with the right content.
Best Time to Post on Instagram by Time Zone
Your location can heavily influence the success of your social media marketing strategy. Audiences behave differently depending on where they are in the world, and you can benefit from knowing when they’re most active on Instagram.
You know that evenings tend to be the best time to post to Instagram for engagement. But how do you make that happen if your audience lives in multiple time zones?
This is where you need to make some decisions about the best posting times on Instagram for your audience. To help you make these choices, here’s more compelling data from the 2022 Instagram Engagement report.
United States and Canada
The report breaks down data by region in North America and highlights five top cities.
Miami
Best Times: 8-9 a.m.
Best Day: Sunday
Atlanta
Best Times: 11 p.m.-12 a.m.
Best Days: Saturday through Monday
Kensington-Chinatown, Toronto, Canada
Best Times: 4-10 p.m.-12 a.m.
Best Days: Sunday and Monday
Houston
Best Times: 10 a.m., 1-2 a.m.
Best Day: Saturday and Sunday
Los Angeles
Best Times: 5-8 p.m., 3 a.m.
Best Days: Monday through Wednesday, Saturday
Best Time Each Day to Post on Instagram
Every day of the week is a good day to post on Instagram, but you’re likely to get the best engagement on weekends.
The chart below shows the average engagement of each day of the week. As you can see, even though weekends are when you’ll see the most engagements, the data is pretty steady throughout the week.
This means that you’ll want to do deeper research to figure out which days are best for you to post. This is where industry-specific data can help.
For example, if your followers work at a desk job with regular hours, they might be taking a lunch break around noon. This would mean that they could be more likely to scroll through Instagram during that time to catch up on the latest from their friends, favorite brands, and influencers.
But what if they work in an industry with a less consistent schedule? For example, real estate agents often work around their clients’ schedules, showing homes on the weekend or after work hours.
This means that their scrolling time will be different from other users. You’ll want to track their behavior or use industry benchmarks to find the best day to post.
Best Time to Post Reels on Instagram
Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri actively shares Instagram updates on Twitter. Many of his recent posts highlight new Reels features and emphasize the importance of Reels.
At the same time, HubSpot research shows that only one in four Instagram marketers are using Instagram Reels. That said, 29% plan to use Reels for the first time in 2022.
Trusted resources offer the same tips for the best time to post Reels as they do for other types of content on Instagram.
The top tip for Reels timing: Be sure to post consistently. If the uploading days or times you post are sporadic, the algorithm won’t prioritize your account visibility.
Best Time to Post on Instagram by Industry
General data about optimal post timing is a great starting point. But if you want to get more granular, HubSpot research surveyed over 300 professionals to help you engage with your top audience. Here are the best times to post on Instagram for over 16 popular industries.
Education
Best Times: 9 p.m.-12 a.m.
Best Day: Monday
Worst Days: Wednesday through Sunday
Healthcare Companies
Best Times: 6-9 p.m.
Best Day: Saturday
Worst Days: Tuesday through Friday
Financial Services
Best Times: 9 p.m.-12 a.m.
Best Day: Sunday
Worst Days: Wednesday and Thursday
Retail
Best Times: 3-6 p.m.
Best Day: Sunday
Worst Day: Tuesday
Ecommerce
Best Times: 9 p.m.-12 a.m.
Best Day: Saturday
Worst Days: Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday
Business Services
Best Times: 9 a.m.-12 p.m., 6-9 p.m.
Best Day: Friday
Worst Days: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday
Consumer Manufacturing
Best Times: 9 a.m.-12 p.m.
Best Days: Wednesday and Friday
Worst Days: Monday, Tuesday, and Sunday
Manufacturing and Materials
Best Times: 12-6 p.m.
Best Day: Friday and Sunday
Worst Days: Monday through Thursday, Saturday
Construction Companies
Best Times: 6-9 p.m.
Best Days: Thursday and Sunday
Worst Days: Monday and Saturday
Agricultural Organizations
Best Times: 9 a.m.-12 p.m.
Best Day: Saturday
Worst Days: Weekdays
Electronics Organizations
Best Times: 3-6 p.m.
Best Day: Thursday
Worst Days: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday
Energy, Utilities, and Waste Management
Best Times: 6-9 p.m.
Best Day: Saturday
Worst Days: Sunday through Friday
Information Technology
Best Times: 6-9 p.m.
Best Day: Saturday
Worst Days: Monday and Thursday
Media and Entertainment
Best Times: 3-6 p.m., 9 p.m.-12 a.m.
Best Day: Friday
Worst Days: Sunday and Monday
Transportation and Logistics
Best Times: 9 a.m.-12 p.m.
Best Day: Saturday
Worst Days: Sunday, Monday, Thursday, and Friday
Advertising and Marketing Organizations
Best Times: 9 a.m.-3 p.m.
Best Days: Monday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday
Worst Days: Tuesday and Friday
How to Find the Right Time to Post to Instagram for Reach
Data on the best posting times for Instagram is incredibly useful. That said, it’s often most effective when you’re just starting out.
As you continue to develop your presence on the platform, you might want to boost your results and do some posting time research on your own. The tips below are useful places to start.
1. Check Your Top Posts
Tracking your top posts can help you understand what posts are most popular and which topics draw the most engagement. It can also help you see how posting time impacts those factors.
For example, is that recent post about company events the most exciting content for an online beauty company? Or did it generate the most likes last month because it was posted on Saturday evening, a top time for ecommerce engagement?
You can use Instagram Insights to check out your top-performing posts, as well as factors like:
- Engaged audience
- Total followers
- Most active times
HubSpot customers: You can check the Top Posts report for a quick list of your top ten posts. You can also check interactions, clicks, shares, and impressions for each post.
As you start to look at your social analytics, it can be tempting to focus on the numbers. But when you’re looking at top posts, it’s important to stick with your creative side and to look at your numbers from your customer’s point of view. As you check your top posts, ask yourself:
- What is special about this post?
- What kind of content is it?
- If it’s a video, what makes this video stand out?
- If it’s a photograph, how is this photo different from the others you’ve posted?
- Did you edit the post?
- Did you add text or design elements to the post?
- Is there something that ties the people who’ve liked this post together?
- Does this post connect to a current trend or event?
You may want to gather top post insights for a few months before you dig into analyzing your post content. This can help you see the top content your users respond to and when they want to see that type of content.
2. Track Competitor Posting Times
Another way to choose the right time to post for your audience is to figure out who else has their attention. Starting with your top competitors helps you figure out when to post and what content works on different days and times. Competitive analysis can also help you:
- Learn about trends and benchmarks in your niche
- Update your social strategy
- Pinpoint new opportunities
There are a few ways to begin this research.
First, just scrolling through Instagram can give you a wealth of competitor insights. Take a look at a brand’s likes, hashtag copy, and how many hashtags they use. This can give you a quick profile of who follows that brand and what keywords they use, so it can hint at that competitor’s strategy.
If you want to do more detailed research, there are many great tools to help you track your competition. For example, you can create competitor streams with HubSpot’s social media software.
With this feature, you can track multiple competitors at once and filter your results by social network or time period.
3. Focus On Engagement
Strong engagement on Instagram is between 1-5%. According to HubSpot research, the average engagement in 2021 was 5.86%. The average engagement rate for 2020 was just 2.26%, so these rates can change quickly.
If you want to improve engagement, start by calculating your Instagram engagement rate. You can measure your rate with your all-time numbers, but it can be helpful to break this data into smaller sections, like months or weeks. That way you can see engagement patterns for your account over time. It can also make it easier to see how the times you post on Instagram could impact your engagement rate.
Engagement rates show how people are reacting to your content. So, whether you’re sharing Reels, going live on Stories, or posting polls, questions, and quizzes, you can measure your impact. Engagement rates can sway based on:
- Audience interest
- Relevance
- Social authority
It’s also important to remember that your most engaging content may not be as sticky at the same hours each day. Some content takes time to pick up views and shares before it makes an impact during peak engagement hours. Other content is like a firework — exploding quickly and disappearing just as fast.
To optimize your post timing for engagement, you need to get organized. The best way to find an ideal posting time is by testing the timing of your posts to see which post time generates the most audience engagement.
For example, what if you want to figure out when you get the most likes and comments on your Instagram carousels?
Say you create and post five different carousels a week and post them at random times. That approach will make it tough to get data that shows you the best times to post carousels for engagement.
But what if you post five similar carousels at a slightly different time each day? Then you can compare your engagement rates with the time you posted each carousel. This can show you the best time to post carousels for engagement so you can plan future carousels with those times in mind.
4. Use Your Data
When you’re new to Instagram, follower and engagement numbers are often low. Numbers for posting time, content type, hashtags, and more can be so similar that you may not spot the patterns that can help you grow.
Social media analytics can make these patterns easier to see and experiment with.
For example, the audience section in Instagram Insights can show you the days and hours when your followers are active. You can use that information to create a posting schedule. This can help you see whether posting during peak hours improves your reach.
At the same time, it’s important to remember that anyone with an account has access to Instagram Insights. And according to HubSpot research, 52% of Instagram accounts have 1,000-10,000 followers.
So, there’s a good chance that other brands are showing up in your followers’ feeds during that active time. You may want to post outside of active hours to see if your account draws more attention when there’s less competition.
It’s great to have the best times on Instagram available when planning your strategy. But tracking your own data can give you the personalized insights you need to stand out.
Boost Instagram Engagement on Your Schedule
Organic Instagram engagement and a consistent posting schedule go hand in hand. Each industry has natural peaks and valleys of activity each day. This means that your Instagram strategy should flow with them. Use helpful resources, like this cheat sheet, to plan your social media calendar and watch your engagement rate soar.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in February 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
MARKETING
Opportunities & Limitations for Marketers [2023]
![Opportunities & Limitations for Marketers [2023] Opportunities & Limitations for Marketers [2023]](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Opportunities-Limitations-for-Marketers-2023.jpg)
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the hottest topics in marketing right now, especially for the SEO industry. Although AI has been available for years, the velocity of tools being created, and the hype associated with them, has reached a blistering peak.
Naturally, marketers are starting to ask a few questions. What’s real? What’s possible? And how can I maximize my impact with this technology today?
To answer all those questions and more, let’s take a look at where we see the opportunities and limitations of AI tools for SEO in 2023.
What is AI?
It’s also important to keep in mind how Google and other search engines use and define AI. For example, Google says AI “is a set of technologies based primarily on machine learning and deep learning and is used for various functions, including object categorization, natural language processing, recommendations, intelligent data retrieval, and more.”
What is AI-Driven SEO?
Marketers in the SEO industry are increasingly using AI to quickly understand what makes a specific site or piece of content rank on search engines. Then, with the rise of generative AI tools, they can even use AI to generate and optimize content before the competition.
ChatGPT, an AI-powered chatbot developed by OpenAI, has been especially disruptive when it comes to generative AI. While we don’t see this technology replacing human writers anytime soon, the quality of ChatGPT responses has people excited and wondering if it will dramatically shift the search landscape in the immediate future.
A Brief History of AI in SEO
Given the waves ChatGPT has caused recently, some may not realize that Google has been a major force in AI research and has incorporated AI-driven algorithms into products like Gmail and Google Search for years.
On the SEO side, Google launched RankBrain in 2015 to better understand searcher queries. This announcement was the first time Google officially went on the record as using an artificial intelligence system in their algorithm. This was a significant step forward in Google’s understanding of the importance of sentence structure in queries. It also signaled the shift in SEO from the importance of keywords to the importance of entities.
Fast forward to 2019, and Google announces the launch of BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers), a neural network-based technique for natural language processing to better serve results for the large percentage of unique queries they receive every day.
With these groundbreaking technologies, a flood of SEO tools and use cases hit the market to incorporate similar systems into common SEO activities such as content creation, image optimization, and forecasting.
The most buzzworthy new tool, ChatGPT, was launched in 2022 and builds on GPT-3 that was launched in 2020. This instance of generative AI exploded onto the scene, and the results have been truly impressive. The boasts of this technology still appear to over-promise and under-deliver, but this is the closest we’ve gotten to date and foreshadows a rapidly approaching future.
How You Should be Using AI for SEO
It seems like no matter where you look, there’s always someone proposing a new way that tools like ChatGPT can help propel your SEO strategy forward. However, it’s not clear which use cases are helpful, and which aren’t a great use of your time. Here are four ways we recommend using AI for SEO:
Creating SEO Content with AI
Generative AI tools like ChatGPT can be incredibly useful in the brainstorming and idea-generation phase. With the ability to rapidly produce lists and ideas, you can conquer the tyranny of a blank page quicker than ever. Refining your prompts and going deeper on the ideas that spark your interest can illuminate your own original ideas and novel connections you wouldn’t have arrived at otherwise.
One caveat here is that the large language model it uses to populate answers makes it likely that tools like ChatGPT will give you the most common answers related to your prompts. This may be fine in certain situations, but you won’t always want the most common answer.
We also recommend heavily editing your content to help your brand’s voice shine through while adding personality and asserting your expertise. Keeping the human element in the equation will help you better connect with your customers.
Using AI for Content Optimization
Where AI can be more helpful is on the content optimization front. For shorter snippets of content using a template, such as product descriptions or meta descriptions, using generative AI tools to scale can lead to major efficiencies. Again, you’ll want a careful human eye to review for accuracy and adjust as necessary to reflect your brand’s expertise, but this can save you a ton of time.
Finding natural language processing connections can also help you build authority around entities and provide another avenue for optimization. This should align naturally with the topics your brand talks about anyway and the topics your customers are interested in, but it provides another valuable lens.
Automating SEO Workflows
While the text-based generative AI models are getting all the press right now, image classification was one of the first areas for AI to make waves and is arguably more advanced than the text content AI can create right now. AI tools for naming image files and creating ALT text can automate tedious manual processes. Using AI tools to generate reporting insights and distilling large data sets can also be extremely valuable.
Scaling Your Existing SEO Strategy
While advances in AI over the past five years haven’t dramatically changed SEO strategy, it has enabled the ability to scale quickly. While blindly relying on AI negates the value of deep expertise in a field, it would be equally alarming if your SEO team didn’t employ any artificial intelligence at all.
The Limitations of AI for SEO
As with any emerging field, there are not only limitations in the outputs but also considerable challenges and considerations around the impacts of these tools. We need to be thoughtful and cautious in our approach because we don’t know the things we don’t know.
Here are a few of the current-day limitations of AI for SEO, especially generative AI tools.
Biases
The outputs of tools like ChatGPT depend on their training models, and when your data set is sourced from the internet, the problematic things that are posted when it comes to offensive language and stereotypes are going to be reflected in the tool’s outputs, which can also serve to perpetuate them.
Training Data
It’s essential to know the training data for your tool. For example, ChatGPT doesn’t access the internet, so when it gives an answer to you about viewing webpages, that isn’t an accurate description of how it operates. Its data set also only goes until 2021 (they make updates regularly), so it’s not the best resource for current events.
Accuracy & Understanding
While the technology behind something like ChatGPT is incredible, the accuracy leaves a lot to be desired. A common issue is “hallucinating” or sounding very confident about an incorrect answer.
The efficacy of using ChatGPT as a search engine right now is like considering me, a member of the SEO team, a search engine for paid search advice. With ten years of SEO experience and a wealth of experience working closely with our Paid Search team, I know a decent amount of the terminology, and I can give you a plausible-sounding answer if I need to. But what is the value in that? If you ask our paid search experts directly, you will be in much better hands.
Since these tools don’t understand the material, their answers lack the requisite nuance of expertise.
Knowing the potential pitfalls of your AI tools will help you use them more effectively. When you know what to look for, you can diligently review their outputs to avoid adverse outcomes for your brand.
AI-Driven SEO Tools to Try in 2023
With a steady stream of AI tools released every week, the impetus is on adding AI tools to your arsenal more than needing to use a specific tool or process.
If you’re just starting to experiment with ChatGPT and getting excited about what AI can do for your program, here are some tools to try this year:
Low-Budget Content Tools
Our first bucket is budget-friendly content tools. Depending on your preferences, tools like Jasper, Copy.ai, and Frase are great options in this tier that can cost you less than $100/mo. Each tool has particular strengths, ranging from helpful templates to robust competitor research, that can elevate your current content process.
Enterprise-Level AI Insights Tools
Enterprise SEO clients have unique needs. The tools and platforms servicing this market have been experimenting with AI for better business insights for years. While these tools are significantly more expensive, if your website has millions of web pages or brings in millions of dollars of revenue through organic traffic, they can help you stay on top of the competition.
All of the following brands have an AI offering for data analysis and providing SEO recommendations:
There are AI-assisted tools for just about every aspect of SEO, but the important thing is to match that with your team’s expertise and the goals you’re trying to accomplish. These tools won’t replace your experts, but they can make their work easier and more impactful.
Looking Ahead: Future State of AI in SEO
One of the time-honored traditions in the SEO field is to ask if SEO is dead. This question is revisited in countless think pieces every year, and the dawn of ChatGPT was merely another occasion to opine on the industry’s mortality.
So will ChatGPT finally spell the end of search engines? Doubtful.
While it will probably siphon off some usage from search engines, it’s difficult to imagine a wholesale change in global user behavior that completely upends Google in the short term.
While SEOs are well-accustomed to grappling with their mortality, the past year is the first time that think-pieces threatened Google’s existence. First with Gen Z’s extensive use of TikTok and now with the AI chatbots. It’s not to say that empires don’t fall, nor that they can’t collapse quickly. Any good financial advisor would caution that past performance isn’t indicative of future results, but even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in this article with The Verge, “I think whenever someone talks about technology being the end of some other giant company, it’s usually wrong. I think people forget they get to make a countermove here, and they’re like pretty smart, pretty competent. I do think there’s a change for search that will probably come at some point – but not as dramatically as people think in the short term.”
While it can’t move as quickly given its position as the incumbent, Google has already flung itself headfirst into the AI arena by announcing Bard, an AI-powered chat feature, to compete with ChatGPT and Microsoft’s integration of OpenAI technology into its products.
While we anticipate the arms race between the search engines to continue, we also expect GPT-4 (available now) is the next step forward in generative AI and will be multimodal, expanding from text capacity to video, images, and sound.
Conclusion
It seems like the world has changed since ChatGPT burst onto the scene, and in some ways, it has, but in others, this is just the next step in a decades-long process. It could portend rapid change or it could be a flash in the pan as people realize they don’t actually prefer a conversational model of search results.
What we do know is this; it’s worth paying close attention to every development, maximizing the tools we have at our disposal today, and ensuring we have expert practitioners to make these tools valuable.
The outlook today could look very different in the second half of the year – so it’s important to have a partner who keeps a close eye on the industry. If you’d like help navigating this constantly changing search landscape, reach out to our SEO services team or contact us today.
MARKETING
Digital marketing evolution: New approaches and channels

Marketing evolution has entered a new realm by going digital. And with that, abundant choices for reaching your target audience. What are the latest approaches and channels? Which ones are right for you?
Since 85% of Americans say they are online daily, leveraging the latest digital marketing strategies is worthwhile.
First, let’s recap what digital marketing is and why it’s crucial.
Key takeaways:
- Digital marketing uses electronic means to connect with buyers to sell a product or service or raise brand awareness.
- You’re able to reach a wider audience with digital marketing, which means building brand recognition, acquiring more customers and increasing revenue
- Omnichannel marketing uses various channels and digital platforms to present your brand, product or message. Your message is consistent yet fine-tuned for each channel.
- Aside from customers feeling valued, personalized experiences build brand trust and promote customer engagement.
- Micro-influencers tend to hold the highest engagement rates across multiple social media platforms.
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing uses electronic means to connect with buyers to sell a product or service or increase brand awareness. This type of marketing occurs regardless of whether the users are online on the Internet. Digital marketing is over 100 years old, beginning with the invention of the radio. Other forms of digital marketing include TV, telephone and digital billboards.
However, online marketing is the most popular form of digital marketing. Online marketing is the simplest way to reach your target audience in the right place and at the right time. Examples of online digital marketing include:
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Content marketing (blogs, videos)
- Social media marketing (SMM)
- Email marketing
Why digital marketing matters
Digital marketing has many advantages over traditional marketing (e.g., an ad in a newspaper or handing out flyers):
- You reach a broader audience since the Internet is a global tool. You can, however, filter your audience to your niche market.
- A larger audience means building brand recognition, acquiring more customers and increasing revenue.
- Digital marketing is measurable, meaning your campaigns contain metrics that you can use to evaluate which methods are more successful.
- Digital marketing is also very cost-effective. Some strategies cost nothing (e.g., creating a blog or posting on social media). Also, there’s no paper to print.
Four digital marketing evolution trends
Successful businesses understand that they must meet or exceed the needs and expectations of customers. Therefore, the customer drives marketing evolution. Let’s look at four strategies that are emerging.
1. Omnichannel marketing
Omnichannel marketing uses various channels and digital platforms to present your brand, product or message. Your message is consistent yet fine-tuned for each channel. Whichever way your customers access your business, you’re there.
Omnichannel marketing is an evolution of multichannel marketing, where you make your brand available across multiple channels. Omnichannel marketing takes it further by seamlessly integrating the user experience across all digital channels. This method allows the customer to move from one platform or device to another and not just have a similar interaction but also retain their shopping and purchase history.
To devise an effective omnichannel marketing strategy, you need at least four things:
- Ensure that your website displays well across all devices, like computers, tablets and smartphones.
- Consistently present your content across all relevant channels, including your offline ones, like in-store.
- Customize the call-to-action for the specific channel. For example, an email campaign may require a button click, while a TV ad may need to display a web address.
- Keep customer data in a central location, facilitating the forward movement of the customer journey.
2. Personalized experiences
Customers want to feel valued by a company, and personalization creates that feeling. For example, if a customer bought laundry detergent from a particular brand, they may like an email reminder with a link to the product on the site when it’s time to replenish.
Aside from customers feeling valued, personalized experiences build brand trust and promote customer engagement. How can you know your shoppers to create personalized marketing experiences? Here are a few tips:
- Conduct an opinion poll or a customer survey
- See what customers are saying on social media about your business
- Read online customer reviews
- Trend buyer history
3. Influencer marketing
Why has influencer marketing grown so popular? Consumers see influencers as authentic. Furthermore, people can engage directly with influencers. Many influencers respond to comments and chat with followers. This meaningful connection tends to make influencers held in high regard.
When dipping your toes into this marketing strategy, you may wish to start with a micro-influencer. Micro-influencers are individuals with between 10,000 and 50,000 followers. Micro-influencers tend to have the highest engagement rates across multiple social media platforms.
How do you find and partner with an influencer? Here are some things to try:
- Understand your target audience. Knowing your customers’ demographics, core values and social media platforms will help you select an appropriate influencer.
- Look at your customer base first and see if there is an influencer that uses your product or service.
- Use the hashtag #sponsored on social media to see a list of influencers.
- You can contact the influencer with a direct message (DM) on the platform or through email. Propose the campaign along with suitable compensation.
4. Responding to social issues
Following the event of 2020, more than ever, customers need to trust the brands they choose. One survey showed that 50% of individuals would become loyal customers of brands they trust.
How does a business earn the trust of its customers? The same survey provided further details. Customers look to see:
- How well the company treats the environment
- If they use materials and ingredients that are local, sustainable and ethically-acquired
- How well the company treats its employees
- How well the brand responded to the COVID-19 pandemic
You may think, “Is this a digital marketing strategy?” The answer is yes because you would advertise your company’s initiatives on your website. For example, the following are excerpts from Nike’s Impact Report on its website.
The key to this marketing strategy is to be authentic. You must either back up or follow through on the statements made online.
Taking leaps in the digital marketing evolution with Optimizely
Today’s marketing strategies require innovation, insight and evolution. Optimizely’s digital experience platform (DXP) and the team of experts are here to help you attract and retain customers so your business can grow.
If you’re ready to take your marketing approach to the next level, get started with Optimizely today.
MARKETING
How to Use WhatsApp as an Effective Marketing Tool

WhatsApp has become one of the most widely-used messaging apps in the world. With over 2 billion committed users, it has become a platform where people communicate with family, friends, and even the companies they buy from. WhatsApp Business, a version designed solely for businesses, allows companies to communicate with their customers and vendors. In this article, we will show you how you can use WhatsApp Business Accounts as a crucial marketing and customer service tool.
What is WhatsApp Business?
WhatsApp Business is a free messaging app made for business use. It allows companies to have a presence on theWhatsApp business platformand relay messages to their customers.
WhatsApp Business has many useful features for businesses, such as automated messages, quick replies, and labels. This can make communication more efficient and save time for busy companies. It can be especially helpful for small and mid-sized businesses that don’t have the budget for a large marketing and customer service team.
Why use WhatsApp Business?
Using WhatsApp Business can give you a competitive edge. Many of its features are great for businesses. For one, it allows businesses to reach a large audience. With over 2 billion active users, WhatsApp provides a platform where businesses can communicate with their customers on a one-to-one basis. This personalized approach can help businesses build strong relationships with their customers and improve customer satisfaction.
Secondly, WhatsApp Business can improve customer service. By using features such as automated messages and quick replies, businesses can react to customer concerns quickly and efficiently. This can help businesses provide better customer service and increase customer loyalty. It can also be a great tool for sending large file transfers to customers, such as detailed invoices or product information.
Third, WhatsApp Business can be an effective marketing tool. By using features such as broadcast lists and group chats, businesses can reach a large audience with targeted messages. This can help businesses promote their products and services and increase sales. For example, if you are having a big Spring sale, you can send a mass Whatsapp message to all of your followers without worrying about incurring large data fees. You should always be sure to include your WhatsApp contact details on your digital business card so that you can build a following on the app.
How to use WhatsApp Business for marketing and customer service?
The benefits of using WhatsApp Business are clear. Now, let’s learn how to use it effectively for marketing and customer service.
Create a professional profile
The first step is to create a professional profile for your business. Be sure to include your business name, logo, contact info, and description. This will ensure people recognize your business and make it easier for them to contact you. You should feature your WhatsApp on your social media and e-commerce websites so that prospects can easily reach out for more information.
Use automated messages and instant replies
Automated messages and quick replies can be a time-saving, life-saving feature for small and large businesses alike. Automated messages can be set up to greet customers and provide information about your business. Quick replies can even be used to respond to frequently asked questions. This can help businesses provide better customer service and improve response times.
Use labels to organize conversations
Labels can be used to categorize conversations and make it simpler to find specific messages. This can be especially important for businesses that receive a high volume of inquiries. Labels can be used to organize marketing conversations, such as new customers, existing customers, and inquiries. Labels can also be used for customer service-related inquiries, such as a “refund,” “complaint” or “general inquiries” labeled folders.
Use broadcast lists to send targeted messages
Broadcast lists can be utilized to send targeted marketing messages to a wide audience. Businesses can build marketing lists based on customer preferences or interests and send them highly targeted and/or personal messages. This can help businesses promote their products and services and increase sales. It can also help add a personal touch to your business when you can directly send an intimate message – such as a Happy Birthday text – to a single customer.
Use group chats for customer support
Group chats can be used for customer support and provide customers with a platform to ask questions and receive support. Businesses can create groups for specific products or services and provide customers with information and support.
Provide personalized support
Providing personalized support can help businesses build long-lasting relationships with their consumer base. Businesses can use features such as personalized greetings and messages to provide a custom-tailored experience for their customers. This can help businesses improve customer satisfaction and increase brand engagement. You can also use WhatsApp to have customer service phone conversations with your customers by dialing their WhatsApp number.
Use WhatsApp Business API for automation
WhatsApp Business API can be great for automation. It can also save businesses time and optimize response times. It enables businesses to automate messages, set up chatbots, and integrate with other systems. This can aid businesses that aim to provide better customer service and improve response times.
Conclusion
WhatsApp Business can be a vital marketing and customer service tool for businesses. By using features such as automated messages, quick replies, broadcast lists, and group chats, businesses can reach a large audience, and provide better customer service while also saving time and money.
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