# JC Digital | Simplifying Digital Marketing and AI Marketing in the Philippines > JC Digital is James Michael Chiong. They help SMEs improve digital visibility and make smarter marketing decisions through SEO, Paid Ads, and Content. JC Digital is James Michael Chiong. He is a Quezon City-based digital marketing brand focused on helping Filipino SMEs grow with clear strategy, measurable execution, and practical guidance. We specialize in SEO, Google Ads, Meta Ads, and AI-ready content systems that improve discoverability, strengthen trust, and support better business decisions. - Brand: JC Digital, JC Digital Philippines, JC Digital Quezon City, jcdigital.xyz, JC Digital Digital Marketing --- # AI Marketing in the Philippines: How Filipino Businesses Can Grow with AI Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-marketing-in-the-philippines/ ![](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/AI-Marketing-in-the-Philippines-2-1024x512.png) AI Marketing in the Philippines is no longer a future conversation. It is happening now, reshaping how Filipino businesses reach customers, create content, run campaigns, and compete online. The question is no longer whether you should use AI in your marketing. It is whether you are using it in a way that actually moves the needle for your business. I am James Michael Chiong, founder of JC Digital. Over 11 years of working with Filipino SMEs, B2B brands, and agencies across industries (from real estate and publishing to tech and hospitality), I have seen first-hand how digital marketing evolves, and how local businesses either adapt or get left behind. What I am seeing right now with AI is the single biggest shift in marketing I have encountered in my career. And it requires a real, grounded, strategy-first response. Not just tool adoption for its own sake. This page is your starting point for understanding AI marketing as it applies to the Philippine market. We will cover what it means, why it matters locally, how to use it practically, and what the strategic priorities are for Filipino business owners and marketers navigating this shift. ## What Is AI Marketing, and Why Does It Matter for the Philippines? AI marketing in the Philippines mostly refers to the use of artificial intelligence, including machine learning, natural language processing, generative AI, and predictive analytics, to plan, execute, and optimize marketing activities. It covers everything from AI-generated content and chatbot customer service, to smart bidding in Google Ads, audience targeting in Meta, and now, the way AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity surface answers to search queries instead of returning a list of links. For Philippine businesses, this matters for a very specific reason: the Filipino consumer is among the most digitally active in Southeast Asia. We spend more time on social media than almost any other country. Mobile-first browsing is the norm. And increasingly, Filipinos are using AI-powered search tools to find products, services, and answers, which means the rules of how your brand gets found online are changing in real time. The businesses that understand this shift and adapt their content, structure, and authority signals accordingly will be the ones that capture attention and build trust in this new environment. Those that do not will find their organic visibility quietly eroding, even if their websites look fine on the surface. ## AI Marketing in the Philippines: The Shift from Search to Answer Engines The most important structural change in AI marketing right now is the move from traditional search engine results to what I call Answer Engine Optimization, or AEO. Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT search, and tools like Perplexity no longer just point users to websites. They synthesize answers from multiple sources and present them directly on the results screen. This creates a zero-click environment where your potential customer gets their answer without ever visiting your site. It sounds alarming, but there is a strategy to it. [Brands that survive zero-click SEO do so by becoming the source that AI cites](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/how-can-brands-survive-zero-click-seo-in-the-age-of-ai-chat-assistants/), not just a website that ranks. That requires building real entity authority: structured content, credible authorship, verified expertise signals, and content that directly and clearly answers the questions your audience is actually asking. The goal of AI Marketing in the Philippines is no longer just to appear at the top of a list. The goal is to become the most trusted, clearly structured, and contextually rich answer to a very specific question in your niche. That is a fundamentally different content strategy from what most Filipino businesses have been doing. ## AI Content vs. Human Content: What Actually Ranks Now One of the most common questions I get from clients and fellow marketers is straightforward: should I use AI to write my content? AI Marketing in the Philippines is nuanced, and it matters a great deal for how you approach your editorial strategy. AI can generate content at scale, structure outlines, do research aggregation, and draft copy faster than any human writer. That is genuinely useful, and I use generative AI tools in my own workflow. But [what actually ranks now is content that demonstrates genuine human experience, contextual expertise, and real-world insight](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/what-actually-ranks-now-ai-content-or-human-content/), things that AI tools cannot fabricate convincingly. Google's E-E-A-T framework (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) rewards content that reflects a person who has actually done the thing they are writing about. In my own testing, articles we have written on very specific, niche topics, grounded in real campaign experience and local Philippine market context, ranked between positions 12 and 30 almost immediately after publication. The differentiator was not keyword density or post length. It was the authenticity of the perspective and the clarity of the structure. AI can help you organize. It cannot replace what you know from actually doing the work. The practical takeaway: use AI as analytical fuel and a structural accelerator. Use your human expertise to shape the final output, add the insight that only comes from experience, and make sure your author signals are clearly attached to the content. That combination, not pure AI generation, and not pure unoptimized human writing, is what performs best right now. For a deeper read on this, [Search Engine Journal's breakdown of E-E-A-T](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-e-e-a-t/what-is-it/) is a good reference point for understanding the framework Google uses to evaluate content credibility. ## How Small Businesses in the Philippines Can Use AI in Their Marketing The biggest misconception I encounter with small business owners is that AI marketing is expensive, complicated, or only for large enterprises. It is none of those things. The real barrier is knowing where to start and being strategic about which tools actually serve your specific business goals. Here are the areas where AI Marketing in the Philippines delivers the most practical value for Filipino SMEs: - **Content creation and research.** Use tools like ChatGPT or Gemini to outline articles, generate first drafts, and repurpose existing content across formats. The key is to add your own voice, local context, and experience before publishing. [AI works best as a force multiplier, not a replacement for your creativity.](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/how-can-small-businesses-effectively-use-ai-to-improve-their-marketing/) - **Customer service automation. **AI-powered chatbots (whether through Meta's messaging tools, Tidio, or native CRM integrations) can handle frequently asked questions, qualify leads, and maintain brand presence around the clock without requiring a full-time team. - **Paid advertising optimization. **Meta's Advantage+ and Google's Performance Max campaigns use machine learning to optimize ad delivery, bidding, and creative testing automatically. For businesses managing monthly spends from ₱50,000 to ₱1M+, AI-assisted campaign management meaningfully reduces wasted spend and improves conversion rates when set up correctly. - **SEO and content strategy. **AI tools can analyze keyword clusters, identify content gaps, and suggest structuring improvements. Combined with a clear topical authority strategy (publishing consistently on your niche), this accelerates the time it takes to build search visibility. - **Email personalization. **Platforms like Mailchimp now integrate AI-powered send time optimization, subject line testing, and segmentation recommendations that were previously available only in enterprise tools. The starting point is not buying the most sophisticated tool available. It is auditing your current marketing operations, identifying where you lose the most time or produce the weakest outputs, and finding the AI tool that addresses that specific gap first. Build from there. ## What Happens to Marketing Agencies in an AI-First World? This is a question I think about as someone who has worked agency-side (as Digital Services Director at TeamAsia, leading a multidisciplinary team across SEO, social, content, and paid media) and now as an independent strategist serving clients directly. The agency model is under real pressure from AI, but not in the way most people assume. AI is not replacing marketing agencies. It is replacing the parts of agency work that were never the real value in the first place: templated reports, generic content, repetitive task execution. [The agencies that will survive AI's agentic capabilities are the ones that double down on strategic thinking, human creativity, cultural context, and genuine client partnership](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/how-can-marketing-agencies-survive-ai-agentic-features/), things that no AI system can replicate at the level of a practitioner who truly understands a brand and its audience. For Filipino businesses working with or considering agencies, the shift to AI Marketing in the Philippines also changes what you should expect from your agency partners. A good agency in 2026 is not just producing deliverables. It is thinking ahead of the AI curve, helping you build structural authority, and ensuring that your brand is the one being cited when AI systems synthesize answers in your industry. ## Will AI Marketing in the Philippines Replace SEO? Short answer: no. Longer answer: SEO is evolving into something broader, more structural, and more authority-driven than keyword placement ever was. [AI is not replacing SEO. It is raising the bar for what good SEO actually means.](https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/will-ai-replace-seo/) The technical fundamentals still matter: site speed, mobile optimization, crawlability, structured data markup. But on top of those, the new requirements include entity clarity (making it unambiguous to AI systems who you are, what you do, and why you are a credible source) and topical authority, meaning that you publish consistently and deeply on a focused area of expertise rather than writing about everything broadly. For Philippine businesses, this is actually an opportunity. Most local competitors have not made this shift yet. Building structured, expert, E-E-A-T-aligned content in your specific niche (whether that is real estate, fintech, retail, food service, or professional services) positions you as the most credible local source in that space, both for Google and for the AI systems that increasingly mediate how people find information. [Google's Helpful Content guidelines](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content) are worth reading as a direct reference for how they evaluate this. ## Building an AI-Ready Marketing Strategy for Your Filipino Business Based on my experience running campaigns for Philippine brands across sectors (including a real estate campaign that reached 1M+ unique users and generated over 400,000 engagements in three months, and an SEM campaign that delivered up to 80% top search impression share), the businesses that perform best are not necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets. They are the ones with the clearest strategy, the most consistent execution, and the deepest understanding of their audience. A strategy ready for AI Marketing in the Philippines today looks like this: - **Define your topical territory.** Pick the specific niche your brand owns and create a content cluster around it. Every article, page, and social post should reinforce your authority in that space. - **Structure your content for AI extraction. **Use clear headings, concise answers at the top of each section, and structured data markup (FAQ schema, Article schema, Person schema) so that AI systems can parse and cite your content accurately. - **Establish your author and entity signals.** Make sure your brand, your author, and your areas of expertise are consistently declared across your website, social profiles, and schema markup. Ambiguity is the enemy of AI citation. - **Use AI tools to scale production, not replace thinking.** Let AI help you produce more content faster, but make sure every piece carries your genuine perspective, local context, and real experience. That is what builds the trust that both Google and AI assistants reward. - **Measure what matters in an AI-driven landscape**. Organic traffic is still relevant, but also track brand mentions in AI-generated answers, direct search volume for your brand name, and the quality of leads coming through content, not just volume. [Google Analytics 4](https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/) and tools like Ahrefs or Semrush now provide visibility into AI traffic and search appearance data worth monitoring closely. ## The Bottom Line on AI Marketing in the Philippines AI marketing is not a shortcut. It is a shift in how marketing fundamentally works, and it rewards the businesses that invest in real expertise, real structure, and real authority signals. The Filipino market is still early in this transition, which means there is a meaningful window right now to build the kind of content authority and AI-citation readiness that will compound in value over the next two to three years. The businesses I have seen succeed in this environment share a few common traits: they publish with consistency, they write from genuine experience, and they treat their digital presence as a long-term asset rather than a short-term campaign. That mindset, combined with the right AI tools and a clear structural strategy, is what actually grows a business in today's search landscape. If you are a Filipino business owner or marketer navigating the shift to AI Marketing in the Philippines, or if you are trying to make sense of where to start (or where to go next), this is the right place to begin. [Get in touch with JC Digital directly](https://jcdigital.xyz/contact/) to talk through your specific situation. --- # About JC Digital | Digital Marketing in the Philippines – Start Here Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/about-jc-digital/ ## JC Digital is James Michael Chiong JC Digital is James Michael Chiong. I am a digital marketing strategist helping small and growing businesses in the Philippines get real results from Search Engine Optimization, content marketing, and paid media strategies. If you are a Filipino SME owner or marketer trying to make sense of Google, Meta ads, and AI‑driven search, this page is where you start. ![](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/IMG_6521-2-1024x683.jpg) --- ## Who is JC Digital I am James Michael Chiong, a digital marketing strategist based in the Philippines. I’ve spent the last 11+ years helping brands and SMEs grow through a mix of SEO, paid ads, and data‑driven campaign optimization I started in graphics and multimedia design, which taught me how people process information visually and emotionally. That foundation led me into marketing – first in B2B SaaS, then in a marketing and advertising agency, and eventually into building JC Digital so I could work directly with businesses that needed a clearer, simpler approach to digital marketing. --- ## What JC Digital Does At JC Digital, I help Filipino businesses: - Clarify their digital strategy so every channel has a clear role - Grow organic traffic through sustainable search engine optimization - Run smarter, more efficient paid campaigns on Google and Meta - Use analytics to find what is not working and fix it quickly - Adapt their marketing to the rise of AI search and zero‑click result The focus is always on performance: leads, sales, and long‑term visibility – not vanity metrics. My specialties are areas I work on most often: - Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Philippine businesses - Search Engine Marketing (Google Ads) - Social Media Advertising (Facebook and Instagram ads) - Social Media Marketing and content planning - Digital marketing strategy and performance analytics --- ## Credentials of JC Digital --- - **10+ years in digital marketing**, driving growth for brands across B2B and B2C sectors through SEO, paid media, content marketing, and analytics in the Philippines and APAC; - Last role held was **Senior Manager, Talent Acquisition Sourcing** at Alorica, overseeing all digital marketing activities related to recruitment, including content strategy and paid social for dynamic talent acquisition requirements; - Former **Digital Services Director** at TeamAsia, where I led the Digital vertical and a multidisciplinary team of up to 8 specialists across SEO, paid media, social, and content, launching new service lines and scaling capabilities; - Managed **monthly ad spends from ₱50k to over ₱1M+**, consistently optimizing for leads, revenue, and cost per result rather than vanity metrics; - For destination real estate brands in Batangas, **reached over 1M unique users, generated 400K+ engagements, and drove hundreds of qualified property acquisition sign‑ups** in 3 months through Facebook campaigns; - For a local publishing startup company, led a **rebranding and demand‑generation push** that achieved 1.2M+ people reached, 50K+ engagements, and immediate direct inquiries and partnership messages from interested leads; - For a local automotive tire brand, directed **a UI/UX redesign** that improved website usability and **user retention by 200%** versus the previous version; - **Delivered up to 80% top search impression share** for a regional tech solutions brand in a 3‑month SEM campaign focused on acquisition‑related keywords, strengthening brand visibility during a major APAC corporate transition; - Experienced across multiple industries: **aviation, BFSI, IT‑BPM, hospitality, property, education, publishing, training, and retail**, with nuanced campaign strategies per vertical; - Strong track record in team leadership and capability building – developed skills roadmaps, implemented training programs and certification paths that achieved up to **90% certification for digital marketers** and **reduced digital‑service escalations by almost 75%**, with team members promoted to senior and managerial roles; and - **Certified in key digital and analytics disciplines**, including Google Analytics Individual Qualification, Google Ads Search and Display, HubSpot Digital Advertising, [Marketing Analytics (University of Virginia)](https://www.coursera.org/account/accomplishments/certificate/8YN447NGY9N4), and [Managing the Workplace of the Future (University of London / London Business School)](https://www.coursera.org/account/accomplishments/certificate/TR3TAEBD7TQC), among others. In short, I bring agency, in‑house, and consultancy experience together to design systems that consistently turn traffic and attention into leads, customers, and long‑term growth for Philippine businesses. ## Start Here: Key Guide and Resources If you are new to JC Digital, these are the best places to start: - **[SEO in the Philippines, in the Age of AI](https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/seo-in-the-philippines-in-the-age-of-ai/)** – Why AI and zero‑click search change how Filipino businesses should think about SEO, and what still works. - **[Will AI Replace SEO?](https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/will-ai-replace-seo/)** – A practical look at how AI tools and search engines overlap, and how to future‑proof your strategy. - **[Marketing Communications is Both Marketing and Communication](https://jcdigital.xyz/marketing/marketing-communications-is-both-marketing-and-communication/)** – How to connect messaging, channels, and business goals. - **[Social Media Calendars for Small Businesses](https://jcdigital.xyz/social-media-marketing/creating-social-media-calendars-for-small-businesses/)** – A step‑by‑step approach to planning your content. Over time, I’ll keep this section updated with my most useful, practical guides so you always know where to begin. --- ## How we can work together There are a few ways we can collaborate: - **Consulting and strategy** – I help you audit your current marketing, identify gaps, and design a roadmap. - **Done‑with‑you implementation** – We work together on SEO, paid media, and analytics so your team learns as we execute. - **Done‑for‑you campaigns** – I take the lead on planning, launching, and optimizing campaigns while you focus on operations. Every engagement starts with a strategy conversation so we can understand your goals, your current setup, and what success looks like for you --- ## Let's Talk JC Digital is based in Bacoor City, Cavite. I have worked with clients from different parts of the country, and even across the region. Being inherently local means I understand the realities of the Philippine market – budgets, timelines, and how customers actually behave online here. Send me a message today to collaborate or just to chat. [Contact Us Here](http://jcdigital.xyz/contact) --- # Contact JC Digital | Digital Marketing in the Philippines Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/contact/ If you are interested in working together or have questions about SEO, paid ads, or digital strategy for your business in the Philippines, you can reach me using the form below. I usually respond within 1–2 business days. ## JC Digital - Business Details **JC Digital (James Michael Chiong)** Brgy. MolinoBacoor City, Cavite Philippines [jcdigitalpartners@gmail.com](mailto:jcdigitalpartners@gmail.com) [+639175877988](tel:+639175877988) Please include a short description of your business, your main goals (e.g., more leads, more sales, better visibility), and any existing channels you are using (website, Facebook page, etc.). 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Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/thank-you/ Thank you for contacting JC Digital! We will respond to your email within 1-2 business days. For the meantime, please follow our socials: - [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/jcdigitalpartners)- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/jc-digital-partners) --- # How Filipino SMEs Can Get Cited by AI Search Engines Like ChatGPT and Perplexity Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/how-filipino-smes-can-get-cited-by-ai-search-engines-like-chatgpt-and-perplexity/ Filipino SMEs can get cited by AI search engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity by structuring their content around [direct, question-based answers](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/the-answer-first-content-framework-how-to-write-blogs-for-ai-search-optimization/), implementing [schema markup](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/understanding-ai-search-optimization-in-the-philippines/), and building topical authority through content clusters. The key is making your content machine-readable, not just human-friendly. What this means is that we need the necessary [structural and technical configurations](https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/seo-in-the-philippines-in-the-age-of-ai/) already in the website, while keeping your content as high quality as you can produce them. This is so that the AI crawlers and bots are not only seeing quality content, but also that they are able to parse through your content quickly and with as much context as possible. ## Why Being Cited by AI Search Engines is Important for Your Small Business in 2026 For most of my digital marketing experience, the goal for digital marketing for small businesses was to get found. This was through ranking higher in google, getting shared in social media, improving email open rates, and reaching your intended customers through ads. The more that you are found through these channels, the more that a potential customer will click on a link, learn more about you, and proceed to buy or avail your offers. As a small business, you need efforts that will continuously scale with you. The more you produce [high-quality, authority-driving content](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/what-is-the-best-digital-marketing-strategy-for-small-businesses-in-2026/) on and outside of your website should continue to give signals to Google, and now to LLMs, that you are a credible source of information for your niche. [Being cited by AI Search Engines has become more important](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/understanding-ai-search-optimization-in-the-philippines/) than simply ranking in the traditional search results because for your potential customers, the context of the answer they are specifically looking for are provided for them, in the format and structure that favors their behaviors. If you have created content for your small business that understands the needs of your customers, and contextualized your content to match what they may be looking for as you know them, then you can count that at some point, you will be cited as an answer to your customers' questions. [AI search engines have become the first point of contact](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-marketing-in-the-philippines/) between your customers' questions and the entities that can answer them. Being cited by AI search engines is no longer a bonus, but rather, it has become the primary metric for [organic discoverability](https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/will-ai-replace-seo/) for businesses that rely on search-driven leads. ## What Can Help Businesses be Cited by AI Search Engines? Content is king. Context is the greater king. The business that provides the best content and establishes the right context to match what their customers are looking for is the one that wins in [content marketing](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/what-is-the-best-digital-marketing-strategy-for-small-businesses-in-2026/). Hence, not all content is treated equally, not by search engines before and absolutely not now as you are trying to get cited by AI search engines. AI systems are build to extract answers that are reliable, structured, and verifiable. As they parse your content, they apply [a set of signals to determine the sources ](https://sapt.ai/insights/ai-search-optimization-complete-guide-chatgpt-perplexity-citations)that meet that standard before constructing responses. - **[Answer-readiness](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/the-answer-first-content-framework-how-to-write-blogs-for-ai-search-optimization/).** AI engines favor content that places a direct, clear response to a question within the first few sentences of a section, rather than building toward it through background context. If your page requires the AI to read three paragraphs before finding your actual answer, it is likely to bypass your content in favor of a source that leads with the answer. - **[Entity clarity](https://jcdigital.xyz/about-jc-digital/). **How consistent and specific are you in introducing who you are and your business across all of your online content? AI search engines use named entity recognition to understand who you are, what you do, and where you operate. Everything about who you are as a business and as an owner needs to be consistent everywhere. - **[Schema markup](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/understanding-ai-search-optimization-in-the-philippines/).** Structured data encoded in JSON-LD tells AI crawlers exactly how to classify your content, whether you are a service, a blog, a business location, or whether the content you published is an FAQ. Without schema, [an AI engine must infer this from context alone](https://salespeak.ai/aeo-news/schema-markup-for-aeo/), which reduces the precision of how your content gets indexed and cited. **What Philippine-Specific Signals Build AI Trust?** [Google's AI-powered search](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-marketing-in-the-philippines/) still trusts unique, human-driven insights, and localized experiences, and doing this in your content actually works in your favor to be cited by AI search engines. That is, of course, if these signals are configured correctly. AI engines handling [location-based queries](https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/seo-in-the-philippines-in-the-age-of-ai/) look for geographic and contextual consistency to determine which sources are most relevant to a user in a specific market. Your **Google Business Profile** needs to be aligned, first and foremost, with who you are, and consistent with all of your other content about your business. Your profile listing should use identical business name, address, and phone number (NAP) information as your website's schema markup and any local directory listings. **Philippine-context content** also matters. Content that speaks specifically to the Filipino business context, such as local regulations, market behaviors, platform preferences, and consumer patterns, are more likely to be cited for localized queries. Writing about digital marketing in general terms is less valuable than writing about digital marketing as it applies to SMEs in Metro Manila. **Authorship signals** round out the trust profile. Publishing content under a named author with a clear expertise profile, including a linked author bio, a consistent LinkedIn presence, and attribution across all published posts will strengthen the E-E-A-T signals that AI systems use to evaluate whether a source is credible. ## Frequently-Asked Questions **Is SEO still needed if I want to get cited by AI search engines?** Yes. Traditional SEO and AI search optimization work together, not against each other. AI engines evaluate the same foundational signals as Google: crawlability, domain authority, content quality, and relevance. Optimizing for AI citations without a working SEO and schema foundation reduces how precisely AI crawlers can classify and surface your content. **How important is a Google Business Profile for AI citations in the Philippines?** Very important. Your Google Business Profile is one of the primary entity clarity signals that AI engines use for location-based queries. The business name, address, and phone number on your GBP must be identical to your website's LocalBusiness schema and any local directory listings. Inconsistency across these sources weakens your entity recognition and reduces the likelihood of being cited for localized Philippine queries. --- # The Answer-First Content Framework: How to Write Blogs for AI Search Optimization Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/the-answer-first-content-framework-how-to-write-blogs-for-ai-search-optimization/ An answer-first content structure places a direct 40–60 word response to the main question at the very top of your page, before any background or context. This format allows [AI engines like Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-marketing-in-the-philippines/) to extract your answer cleanly and attribute it to your site. In my experience with content marketing and SEO, I thought before that it was just a matter of time before we moved towards content structures that simplified blogs further and further. What I wasn't able to anticipate was that we were going to have to optimize them more for machines, if we are counting on LLM crawlers and bots to index and cite our content in AI-powered search. But then again, content is ultimately made to be read by humans. It's just that we need to get through the hurdle of getting indexed by bots and crawlers properly before humans could find our content, at least organically through search. [Thus, ranking signals have become less of a visible list of results](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/understanding-ai-search-optimization-in-the-philippines/), but more of whether you made it in the contextualized AI-powered answer or not. ## Why The Answer-First Content Structure Is Now a Ranking Signal for AI? Most business owners assume that writing good content is enough to get found online, and a few years ago this was true in some ways. For the most part, what you needed to do was to stay true with your brand and [consistently publish content and Google will pick up on your topical authority](https://jcdigital.xyz/uncategorized/the-power-of-search-volume-and-keyword-difficulty-in-seo-blog-planning/) to rank you higher in search results. [In 2026, that assumption is only now partially correct](https://aeoengine.ai/blog/industry-best-practices-ai-search-visibility). AI search engines, including Google's [AI-powered search and platforms such as ChatGPT and Perplexity](https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/seo-in-the-philippines-in-the-age-of-ai/), do not read your content the way a human does. They scan for structure, extract parts from your article where they could be appropriate responses to certain topics it already knows people already ask about, and synthesize responses from sources that make their job easier. Thus, the answer-first content structure has started to become favored by LLMs because AI systems need to be able to find the best answers faster, in order to have a chance to increase [your citations](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/how-can-brands-survive-zero-click-seo-in-the-age-of-ai-chat-assistants/). If your content is not organized for machine extraction, it will be passed over because the format is unreadable to AI systems, regardless of the quality of your content. ## How to Apply AI Search Optimization for Your Blog Post? The difference between a traditional blog post and an AI-optimized one is not about word count or creativity. [It is about information architecture](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/trysearchable_ai-doesnt-read-full-articles-it-scans-activity-7407774269713207297-xqT0), and the answer-first content structure emphasizes how quickly and cleanly the most important answer surfaces within your content. | **Blog Element** | **In a Traditional Blog, You Have a** | **But in an AI-Search Optimization-Ready Blog** | | ---------------- | ------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------- | | Opening or the First Paragraph | Hook or anecdote | Direct answer (40–60 words) | | H2 Headings or Sub Paragraphs | Creative or descriptive titles | Question-based phrases matching real queries | | Content Paragraphs | 5 to 8 sentences per block | 2 to 3 sentences ideally, with one idea per paragraph | | Placement of Data Proof | Buried mid-paragraph or toward the end | First sentence of each paragraph | | FAQ section | Optional, placed in footer | Structured FAQ block with JSON-LD schema | Each section of the blog should become a standalone answer, considering how each [H2 is structured as a question, you should be able to imagine each part as being cited as an answer](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/understanding-ai-search-optimization-in-the-philippines/) to the question being asked. It should not just make sense for AI systems, but your content should ultimately provide enough context and information that it actually answers the question for an actual human need, not just to satisfy the algorithm. Remember that [all of the ways SEOs have gamed the system have become penalized](https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/will-ai-replace-seo/) at some point, and doing so now will result to penalty scores and reduction of citations it not now then in the future. ## How Can You Rewrite Your Blogs for the Answer-First Content Structure? I have been writing content here in this website on and off for the past 5 years. While I've not been consistent for the most part, there are valuable gems in my content repertoire that has ranked for Google's Search results in the past. While the content you may have written for your website are older and no longer followers the Answer-First Content structure, you do not need to delete and in fact, you can actually restructure and rewrite what you already have. [Your blogs may contain valuable insights that are simply encased under traditional blog formatting](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/what-actually-ranks-now-ai-content-or-human-content/) and structuring patterns that AI engines cannot efficiently parse. - **Audit your existing H2 headings.** Replace your existing descriptive headings with question-based equivalents. [Question-based H2 headings match the conversational queries that AI engines receive](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/how-can-brands-survive-zero-click-seo-in-the-age-of-ai-chat-assistants/), increasing the probability that your section gets extracted as a relevant answer. - **Compress your paragraphs. **Doing AI Search Optimization now requires shorter, but more packed, sentences. Take any paragraph longer than 4 sentences and split it into two. The resulting paragraphs should have a cohesive idea, which could stand alone as an answer to a question on its own, but at the same time continues to build onto the greater topic of the blog to ensure [topical authority over the general query](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/what-is-the-best-digital-marketing-strategy-for-small-businesses-in-2026/) you are trying to answer. - **Front-load your data.** If a paragraph contains a statistic, a specific example, or a named source, move it to the first sentence. AI engines are constantly looking for credibility and trust signals and proof points buried under your paragraphs does not make a good case for why your paragraph needs to be cited for the question you are trying to answer. - **Add a direct answer at the top of each H2 section.** Before elaborating on any point, write one to two sentences that directly answer the implied question of that heading. Think of it as a mini-summary that AI can lift without reading the full section. - **Build a structured FAQ block at the bottom of every post.** [FAQs are among the highest-performing formats for AI extraction](https://studiohawk.com.au/blog/faq-schema/) because they mirror the exact question-answer format that AI engines use to synthesize responses. Pair this with FAQPage JSON-LD schema, and your content becomes significantly more citable across multiple AI platforms. ## How to Measure Your Success in AI Search Optimization? Not all of the techniques done to adhere to the growing discipline of Answer Engine Optimization are foolproof. In fact, there may still be other factors in play, such as [domain authority and URL rating metrics](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/the-technical-side-of-digital-marketing/), that determine whether your content will be cited as an answer by AI engines. The challenge is that AI citation metrics are not yet consolidated in a single dashboard the way traditional SEO metrics are in [Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools](https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/seo-in-the-philippines-in-the-age-of-ai/). Thus, there are a lot of bridging different sources and analyzing different metrics to see whether you are successful. Start with manual citation testing. [Open ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews ](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-marketing-in-the-philippines/)and enter the primary question your blog post is designed to answer. Note whether your site appears as a cited source and how the answer is worded relative to your content. Do this immediately after publishing a restructured post, and repeat every 30 days to track progress. While this is not yet available to all users, there are [features in Google Search Console for AI Overviews impressions](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/understanding-ai-search-optimization-in-the-philippines/) under the Performance reports. Knowing exactly how many overviews your content has been cited on is a signal that your Answer-First Content structure worked. If you are also getting featured snippet appearances, look at this as a signal that your featured content is also structurally positioned to earn AI citations as they adhere to similar formatting and structuring rules. ## Answer-First Content - Frequently-Asked Questions **What is answer-first content?** Answer-first content is a writing framework where the direct response to a page's primary question appears within the first 40–60 words, before background context, introductions, or elaboration. It is the format AI search engines are specifically engineered to extract and cite as authoritative answers. **How short should paragraphs be for AI search?** Paragraphs optimized for AI extraction should be no longer than 80 words and should contain only one idea each. The opening sentence must state the core answer or claim directly. Supporting details follow in one to two additional sentences. Longer paragraphs reduce the probability that an AI system will extract and cite the passage. **Does schema markup directly improve Google rankings?** Schema markup does not directly increase your traditional keyword rankings, but it improves how search engines and AI systems interpret and surface your content. FAQPage schema can trigger rich results in Google Search, while Article schema strengthens [E-E-A-T signals](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/understanding-ai-search-optimization-in-the-philippines/). Together, these increase the likelihood of AI citations and featured snippet appearances, which drive visibility even in [zero-click search environments](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/how-can-brands-survive-zero-click-seo-in-the-age-of-ai-chat-assistants/). --- # Understanding AI Search Optimization in the Philippines Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/understanding-ai-search-optimization-in-the-philippines/ I have been reading a lot of updates on [Google Search updates that focuses heavily on AI](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/core-updates) features, and I know this has been a major upheaval even for folks who have been doing SEO for a long time. To give some light on this, AI search optimization is the process of making your business discoverable inside AI-generated answers from tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot, not just in Google’s blue links. For Filipino SMEs, this matters because [customers are increasingly asking AI tools](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-marketing-in-the-philippines/) direct business questions and acting on the answers they receive. As a digital marketing strategist based in Quezon City, I see the same pattern across SEO, Meta Ads, and Google Ads work: businesses that structure content clearly, prove expertise, and stay locally relevant are easier for both search engines and AI systems to trust. [Traditional SEO still matters](https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/seo-in-the-philippines-in-the-age-of-ai/), but it now sits inside a broader answer-engine strategy. ## What does AI Search Optimization mean? AI search optimization is [the practice of structuring your website](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/how-can-brands-survive-zero-click-seo-in-the-age-of-ai-chat-assistants/) so AI engines can confidently quote, summarize, and recommend your business when Filipino users ask questions. Instead of optimizing only for keywords, you optimize for being a clear, credible source of truth. That means writing answer-first pages, using schema markup, and building topic depth around your service area and audience. For Philippine SMEs, this is especially important because generic, thin, or unstructured content is much harder for AI systems to reuse accurately. ## Why do you need to optimize your content for AI Search? Many SME owners still think ranking on Google is enough, but AI assistants are changing how people discover services and compare options. I have seen so many changes in search behaviors and Google Search as a platform to facilitate this, but none has been thoroughly game-changing as the one that brought AI-powered features for search. If your brand is absent from AI answers, you can lose high-intent leads even when your site still appears somewhere in search results. This is especially relevant in Metro Manila and other competitive Philippine markets, where users often ask specific questions like how to grow a small business with AI or what marketing strategy works best in 2026. [When your content is built for AI search optimization, you increase the chance of being cited in those answers](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/what-is-the-best-digital-marketing-strategy-for-small-businesses-in-2026/). ## AI Search Optimization is Still SEO [AI search optimization does not replace SEO, but it changes how SEO gets consumed](https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/will-ai-replace-seo/). The goal is no longer only to rank a page for one phrase, but to build a cluster of pages that answer related questions clearly and consistently. If there is a sure-fire way to remember how to optimize your content for AI search, then you can use these four pillars of AI search optimization: - **Authority-rich, answer-first content.** Start with a direct answer in the first 40–60 words, then expand with context and examples. This makes your page easier for AI systems to summarize accurately; - **Philippines-specific context. **Use local examples, budgets, behavior patterns, and market realities so the content feels written for Filipino decision makers, not copied from a generic global template; - **Clean technical foundations.** Use schema markup such as Article, FAQPage, LocalBusiness, and Service so AI systems understand what your page is about and how it fits your business. If you are interested in using AI agents to optimize your website for LLM crawlers and bots, you can use [isitagentready.com](https://isitagentready.com) to get to know more about the technical aspects of what bots and crawlers are looking for. And; - **Consistent topic authority.** Build connected articles around AI search, SEO, and small-business marketing so your site shows depth instead of isolated posts. ## Where do you start in optimizing your content for AI search? Start by auditing your existing posts and rewriting the first paragraph so it answers the page’s main question clearly. Then strengthen the rest of the article with supporting subheads, internal links, and short FAQ sections that match real follow-up questions. If you have questions, [feel free to reach out](https://jcdigital.xyz/contact/) and I'll do my best to guide you through the process of doing AI search optimization. --- # The Technical Side of Digital Marketing Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/the-technical-side-of-digital-marketing/ Marketing succeeds when brands are able to tap into culture and communicate stories that resonate with the market. Yes, this lends a lot to the credibility and importance of creativity and storytelling in the marketing field, but without the technical side of Digital Marketing in play, these stories will not even see the light of day, or at least, reach its intended audiences. I have, and I suppose hundreds of other digital marketers, seen that [digital marketing](https://jcdigital.xyz/uncategorized/what-is-your-digital-marketing-specialty/) has always been about the creative and the technical. A lot of the renowned digital marketers in the Philippines have come from the creative fields, taking advantage of the digital revolution and maximizing the benefits of digital marketing to amplifying their reach. The [technical side of Digital Marketing](https://targetinternet.com/resources/the-tech-and-it-challenge-in-digital-marketing) is really all about ensuring that platforms play well so that your stories are well-told, to the audiences you intended to reach. From planning for which platforms and channels to begin with, what kind of audiences you have that consumes content on those platforms and how to effectively target them, to identifying the format, character limits, danger zones of videos, optimal durations, and other nitty-gritty specifications that determine whether the algorithm will decide to show your story to more people (or to less, as we encounter more often). Having both in your marketing team is crucial, as digital marketing campaigns cannot just be on a post-and-go basis. You cannot expect all video posts to turn into viral sensations and propel your brands to top-of-mind. Succeeding in digital marketing means that someone is leading on the creative front, and another is overseeing whether all systems are operational. --- # SEO in the Philippines, in the Age of AI Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/seo-in-the-philippines-in-the-age-of-ai/ SEO in the Philippines has changed a lot in recent years, and in fact, the age of AI brought upon a different practice of SEO that specifically helps in being cited by Generative AI platforms. While the techniques and some of the methodologies have changed, and after reading up on [the SEO expert that I've followed for decades](https://neilpatel.com/blog/ai-seo/), I believe that the fundamentals of search remain the same - build credibility, authority, and relevance among your target audiences through your content. I saw a query that signals how search, and in turn, SEO in the Philippines, have changed. ![](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/SEO-in-the-Philippines-Snippet-1024x220.png) Queries have become lengthier than the long-tail keywords we have used to prepare for in the last decade. No clicks, singular impressions, and very very niched searches. Now this query might not have resulted to an AI citation (AHREFS and Google Analytics did not record any result from specifically-labelled traffic source), but because of how Generative AI changed how we interface with answer engines, or platforms that answer questions that now includes search engines in its classification, the kinds of queries we need to be preparing for should be very unique, personalized, and reflective of one's personal expertise. This is contrary to the usual techniques that we used to do to prepare our websites in answering the most common and frequently asked questions among our audiences. But, regardless of how this aspect of search has changed, we need to still follow [the fundamentals of SEO in the Philippines](https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/seo-is-not-just-about-words-its-more-about-experiences/) - that our content needs to continue to be credible, that we still need to become authoritative sources of content, and that our content remains to be relevant in our respective fields. Partly why I switched up my blogging format - from deliberately targeting specific keywords to rank in, to writing very personal thought pieces on digital marketing topics I know about - is because of the change in search behavior. Someone, somewhere might have a thought and wanted to ask something about SEO in the Philippines, they may ask something very specific about the changes that have happened in recent years, and they may find this blog among the cited sources of their Generative AI result. By publishing clear, and real, thoughts on digital marketing, I may be offering a unique perspective to the universal pool of crawlable content that AI may reference in the future. --- # Do You Need Help with Digital Marketing? Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/do-you-need-help-with-digital-marketing/ Believe me, at some point everyone will need help with digital marketing. And no, this is not a proposition to avail my digital marketing services. I am pausing on this one for now, and focusing on being employed full-time. But to the topic at hand, everyone will need help with digital marketing. I have been applying for digital marketing roles for a few months now, and throughout the years of being a professional in this field I have seen how digital marketing roles have changed. Digital marketing was not originally a role that consolidated all related skills. It's either you were a SEO specialist, a PPC specialist, webmaster or developer, or a content marketer. Back then, it was understood that content marketing encompasses different platforms that enabled publication of online content - from websites, blogs and internal newsletters, to emails and later on, social media. Back then, when you needed help with digital marketing and are working with experts on these fields, you really feel the specialization. Even the digital marketing agencies incorporated these experts to be able to offer a variety of services as a one-stop shop, vs. hiring multiple specialists and incurring a potentially higher overhead (it still depends on the kind of agency you hired, but the logic was you didn't need to pay for benefits for individual hires). More free resources then have become available to more people on learning more about digital marketing skills, and soon more marketers learned these skills. Because information is no longer gate-kept by the experts at the time, and information has been made more available to everyone, this resulted to more folks becoming experts. I know this, because I learned most of what I know about digital marketing through blogs, training videos, certifications, and technical platform documentation. And as such, the good ones needed to diversify. A lot of them have become generalists, taking advantage of the wealth of information to learn as much as they can, and become skilled in more than just one specialization. Soon after, a lot more companies have also started hiring for generalists, and considered digital marketing as a skill that encompasses being knowledgeable with most, or all, of known digital marketing skills. Now, expectations on digital marketers have grown so much that job descriptions on digital marketing roles require a team's worth of skills and expertise. We're not yet even talking about being adept at formulating strategy - these are still just technical requirements, and a lot, if not all, of the digital marketing job descriptions now require not only the technical skills but also strategic ability. I'm not complaining, and I am just detailing the current state of the role of digital marketers and the seemingly growing expectations on them. If you needed help with digital marketing now, the rapid growth of AI makes it more available for use in daily workflows. AI, when used well, expands one's bandwidth and because of this, digital marketers are now expected to be able to do so much more. I am also not choosing between being a generalist or a specialist, because while I know I'm proficient in pay-per-click ads and digital marketing analytics, I know and have the technical capability to do most, if not all, of what folks would expect from digital marketers. If I had a choice and a say in the matter, I would prefer that generalists define the strategy, and they worked with specialists to execute. That would be an ideal working relationship, as this takes advantage of the abilities of each classification of digital marketers. --- # When To Use CBO vs. ABO in Meta Ads? Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/social-media-advertising/when-to-use-cbo-vs-abo-in-meta-ads/ What kind of budget optimization are you using for your ads? Are you using Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO) for omnibus branded ads? Or are you managing your budgets more intently with Ad Set Budget Optimization (ABO)? Do you know when to use CBO vs. ABO in Meta ads? At a basic level, ABO (Ad Set Budget Optimization) means you assign budget at the ad set level, giving you direct control over spend distribution. CBO (Campaign Budget Optimization) shifts that control to the campaign level, allowing Meta to allocate budget dynamically across ad sets based on performance. But, knowing when to use CBO vs. ABO in Meta ads is determined by where you are and in what phase of performance you are in, not just in what kind of ads you are running at the moment. ## Phase 1: Low Spend, No Proven Messaging When you're in a stage that you do not know yet what specific messaging works to deliver on results, and when you don't have a winning messaging yet, you are in the discovery phase. This means that you are not ready to scale, and you will not be ready to spend more than 1,000 pesos per day on your ads. At this phase, CBO works best. You will want to have 2 to 3 ad sets with broad testing structures. Set up interest combinations, and broad audience parameters, and run 20 to 30 creates per set, but mirrored across all ad sets to isolate creative performance. What you want to do at this stage is to find winning signals, or iterations from your creatives that match the different targeting stacks you have in your ad sets. You will want to find out which creative elements work in your individual assets vs. which ad sets they are winning in, without spending too much that you're burning your budgets on non-winning assets. ## Phase 2: Low Spend, Proven Messaging for Early Scaling This is the phase where you've identified a piece of your messaging that works, but you wish to validate it further. So, you need to stay in CBO, but you're now measuring not for discovery but cost efficiency. You're looking for consistency in your early proven messaging to see if these will survive longer runtimes. You will also now begin to introduce 1-3 new ad sets with fresh creative angles, learning from the early proven messaging to validate your findings. Continue to cut out losers immediately to maximize cost efficiency. You're now preparing your ad campaigns to move towards more focused, isolated spending in an ABO configuration. ## Phase 3: High Spend, Proven Messaging This is where you want to be, in the long term. This is the phase where you have a proven and validated messaging, even after introducing new creative variants via new ad sets, and your performance still remains within a consistent margin. The goal here is repetition, and volume. You want to increase your budgets, but sparingly, as the ideal scaling methodology would be to increase to your ideal budget about 15% to 25% every 24 to 48 hours. This also gradually increase your ad spend alongside an improvement in your performance. This is ideal compared to increasing your budgets outright because the latter forces Meta to look for audiences beyond your validated ad sets, reducing your cost efficiency and increasing your costs per result. Be aggressive, but cautious, in your scaling. You will also want to control the creatives that continue to perform, and monitor their performance. Just because they passed your validation does not mean that these creatives will not be subject to sudden algorithm changes and in their performance. Continue eliminating losers and replacing them with winners from the ad sets still undergoing validation. ## Final Notes When to use CBO vs. ABO is a matter of phasing, but it doesn't mean that you stop validating non-winning ad creatives and learning from them. Continue identifying winning creative elements as signals to create creative variants, and identify winning ads to ensure you have a steady stream of validated assets. --- # Will AI Replace SEO? Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/will-ai-replace-seo/ This morning I saw LinkedIn posts talking about the new update of Google Analytics 4, detailing how AI Assistants are now a default channel grouping in traffic acquisition reports. These past two years have drastically [changed how people search](https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/seo-in-the-philippines-in-the-age-of-ai/) to the point that major platforms are changing their measurements to adapt. It still begs to ask - will AI replace SEO? That's not to say that SEO is done for, in fact, quite the contrary. AI Assistants becoming part of web marketing analytics now (but for a lot of us we've been monitoring performance on AI citations since a while ago) for the greater majority and the tools that they use. Will AI replace SEO? No, in fact, [SEO has become more important](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/neilkpatel_ai-seo-digitalmarketing-activity-7370063368121913344-1hqr/), more than ever, for brands and their websites. SEO, when applied well, and we're even talking about the more technical implementations like schema markups, should work to establish your website as an authority that LLMs will most likely cite for your credibility in the field. SEO's fundamentals still adhere to the E-E-A-T principles of building credibility and authority online, and is still a reliable way to create an online presence that LLMs will most likely cite as a resource. - **E - Experience: **Does the content point to you having first-hand, real-world experience with the topic? - **E - Expertise:** Do you talk about the topic in a way that the necessary knowledge in the field is expressed correctly, masterfully, and delivered like an expert? - **A - Authoritativeness:** Is your website and your organization recognized as a go-to source in your industry? and - **T - Trustworthiness:** Are you and your organization trustworthy, which means that you have not been alleged with untrustworthy behavior and that you have social clout everywhere else? Also, does your website have the necessary trust signals like badges, testimonials and safety marks? This alone is a reminder that the fundamental principles of SEO continue to be practiced to build credibility in a much larger, more competitive space that is generative AI. So, will AI replace SEO? No, and while you should adapt to the newer techniques of ranking for LLMs, the fundamentals of SEO will definitely complement how people now search online through AI. Understanding how SEO fits into the broader AI shift is just one piece. If you want the full picture of how Filipino businesses can grow in an AI-driven landscape, our guide on [AI Marketing Philippines](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-marketing-philippines/) covers the complete strategy across content, search, and paid channels. --- # How Can Small Businesses Effectively Use AI to Improve Their Marketing? Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/how-can-small-businesses-effectively-use-ai-to-improve-their-marketing/ Small businesses can leverage AI to level the playing field by automating repetitive marketing tasks, generating data-driven content, and providing personalized customer support at scale. How can small businesses effectively use AI? By using AI as a force multiplier instead of a replacement for creativity, small teams can enhance efficiency, improve ad performance, and maintain a consistent brand presence without needing massive overhead. Over the past few weeks I've been trying to blog more consistently here, coming from years of inactivity and no updated content. I have seen some strong improvements in my website's ranking. ![how can small businesses effectively use AI](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/dwdadawd.png) Generative AI has definitely helped a lot with being able to do speedier research on what works to rank better in my niche, and to get some citations on LLMs, and to recommend titles and article outlines that I can follow. But, I still wrote the actual blogs. I would not have been able to write as much as I have been these past few weeks without AI helping me organize my thoughts and the data that I had, and to help me prioritize what needs to go first. These are still my words, and I used Generative AI to help me organize the data. As someone who used to run a small consultancy business here in the Philippines, I can say that if you know your aptitudes in content creation and marketing, how can small businesses effectively use AI is for it to fill the gaps of what you don't know, and let you take care of what you do best. ## What Role Does AI Play in Modern Small Business Marketing? 2026 has been the year that AI takes center stage, and even for myself I have been using several AI tools to do a lot of the things that I already know how to do, but better, and simultaneously. ![how can small businesses effectively use AI](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/how-small-businesses-can-use-ai.png) It is no longer a futuristic tool, and AI has now become ubiquitous in how people operate online. In fact, [AI has completely changed how people search for information online](https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/will-ai-replace-seo/). The use of AI also has become more democratized, and how can small businesses effectively use AI has become a lot easier because these tools also have improved by so much. - **AI speeds up creative output: **AI tools have helped break through the uncertainty of writing up a blank page, providing outlines, research summaries, first drafts, and more; - **More informed decision making:** Small businesses can use AI to process, organize, and prioritize information towards more data-driven solutions; and - **Improving customer service interactions: **Autonomous chats and agents can now handle your customer service desks 24/7. Well-configured AI bots can handle context-based conversations now, and respond fluidly and more human-like. How Can Small Businesses Effectively Use AI in 2026? No need to overthink AI and it's supposed role in your tech stack. Because AI has become tremendously capable to handle your operations, you no longer have to overthink on how to position it in your business' operations. - **Use AI for your content creation and repurposing.** But, retain creative control. Social media algorithms, search engine algorithms, and even LLMs themselves still prefer uniquely and creatively human content. So, use AI to help you organize, research, and outline content but make sure to still develop the final outputs your own way. - **Use AI to automate your customer service.** It may take a while for you to find an AI tool that works for you, but you can definitely teach AI to [automate majority of your customer service operations](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy-2/7-free-digital-marketing-resources-for-small-businesses/), especially the ones that address your more frequently asked queries; and - **Optimizing your advertising campaigns. **Using AI to help you scan, review, and provide recommendations on optimizing your campaigns will definitely help cut back on the time you spend looking at the data, and fill in the gaps of what you may not know yet in optimizing your conversion rates. A good takeaway for how can small businesses effectively use AI is to just explore the AI tools that you feel good about first. And then, review your operations and what you are good at, and then see if AI can help you do the stuff that you may not be good at, yet. This way, even with limited resources as a small business, you can have the superpower to do so much more. Want to see how this fits into the bigger picture of AI for Filipino businesses? Our full overview on [AI Marketing Philippines](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-marketing-philippines/) walks through the complete strategy, from content creation and SEO to paid media and answer engine optimization. --- # How Can Marketing Agencies Survive AI Agentic Features? Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/how-can-marketing-agencies-survive-ai-agentic-features/ Digital marketing agencies will survive the rise of AI agentic features by shifting from execution-focused services to high-value, human-led strategic advisory roles. While AI automates routine tasks, long-term agency resilience relies on combining deep technical data interpretation (SEO and PPC) with [human empathy](https://jcdigital.xyz/marketing/empathy-in-marketing/) and contextual business strategy. ## What Are AI Agentic Features and How Do They Impact Digital Marketing? The digital landscape has brought massive shifts in how platforms operate, particularly with [Google Gemini introducing advanced "agentic features"](https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/sundar-pichai-io-2026/#agents) that automate previously complex, code-heavy digital workflows. Historically, execution was a gatekept asset of agencies. Today, generative tools can easily spin up generic copy or research outlines on demand. Having managed performance marketing operations for over 12 years across agency, corporate, and consultancy ecosystems, including directing multidisciplinary teams of specialists at TeamAsia, I have seen firsthand that mechanical execution alone is no longer enough to stay competitive. As a result, market demand for entry-level execution and basic content production is declining, while highly technical oversight remains resilient. ## Why Does Creative Strategy Remain an Agency's Ultimate Competitive Advantage? While large language models (LLMs) can aggregate massive universes of existing data, they fundamentally lack the human context and empathy required to solve unique business challenges. True strategic marketing involves looking beyond historical data patterns to understand cultural nuances and human behaviors. Throughout my career—whether driving down acquisition costs in [Meta Ads](https://jcdigital.xyz/social-media-advertising/when-to-use-cbo-vs-abo-in-meta-ads/) for high-volume lead generation, or providing end-to-end consulting via JC Digital, the true win has always been the "why" and "how" behind the data. AI can provide high-density analytical fuel, but it requires an expert human practitioner to synthesize those inputs into cohesive business goals. ## How Can Marketing Agencies Survive AI Agentic Features? Through Human Connections. To secure long-term resilience in the age of AI, agencies must strategically repurpose and reimagine their operational models: - **Prioritize Specialized Technical Rigor:** Use automated workflows for data collection, but retain human experts to interpret complex analytics for Pay-Per-Click (PPC), programmatic ads, and [Search Engine Optimization (SEO)](https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/will-ai-replace-seo/).; - **Shift Value to Strategic Integration:** Move away from basic content generation and instead guide clients on how to securely integrate AI tools into their overarching decision-making processes; and - **Lead with Empathy and Cultural Context:** Focus on tailoring marketing communication to explicit target audience behaviors, keeping genuine human connection at the forefront of the brand. How can marketing agencies survive AI agentic features? By acting as the essential bridge between machine automation and human business outcomes, you and your agency can transform your positioning from being a disposable service provider into an indispensable strategic partner. For a broader look at how AI is changing the marketing landscape for businesses in the Philippines, our guide on [AI Marketing Philippines](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-marketing-philippines/) covers the full strategy picture, from content and SEO to paid media and answer engine optimization. --- # How Can Brands Survive Zero-Click SEO in the Age of AI Chat Assistants? Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/how-can-brands-survive-zero-click-seo-in-the-age-of-ai-chat-assistants/ Brands can survive zero-click SEO and the shift to AI chat assistants by prioritizing Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), human creativity, and entity authority. While AI models aggregate existing knowledge, strong brand building—fostering trust offline with real people and establishing verifiable expertise online—ensures your business remains a highly cited, authoritative resource. ## What is Zero-Click SEO and How is it Changing Search? Since [Google's major updates on Search](https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/search-io-2026/) has solidified its direction (and incidentally the 96% market share they have here in the Philippines) towards conversational discovery. Users are no longer just clicking through pages of "blue links"; they are getting direct, immediate answers from AI assistants. We are already seeing major platforms adapt to this behavior, such as Google Analytics 4 introducing AI Assistants as a default channel grouping in traffic acquisition reports. How marketers like us can maintain visibility in this zero-click SEO environment is by pivoting their content structure so AI can easily extract direct, authoritative answers to user queries. ## Creativity, Continuing to Drive Ideas and Storytelling Forward in an AI World Having managed performance marketing operations for over 10 years, from directing multidisciplinary digital teams at TeamAsia to driving acquisition strategies at one of the biggest BPOs in the country, I have seen firsthand that [mechanical execution alone is no longer enough](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/how-can-marketing-agencies-survive-ai-agentic-features/) to stay competitive. While generative AI can rapidly produce basic copy, it fundamentally operates on existing bodies of knowledge. It lacks the [human context and empathy](https://jcdigital.xyz/marketing/empathy-in-marketing/) required to solve unique business challenges. When the new reality of search pushes us towards a zero-click SEO environment, creativity will be what truly drives marketing forward. Effective strategy requires looking beyond historical data patterns to understand cultural nuances and human behaviors. [AI provides high-density analytical fuel](https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/seo-in-the-philippines-in-the-age-of-ai/), but it requires an expert human practitioner to synthesize those inputs into cohesive, resonant goals. ## Why is Brand Building Critical for Entity Authority? To be cited consistently by Large Language Models (LLMs), your brand must establish high E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). AI algorithms prioritize identifying the definitive "source of truth". However, establishing this authority is not just an online checklist. To secure your position as an indispensable industry leader, businesses must actively build trust: - **Engage Offline First:** Building a brand means engaging with your community and building real trust with actual people. - **Strengthen Online Provenance:** When you build genuine real-world authority, you naturally strengthen your digital "Entity Authority," signaling to AI that you are a verified expert. - **Blend Technology with Empathy:** Combine technical AEO formatting with genuine human connection to bridge the gap between machine extraction and human resonance. Doing these, and remaining true and strong towards a position that creativity and brand-building will continue to be critical, will help all of us survive this zero-click SEO reality that we are facing now. This is part of a broader shift in how AI is reshaping marketing for Filipino businesses. For a complete strategy overview, read our guide on [AI Marketing Philippines](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-marketing-philippines/) and how to position your brand for visibility in AI-driven search. --- # What Actually Ranks Now: AI Content or Human Content? Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/what-actually-ranks-now-ai-content-or-human-content/ What actually ranks now? Today, content ranks by structuring authoritative, human-crafted insights into clear, format-ready data that AI engines like Gemini and ChatGPT can seamlessly extract. While AI scales volume, human expertise provides the trust needed to answer niche conversational queries rather than dead keyword terms. Traditional keyword stuffing is dead. It has been for a while, but now as [Google Search shifted its platform to be more AI-driven](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide) rather than displaying blue links, more SEO professionals are now asking what actually ranks now: AI Content or Human Content? The goal is no longer just to be and appear top-of-mind and top-of-results, but because the proverbial results list have become less important compared to being recommended by generative AI assistants, the goal is to become the most unique, authentic and credible answer to very niche questions. The winning formula relies on structuring authoritative, human-crafted insights into format-ready data that LLMs or AI engines can easily digest. ## Adhering Your Website to What Actually Ranks Now Our experience at JC Digital has been interesting. We have written several articles in the past few months that ranked almost immediately between the 12 to 30 positions. They showed only 1 to 5 impressions, but these articles were unique and very niched topics that served similarly-unique keywords. What actually ranks now for us are the innately and insightfully human content that we have developed, and this strategy is how we can definitely stay strong in the LLM-driven search era. Our strategy needs to evolve beyond basic keyword matching. It has to be more nuanced, and the strategy needs to actually meet at the level of providing solutions to key, niched challenges experienced by your audiences. - **The Inverted Pyramid Structure.** AI models prioritize immediacy. The shorter time it takes for LLMs to get to the answer to the question, the more your articles are rewarded by crawlers and LLMs. Lead your articles with the core answer to the problem statement, answering the query in a depth that feels right, immediately as your first paragraph; - **Conversational Queries Replacing Rigid Keywords.** LLMs employ natural language processing techniques to be able to process content, to be able to serve humans who now search using conversational language vs. adhering their search queries to rigid search terms. Your content should meet the needs of people asking real questions, like *"[How do I simplify digital marketing my small business?](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy-2/7-free-digital-marketing-resources-for-small-businesses/)"*; and - **Create Authority Through E-E-A-T. **E-E-A-T is Experience-Expertise-Authoritativeness-Trustworthiness. Building your credibility around trust signals, certifications, and associations with credible people is a way to ensure that you are marked by crawlers as a trusted, verified source of information in your field. When creating content, make sure that you establish key success areas that you have achieved related to your topic, or reputable certifications that promote your status. Genuine proof and insights drive more attention than generative text loops. To sum all of these up, AI content can scale numbers and quantity of content for you. But, intently and insightfully human content brings unique, trustworthy experience that LLMs continue to reward, even in this AI search era. What actually ranks now is genuine human experience and expertise, packed into a structured, highly-scannable "AI-ready" format. If you are navigating the broader shift toward AI-driven search for your Filipino business, our guide on [AI Marketing Philippines](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-marketing-philippines/) covers the full strategy, from content and SEO to paid media and answer engine optimization. --- # What Is the Best Digital Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses in 2026? Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/what-is-the-best-digital-marketing-strategy-for-small-businesses-in-2026/ Content marketing is becoming the best digital marketing strategy for small businesses in 2026. Why? Because brand and product discovery has changed with AI disrupting search and social media. [44% of people surveyed by McKinsey are now using AI-powered search](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joel-joseph-data-analyst_data-has-now-started-buttressing-an-assumption-activity-7393621115534798848-Nk0K/), while only 31% now are relying on traditional search. All of a sudden, people's behaviors on how they wish to find anything online has changed from really dissecting the right keywords to find the right content that matches their context, to relying on AI-powered search to understand their context and find the right content for them. Even the search I did to find the statistic above prompted Google's AI search function to find the right links for the context that I was looking for, because the question was thoroughly specific, and while there isn't a specific article that is headlined similar to my question, AI-powered search is able to find crawled information to put together the right answer to my question alongside verified links. ![best digital marketing strategy for small businesses](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/image-4-1024x596.png) The best digital marketing strategy for small businesses is content marketing. Not the technical configuration of blogs (Google even confirmed this, that the technical configurations on content and web assets do not necessarily need to be overly complex and they just need to manifest [an improvement on user experience through speed and content organization](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide#create-valuable-content)), but the unique, human expertise-driven content remains to be the top driver for LLM robots to crawl, index, and cite your content to relevant questions and AI-powered search. ## The Best Digital Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses is a Strong Content Marketing Stack Having content though is not going to be enough. I know this from my blog, where not all of the content I've published have done well even though Google Search Console reports a volume of search for these keywords. [I know this from various SEO content clients over the past 10 years](https://jcdigital.xyz/about-jc-digital/), where we have delivered top-of-mind and top-of-results leadership on branded and niche non-branded searches. We have doubled down on search-optimized content for a agri-poultry brand we have worked with for 2 years, and established leadership in results even after a major website revamp. Getting online content found, especially via [AI-powered search](https://jcdigital.xyz/ai-in-marketing/how-can-marketing-agencies-survive-ai-agentic-features/), relies on building trust, credibility, and talking about your uniquely human insights on your own expertise areas. All of these, plus the factor that your content needs to be the best that you can produce, are areas you can start with for your small business. However, these are not the end-all-be-all of winning in content marketing for 2026. - **Establish trust signals on your online entity as a whole by building your profile. **Establish a profile or about page on your website and introduce yourself and your credentials there. Demonstrate credibility and showcase some proof to your results. Link certifications and organizations you have been associated with, including brands you've work with, to build clout. Your identity online is a lever, aside from the quality of your content, for LLMs to identify whether your material is a good answer to very specific questions by your customers online; - **Use the inverted pyramid structure. **Start with the answer, and immediately feed LLMs the answers to the questions you are attempting to answer. This way, LLMs are only looking into the rest of your content for additional proof and expertise markers, on whether you actually know what you're talking about, but the answer is immediately available for bots to index and cite whenever possible; and - **Anticipate for actual, conversational questions your customers may be searching.** Instead of focusing on short-tail terms that will output a long list of generic, non-tailored results, focus instead on answering very specific questions and be the best answer for that question. Provide detail, proof, and expertise in your content, and structure your content into bullet-lists and subsections with subheadings that are formatted as how/why questions themselves. Content marketing will be the best digital marketing strategy for small businesses in 2026, and these steps are great beginnings to winning in AI-powered search. *Note: I became a little bit more consistent in writing in this blog because I wanted to share more ideas while I'm looking for a company to contribute my skills. I have experienced a shift in [how my website has ranked for certain topics](https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/seo-in-the-philippines-in-the-age-of-ai/) as well.* --- # Quick Points on Building Your Digital Marketing Strategy for Your Small Business Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/quick-points-on-building-your-digital-marketing-strategy-for-your-small-business/ ## Insights from the article: - Developing a digital marketing strategy requires identifying your goals and objectives first. This will serve as your guiding light in developing the entire strategy; - Single out your target markets, and assign persona profiles to identify their wants and needs. This will help you plan how to communicate with them; - Plot out the digital marketing tools that you need to use, and you wish to use, to achieve your goals and communicate with your target markets. In this video, we talk about what you actually need to create a [digital marketing strategy](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/) are your objectives, target market, your digital marketing channels, and your key performance indicators. **What are the Objectives of your Digital Marketing Strategy?** Your objectives provide the direction of your entire digital marketing campaign strategy. Complex digital marketing funnels can be changed when you switch objectives. Because strategists come up with different plans for different types of objectives for different companies. Before we even start listing down what we can do with digital marketing, we have to solidify and commit to our objective first.  Do we aim to sell more products? Do we get more people to know more about our products and services? Do we want more people to come to our store? These objectives may seem out of touch when we consider digital marketing because these are actual, on-the-ground business objectives. Digital marketing strategists will then think of different strategic approaches in order to achieve your business objectives with digital marketing channels. Telling you how we do this can be similar to sharing a valuable trade secret, but contact me and we can brainstorm about your business’ objectives and digital marketing strategy.  **Who are your Business’ Target Markets?** Who’s your target market? It can help if you can be very detailed when it comes to defining who you want to talk to, especially when defining your communication and advertising tactics later on. For example, creating different buyer persona profiles can help in creating content that directly speak to your target markets. A buyer persona is a profile sheet that includes demographic and psychographic information and assumptions about your target market. **What are your Business’ Digital Marketing Tools?** If you’re a small to medium business owner, most probably you won’t have a lot of time to spend on several digital marketing platforms. You won’t probably be able to run comprehensive search and social media campaigns, and manage your advertising campaigns - while running your entire business. So, what you can do is to [pick and choose among the many digital marketing platforms](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/choosing-your-digital-marketing-platform-for-your-business/) available for you to learn and use for your business. You can check out [my blog about this here.](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/choosing-your-digital-marketing-platform-for-your-business/) **Let’s Make your Digital Marketing Easier** I’m sure you may have a question or two about coming up with digital marketing strategies. What’s the format? How do we actually write it? What are the actual steps from conceptualizing a strategy to executing? How do we set our key performance indicators for my small campaign? Those information can be best provided via a 1 on 1 discussion. If you’d like to seek a consultation about anything digital marketing, or if you’d like to set-up a one-on-one masterclass on digital marketing, [contact me](https://jcdigitalpartners.wordpress.com/contact/) and I can set this up for you. You can also [subscribe to my email updates](http://bit.ly/jcdigital-subscribe) - I try to send emails to my contacts at least once a week --- # Unleashing the Power of Precision: Mastering LinkedIn Ads Location Targeting for Your Business Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/linkedin-ads-location-targeting/ The Philippine business landscape is a vibrant tapestry of local gems. Central business districts have become more and more active as they become more accessible to people, resulting to increased business activity. But in today's digital age, reaching the right professional audience requires more than just a strong online presence. Here's where a crucial element comes into play: **LinkedIn Ads location targeting**. This powerful tool allows you, the small business owner, to laser-focus your advertising efforts on the exact geographic locations where your ideal professional customers reside. Mastering LinkedIn Ads location targeting isn't just about showing off your brand – it's about strategically attracting professionals who are most likely to convert, leading to increased sales, partnerships, and brand awareness. **Decades of Experience in Digital Marketing Strategies** As a seasoned digital marketing professional with over a decade of experience, We have seen firsthand how LinkedIn Ads can transform a business. We have worked with several small businesses in the Philippines, helping them harness the power of this tool to achieve remarkable results. **Unlocking the Secrets of LinkedIn Ads Location Targeting** Imagine this: You're a B2B services provider looking to connect with HR professionals in Manila. Targeting your LinkedIn Ads campaign nationwide would lead to wasted impressions and a depleted budget. LinkedIn Ads location targeting solves this problem by allowing you to precisely define the geographic areas where your ads will appear. Here's how it works: Within the LinkedIn Ads platform, you have a multitude of options to tailor your location targeting strategy: - **Countries:** Target your ads to the entire Philippines or specific regions within the country. - **Cities & Regions:** Focus your reach on key cities like Manila, Cebu, Davao, or target specific provinces like Cavite or Laguna. - **Companies:** Being able to target users that currently work or used to work for specific companies in the Philippines allow you to geotarget those who operate within a specific location. - **Combined Targeting:** Combine multiple options, like targeting specific cities within a broader region. This granular control empowers you to reach professionals who are actively searching for products or services like yours, or looking to bridge partnerships with companies like yours, within your defined geographical area. **The Power of Geotargeting for Philippine Businesses** For small businesses in the Philippines, geotargeting your customers through LinkedIn Ads offers several key advantages: - **Increased Relevancy & Click-Through Rates:** Your ads will be shown to professionals with a genuine interest in what you offer, leading to higher click-through rates and a better return on your investment (ROI). - **Optimized Ad Spend:** By eliminating irrelevant clicks, you get more bang for your buck. Your budget goes towards reaching potential customers who are more likely to convert. - **Enhanced Brand Awareness:** Targeted ads within your specific region lead to increased brand recognition and familiarity amongst your target professional audience. - **Drive Local Partnerships & Collaborations:** If your business is looking to connect with local businesses or professionals, geotargeting helps attract potential partners within your region. - **Optimize for Local Industry Trends:** You can tailor your ad copy and messaging to resonate with the specific industry trends and challenges faced by professionals in your target location. - **Cater to Local Professional Networks:** Target your ads to specific professional groups or associations within your region to reach a highly targeted audience. Imagine, for instance, a software development company in Cebu City targeting its LinkedIn Ads to nearby IT professionals. The ad copy could highlight the company's expertise in specific technologies popular in the region, while the landing page could showcase successful projects with local clients. **Conclusion: A Strategic Approach to B2B Digital Marketing** In a competitive market, reaching the right professional audience holds immense power. LinkedIn Ads location targeting provides you, the Filipino entrepreneur, with the ability to strategically pinpoint your ideal customers and turn them into valuable business partners. By leveraging this powerful tool, you can maximize your advertising budget, boost brand awareness, and ultimately drive meaningful actions, whether it's increased sales, partnerships, or brand recognition within your target region. [Contact us today](https://jcdigital.xyz/contact/) and let's discuss how I can help you implement this strategy effectively. --- # SEO Audit in the Philippines: The Cornerstone of Your Digital Marketing Success Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/seo-audit-philippines/ In the competitive digital landscape of the Philippines, simply having a website isn't enough. To truly thrive, your online presence needs to be discoverable, engaging, and conversion-focused. This is where an **SEO Audit Philippines** comes into play, serving as a critical component within a comprehensive **digital marketing audit philippines**. If your website isn't ranking, attracting organic traffic, or converting visitors into customers, it's time to dig deeper and understand the underlying issues. An SEO audit is a meticulous examination of your website's search engine performance. It goes beyond surface-level checks, delving into technical aspects, on-page optimization, and off-page factors that influence your visibility on search engines like Google. For businesses targeting the Philippine market, understanding local search nuances, language preferences, and competitive landscapes is paramount. A thorough SEO audit will uncover weaknesses in your current strategy, identify missed opportunities, and provide a clear roadmap for improvement. What does an effective SEO Audit in the Philippines entail? It typically covers: - **Technical SEO:** This includes site speed, mobile-friendliness, crawlability, indexability, sitemap errors, broken links, and secure socket layer (SSL) certificates. Issues here can severely hinder search engine bots from understanding and ranking your site. - **On-Page SEO:** This assesses the optimization of individual web pages, looking at keyword usage, meta descriptions, title tags, header tags, image alt text, content quality, and internal linking structure. Is your content truly relevant and optimized for what your target audience in the Philippines is searching for? - **Off-Page SEO:** This examines factors outside your website that impact rankings, primarily backlinks from other reputable websites. It also includes local SEO signals (for businesses with physical locations) and brand mentions. A strong backlink profile signals authority and trustworthiness to search engines. - **Competitor Analysis:** Understanding what your competitors are doing well (or poorly) in terms of SEO can provide invaluable insights for your own strategy. The importance of this audit cannot be overstated. A well-executed **digital marketing audit Philippines** often reveals that SEO is the foundational element that needs urgent attention. By optimizing your website for search engines, you're not just aiming for higher rankings; you're striving for sustainable organic traffic, increased brand visibility, and a higher return on investment. It's about ensuring that when potential customers in the Philippines are looking for your products or services, your business is prominently featured. The insights gained provide actionable steps, from simple content tweaks to major technical overhauls, all designed to enhance your search engine performance and drive more qualified leads to your digital doorstep. Don't let your website be a hidden gem in the vast ocean of the internet. Investing in an **SEO Audit in the Philippines** is a strategic move that pays dividends, laying the groundwork for sustained online growth and ensuring your digital marketing efforts are built on a solid, discoverable foundation. It's the first step towards transforming your online presence from merely existing to truly excelling. --- # Social Media Audit Philippines: Elevating Your Brand within a Digital Marketing Audit Philippines Framework Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/social-media-marketing/social-media-audit-philippines/ In a nation as socially connected as the Philippines, where digital interactions shape purchasing decisions and brand perceptions, your social media presence is not just an add-on – it's a cornerstone of your digital marketing strategy. However, simply being on social media isn't enough. To truly leverage these platforms, you need clarity, direction, and measurable results. This is where a **Social Media Audit Philippines** becomes indispensable, seamlessly integrating into your broader **digital marketing audit philippines** to provide a holistic view of your online performance. A social media audit is a systematic review of your brand's presence and activity across all relevant social media platforms. It's designed to assess what's working, what's not, and where opportunities lie for growth and greater impact. For businesses targeting the Filipino market, where platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram dominate, understanding audience behavior, content preferences, and engagement patterns is crucial. Without a regular audit, your social media efforts could be disconnected, inefficient, and failing to achieve their full potential. Key areas evaluated during a Social Media Audit Philippines include: - **Platform Performance:** Which platforms are driving the most engagement and traffic? Are you active on the right channels for your target audience in the Philippines? - **Audience Analysis:** Who is engaging with your content? Are you reaching your ideal customer segments? What demographics, interests, and behaviors can be identified? - **Content Effectiveness:** What types of posts (images, videos, text) resonate most? What topics generate the most discussion or shares? Are your calls to action clear and compelling? - **Competitor Benchmarking:** How do your social media efforts compare to key competitors in the Philippine market? What strategies are they employing successfully? - **Engagement Metrics:** Are you generating meaningful interactions (likes, shares, comments)? How quickly and effectively are you responding to customer inquiries and feedback? - **Brand Voice & Consistency:** Is your brand messaging consistent across all platforms? Does your tone resonate with your target audience? - **ROI & Conversion Tracking:** Can you link your social media activities to website traffic, leads, or sales? The insights derived from a **digital marketing audit philippines** focused on social media are transformative. They allow you to refine your content strategy, optimize your posting schedule, reallocate resources to more effective platforms, and ultimately, build stronger relationships with your audience. For Filipino businesses, where word-of-mouth and community engagement play a significant role, a highly optimized social media presence can directly translate to brand loyalty and increased sales. It moves your social media from a mere presence to a strategic asset. Don't let your social media efforts remain a shot in the dark. A comprehensive **Social Media Audit Philippines** provides the data-driven clarity you need to master your digital presence, enhance brand reputation, and effectively engage with the millions of Filipinos active on social platforms. It's an essential step towards ensuring your social media strategy is not just active, but truly impactful and aligned with your overall business objectives. --- # What to Expect from a Digital Marketing Agency Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/what-to-expect-from-a-digital-marketing-agency/ ## Insights from the article: - Hiring a digital marketing agency in the Philippines allow you to grow and scale your operations. Focus on the business side while your digital marketing agency focuses on driving people towards your brand;- Be meticulous with your contract, and make sure that the scope of work is clear and aligned between you and your representatives, and the agency;- A fruitful partnership between you and your agency requires trust, and building trust requires a clear set of expectations from each other. If you’re looking to [grow and scale your business this 2021](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/), then the way you can do it is to increase your brand’s reach and engagements with digital marketing. You can either continue doing your own digital marketing efforts, or you can hire a digital marketing agency. If you’re choosing the latter, it may present to you a different set of advantages for growing your business. Hiring a digital marketing agency may help you expand what you can do because now, you have more people with different skill sets working for your business. You can also expect a more efficient flow of outputs because there are now more people working for you. Of course, you will also now become a client that the agency will lovingly take care of and support. There are also unspoken disadvantages to hiring a digital marketing agency. One of which is that agencies will always have other clients. While your agency strives to provide you with the best quality of service, you must remember that you are only one of multiple clients that they’re trying to serve. This means that not 100% of their time will be devoted to you. But, despite this one disadvantage, the boons of hiring a digital marketing agency will definitely help your business grow and reach more customers, as long as you know what to expect from them and how to work with your agency efficiently. ## How Your Digital Marketing Agency Provides Services The short answer is that it depends on your contract. Also, make sure that you enter a contract with your agency to save yourself (and your agency) a lot of headache as you continue your engagement. If your contract involves social media management and content creation, you can expect your digital marketing agency to produce a content calendar. All of the digital marketing agencies we know and worked with love to create concerted plans on how to grow their clients’ businesses, and planning out the content is definitely something you can expect. Some of the clients we have worked with require a deeper level of attention because their content plans and preferences change a lot, some of them even require daily production of new content, so we’d allot more resources for these clients for a faster turnaround. You can also expect your digital marketing agency to check in on your page at least daily, to check and monitor if there are comments and messages that need to be addressed, or errors in the page that need to be resolved. If your contract involves digital advertising services, then your digital marketing agency needs to pay more attention especially on the ads. A lot of intricacies can go wrong when running ads, and your digital marketing agency should be able to troubleshoot and solve these errors as they happen. Errors such as ads that violate community policies and disabled accounts happen more often than you think, and it is the job of your agency to resolve these in the shortest amount of time. More importantly, your digital marketing agency needs to be able to check your ads at least daily to inspect your ads’ performance, see if they are on track to achieving your KPIs, and perform optimizations on your ad campaigns. Optimizations can be done from your ads’ targeting, ad spend and bidding adjustments, and even replacing and tweaking your ad content. If your contract with your digital marketing agency requires both social media management and advertising services, or more, then you can expect them to be more on top of your account to ensure that every aspect of your campaigns are running in their best shape. No errors, performing optimally, and creating positive engagements among your target markets. ## FREE Resource: Framework for Creating Your Own Digital Marketing Strategy Here is a quick and easy template that you can use to formulate your digital marketing strategy. In this template, you will get asked a series of questions through the different slides, and will use the information you provided to be able to formulate a digital marketing strategy statement that will guide you in executing all of your digital marketing initiatives. Contact me via this form: [[LINK](https://jcdigital.xyz/download-the-free-digital-marketing-strategic-framework-for-your-small-business/)] and fill out the form to receive the free digital template. 🙂 ## Let’s Make your Digital Marketing Easier Do you have more questions on how usually [digital marketing agencies](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/) work with their clients? Let me know by contacting me from [this form](https://jcdigital.xyz/contact/), or by sending me an email at james [at] jcdigital.xyz. --- # What to Do About Facebook’s Updates on Detailed Targeting in 2022 Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/what-to-do-about-facebooks-updates-on-detailed-targeting-in-2022/ ## Insights from the article: - Meta reported that there will be significant changes in the ad platform's detailed targeting parameters, removing certain interest topics that reference sensitive topics and unused topics;- Ad campaigns will now be forced to pivot to more broader detailed targeting sets;- Advertisers need to check their campaigns for potential changes and continue to test for changes in their performance results: If you’re like us who keeps track of all of Facebook’s platform and algorithm updates, you might have noticed an email announcement about removal of some detailed targeting parameters for Facebook Ads. ![FB Detailed Targeting email notification](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/blog1.png) The email might have been haphazardly sent because the header image points to an image URL that doesn’t exist. Regardless, this is something to keep a close watch on, and something to prepare our Facebook and Instagram campaigns. Basically if you’re running ad campaigns in both platforms and are extensively using detailed targeting parameters to target your intended audiences, some of these changes might affect how you run your ads. ## What are Facebook Ads’ Detailed Targeting The Detailed Targeting section is a part of the process of setting up your ad sets in Facebook Ads, where you determine the interest topics you deem are closest to what your target markets are interested in. It is in this stage that you pinpoint the kind of content your target markets are interested in, so that when they search for, or engage with, content within the interest topics you are targeting - your ads will then be displayed to these users. ![Facebook Ads Detailed Targeting Changes Preview](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/blog2.png) Detailed targeting also includes options to target specific behaviors, such as mobile device preferences, the types of activities your target markets engage in on Facebook and/or Instagram, travel and brand preferences, and more. The best way to learn about what options are available here is to explore them, and choose the ones you feel are most relevant to who you are targeting with your ads. ## How Facebook Ads’ Detailed Targeting will Change in 2022 According to Meta’s official documentation on the changes to happen by March 2022, they will be removing certain unused interest targeting options, as well as interest topics that reference organization affiliations, sensitive causes, religious practices, sexual orientation, and more. ![FB ads detailed targeting announcement](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/blog3.png)Source: [Meta for Business](https://www.facebook.com/business/news/removing-certain-ad-targeting-options-and-expanding-our-ad-controls) According to the Meta for Business blog, interest topics that point to sensitive affiliations or activities may have been abused by some advertisers to target certain groups of people with malicious intent. The company mentioned that they are constantly evolving the platform to serve its advertisers better, and perhaps this is one way of eliminating the abusive ways some people use the platform. ## How Will These Changes Affect Your Campaigns The optimal way to know whether some of the interest targeting options you are currently using has been removed, is to manually check. As of writing, Meta for Business has not released a list of said options to be removed in the platform, and if you believe that your targeting strategy involves using interest targeting topics about health causes, sexual orientation, religious practices and/or political affiliations and beliefs, then you need to check your ad sets as soon as these changes are implemented in March. If your strategy revolves around using these topics to target your intended audiences, then you also might want to consider another plan. You might also want to stay put and see how your performance changes, and immediately pivot if you see negative effects on your performance. ## Let’s Make Your Digital Marketing Easier These topics are something that we are very engaged in here in JC Digital. Keeping tabs on how advertising platforms and algorithms are changing is definitely a part of our day-to-day, and is something that we advise our clients about, as soon as they are announced. For free digital marketing audits and initial consultation meetings with our team, feel free to [contact us today](https://jcdigital.xyz/contact/). --- # How to Set-up Digital Marketing Objectives for your Small Business Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/digital-marketing-objectives-for-your-small-business/ What do you want to accomplish with your digital marketing? Consider your digital marketing objectives as your goalposts, and that everything that you are doing should be leading towards reaching these goalposts. This is one of the first questions small business owners like you should ask yourselves when you consider doing digital marketing for your small business. We need to develop first your objectives in order to ensure that all of our efforts hereon are cohesive and consistent. ## What are the digital marketing objectives that you need? If you’re a retailer exploring digital marketing for your small business, then your objective could be to increase your sales from online traffic, right? If you’re a small business focusing on B2B transactions then your digital marketing objective may be to generate leads and inquiries about your services.  But, digital marketing should be treated as a journey, and it’s not a get-rich-quick scheme where you can do something and get the results fast. Especially now that online audiences are becoming more and more picky and [they’re always seeking for brands that they can trust](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/communicating-in-the-new-normal/). In order to gain their trust we need to be able to nurture them, and to not expect that the first content they read from you will prompt them immediately to buy. Consider your own purchase journey. Where do you discover brands and products? What kind of content and information do you need to see from brands before you buy? What are your own preferred platforms to consume these content and where do you prefer to reach out to brands you want to patronize? Thinking about these can prompt you to discover your own customers’ journey and be able to plot a step-by-step process of how you’ll nurture them into buying from your store. Therefore, we need to set up stages, where we have specific sub-objectives and that these sub-objectives are step-by-step. What do you want to accomplish first in order to lead people through a journey, where the last step is that ultimately they will sign-up for your business or buy your products? - If you’re a new small business, normally the first thing you need to accomplish first is to [create awareness and reach more users](https://jcdigital.xyz/social-media-advertising/social-media-analytics-for-small-businesses-in-2021/). You need to get the word out first about who you are, what problems in the market you are trying to solve, and your unique solutions to these problems. What [digital marketing channels do you want to use](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/choosing-your-digital-marketing-platform-for-your-business/) to create awareness and where are your customers looking for solutions similar to yours?- Great, now you have created awareness for your business. In your industry, do customers normally buy immediately upon becoming aware of your products and services? Or, do they want to read more and do a bit more research? In most cases, it’s the latter, and for us to continue on we need to nurture customers a bit more to create a connection with them. We need to engage them more. What kind of content will you need to engage your customers? What information do you have about your company, your products and services, and your mission to create a strong connection with your customers? - At this point, are we now able to invite our customers to proceed to the next step and consider buying? All signs point to yes. Once your customers are engaged and know more about who you are, they will now be more inclined to proceed to the channels where you can invite them to buy your products or contact you for more information.  All of these items can guide you to creating a journey of sub-objectives that will lead customers to a point where they will be engaged enough to buy your products and services and thus, helping you achieve your objectives one customer at a time. ### Let’s Make Your Digital Marketing Easier We hope that the guide questions that we shared here, as well as the thought process and steps can help you pinpoint your digital marketing’s objectives. Hopefully, after this guide, you can come up with your own journey and create a plan that’s cohesive and consistent in promoting your small business to potential customers. If you need assistance with preparing a strategic roadmap for your small business, [contact JC Digital](https://jcdigital.xyz/contact/) today for our consultation services. --- # SEO for Small Business Websites in 2024 Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/seo-for-small-business-websites-in-2024/ SEO, once a complex digital jargon, is now a must-have for small businesses aiming to thrive online. But with algorithms constantly evolving, how can you use SEO for small business websites and stay relevant among your target audiences? The key lies in understanding how people search. Gone are the days of stuffing keywords into your content. Now, it's about providing valuable, relevant content that answers people's questions. Think about the language your customers use when searching for your products or services. Incorporate more natural phrases, questions, and queries into your website content, meta descriptions, and headings. This needs to be a part of your [digital marketing strategy for your small business](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy-2/digital-marketing-objectives-for-your-small-business/). Write about topics that people might find interesting. You can always do research from social media comments and groups about what people are currently commonly asking about, and use those topics to write some blogs. Most likely, what people are asking about in social media are also the questions they may be asking about in search engines. Social media is no longer just a platform for sharing photos and updates. It's a search engine too. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok are using advanced algorithms to deliver content based on user interests. Ensure your business is visible here by using relevant hashtags, engaging with your audience, and creating shareable content. Consider your SEO for small business as a long-term strategy. It's not about quick wins but about building a strong online presence. Monitor your website's performance, analyze your audience, and adapt your strategy accordingly. By focusing on creating high-quality content, optimizing for search engines, and leveraging social media, your small business can significantly boost its online visibility and reach a wider audience. *Would you like me to elaborate on any specific SEO tips or social media strategies?* Check out my [list of resources for small business marketing](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy-2/7-free-digital-marketing-resources-for-small-businesses/). Contact us at [https://jcdigital.xyz/contact](https://jcdigital.xyz/contact) to get in touch and let's connect. --- # Google Ads Location Targeting: The Key to Precise Advertising Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/google-ads-location-targeting-the-key-to-precise-advertising/ Google Ads location targeting is a critical component of any successful digital advertising campaign. By meticulously defining where your ads appear, you can significantly improve your small business campaign's performance and ROI. But why is location targeting so important, and how granular can you get? Location targeting allows you to serve ads about your small business to people in specific geographic areas. This could be as broad as a country or as narrow as a specific city or a zip code, By focusing your efforts on areas where your target audience is most likely to be, you can increase the relevance of your ads and drive higher conversion rates. Google Ads offers a wide range of location targeting options. You can target entire countries, regions, cities, or even specific addresses. Additionally, you can use proximity targeting to reach people within a certain radius of your business location. This level of granularity empowers you to tailor your campaigns to specific demographics and customer behaviors. When combined with intent and context targeting, Google Ads location targeting becomes even more powerful. By understanding what people are searching for and the context in which they are searching, you can deliver highly relevant ads that are more likely to resonate with your target audience. For example, targeting people searching for "best Italian restaurant" in a specific city will increase the chances of capturing potential customers. Moreover, having landing pages, or blogs, that specifically talk about what people are searching for, will increase your chances of converting these people who are searching for you online as you're giving them content that's relevant to them. To maximize the impact of your Google Ads campaigns, it's essential to identify specifically the [objectives and results that you want to achieve for your small business](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy-2/digital-marketing-objectives-for-your-small-business/). This way, when partnering with an agency you can clearly identify expectations. By leveraging their expertise, you can optimize your campaigns for maximum ROI and achieve your business goals. Are you ready to take your Google Ads campaigns to the next level? [Contact us today](https://jcdigital.xyz/contact/) to learn more about how we can help you master location targeting and drive exceptional results. --- # The Power of Search Volume and Keyword Difficulty in SEO Blog Planning Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/uncategorized/the-power-of-search-volume-and-keyword-difficulty-in-seo-blog-planning/ As a small business owner, you understand the importance of a strong online presence. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is an effective and efficient way to achieve a higher and better online presence. By using relevant keywords and writing about topics that your audiences and consumers are most likely to be searching about, you can manage a higher placement in search engine ranking results over time. **Understanding Search Volume and Keyword Difficulty** When planning your SEO blog topics, two key metrics play a crucial role: search volume and keyword difficulty. - **Search Volume:** This refers to the number of times a specific keyword is searched for in a given period. Keywords with high search volume indicate that many people are interested in that topic. - **Keyword Difficulty:** Keywords with low difficulty are easier to rank for, while those with high difficulty are more competitive. The competitiveness of keywords are identified by how many websites are currently ranking for these keywords, and low competition keywords are not essentially inconsequential to your brand - it just means that there may be people searching for this, but no one has been writing about this topic yet. **Why Are Search Volume and Keyword Difficulty Important?** - **Targeted Content:** By analyzing search volume and keyword difficulty, you can identify topics that are both popular and achievable to rank for. This ensures that your content is relevant to your target audience and has a better chance of being found. - **Effective Resource Allocation:** Understanding search volume and keyword difficulty helps you prioritize your SEO efforts. You can focus on keywords with a good balance of search volume and difficulty, rather than wasting time on overly competitive terms. - **Measurable Success:** Tracking the performance of your SEO efforts is essential. By monitoring the search volume and keyword difficulty of your target keywords, you can measure your progress and make data-driven decisions. **How to Use Search Volume and Keyword Difficulty in Your SEO Blog Planning** - **Keyword Research:** Search online for basic, shorter keywords you think that people might already be searching for that's relevant to your business, and you can find the top results that will help you identify what are the actual headlines that are already ranking for that keyword. From there, you can identify what's most in demand. Or, you can use SEO tools to help you identify your rank in certain keywords and help you identify opportunities to rank higher. - **Topic Selection:** Based on your keyword research, select blog topics that have a good balance of search volume and keyword difficulty. Aim for topics that are both popular and achievable to rank for. - **Content Optimization:** Once you've chosen your topics, optimize your blog content for your target keywords. This includes using the keywords naturally throughout your content, in your headlines, and in your meta descriptions. - **Backlink Building:** Building high-quality backlinks to your blog posts can also help improve your search engine rankings. Focus on building links from reputable websites that are relevant to your industry. **Conclusion** By understanding the importance of search volume and keyword difficulty, you can create a more effective [SEO strategy for your small business](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy-2/seo-for-small-business-websites-in-2024/). By focusing on topics that are both popular and achievable to rank for, you can increase your visibility in search engine results and attract more potential customers. Reference: [TheWebGuyNick.com](https://webguynick.com/up-your-digital-game-with-web-guy-nick-llc-unveiling-seo-secrets/) --- # Facebook Algorithm for Businesses: A Guide to Boosting Your Reach Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/facebook-algorithm-for-businesses/ Businesses now need social media platforms, especially Facebook, in order to succeed in getting more of their audiences online. Facebook has become intrinsic in the everyday life of Filipinos. But, in order to optimize their reach and engagement, business owners must also now understand how everything about Facebook algorithm for businesses, as it is constantly changing.[](https://blognow.co.in/what-is-smm-panel)[](https://blognow.co.in/what-is-smm-panel) **Understanding the Facebook Algorithm for Businesses** The algorithm is simply a set of rules identified by platforms, in this case Facebook, to serve its users the most relevant content based on their preferences - whether explicitly stated or not. Relevance is a tricky, fickle thing, as it is fleeting, and constantly changing. This is why we need to understand that the Facebook algorithm for businesses requires that the content we produce is aligned with what people may already be searching for or reading about in social media. Understanding this allows you - the small business owner - to reach your target audience and generate significant interactions for your small business. **The Reality: Not Everyone Sees Your Posts** We all want different things, and we want them in different times in our lives. Why not all of our followers see our content in Facebook is that not every one is interested in our topics at the moment. A common misconception among small businesses is that if they get people to follow their page, they will immediately and automatically be seen by them. This was true before, to some degree, but is no longer true now. The Facebook algorithm has now become smarter in terms of identifying each user's preferences, interests, demographics, habits and behaviors, and has in turn, become smarter in identifying posts and content that's most relevant to them. This means that only a portion of your followers may actually see your posts. **Creating Relevant Content** [Who is your target audience?](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy-2/quick-points-on-building-your-digital-marketing-strategy-for-your-small-business/) It is key to identifying this first to be able to identify then what it is that they need. That's where we enter, with developing content that's relevant to them. This involves understanding their needs, interests, and pain points. Addressing these means that you will be able to encourage users to engage with your posts, which signals to the algorithm that your content is valuable. This is true for all types of content, whether you're using mostly organic posts, or [ads to boost your reach.](https://jcdigital.xyz/social-media-advertising/a-small-business-guide-to-facebook-advertising/) **Popular Content Formats on Facebook** To make your content more engaging and shareable, consider incorporating some of these popular formats: - **Videos:** Videos are highly effective at capturing attention and driving engagement. Consider creating short, informative videos, tutorials, or behind-the-scenes glimpses of your business. - **Live Videos:** Live videos offer a more authentic and interactive experience. Use them to host Q&A sessions, product demonstrations, or special events. - **Images:** High-quality images can be a great way to visually represent your brand and products. Use eye-catching graphics and relevant captions to enhance your posts. - **Stories:** Facebook Stories are short-form content that disappears after 24 hours. They provide a more casual and personal way to connect with your audience. - **Carousels:** Carousels allow you to showcase multiple images or videos in a single post. Use them to highlight product features, share customer testimonials, or tell a story. [Creating a plan and a strategy for your small business](https://jcdigital.xyz/download-the-free-digital-marketing-strategic-framework-for-your-small-business/) allows you to maximize all resources you have for your social media. By understanding the Facebook algorithm and creating relevant, engaging content, you can increase your visibility, build stronger relationships with your audience, and ultimately achieve your business goals. Remember, consistency is key. Regularly posting high-quality content will help you stay top of mind with your followers and improve your overall performance on the platform. --- # A Guide on What Social Media Agencies Do Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/a-guide-on-what-social-media-agencies-do/ The social media landscape is constantly evolving, with new platforms emerging and user behavior changing rapidly. This can make it challenging for businesses to keep up and create effective social media marketing campaigns. This is what social media agencies do and help achieve. Social media marketing agencies are teams of experts who specialize in creating and managing social media campaigns for businesses. They have the knowledge and experience to develop strategies that reach your target audience, increase brand awareness, and drive engagement. In recent years, there has been a significant growth in the number of social media marketing agencies. This is due to the increasing importance of social media for businesses of all sizes. However, with so many agencies to choose from, it can be difficult for brand managers and business owners to know where to start. It's important to understand what social media agencies do. But before we dive into that, let's acknowledge the potential concerns you might have venturing into this territory. ## Understanding Your Needs as a Brand We understand that venturing into the world of social media marketing agencies can be daunting. You might be unsure of what these agencies do or how they can benefit your brand. You might have questions about the return on investment (ROI) or the level of control you'll have over your social media presence. These are all valid concerns. It's important to approach hiring a social media marketing agency with a clear understanding of your brand's goals and objectives. What do you hope to achieve with social media marketing? Once you know this, you can start to look for an agency that has the experience and expertise to help you achieve your goals. ## Understanding What Social Media Agencies Do Now, let's delve into what a social media marketing agency can do for your business. Here's a breakdown of the core services offered by most agencies, including JC Digital, a trusted agency that caters to businesses of all sizes: Social Media Strategy Development: A good social media marketing agency will start by working with you to develop a comprehensive social media strategy. This strategy will outline your goals, target audience, brand voice, and content calendar. Content Creation: Social media marketing agencies can create high-quality content for your social media channels, including images, videos, infographics, and blog posts. They will tailor this content to your target audience and ensure it aligns with your brand voice and message. Social Media Management: Agencies can manage your social media channels on a day-to-day basis. This includes posting content, responding to comments and messages, and running social media ads. Community Management: Social media marketing agencies can help you build and manage your online community. This includes engaging with your followers, responding to questions and concerns, and running social media contests and giveaways. Social Media Analytics and Reporting: A good social media marketing agency will track the performance of your social media campaigns and provide you with regular reports. These reports will help you understand what's working and what's not, so you can make adjustments to your strategy as needed. ## JC Digital: Your Partner in Social Media Success JC Digita is a [social media marketing agency](https://jcdigital.xyz/about-jc-digital/) with a proven track record of success. They offer a wide range of services to help businesses of all sizes achieve their social media marketing goals through developing a social media strategy, creating high-quality content, managing your social media channels, and optimize the performance of your campaigns. But the true advantage of a social media marketing agency goes beyond the listed services. When you hire an agency, you gain access to a wealth of experience and expertise. A good agency will have a team of professionals who have worked with a variety of businesses and industries. This means that they can bring a fresh perspective to your social media marketing and help you develop creative and effective campaigns. This team will have years of experience in social media marketing, content creation, community management, and social media analytics. They will be able to leverage this experience to develop campaigns that are fit to your specific objectives. **Ready to take your social media marketing to the next level?** Let JC Digital be your partner in success. Our team of experienced professionals is dedicated to helping businesses like yours achieve their goals through effective social media strategies. **Contact us today** to discuss your specific needs and learn more about how we can help you: - [Increase brand awareness](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy-2/facebook-algorithm-for-businesses/) - [Drive website traffic](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy-2/digital-marketing-to-get-store-visits-in-the-philippines/) - [Generate leads and meaningful results](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy-2/7-free-digital-marketing-resources-for-small-businesses/) To understand what social media agencies do especially JC Digital, we will provide you with a personalized consultation and share case studies of our previous work to demonstrate our expertise and capabilities. Don't miss out on the opportunity to leverage the power of social media for your business. **[Let's connect](https://jcdigital.xyz/contact/)!** --- # Unleash Your Growth Potential: How a Digital Marketing Company in the Philippines Can Help Your Business Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/unleash-your-growth-potential-how-a-digital-marketing-company-in-the-philippines-can-help-your-business/ ## The Philippine business landscape is brimming with passionate entrepreneurs driving innovative small businesses. But in today's digital age, simply having a great product or service isn't enough. To stand out amongst the competition and reach your target audience, a strong digital presence is crucial. This is where a **digital marketing company in the Philippines** can become your perfect ally in helping your business thrive. This blog dives deep into the benefits partnering with a **digital marketing company in the Philippines** can offer your small business. We'll explore how these agencies can help you overcome marketing challenges, achieve your desired goals, and ultimately, unlock your business's full growth potential. ### JC Digital: Digital Marketing Company in the Philippines JC Digital isn't just another **[digital marketing company in the Philippines](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/)**. We're a team of passionate digital marketing experts dedicated to helping small businesses like yours flourish online. We take pride in our holistic approach. Whether it's crafting compelling content, optimizing your website for search engines, or launching targeted social media campaigns, we have the expertise and experience to help you succeed. ### Why Today's Small Businesses Need a Digital Marketing Company in the Philippines The digital landscape is constantly evolving, presenting both exciting opportunities and unique challenges for small businesses. Here are just a few reasons why partnering with a **digital marketing company in the Philippines** can be the game-changer you need: - **Expertise and Experience:** Trying to navigate the ever-changing world of digital marketing can be overwhelming for busy business owners. A **[digital marketing company in the Philippines](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy-2/what-to-expect-from-a-digital-marketing-agency/)** has the expertise and experience to stay ahead of the curve. We understand the latest trends, algorithms, and consumer behaviors, ensuring your marketing efforts are optimized for maximum impact. - **Strategic Planning and Goal Setting:** Effective marketing doesn't happen by accident. Without a clear roadmap, it's easy to lose focus and waste resources. A **[digital marketing company in the Philippines](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy-2/digital-marketing-strategy-performing-a-social-media-audit/)** can help you develop a comprehensive digital marketing strategy aligned with your overall business goals. We work with you to define your target audience, analyze your competitors, and establish clear and measurable objectives. - **Data-Driven Decisions:** Gone are the days of guesswork marketing. Today, successful campaigns are built on data-driven insights. Leverage cutting-edge analytics tools to track the performance of your campaigns, identify what's working and what's not, and continuously adjust your strategy for optimal results. ### How a Digital Marketing Company in the Philippines Can Help You Achieve Your Marketing Goals You can target specific goals and watch your digital marketing efforts pay off. Here's a glimpse into how we can help you achieve your desired outcomes: - **Increased Brand Awareness:** In today's crowded online marketplace, it's crucial for your brand to stand out. We can help you develop a strong brand identity and promote it across various digital channels. We'll work on building brand awareness across social media platforms, search engines, and through targeted content marketing campaigns. - **Generating Business Leads and Meaningful Results:** Attracting potential customers is key to business growth. We can help you attract high-quality leads by implementing targeted online advertising campaigns, optimizing your website for conversions, and nurturing leads through email marketing strategies. - **Valuable Consultations and Expert Advice:** Working with a digital marketing company will help identify insights and opportunities from long-term partnerships and marketing performance data. Explore data points that can help you find your unique edge in the market and drive home storytelling techniques that target specific consumer intent and sentiments. ### Conclusion In today's digital-first world, a strong online presence is no longer a luxury; it's a necessity for small businesses in the Philippines. Partnering with a skilled **digital marketing company in the Philippines** can be the catalyst for your business's growth. By leveraging their expertise, strategic planning, data-driven insights, and cost-effective solutions, you can unlock your full potential and achieve your marketing goals. Contact[ JC Digital today](https://jcdigital.xyz/contact/) to learn more about how our holistic digital marketing services can help your small business thrive. Let's work together to build a stronger, more successful online presence. --- # Local Search Dominance: A Local SEO Guide Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/local-seo-guide/ In today's digital-first world, showing up prominently in local search results isn't just an advantage – it's a necessity for small businesses. When potential customers search for "restaurants near me" or "plumbers in [your city]," are you the first name they see? If not, you're missing out on a significant stream of highly motivated leads. Leveraging the power of local SEO can transform your online visibility and drive more foot traffic and calls to your business. **The Foundation: Google My Business (GMB)** Your Google My Business profile is the cornerstone of your local SEO strategy. Think of it as your digital storefront. Optimizing your GMB listing involves more than just claiming it. Ensure all information is accurate and complete: name, address, phone number, website, hours of operation, and a clear description of your services. Upload high-quality photos, encourage customers to leave reviews, and respond to every one of them – positive or negative. An optimized GMB profile is critical for appearing in Google's coveted "Local Pack" (the map results at the top of the search page). **Consistency is Key: Local Citations** Beyond GMB, your business should have consistent listings across various online directories like TripAdvisor, Yellow Pages, and industry-specific sites. These "citations" help search engines verify your business information and build trust. Inconsistencies (different phone numbers, spellings of your address) can confuse search engines and hurt your rankings. A thorough audit and cleanup of your existing citations can yield significant improvements. **Harnessing the Power of Reviews** Customer reviews are gold for local SEO. They not only influence potential customers but also signal to Google that your business is trustworthy and active. Make it easy for customers to leave reviews, whether through direct links or gentle prompts. Engage with reviews by thanking customers for positive feedback and addressing negative comments professionally and constructively. A steady stream of new, positive reviews can significantly boost your local search ranking. **On-Page Optimization for Local Intent** [Your website also plays a vital role](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy-2/seo-audit-philippines/). Incorporate local keywords naturally into your content, especially on your service pages and "About Us" page. For example, instead of just "web design," use "web design services in [Your City]." Create location-specific landing pages if you serve multiple areas. Ensure your website is mobile-friendly and loads quickly – Google prioritizes user experience, especially for local searches often performed on the go. **Building Local Links and Content** Finally, consider local link building and content creation. Collaborate with other local businesses for joint promotions or blog features. Create content that's hyper-relevant to your local community, like "Top 10 Things to Do in [Your City]" or "Guide to [Local Event]." This establishes your business as a local authority and attracts local searchers. Navigating the intricacies of [local SEO](https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/seo-is-not-just-about-words-its-more-about-experiences/) can be time-consuming, but the returns are invaluable. For businesses looking to truly dominate their local market and convert more nearby searchers into loyal customers, consider partnering with an expert. **JC Digital** specializes in creating tailored local SEO strategies that put your business exactly where your customers are looking. Don't let your competitors capture your local market; reach out to **JC Digital** today and start building a robust local presence that drives real results. --- # Elevate Your Brand: Crafting a Winning Content Marketing Strategy Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/elevate-your-brand-content-marketing-strategy/ In the crowded digital landscape, simply having a website isn't enough. To truly connect with your audience, establish authority, and drive conversions, you need a robust content marketing strategy. Content marketing isn't just about writing blog posts; it's a holistic approach to creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action. **Know Your Audience Inside Out** The cornerstone of any successful content strategy is a deep understanding of your target audience. Who are they? What are their pain points, questions, and aspirations? Create detailed buyer personas that outline their demographics, online behavior, and the types of content they consume. When you know your audience, you can create content that genuinely resonates with them, addressing their needs at every stage of their buying journey. **Define Your Content Pillars and Formats** What topics will you consistently cover that align with your audience's interests and your business goals? These are your content pillars. Within these pillars, explore various formats: blog posts, videos, infographics, podcasts, case studies, whitepapers, webinars, and email newsletters. Different formats appeal to different learning styles and platforms, allowing you to reach a broader audience effectively. **Plan with a Content Calendar** Consistency is key in content marketing. A well-structured content calendar helps you plan, organize, and execute your content creation efforts. It should detail topics, formats, publishing dates, responsible parties, and distribution channels. This ensures a steady stream of fresh, relevant content, preventing content droughts and helping you maintain momentum. **Strategic Distribution and Promotion** Creating great content is only half the battle; people need to see it! For your content marketing strategy, distribution is crucial. Leverage SEO best practices to ensure your content ranks in search engines. Share it across your social media channels, tailored to each platform. Repurpose content into different formats (e.g., a blog post into an infographic or video script). Consider email marketing to notify your subscribers about new content, driving direct traffic. Paid promotion through social media ads or Google Ads can also significantly amplify your reach. **Measure, Analyze, and Optimize** Content marketing isn't a "set it and forget it" endeavor. You must continuously monitor its performance. Track key metrics such as website traffic, time on page, bounce rate, social shares, lead conversions, and sales attributed to specific content pieces. Use this data to understand what's working, what's not, and why. Are certain topics performing better? Are specific formats generating more leads? Use these insights to refine your strategy, optimize existing content, and inform future content creation. This iterative process ensures your content marketing efforts are always evolving and delivering maximum ROI. Developing and executing a truly effective content marketing strategy can be a complex undertaking, requiring expertise in everything from SEO to graphic design and analytics. If you're looking to elevate your brand's online presence and convert more visitors into loyal customers through compelling content, don't hesitate to seek professional guidance. --- # Cult = Culture (Not a Blog about Cults) Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/cult-culture-not-a-blog-about-cults/ Culture is a way of life. A realization when I was listening today to blogs on marketing and brand-building is that marketing is always targeted. Throughout the years clients and executives have forced on campaigns to target as wide a market as possible. It is becoming less and less effective to target wider markets. Even in social media ads, where you technically have the ability to define how broad or scoped your target market. Whether by targeting through the context of your creatives (visual + copy), or defining detailed targeting parameters (all online ad platforms have this in one way or another) - it requires that you are speaking to a specific market that cares about you. This is where you will then get a larger audience, through ensuring that the minimum viable audience is engaged, converted, and are loyal to you enough to tell their friends about your company. Then I realized that the term culture can be derived from how cults work. A subset of society, a subculture, but very engaged in niche interests and are very loyal to concepts and ideas that have become solutions to their problems. This is how marketing starts - by understanding a subset of the market who has a problem that your company can solve, you will gain loyal followers who will be happy to convert other people towards your brand. --- I am converting the blog from attempting to rank from my blogs, to just making this a column style blog where I can write about my thoughts *daily*. --- # Compliance – in Life and in Digital Marketing Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/social-media-advertising/compliance-in-life-and-in-digital-marketing/ There is compliance in everything. In running a business. In working as a full-time employee. In renting an apartment. There are rules everywhere. I've always made it a point to follow rules, so as not to allow my systems to drive towards chaos. Rules operate systems and systems create order, and order, peace of mind. When rules are not laid out well, the process of compliance becomes chaotic. Which is weird, because the same activity that's supposed to help us avoid chaos is the thing that's chaotic in and by itself. When rules are not made available, and this is often the case for algorithm updates with Meta and Google, the process of creating compliant campaigns are often error-prone and are not optimized towards ideal results. When rules are announced on the day of their implementation, it becomes difficult for those who are still learning the fundamentals of how these algorithms work to keep up. This is why I've made it a point to learn how these platforms work, in their core, and how they are supporting the business models of the companies that operate them. It's cynical, but we all know that these platforms are made to make Meta and Google money through advertisers failing to optimize their ads well. [If you need help, I'd be happy to share some advise](https://jcdigital.xyz/about-jc-digital/). --- # On Success in Marketing Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/uncategorized/on-success-in-marketing/ Marketing is about connecting with people on the level of culture. [Seth Godin](https://youtu.be/BPK_qzeH_yk?si=JiQJoHfKORClkZiD) has always derived that success in marketing is related to be able to connect on the level of culture. He's the one that I referred to, and listened to, when I need general, theoretical guidance on marketing. I am a digital marketer, but he didn't have to really emphasize whether one type or aspect of marketing is effective, or whether digital is more effective than more analog platforms per se. He talked about marketing on the level of culture, and that for me is fundamental towards understanding how to connect with people and achieving success in marketing. He also talked about two general categories of marketing - brand and direct. Brand marketing is long term; direct marketing is short term. Digital is but a platform, a vessel, for both. Digital marketing is not the end-all-be-all of marketing success, but your stories and your messaging that will use digital marketing platforms that will touch on both building your brand and getting direct results from people online. [Strategy](https://jcdigital.xyz/category/digital-marketing-strategy-2/) should always revolve on both, always, to be able to achieve success in marketing. --- # Too Much Noise Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/too-much-noise/ Everyone's trying to sell you something. It used to only be from television or radio where you encounter ads at home, during primetime. Maybe the occasional magazine lying around with a full page ad displayed. But that was it. The television and radio are very rarely playing at the same time, because that's too much noise at home. Now, you're probably watching videos from Youtube with some banner and interstitials, while [browsing social media](https://jcdigital.xyz/social-media-advertising/a-small-business-guide-to-facebook-advertising/) and interrupted every now and then by a well-placed ad. Marketers, your consumers are tired from getting the same old hooks, hearing the same old promises, and being invaded in more personal spaces with ads that do not even communicate the right context. How do you sell to a market that's just heard too much noise? [I love being a strategist](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy-2/a-guide-on-what-social-media-agencies-do/) because it's this that elicits all the creative solutions to connecting with audiences, on the level and in platforms where they would resonate with our brands the most. There's no one answer, and that's the point. --- # Marketing Communications is Both Marketing and Communication Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/marketing/marketing-communications-is-both-marketing-and-communication/ Marketing Communications is not just social media planning and content creation. It is not just planning for influencer content. It is not just the events, the marketing collaterals, the pay-per-click ads. [Marketing Communications](https://jcdigital.xyz/uncategorized/on-success-in-marketing/) is both the daunting functions of Marketing and the practice of impeccable communications with your target markets. It involves the strategic planning, and the actual know-how and technical capability of getting your message to your intended audiences. The functions require the bravery of telling a story, and ensuring that your story actually gets told through the right channels. One does not simply plan a social media campaign and call it Marketing Communications. If that were so, we'd have a lot of undercooked campaigns, and brands undervaluing the discipline. --- # Empathy in Marketing Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/marketing/empathy-in-marketing/ My years in marketing leads up to a key point in succeeding in marketing and communications - understanding culture requires empathy. Empathy in marketing is crucial in understanding a culture that does not respond, act, and behave the way you do, but appreciating who they are and feeling how they feel about certain things. [Empathy in marketing](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/383890094_Empathy_in_Marketing_A_Customer-Oriented_Approach_based_on_Authenticity) is how we succeed in communicating with audiences who we want to like and follow us, but who are not essentially like us. It is in this advocacy that more people get to understand culture, even more niched ones, and in telling their stories and telling them stories that resonate with them is how we can have a little bit more peace in this world. Empathy in marketing is also measurable, while empathy is a true or false attribute. You either have this or not. But, this is measurable specifically in its application in marketing because marketing is measurable. Marketing has metrics that let you gauge how successful you are in the areas that are important to you. So, by [applying empathy in your marketing campaigns and communications,](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy-2/unleash-your-growth-potential-how-a-digital-marketing-company-in-the-philippines-can-help-your-business/) you get to measure how well you are doing in your empathy towards audiences you want to target. --- # What is Your Digital Marketing Specialty? Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/uncategorized/what-is-your-digital-marketing-specialty/ When you look at digital marketing as a practice that people do, and a job that includes a whole variety of disciples, then you start thinking about each facet of digital marketing specialty that you can be good at. You can be good at [search engine optimization](https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/local-seo-guide/), and bring websites to the top of search rankings and win in being cited via answer engines. You can be the most prolific pay-per-click manager, consistently [growing your conversions](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy-2/digital-marketing-to-get-store-visits-in-the-philippines/) and maximizing your cost per results via online ads. You can be the most creative [social media content planner](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy-2/digital-marketing-content-strategies-to-dominate-social-search/), and weave stories through social media content that helps your brand become more widely-distributed and well-loved by your audiences. Indeed, when you think of each of these as things that a digital marketer does, and when you think of respective work areas for different platforms, then you select any of these as your digital marketing specialty. However, I'd like to think that digital marketing is a strategic practice, and a bigger concept that enables brands to take advantage of platforms to reach and delight their audiences. Then, the conversation veers away from having a digital marketing specialty and into a discussion on perspectives towards digital marketing strategy to push different types of brands. --- # Email Marketing is Timeless Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/email-marketing-is-timeless/ My journey towards learning digital marketing has not been the same as my contemporaries, probably. While a lot of the folks who are prominent in the field now have started in creative fields, pivoting towards digital marketing but through the power of creative storytelling, [I started with Email Marketing](https://jcdigital.xyz/about-jc-digital/). And of course content writing, curation, video editing, and website analytics. But the core of what I did when I was a senior marketing and communications associate for a US-based SAAS company is to conceptualize and write email drips to sell enterprise software. Part of the strategy is to create the blogs and news articles to be featured in email direct messages, to get people to visit the website and engage with more of our content. This is my recollection today because email marketing has always been the same, albeit the [technology and the email content types changed](https://www.mailjet.com/blog/email-best-practices/email-marketing-trends-2026/). [But, email marketing has always been personal](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy-2/elevate-your-brand-content-marketing-strategy/). It creates a 1:1 connection between your company with your email recipients. It is almost very sales-driven, which starts with the style and composition of your subject line that's almost a 5-word elevator pitch to read the rest of your email. If you miss the mark on your subject line, people will then have created perceptions about you and the kind of emails you send, and there may be a likelihood that the next ones will not be received well. Bad emails are intrusions, but good ones are God-send. Good email marketing campaigns almost feel like the perfect message at the right time for your audiences. They're just impeccably on-time, with the right call-to-action that the person exactly needs. And being this requires that you have curated your database very well down to knowing what they specifically need and how your business can solve their problems, and crafting the right creative copy and images to drive home that action you want them to do. --- # Creating Social Media Calendars for Small Businesses Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/social-media-marketing/creating-social-media-calendars-for-small-businesses/ ## Insights from the article: - Social media calendars allow you to plan your content for the long term.- Planning your content lets you see overall themes and focus points, and determine which ones are working as you move forward;- There are different formats to creating your own social media calendars for your small business. Consider the ones that are more convenient for you and slowly improve your process over time. Like every other marketing discipline, social media calendars for Filipino small businesses have to be planned. Social media calendars are definitely one of the basic steps towards seeing your social media marketing in a big picture perspective. From here, you can plot out the content that you want to share in your social media, and look at everything and see if they are all pointing towards achieving your goals through the digital marketing strategy you have just defined. Getting organized can help your small business in a big way, especially in [social media in the Philippines](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/) where it can get very messy very quickly. Are you looking for a guide on how to design your social media calendars for your small business? Then read on. ## Why Do We Need Social Media Calendars for Small Businesses? Easy - it’s because small businesses like ours can be very stressful and disorganized with all of the tasks we’re hustling, sometimes simultaneously. Having your social media calendar for your small businesses planned out, for you not to miss out on the benefits of consistently and continuously populating your page with helpful, useful, and relevant content. Some of our clients report incremental growth in their organic reach and engagements for their social media pages by following these simple steps: - Know what your consumers want to read more about;- Share relevant and useful content that’s not a hassle to digest; and- Share them consistently and continuously. Like how we’re all hustling for our small businesses, [social media marketing in the Philippines is a continuous long-term grind](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/7-free-digital-marketing-resources-for-small-businesses/) with results that need time for us to realize. We just have to constantly do it, but we shouldn’t also be afraid to change up our content themes to better fit the needs and wants of your target audiences. ## What Do I Put in My Social Media Calendars? A mentor once told me that [digital marketing](https://desygner.com/enterprise/digital-asset-management-software/) can be as easy or as complex as we want it to be. Similarly, the answer to this question is yes, it depends on how much information we want to see that’s attached to the post at one time. I mentioned that social media calendars for small businesses help managers be on top of their social media content all the time, to see the big picture and be able to plan and prepare. Before we enumerate what kind of information fields we can include in our social media calendars, let’s discuss our top two formats. - **The Excel (or Google Sheets) Table format.** Simply said, it’s a spreadsheet table. This format helps you keep track of all important info about your posts, and lines up all of them in a horizontal format, with each row allotted for each post. This is important if you want to see a lot of details and you want to keep a very detailed calendar, or if you just want more data associated for each of your posts. It’s really best to use Google Sheets vs. Excel because of the former’s collaborative features. You and your entire team can work on one document and input your contributions, check each other’s work, and just help each other out.- **The Boxed Calendar Format.** This is important for social media managers who just want to see which post captions and images are supposed to go out in a prescribed date. This format looks exactly like a calendar, with an uncluttered view and a clear schedule showing when each post is supposed to be published. ![asana as social media calendars](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/asana-as-social-media-calendars.png)Source: [Asana.com](https://blog.asana.com/2017/11/social-media-management-workflows-templates/) I definitely love Asana for its detailed calendar format. If you want more functionality with planning your social media content, use Asana. This blog isn’t even sponsored by them, it’s just that we’ve been using Asana for more than half our years in marketing and it’s so packed with features that even though it’s a productivity app, you can create projects where you can lay out all your social media content in a calendar format, and make each entry clickable where you can add in more data and information about your post. That being said, what are the fields or types of information you can include in your social media calendars, whichever format you wish to use? - **Date and Time of Posting.** This is definitely important, for very obvious reasons. You need to know when each post is going out.- **Caption.** Again, very important, because you want to be able to plan out the caption for each post that’s being shared. It helps to be able to plan how each caption is written so when you look at everything, you can make sense of all of the posts.- **Image.** You can attach the assigned images for each of the posts, so that if ever you assign someone else to post for you, that person will have access to the images you need shared.- **Social Media Channels.** If you’re handling more than one social media channel for your small business and you’re creating separate posts for each, it’s best to indicate where each post will be shared. These are the essential fields you need for your calendar. You can add more information, such as which groups you can share the posts to, which person the post is assigned to, or even include the boosting budget for each post if that’s part of your strategy. Alternatively, if you are more comfortable with writing on the spot, you can opt to use the Calendar format and include only the content theme or a short description of what the post should be about and go from there. That’s it! Did I miss any fields that you’re also using in your calendars? Let me know in the comments or [contact me via email](https://jcdigital.xyz/contact/). ## FREE Resource: Framework for Creating Your Own Digital Marketing Strategy Do you need a framework where you can plan your digital marketing campaigns a bit easier? I am offering a FREE template, with a series of questions through the different slides, and you can use the answers you provided to be able to formulate a digital marketing strategy statement that will guide you in executing all of your digital marketing initiatives. This digital marketing strategy is important for keeping your ideas and planning anchored and consistent. Contact me via this form: [[LINK](https://jcdigital.xyz/download-the-free-digital-marketing-strategic-framework-for-your-small-business/)] and fill out the form to receive the free digital template. 🙂 --- # Rushing Your Holiday Social Campaigns Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/social-media-advertising/rushing-your-holiday-social-campaigns/ ## Insights from the article: - During the holidays, brands are ramping up their holiday social campaigns to increase their share of sales. The challenge for brands during these times is how to stand out among their competitors; - Provide value through relevant information and helpful content will help your brand break through your competitors; - Advertise, and invest on reaching more of your consumers during this period to maximize your communications. Truth be told: you might already be looking into how to use your social media to rush your holiday sales. You might be looking into what other brands have done successfully with their holiday social campaigns. A lot of these success stories have one thing in common: they had a lot of time to prepare for their holiday campaigns. Well, what if you didn’t have a lot of time to prepare? What if you need to absolutely rush your holiday campaigns in social media and drive more results for your business? Read on to learn more. ## How noisy social media will be during the season There’s simply a ton of noise in social media especially during the holidays. If you haven’t noticed yet, there are so many sales holidays that have permeated into our popular culture. And, the season when Filipinos are most accustomed to spending more - irrationally, I might say - is here. So, understandably, a lot of brands want to get the attention of customers.  Browsing through social media gets you a lot of different kinds of ads. Buy this. Get this promo. Special discounts. Latest releases. Call-to-action messages to try to get you to buy. This mindset is important to understand as we go through this blog, because we will try to illuminate some of the activities you can do to stand out. ## Can your small business break through the noise for your holiday social campaigns? Yes. And what we need to understand is that we need to differentiate. While others are selling, selling, selling - we must understand how we can provide *value*. Consumers are craving for sales that they can get more benefits from what their money can buy. By providing value - tangible and intangible value - through our communications and through our products, we can stand out and be a better choice for our consumers. Let me discuss some of the ways that you can do your social media differently and stand out: - **Provide helpful content.** Selling, selling, and selling all throughout and talking about only yourself isn’t very helpful. And unhelpful content is not valuable content. Let’s make social media social, especially during this time. Let’s try to publish content that aims to provide tips, tricks, and even free resources to your consumers so that they can *feel* they are getting more value than how much you’re charging for your products/services. Yes, this is what I am trying to do now. **😏** I am not trying to sell you anything through this piece of content, but offer you some ideas on what to use your social media.  - **Set up working feedback channels.** Social media is supposed to be social, and the most effective social media channels allow their fans and followers to easily communicate with the brand. Set up automated replies, or if you have a bit more time, chatbots that guide people through more information about you and what you’re offering; - **Set up remarketing advertising funnels.** Yes, I know we are talking about rushing your campaigns, and at some point we have to be able to convert our fans and followers into customers. How do we do this while providing value? My go-to advertising strategy is to create effective remarketing funnels that maximize all the engagements we’re getting from our helpful content and feedback channels, serving only our engaged users with our call-to-action messages. Doing this minimizes the amount we need to spend on advertising, and serves our hard call-to-action messages to *only *our engaged users who are more inclined to click and patronize our business. I stand for this strategy because this has worked for me throughout different social media advertising campaigns. ## Let’s make it easier If you look into the three tips I shared above, all of them work when done altogether. It has been a tried-and-tested content marketing strategy to provide helpful content and allow fans and followers to seamlessly communicate with the business in order to delight them. All of these are happening while a remarketing advertising funnel is working through converting all of your engaged users into becoming customers. I can tell you more about this, especially my remarketing ad strategies. If you wish to discuss this more, or maybe learn more about this strategy, send me an email at [jcdigitalpartners@gmail.com](mailto:jcdigitalpartners@gmail.com). Or feel free to [contact me](https://jcdigitalpartners.wordpress.com/contact/) if you and your business needs help with your rush holiday campaigns in social media. --- # About Taking a Stand in Social Media Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/social-media-marketing/about-taking-a-stand-in-social-media/ ## Insights from the article: - Consumers are looking for authentic and meaningful social media advocacy from brands. Consumers have bought from brands who have efforts to share and live by their values. - A growing segment of Filipinos align themselves to brands that speak about advocacies they care about; - As a result, purpose-driven brands receive stronger engagements and affinity from their consumers. Happy new year, friends! I hope that as you start 2021, you also consider chasing your dreams as a priority. Like what I did when I started JC Digital. This is an advocacy for me, and is relevant to what I want to talk about in this blog: Social Media Advocacy. What I came here to write about is one of the points from [We Are Social’s “Think Forward: 2021: The Social Reset” study](https://wearesocial.com/blog/2020/11/think-forward-2021-the-social-reset#:~:text=As%20we%20move%20into%202021,This%20is%20the%20social%20reset.). 2020 was such a pivotal year for all of us, exposing a lot of new behaviors and really pushing all of us beyond our comfort zones. This is such an interesting study because it highlights the different ways how digital marketing (social media, in particular) has changed in terms of how we use it and its role in society. If you haven’t read the study yet, click [here](https://wearesocial.com/blog/2020/11/think-forward-2021-the-social-reset#:~:text=As%20we%20move%20into%202021,This%20is%20the%20social%20reset.). What caught my eye is one of the points that We Are Social pointed out, about Practical Advocacy. It’s an exposition of an inherent behavior of people in social media towards providing support to worthy causes through posting and sharing content. In 2020, as the pandemic pushed everyone into lockdown and offline mobilization was put to a halt, people turned to social media to express their advocacies. ## Social Media Advocacy: Taking a Stand in Social Media If you think about it, in years past it was a bit half-hearted to advocate for a cause simply by posting in your social media. Before, you had to go out there and take a stand. You had to *be there*. But the pandemic hit, and because [social media usage has exponentially increased during this time](https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2020/09/16/covid-19-is-changing-how-why-and-how-much-were-using-social-media/), its growing role towards public information has also been emphasized. [We Are Social’s study](https://wearesocial.com/blog/2020/11/think-forward-2021-the-social-reset#:~:text=As%20we%20move%20into%202021,This%20is%20the%20social%20reset.) tells us that because of the constraints we experienced last year, "digital advocacy has undergone a practical transformation." "It's been bolstered by powerful online communities who, galvanised by voices elevated on social, are educating themselves and mobilizing. **They're realizing that online action can translate to tangible offline change**." **UPDATE (February 2, 2021): **The [latest We are Social report](https://www.slideshare.net/DataReportal/digital-2021-global-overview-report-january-2021-v01?ref=https://s3-ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/) published one major trend in digital marketing about purpose-driven initiatives. More than a quarter of consumers surveyed have bought from a brand for the first time because of a company's explicit values. By standing true for an advocacy or in support of a social cause, it can improve your standing among your consumers. ## The Increasing Importance of Social Media Advocacy Wow. This is almost like the holy grail of digital marketing - espousing tangible, offline changes through online communications and communities. Social media consumption has been growing at an accelerated rate since years past, but the growth of consumption this 2020 has been unprecedented. Similar to a lot of activities that have been translated from offline to online, taking a stand and advocating for social causes have grown stronger. This increasing importance of social media towards what people stand for are now propelling brands to take social issues more seriously. A growing segment of people now align themselves with brands that speak about advocacies they care about. People are able to become more engaged with brands that take a stand because they seek authenticity and credibility from them.  But, the world is becoming more and more disparate and polarized, and standing for one side of a social issue may negate your image to the other side. It’s going to be important - now more than ever - to take risks and become accountable for brands who take a stand. Doing this does not only help in getting more engaged users in your community, but it helps build a better world, doesn’t it? ## Let’s make it easier If you’ve read this far, thank you for supporting my small attempts to educate people more about digital marketing. I would love you to be a part of my journey moving forward, by subscribing to my email list here: [http://bit.ly/jcdigital-subscribe](http://bit.ly/jcdigital-subscribe). Feel free to send me an email at [jcdigitalpartners@gmail.com](mailto:jcdigitalpartners@gmail.com) if you have comments, contentions, and reactions about any of my blogs. Or, feel free to contact me if you and your business needs help with your rush holiday campaigns in social media. --- # Choosing Your Digital Marketing Platform for Your Business Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/choosing-your-digital-marketing-platform-for-your-business/ ## Insights from the article: - If you're only exploring digital marketing this year, there's a lot of opportunity for you. The very best way to learn is for you to first try, and read through the blog; - Social media is among the most prevalent digital marketing channels where Filipinos consume content. We are among the longest-spending demographic in social media platforms all over the world; - Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is a discipline and a practice of performing certain tactics to become more visible via Google. You may also consider Search Engine Marketing ads to reach more people online and invite more people to your website. A lot of the small to medium-sized business owners I spoke to over the past years would tell me how cumbersome it is to handle the [digital marketing campaigns](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/) for their businesses. These people go into business with the one things they are most passionate about that drives their business, and digital marketing platforms may sometimes be deprioritized. That’s OK. We tend to focus on what we do best, and if you’re not too adept with executing digital marketing strategies, then it may be left in the backburner to focus on other aspects of the business. Or, sometimes they hire freelancers, agencies, consultants, or freelancers. Which, in this case, if you’ve read some of my other blogs and are convinced that my digital marketing acumen can be useful for your business, feel free to [contact me here](https://jcdigitalpartners.wordpress.com/contact/). But, what if you - yes, you! - focused a bit of your time daily to learn about digital marketing and do it yourself? What would be the first thing you should learn? If you ask me, and this is maybe why you’re in my blog, you should focus first on getting to know the different digital marketing platforms and channels available for you. ## A Quick-and-Dirty, Easy-Peasy, Do-it-Yourself Guide to Choosing Digital Marketing Platforms It’s not going to be a 5,000 word blog about doing digital marketing on your own, this I promise you. What we can do first is introduce to you the different platforms and channels that you can consider using for your business. **First, let’s talk about social media.** Social media has been exponentially growing in popularity among small to medium-sized businesses in the last decade, and is expected to become more and more important to B2B and B2C marketing for the years to come. Why? Because everyone’s on social media. [All internet users in the Philippines are social media users](https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2020-philippines), and if you’re looking into reaching more online users for your business - social media is a good way to start. The point of social media marketing is to connect with people who are most relevant to your products and services, engage with them, and nurture your relationship with them. We do this so that when the time comes that they need your products and services, your brand is the brand they remember to avail. For some brands and niches, you can almost instantaneously sell your products online. Some types of businesses would require longer periods of time to convince people to avail their services. All it takes is to keep in mind the best quote I have seen about social media, which is to “keep social media, social.” Focus on connections, not on bombarding people with sales pitches. ![digital marketing platforms-choosing-your-social-media-platform-for-your-business](https://jcdigitalpartners.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/holiday-blog-banner-1-1.png?w=782) ## Choosing Your Social Media and Digital Marketing Platforms As a small to medium-sized business owner, it can be terribly daunting to add even just a couple of hours a day to do social media, because most of the time, you’d much rather focus on your business operations. I’m not going to argue with you and say that social media should be part of your operations, but, in the spirit of discourse, let’s say that you really have a short amount of time to handle your social media. If you had to choose one social media channel, what would it be? - The most essential channel you should be in right now is Facebook. It is currently the social media channel with the most number of users in the Philippines, with 96% of all social media users are active in Facebook. You need to set-up a Facebook business page soon, if you haven’t yet. - It also makes sense to go into Instagram, especially if you’re selling products. Your best photos of your products should go on your profile, and with the right tactics, your photos will reach the timelines of your target markets. - If your products require a lot of demonstration and your marketing strategy requires consumer education, then it may be best to have your videos in Youtube and expand your presence there. It is at par with Facebook as the 2nd most used social media platform in the Philippines, and this tells you that Filipinos love watching videos online. - LinkedIn is a strong contender when it comes to choosing social media marketing platforms. If your products and services are essentially for other businesses, then there’s no other platform that caters more to professional and business discussions than LinkedIn.  There are so much more platforms that you can consider, and if you’re looking for a more comprehensive discussion on each, maybe you can [send me an email so we can talk](https://jcdigital.xyz/contact/). ## Get Yourself Visible in Search Engines A crucial component of your digital marketing should be Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. It is a discipline and a practice of performing certain tactics to improve your website’s visibility through search engines. Right now, you only need to specifically optimize for Google because [only a very small percentage of Filipino online users use other search engines.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/954885/philippines-market-share-of-search-engines/) SEO can be a bit more technical, and[ there are professionals who may be better-suited to support you on this if you are lost](https://jcdigital.xyz/about-jc-digital/). If you wish to [jumpstart your visibility and website traffic from search engines](https://jcdigital.xyz/about-jc-digital/), aside from SEO, you can do [Search Engine Marketing ads](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/5-signs-that-your-small-business-needs-google-search-engine-ads/). This is the practice of implementing well-placed ads on top of regular search results, so that when people find your products/services online, they’ll see your ads first instead of your competition. When done correctly, you’ll drive people who are already looking for you online, straight to your website. ## Let’s Make your Digital Marketing Easier This guide is not complete, not even by a mile. However, I think that you wouldn’t be too interested to read a very long blog. But, if you’re interested to learn more about specific topics, or if you’d like to set-up a one-on-one masterclass on [digital marketing](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/), [contact me](https://jcdigital.xyz/contact/) and I can set this up for you. You can also [subscribe to my email updates](https://jcdigital.xyz/contact/) - I try to send emails to my contacts at least once a week. --- # Digital Marketing for Small Businesses in 2022 Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/digital-marketing-small-business-2021/ ## Insights from the article: - We have identified some simple tips about digital marketing for small businesses; - Setting up your Facebook's instant replies guarantees that there's always a response when people message you at anytime. This is a viable tactic to engaging your potential customers; - It's okay to boost your posts from time to time. It's a simpler approach to reaching more people via social media. If you think your small businesses still do not need digital marketing campaigns, then it may become more difficult for you to [promote your products and services in 2022](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/). Running digital marketing for small business can be daunting already by itself. Your operations may take most of your time, and thinking of digital marketing for your small business may sometimes be stressful.  If you haven't read my previous blog yet, check out my blog about [choosing different digital marketing platforms for your small business](https://jcdigitalpartners.wordpress.com/2021/01/19/choosing-your-digital-marketing-platform-for-your-business/).  This article today will talk about 4 quick-and-easy digital marketing tips and tricks that you can do in your spare time.  **Set-up Your Facebook Page Instant Replies** One of the simpler things that will help you a lot in catering to your customers’ questions is to set up your Facebook Page’s Instant Replies. It’s a guaranteed way to start delighting your customers and Facebook fans. Also, it helps you respond automatically to potential customers when you can’t respond to them personally. ![digital marketing for small business-setting-up-instant-replies-in-facebook](https://jcdigitalpartners.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/jcdigital-smallbusinessdigitalmarketingblog-3.png?w=782) Follow these steps to start setting up your page’s Instant Replies: - Once you are logged in as the admin of your Facebook page, **click the Inbox button** on the sidebar; - **Click on Automated Responses** from one of the options on the left; - From here you can **set up your Instant Reply** to greet customers when they try to send you a message. You can also set up a series of questions for potential customers, and a series of automated answers to your FAQs. If you have a bit more time to set-up better automated responses, you can try setting up chatbots for your Facebook page. Chatbots offer you a wider variety of options for more interactive automated responses, and more creative ways to engage people who are messaging your page. Some of the more popular Facebook chatbots are [ManyChat](https://manychat.com/), [Chatfuel](https://chatfuel.com/), and [MobileMonkey](https://mobilemonkey.com/). However, if you do not have the time for setting up a chatbot, some of the successful small businesses I have encountered only needed their page’s Instant Replies. **Sign-up for Google My Business and Register Your Small Business Location** As you move forward with your business, you will realize that your customers each have different journeys towards finding your business. Some of your customers find out about you via social media, some of them use Google to find you, and some of them refer to their friends and family's recommendations. It will be important to create a listing in Google, and the most streamlined way of setting up a listing for your small business is through Google My Business.  ![digital marketing for small business-setting-up-your-google-my-business-account](https://jcdigitalpartners.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/jcdigital-smallbusinessdigitalmarketingblog-2.png?w=782) Visit business.google.com and just follow through the process of registering your business. Hint: It’s almost similar to the process of setting up for a Gmail account. Just be sure to complete all of the contact information so that your potential customers searching for you online can contact you directly, especially if you do not have a website. In order to fully enjoy the benefits of Google My Business, you need to verify your business. Don’t worry - you will be prompted to request for verification during the set-up of your account. You will receive a postcard from Google with a verification code that you will input in your account. This proves that the address you used to register for your business exists. After this process, you will have your business be displayed in Google Maps. **Run Facebook Ads - It’s OK to Boost Your Posts** Boosting is a more common terminology in Facebook and Instagram, and most small business owners I know do not differentiate between plain, ol’ boosting and the extended functionalities of Facebook Ads Manager. I’m not here to judge - boosting is OK if you absolutely do not have time to set up your Ads Manager and enjoy more control over your ads. ![digital marketing for small business-a-sample-of-a-post-boosting-page-facebook](https://jcdigitalpartners.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/jcdigital-smallbusinessdigitalmarketingblog-1.png?w=782) This is a sample of how you can boost your posts in Facebook... ![digital marketing for small business-a-sample-of-how-facebook-ad-manager-works](https://jcdigitalpartners.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/jcdigital-smallbusinessdigitalmarketingblog-4.png?w=782) But, if you want to enjoy the more extensive features of Facebook ads, which includes better call-to-action configurations, more control and customizations for your ad placements, extensive targeting options, more advertising objectives and more, take the time to set-up your Facebook Ads Manager. Or, [call a professional to assist you.](https://jcdigitalpartners.wordpress.com/contact/) **Post, Post, Post in your Social Media!** Post regularly in your social media. Talk about your customers, your products, what your customers say about your company and your products and services. [You can also talk about ideas and causes that you support](https://jcdigitalpartners.wordpress.com/2021/01/08/about-taking-a-stand-in-social-media/). Talk about holidays and special events in your area.  Posting regularly helps in ensuring that your current followers don’t find you inactive. Also, when potential customers are scouting for your products and services, they will check when you are last active. Not posting regularly means that you are inactive, and people vetting you might prefer other companies that are more active. Consistent publication of helpful and useful content is a core component of an [effective social media marketing in the Philippines](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/).  **Let’s Make your Digital Marketing Easier** On a personal note, I am considering starting a masterclass group for select professionals. If you wish to learn more, [contact me](https://jcdigitalpartners.wordpress.com/contact/) and I can set this up for you. Check out my [About page](https://jcdigitalpartners.wordpress.com/about/) to learn more about what I do. --- # A Small Business Guide to Facebook Advertising Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/social-media-advertising/a-small-business-guide-to-facebook-advertising/ ## Insights from the article: - There might be a lot of deterrents to Facebook Advertising for small businesses. Costs and difficulty may be among the top reasons; - Facebook Ads is something that you - a business owner - can do by yourself. All you need to learn are the basics of Facebook Ads and you're good to go; - The best way to learn Facebook Ads is to use Facebook's Business Manager. As a small business owner or employee, what are your most common questions about running [Facebook Advertising](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/)? For sure you might have asked yourself how much do you need to invest in ads to increase your sales. You might have even asked if this is something that you can do all by yourself. And the truest, most honest answer is - yes, Facebook advertising is something that you can do on your own. If you’re not yet comfortable getting someone else to create advertising campaigns for your small business, or you want to explore your way through the different advertising platforms, then this is the best starter guide that you need to read. **Getting Started with Facebook Advertising** The best way to start advertising via Facebook is to start properly, and this requires setting up your Business Manager account. Business Manager is a Facebook tool that helps you organize and manage your business. It essentially helps you set-up your business infrastructure inside Facebook, allowing you to accept employees with customized employee access levels, so your employees won’t accidentally edit your Facebook page or business information. Visit business.facebook.com to get to this landing page. ![facebook advertising-for-small-businesses](https://jcdigitalpartners.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/jcdigitalblog-1.png?w=782) The reason we’re setting up a Business Manager is to give you access to tons of Facebook Business Manager tools, and one of these tools is the Ads Manager. Ads Manager allows you to take more in-depth control of your advertising, and to manage multiple, simultaneous campaigns all at once. Because Facebook also owns Instagram, Ads Manager allows you to place ads via the same platform. To start the process of creating your Business Manager account, click on the “Create Account” button from the top right portion and simply follow the process. Make sure you’re using a legit Facebook account to eliminate the problems of having to verify your identity. I’ve had scuffles with trying to create Business Manager profiles using proxy accounts and I’ve had a lot of accounts blocked because I can’t prove my identity through the proxy accounts. If you’re doing this, let’s just do it right. From your newly-minted Business Manager account, you can access your Ads Manager. Or, alternatively, you can visit [business.facebook.com/adsmanager](http://business.facebook.com/adsmanager).  **Boosting vs. Running Facebook Advertising - a Visualization** We glanced on the topic of boosting your posts vs. running ads via Ads Manager. If you have a bit more capital to invest on Facebook Ads and would just like to simply boost a post to get more attention from more people, then it’s okay for you to boost your post.  Visit my previous blog about [digital marketing for small businesses this 2021](https://jcdigitalpartners.wordpress.com/2021/02/03/digital-marketing-small-business-2021/) to get a quick idea about boosting posts. Boosting posts offer a baseline set of options to customize the target market you want to show your ads to, your ad content and buttons, and your placements in Facebook and Instagram. ![facebook advertising-using-ads-manager](https://jcdigitalpartners.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/jcdigitalblog-2.png?w=782) What’s good with using Ads Manager is it allows you to multiply and duplicate your ads without worrying too much about how to manage all of them. With the dashboard, it lets you see an overall view of your ads’ performance. You can also set different forms of objectives, such as link clicks, post engagements, page followers, leads, and more, depending on your objectives and goals for running ads. **How to Set-up Your Own Ad Account** When you visit the Business Manager home page after signing in, you will see all your available ad accounts and pages associated with your Business Manager. Because you’re starting a new account, you will not have ad accounts associated in your Business Manager. You will need to create ad accounts first before you’re able to use Ads Manager to set up your ad campaigns. ![setting-up-your-ad-account-for-facebook advertising](https://jcdigitalpartners.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/jcdigitalblog-3.png?w=782) - Step 1: Click on the Gear icon at the bottom left side of your dashboard - Step 2: You will see the Business Settings page. From the left sidebar options, click on Ad Accounts - Step 3: You will have an bright blue button labelled “Add” and a dropdown icon. Click that, and select the “Create a New Ad Account” option - Step 4: Follow the ensuing steps to create your new ad account After creating your ad account, you’ll be able to set-up your own ad campaigns in Facebook and Instagram. Have fun exploring and using this very powerful tool! **Let’s Make your Digital Marketing Easier** For a more extensive list of FREE resources on digital marketing for your small business, check out [this article](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/7-free-digital-marketing-resources-for-small-businesses/). On a personal note, I am considering starting a masterclass group for select professionals. If you wish to learn more, [contact me](https://jcdigitalpartners.wordpress.com/contact/) and I can set this up for you. Check out [our Digital Marketing Services page](https://jcdigital.xyz/about-jc-digital/) to learn more about what we do. --- # 5 Signs that Your Small Business Needs Google Search Engine Ads Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/5-signs-that-your-small-business-needs-google-search-engine-ads/ ## Insights from the article: - Search Engine Marketing is a solid platform to reach your consumers who are already looking for you online; - When your business operates with a website but struggling with getting traffic, you might benefit from running Search Engine Marketing ads to encourage visitors; - Search Engine Marketing ads complement your other digital marketing channels well, with its specific focus on driving users to your website. Buyers are now more intelligent. [Customers do a lot of research before buying](https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/buyers-speak-out-how-sales-needs-to-evolve). Even when browsing items offline, more and more people would first search if they would be able to buy items online. Most search results for highly-sought after items would have[ Google Search Engine Marketing Ads](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/). Because buyers are now more empowered to make intelligent purchase decisions, search engines easily become their best tools in validating their decisions before acting on them. Search engines, especially Google, are an important buying touchpoint for customers. What does this mean for your small business? How are you competing in getting searched in Google? Is your website appearing in search results? If you’re not, then your customers may not be able to find you at all. If you need that extra boost in website traffic from Google search results but doing SEO for your industry is competitive, then you may need Search Engine Marketing Ads. ## What are Google Search Engine Marketing Ads? When you perform a search in Google, you will find a list of results that match your query. Sometimes, you will find results that are marked as ads that appear in the first part. These are what we call Google Search Engine Ads. In fact, when you search for “Google Search Ads”, their ad appears first. ![searchenginemarketingads-jcdigital](https://jcdigitalpartners.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/sem1.png) Google Search Engine Marketing Ads aims to match search queries with the most appropriate ads from advertisers. This is a good way to jumpstart your business online. By getting on top of conventional results through placing ads before them, you will get the attention of people already searching for your business and your products/services. ## Tell-all Signs You Need Google Search Engine Marketing Ads If you still are on the fence whether to use Google Search Engine Marketing Ads for your small business, then consider these 5 signs that you need these ads to thrive online. - **Your small business caters to a very niche market.** Clients and buyers who are looking for niche products and services would be searching online to satisfy their requirements. If your small business caters to a niche market, for example, you are selling corporate giveaway products to companies or providing software development services, then it would be best for you to tap the already existing market in Google and connect with them through Google Search Engine Marketing Ads - **Your business name is a generic term and you don’t get a lot of people to remember your brand.** Running Google Search Engine Marketing Ads for your small business with a common name is important because you will need the extra boost in visibility and ranking that these ads will do for your website. Because your business has a common brand name, you will not get searched a lot so you will need to compete with searches for your types of products and services instead. - **You need to complement the benefits of your Search Engine Optimization work in your website.** We all want to hit the ground running, so while you are waiting for the benefits of Search Engine Optimization to take effect for your website, you can run Google Search Engine Marketing Ads to boost your website traffic and amplify the number of people you are reaching. If you’re interested, I have an article about [how experiences propel the trends of Search Engine Optimization, here](https://jcdigitalpartners.wordpress.com/2020/11/27/seo-is-not-just-about-words-its-more-about-experiences/). - **Your products and services require a bit more of consumer education before being able to sell confidently.** If you need to have a lot of online materials to attract, delight, and convert people towards your business, then you will get an advantage over your competition if you have Google Search Engine Marketing Ads effectively targeting people already searching for you.  - **Your products and services are complex and many, requiring different webpages to explain and showcase all of them.** Having multiple landing pages in your website that talks about your different complex products and services puts you in an advantage, because it is likely that your small business will have more online content than your competitors. To improve your advantage, you can run Google Search Engine Marketing Ads and capitalize on your abundance of content to drive more high-intent people towards your business. ## How do you Start with Google Search Engine Marketing Ads? If you finally decide that you need to learn how to do Google Search Engine Ads, then starting this journey is easy. All you need to start is a Gmail account, and you can create a Google Adwords account at ads.google.com. ![searchenginemarketingads-jcdigital](https://jcdigitalpartners.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/sem2.png?w=782) Simply follow the process in starting an account, and enjoy the journey of learning this amazing platform every step of the way. ## Let’s Make your Digital Marketing Easier Running [Google Search Engine Ads](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/) may be more complicated than navigating your way around Facebook ads, but it’s definitely learnable. The metrics and the setup are all different, but I encourage you to spend a bit more time on it and explore your way. If you need more help, feel free to [send me an email](https://jcdigitalpartners.wordpress.com/contact/). On a personal note, I am considering starting a masterclass group for select professionals. If you wish to learn more, [contact me](https://jcdigitalpartners.wordpress.com/contact/) and I can set this up for you. Check out my About page to learn more about what I do. --- # 7 Digital Marketing Resources for Small Businesses Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/7-free-digital-marketing-resources-for-small-businesses/ ## Insights from the article: - This article outlines several digital marketing resources for your small business; - If you're challenged in creating a digital marketing strategy, consider outlining what you want to achieve first. Then you will be able to plot out the different steps towards achieving your goals; *Check out the end of the blog on how to get the FREE Digital Marketing Resources for your small business.* It’s 2021, and there have been a lot of changes to how we do business. For those of us small business owners who operate largely on connecting offline and building relationships, our playbooks have changed. For those of us who largely operate and do business online, it’s become more competitive and our playbooks have changed, as well. It’s become increasingly more challenging to compete in the market, and we’re all just looking for ways to become more competitive and operate better and more efficiently. I am sharing with you a collection of small business marketing resources from these articles, and a free Powerpoint document at the end of this blog that you can fill out step by step in creating your own [digital marketing strategy for your small business in the Philippines](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/). ## Digital Marketing Resources on How to Build Your Small Business Digital Marketing Strategy ![jc digital-free digital marketing resources for small businesses](https://jcdigitalpartners.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/jc-digital-free-resources-for-small-businesses-strategy.png?w=782) Digital marketing is very strategic. Starting to figure out how to create your digital marketing strategy is definitely a challenge when you don't know where and how to start.  The first step towards creating your digital marketing strategy is to figure out what you want to achieve. What are your objectives for doing digital marketing campaigns? Do we aim to sell more products? Do we get more people to know more about our products and services? Do we want more people to come to our store? Then, the next step is to figure out what kind of people you want to communicate with. It helps to be very detailed with defining who you want to talk to, especially when defining your communication and advertising tactics later on. It helps if you are able to create buyer persona profiles so that when you're actually creating digital marketing content. I discussed this with a little more detail in this article here: [[LINK](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/quick-points-on-building-your-digital-marketing-strategy-for-your-small-business/)] ## How to Choose the Digital Marketing Platforms for Your Business ![jc digital-digital marketing resources for small businesses-choosing platforms](https://jcdigitalpartners.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/jc-digital-free-resources-for-small-businesses-choosing-platforms.png?w=782) A lot of the small business owners I talked to about digital marketing share a common sentiment about choosing the right digital marketing platform to reach their target markets. My most common response is that when these owners want to do digital marketing by themselves, they should just focus on what they know already because it's more agile that way. But, if you had a bit more time to learn and explore more digital marketing platforms, then here's [a ](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/choosing-your-digital-marketing-platform-for-your-business/)quick-and-dirty, easy-peasy DIY guide to choosing digital marketing channels. Whether choosing the right social media channels or opting to work on your visibility in search engines via Search Engine Optimization, this exercise is a crucial part of building your digital marketing strategy. ## Quick Tips on Starting to Execute Digital Marketing for Your Small Business ![jc digital-free resources for small businesses-choosing platforms](https://jcdigitalpartners.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/holiday-blog-banner-2.png?w=782) There are quick initiatives you can already do to improve how to improve your digital marketing presence without taking too much time. [In this guide](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/digital-marketing-small-business-2021/), you will learn how to start doing the following tips and tricks: - **Set-up Your Facebook Page Instant Replies.** Setting up your page’s automated replies allow your customers to get to know your answers to most frequently-asked questions and immediately find out more details about your business; - **Sign-up for Google My Business and Register Your Small Business Location.** You would want your potential customers to find your business through Google, and one of the simplest ways to register your business to be found via Google is to sign up for Google My Business and create a business account from there; - **Post, Post, Post in your Social Media!** This is by far, the most straightforward tip for improving your online presence and getting online users to get to know you and your business better. Come up with posts about you and your business, and just document everything; and - **Run Facebook Ads.** Facebook (and by association, Instagram) has made it easy for small business owners to run ads by boosting posts. It’s okay to boost your posts if you’re just starting to build your following and engagements for your page. ## How to Start Advertising Your Business through Facebook and Instagram ![jc digital-digital marketing resources for small businesses-choosing platforms](https://jcdigitalpartners.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/jc-digital-free-resources-for-small-businesses-advertising-in-facebook-and-instagram.png?w=782) As a small business owner, it really can be challenging to start advertising in social media, especially if this is also your first foray into digital marketing. Some of the metrics may be challenging to understand, and the tools may look complicated. But, learning how to run ads, first in Facebook and Instagram, can also be very rewarding for you. For one, learning how to run your own ads opens you up to a world of knowledge and metrics in measuring your business’ performance in social media. It allows you to understand your performance better, and create smarter recommendations about your content and social media initiatives.  Second, as you scale and hire people to do digital marketing for you, you will be able to hold your people to a higher level of accountability because they will be working with someone who knows how ads work. The first step you need to do in advertising your small business via Facebook and Instagram is setting up your Facebook Business account. I have detailed all of the steps you will need [in this article](https://jcdigital.xyz/social-media-advertising/a-small-business-guide-to-facebook-advertising/). ## How to Determine Whether You Need Search Engine Marketing Ads for Your Small Business ![jc digital-digital marketing resources for small businesses-search engine ads](https://jcdigitalpartners.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/holiday-blog-banner-3.png?w=782) Google Search Ads helps to drive more relevant and high-intent users to your website. People may already be searching for you, or the products and services that you provide, and Google Search Ads can help bring those people to you. I’ve prepared a list of considerations you need to think about if you do not know yet whether to use Google Search Ads for your small business. You can read them via [this article that I wrote here](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/5-signs-that-your-small-business-needs-google-search-engine-ads/). Essentially, if your business operates in a niche that requires a bit more consumer education and if you need more materials to convince and nurture your potential customers before a sale, then you definitely will benefit from running Google Search Ads. ## FREE Digital Marketing Resources: Digital Marketing Strategy Framework Template for Your Small Business Here is a quick and easy template that you can use to formulate your digital marketing strategy. In this template, you will get asked a series of questions through the different slides, and will use the information you provided to be able to formulate a digital marketing strategy statement that will guide you in executing all of your digital marketing initiatives. Contact me via this form: [[LINK](https://jcdigital.xyz/download-the-free-digital-marketing-strategic-framework-for-your-small-business/)] and fill out the form to receive the free digital template. :) ## Let’s Make your Digital Marketing Resources More Accessible I hope this guide for [digital marketing for your small business](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/) is helpful for you. If you need more resources or if you want to consult or brainstorm about your digital marketing for your business, chat me up via Messenger at: [http://m.me/jcdigitalpartners](http://m.me/jcdigitalpartners). --- # How the iOS 14 Release Will Affect Your Facebook Ads and What You Can Do Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/how-the-ios-14-release-will-affect-your-facebook-ads-and-what-you-can-do/ ## Insights from the article: - If you haven't pivoted your reporting yet from the impact of iOS14 on social media ads, consider the steps below in this article;- Aggregated Event Measurement is used to measure engagements from iOS 14 devices. You are allowed to configure the events you want measured;- However, when users opt out of tracking from Facebook or other social media platforms, tracking their activities become more like assumptions and are no longer as accurate as before. The Apple iOS 14 Release update is almost here, and Facebook marketers all over the world lament on the fact that conversion events from iOS phones will now react differently with the Facebook pixel. One of the biggest issues that faced Facebook and Apple are criticisms on how they handle user data security and collection protocols. A popular adage about [digital marketing in the Philippines](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/) is that everything changes so fast and we all have to keep up. The impact of the iOS 14 Release update will change a lot of how we understand advertising tracking for Facebook. ## The iOS 14 Release and Apple’s Commitment to Responsible App Tracking ![](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/jcdigital-blog1.png)*Source: *[*Apple.com*](https://developer.apple.com/app-store/user-privacy-and-data-use/) Apple device users after the iOS 14 Release update will encounter more prompts and requests for permissions on what kinds of data an app is able to track. Since Facebook tracking tracks almost every activity (even [activities outside Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/help/1224342157705160)) that we do, iOS commits to a stronger protection for user data and thus, Facebook’s tracking of iOS users becomes limited as well. Specifically, since iOS users will have more control over data collection, more users will be able to opt-out of tracking on iOS 14 devices, and this affects ad personalization and performance reporting for in-app and web conversion events. ## The iOS 14 Release Update and Aggregated Event Measurement Facebook’s response to this “pixel apocalypse” is to set up Aggregated Event Measurement. This manner of measuring pixel conversion events still supports iOS 14 users’ privacy and still is able to run effective campaigns. We just need to set-up our pixels and websites to be able to accommodate this. ![jcdigital_ios 14 release update_image of a backend software](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/jcdigital-blog2.jpeg) Aggregated Event Measurement is specifically used to track and measure user activities from iOS 14 devices. For advanced users, you may recall verifying your domain via Facebook Business Manager and setting up conversion events that you can use for your ads’ conversion optimization objectives. With the Aggregated Event Measurement, ads that use conversion events from verified domains can only use a total of 8 conversion events. You will also need to configure which conversion events to be used in your ads, and prioritize them. ## Explaining How The iOS 14 Release Update Affects Small Business Advertisers Okay, okay, these may sound too technical for most users. In a manner of speaking, the events that can be tracked by Facebook now are going to be very limited, and the data that is being reported to us as advertising performance will be even more so. ![jcdigital_ios 14 release update_small business image](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/jcdigital-blog3-1024x682.jpeg) Facebook’s measurement, tracking, and reporting of ad performance will change. We may already be seeing some drastic changes in how much our costs per optimized results we are getting, or the costs of our campaign objective results. The major overview effect is that the system that measures, tracks, and reports advertising performance will change because iOS device trackers will be limited, too. Another prediction by this humble writer is that because Facebook’s measurement, tracking, and reporting capabilities will change, our ability to target users based on their activities may also change. We may see a change in our advertising performance from our interest targeting sets that have used to work for us from years on end. Facebook might no longer predict a user’s accurate set of interests because activity tracking will become skewed and limited. If you’re looking for a guide on how to start your digital advertising, [read more on this article here](https://jcdigital.xyz/social-media-advertising/a-small-business-guide-to-facebook-advertising/). ## What Can We Do for Our Facebook Ads? The baseline items we need to do are what Facebook outlined in [their new release about the iOS 14](https://www.facebook.com/business/help/126789292407737?id=1205376682832142). - **Verify Your Domain via your Facebook Business Manager.** If you want to fully take advantage of Aggregated Event Measurement, or simply would like to use your website (or your client’s website) more often for your ads, we recommend that you verify your website’s domain via Facebook Business Manager. To do this, visit your [Business Manager](http://business.facebook.com), click on Business Settings, click the Brand Safety dropdown menu, and click on Domains. You can read more about Domain Verification from Facebook’s documentation [here](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/domain-verification).- **Configure Your 8 Preferred Web Conversion Events.** Your Events Manager dashboard will become more important in preparing your Facebook ads for Aggregated Event Measurement. If you have a pixel already set up in your website with a verified domain, visit your [Events Manager](https://www.facebook.com/events_manager2) to start setting up your conversion events. Take note that your previous ad campaigns that optimize for web events that are no longer available for tracking may be paused or ineligible to run, so if you have intensive conversion optimizations set up you might have to revisit them now. Here at JC Digital, we suggest that you read more on the specifics of how the iOS 14 Release update will affect your ads in their [support article here](https://www.facebook.com/business/help/331612538028890). It discusses in more detail the items I discussed above, as well as important considerations and limitations on direct iOS app install ads. ## Digital Marketing Strategy in the Pixel Apocalypse Fear not, avid readers. The tenets of [digital marketing in the Philippines](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/) and how we conceptualize plans and campaigns, as well as how we think about our communications, are not supposed to change. Our campaigns and communications should still be very relevant to who our target audiences are, and Facebook still is a very viable platform in reaching your small business’ target markets online. Learn more about [creating a digital marketing strategy here](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/quick-points-on-building-your-digital-marketing-strategy-for-your-small-business/). Likewise, I prepared a framework and template on how to conceptualize your own strategy. Download the digital marketing strategy template here: [[LINK](https://jcdigitalpartners.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/your-digital-marketing-strategy-template-jcdigital.pptx)] --- # Communicating in the New Normal: Addressing the Pandemic’s Many Sensitivities Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/communicating-in-the-new-normal/ ## Insights from the article: - The pandemic narrative shows a hopeful tone among Filipinos and this is shown through the many user-generated posts at the start of the lockdowns;- Self-care, health and wellness, and strengthened familial partnerships are all common themes from social media posts at the height of restrictions;- Because of the restrictions and the sudden immobility, Filipinos also share a lot of negativity about their condition, and as ethical marketers we do not want to add fuel to these narratives but instead offer a more hopeful message. *Disclaimer: This blog includes 3 parts of a 5-part, 1.5-hour seminar I delivered for a private corporation a few months back, about the intricacies of communicating in the new normal, the COVID-19 Narrative, the different sensitivities we have to observe in our digital communications, and how the New Consumer is born out of this pandemic. My client agreed to allow me to use parts of the seminar content for this blog.* What has been your COVID-19 experience like? I’m sure we all have had our ups and downs during one of the longest lockdowns in the world we are experiencing here in the Philippines. I wanted to ask this because each of all our own experiences differ in one way or another. The personal, work-related, family, and financial aspects of our lives have definitely been affected by the pandemic, and each of us have different stories. My point is that while all our stories are different, the COVID-19 Narrative shows clear similarities and commonalities that we all can learn lessons from, in a communications perspective. ![communicating-in-the-new-normal-blog-jc-digital](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/communicating-in-the-new-normal-blog-1.jpg)Source: twitter.com/KwentoQ Consider the Twitter project @KwentoQ. A few months after the lockdown was imposed in the Philippines in 2020, Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs in Manila launched KwentoQ (@KwentoQ). This is an initiative to connect human experiences through bite-sized stories about how people are coping and to build a sense of community. By scouring their posts, I have found these similar themes in their user submissions: - **Self-care has been a resounding mantra** among social media stories, and a lot of renowned personalities and health-centric communities highlighted the importance of fulfilling our personal wants and needs.- **Digital media consumption has reached an all-time high**. According to the latest WeAreSocial and Hootsuite study, 99.4% of Filipino internet users watch online videos, 83% watch vlogs, and 82.2% listen to online streaming services.- We have also seen **a rise in health and wellness trends**, as well as brands in these spaces taking their flagship messaging of self-care to the frontlines. Positivity amidst the negativity has also been loud and clear among brands who are making it big in social media.- Because families are stuck at home for months on end, **we needed to come up with different ways on how to bond**. We needed to find more ways on how to keep ourselves entertained, and to stay connected with our loved ones - whether they are with us at home or not. But, we must not forget that these stories came about to combat the growing negativity of being locked down and the healthcare crisis that continues to bear down on us. The highlight of the COVID-19 Narrative is that the positive stories we publish and share online are our tools to combat the overbearing negativity that surrounds us. ![communicating-in-the-new-normal-blog-jc-digital](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/communicating-in-the-new-normal-blog-1.png)Source: twitter.com/KwentoQ The longest lockdown has brought upon loneliness, anxiety, stress and a lot of uncertainty for everyone. We needed to cope, and we needed to purposely highlight the positive amidst the anxiety, stress, helplessness and uncertainty in order to do so. The COVID-19 Narrative tells us that there is a paradox of feelings. That there is a wide range of positivity that we can ride on, and negativity that we need to be wary of. As communicators, we must stay within the bounds of what is responsible, sensitive, and ethical amidst the ever-growing negativity. We don’t want to add more fuel to this growing fire. ## When Communicating in the New Normal, Be Aware of The New Consumer The pandemic has changed our preferences and behaviors. Because we now prioritize different things, especially the health and safety of our loved ones, The New Consumer was born. - **Attitudes Shape Spending.** This has been a sales and marketing concept even before the pandemic, but because our behaviors and priorities have changed, so does The New Consumer’s spending habits. This consumer’s search for value for money is much more than just seeking for a short-term benefit, but brought upon by a fundamental change in purchase priorities and will likely be prevalent for the years to come.- **Trust-Seeking**. Again, not a new concept. But the direction of how our priorities have changed also shifted how brands should now gain the trust of The New Consumer. Trust among consumers and brands is not a new concept, but because of these turbulent times, The New Consumer seeks brands that put the well-being of their customers and employees ahead of profit.- **Digital-Savvy (Now More Than Ever)**. Digital media consumption and Filipino’s preference towards digital media has been growing throughout the past years, but the pandemic highlighted the need to shift preferences towards digital access to their needs.The majority of customers are now comfortable using online channels, reducing physical purchase occasions and are gravitating towards touchless shopping and contactless payments. Ease, therefore, is at the heart of a digital shift, which touches all parts of society irrespective of age. Digital-savviness is at the core of how The New Consumer prefers to interact with brands. I gathered these snippets of insights from [W](https://wearesocial.com/digital-2021)[e Are Social’s Digital 2021 Report](https://wearesocial.com/digital-2021) about the digital-savviness of Filipinos during the New Normal: - **Mobile-first**, and prefers video more than other forms of content;- **Uses social media more than ever**, especially Facebook, Youtube, and Messenger;- **Has shifted towards mobile wallet and mobile-enabled payments**, and generally increased their online purchase activity; and- Actively seeks brands and products/services via social media and search engines. ## How Do We Then Begin Communicating in The New Normal? The stories and trends we have presented earlier show 4 common factors that we need to consider in our digital marketing messaging. ![](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/communicating-in-the-new-normal-blog-3.jpg) ### Build Trust. We build trust through transparency and honesty. Our brand has to be seen as a brand that people can trust, and we can do this by following Simon Sinek’s 3-step advice on how to inspire action: - ‘What’? What is it that you and your company make?- ‘How’? How is your product or service made?- ‘Why’? Why are you and your company making this? Is this a purely profit-driven enterprise? Are you taking advantage of market inefficiency? Do you have a purpose, ideology, cause or belief? When an organization has a sense of purpose, it has a role to play in society. It becomes a socially-responsible entity, whose values and contributions are aligned towards the greater good. Brands need to transcend from being a benefit-driven company to a purpose-driven, socially-responsible brand. ![](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/communicating-in-the-new-normal-blog-2.jpg) ### Empathy vs. Anxiety and Uncertainty. Empathy is not just a content marketing tactic - it’s a business philosophy that has brand marketing benefits. We can continuously talk about our internal efforts so that we are seen as a company that cares for its customers and its people and stakeholders. More than that, we should not invest on messaging that scare people by using their triggers of stress and anxiety (e.g. stuck at home, disconnected with loved ones, uncertainty of next paycheck), and instead focus on the positive stories of success.  While this may be so, we also should not sound as if everything can and is back to the “old normal”. We must acknowledge that this pandemic created a great shift in how we do everything and what we care about, and become a partner to our consumers in becoming secure and protected. Maintaining an open line of communication with our consumers and customers is also important in reducing anxiety and uncertainty. It should be that whenever they need us, we’re there. Immediate customer support that do not just answer questions but also provides proactive solutions, helps solve our consumers and customers’ challenges, alleviating anxiety and uncertainty. ### Optimize for Digital. The New Consumer is digital-savvy - now more than ever.  Therefore, we should focus on channels that connect with users directly through their mobile devices - social media, emails, and websites. We must also focus on calls-to-action that do not require the user to switch devices (e.g linking posts to non-mobile optimized websites, and submitting printed scanned forms) ### Family-First. In planning our content marketing calendars, we must prioritize topics, products and services that are relevant to what our consumers need right now. Moreover, we must continuously promote strong familial bonds, connecting with loved ones, and becoming a partner for Filipino families in protecting their needs and welfare. ## Share Your Own COVID-19 Narrative So, what was your COVID-19 story like? If you have suggestions, questions, reactions and stories you would like to share with me, feel free to [contact me here](https://jcdigital.xyz/contact/). --- # Digital Marketing Content Strategies to Dominate Social Search Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/digital-marketing-content-strategies-to-dominate-social-search/ ## Insights from the article: - Filipinos now search more often via social media to find and connect with brands they are interested in;- There are ways to help influence search functionalities in social media through your content, especially using keywords and well-researched hashtags;- Create more engaging posts, and capitalize on content that people like to influence social media algorithms to display your content more often. We’ve heard it all before - the past lockdowns propelled the adoption of more digital methods - especially social media in the Philippines - for consumers to interact, connect, and engage with brands. In fact, 65.4% of online Filipinos used social search for connecting with brands that they are interested in. ![jc digital - improving your social search results](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Holiday-Blog-Banner-1024x469.png) Like [SEO](https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/seo-is-not-just-about-words-its-more-about-experiences/), it’s important for brands in the digital space to always become searchable, even within the realm of social media platforms. Improving your social search visibility allows more high-intent users who are already looking for you, to find you easily. Because they’re already searching for your products and services, it will be more likely that they intend to do a better-informed research and are looking for purchase options. It will be best if you are on the top of your customer’s purchase options, and not your competitors. What can you do to stay on top of your brand’s social search? ## Use Keywords Consistently to Get Found Better in Social Search This is quite similar to how you would infuse keywords in your articles when performing SEO for websites. Make sure that when you’re referring to your brand, taglines, and proprietary phrases, hashtags and branded keywords, be consistent with how they’re written. Moreover, it’s important to have a branded hashtag that only you are using, and emphasize this branded hashtag in your captions and creatives so people can remember them. Using these keywords consistently will increase your posts as search results, when people use social search to find your brand in the Philippines. ## Better Engagements Perform Better in Social Search A general rule in social media platforms is that more engaging posts are prioritized by social media algorithms. This is because generally, the more engaging a post, the algorithm sees this as something that provides great value to its users and will always resurface this post - even in social search results. So, [invest in high-engaging content](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/). Look at your [social media analytics](https://jcdigital.xyz/social-media-advertising/social-media-analytics-for-small-businesses-in-2021/) and discover what kind of posts are getting more engagements, and double-down on those.  ## Maximize Your Reach Through Groups Following the first two tactics, make sure that you’re expanding your reach by sharing your valuable posts to groups. Whether they’re Facebook or LinkedIn groups, posting to more groups will show your posts to more people, get more engagements, and having a higher volume of social media posts will improve your share of posts displayed in social search results in the Philippines. Just make sure that you’re sharing relevant and valuable posts to the respective groups you’re posting in, and make sure to follow each group’s guidelines and spam filtering. When your posts are deemed more valuable, group administrators are more inclined to approve your post for publication. What among these tips and tactics you are already doing? Let me know in the comments below! ## FREE Resource: Framework for Creating Your Own Digital Marketing Strategy Here is a quick and easy template that you can use to formulate your digital marketing strategy. In this template, you will get asked a series of questions through the different slides, and will use the information you provided to be able to formulate a digital marketing strategy statement that will guide you in executing all of your digital marketing initiatives. Contact me via this form: [[LINK](https://jcdigital.xyz/download-the-free-digital-marketing-strategic-framework-for-your-small-business/)] and fill out the form to receive the free digital template. 🙂 --- # Facebook Remarketing and Creating Custom Audiences Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/facebook-remarketing-and-creating-custom-audiences/ ## Insights from the article: - Social media remarketing features allow you to control the flow of users through your different types of content;- The theory is that users follow a linear flow, called a funnel, wherein you are consciously filtering people who have the highest intent to buy, and nurturing people through different types of content so they follow through the funnel and develop the intention to buy;- Social media remarketing is an important aspect in developing your strategies. Funnels play a big part of how we conceptualize and execute social media marketing campaigns. Determining which form of content is for creating better awareness for your brand, eliciting interest and engagements, guiding your target market towards a purchase decision, and locking in the conversion action are all crucial towards a successful campaign. And thus, social media remarketing plays a big role in guiding your potential customers throughout this funnel. ![](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/AIDA.jpg) The reason that its called a funnel, and not simply a set of several stages of a consumer journey, is that people whom you’re able to create awareness from may not be the same people who will become more interested, and the whole process of funnelling people down throughout the different stages will continue until you find your most valuable audiences who will eventually convert and buy. ## A Short Guide on How Facebook Remarketing Ads Work This part of the planning process is one of our favorite parts because of the available tools in Facebook and Instagram that allows marketers to funnel people down through different pieces of content. As we mentioned, your content should be designed in such a way that it meets the intention of users currently in that stage of the funnel (e.g. Awareness-stage content should provide overview, hooking content, and Interest-stage content means that users here are already interested to learn more about you and these content should be telling them more in-depth information about you and your products/services). Thus, you should be able to plot out a good plan as to the different ads you will be running for each stage. One of the more effective formats of content that you can easily use for remarketing is video. Not only because of the iOS 14.5 updates that significantly reduced the ability of advertisers for remarketing, but there is a specific option in creating custom audiences that meet a criteria of watching a certain portion of your video content. You can find these options in your Facebook Ads Manager, more specifically, through this URL: [https://business.facebook.com/adsmanager/audiences](https://business.facebook.com/adsmanager/audiences). Once you land on the page, find the Create Audience button and create a Custom Audience. ![jc digital facebook remarketing ads](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/blog2.png) For example, if you’ve created an omnibus video about your brand for awareness, introducing yourself to your target audiences and you’ve ran this material as an ad. You can then create a custom audiences of people who have watched a certain duration of this video, and target them with another video that tells a more in-depth discussion about what you do. ![jc digital facebook remarketing ads](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/blog3.png) You can follow through this process as you thoroughly guide your audiences throughout the customer journey towards your conversion action. There are a lot more options to creating different types of custom audiences, and not just video, so make sure you spend some time in exploring these options and discover which one works the best for you. ## FREE Resource: Framework for Creating Your Own Digital Marketing Strategy Here is a quick and easy template that you can use to formulate your digital marketing strategy. In this template, you will get asked a series of questions through the different slides, and will use the information you provided to be able to formulate a digital marketing strategy statement that will guide you in executing all of your digital marketing initiatives. Here is a quick and easy template that you can use to formulate your digital marketing strategy. In this template, you will get asked a series of questions through the different slides, and will use the information you provided to be able to formulate a digital marketing strategy statement that will guide you in executing all of your digital marketing initiatives. Contact me via this form: [[LINK](https://jcdigital.xyz/download-the-free-digital-marketing-strategic-framework-for-your-small-business/)] and fill out the form to receive the free digital template. 🙂 --- # 3 Quick Tips for Digital Marketing for Mobile Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/3-quick-tips-for-digital-marketing-for-mobile/ ## Insights from the article: - Mobile devices is a prevalent category of devices where Filipinos view online content;- Use appropriate sizes for your social media content to maximize to keep your visuals in their best and optimal quality. Different platforms will have different size requirements;- One of the more crucial website performance metrics is its ability to adapt to different mobile screen sizes. Ensure that your websites are also adaptable. [We Are Social](https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2021-philippines) reported that in 2021, 95.5% of all Filipino internet users use mobile devices, and 51.3% of all web traffic from the Philippines use mobile devices to access the internet. This means that as marketers, we need to be creating more digital marketing for mobile devices. Along with this rise of mobile users, and the fact that the majority of internet users now are using mobile devices, instead of laptops and desktop computers in the previous years, brings along the assumption that Filipinos have become more savvy and have more preference towards mobile marketing. With majority of us focusing on social media content and ads, how do we ensure that our messaging resonates with people who predominantly use mobile devices? Turns out, [social media platforms](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/choosing-your-digital-marketing-platform-for-your-business/) are already optimized for mobile devices. But as with all things, we have to do our part. Here are some ways to ensure that you’re providing the best experience with your [digital marketing for mobile in the Philippines](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/). ## Use the Appropriate Image Sizes in Your Digital Marketing for Mobile  This is almost a no-brainer, but there are appropriate sizes for post images that you can follow in order to ensure that all your hard-worked visuals are clear and in high-fidelity. Not only that, but optimally-sized images allow for your text to be more readable. Normally, we can go safe with a post resolution of 1000 pixels by 1000 pixels for all social media platforms, but that just says that our images will be sized similarly with other brands. Here are some post image sizes you can explore for your favorite social media platforms: - Instagram landscape photos: 1080 pixels x 566 pixels- Facebook rectangular posts: 1200 pixels x 630 pixels- Twitter images: 1024 pixels x 514 pixels- LinkedIn images: 1200 pixels x 627 pixels  Note that in Twitter and LinkedIn, the sizes shown in the list above are the optimal image sizes for these platforms. Also, when you’re publishing images for stories and ephemeral content, it’s always 1080 pixels x 1920 pixels vertical. ## Minimize Social Media Captions for Better Mobile Viewing  We have seen several debates about how long does a caption have to be before we see the “See More” function snip your caption and truncate it to be hidden. But, according to [Buzzsumo’s research](https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-character-counter/), there is an increase in a post’s effectivity in terms of getting more engagement. According to them, the ideal caption length is only 50 characters! But - and we can’t stress this enough - you need to be able to check your engagements from posts with different caption lengths to see how your followers are engaging with your content. In Instagram, according to Buzzsumo, captions are truncated after 125 characters. So it would be wiser for your Instagram captions to be within these limits, or at least write the hook for your content to fit these limits and compel people to see more of your content. ## Ensure Your Website is Optimized for Mobile Devices Social media platforms, especially Facebook, have enough features to provide enough actions for your customers [to fulfill your sales funnel](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/facebook-remarketing-and-creating-custom-audiences/). You can enable people to send you messages, fill out forms, even purchase products from your own ecommerce marketplace - right within Facebook. But, with the [algorithm changes enacted after the iOS 14.5 update](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/how-the-ios-14-release-will-affect-your-facebook-ads-and-what-you-can-do/) and how performance is being tracked, experts recommend that driving people to websites are now more viable for performance tracking and remarketing. If you have to drive people away from Facebook and into external sites, you need to ensure that your website is fully mobile-optimized. When you build your websites with using templates, they’re usually built to be mobile-optimized unless you mess around with the layouts and styles too much. You may need the help of a website developer to fully accomplish this, but you can check your website’s mobile-friendliness (among other things) with [Google’s Pagespeed Insights](https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/).  ## FREE Resource: Framework for Creating Your Own Digital Marketing Strategy Here is a quick and easy template that you can use to formulate your digital marketing strategy. In this template, you will get asked a series of questions through the different slides, and will use the information you provided to be able to formulate a digital marketing strategy statement that will guide you in executing all of your digital marketing initiatives in the Philippines. Contact me via this form: [[LINK](https://jcdigital.xyz/download-the-free-digital-marketing-strategic-framework-for-your-small-business/)] and fill out the form to receive the free digital template. 🙂 --- # Social Media Analytics for Small Businesses in 2021 Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/social-media-advertising/social-media-analytics-for-small-businesses-in-2021/ ## Insights from the article: - Social media analytics is a key component in campaigns. Without analytics, you will not be able to assess our performance.- There are hundreds of metrics you need to learn to become adept in social media analytics, but you'll only need to understand a few to start analyzing your performance;- Consider the performance metrics that are important for your business growth, and align your goals in social media towards improving these metrics. Doing social media without social media analytics would be pointless. It’s harsh, but let me tell you why. [Social media marketing is supposed to be a constant, continuous process](https://jcdigital.xyz/social-media-marketing/creating-social-media-calendars-for-small-businesses/). It’s a tactic that reaps rewards in the long-term. If you’re continuously doing something without looking whether your efforts are working or not, then you won’t be reaping much of the long-term rewards that you’re supposed to attain with [social media marketing in the Philippines](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/). Therefore, social media analytics is a key component that you should be doing for your own small business marketing. It’s not just to know how many followers and likes you have for your page and posts, but more importantly, it’s to know whether you’re getting results that are helpful for your small business. ## What Encompasses Social Media Analytics? Social media analytics encompass everything that you can measure for your social media marketing. If your objectives are to generate enough engagements to be able to acquire business inquiries via social media, then you need to look at your posts and see if they are getting engagements, and if people are sending you inquiries from those posts. In the same example, you would want to know which type of posts are getting the most number of engagements and inquiries, and double-down on those types of posts. With this, you would compile all of your post data and from there, you can compare and check which types of posts are performing better than the others. There are so many ways and angles of looking into your social media analytics and how it can help your business. The only limitation is your creativity in asking the right questions that data can answer - and your knowledge in the metrics involved. ## What Are The Social Media Metrics You Need to Know? Your social media analytics exercise is only limited by your creativity in asking the right questions and your knowledge of the metrics. If you’re just starting out in handling social media for your small business, let’s shed light on some of the basic ones that you definitely need to know. **Impressions vs. Reach.** One of the most common questions I get from clients who are hearing my analytics report for the first time is the question about the difference between impressions and reach. Impressions are the number of times that your post or ad material was displayed in a social media feed. Note that impressions do not consider whether a person has successfully viewed your post or ad material - it just counts the number of times that your post or ad has been displayed. Reach, on the other hand, counts the number of users that has viewed your post or ad material. The amount of time required for a user to be counted as a reach is still unclear, but there are assumptions that it ranges from milliseconds to a few seconds that a user has stayed in your post or ad material to be counted as a user reached. That is the difference between impressions and reach. Impressions count the number of times your content was displayed; Reach counts the number of users who saw your content. **Engagements.** Engagements take different forms in different social media platforms, but the overview definition of engagements is that it is the aggregate count of all interactions users have performed on your content. The types of likes and reactions are different in Facebook, compared to Twitter or LinkedIn, but all types of interactions in posts are counted as engagements. Engagements signify how involved users are with your content, and it often represents how much interest you are generating for your brand. Another related metric is called Engagement Rates (or Engagement %). This simply pertains to the percentage that a user that was reached by your content has actually interacted with your content. This metric represents the effectiveness of your content to engage with people who have seen it. **Clicks.** This metric is almost self-explanatory. It represents all of the clicks on your posts or ad material. There are three basic types of clicks - post clicks, link clicks, and photo clicks. When you have a “Send Message” button in your post or ad material, clicking that button is counted under link clicks. Post clicks include clicking the “See More” text that displays the entirety of the post or ad caption. And there’s this one notorious metric - **Conversions.** Ahh, conversions. The crux of social media analytics. It has come to mean a lot of different things, from measuring just how many website or Facebook shop purchases you have acquired from your content, to literally every achievement of your different objectives. Conversions now depend on your overall objective - from selling online to generating leads or business inquiries. However, a lot of other [digital marketers in the Philippines ](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/)would disagree, and would insist that conversions are still just about purchases. But what do you think? Let me know in the comments section! ## Let’s Make Your Digital Marketing Easier Like what I said earlier in this article, in social media analytics you are only limited to how creative you can be in asking the right questions and in your knowledge about the different metrics. There are more advanced disciplines in this, such as comparative metrics and performing diagnosis and optimizations from your performance data. If you need a consult on what your data means for your marketing and your business, [contact me here](https://jcdigital.xyz/contact/). --- # Digital Marketing Tips for Small Businesses in 2021 Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/digital-marketing-tips-for-small-businesses-in-2021/ ## Insights from the article: - Plan, execute, and pivot. Digital marketing strategies allow you to do digital marketing more methodically and assess your performance along the way;- When it comes to considering social media for your business - just do it. If you're not yet well versed with it, the best way to learn is to try it out for yourself. This allows you to start as early as now, learn from your mistakes, and find the best type of content for your customers;- Consider social media advertising to give your small business a boost online. It’s almost the fourth quarter of 2021 and if you’re not mobilizing your business via [digital marketing](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/), you may be missing out on a lot of its opportunities. However, you should also know how to do digital marketing right, so we have compiled these digital marketing tips for small businesses for you. ## Come Up With a Digital Marketing Strategy Everything worthwhile has to have started with a plan. Before you came up with your small business, you may have already planned extensively on how you’re going to execute your ideas. The same can be said with digital marketing for your small business - you have to start with coming up with a [digital marketing strategy](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/quick-points-on-building-your-digital-marketing-strategy-for-your-small-business/) so you can do your digital marketing methodically and assess your performance every step of the way. Along your process of creating a strategy, you’ll be posed with a question of [what digital marketing platforms do you want to be present in](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/choosing-your-digital-marketing-platform-for-your-business/). The ideal scenario is that, for most businesses, they have to be present in everything. But for small businesses, that may not always be feasible as we don’t always have enough manpower to create content for all of them let alone to handle all of the necessary marketing operations. Ask yourself which digital marketing channels are most important for you to start, and then grow your presence as your business grows. ## Start with Social Media as Early as You Can We have seen in the recent decade that social media has become a strong platform for businesses of any scale, to reach more people and significantly drive up their business. So, one of the first things you should be thinking about when starting your business is how you intend to use social media to complement and amplify your business.  [People now use social media to discover and connect with more brands](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/digital-marketing-content-strategies-to-dominate-social-search/), and we know that whenever people are already searching for you, getting found almost always means that they will buy your products/services. So, consider being consistent and persistent with using social media to promote your business and provide better value for your consumers. You should also [consider advertising in social media](https://jcdigital.xyz/social-media-advertising/a-small-business-guide-to-facebook-advertising/). No, this is not a ploy to get you to panic about not being able to succeed in social media without advertising. But, if you want to give your online presence a jumpstart, you should consider social media advertising as a part of your first 3 months for your small business. And yes, you can do your social media advertising on your own - it’s not too complicated to learn this. ## Let’s Make Your Digital Marketing Easier These digital marketing tips for small businesses are meant for business owners who are just starting out and figuring out what to do with their business. We absolutely love talking to business owners who are enthusiastic about starting their [digital marketing strategy](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-services/) and are very open to strategies on how to build their business online. If you are looking for more bespoke consultation with tips on how to grow your small business online, [contact me here](https://jcdigital.xyz/contact/). --- # Digital Marketing Strategy: Performing a Social Media Audit Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/digital-marketing-strategy-performing-a-social-media-audit/ ## Insights from the article: - Diagnose your current social media performance, and look into your competitors, through a social media audit;- There are different metrics for looking into your performance and your competitors', and understanding these metrics is key for a more sensible diagnosis; Doing a social media audit is a crucial step in developing your digital marketing strategy. Consider this: if you’re trying to develop a plan that’s intended to beat your competition for branding and overall marketing performance, but if you’re not looking into what you’re doing against your competitors, then you won’t know what you’ll be competing with. A social media audit is a diagnostic process that looks into your social media properties, considers different metrics to measure your performance, and creates actionable steps on what needs to be improved. Likewise, an audit includes looking into your competitors as well, seeing into what they’re doing well and benchmarking your performance against yours. If you’re catching up on some tips and overall guides on how to come up with your own digital marketing strategy, here are some pointers from my previous blog articles: - [Quick Points on Building Your Digital Marketing Strategy for Your Small Business](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/quick-points-on-building-your-digital-marketing-strategy-for-your-small-business/)- [Choosing Your Digital Marketing Platform for Your Business](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/choosing-your-digital-marketing-platform-for-your-business/https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/choosing-your-digital-marketing-platform-for-your-business/) ## What are the metrics we use to do a social media audit? There are a lot of metrics you might want to consider when analyzing and benchmarking your performance. But, all of us have to start somewhere, and if you haven’t figured out how to leverage social media metrics, I wrote a guide on [social media analytics for your small business](https://jcdigital.xyz/social-media-advertising/social-media-analytics-for-small-businesses-in-2021/). ![social media audit](https://jcdigital.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/socialaudit1.png) **Look at the number of followers.** Yes, some marketers consider followers a vanity metric, but if you’re looking into the organic performance of a page’s content, you will need to consider the number of followers a page has. According to Hootsuite, the average organic reach, or the number of people that can see your page’s post in his/her timeline without having to sponsor said post, a page can enjoy [is around 5.2% at the end of 2020.](https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-algorithm/) Meanwhile, average organic engagement rates for Facebook pages is at 0.25%, and even drops to a lower rate when your page has more than 100k followers. Looking at yours (and your competitors’) follower count can give you a glimpse of how many people they’re able to reach with their posts organically, and how many of these people engage with the content. **Look at engagements.** You have two main ways on doing this - manually counting all likes, reactions, shares, and comments for all posts. Or, you can use a social media analytics tool where you search the page and it displays to you the statistics of the page. Some tools like FanpageKarma even lets you look at the top performing content for the past 28 days and shows you statistics that may be difficult to acquire manually. Or, if you have access to your page, you might want to access the Insights section of your page. Social media platforms would always have some form of an insights page available to page owners. **Look at content themes and topics.** You can go even further and analyze what you and your competitors are talking about, and see how your engagements are ranking up against each other for similar topics. Furthermore, you can also look into topics that they’re talking about and you don’t, and see how you can leverage these topics for your own page. ## Let’s Make Your Digital Marketing Easier This is just a short guide on how you can start performing social media audits yourself. As a small business, you might not have a lot of time on your hands on doing these social media audits as you also need to take care of other operational things, but at least you can already get your feet wet in understanding how these metrics work and how you are ranking up against your competitors. --- # Expanded Search Ads Are Going. Maximize Your Responsive Search Ad Campaigns Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-marketing-ads/expanded-search-ads-are-going-how-to-maximize-responsive-search-ads-for-your-search-engine-marketing-campaigns/ ## Insights from the article: - By June 2022, advertisers will no longer be able to use Expanded Search Ads for their Search Engine Marketing campaigns;- The more dynamic format - Responsive Text Search Ads - will be the default and only option;- Advertisers will need to restructure their campaigns to accommodate this newer format by segmenting their targeting into different ad groups and having 1-2 Responsive Text Search Ads specifically appropriate for these ad groups. The old ways of running Search Engine Marketing ads here in the Philippines is going to be transformed and disrupted again, as Google eclipses the Expanded Search Ad feature in favor of Responsive Search Ads. The Expanded Search Ads will be expired on June 30, 2022, so we need to prepare our ad campaigns that might be running by then, and figure out how we going to use Responsive Search Ads better. **What are Expanded Search Ads and Responsive Search Ads in Search Engine Marketing?** Both of these are forms of Search Engine Marketing ads available via Google Adwords. Expanded Search Ads is a more “legacy” form of search text ads that allow us marketers to define 3 headlines and 2 descriptions for a more fixed format of text search ads. ![jc digital search engine marketing ads ](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/N-nzvzQcJ3FXQZIrn_I1IXxIwk4Qp4-A3_nv1Grr1C7pV8nqGp2zddyvTKtGv3tpSROV5P86E4HbfFFh0YMoSpbaCdyMx8JB5kdgO-1jTc0_gP7Nxo6XEQlZAGev4RNOL5ZuPMfY=s0) This has been helpful for marketers to define specific creative copies and fragments of headlines to be included in specific ads, and segment different sets of headlines and descriptions into different ads. Meanwhile, Responsive Search Ads allow for real-time ad-level optimization because it allows us to input up to 15 different headlines and 4 description texts. This enables Google Adwords to use more relevant combinations of headlines and descriptions that are more relevant to each user’s search query. ![jc digital search engine marketing ads ](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/buJoSjeyl2KvOu0qZJJprwmFEU2C3O0NrN7IoXl1GsamSc6oX4Gu6V_TdxamjRY8ShpYNPbS3Zgq3B9YUNOLfZU1L-DxvwTlL4G3NixgBoVSbn9F619idCWC1mpKw3bkXxko3h-j=s0) It may seem that Responsive Search Ads don’t allow us a lot of control over what kind of Search Engine Marketing ads are displaying for each search query but when we structure our ad campaigns correctly, we can address this issue and be able to control what kind of creative captions are coming out and matches with our targeted keywords. **How do we use Responsive Search Ads for better control over our campaigns?** Simple - we restructure how we do our campaigns, and come up with more variations of headlines and descriptions. We already know how we’re supposed to set up our budgets and schedules at the campaign level, and our targeted keywords at the ad group level. We just need to segment our targeted keywords more, and create several ad groups for each of those segmentations.  Then, we just need to create 1-2 Responsive Search Ads for each of those ad groups. As we mentioned, this structure will require a lot of headlines and descriptions, and those will have to match the targeted keywords where they will be placed. ![jc digital search engine marketing ads ](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/OYtHXnFtkRojapiXVPjzJDtt-YhrXica7oxYwOUOgZcgUhRQbFwY8pGtpljDgJ7DIKQwk_OfRFnZ-nusFGvfhAKLZ6VdXuT-LJ7ZgkLGNN-MigpH3A2byWnc2xk7Nrmp-mh8Hgzg=s0) Moreover, you just need to look at the Ad Strength graph and ensure that you have good ratings. This graph measures whether you’re using the Responsive Search Ads feature to its full potential. **Let’s Make Your Digital Marketing Easier** This might be a little bit advanced if you’re just trying to start out on Search Engine Marketing ads. If you’re ever thinking that you have an opportunity to improve your business with search ads, feel free to contact me and let’s get you started. --- # Digital Marketing to Get Store Visits in the Philippines Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/digital-marketing-to-get-store-visits-in-the-philippines/ ## Insights from the article: - Store visits are now on the rise in the Philippines and digital marketing will play a great role in influencing this;- Marketers need to communicate consistently and confidently to their consumers about announcements, and maintain informative communication lines through instant replies;- Introduce your store's re-opening with an enticing promo Businesses and establishments are now loosening up their restrictions on store visits, and major cities are now allowing people to move around the metro. Businesses are seeing a strong surge of store patronage after more than a year of restrictions.  How are you going to compete with every other store in your area in driving traffic and sales? Here are some digital marketing tactics to drive store visits in the Philippines. **Announce Your Store Re-Opening with a Video** Everyone loves a beautiful walk-through video. It’s time to tell your audiences more about how you are re-opening your store, along with the necessary precautions you are taking to keep your customers safe and socially-distanced. Videos are generally better-performing in terms of reaching more people and engagements, so one of the best ways of announcing your comeback to the business is to come up with a nice video post. **Come Up with a Promo, and Boost It** Yes, it’s alright to boost your posts and not have to set-up your Business Manager to run your ads if you’re looking for a quick-and-easy Facebook ad fix. But, if you’re looking to set-up your Ad Account and prepare the foundation for your business to run long-term, read more on our article here: [[Digital Marketing for Small Businesses in 2021](https://jcdigital.xyz/social-media-advertising/a-small-business-guide-to-facebook-advertising/)] Your promos deserve more attention, and re-opening your physical store without any sort of gimmick - along with the other stores opening up in your area - will not help you get the attention of your potential customers. So, it helps to launch a promo for people visiting your store and promote it in social media at least a week before re-opening. **Beef Up Your Facebook Page’s Instant Replies** Once you start promoting your store re-opening content, you can expect people to want to learn more about you and your offerings. At some point, you may also miss out on some inquiries if your content is hot and getting a lot of messages. In order for you to respond to all of your incoming inquiries via your Facebook page, you need to set-up your quick replies to frequently-asked questions. Check out [this article](https://jcdigital.xyz/digital-marketing-strategy/digital-marketing-small-business-2021/) to learn how to set up your Facebook page’s instant replies. **Let’s Make Your Digital Marketing Easier** This is a short guide to taking advantage of peoples’ excitement to return to their normal shopping habits. People definitely love looking around and visiting stores, browsing wares, and indulging in the physical activity of shopping. Because restrictions around the metro areas in the Philippines are reduced, we can expect a surge of mall-goers and a revival of physical store activity. You need to be able to take advantage of digital marketing and social media to communicate unique and interesting gimmicks when you re-open your physical stores. [Contact JC Digital](https://jcdigital.xyz/contact/) for consultation services in how to use digital marketing for optimal business performance this 2021. --- # SEO is Not Just About Words – It’s More About Experiences Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/search-engine-optimization/seo-is-not-just-about-words-its-more-about-experiences/ *TLDR: Websites will need more than just the right concentration of targeted keywords to succeed in highly-competitive niches. Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, requires a holistic approach in improving website user experiences. SEO is both a technical and a creative discipline. * Let’s admit it - we all started from a point wherein we had very little to no knowledge about Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. If you’re someone who’s not very familiar with SEO, just as I was about 7 or 8 years ago, you would think that it’s the practice of making sure you have *enough *keywords in your website. It’s easy to think that by plugging in *enough *keywords for your home page, or your product pages, or even your About the Company pages, you can see results happening for your website. You can hope that, in time, your website will get more traffic, and ultimately, sales. Yes, we’ve all been there. I also know that I highlighted the word *enough *twice, and I didn’t neglect showing off my thesaurus skills to change it to a synonym. I have a point and I’ll get to it later in this article. ## What is SEO Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, takes more than working on your website’s keywords. Yes, it is a practice of holistically setting up your website correctly to interact well with search engines. The result we hope to get when we’re optimizing websites for search engines, is to appear more often in relevant searches, and appearing more in relevant searches gets higher quality clicks to our website. Let’s break these points down for a bit: - **SEO is holistic.** Yes, we look at the website from different angles when we do SEO. We look at the content of the website - is the content relevant to what people are looking for? Is my website code up-to-spec and aligned to the rules of different search engines? Is my website secure? Have I designed my website well for different types of devices? Is my website providing the best browsing experience? - **SEO aims to set up websites to interact well with search engines.** We are optimizing our websites for Google to easily find our content, know immediately what we are talking about, and have enough information about us so that when people search for us or the topics that we talk about, Google is guided enough to show our content to them. - **The main metric of SEO is to increase the likelihood of our website being displayed on Google whenever people search for topics that we talk about in our content.** People are more inclined to click search results that are most relevant to them - just as you are more inclined to engage with social media posts that are relevant to you. And because people find our content more relevant to them, they engage more with our content and are more likely to convert. In fact, global benchmarks say [16% of search engine traffic](https://www.smartbugmedia.com/blog/what-percentage-of-organic-search-traffic-should-be-converting-into-leads) should easily convert via our website.  ## SEO is all about experiences ![seo-is-about-experiences-1](https://jcdigitalpartners.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/seo-banner-1.png?w=782) Ultimately, we do Search Engine Optimization to improve the experience of our website users that come from search engines. This means that from the point of searching for us online, to the point of buying our products via our website - our customers should feel that our content is relevant to them. We do these by having *enough *keywords in our content that search engine users are interested in. Doing research on what people are searching for in your industry area can yield to sets of keywords that you can use for your website, and if you use *enough *of them in your content, search engines will definitely see your website as a relevant answer to what people are searching for and display your website to them. I did say *enough *keywords. This is because in recent years, Google has been making changes on how their search engine scours our website content. Now, based on my experience, you should limit your keyword use to about 1 or 2 per 300 words. Going more than that can be flagged as spamming keywords into your content, and might hurt your website’s ranking in search results for trying to game the algorithm. Google also now looks for the context of your articles and pages. Using a high volume of keywords in a page that clearly is unrelated to the context of your keywords will not be beneficial to your website’s ranking in search results. Using keywords is a good practice in SEO, but what matters more now is the context of your content. ## SEO is more than just keywords now SEO, pretty much just like other digital marketing fields, are evolving savagely fast. Now, with the rising adoption of voice-enabled assistants and voice-activated smart homes, people are moving towards voice-related search and less on textual search. This means that in a few years, or even maybe in 2021, we may see a bigger shift on how search engines look for our optimizations that contextualize our content towards voice search. This is an older best practice, but Google ranks websites based on its expertise, accuracy, and trustworthiness. Facts should be accurate and confirmed, and sources should be stated. If trustworthy websites use your articles as linked references in their articles, then it counts for your expertise. Buttons and calls-to-action messages should provide honest signals to people, and should perform as how its stated. Also, a confirmed announcement from Google’s search engine team that in 2021, page experience is now a metric that influences whether a website ranks higher in search results. Page experience is a combination of other different metrics, including site security and encryption features, mobile design and responsiveness, site loading speed (more specifically, the loading speed of the first screen that our users should be seeing when visiting our website), and minimizing website errors. ## Let’s make it easier I hope I’ve explained some of the basic and some of the more advanced concepts about SEO. I have worked on several SEO projects and I can tell you that this is really a long game. We may be continuously optimizing a website for months before we even see some positive results. But, there are some projects also that have seen positive results sooner. Each SEO project is different. That is why we always start with an audit, and look at websites against their competitors. We also look at market trends - what topics people are searching for and how many times these topics have been searched for in a month. While there may be many rules to doing SEO, a big chunk of the process is also creative. We come up with creative solutions in making sure that a website’s content is relevant to its users. Whatever the case, I hope you have found value just as much as I have enjoyed writing this. If you want to throw ideas with me, send me an email at [jcdigitalpartners@gmail.com](mailto:jcdigitalpartners@gmail.com). Or feel free to [contact me](https://jcdigital.xyz/contact/) if you and your business needs help with SEO. --- # I Wish Social Media Marketing is As Easy As The Netflix Show “Emily in Paris” Source: https://jcdigital.xyz/social-media-marketing/social-media-marketing-emily-in-paris/ *Yes, it mentions the hit Netflix show, Emily in Paris. Yes, I am going to lament on some of the show’s inaccurate representation of how social media marketing is done. I am also going to rave on some aspects they did right. And no, this is not a blog that reviews the show, but more of a case on what to do (and not to do) when handling the social media for brands.* ![i-wish-social-media-was-easy-as-emily-in-paris](https://jcdigitalpartners.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/emily-in-paris-netflix.jpg?w=300) *Source: [Netflix](https://www.netflix.com/ph/title/81037371)* Don’t get me wrong - I loved the show. I loved the culture, the frivolities of living in Paris, the larger-than-life agency lifestyle that Emily and the rest of Savoir gets to enjoy because they had such prestigious clients. While it’s a fictional show that represented a fictional life of Emily and her Parisian adventures, I for one can’t help but remark on how *wrong *she is with doing social media. For example, she started a new Instagram account to document her life. From zero followers she jumped to tens of thousands of followers with a few posts. Any sane social media professional knows that it takes a* lot* of time to build a solid follower base, even with a conservative advertising budget in tow. It almost feels hacked.  *Pros: She creates beautiful content.* *Cons: So does everyone else.* What I think is misrepresented here is that it shows that social media can be *rushed*. That there are shortcuts. That you can break through the competition with just some beautiful photos, a witty copy and a hashtag. Social media is such a very competitive place, and attention is very scarce. How different are you from the other thousands posted daily, and what makes your posts deserve more attention? As a social media professional, it creates a different expectation from people, and it’s challenging enough to explain how competitive brand marketing is in social media. **Social media takes so much hard work, and literally years to master the craft of knowing the algorithm enough to create something that sticks.** Another apparent misrepresentation of the show is that social media can just be a simple process of posting, and you’re done. There were a lot of episodes that the magic of Emily’s social media is done by posting beautiful photos, and the engagement counters skyrocket. In the real world, clients will expect more. Results. Or at least engagements that drive back to tangible actions beneficial to the client. Because at the end of the day, clients care for results deeper than likes or comments.  ## Social media is more difficult (and serious) than in Emily in Paris Yes, you heard me. It is difficult, because it is hard work. Don’t believe anyone who says that they can just breeze through their social media marketing work without breaking a sweat. I, for one, take it very seriously. It takes a lot of hard work. I sometimes spend hours in front of a social media calendar plotting how all of the content themes play together, thinking about how all of the plotted posts go back to the unique selling proposition of the brand and how can I make the content positioned more creatively. Social media is so competitive now. With all brands now pivoting towards social media to communicate with their target audiences, you can’t become a generic brand that talks about your services only and how you want to sell more of your products. You can no longer push a hard-sell approach towards driving results with social media. Why? Because audiences are looking for *value*. As social media professionals, how do we drive value? How can we create better consumer engagements with social media? How can we educate them better? How can we create content that delights them regularly, leaving them wanting more? **Update:** Ever since I wrote this article, I have produced several blog posts about social media marketing. [Check them out here](https://jcdigital.xyz/category/social-media-marketing/). **Let’s make it easier**My brand of social media marketing services aim to make it simpler for you to collaborate with me for your social media. No unintelligible jargon, no confusing, unexplained metrics. It’s a consultancy service that guides you, not leaving you in the dark. My goal is to collaborate with you, to find that singular aspect of your business that we can use to provide value for your target market, and delight them constantly. This is my brand of partnership. Simplifying digital marketing for me means that it shouldn’t be just me who understands the work going on in conceptualizing and executing digital marketing campaigns. You should also know how it’s done, so you can ask better-informed questions, and from there, we can make better-informed decisions together. So, understand that social media is difficult and a serious endeavor. It’s supposed to be fun and creative, but it also requires putting our head down to work. Long hours, if that’s what it takes. But, with a capable and experienced partner, we can make it easier. If you are looking for a partner for your digital marketing campaigns, [contact me](https://jcdigital.xyz/contact/). --- Generated from RankReady