Episode 109: Facebook, Google, HUG - 2018 is off to a rapid start

Welcome to Episode 109 of HubShots!

Asia-Pacific’s #1 HubSpot Focussed podcast. Possibly. We think.

This episode we chat about community, HubSpot integrations, Facebook News feed shenanigans, Google My Business listings add video, and a new Creative Top 10.

Listen to the show here: https://soundcloud.com/hubshots/109-facebook-google-hug-2018-is-off-to-a-rapid-start

Welcome to HubShots, the podcast for marketing managers who use HubSpot hosted by Ian Jacob from Search & Be Found and Craig Bailey from XEN Systems.

Join our WhatsApp group here: https://hubshots.com/whatsapp/

Join the Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1608138752821574/

Recorded: Monday 15 Jan 2018 | Published: Tuesday 30 January 2018

Shot 1: Inbound Thought of the Week

How 2018 will be shaped? Rapid changes in marketing - stay informed and learn at HubSpot user groups.

Find a HubSpot User Group (or HUG) near you.

https://offers.hubspot.com/join-a-hubspot-user-group

Very excited to be helping out with the Sydney HUG this year along with Moby, Justin and Tony.

http://sydney.hubspotusergroups.com/sydney-hubspot-user-group-sydney-hug

UPDATE: First meeting will likely be in March (not the end of Feb as we had previously thought).

Shot 2: HubSpot Marketing Feature of the Week

Integrations

Integrations directory is growing (and improving)  - 125 integrations listed as we record this:

https://www.hubspot.com/product-updates/major-update-to-the-integrations-directory

Save Prompts - good and bad

Some improvement in Save prompts eg this kind of thing is on contacts and now tasks:

But it still isn’t on Workflows eg lost count of the number of times I’ve gone into a Workflow and changed a setting but the forgotten to save it… would be good if Workflows prompted as well

Shot 3: Marketing Tip of the Week

Facebook News Feed!

https://www.jonloomer.com/2018/01/14/facebook-news-feed-update-now-what/

“This is a confusing concept for some marketers. Facebook wants engagement, but you can’t bait users into it. You can actually get engagement without engagement bait.

This is consistent with Facebook’s emphasis on authenticity. Your goal is to not only get lots of comments, likes, and shares, but for that engagement to be meaningful.”

Tips:

• Drive meaningful engagement
• Messenger (and bots)
• Minimal impact to advertising

Videos in Google MyBusiness

https://searchengineland.com/google-business-video-uploads-now-available-business-owners-289679

• Videos can be up to 30 seconds in length.
• Customers can also upload videos!  You will have the ability to flag inappropriate videos through your dashboard.

How it works:

• Videos will appear in the overview tab of the Google My Business Dashboard
• Customer uploaded videos can be found in the ‘customer’ tab
• Business uploaded videos can be found in the ‘by owner’ tab
• All videos can be viewed together in the ‘videos’ tab
• After upload it could take up to 24 hours for the videos to appear. Once live, they will display where local photos do.

Shot 4: Creative Top 10 of the Week

Top 10 ways to promote a solar dealer (business that sells and installs solar panels on homes):

1. Educate people on solar with a guide on what to look for in solar.
2. Create a nurture campaign to educate people through the research process.
3. Run Google and Facebook Ads in their target installation area.
4. Offer a free initial solar evaluation and how people can reduce their energy bills.
5. Partner with a business that can finance solar systems to make purchasing easier with a monthly payment.  This could also be an avenue for the solar dealer.
6. Get people to sign up to be notified of solar specials if they want to save on purchase price.
7. Target like audiences in Facebook that have purchased solar from that dealer.
8. Knock on doors of the houses next to the installed house/free solar evaluation and offer their neighbours a free evaluation and if they all buy then they each get the group discount.
9. Offer a discount to people who have installed solar to have a sign in their front yard for 60 days saying the solar dealer did the job and what their potential savings are.
10. Advertise on sites where people are looking and learning about solar.

Shot 5: Opinion of the Week

Voice search on Smart speakers

https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/04/smart-speakers-top-ar-vr-and-wearables-to-become-fastest-growing-consumer-tech/

https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/04/canalys-smart-speaker-growth/

First note: there were ‘only’ 30 million smart speakers shipped worldwide last year ie still a tiny fraction of the homes that are potential users. (By comparison stats indicate approx 125 million households in the US, Europe is multiples of that, etc). So we are only at the start. Don’t be fooled into thinking this is a massive user base already. However, it is growing rapidly.

Second note: Don’t assume you are optimising your businesses for smart speaker users.

Third note: But do assume that the rise of smart speakers will train people to search with voice search like queries. And this is the opportunity for all business owners...

Shot 6: Podcast of the Week

Marketing School

Test and see if it sticks...

Shot 7: Resource of the Week

Avoiding Survivor bias

http://tomtunguz.com/overfitting-in-business/

“Each January, I remind myself of this idea. To start the year with a fresh mind, that the world is different, meaningfully different than it was last year, and that means jettisoning the assumptions of the past - until the assumption can be reproduced consistently.”

Shot 8: Shoutout of the Week

Big thanks as usual to Chris who edits our podcast.

Check him out at his website:

https://www.christophermottram.com/

Shot 9: Bonus Links of the Week

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-survivor-bias-distorts-reality/

Doing fewer things better:

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/biggest-marketing-lessons-hubspot

Tool to investigate:

Some of Craig’s reading:

https://getpocket.com/@craigbailey

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