How HubSpot Content Strategists Improve SEO

If you need help building a website, creating a company blog, or getting webpages discovered by search engines, there's plenty of SEO training that can help you get started.

But, once your website is built and your customers find your content online, how do you improve your search ranking and reach a larger audience?

While keyword research, overlap tests, and link-building, are a must for creating an online presence, there's much more you can do to increase the amount of traffic coming to your webpages.

That's why we spoke to experts on HubSpot's SEO team to learn how they've improved content strategy over time. Read on for a list of their tips that can help you rank higher on search engines and optimize the accessibility of your marketing campaigns.

How to Improve SEO Like HubSpot

1. Encourage visitors to search for your brand.

When your business is growing, it's important to increase the share of unbranded searches coming to your website. These are keywords that aren't specific to your brand, but they may be relevant to your industry.

For example, if you were a power-washing company located in Massachusetts, then you would want to rank for a search like, "best power-washing companies in New England." While the name of your company isn't included in this search, you would still want your website to appear in the search results when someone is looking for power-washing services in the New England area.

Once your company grows and develops stronger relationships with its customers, you can encourage branded traffic to your webpages. In fact, companies like Amazon have even influenced their buyers' search habits, and now its customers add "amazon" to their search queries when researching products on Google. This ensures that the top result on the SERP is most likely a link to an Amazon page.

Your company can have a similar effect on its customers by becoming a thought leader and resource for topics related to your industry. For instance, if customers had questions about how powerwashing works, its benefits, when you should do it, etc. then our powerwashing company might have a blog that answers all of these questions. As people read these articles and become familiar with our content, they might amend their search queries to include the name of our company so they can access our content faster.

2. Update your content.

Search engines are constantly updating their algorithms and improving their tools to provide better search results for their users. This means that your content can become outdated within months to a year and the keyword research that you did when you first created a piece may change as search engines adapt over time. That's why it's important to regularly update your content, so you can keep tabs on its performance and ensure it continues to rank high on search engines.

When updating content, you should replace old statistics and outdated terminology, and fill in any content gaps that you may have missed when you first created the piece. You should also fix any broken links or images and make sure that the formatting and branding is consistent with your current content. Do this at a cadence that makes sense for you — for many teams, it's every few months.

3. Analyze keywords beyond search volume.

When analyzing keywords, it's easy to locked in on search volume and prioritize keywords with the most potential traffic. However, it's important to look beyond just search volume and consider the intent of the keyword before you create content that's targeted towards it.

Open an incognito window and search for your keyword. Look at the content that's currently ranking for it and ask yourself if your content would fit with this SERP. If it doesn't, then it might be hard to rank for this topic with the content you're currently using.

Here's an example. Let's say our powerwashing company recently revamped its support team and we wanted to rank for the term, "progressive customer service." While we could write alot about our new and improved service team, we probably won't beat the insurance company, Progressive, from winning over this keyword. That's because the intent behind this keyword is for Progressive's service team and not for content related to the customer service industry.

4. Prioritize internal linking.

It's easy to grow organic authority when publishing content consistently, but it's just as easy to plateau if you don't consider where it should be published. This is a form of SEO "tech debt" that can hamper your growth the bigger your site gets.

To avoid this setback, it's important to audit your internal linking structure and identify different pieces of content that should be linked together. Adding links between internal pages helps search engines understand which content is related to one another as well as the keywords that these pages are targeting. It can also help Google index new pages faster if they're linked from the right pages to begin with.

You can use a number of SEO tools to systematically find these opportunities and update the pages that matter most to your sales efforts.

5. Form strong relationships with your developers and designers.

As your online presence grows, you might be surprised to find your SEO team is working closely with your web developers and designers. This is expected, though, since SEO is influenced significantly by how your content is designed and maintained.

The better relationship between your SEO team and web designers, the higher your content will rank. After all, if your web developers understand the importance of SEO, then they're more likely to listen to your SEO team's advice when creating and designing new content.

At the very least, open communication between these two teams can be the key to more consistent digital growth. For example, if your web developers want to delete a page that has 500 backlinks, they should first check in with your SEO team to see if there would be any negative repercussions. Effective communication between your developers and your SEO team can help you avoid SEO headaches and maintain high search rankings.

6. Prune content after long periods of growth.

Not all of your content is going to hit it out of the park — and, that's okay. Some content will fall shorter than expected and even though you update it, it might not obtain the amount of traffic you were originally hoping for.

As this content piles up, it can impact the speed and performance of your website. If it does, then you might want to consider pruning these pages so that they don't adversely affect user experience. Even though you'll forfeit a small amount of traffic from these pages, you'll likely save alot more by improving the user experience on your other, more popular pages.

7. Optimize Search-Friendly Content.

Not everything that you publish is going to be search-friendly — like ad landing pages, thank-you pages, internal sales enablement pages, and login pages. These pages aren't typically target by search engines and therefore aren't as important to optimize for search.

Instead, you should focus your attention on pages that are search-friendly. These are the ones that search engines are looking for and they play a much bigger role in the customer experience. If you can get this content in front of your target audience, they'll eventually discover your other pages as they continue to explore your site.

Optimizing Your Content Strategy

SEO is always a work in progress. So long as search engines continue to update their algorithms, marketing teams will have to create content that's not only relevant to their audience but can be easily discovered, too.

While SEO marketing software can help brands shape their content strategies, ultimately it will be up to marketers to create effective content that ranks high on search engines and attract new leads for their business.

For more ways to improve your content's search ranking, read these SEO tips.

How HubSpot Content Strategists Improve SEO was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

How to Create a YouTube Channel Step-by-Step

If you're reading this article, I probably don't need to tell you that video content accounts for over 74% of all online traffic, or that over five billion YouTube videos are watched every single day.

You already know video is an important channel, and you're ready to start leveraging YouTube for your own business. I'm here to show you how to do it.

This article will cover everything you need to know about creating a YouTube channel, so you can start uploading your own videos and growing your audience today.

How to Make a YouTube Channel

1. Sign in to your Google account (or register and sign in if you don't have one).
2. Create a new YouTube channel using your Google account.
3. Navigate to the Customize Channel page.
4. Add Basic Info to your channel for discoverability.
5. Upload branding elements to your channel.
6. Customize your more advanced layout options.
7. Add videos and optimize them for search.

Can't create a new channel?

If you're seeing a "This action isn't allowed" message when you try to create your channel, you may be using an outdated version of the YouTube app.

Here are your options to move forward:

1. Update the YouTube app on your device.
2. Create your YouTube channel using a browser on your PC (following the steps outlined in more detail below).

How to Create a YouTube Channel

Creating a well-managed YouTube channel with consistent content can help businesses grow better, but doing it right is just as important. Here's how to do it step-by-step.

1. Sign in to your Google account.

To watch, share, create, and comment on YouTube content, you'll need a Google account. Go to youtube.com and click "Sign In" in the upper right-hand corner. From there, you'll be taken to a Google sign-in page. 

1. If you have a Google account, you'll be prompted to sign in. 
2. If you have multiple Google accounts, be sure to select the one you want to be associated with the YouTube channel.
3. If you do not have a Google account, click "Create Account" and follow the prompts to register for one.

2. Create a new YouTube channel using your Google account.

Once you're set up with and signed into your Google account, it's time to create a channel. Click your user icon in the upper right-hand corner. This represents both your Google account and you YouTube account (as YouTube is owned by Google). You'll see a drop-down menu, where you'll want to click "Settings."

From there, you'll be taken to your account overview. Click "Create a new channel" under "Your channel."

The first step is to create a Brand Account. It can be whatever name you want, and doesn't have to be the same name that you used to create your Google account -- but we do recommend that it reflects the brand the YouTube Channel will represent.

After you enter the Brand Account name, you might be asked to verify the account via text message or voice call. If that happens, enter the code you receive from the option you choose.

Once you've verified your Brand Account, you'll be taken to the dashboard for your channel. Now, it's time to start customizing it.

3. Navigate to the Customize Channel page.

We'll start with the fundamental details about your channel. From your channel dashboard, click "Customize channel."

From there, you'll be taken to the channel customization page.

You'll notice three tabs: "Layout," "Branding," and "Basic info." These three tabs will help you optimize your channel for viewers.

4. Add Basic Info to your channel for discoverability.

Start by clicking "Basic info."

Here's where you'll enter some basic information about your channel, like the language your videos are in, as well as a description that helps people discover your channel when they enter search terms that describe what videos they're looking for. These keywords can include what your channel is about, the problems it helps solve, the people and products featured, your industry, and more.

You'll also be able to add links to sites you want to share with your viewers. These links will be displayed over your banner image (more on this later) like so:

5. Upload branding elements to your channel.

In addition to the descriptive details that you've added, there's another element of customization for a new YouTube channel: The visuals.

Under the "Branding" tab, you'll be able to add your:

Profile Picture

Among this channel art is your profile photo -- this is how YouTube users will identify the creator of a video when browsing video content. You'll see this image appear beneath YouTube videos on the play page, as shown below. YouTube recommends using a picture with dimensions of at least 98 x 98 pixels.

Banner Image

The banner image is a large banner displayed at the top of your channel page, and it's a big opportunity to convey your brand to your viewers. YouTube recommends using an image that's at least 2048 x 1152 px.

Video Watermark

The video watermark is displayed at the bottom right of every video you post (see below). You'll want to choose a logo that best represents you sized at 150 x 150 px.

6. Customize your more advanced layout options.

Click the "Layout" tab.

From here, you'll be able to specify certain details about how you want your content presented on your channel's page. You'll have the option to designate a video spotlight and organize your channel page with featured sections.

7. Add videos and optimize them for search.

To upload your first video to YouTube, click the "Create" button in the top-right corner and follow the prompts.

Optimizing your channel for discoverability is just the beginning. Once you start adding videos, you'll want to optimize them for search, which in turn helps users discover your video.

But this goes beyond giving your videos accurate, clear, and concise titles -- though that is important. Below, we describe some of the most important things to optimize on YouTube. (For a fully comprehensive post on YouTube SEO, visit this post.)

Title

When we search for videos, one of the first things that our eyes are drawn to is the title. That's often what determines whether or not the viewer will click to watch your video, so the title should not only be compelling but also clear and concise.

Description

This should be limited to 1,000 characters -- and remember that your viewer came here to watch a video, not to read a lot of text. Plus, YouTube only displays the first two or three lines of text, which comes to about 100 characters, so front-load the description with the most important information.

Tags

Using tags doesn’t just let viewers know what your video is about -- they inform YouTube, too, which uses tags "to understand the content and context of your video," according to Backlinko. That way, YouTube can associate your video with similar videos, which can broaden your content's reach. But approach with caution -- just as with your title, don't use misleading tags because they might get you more views -- in fact, Google might penalize you for that.

Category

Choosing a category is another way to group your video with similar content on YouTube -- but that might not be as simple as it sounds. YouTube's Creator Academy suggests that marketers "think about what is working well for each category" you're considering by answering questions like:

• Who are the top creators within the category? What are they known for, and what do they do well?
• Are there any patterns between the audiences of similar channels within a given category?
• Do the videos within a similar category have share qualities like production value, length, or format?

That's it -- you've officially not only created a YouTube channel but now also know how to optimize its content for discoverability. For more information on how to best leverage YouTube for marketing, check our entire collection of resources.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in November 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

How to Create a YouTube Channel Step-by-Step was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

8 Simple Ways to Segment Your Social Media Audience

Segmentation is not a new concept for marketers. We use segmentation to send personalized emails, create buyer-specific pricing models, and understand the behaviors of our most loyal customers.

It is also a valuable tool for generating more leads on social media. While publishing more often and posting different types of content is great for generating engagement with your audiences, segmentation can bring additional benefits, like....

New to social media? Check out this featured resource: Social Media Certification Course 

This post will show you how you can apply the principles of segmentation to social media, outline the benefits it can bring to your business, and give you tips for accurately segmenting your social media audience.

Segmentation is important because it increases your marketing success. When you know the key characteristics and desires of your target audience, you can become more focused with your brand messaging and create hyper-targeted advertisements that speak directly to your audience's interests. Then, when your advertisements are tailored to their interests, customers are more likely to interact with them and take further action.

Let’s go over eight strategies for segmenting your social media audiences.

1. Understand your audience.

Just as with any marketing strategy, understanding your target audience is the key to accurate, relevant social media segmentation. Without knowing who your customers are, what they want, and how they like to be marketed too, it will be challenging to devise other strategies to help you succeed in your process.

To better get to know your audience, you can create buyer personas from your analytics and research data. Buyer personas are semi-fictional representations of your ideal customers that help you focus your time on qualified prospects, attract high-value customers, and create content that best speaks to their interests and desires.

You can think of it like this: if the data you’ve collected shows you that Facebook brings you the most engagement, dig deeper into who your audience is on that platform and create a buyer persona that brings a more comprehensive understanding of who they are. These representations you’ve created directly relate to our next tip, as many social media platforms come with audience targeting tools that you can use to market specifically to your different segmented audiences.

2. Use native social media targeting tools.

When most people think of social media segmentation, they think of paid targeting options. However, for low and high budget marketers alike, there are organic targeting options on different platforms that you can use to speak to your various audiences.

For example, Facebook allows businesses to target their messages to users based on demographics, interests, and geographical location (as shown below).

On LinkedIn, there are also built-in targeting tools that allow you to filter and segment by industry, company size, and much more (shown below).

Image Source

3. Create audience groups.

Social media is all about community. Building communities of people who share common interests is an easy way to segment your audience and gain valuable insights. You may decide to keep the group open (anyone can join) or closed (a moderator must approve new members), and there are advantages to each.

Open groups enable you to gather information about how a more general audience feels about your brand. You can use this forum to have discussions and ask open-ended questions such as, “What are your biggest challenges?” or “What makes excellent customer service?” You can also test new ideas with your audience members or discover new content ideas that they would find interesting and relevant. The advantage here is that you will have a large group to bounce ideas off of. The disadvantage? They may not be as knowledgeable about your industry as you need.

That's where closed groups can come in handy. You are approving each member's admission to the group, and you can cherry-pick the most qualified candidates. Maybe they're a group of customers whose opinions you value or a list of people who have attended an event you've hosted. Regardless of admission requirements, this can be a great way to get specific, helpful feedback from a group you trust — but you may not get as many responses as an open group discussion.

Various social media platforms have group functionalities, specifically Facebook and LinkedIn. On Facebook, you can create a group that is relevant to your business and your target audience’s interests that can be public or private, as mentioned above. The same can be said for LinkedIn, but you should only opt to use it if your target audiences are professional-aged, business minded individuals.

4. Create audience lists.

Most marketers are familiar with creating lists — we do that every time we send a new email campaign. But did you know you can use lists to have more productive social media conversations? Social networks like Facebook and Twitter allow users to create lists of friends, followers, people who have attended an event, and more.

On Twitter, your lists can separate followers into specific categories, like where they are in their buyer’s journey. Whenever these people in your lists Tweet, you’ll be able to view them all within a specific channel to get an idea of what kinds of things they tweet about and what they enjoy. When you have this information, you can create better-targeted ads that speak to your segmented audience’s preferences.

If you’re a HubSpot customer, the lists you use for your email can actually be one and the same as your social monitoring lists. You can set up a stream for each one of your buyer personas, such as a stream for leads who are talking about your brand, or customers in a certain industry. You’ll spend much less time trying to filter through the noise, and much more time having relevant, targeted conversations.

5. Post at different times of the day.

As marketers, we know how important timing is to marketing — especially on social media. If you’ve created accurate, relevant buyer personas, you’ll likely realize that your followers are distributed throughout different geographic regions. This means that your followers in the central United States are going to bed while your followers in Australia are getting ready to wake up.

Differentiating your publishing times allows you to generate engagement from a larger portion of your audience, as followers from all over the world have the opportunity to engage with your posts.

An additional benefit to doing this is that you’ll have multiple posts out there for your target audience to see. You can think of it like this: if you post three times throughout the day for three different audience segments, each one of those segments can also see the posts meant for the other. Three more opportunities for them to interact with your content and three more chances to drive conversions.

6. Leverage multiple networks.

As you master the various ways to segment your specific audiences, more people will be interested in connecting with you through social media. If you don’t already run multiple social media accounts, you may realize that one of the best ways to serve relevant content to specific audiences is to create several social media profiles, each with specific intent.

For example, if you’re a clothing brand, your target audience is likely widely dispersed age-wise. While you may hope to reach all of them on one platform, you’re more likely to get your younger audiences (aged 10-19) on TikTok and your older audiences on Instagram.

Additionally, within each of those different platforms, it’s also worth considering creating multiple accounts focused on various aspects of your business or the demands of your different audiences. At HubSpot, we maintain more than five different Twitter accounts to provide content relevant to each segment of our audience. For example, @HubSpotAcademy is a channel that marketers can use to learn how to be a better inbound marketer, while @HubSpotSupport is a channel that our customers can use to get help using the HubSpot platform. Both Twitter accounts are relevant to anyone interested in HubSpot, but they are most relevant to their particular segments.

Keep in mind that each social media account should still serve a larger audience, so be sure to work on building your overall audience from one account before you try building out more. If you decide to start building out more accounts, be sure that people can easily differentiate their purpose (ex: customer support, marketing materials, your yearly event, etc.) — otherwise, you'll be creating more work for yourself.

7. Streamline your processes.

Should you choose to leverage multiple platforms or simply just want to streamline your processes, there are various social media tools that can help you create and publish advertisements built for your segmented audiences.

Falcon.io is one of those tools. It comes with an all-in-one social platform for creating paid and organic advertisements, managing customer engagement data from all your accounts, and even creating custom and lookalike audiences for further segmentation, as displayed by the image below.

Image Source

8. Test your strategies.

Although this tip is not directly related to grouping your audience, the success of your segmentation depends on how well you’ve created your groups. Using social media testing as a means of understanding how your content is performing among your target audiences is a way to know if you’ve accurately segmented your audience, and it can help you perfect your strategy.

For example, say you’ve found your millennial audience to be most active on Instagram. You know that they’re there, so you can begin creating content for them. However, what if you want to better understand their preferences? Maybe you want to know whether they prefer Instagram Stories or Instagram Reels? Conducting an A/B test with both of these content types will help you better understand how to communicate with these segmented groups.

Speak To Your Different Audience Groups

Unless you’re a very niche business, you likely have a large audience group. Within these audience groups, there are probably other distinct communities with different preferences and desires.

It may be challenging to figure out how to tailor your message to individually speak to all of your diverse customers, but the eight tips mentioned above will help you carefully segment your social media audience for more relevant conversations — and eventually, more conversions.

8 Simple Ways to Segment Your Social Media Audience was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

How to Run a Facebook Giveaway: A 6-Step Guide

Did you know that 78.4% of contest shares are done on Facebook? And that on average, 34% of new fans are acquired through a contest?

Additionally, Facebook has over 2.7 billion monthly active users as of the second quarter of 2020.

As a marketer, those stats are hard to ignore. Social media contests and giveaways are an excellent way to engage fans and acquire followers.

However, running a contest requires a lot of planning. It isn't as easy as 1-2-3 or A-B-C.

Today, let's review everything you need to know about running a Facebook giveaway. First, we'll dive into the rules. Then, we'll discuss how to get started with your own Facebook giveaway. Finally, we'll give you some ideas and examples to inspire your own contest.

Facebook Giveaway Rules

The rules on Facebook giveaways are pretty simple. According to Facebook, if you run a Facebook giveaway, you must include the official rules, offer terms and eligibility requirements (such as age and residency restrictions), and compliance with applicable rules and regulations governing the promotion and all prizes offered (meaning registration and obtaining necessary regulatory approvals).

Additionally, the copy needs to include a complete release of Facebook by each entrant and acknowledgment that the giveaway is in no way sponsored, endorsed, or administered by Facebook.

You can run a giveaway on Pages, Groups, Events, or within apps. However, you cannot run a giveaway on a personal Facebook page. You also can't use personal friend connections as a part of the giveaway, meaning you can't have people share on their timeline to enter or share on a friend's timeline, or tag friends in the post to enter.

Disclaimer: This blog post includes some information on legal issues surrounding internet marketing, but legal information is not the same as legal advice -- applying the law to a specific circumstance. We've conducted research to better ensure that our information is accurate and useful, but we insist that you talk to a lawyer if you want professional assurance that our information, and your interpretation of it, is accurate. In a nutshell, you may not rely on this information as legal advice, nor as a recommendation or endorsement of any particular legal understanding, and you should instead see this post's info as for entertainment purposes only.

Okay, now that the nitty-gritty is out of the way, let's get into the meat and potatoes of Facebook giveaways.

1. Set your objectives.

The first thing you need to do before you run a giveaway on Facebook is to decide what the goal is.

Your goal could be to increase brand awareness, collect email addresses, gain new followers, increase engagement, or drive traffic to your site.

Once you know your goal, you can come up with the type of giveaway you want to run (more on this below). For example, if you want to gain new followers, you could run a photo vote contest, where users need to ask friends to like their photo in the contest. This will drive more people to your Facebook page, and hopefully, convince some of them to follow you.

2. Choose a prize that makes sense for your target audience.

Once you know the type of contest you're going to run, it's time to choose a prize. Whatever prize you choose should make sense for your target audience and be something that they want. Choosing a $20 prize probably won't entice people to enter. In fact, the average value of a social media contest prize is $369.

Also, generic prizes don't usually work as well. Try coming up with something specific that your audience would like. For instance, if you're a fitness influencer, you could run a Facebook giveaway with a workout bike as the prize. In this example, the prize makes sense considering the target audience of a fitness enthusiast.

3. Write the rules.

Now, you need to come up with the rules. Set a time frame for your contest, choose an entry method, and decide on any eligibility requirements.

Once you've decided on the rules and regulations, write them out. Don't forget to include all the information that Facebook requires.

4. Create your assets.

At this point, you know what type of giveaway you're running, you've decided on the prize, and you've written the rules. All that's left to do before clicking "Post" is creating the assets. You'll need images, graphics, and a caption written. The assets should make it clear that you're running a giveaway and what the prize is.

5. Promote, promote, promote.

Once you've posted your giveaway on Facebook, you need to promote it through several channels. Organic reach on Facebook has plummeted to 2% in recent years, so you can't just trust that your followers will even see the post.

To promote your Facebook giveaway, you can use other social media platforms, write a blog post, create a video, and email your subscriber list. The more ways you can get it out the better.

6. Measure success.

Now that your giveaway is over, and you've contacted the winner, and posted that the giveaway has closed, what do you do?

It's time to measure the success of your campaign. You had a goal, and now you should look at a few key metrics to see if you succeeded.

Some metrics to look at, depending on your goals:

• Response rate/number of submissions
• Impressions/Reach
• Website visits from the giveaway post
• Brand mentions
• Likes, comments, shares
• Email subscribers

1. Photo vote.

A photo vote is a type of Facebook giveaway where you ask users to upload a photo. Then, you'll encourage people to vote on which photo is the best.

This is a great way to acquire new followers because participants will ask their friends and family to go vote on their photo.

2. Comment to win.

While you can't have tag friends or share posts on their personal page, you can still ask them to comment on your posts to win.

These types of giveaways usually ask users to write a caption, fill in the blank, or answer some creative question.

3. Like to win.

Similarly to the above, sometimes all you need to do is ask people to like the post. While you can't ask people to like your page, according to the Facebook rules, you can still have them like your posts.

This is a really low barrier entry method that could be great for increasing engagement and brand awareness.

Now, let's look at some Facebook giveaways in action.

Facebook Giveaway Examples

1. Loveline Golden Retrievers

In this Facebook giveaway, Loveline Golden Retrievers ask participants to send them a photo of their dog to be showcased in their annual calendar. Once users sent in the photos, they uploaded them to an album. The photos with the most likes won the contest.

This is a classic photo vote contest with a prize clearly targeted to the audience. People with golden retrievers would love to have their pets showcased in a calendar (I mean, who wouldn't?).

2. Bling

This is another great example of a giveaway that's clearly targeted to the right audience. Presumably, most people who like a game page, like Bling, on Facebook, actually play the game.

That's why a giveaway for free in-game points is a great idea. Additionally, this is a low barrier entry giveaway as well -- you only need to like the post and comment.

Running a Facebook giveaway doesn't need to be a hassle. It can actually be a simple process if you follow our six-step guide.

How to Run a Facebook Giveaway: A 6-Step Guide was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

20 Nerdy Valentine's Day Gifts for the Marketer in Your Life

Roses are red, violets are blue, Valentine's Day is coming ... and you didn't think this one through.

If you're shopping for a marketer, picking out a gift can be even more intimidating. We love trends, creativity, but also practicality! So — do you go the creative and funny route, and buy us something that can help us in the office? Or, do you embrace a pop culture trend we've been raving about?

With everyone's favorite "Hallmark holiday" right around the corner, we had a hunch that some of you might have forgotten to pick up something special for a friend, family member, or special someone who works in the marketing world.

Rather than letting you default to a box of chocolates, we've come up with a list of creative, useful gifts that are sure to impress. Now, we'll be the first to admit that some of them are kind of nerdy ... but aren't we all a little nerdy, after all?

We've accounted for all types of budgets by listing the gifts in ascending order by price. All the following items might not ship in time for the big day, but you can still use the following list as inspiration for a last-minute in-person shopping trip.

Top 20 Nerdy Valentine's Day Gifts

1. The Gift of Nothing

2. Heart Headphone Splitter

3. Catnip Chocolate Covered Strawberries

4. Cable Labels

5. Seed Money

6. Bluetooth Beanie

7. Snapchat Bitmoji Merchandise

8. Chili Herb Infuser

9. Plant-o-Gram

10. Spicy Honey

11. Sushi Slippers

12. Heart Beat Camera Strap

13. Potato Parcels

14. Star Wars Cookie Jar

15. LED Globe-Shaped 

16. Red Converse Sneakers

17. FujiFilm Mini Instant Film Camera

18. Smart Water Bottle

19. Canon Ivy Mini Photo Printer

20. Smart Ring

20 Nerdy Valentine's Day Gifts for That Special Someone

1. The Gift of Nothing

Price: $1+ (from various websites)

Just started a fling with someone and think a gag gift would be appropriate? Maybe you should give your special someone the gift of -- well -- nothing. Yes, this is an actual prop you can buy. There's even multiple video unboxings online. Check this one out:

The best part? If this product actually does "something," you can return it for a full refund. 

2. Heart Headphone Splitter

Price: $5.00

This festive headphone splitter allows you to plug your headphones into one of the dual aux inputs, leaving the other open for a friend or special someone. The best part? It comes on a handy keychain so you can bring it with you everywhere.

3. Catnip Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Price: $6.00+

Now, I'm a dog person ... but I work closely enough with a few hardcore cat ladies to know that in order to win them over, you've got to win over their cat first. And these catnip chocolate-covered strawberries are sure to do the trick.

4. Cable Labels

Price: $9.99

Give the gift of organization this Valentine's Day with these adorable little "cord huggers." They cling onto wires to make it easy to sort through that tangled mess behind monitor or under your desk.

5. Seed Money

Price: $9.99

For the pun-lover, I present to you: seed money. Cleverly disguised as change, these coins are minted from handmade paper embedded with seeds. Plant them, water them, and watch your investment grow. (Get it?)

6. Bluetooth Beanie

Price: $12.91

This beanie will keep your head warm while keeping your ears happy. Thanks to the built-in microphone, your special someone can talk hands free for up to six hours. Pretty cool, right?

7. Snapchat Bitmoji Merchandise

Price: Varies

If you're friends with a millennial marketer, they've probably used Snapchat or at least have created a Bitmoji. If so, you can visit the merchandise store on the Snapchat app and purchase shirts, cups, or other products with you and your friend's Bitmojis on them. 

To do this, all you have to do is go into your Snapchat app, tap your face icon in the corner to get to your profile, then scroll down and press the "Shop Bitmoji Merch" button to see the available merchandise. Once you click on an item, you can select your friends emoji to have a picture of both of you appear on an item.

8. Chili Herb Infuser

Price: $13.70

Enhance the flavor of your favorite soup or stew with this chili-shaped herb infuser. This reusable pepper holds all of your herbs together so that you don't have to worry about having a pesky piece of green stuff between your teeth.

9. Plant-o-Gram

Price: $13.99

Flowers are great, but why not opt for the gift that keeps on giving? Long after the petals on that overpriced bouquet of roses have shriveled up, this unique air plant will still be thriving. Plus, it comes in a festive package with a personalized message of up to 100 words.

10. Spicy Honey

Price: $15.00

Serving as the perfect blend of raw honey from independent beekeepers in the Hudson Valley and specially selected chili peppers, this sweet and spicy treat is sure to delight your valentine.

11. Sushi Slippers

Price: $15.99

Nothing says I love you quite like faux fish for your feet. In all seriousness, this is the perfect gift for the sushi-lover in your life. And it's guaranteed to make them feel all warm and fuzzy ... at least from the ankle down.

12. Heart Beat Camera Strap

Price: $19.95

Help your valentine keep their camera close to heart with this unique camera strap. Embroidered with a healthy heart rate design, this strap will remind your valentine just how much you care.

13. Potato Parcels

Price: $20-$40

Does your special someone love potatoes and weird gifts? There are a few services, one being Potato Parcel, that will allow you to put a message or an image of your face on a potato and send it to someone. While the price varies based on the content printed on the potato and the distance you send it, this is sure to be a memorably weird gift.

Source: Potato Parcel

14. Star Wars Cookie Jar

Price: $24.99

Step 1: Buy the cookie jar.

Step 2: Bake cookies.

Step 3: Place cookies in the cookie jar.

That's it.

15. LED Globe-Shaped 

Price: $34.99

This awesome speaker proves that there's more than one way to gift a cool rock on Valentine's Day. Perfect for the office or the great at parties, this gadget allows you to bring your favorite tunes wherever you find yourself.

16. Red Converse Sneakers

Price: $35.00

These iconic sneakers make the perfect gift for both men and women. Not only are they comfortable and durable, but the festive pop of color will add a little somethin' somethin' to any outfit.

17. FujiFilm Mini Instant Film Camera

Price: $49.96

Give the gift of nostalgia with this instant color film camera. Simply point, shoot, and shake it like a Polaroid picture to preserve memories with your special someone.

18. Smart Water Bottle

Price: $60.00

Show your valentine how much you care by keeping them hydrated ... in a cool way. This Bluetooth water bottle from Hidrate Spark pairs with an app on your phone to track your water intake. The bottle will glow to remind you to drink more in order to hit your goal.

19. Canon Ivy Mini Photo Printer

Price: $99.99

The days of taking photos with filmed cameras and getting them developed in a dark room have come and gone. But our digital lifestyle doesn't mean we have to give up on print photography. In fact, there are a number of photo printers that allow you to connect your smartphone and print photos from your device. 

And, if you're shopping for a digital marketer, especially in the millennial generation, they probably have plenty of photos that they'd love to print out and treasure -- even after the endorphins of Instagram Likes have worn off.

20. Smart Ring

Price: $125-$195

Believe it or not, this fancy ring doubles as a really cool piece of technology. Integrated with over 80 apps on iOS and Android, users can set custom color and vibration patterns via the corresponding app to receive notifications through the ring.

Think Like a Marketer When Buying For One

As marketers, we love to create campaigns around buyer personas. We research out target prospect, what they're interested in, and create content that attempts to engage or delight them. If you're buying something for friend or loved one, think like a marketer.

Take note of their interests, hobbies, and what you have in common to determine which gifts will be the most appropriate and interesting to them.

Editor's note; This blog post was first published in February 2018, but was updated February 2021 for comprehensiveness and freshness.

20 Nerdy Valentine's Day Gifts for the Marketer in Your Life was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns