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Just four years ago, I felt like you do. Social media was another language. Foreign. Frightening.
Your insecurities are natural… Will I look lame? Am I too late to the party? Will anyone care what I have to say?
Let ‘em go. Relax. Social media is a conversation. You can join any time. Join now. You’ll be welcomed.
Social media is not a trend. It’s essential. Just as your customers rely on the phone and email, they rely on social media. It’s where you connect. To believe otherwise can limit and threaten the growth of your business or career.
I intend to help you blast through the hardest part: getting started. Right here. Right now....
Here you go: the essential how to guide, no experience required.
What to do when social media is not working. Reevaluate your social media tactics with these tips to find and engage with your audience on social media.
The best part about doing business today is that this era rocks. Now is simply the best time for you to start a business – not so much because of the state of economy, or for the fantasy that almost everyone seems to have enough disposable income to buy what you have to sell.
It’s because technology is at its best right now and every entrepreneur – no matter how small the business is – can look and feel just as big as any of the business behemoths out there.
Given the quantum of information available and the incredible power of the medium that the Internet is, you’ve got to spend a lot of time just to come up with excuses for not using what you have at your disposal. If you are looking for some really awesome tools for your business, here’s a list you could bookmark:...
You have a local based brick and mortar business, so no reason to invest in online marketing, right? Location based businesses couldn’t be more wrong. Do not miss out on sales and customers by ignoring or avoiding online marketing. One of the key principles of business is to be where your target audience is looking for you. A growing number of consumers are searching online before making a purchase decision, so your business needs to be there in order for them to find you and include your company in their decision making process. According to the BIA/Kelsey report, 97% of consumers use online media before making local purchases. Google Research showed that 9 out of 10 internet searches resulted in a follow up action, such as calling or visiting the business. Mobile searches triggered an additional action or conversion 73% of the time; and 28% of mobile searches resulted in a store visit or purchase. Since mobile searches are on the rise, this behavior is only going to continue to increase.... Four takeaways for brick and mortar businesses looking to take advantage of online marketing...
In response to my post defining social selling, I realized that I needed to take a step back and define “What is a social business?” There is a lot of talk about the social business and too often it involves a discussion of social tools and channels. In this article I’ll offer my own definition as well as plenty of links to other resources you can check out for more ideas on how to help your organization transform into a social business. A social business is not a business that sends a lot of Tweets or has a ton of Facebook FB -2.01% likes. A social business is one that realizes that it operates in a more transparent and social world. And so it makes customers and employees equally as important as its shareholders and profits. tools and channels....
Traffic is the lifeline of a blog; if you don’t have it, you don’t exist. Most people rely on the mighty search engines for their traffic. But there are other ways of getting traffic to your blog by utilizing the power of social media. The role of social media sites is front and center when it comes to driving traffic to my site. The most popular ones include; Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn in descending order in terms of traffic. This means that Facebook is the biggest traffic referrer to my site, other than the search engines. But how do I really do it?...
It's time for Facebook fundamentals. Remember: The purpose of your Facebook page is not to sell stuff to people, it’s to engage them. There’s a digital divide in the small-business world—between those companies that know how to use social networks like Facebook FB +0.52% and those that don’t have a clue. If you’re on the clueless side, it’s not too late. You can learn. First, before you even begin a Facebook presence for your business, you need three things, says Ramon Ray, founder of SmallBizTechnology.com and author of The Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing. You need an appealing website, you need fresh content on your site regularly, and you need email marketing or some other mechanism to capture customer email addresses....
With a defined social media strategy in place, marketers can rock social media in 30 minutes a day. Sound too good to be true? It is actually possible if your daily use of social media is built upon a well-developed social media strategy. But, a strong social media strategy does not mean that your brand has to be on every single social media channel out there. Instead, focus on the social media channels that the majority of your customers frequent. The infographic below explains how having an over-arching social media strategy in place can save you time and make you a more effective social media strategist....
Today, the entire business community is aware of the fact that social media marketing (SMM) is a hugely rewarding way to retain existing customers.... Social Media has remarkably altered the way people connect, interact, and share information. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn are the most prominent sites where social interactions constantly take place. SMM may be defined as a method to profitably use social media to build relationships, obtain repeat business, and attract to convert prospects through friends sharing with friends. In short, SMM is word-of-mouth powered publicity leading to enlargement of customer-base. SMM means connecting with customers and prospects where they hang out online and actively participate in conversations about the topics most interesting to them. Remember, there are already ongoing conversations between your customers and prospects and it is up to you to take advantage. As a rule, people like doing business with people they know and transact business with people they trust. Though prospects are available aplenty, successfully connecting with them calls for a well-conceived and meticulously executed strategy....
There is a lot of social media sites out there, but what are the differences between these platforms and why would businesses want to use each specific one? Depending on your industry some might work better for you than others, but I believe that all businesses should be using these top social networks as much as they can. Today, people are no longer turning to the yellow pages to find the services or products you offer, but instead they are doing a quick search online. Making sure you have a positive presence in the top social media sites is important. These are my personal thoughts and opinions on the seven top social media networks (by user base) and an idea of what type of content you might see and want to use on each one....
Don’t Ignore Social as a Way to Connect... According to a May 2012 survey by Constant Contact, over three-quarters of small businesses agree on their primary goal: attracting new customers. Unfortunately, a more troubling statistic shows that many small business owners are missing out on a vital opportunity. According to a recent eMarketer post, only 32 percent of small business owners think social media marketing is an effective tool in today’s digital bazaar. This perception needs to change. For many small business owners, social media is still largely an unknown quantity. Here are a few basic reasons that businesses of every size should invest their marketing resources in social media. Five reasons social media marketing is important...
...just because you’re using social media for business, that doesn’t make you a “social business”. Far fewer companies have applied the principles of social networking throughout their business; in many cases the Facebook and Twitter presence is just a Social Façade, a marketing layer that aims to disguise that in the rest of the company it’s the same old anti-social business as usual. Of course, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with using social media as a marketing channel. But to see social solely for this purpose means missing out on much wider potential benefits. A report by McKinsey Global Institute in July 2012 claims that “while 72% of companies use social technologies in some way, very few are anywhere near to achieving the full potential benefit.”...
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Explore four major findings from research reports tracking social network trends in social media marketing and the content that works best on each.
If your company (small business) is feeling a bit skeptical about Social Media Marketing, and whether or not it’s worth the effort, then the following infographic highlights 10 reasons why it may be working better than you realise.
From apps to social media to mobile payment processing, doing business in the digital age means staying on top of new trends in technology. But with so many trends to keep track of, it’s easy for businesses to get lost in the shuffle....
Excellent case study on how a Napa Valley winery hit on a winning social media formula that pays dividends in both increased sales and brand loyalty.How can wineries use social media to increase sales when the law prohibits them from giving away product samples?Whitehall Lane, a 20-year-old Napa Valley winery run by the Leonardini family, has hit on a winning social media formula that pays dividends in both increased sales and brand loyalty....
Social media can be one of the most successful channels for B2B lead generation, but many companies still jump into a social network to have a presence for presence sake. If your company is on a social network, there must be a purpose behind being there. For B2B marketers, that purpose is most likely creating demand that will drive leads and sales. Depending on your marketplace, a focus on social demand generation could require being on just a few or a number of social media sites. Either way, you’ll have to go in with a plan to make sure each of those networks produces results. Here are six important ways your company can build a social media machine that generates leads while having some fun...
We all need to acquire new customers to make our products and businesses work. Whether there are a few users paying big bucks or thousands visiting your platform for free, how you get and retain customers is what is important. But ask yourself: are you really ready for more customers? Is your team set up to handle an influx of users? What’s your promotion strategy – inbound marketing or traditional PR? This extensive guide will walk you through what user acquisition is and how to execute a plan....
...Yes, there is a lot more to content marketing than just one campaign, but the lesson from this very simple idea is as solid as they come – it doesn’t have to be complicated, it just has to relate to your clients and give them some value. Next time you are racking your brain struggling to think about what you can write about, take a moment, look around ask the people on the front lines of your business what they think. Take the pressure off – a little creativity and fun might just solve all your problems and win the hearts of some new fans. Giving that little extra...
...First of all, I don't know any small business owners who have the time to do that (learn everything ). Second, it isn't necessary. Instead, jump in! Start now... You'll learn plenty along the way. An important note: your online marketing efforts will reflect either positively or negatively on your business. Any business owner can start marketing online now, but do take care to put out content and messages that have quality and authenticity. So, let's get down to it. Here are seven online marketing activities you can start today....
The steps and costs of integrating social media into your marketing strategy..... When people hire me to help them integrate social media into their marketing strategies, the first step is drafting a comprehensive document that lays out the following: - Target market - What terms prospects use to search for them online - Preferred social media platforms - How they’ll brand them - How they’ll drive traffic to their main website or blog - How they plan to connect with followers - A specific strategy for each network (you may post different content and have a different client base on Twitter versus LinkedIn, for instance) - What their competitors are doing on these chosen platforms...
Get tips on how to improve your social media marketing that all stem from real research and data.... ... As a professional social media scientist and part time unicorn hunter, I spend a lot of time chasing down and busting social media unicorns-and-rainbows myths and superstitions -- advice that has no basis in facts -- with real data and science. I've conducted quite a bit of research about social media marketing, and as a result, I've gotten quite a lot of insight into the tactics that do and don't work. So I decided to compile a SlideShare highlighting 20 of my favorite data-backed ways to make your inbound marketing efforts in social media more successful. Check it out, and share your favorites using the tweet links below!...
Online marketing is a necessity for any business hoping to ramp up profitability and success in the modern age. However, it can also be difficult to understand what should be done and what should be avoided. The right online marketing plan and the use of high quality solutions like WordPress templates can make a very real difference in your success. The wrong move can be very costly, though. To ensure that you’re successful, you need to follow a few industry best practices: - Focus on User Experience - Original content - Don't mix media - No spam - Go social...
Now, I don’t have the luxury of being able to delegate social media marketing duties, which is why I devised a few tricks to be effective and efficient. The first step is to not think of social media as a burden, it’s business. When you allow yourself to accept that social engagement is not optional, you will quickly find what was once a time suck is now the best use of your precious minutes. Here are four tricks I use to squeeze the most out of my precious time....
70% of mobile searches lead to action on websites within 1 hour. I especially love that last number, because it represents an incredible opportunity for marketers and business owners to capture conversions right then and there, as potential customers are searching on their phones for your brand or product. To help you, I’m going to share with you five tips you can use now in your business to take advantage of this age of mobile that we are in....
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Barry Feldman provides a really useful starting point for newcomers to social media or those needing to get reinspired.