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Welcome to Volume 63!
The new year is a few days away, and I’m psyched!
2021 had its good days and, let’s be honest, days where we didn’t feel so great.
However, against the odds, we came, we saw, and we conquered this year. And in a few days, we’ll be starting a new chapter.
While I’m not so great with New Year’s resolutions, mainly because I don’t believe they actually work, I do believe in S.M.A.R.T goal setting. Those goals are more realistic and achievable than New Year’s resolutions that often turn into just a “wish list”.
What are your plans for the new year? Have you written any personal goals down yet? What about marketing goals?
Now is a great time to start jotting down those goals in preparation for the new year. So you can hit the ground running into a world of possibilities and experiences!
Now, here’s a peek at what’s to come in this piece:
How SaaS Brands Can Thrive in 2022
This masterpiece, written by our founder Ross, was one of my favorite reads this year.
What was most fascinating was the brilliant marketing lessons one can learn from the dairy industry.
Yes, he wrote about the dairy industry!
If you missed out on reading the full article, you’re in luck. I’ll be sharing some key points that you would find helpful in the new year and beyond:
- SaaS Is Becoming A Collection Of Commoditized Solutions
What this means: It’s never been easier to build or buy a SaaS company, learn about SaaS or invest in SaaS than right now.
- Aligning Your SaaS With Regulation Can Be Powerful
What this means: Establishing relationships with regulatory bodies can assist in creating barriers of entry for the competition and remove red tape that has given existing incumbents an unfair advantage.
- If You’re Long SaaS, You Realize There Will Be Many Winners
What this means: Cloud Unicorns, are being created more frequently and faster than ever. However, almost none of these Unicorns have 100% market share in their space.
This is where opportunity still lies and why more SaaS companies are launching and being acquired every single week.
- The Secret to Building A Thriving SaaS Brand Is To Stay Curious
What this means: No matter what you think about the latest trends; it’s important to know that change is coming and it’s potentially going to influence your sector as well.
In 2022, you’ve got to stay curious. Commit to learning, experimenting, and tinkering. That’s how you stay ahead of changes, innovate proactively, and dominate your niche.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- SaaS is quickly becoming a collection of commoditized solutions.
- There is still a massive opportunity to dominate most SaaS niches
- The Secret to Building A Thriving SaaS Brand To Stay Curious. Commit to learning, experimenting, and tinkering, and your brand will thrive for years to come.
Instagram Doubles Its Active Users Count
Instagram had a rough but exciting year. Everywhere you look, they’re either rolling out some new, valuable feature for creators, like this one.
Or the brand is dealing with a new dose of congressional scrutiny.
Despite these controversies, Instagram hit an exciting, new milestone recently.
According to this CNBC report, the Instagram community has grown from 1 billion monthly active users in 2018 to 2 billion monthly active users this year!
Instagram’s user growth has been quite impressive over the years.
Despite its struggles this year and TikTok’s race to the top of the charts, users aren’t abandoning one app for the other. Instagram is still retaining its users and growing. Most of all, TikTok still falls behind TikTok by 1 billion users.
Sadly, Instagram is often overlooked by B2B companies and marketers. LinkedIn remains the choice B2B marketing channel even though it is clear that the masses are using Instagram.
That’s likely because some brands still think Instagram is a B2C channel. They feel their audience doesn’t hang out on Instagram or their content doesn’t resonate with those people.
However, Shopify is doing great, repurposing blog posts into carousels and resharing on on Instagram. Followers can consume these bite-sized pieces of content without clicking a link in their bio or leaving the Instagram experience at all.
Slack also uses Instagram to highlight its events, features, and more!
As you can see, B2B brands can leverage the channel to expand their organic reach, build trust with their audience, and boost signups.
But before you start sharing on Instagram, you need to understand what kind of content resonates and how to best communicate your message to that audience.
Here are 13 things you can do to Instagram for B2B marketing in 2022:
- Define your target audience.
- Define the kind of content you want to create
- Set S.M.A.R.T goals
- Commit to a posting schedule
- Share great content
- Take and share high-quality photos
- Create great captions
- Choose and use the right hashtags
- Tell stories with Instagram stories snd Instagram TV
- Respond to comments and mentions
- Utilize Instagram Ads
- Cross-Promote across other channels
- Leverage Influencers
To learn more about Instagram and how you can utilize it for your B2B business, check out this article.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The Instagram community has grown from 1 billion monthly active users in 2018 to 2 billion monthly active users this year!
- B2B and SaaS brands can leverage the channel to expand their organic reach, build trust with their audience, and boost signups.
- Before you start sharing on Instagram, you need to understand what kind of content resonates and how to best communicate your message to that audience.
Taboola Partners with Microsoft
Just before signing out for the year, Taboola announced its partnership with Microsoft. The goal is to launch an audience network to help advertisers spread their content to reach more people.
In case you are hearing the name for the first time, Taboola is a digital content discovery platform that curates content for users based on their interests.
Earlier this year, Taboola went public in June at a $2.6 billion valuation.
The company also raised almost $545 million to fuel its investments in the open web. One of its focus areas,which is the centerpiece of the company’s collaboration with Microsoft, is making content accessible on the open web via any web browser.
That’s why Taboola acquired Connexity, an open web e-commerce company, to fuel the new audience network.
Taboola has direct relationships with over 9,000 publishers, including USA Today, Time, The Huffington Post, and over 400 million unique visitors.
This is great news for creators in the B2B space.
You can create a single piece of content that then can find its way to more than half of the publishers’ websites. As a result, that content can bring more organic traffic your way, earn you multiple backlinks, and boost your website’s authority.
Now would be a great time to take advantage of Taboola. You can incorporate the channel in your distribution strategy to leverage the opportunities in 2022.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Taboola is partnering with Microsoft to help advertisers reach more people
- Taboola is a digital content discovery platform with over 400 million unique visitors that proactively recommends content users may like.
- With Taboola’s latest update, a single piece of advertised content can get featured on multiple publishers’ websites, generate traffic and backlinks, and boost revenue.
OTHER NEWS OF THE WEEK:
📍Twitter rolls out an auto-captions feature to make videos more accessible.
📍TikTok adds GIPHY support, HD videos, and other new creative tools to make videos look better.
📍Spotify is adding Apple-like podcast ratings to boost podcast discovery. Users can now rate podcasts on a 5-star scale.
HIRING BRILLIANT B2B MARKETERS:
BRAIN FOOD OF THE WEEK:
The Holiday season comes with its joys.
There’s the joy of reuniting with loved ones, especially those you haven’t seen in quite some time. The joy of catching up on happenings in each other’s lives all year long.
Despite these joys, some people dread returning home to reunite with their families. That’s because family reunions can become a source of stress and anguish if you have family members who didn’t get the “good cheer” memo.
Some make it a habit each year to remind you of the things you haven’t achieved, instead of focusing on the good things you already have achieved.
Some indulge in unhealthy comparisons on the dinner table.
Some with “good intentions” tell embarrassing stories of you over and over again, or they make backhanded comments that leave you feeling all shades of upset.
Of course, just thinking about these things alone are enough reasons to spend the holiday elsewhere. However, you shouldn’t let anyone rob you of spending some quality time with your loved ones.
You can guard your heart and keep your mental health intact with the right boundaries.
Boundaries are healthy limits you set for yourself and enforce in relationships. It is taking extreme ownership for your happiness while ensuring relationships stay healthy.
Here are five ways to politely set healthy boundaries and enjoy your time with family and others during the holidays:
📍Don’t feel obligated to say yes to every request, especially those that go against your personal values. You can land in real trouble if you ignore your gut to please others.
📍Clearly communicate what you will and what you will not tolerate. People need to know you exist apart from them. You can be kind and firm at the same time.
📍Ensure people are aware that their actions have consequences, and if they choose to disrespect you knowingly, they will reap the consequences. It doesn’t make you mean. Rather, these boundaries teach people how to respect and relate to you
📍Don’t indulge in overthinking. If you spend too much time overthinking a person’s words and actions, you’ll miss out on all the fun happening. So, be open-minded. Be willing to overlook non-harmful actions and choose to be happy.
📍Focus less on what you don’t have in comparison to what others do have. Instead of letting their achievements intimidate you, let them inspire you.
Express joy for their progress. Ask questions about their process, listen if they are willing to share, and learn from them. If you choose to adopt a learner’s mindset, you’ll grow. It’s only a matter of time.
Finally, you need to intentionally avoid burnout this holiday season by setting boundaries and keeping them firmly in place.
TWITTER THREAD OF THE WEEK:
30 things you can do to improve your marketing right now by Marc Thomas
IN CASE YOU MISSED THESE:
- This Is What Even Your Competitors Fear
- How 5 Simple Words Pushed Figma To A $10B+ Valuation
- The Ultimate List Of Resources For B2B Marketers
WHAT WE’RE WIRED INTO THIS WEEK 🎧:
These round-ups are brought to you by me, Jessica O., every week ✌!
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Quick, do it now before the next drop!
