Let Google Trends Guide

It's not always easy to stay on top of what's on top. We know you love to read The Spark 😉, but outside of our weekly update, how can you easily keep up with what's trending?

If you aren't already using Google Trends, now is a great time to try it out. This comprehensive tool allows you to see what the most popular Google searches are and compare the frequency of keywords across a location or even language. From sports and pop culture to the ongoing Ukrainian conflict, you can see exactly what’s on Google users’ minds. How often are people Googling your industry? How about your company? How about those two things together? That's right —you can compare search trends and track their relevance over time. 

Google Trends offers a reliable (and free) way to optimize your SEO strategy, find relevant topics for your next tweet, blog post, content offer, or tap into the cultural mood. According to a recent Google Trends report, search trends are indicating that people are ready to return to in-person gatherings. If you're wondering whether you should start preparing for live conferences and face-to-face client meetings, the answer could be yes!

TL;DR: If you aren’t utilizing Google Trends to inform your marketing strategy, it’s time to start! This handy (and free) tool helps busy marketers keep tabs on what’s going on, with real-time data, graphs, and more.

Lovely LinkedIn Lead-gen

When it comes to publishing resources we ❤️, LinkedIn is on a roll. Following last week’s digital marketing magazine, LinkedIn has released another guide — this time for tech marketers. How Technology Marketers Drive Leads on LinkedIn includes 19 pages of resources like helpful pointers, data-driven insights, and even a tech campaign checklist. (And these tricks can go beyond just technology marketing.)

The new guide can be extremely useful for marketers becoming familiar with LinkedIn campaigns. Its checklist includes specific elements of the LinkedIn campaign manager and tips for determining which ones will help you best reach your objective. Using campaign examples from leading brands on the platform, LinkedIn’s guide also includes these best practices for tech marketing: 

• Ask your audience: Let your customers generate leads by encouraging feedback. Peer reviews of tech solutions are the #1 resource that leads to increased trust in your brand and its services.
  
  
• Appeal to different personas: Personalize each brand interaction by diversifying your content. Various messaging approaches can help you reach multiple different sectors of your audience.

• Call out your audience: Know your audience’s weaknesses — and provide them with the solution. 43% of B2B technology customers will consider a brand if it shows an understanding of their needs.

TL;DR: LinkedIn published a new guide, How Technology Marketers Drive Leads on LinkedIn. Consider an audience-driven approach to tech marketing using the guide’s best practices.

IG Pro Tip: Give Credit Where Credit Is Due!

Instagram has launched an enhanced tagging feature to make it easier for your business to give everyone credit for their work, allowing you to tag professional accounts as contributors by adding their People Tag. This new update is "especially crucial for marginalized and underrepresented creators and collaborators whose contributions are often behind the scenes," according to Instagram.

For businesses, you can now tag all collaborators, employees, and more when you share content to your Instagram. Whether it's to shout out your vendor or tag more teammates, this new feature will help businesses everywhere shine a light on hard-working contributors, give more employee recognition and get more creators engaged in your content.

For full instructions on using enhanced tags, check out Instagram's website.

TL;DR: Instagram is rolling out enhanced tagging features to credit contributors. Consider using the new feature to recognize more collaborators. 

ICYMI