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Don’t Feed the Trolls: A Crash Course in Dealing With Twitter Trolls

Beware of Trolls

Bridges, the mountains of Skyrim, and Twitter. What do these places all have in common? You have a chance of running across a troll that can ruin more than just your day. Bridge trolls aren’t much of an issue since human society has pushed them into barren lands where we’ll never see them again. If you happen to visit Skyrim, you’re sure to have learned how to cast at least one fire spell that can dispatch a troll with haste. If you’re on Twitter, you must adapt to conquer these trolls. They’re smart, resourceful, crude, arrogant, and once they lock in on a target, they won’t stop until it’s gone. It takes one to know one, so I will take it upon myself, a self-admitted troll, to help you identify and eradicate trolls that are attacking you.

What’s a Twitter Troll?

A Twitter Troll, or an Internet Troll in general, is someone who uses the magic of the internet to sew seeds of hatred wherever and whenever they can. No one really knows how it starts, but once it does, it can be very difficult to stop. Unfortunately, Twitter is infamous for being very lax when it comes to individuals spewing hatred, so oftentimes, you will be left alone and cold to deal with them.

How to Combat a Twitter Troll

In my opinion, Twitter doesn’t offer up enough support to deal with toxic entities that troll your business online. Luckily, they don’t have to. Trolls are very predictable, which means dealing with them can be a cinch if you know what you’re doing. Here are some guidelines to follow when engaging in combat:

1: DON’T FEED THE TROLLS!

I swear on everything I hold dear, feeding the trolls will tarnish your image and make you appear just as immature as they are. This, of course, will end negatively for you and your business. Feeding trolls refers to responding to them in a negative fashion. This only fuels their ego and will make them continue to troll you. It may be tempting to be rash since they will likely come at you in a very aggressive, abrasive, crude, and rude manner, but I assure you that will only lead to them setting up shop in your mentions for the Twittersphere to see.

2: Develop an Action Plan

As I mentioned earlier, trolls are very predictable in their attacks. Though they are difficult to deal with, the predictability of their actions and responses makes a premade action plan with some flexibility your best friend. Having some example responses for your social media manager to use is a good way to defeat trolls before they have a chance to really get rolling.

3: Limit the Number of Responses

A hard limit on the number of responses given to trolls is a necessity. A constant back and forth will only fuel their strength and eventually drive you away from the realm of logic and reason. Continuing to engage in their toxic conversation will only succeed in eroding your own mental constitution to the point where your responses look as trivial and childish as the troll’s responses.

4: Don’t Give Them a Platform

In May of this year, a three-year-old boy fell into the gorilla enclosure of the Cincinnati Zoo. He was confronted by a 17-year-old lowland gorilla named Harambe. Zookeepers were forced to kill the gorilla in an attempt to prevent him from injuring the boy. People were upset; Twitter was furious. Of course, heavy-hearted memes were shared, but eventually the pro-Harambe side devolved into an expletive-laced hashtag that was used in response to almost every tweet they sent out. All memes eventually die, but during an interview with the Associate Press, the Cincinnati Zoo director stated that, “We are not amused by the memes, petitions, and signs about Harambe.” This reignited the trolls with such a fierce intensity that they were forced to temporarily shut down their Twitter account. It takes more finesse than just saying, “stop” to truly shut down a troll.

5: Don’t Ignore Them

Possibly worse than telling a troll to “stop” is to not say anything at all. This will more than likely make them extremely volatile and cause them to find a new home inside of your mentions. Also, ignoring a troll allows them to spam you however they seem fit and provides no deterrent since they aren’t being addressed. Confronting them in a professional manner shows them that you don’t tolerate those actions and helps to deter other trolls from setting their sights on your business.

6: Know the Difference Between a Troll and a Customer

Sometimes, a troll isn’t a troll at all. The anonymity of the internet is known for adding otherwise absent machismo to some people. Knowing that tracking them down can sometimes prove an unfruitful waste of time can make people act quite recklessly. Your business needs to be able to determine the difference between a legitimate troll and an angry customer. This takes time, but one telltale sign is if the alleged troll is attacking your product versus attacking you. If they have an issue with your product and not with you, offer a direct message (DM) exchange to try to make things right in a more private manner. Being able to admit a mistake shows a level of authority and passion for your business and can keep customers that may otherwise leave.

7: Speaking of Mistakes…

Admit when you’re wrong. If you own a small local pizza restaurant, people obviously prefer to give you their money over a giant corporation like Domino’s, and don’t mind more than likely paying a premium price for your product. If you deliver an incorrect order, mess up a pizza en route, arrive later than promised, there’s no need to even try to argue. If you’re wrong, admit it, ask for their information via DM, and make an attempt to correct the mistake. The difference here is that your apology is public due to the nature of the complaint.

8: Utilize Available Tools

Twitter is admittedly terrible when it comes to dealing with trolls, but in light of recent events, they have gotten better. In addition to the standard block and mentions settings list, you can customize your settings further to ensure that users aren’t able to mention under certain circumstances. The quality filter will use a newly formed algorithm to help “ignore” low quality tweets and some toxic tweets as well. Tailoring your discovery and mention settings can create an environment that can stave off trolls to a large extent.

Twitter Is a Scary Place

The Twittersphere is not the easiest place to navigate and can be made even more difficult when trolls descend upon you. Top that off with actually running your business instead of being on Social Media all the time and your plate will end up fuller than mine when I go to the buffet. Here at Search Influence, we offer a full suite of social media services so that you can rest a bit easier and focus on running your business instead of running from trolls.

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September 13, 2016
Top 5 Most Read Search Influence Blogs of August

It’s back to school time, and you know what that means—time to catch up on your reading! Here are the top five most read Search Influence blog posts of August. Study up!

1: What Happened to Facebook’s 20% Text Grid Tool?

Ranking in the top five for yet another month, this updated blog post gives the ins and outs of Facebook’s latest text grid update. Peruse this popular post to learn what this update means for your advertising.

2: Search Influence Jobs: What Does an Account Associate Do?

Get a sneak peak into daily life at Search Influence! This upbeat post talks about three great aspects of working as an Account Associate: personal growth, great team members, and helping businesses.

3: Local SEO: How to Clean up Citations for Better SERP Visibility

If the image above makes zero sense, then you should probably read this post. Learn all about how consistent citations can increase your website’s visibility to search engines.

4: 5 Ways Technology Has Changed the Olympic Games

There’s no better remedy for Olympic withdrawal. Instead of mourning the sudden lack of Michael Phelps and Simone Biles in your life, learn about technology’s impact on the Olympics.

5: Two New Hires Join Search Influence

Welcome Kayla and Mildred! Get to know the two newest members of the Search Influence team, complete with fun facts about cars, Google Android, and Wolverine 3.

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September 6, 2016
Here Are 10 Eye-Catching Medical Display Ads That Worked

Need a little inspiration for your practice’s online ad campaign? The following medical display ads are some examples of online advertising at its finest. They boast an impressive balance of striking imagery, audience targeting, creative calls-to-action, and concise copy.

These advertisements from Stewart Dermatology and Dr. Grant Stevens, FACS, at Marina Plastic Surgery utilize close-ups of women, which grab the attention of viewers more effectively than the alternative. Consider using real people in your ads to appeal to more potential patients.

#1: Stewart Dermatology

#2: Dr. Grant Stevens

You can also target specific audiences to yield even better results for your online ads. For example, these ads from Gleevec and Allure Dental could target people specifically in New York or specifically adult males seeking dental or orthodontic work.

#3: Gleevec

#4: Allure Dental

Using a creative call-to-action is also essential for conversions. The following ads from Medscape, Dermatology Associates of Wisconsin, S.C., and Hospital for Special Surgery challenge the viewer to do much more than “Click Here.” Consider trying “Request an Appointment” or “See Our Success Stories” on your display ads as a way to challenge your potential patients to more actively engage with your advertisements.

#5: Medscape

#6: Dermatology Associates of Wisconsin

#7: Hospital for Special Surgery

Short and catchy phrases and slogans can do a great job of getting and holding viewers’ attention. Here are a few examples from Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine, Hass Plastic Surgery and MediSpa, and Coolsculpting: “We treat the woman. Not the symptom,” “Love the memories, forget the lines,” and “Lose the fat. No needles. No surgery. No downtime.”

These slogans perfectly utilize short, concise phrases that successfully capture the viewer’s attention.

#8: Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine

#9: Hass Plastic Surgery and MediSpa

#10: Coolsculpting

August 31, 2016
How to Leverage Pokémon Go to Drive New Sales for Your Business

From the first time I booted up Pokémon Blue in my Gameboy Pocket way back in ‘98, I dreamed of being the very best—like no one ever was. Fast-forward to July 7th, 2016, and we all actually live in a Pokémon World. Once Pokémon Go was released, it quickly smashed the previous records of most downloads in a week, fastest app to ten million downloads, and in less than a month after its release, it has topped over twenty million downloads. This is great news for Nintendo. Prior to the release of Pokémon Go, their market share was showing a strong downward trend. The Wii U console was not keeping pace with the powerful technology of the PS4 and Xbox One, they had to liquidate most of their majority share of the Seattle Mariners due to new management, and they had not released a new handheld system (or even talked about a new one) since November 2014.

How Does This Affect Me?

After a little more background, I’ll make this relevant to the business world, I swear. In addition to the 151 unique Pokémon that people are running around trying to catch, there are two very important structures that have been placed in this game — Gyms and Pokestops.

The image above is a Pokémon Gym. Once a player reaches Level 5 in the game, they join the blue Team Mystic, the yellow Team Instinct, or the red Team Valor, represented by the “legendary” birds Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres, respectively. These three teams constantly battle their Pokémon for control of these locations and can train with their teammates to help their gym gain more prestige, which allows more teammates to add their Pokémon to it.

This image is a Pokestop. These locations were selected as landmarks to add the travel aspect of the game. By tapping on a Pokestop, a detail screen pops up which has the name of the location; a photo of the location; and in some cases, a brief description of the location. Swiping the image causes it to spin, which makes it drop a few items and gives the player 50 experience points towards leveling up their avatar. Pokestops can only be activated every five minutes so, under normal circumstances, it is beneficial to collect your items and continue moving on towards the next Pokestop. However, even the most seasoned Pokémon Trainer needs a break every now and then. Unfortunately, to be the very best, training can’t stop. Niantic, the developer of Pokémon Go, thought of this and included an item called a Lure Module in this game.

When a Lure Module is set at a Pokestop, Pokémon are attracted to its location and appear without having to walk around constantly. With enough trainers present, it is even rumored that rare Pokémon show up to the Pokestop. Lure Modules are very seldom given to players as they level up but they are also available for 100 Pokecoins, which is equivalent to $0.99. They only last for 30 minutes, so players are constantly purchasing them and placing them at their favorite Pokestops.

Okay, So How Does This Actually Affect Me?

Yes, there is actually a point to all of this, but it requires a little bit of creativity. Businesses that normally serve as gathering places for large groups of people make ideal candidates for utilizing Pokémon Go to bolster their business. First, you need to see if there is a Pokestop near your business. If a player can stay at your business with the Pokestop active, you’re golden. At the base level, it costs a Trainer a dollar per half hour to keep a Lure Module active on a Pokestop. Once the Lure Module is set, other trainers will be attracted just as much as the Pokémon. The Lure Module owner is the particular subject that you want to collaborate with.

Offering the owner of the Lure Module a small discount is one way to attract business. The chance of getting more business increases as long as you continue to have Lure Modules active. If your business is a coffee shop, maybe consider offering a pastry with a coffee if a customer shows you that they set up a Lure Module. If your business is a bar, maybe consider offering the Lure Module owner a $1 discount on a well drink or domestic beer if they decide to set a Lure Module. The potential is limitless. Some larger locations, such as zoos and parks, can have multiple stops. A zoo, for example, could advertise all of their Pokestops and offer a discount for Pokémon Go players.

Pokémon Gyms may seem harder to work around than Pokestops, but once you consider that every player has already pledged feverish allegiance to their team, a Pokémon Gym all of a sudden becomes the best thing that could’ve happened to your business. In this case, there’s really nothing that you actually have to do. People will eventually migrate towards your business to try to maintain control. It would be worth mentioning that your establishment is a Pokémon Gym on your social media profiles to help spread the news. Maintaining team neutrality would be a good idea; no one really goes into a New Orleans Saints bar and proclaims the Atlanta Falcons are the best team in the league.

That’s a Lot to Poke-think About

Though this may seem very straightforward, any sort of campaign, especially those that involve online presence, is oftentimes left up to the pros. Here at Search Influence, we offer a full suite of online presence options, one of them being Social Media Optimization, which would allow you to relax and let us create your PokeAds for you.

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August 9, 2016
Top 5 Search Influence Blogs from July 2016

If you are like many of us at Search Influence, you took a few days off last month to enjoy the summertime. Now that August is here, you may have a few minutes to catch up on your reading. Here are our top five most read blogs from July.

1: Search Influence Reviews: Here Are 5 of the Best Bars We Visit After a Long Day at Work

Our team members enjoy grabbing a nice cold one after a long day at work! Check out our top five list of local bars—each with a wide selection of beers and delicious bar food in venues only New Orleans can provide.

2: What Happened to Facebook’s 20% Text Grid Tool?

Facebook officially rolled out this new update to the 20% text rule in June. Read about it and how it affects Facebook ads in this updated blog.

3: Learn How to Create a Snapchat On-Demand Geofilter to Boost Your Next Event

Snapchat launched the ability for users to create On-Demand Geofilters for birthday parties, weddings, business events, or just for fun! Learn how easy it is to submit the filter along with some key metrics to gauge your filter’s success.

4: 12 Things You May Not Know About Online Marketing

New to online marketing? Here are 12 things that surprised some of our team members when they started working at Search Influence.

5: 10 SEO Blogs You Should Be Following

Every day, we see traditional marketing grow more obsolete. Learn about 10 of the most informative and essential SEO blogs you should be following.

August 4, 2016
Local SEO: How to Clean up Citations for Better SERP Visibility
Google, Bing, and other major search engines are constantly changing and developing their search engine results pages (SERPs). Major components of these pages include organic, paid, and local results. With the ever-increasing use of mobile, these local results are growing in importance in overall SEO strategy.

So how does one account for local SEO, you may ask?

This is where citation cleanup comes into play.

Citations are the presence of a business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) on any website. As search engines crawl websites and find instances of a business’s NAP, they look for consistency in that information, so the more accurate and consistent your citations are across the internet, the better your business will rank in a local search (i.e. in Google and Bing maps as well as in the maps packs on SERPs).

Ensuring this consistency is called citation cleanup. From my experience, there are four major steps to effective citation cleanup:
1. Ensure your address is USPS verified.
2. Update your NAP on your website.
3. Audit and build your citation on the major data feeds and directories.
4. Find your remaining existing citations and make sure they are all consistent.
Let’s break this down and go into a little more detail.

Ensure Your Address Is USPS Verified

This is an important place to start because, as you’ll find later on, many of the directories you end up submitting to or cleaning up have standard formatting that in most cases aligns with USPS’s own standards. So, if your format doesn’t match it will be harder and less likely to achieve consistency.

Update the NAP on Your Website

After the USPS verifies your address, make sure it’s reflected on your website. Include your whole NAP as a structured citation. Your website is the baseline for your NAP; this is what Google and other crawlers will compare other citations to, so it must be correct and formatted here.

**For a little extra oomph, consider marking up your citation on your website with structured data like Schema. This will help crawlers understand it better as your NAP.

Audit and Build Citations on Major Data Feeds and Directories

The reason I put this before doing actual cleanup of existing citations is because citation dissemination is a hierarchical process within a large ecosystem of directories. There are a few feeds that push to other smaller directories where your citation may already exist, so updating these and the major directories first will make cleanup later on a little easier.

There are four major feeds to check first: Infogroup, Acxiom, Localeze, and Factual. These feeds trickle down to other directories and local search engines, including Yahoo! Local, Apple Maps, SuperPages, etc. This is also where that USPS-verified address comes into play, especially. Part of the reason these four directories are so authoritative is because they have such strict guidelines on address verification.

Along with those feeds, you also want to update the major local directories. Since many of these are directly on those search engines’ sites, this is absolutely essential to local rankings. These major directories include: Google Maps, Bing Maps, Yelp, YP, Foursquare, etc. You may also consider auditing your social media accounts to make sure your NAP is correct there as well.

Find Remaining Existing Citations and Make Sure They Are All Consistent

Once you’ve built your major citations, you’re ready to do some additional cleanup, if necessary. It’s useful for all businesses to be aware of their citations across the internet, but some businesses may need additional cleanup more than others.

If you’re a business who’s recently changed their name, address, phone number, or website, you should definitely consider more extensive search and cleanup. The same goes for those who are still seeing problems with their local rankings. You may be missing a citation or set of citations that’s affecting your rankings.

There are a number of ways to do this. You can use Google just to search for instances of your citation manually, or you can use a service to do a more in-depth search for your citation and its variations across the internet.

Either way, you’ll find that your citation can be updated on some sites more easily than others. You may need to submit forms to have it updated, contact website administrators, or go through other channels to get it done.

If you’re business is at this point, you may find it more cost-effective to hire an agency or service to do this kind of cleanup.

However, once you’ve successfully cleaned up your citations, you’ll rest easier knowing that your business information is correct across the internet.

Citation cleanup is an important factor in local and overall SEO. By ensuring NAP consistency, you’re gaining valuable traffic from local search engines! To learn more about why NAP consistency is important with your SEO, you can watch this short video.

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July 25, 2016
These 10 Expert Tips Will Drive Traffic to Your Business’s Website
It doesn’t take a web expert to know that more traffic to your website means more business. However, researching ways to improve your online traffic isn’t always easy. We asked our in-house experts for their thoughts and came up with these ten ways to drive traffic to your website.

1: Implement Schema Markup and Rich Snippets on Your Site

Schema Markup is structured data that labels existing elements on your website so search engines can better understand the content. Essentially, when Schema.org markup is implemented into your website’s HTML source (the only place where it should be visible), it clearly defines specific parts of your content, such as your business address and telephone number.

Rich Snippets are a structured data markup only recognized by search engine algorithms. When used on appropriate content, Rich Snippets can show exact content from a website on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) of search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. These snippets are the few lines of text under every search result. For example, if you run a medical practice that wants to advertise its high rate of patient satisfaction, you can markup content from patient testimonials so that your glowing reviews show up when people search for doctors in your area.

2: Improve Your Site Speed

Site speed is the amount of time a page needs to completely load. This matters for both users and search engines, as users are less likely to stay on a website that takes a long time to load and search engines will penalize your website for being too slow. Google’s PageSpeed Insights Tool is a great way to analyze your site for ways to improve your site speed and will provide you with detailed information on how to fix each issue.

3: Use Google Search Console

Google Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools) allows you to indicate to Google the various details of your site. A very important part of this process is submitting your sitemap so that search engines can better crawl and categorize your site—if you haven’t done this yet, you should! Search Console will give you a report on the average ranking of your website on SERPs for specific search queries. These reports will let you know what you should be improving on your site to gain a high position and click rate.

4: Publish Press Releases

Press Releases are great when you have an announcement to make or a story to tell. They’re also highly useful for helping you own your business name in SERPs. Sites like PRWeb and Cision will distribute your press releases for you and get them published on news sites and blogs. For a little extra money, they’ll also send your release to journalists and bloggers, in hopes that they’ll publish it on their sites as well.

5: Perform On-Site Link Building

Internal Linking is a link from one page to another on your website. This process fosters a great user experience, as anyone visiting your site will find themselves easily hopping from one page to another without having to really search for the information they’re looking for. Search engines like Google are very focused on user experience. Good internal link building helps googlebot understand the relationship between pages, among a set of content.

6: Perform Off-Site Link Earning

By submitting your website to online forums, specifically those that pertain to your business’ physical and professional communities, you’re naturally increasing the chances that someone will visit your website. Engaging on social platforms like StumbleUpon, Reddit, Digg, and Delicious can be more valuable than you think.

7: Perform Off-Site Citation Building

Similarly to off-site link earning, submitting business listings to niche directories (industry & categorical), data feeds, major directories like Google, Yelp, Bing, Foursquare, YP.com, and secondary directories like Merchant Circle, HotFrog is a great way to drive traffic to your website.

8: Syndicate Your Videos

It’s no secret that having a YouTube channel filled with optimized videos drives up web traffic. However, you should also syndicate your videos across other sustainable video channels, such as Vimeo and DailyMotion. Videos will earn links and citations on social sites because they’re highly shareable. These increase link source diversity.

9: Post and Promote on Social Media

This may seem like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised by how many businesses don’t actually do this. Paying for promoted posts on Facebook offers a relatively inexpensive way to get your business in front of target consumers. Facebook also offers radius-based targeting for ads, which lets you target people who are/were:
- Living in your area
- Located in your area
- Recently visiting your area
- Traveling to/in your area
Posting and promoting isn’t limited to Facebook, though! LinkedIn and Pinterest are other examples of great social media sites that are perfect for driving traffic to your website.

10: Be a Resource in Your Industry Through Sharable Content

It’s one thing to be ahead of your competition, but it’s another thing entirely to be an industry thought leader. You can do this by creating shareable content. For example, you MUST have a blog. Your blog should be on site, not offsite. If your website is hosted on a CMS like WordPress, then you can easily integrate a blog within your existing site! Not only does blogging build authority for your brand and show off the human side of your company, but according to Hubspot, businesses who prioritize blogging experience 13 times increase in ROI.

You should also start to create infographics. They combine easily digestible—but valuable—information with a visually appealing information, making them highly shareable across all social media websites. For example, this infographic, created for a medical directory, was shared more than 900 times, got more than 300 Facebook shares, and was pinned more than 150 times.

Want more information? Watch our recent webinar for more information and tips.
June 20, 2016
5 Medical Practices Effectively Using Instagram

Instagram’s visual language is a great way to tell your brand and practice’s story. The layout is both straightforward and engaging. The platform is on the rise, and Instagram users are nearly 60 times more likely to share an image than those on Facebook. In a field that can be rather clinical, pun intended, Instagram provides medical professionals a means of showing their personality and building trust with their patients. Images spark engagement through follows, likes, and comments. A medical practice’s Instagram feed allows it connect with patients and customers through conversation, questions, and concerns. With the use of hashtags, you can find new audiences and grow your following.

In this post, I highlight five medical practices that are effectively using Instagram to promote their practice.

#1: Dr. Aamir A Wahab – @draamirwahab

Dr. Wahab’s dental practice Unforgettable Smile is located in Beverly Hills. He uses Instagram to promote the diverse dental and oral health care services he provides. Dr. Wahab counterbalances those more technical images, such as x rays, molds, and dental tools, with photos of himself with clients, both celebrity and unknown. Before and after images, with patient permission of course, are a great way to show client results. Not only do they demonstrate your skill, but it allows potential patients to see what’s possible. It’s also an ideal time to employ a hashtag like #transformationtuesday. Overall, Dr. Aamir’s Instagram is successful because it’s diverse in its content and constantly engaging—and it doesn’t hurt that he’s a “celebrity dentist.”

#2: Dr. Chris Balgobin aka Dr. BBL – @ddr.bbl

Dr. Balgobin is a cosmetic surgeon specializing in liposuction and Brazilian butt lifts, or bbl. He’s also a franchisee of Dr. Miami, also known as Dr. Salzhauer, whose Instagram is a little more eccentric than most medical practices. Dr. BBL’s Instagram feed is almost entirely before-and-after photos, and the majority of those are butt lifts. While some doctors on social media are more clinical and matter-of-fact, Dr. BBL’s Instagram takes very graphic results and portrays them lightheartedly. His use of emojis, selfies, and memes bring a more playful side to his medical practice. He’s done an expert job of displaying his niche in the larger field of cosmetic surgery while keeping his content engaging and tailored the platform on which it appears.

#3: St. Charles Vision – @stcharlesvision

St. Charles Vision is a doctor-owned facility providing comprehensive care. They have six locations serving the Greater New Orleans area. Their approach to Instagram is just as comprehensive. Their feed features new trends in eyewear, client portraits, celebrity spottings, and more! St. Charles Vision is also very active in the community, and their feed shows views around town. In a field all about the visual, it’s obvious that optometrists should be promoting themselves in graphic terms. Their feed features a lot of original images. Though they occasionally throw in an advertisement for a certain brand of glasses, the majority of the photos are unique to the business. They also connect their followers and encourage engagement with the hashtag #raiseyourglasses. St. Charles Vision’s new Distinctive series with artist Zack Smith features striking images of clients in fashionable glasses. This is a great way to promote your products and services, while also highlighting your wonderful customers!

#4: Dr. Simon Ourian – @simonourianmd1

Dr. Simon Ourian is a cosmetic dermatologist based in Beverly Hills. He uses Instagram to establish his expertise in his field. Dr. Ourian’s posts educate his clients about the causes of different cosmetic concerns, the various treatments, and even describe his consultation process and pricing. The classic before and after images of non-surgical butt lifts, laser treatments, and botox injections are visual testimonies of his work. These images foster both interest in the practice and trust in the doctor’s results. Dr. Ourian posts nearly every day and features a variety of images, as well as videos. This ensures his feed is diverse. He’s active on the platform but does not overwhelm his followers with multiple posts a day or anything overly promotional.

#5: Dr. Sandra Lee aka Dr. Pimple Popper – @drpimplepopper

Dr. Sandra Lee is another dermatologist that’s keeping it “poppin” on Insta, but definitely in a different way from Dr. Ourian. Dr. Pimple Popper has become an internet sensation, and this account is the perfect example of a medical practice using Instagram successfully. Be warned—her account is not for the faint of heart! Before Instagram, Dr. Lee’s YouTube channel had few followers, but now her Instagram account boasts 1.3 million followers! You can watch short clips of cyst removals, popped pimples, never ending blackheads, and literally everything in between. Want more? Almost every Instagram video on her account prompts users to visit her YouTube channel for longer clips.

Dr. Lee posts photos and videos daily. She’s consistently engaged with users, even building anticipation for full videos with sneak-peek clips and teaser images. Fans come together under her hashtags #DrPimplePopper and #popaholicsunite. Instagram users comment with their delight and disgust, and share these videos with friends and families for amusement and shock value. Dr. Lee has built a loyal fan base that keeps coming back. The Dr. Pimple Popper Instagram account has been featured in the Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, and more!

June 6, 2016
From Europe, with Love: A Marketer’s Guide to Capitalizing on Tourism
I recently took my first ever solo trip and explored six European cities in two and a half weeks. On my trip, I realized the importance of tourism for small businesses. Every tourist needs places to stay, food to eat, and things to do while visiting—and that leaves a big opportunity for businesses, especially on search (and social)!

Let’s take a look at my search (and purchase) journey, starting at the very beginning.

Selecting a Destination & Finding Places to Stay

One of the most important parts of going on a solo trip is making sure you are going to the best places, and going in the most efficient order. At Search Influence, we help city tourism and marketing organizations, like New Orleans, and I can attest to the importance of the work we are doing. How else would I have discovered Milan, Zurich, Munich, Prague, Amsterdam, and Berlin!? Truth be told, I also used the recommendations of friends, Redditors (read: opportunity for businesses), and Rick Steves to solidify my plans. When it came time to decide, looking at the city tourism websites helped me to make my final decision.

The next toughest part of preparing for the trip was finding places to stay. Solo travelers feel a lot of pressure when picking hostels, or Airbnbs, because it can have a huge impact on your trip, and on your impression of the city. I have personally never paid so much attention to reviews in my life! The thought of picking a hostel that didn’t seem 100% right was frightening. I wanted to make sure they had Wi-Fi (everywhere, not just in the lobby) and were clean, in a good location, and recommended by other travelers on HostelWorld and Reddit (Pro Tip: if you search the city name + “hostel” you can find some awesome recommendations from Redditors). The most surprising thing for me is that after the fact, Airbnb was the only one to push for a review. While I am going to go back and leave reviews everywhere else, I thought this was a missed opportunity.

Searching Abroad & What You Can Do to Attract Tourists

Now, let’s find some organic online marketing opportunities using some of my search history, which I like to think of as representative of many travelers.
- should i get the berlin tourist pass
- van goh vs rijksmuseum
- indonesian restaurant amsterdam
- caridejuv ucen opera
- u modre kachnicky
- bike tours munich
- rashes on legs
- jungfraujoch trip from zurich
- malpensa to ostello bello
Based on this mishmash of tours, museums, restaurants, skin ailments, directions, etc., there are a few strategies you can adopt in order to acquire traveling customers. I would try to build trust with the customer in the organic search results, and to take it a step further, I would use paid ads to target them for likely-to-convert terms.

Organically, you can build trust and authority with potential customers. In the screenshot below, the restaurant dominates the branded search result, which can build a sense of trust with someone who doesn’t know much about the area. My favorite tactics include the ones below:
- Relevant meta data
- Large numbers of positive ratings (on trusted sites with Schema markup!)
- Local directories
- Clear photos of the front of the restaurant
- A correct map on Google+
- Features on travel blogs
- Active social media profiles (not pictured)
By showing authority online (on and offsite), you can capture and convert a tourist (with money to spend) into a customer. You may even have an impact on locals, tourists trying to be locals, and the special breed of traveler who goes around touching statues for good luck!
December 30, 2015
Are You a Homer or a Lisa? Psychographics Demystified via The Simpsons

In marketing, half the battle is understanding your typical clientele. Understanding your customers is crucial in marketing directly to your niche targeted audience. That being said, understanding the ins and outs of your customers can often be daunting and tricky…But wait—hope is not lost! Look in the sky! It’s a bird…it’s a plane…it’s PSYCHOGRAPHICS!

What are psychographics?

Psychographics are “the study of personality, values, opinions, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles. This area of research focuses on interests, attitudes, and opinions.” Huh? That definition is so ambiguous! It doesn’t help at all! Allow me to clarify with an example:

Let’s pretend that you’re a Chevrolet dealership in New Jersey. In getting to know your clients, you may try to determine who your typical customer is by asking, “Who do we usually sell Chevys to? What do our typical customers look and act like?” Your first thought may be, “We usually sell our Chevys to mothers between the ages of 30-45.” The answer you just gave is the demographic of your typical customer, not the psychographic. If you had gone a little deeper by saying, “We usually sell our Chevys to mothers between the ages of 30-45 who often seem stressed trying to juggle bringing their kids to various after-school activities, running errands, and finding time for themselves; in fact, they often chose to buy Chevys through us because of the brand’s incredible safety ratings. They always have their children’s safety in mind,” that would be the psychographic of your average customer.

Demographic: Mothers age 30-45

Psychographic: Who the mothers age 30-45 actually are…their buying habits, what attracts them to purchasing a Chevy, what turns them away from purchasing other brands, etc.

Why are psychographics important?

Understanding the ins and outs of your clients can help you tailor your marketing efforts to directly reach your average customer. Think about it: designing a customized marketing campaign for a mom between the ages of 30-45 is much harder than designing a marketing campaign for a mom between the ages of 30-45 who values vehicle safety ratings and needs a large vehicle to schlep her kids around but still wants a vehicle with luxury components for her own comfort. While demographics may give you a generic snapshot into your average customer, psychographics allow you to really hone in and understand your customers as well as their buying habits.

How do I determine the psychographics of my clients?

Ask investigative questions! When I work with my clients to help them delve into the psychographics of their customers, I find that asking questions that dig a bit deeper can range from, “Can you expand on what you mean when you say that your average customers are males aged 45-60 who like to fish?” to “You mentioned that your clients are males aged 45-60 who like to fish. Do your clients usually find themselves fishing only on the weekends? How much time and money would you say your clients usually spend weekly on fishing? Are they fishing in their free time on the weekends, or is fishing part of their daily routine?” By avoiding easy, quick responses through more investigative questions, you will be able to better understand your customers and in turn develop a more customized and effective marketing campaign.

Need some more context?

Below, I have included a chart of the main characters from The Simpsons. In the chart, you will find a breakdown of each character’s psychographic information, their buying habits, and how to best target each character online. When reading through the chart, ask yourself, “What things would I need to know in order to get more specific information from my customers? In knowing this information, how could I better customize a marketing campaign targeting an average customer like Homer Simpson, as opposed to strategizing my marketing efforts in hopes of targeting customers similar to Lisa Simpson?”

Disclaimer: for all you diehard Simpsons fans out there, I left out Maggie Simpson on purpose…because she is an infant…and she doesn’t have buying habits…

Image Credits:

Superman GIF

Simpsons GIF

December 18, 2015