Facebook has officially started dying a Myspace death. A major drop off in usage in Australia indicates problems Facebook is having worldwide. According to news.com.au, “The data collected by social media monitoring firm Social Bakers shows about 115,000 less people are logging on to Facebook each month since the new year, with the network losing about 390,000 active users overall.”
To put these losses into perspective based on population, Australia has about 23 million people, and the USA has about 312 million. Since the US is 13.5 times larger, if the same percentage of people left the US (which I speculate they did), then 4 million dropped off over the same period.
Since Facebook has gone public, the company is now accountable to investors, which means it needs to drive revenue. To increase revenue, they must annoy users by barraging them with promotional pieces. Add that to the continual timeline updates to change the user experience and the lack of education (or public knowledge) of how to manage the content in your timeline, and people are fleeing.
The bottom line? When you have a good thing, stick with it, and make changes very slowly.
Pinterest stays strong for voyeurism, and LinkedIn is still being used for social and professional advancement. Twitter is still very popular, and some new emerging social video sites are developing. Also, keep an eye on Google+. With Google heavily promoting it and giving accounts to all of its e-mail users, Google+ may be the next outlet to shape the new social experience.
Learn from your mistakes. Or better yet, learn from the mistakes of others. Applebee’s recent series of blunders handling the controversy over firing of an employee gives us an opportunity to do just this.
1) Create a social media policy and stick to it. Applebee’s released a statement on Facebook that it fired Chelsea Welch for “violating their Guest’s right to privacy.” However, a couple of weeks before, it had posted a picture of a note from a customer that included the customer’s full name. Applebee’s took the picture down, but someone got a screenshot and posted it on Facebook. Creating a consistent policy that you communicate to staff and follow yourself on your own social media sites will help you avoid this error.
2) Remember that nothing goes away on the Internet. So, be mindful of what you post. If you change your mind like Applebee’s did, the evidence could stay out there.
3) Understand how to use the social media site before you start posting. As R.L. Stollar’s article, “Applebee’s Overnight Media Meltdown: A Photo Essay,” notes, Applebee’s explained its actions in a comment of its own status update, which quickly got buried in the onslaught of comments.
4) Follow the etiquette of the social media site. Applebee’s made people on Facebook angry – thus increasing the criticism they posted about Applebee’s – by censoring their comments and posting the same statement over and over in response to their comments.
5) Handle all criticism in a professional, unemotional manner. Possibly the worst part of the disaster occurred when Applebee’s began arguing with people on Facebook. If you ever feel like you’re about to argue with people online, stop yourself. It will only make you look worse. As Technology Editor Claire Porter notes in her article, “US Restaurant Applebee’s commits social media suicide,” Applebee’s could have avoided much of the criticism it received simply by keeping its mouth shut.
All in all, Applebee’s turned its Facebook page, which should have been an avenue for creating a positive identity with the public, into a total nightmare that will take much time and hard work to live down. As bad as this situation is for Applebee’s, at least we can learn not to make the mistakes that it did.
Establishing and operating an online business is a highly involved process that is constantly evolving. There are new sites and strategies, new trends and technologies that make the web a fierce beast when it comes to managing a business. One of the best ways to communicate with your customers is through social media, but it is important that you know what you are doing in order for this method to become effective. This social media marketing advice will make you part of the social media revolution in no time flat.
Take advantage of the profile function on Facebook. Be the first person to notice when someone posts a question or a comment on your page. Respond quickly and build up a conversation with your followers. This helps customers and friends feel that you take the extra time and care about your company.
You need to share your content whenever possible. It’s necessary that you create quality content, and then share it on multiple social networks. In order to ensure that your content is unique, you should write it yourself. If necessary, rewrite content that you have used previously, or hire someone to do the writing for you.
Holding a Facebook contest or give-away is a good way to increase traffic and interaction on your page. Prospective buyers and customers find pleasure in being given a chance to win something. Contests can get people excited to visit your site, while still learning about your product. You can also use contests to build a buzz around your newest items.
You must focus your attention on more than just profits to be successful in social media marketing. When marketing through social media, it is crucial to put a face on your brand. Interacting online will help you expand your business. This same network is later going to be responsible for supporting your business.
Facebook makes it fairly simple for followers of you to share what you post. If people comment on something you post, something shows up in that person’s feed that is view-able to their friends. Find ways to encourage the readers to interact to help gain exposure.
Until you develop you own unique style in the social media world, mimic the style of those that you admire. Look into what your competitors are doing, and copy their style until you figure out what is best for you. Look at what they are posting and analyze what they post and what specials they have.
Title your videos to your best advantage on YouTube. They are a huge part of using Youtube as a marketing tool. They need to be attention-grabbing and interesting so that users will want to play the video. If possible, include relevant keywords in your titles.
Make sure your firm’s postings are of visual interest. People won’t enjoy your blog as much if it’s made up totally of blocks of text. You can give viewers something appealing by putting in music, graphics or videos. Don’t go overboard to the point where all you have is visuals, but even out the text and the graphics.
If you’re keeping a blog for social media purposes, you have to make sure that it’s kept as active as possible. Visitors will return often if you keep it interesting with new content. This is also the truth when people subscribe to other publications. So, make sure you are consistent to encourage more returning visitors.
Utilize tools like Twellow or Tweepi that are related to Twitter. These tools help you identify users you want to target, as well as “influencers” that set the tone of interactions in your niche. You can then build a list of individuals you need to be following, in hopes that they soon start following you as well.
Before any content is posted on the site of your business, it should be approved by you or another person with clear authority in the matter. Sometimes social media pages go viral, so be careful of making mistakes. Negative publicity can sometimes have a bad effect on sales for your company.
Without being too intrusive, have regular interaction with your clientele. Comment on their blogs and social media statuses, if you think that to be appropriate. Don’t interrupt a conversation with irrelevant comments or links to your products. Only post relevant comments, and don’t mention your business unless the conversation naturally leads into it.
As you are considering diving into social media marketing, do some research on the different ways that you can advertise. You can use your time wisely by truly understanding the differences from one social media site to another. If you know which sites reach the most people in your target audience, you can use your time wisely when reaching them.
The blog-feed application can be used for showing your blog posts through your LinkedIn page. You can post an article, and it will appear as LinkedIn updated. This helps to save time while gaining your business more exposure in the blogging community.
When you get a follower on Twitter, make sure you follow them back! You are not too powerful to be friends with your followers. People always prefer a company that shows appreciation for their consumers, as it makes that company appear trustworthy and honest. To follow someone back on Twitter should be pretty simple and only requires a few seconds. This gives something back to the customer.
Use your business name to create your Facebook and Twitter accounts. This will help protect your business name from being used by someone else. Even if you’re not going to start marketing yet, secure the name now, so that no one else takes it.
Marketing using social media could be effective and fun if you use these strategies. Be certain to try all these techniques to discern the most appropriate and successful ones for your circumstances. You can easily find new customers online. However, you have to learn the newest technology to do so. Succeeding in social media can really increase your business profits!
Are you looking for effective Social media Strategy to increase the Facebook fans on your page? You can do so by organizing contests on your social media page and enhance the fans engagement eventually. Grabbing eyeballs and hooking loyal customers becomes easier by organising successful contests for social media marketing.
Tips for Organising Contests on Social media
Tip 1: Use the 3rd Party Applications
You should know the guideline of social media you are planning to use and then plan the contest for grand success
Tip2: Shell out Prizes which draw maximum attention
Brainstorming and finding the attractive prizes which catch the fancy of maximum customers or target audience is another tip.
Tip3: Simplicity is the key
Make the contest simple along with the rules, idea and implementation. This will attract more people. The contest should not be very lengthy as they do not want to spend hours solving the contest.
Tip 4: Make the contest creative and catchy
The contest should be entertaining and should excite the contestants to engross them in being part of your social media page.
Tip 5: Give the fans the power to select the Winner
This will add a zing and zest to your contest as the fans would be deciding the winner and your social media page will get a raise in the fan base.
Tip 6: Promoting the contest is vital
Make the promotions of the contest both online as well as offline. Online presence can be created using newsletters, email, blogs etc.
Social book marking is an important SEO tool that can generate valuable traffic for you. Here’s how it works-when you book mark a website, it means you like the content and have expressed a clear intention of visiting the site again. So, if your site gets bookmarked frequently, it means you have developed a loyal band of followers and regular visitors.
When your website is book marked by the Webmaster of a reputable site, then that is even more good news. To give you an analogy it’s like Oprah promoting Ellen DeGeneres in her show. It increases your credibility and exposure.
Another thing you should know is that search engines place a lot of value on social book marking. So, if your site gets bookmarked frequently, your chances of figuring out at the top of search results increase manifold.
To utilize this tool, you may consider hiring a social book marking service provider. They will bookmark your site and encourage users in their network to do the same. You can easily hire people for social bookmarking gigs through sites like Fiverr.
Another tip to excel in this technique is to maintain a constant presence in social networking sites. The higher the traffic, the more people will get to notice you. Also, keep your website updated. Nobody wants to read the same thing over and over again. Keep adding content or changing a few details on your site without really changing the essence of it.
Social book marking allows visitors and your target audience to reach your site easily. Utilize tagging so people know how to reach you once you have captured their interest.
In need of SEO help? Are the results of your search marketing campaign far below the mark? Here are two simple facts that you may be overlooking
1.Missing keywords in the Universal Resource Locator is a common practice. To jump at the keywords present in the content but ignore the Universal Resource Locator (URL) right at the top of the page. This simple yet significant step can make all the difference in a site’s search engine ratings. Also, it is common knowledge that having the keywords present in these URL fetches better viewership.
You can’t do much about this if you have already chosen your domain name, unless you are willing to shift your site to a more SEO friendly name. Your other option is to make sure that you insert the keyword you are targeting in the website’s tagline. This will help you offset some of the disadvantages of not having the keyword in your URL.
2.Lack of focus on the apt and correct keywords –Search engines are programmed to function only on the results generated by the inserted keywords. They are bereft of any intelligence stemming from language skills or any implication of the keywords. They simply filter the same words from their database and produce the results in seconds on a sequence of prioritization.
Having said that, you must make sure that you pay attention to language as well, or even top search engine rankings won’t help you retain the traffic you receive.
SEO help tips based on rock solid fundamentals of search engine marketing will help you take your business page right at the top of Google and other search engines. So, before you start working on your SEO campaign, make sure you get your basics right.
Search engine marketing is something that’s easy to get into, but difficult to master. This is because no matter how long you’ve been in the industry, each success still comes after an arduous trial and error process. However, there are secrets to SEM success, and listed below are the top two secrets to make sure you reach your goals with minimum hassle and the least amount of time.
Once you’ve picked your particular niche, make sure to check on how your competition is doing. There are hundreds of SEM-related tools like Alexa, Rankbuilder, etc that will tell you the amount of traffic a particular site is getting and how it’s doing in search engines. Some of these tools might seem like spying to you, but by knowing how well your competition is faring, you can adjust your strategies accordingly.
The second thing you have to remember about search engine marketing is that there are no definite rules. Search engines change their schematics and calculations often and if you’re ranking high on search engines today, it won’t last forever. The key is to develop a multi-pronged strategy, instead of focusing on only one rank building tool. So, if you have been doing article marketing only, its time you added social media marketing and focused backlink building to your tool kit!
Search engine marketing if done right, can truly do wonders for your business, be it brand building or expanding customer base.
Social marketing strategies have traditionally included social book marking and stumble upon is a much-recommended social bookmarking site online. The question that most social media newbie’s tend to wonder about is, how much weight does this recommendation really carry? Well, then here are a few facts that will hopefully take you a step closer to the answer you are seeking:
According to a recent survey conducted by a social media optimization firm stumble upon sent five times more traffic to their sample blogs than other social bookmarking sites.
Stumble upon is a very popular social bookmarking site, which in SEO terms means- it gets a huge amount of traffic. So, by submitting your site and blog posts to stumble upon, you get to take advantage of its huge ‘footfalls’.
The site is believed to be especially useful for businesses targeting United States web users, as a lot of its traffic comes from that geographical region.
Having said that, using stumbleupon does have its share of downsides:
One, some people find it a little complicated to use. Usually, it takes new users a while to get familiar with the site; however, this is a hurdle that can be easily overcome with a little patience.
The traffic from stumble upon is not always stable, so you can’t use it as a replacement of your search engine marketing efforts.
Social marketing is an essential element of any business’ traffic building campaign today. It is therefore important that you understand the nuances of the marketing technique.
Organic marketing is a term that may confuse some newbies. Fact, however, is that it is just another name for search engine marketing. In simple words it means marketing and promoting your website in such a way that it appears among top search engine results.
Admittedly appearing on the first page of search engine results, especially Google will not help in increasing your web traffic as well as credibility. However, there are certain downsides of organic marketing as well:
It demands steady and consistent effort. If and when you stop generating content for your organic marketing campaign, your rankings will start falling.
Yes, there are quick-fix black hatting techniques that essentially involve pulling the wool over search engines’ eyes. However, most of these techniques will not get you any long term results in the best case and may get your sited de-indexed and blacklisted in the worst case.
It is a very competitive campaigning method, so even if you appear on page 1 for or even number 1 or 2 for a week, there is no guarantee that your site will be at the same position the next week as well even if you continue to make the same amount of effort. Why? Because your competitors may be working harder than at their organic marketing campaign then you are.
So, yes organic marketing is not the perfect way to get yourself noticed, however, having said that it is still considered one of the most effective methods.
SEO help seeking newbies often wonder about content writing ideas and how to come up with the most interesting subjects to write about. If you are in same situation as well, you may find the following tips useful:
Write the name of your niche area + articles in Google and the search engine will throw up several articles that you can draw ideas and inspiration from.
Base your articles on popular keywords, no matter how competitive they are. However when it comes to optimizing the content for better search engine rankings, choose the less competitive but reasonably popular keywords.
For example, let’s say you run an herbal products business and your keyword research tells you that ‘weight loss herbs’ is the most popular keyword in your niche. Now, that should be the subject of most of your articles. However, when it comes to search engine optimizing the article, you should choose similar keywords that are less competitive, let’s say ‘herbs for weight loss”, for example.
Put a blog alert on Google using the keywords you are targeting. It will help you keep track of the new content being generated in your niche and will help you come up with ideas to write new articles.
SEO help related to content development can help you gain visibility faster. The tips listed above will hopefully help you up your game when it comes to online marketing.
If you are new to content development, then here are a few things you must keep in mind:
The heading should be attention grabbing and catchy. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to hit the back button, so you must start drawing the reader in from the very first word. Most people on the net look for tips and suggestions for something, so a heading that incorporates something like, “top tips”, “best tips” ,etc, usually works well.
You should be able to connect with the reader with your opening paragraph. This means that the person reading your article/blog must get the assurance that you understand their issue or problem and have made a genuine effort to offer them relevant information.
If the focus of content development for you is to promote a product or business, remember that subtlety is the key. People reading your articles should feel that your primary objective is to share information with them. The best way to promote your business is to embed a link to your website in your primary keyword (provided that is the keyword you want to get your business site ranked for).
Write short 3-4 line paragraphs, this will make your article easier to read. If you are writing a longer piece (500 words or more) ensure that you make frequent use of bullet points and subheads.
Content development for rookies is not difficult. All you need are decent language skills, the willingness to research for information and an awareness of basic article writing tips like the ones mentioned above.
SEO help for small businesses essentially involves the following areas:
Keyword analysis: This means choosing low or medium competition but high search volume keywords. An important point to remember though is that you should choose the keywords that your site can justify. For example, let’s say you have a plumbing business; choosing generic ‘home services’ keyword will not be the best strategy for you. The idea here is to choose keywords that your prospective customers are likely to use while searching for your business.
Content writing: Search engine rankings are largely dependent on content. SEO content, however, requires strategizing and planning. Other than using keywords appropriately in content, it is important to make sure you upload the content in the right places. The best SEO help advice here would be: create a blog section on your website and upload keyword enriched content regularly, upload articles and blogs in high PR blogs and article directories, create press releases and upload the same to document sharing sites and press release distribution websites.
Social Media Marketing: Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are the three main social networks that businesses today are concentrating on. However, in addition to that you can also market your business on smaller niche based networks. The key things to do here are: set up a business page, join groups related to your area of operation, expand your network by interacting with other members of through discussion boards.
SEO help is not difficult to find as long as you do your research well.
Focused marketing with e-mail newsletters requires strategic thinking and planning. Often people make the mistake of treating their newsletters like sales brochures and that is where their marketing strategy fails.
The main purpose of newsletters is sharing information with your subscribers. If you only write to them to promote your new products and services, you will be getting ‘unsubscribe’ requests faster than you can press the send button!
The following tips will hopefully help you maintain the balance between selling and information:
Make sure you share something relevant and new in every newsletter. This means even if the recipient decides not to buy your products/services they should be able to take something away from the newsletter.
Use soft sell techniques, instead of harping on about how great your products/services are. The best way to subtly market your product is by sharing free useful tips related to your niche area and then offering a discount coupon or a free sample while stressing on the point that the privilege is only being offered to the newsletter subscribers.
Create special deal and discount newsletters, but avoid overkill. Don’t give the same kind of discounts in two consecutive newsletters; in fact don’t even make two consecutive ones about discounts. Offer a freebie in one, focus only on tips in another and give away discounts in the third one!
Focused marketing through newsletters can get you excellent results in terms of increase in sales and building your brand value, so use the technique well!
Content development is among the top 3 online marketing needs for most small businesses. Considering that the Internet is like a treasure trove of information, everyone wants to add their own bit of info and gain leverage from it.
If you are a small business owner wondering what kind of content should you be focusing on? Well, then here are some useful suggestions for you:
Don’t fall into the trap of creating promotional content only, it puts people off. Instead, do a keyword research on one of the many free keyword tools available and find out what phrases and words do people use to look for information in your niche area. These should give you an idea of what subjects to focus on in your articles and blogs.
If you do not have the time and/or ability to create great content yourself, you may outsource it. However, remember not to get tempted by ‘half a dollar’ prices. In all probability a very low price would mean below average content.
Another important thing to keep in mind is that the content that you post online must be original. If its copied chances are that either high PR directories won’t accept it and in case they do and someone reports it later, your account may be banned.
In case you have outsourced content and want to check the authenticity of what you have received. Running it through Copyscape premium and/or Plagium deep search is a good idea. Both are paid services, but their rates are quite nominal.
Content development is not as challenging as it may seem to Internet marketing rookies. Basic knowledge of what will work and what is not acceptable, as online content will help you make the right decisions.
Marketing solutions for backlink building can get confusing thanks to the huge number of options available. What’s even more mind boggling is perhaps the huge rate difference between backlink building services. There are sites like Fiverr where you’ll find gigs for building a 1000 or more backlinks for less the $5 and then there are services that demand as much $2-3 per backlink. The question now is how do you choose?
Well, the choice will be easier once you have a clear understanding of quality backlinks.
Every website has a certain standing with search engines. Those with high page ranks are considered more authoritative. So, it isn’t the quantity that really matters but the number of backlinks that you have on these quality websites that will influence your search engine rankings.
This is not to say that quantity does not matter. The more the number of sites and blogs that link to you the better it is. However, you will get results (in terms of better ranking) if these websites enjoy high page ranks.
Backlinks on .gov and .edu sites are believed to be valuable as well.
Another important point that you must remember when it comes to backlinks is that genuine ones are always better than those embedded in spam comments. Article and blog marketing therefore are the best strategies for backlink building.
There are paid services that allow you make regular blogs to their high page rank blogs. They keep certain amount of editorial control of course, and that is more a pro than a con. Sites that are particular about the quality of the content that goes up on them are usually able to maintain their good standing among search engines.
Marketing solutions for backlink building are not that complicated, what you really need is access to objective and authentic information. Good Luck!
Marketing solutions that are both cost effective and efficient can easily be sought through professional networking sites like LinkedIn. Now, if I were to simply tell you to make a profile and send random connection requests, the advice would be quite redundant. So, here are the top tips that will help you gain the maximum leverage from LinkedIn:
Join groups relevant to your niche area and contribute positively to the discussions. This means not just posting promotional messages, but answering questions as well.
Post links to informational articles and blogs in these groups, if these are written by you even better.
The good news is that when someone enters your name on Google, in all probability it will be your Linkedin profile that will appear in the top search results. So, make sure the profile is catchy, interesting and shows your business in the best light!
As far as networking goes, it is best to approach members of the groups you have joined. Writing a personal message always helps. If nothing, at least address the person you are sending a connect invite to by their name.
Linkedin offers inter-social media networking options as well. So, it’s a good idea to connect your Linkedin profile to your Facebook profile. It will help you expand your network faster.
Request your satisfied customers and clients to give you LinkedIn recommendations. This will help you build your credibility in the market.
Marketing solutions for LinkedIn should be focused on making the best use of the professional network’s features, without coming across as too self-promotional. Good Luck!
Social marketing approach today demands quick thinking so that you can adapt to the changing market demands quickly.
Almost every business today has a Facebook page and with the site’s rules getting more stringent by the day, it is becoming increasingly difficult for small businesses to make their mark in FB’s competitive world.
In my experience the best strategy therefore is to unite with other small forces and gain leverage from each other’s network. This means it makes sense for small businesses to identify blogs/common interest sites and run promotional campaigns in partnership with them.
For example, let’s say you are a small business that markets baby products. Now the best social media approach for you would be to identify blogs that cater to young mothers and contact them to run a giveaway promotion. How does this tie in with Facebook promotion you wonder?
Well, for one the blog you partner with will publicize the giveaway on their FB fan page, this way you get visibility among their fanbase. Secondly, the giveaway will generate a buzz about your business among the blog’s regular readers. Third by giving something away for free you will be giving people a reason to spread the word about your business among their friends!
Another smart social marketing approach is to create cross-promotional discount campaigns with businesses that you are not in competition with. For example, if you run a salon for women, you may distribute discount coupons of a local shoe store and request the business owner to do the same for you through his/her social network.
Social marketing approach today is all about seeking innovative ways to reach out to bigger networks of people. Good Luck!
Focused marketing strategies for converting visitors (to your landing page) into leads or prospects are what every small business needs.
You have to look at your website as a showroom or a display rack. What you show there, will affect your sales and consequently your profits. So, your webpage should fulfill the following two purposes: Inform and Entice.
Focused marketing strategies for informing your visitors about your products include: a simple layout, an easy to navigate page, small chunks of text with hyperlinks to the next relevant page.
For example, let’s say you are in the business of selling wedding cakes. Now your web page should have pictures of your most stunning products, a simple layout and small write up about your business. Do not make the mistake of listing your prices, flavor options, testimonials, etc, all on the same page! There should be tabs or widgets on the main page that lead the visitor to relevant information pages.
The idea is to keep the visitor engaged without overwhelming him/her with too much information.
As far as enticing goes, other than relevant visual elements, the promise of freebies is a great way to convert a visitor into a prospect. For example, you could install a pop-up or an optin form through which your visitors can get access to a free newsletter about wedding planning, discount options on your products, etc, by sharing their e-mail address.
Focused marketing to make your webpage work for you are not limited to the tips here. You can get as creative as you want, just remember the two keywords: Inform and Entice!
Social marketing approach can help define your success with online marketing. It isn’t necessary to spend huge amounts on placing ads in social media networks. Of course paid advertising yields dividends, however, if you do not have the budget for it, you can still gain visibility in social media networks like Facebook by adopting a smart social marketing approach.
Creating and marketing your Facebook page is one of the simplest strategies for promoting your small business online. The good news is that several support organizations have taken the initiative to help small businesses market and promote themselves!
For example, SSB- Supporting small business is a page where small businesses can literally shout about what they are doing and offer services to other small businesses. So, the FB page effectively acts as a platform for small businesses to let potential partners and customers know about their wares.
For instance, let’s say you offer bookkeeping and VA services, you can advertise yourself for free and let other small business know how you can assist them. The page owners also take initiative by promoting different business through their posts.
The only thing that you need to do in order to put your promotional message on the page is to like it! In fact according to the recent Facebook changes, you can now also post on every page you like. So, if you have a new event or sale coming up, you can post a message on pages wherein you feel you might be able to catch your potential clients.
The advantage of posting on dedicated Small Business Support pages like SSB though is that you can be sure that your post won’t be removed (unless of course its offending) and you will be reaching an audience of active fans who post on the page and follow it regularly, as it serves their personal interest.
Another great way to get your business visibility is by joining communities related to your niche area. The biggest upside of this is that when you post in a community messages are sent out to all members, so you have a greater chance of being heard. The thing to remember here though is that most communities may not accept overtly promotional messages, unless they are dedicated to supporting small businesses.
Social marketing approach when drafted smartly can do wonders for your business’ branding! It’s all about being aware of the most cost-effective strategies.
Marketing solutions and FB applications are two subjects that a lot of small businesses have been seeking answers too. Facebook applications especially have aroused a lot of interest in the online marketing sphere. So, here’ some key info that will help you select the best ones for your business:
Notes- These are like mini blogs that can help you promote your business by sharing informative and interesting original content with your Facebook contacts.
Rate Points Reviews and Testimonials- This application allows you to display your satisfied clients/customers reviews on your Facebook page and generates a rating for your services.
Slideshare- This application allows you to share slides and presentations with your community members and fans. It’s an excellent application to make your fanpage more interactive.
Wildfire apps- These apps will help you run contests on Facebook at affordable rates. It offers multiple contest options including, quiz contests, sweepstakes, etc.
Tabsite- Through this application you can create multiple tabs on your fanpage and create a mini website.
Eventbrite- This is a great Facebook app for promoting your company’s events and other promotional activities. It also allows you distribute tickets through it.
Networked Blogs- The application will allow you to link your blog to Facebook page, thus saving you from the extra hassle of updating your page every time you update your blog.
These are just a few examples. The list of Facebook applications that small businesses can use as marketing solutions is huge! Keep track of this blog for more information on fb apps.
Marketing solutions can yield excellent results as long as you choose to employ the right strategies. Good luck!
Find marketing agency to promote your business, give them your website address and you’ll start getting traffic! If that’s what you think online marketing is all about, you couldn’t be more wrong!
Fact is that there are several marketing agencies offering all kinds of online promotion packages at rates ranging from $500 to $15,000 per month. So, your first task before you set out to find marketing agency, is to make an outline of your marketing tasks.
In order to do that you need to understand key traffic driving terms:
Backlinks- These are links to your website embedded in keywords that you want to be known for. Backlinks could be articles, blog comments and/or forum posts.
Spinning- This means creating multiple versions of a single article that you have written posting to several online directories, to generate legitimate Backlinks.
Pinging- Informing search engines that your content has been updated. Ideally, you should ping whenever a new article gets published or whenever you update your blog.
Article submitters- These are software tools that can help you submit articles to multiple directories.
Social bookmarking- This involves posting links to your webpage, articles and blogs on sites where people recommend interesting stuff to each other.
Knowing what these terms mean is essential as most marketing agencies will be charging you for these services, in addition to social media marketing, press release writing and submission, etc.
If you do not have a big budget then you need to decide which of these tasks you would be taking care of yourself and hire an agency to do the rest.
Find marketing agency and tell them exactly what you want to get the best deal. Good luck!
Marketing solutions for small businesses need to be economical yet effective. This means you need to choose the platforms for marketing your business very carefully! The good news is that in the online world, it isn’t too difficult to find a platform that caters to your niche market.
One of the key marketing solutions that can do wonders for any small business is- Giveaways! Yes just like the real world, you can create giveaway campaigns the virtual world too and what’s even better is that you can narrow down your market and target people who are most likely to respond positively to your efforts.
So, for example, if you run a business where the target customers are mothers and homemakers, you may get in touch with blogs that enjoy the readership of this group and tie up with them to organize a giveaway campaign for their readers or you may even offer discount coupons for your products and services through them. Most blogs charge anywhere between $30-50 a month for these kind of marketing solutions.
Organizing a contest through such blogs and giving away your products or services, as prizes, is also an excellent way to generate a buzz about your business. Again the cost of such contests isn’t too hard on the pocket. Facebook too is an excellent medium to organize contests. The rules are quite strict, but once you get permission, you can buy an online application and put together a one-week contest for as little as $15-20!
Marketing solutions today are all about innovation, creativity and strategizing. There are plenty of low-cost, high value options available in the virtual world; you just have to be smart enough to choose the best.
Planning and marketing to get your business noticed doesn’t necessarily require deep pockets, strategic thinking is enough!
The Internet has huge potential, but it also an intensely competitive place and getting lost in the crowd is a very real risk. However, the following planning and marketing strategies will hopefully help you draw attention and traffic:
You want Google and other search engines to know you have new content right? Then you must take proactive steps to inform them. Whenever you post a new article on the web, use a pinging tool that will send a signal to the search engines. This doesn’t guarantee immediate listing, but the chances of your content getting indexed faster become better.
Make use of social Bookmarking sites like Digg and Stumbleupon to get your blog page and articles noticed. Post links to your new content and you will improve your chances of making it to the first three pages of Google.
Join relevant social media groups and comment on forums. Make sure you embed a link to your website in your signature. Not only will this give you valuable Backlinks but will also encourage the forum visitors to check out your site.
Planning and marketing online promotional activities is all about using strategies to reach your target market. So, check out review blogs popular in your niche area and send them free samples to review your products. There are also certain paid review services, like expotv.com. doyou.co.uk, etc, that you can take advantage of.
Planning and marketing your products online can open up many new doors of opportunities for you, as long as you play your cards right.
Focused online marketing is the only way to create a clear strategy for your branding and promotion in the virtual world.
The first thing that you need to do is to divide your online marketing campaign in phases and then ask yourself, what exactly do you hope to achieve in each phase.
For instance, the first phase could be about building a presence and spreading awareness about your business, the second phase could be about gaining a better understanding of the market, in the third face your focused online marketing could be about expanding your customer base and the fourth phase could be designed to focus on customer retention and follow-up.
Once you have decided on the phase, you can move on to drafting your strategy for each stage of your focused online marketing. Blogs and article marketing are excellent tools for spreading awareness, setting up social media listening stations could help you understand the market better, organizing contests and on Facebook and other social networks can be a great customer expansion strategy and interacting with your clients and customers through social media networks, setting up a web-based support ticket features, etc, can be online marketing exercises that could help you retain your customers.
Focused online marketing is nothing but adopting a result oriented approach, wherein you choose your marketing tools and strategies based on the results you expect. This obviously works better than a haphazard approach where you include article marketing, blogging, social media and whatever other marketing tools you can think of in your strategy and expect them to help you build your brand and attract more customers in one go.
Social marketing approach has to be designed very carefully, if you want to make an impression in today’s competitive marketing scenario.
Agreed social media is cheap, has an extensive reach and can give you great results! The question is, how do you get it to work for you?
The tips below will hopefully help you develop an effective social marketing approach:
Don’t spam social media discussions with your links and promotional posts. It will put people off. Instead focus on saying something relevant and embed your link in your signature.
In case html coding is not allowed, end your post with something like, for more info, visit: your website name.
Integrating your social marketing efforts is also important. For example, let’s say your social marketing approach involves, creating blogs, forum posting, social media marketing and article marketing. Now in order to get the best results you must post links to your published blogs and articles and at the same time create social media friendly widgets like Facebook like buttons, Facebook send button, face pile, etc on your Blog page. You will find the codes of these applications by clicking on the social plugins section on Facebook.
Another important element of your social marketing approach should be to associate yourself with good causes related to your niche area, it will get you a lot of positive publicity. In case you can’t find any cause related your area of operation, consider supporting animal and environmental causes closest to your heart.
Social marketing approach can yield excellent results for your business, as long as you strategize well. Good luck!
Social media blogs are the latest and one of the most successful ways to promote a new venture. Anybody who uses the internet can start a blog but not everyone is successful in attracting loyal readers that keep coming back.
There are a few simple things you need to keep in mind if you want regular followers. First and foremost, make sure you choose interesting topics for your social media blogs. “Interesting” here is subjective, as the topics must appeal to your target market.
For example, if you run a fashion boutique, then interesting topics for you would include- fashion tips, styling mantras, body type fashion, etc. A keyword research on topics relevant to your niche area can also help you come up with the most searched subjects.
Your writing style should be according to the topic you choose. If it is a serious subject, your tone needs to reflect it, for lighter subjects, inject jokes and puns wherever appropriate. However, make sure that your tone is conversational in both the cases.
A great way to connect with you readers is to add personality to your social media blog. An impressive about me page is a good idea. This is an area where you can sell yourself and create the impression that you truly are an authority figure in your niche. Share you experiences and success stories while ensuring that you keep your tone humble and friendly.
Social media blogs can help you build a strong rapport with your target market. In the next few posts, I’ll share tips on how to integrate your blog with various social media networks.
Social media campaigns can do wonders for your business if managed well. There are professionals in the market, trained for this job and you would do well to hire such a specialist online marketing company, because if you launch a social media campaign but don’t manage it well, it could well harm your brand.
There are numerous examples where well-meaning employees have created pages on social media sites and then ignored them. If this happens your campaign will sink without a trace.
Your Social media campaign should be entrusted in the hands of someone, who can stay focused on the task. This is where a social media agency comes in. they are trained to manage every aspect of your social media campaign. All you need to do is inform them about new products or services that you are offering your clients and they will post it and follow it up on relevant social networks that suit the clientele you are looking to target.
Sounds simple and straightforward, doesn’t it? Well, it is if you choose the right agency. Here are some tips to help you with selection:
Hire only that social media consultant who has a strong presence on any social media site it claims to work with.
Look for the online presence of their previous clients. Take stock of the kind of promotions they have run and find out to what extent are they engaged with the followers of the particular brand. This is important because if you go just by the number of followers the company has, it can be misleading.
It is only when you see how much interaction is happening with the followers, will you get a true picture of the company’s ability. A large number of followers, but very little interaction stinks of statistical padding, rather than real estimation.
Social media campaign is a highly specialized genre, so when selecting an agency to manage it for you, make sure you hire one that is a dedicated social media agency. You would do well to remember that there are many kinds of online marketing and different companies specialize in different sections. You need one that will not only launch the campaign but also follow it up as well by interacting with your followers, replying to their posts and keeping them happy.
Social media is the latest and fastest growing tool of communication. Consequently, if used well, it can become an easy way to establish your brand far and wide. These are a few obvious advantages of using social media to promote your brand:
What you need to remember though is that social media can be a double edged sword. The fact that it has the potential to spread awareness about your brand very far, very quickly, means that you need to be especially careful about what you want people to know about your brand. Make sure you are consistent and focused when telling people about the brand. If you write self-serving content, it is more likely to damage you and your brand’s reputation in the long run.
Also since social media is a much more intimate medium it is more conducive to forming long lasting relationships with prospective clients. As with every other relationship, honesty is the foundation of this one as well. Thus, you must make sure that your brand comes across as genuine and real. This doesn’t mean that you have to openly advertise your business vulnerabilities, but create realistic expectations and always give your customers/clients the advice that is in their best interests.
Social media can also be used as a powerful tool to interact and network with other competitors as well as market leaders in the same field. In fact these sites can also prove to be excellent platforms for finding businesses’ for cross promotion ventures. For instance, let’s say you run a toy store, you may be able to get into a cross promotion arrangement with a company or designer who sells children’s apparels, provided both of you cater to the same client base.
Online marketing information can help you understand your market better and develop products and services that your customers and prospects want.
Social media can be your best tool for collecting online marketing information in a hassle-free and cost effective manner. All you need to do is to monitor them regularly, or to put it in SEO terms, set up social media listening stations.
How do you do that? Well, here are some simple tips:
Spend at least 10 minutes everyday reading through discussions on social media forums related to your niche area. For example, if you own a women’s wear boutique, monitor discussions on fashion, office-wear, etc, in social media communities dedicated to similar topics.
Initiate social media discussions on subjects related to your niche area in relevant communities. So, if you run a toy store, for instance, start a discussion about the most popular toys among children and write a little bit about your child’s (if you have one) favorite toy in parenting forums. This will work as an excellent strategy for collecting online marketing information.
Visit your competitors’ fan pages on Facebook or twitter account and spend at least 5-10 minutes everyday catching up on what their customers are saying. Also keep a close on social media initiatives started by your competitors as well as the most successful businesses operating in your niche area.
Online marketing information is not difficult to gather, as long as you follow the right strategies.
Social media sites that you choose for your campaign play a critical role in determining its success. Ideally, the sites that you choose must have:
An identifiable user base of members who fit into your target customer profile: This means you must study the social media sites first and check how active the communities related to your niche area are. For example, let’s say you run a home security equipments business and are wondering whether SMM on Facebook and Twitter will serve your purpose?
A good way to determine the same is to study the communities on Facebook first. Your target market is pretty vast, however, prospects most likely to get converted into customers for you would be single women, working parents and well to do homeowners. So, the best thing for you to would be to run a people’s search for these groups on Twitter and a community search on Facebook. If you notice that your target customer groups are active on these social media sites, you know you are on the right track.
In fact when it comes to social media sites, going niche is also a great idea. This means that focusing niche networks related to your area of operation are likely to get you better results. Taking the home security equipments example again, networks of working moms, parenting networks, etc, would be great platforms to promote your products that are most relevant to these groups.
Social Media sites if chosen well can truly do wonders for your business’ growth!
HTML meta tags is a phrase that you will come across often when you look for information about SEO. In fact even I mentioned them in one of the earlier posts.
Don’t let the slightly technical name scare you. HTML Meta tags or descriptions are essentially phrases that tell search engines what your page is about.
Why are they relevant? Honestly, they are not as important as they once were, but they still carry some weight in SEO. For one, Yahoo still gives them importance and second your site will fare better with html meta tags than without them. It doesn’t mean that you will magically move up on Google search engine results, but your chances of getting there will be higher.
The next question obviously is, how do you choose the perfect html meta tags? I’ll avoid the technicalities and give you one simple suggestion-create a concise keyword rich one!
For example, if you run a security firm in Baltimore, your meta tag could be: “Baltimore Locksmith Home Security Services”, thus including your main keywords, i.e. Baltimore Locksmith and Home Security Services” in the description. Remember, that the idea is not to string random keywords together, but form a phrase that is relevant to the content on the page you are describing.
HTML meta tags are helpful SEO tools and considering today’s competitive environment, it makes no sense to let go of the smallest opportunity to get an edge over the competition!
Using Social Media can get you phenomenal results, as long as you know how to gain the maximum leverage from these platforms.
Never underestimate the power of social exposure and relevance. In fact, using Social Media to market any business has become a growing trend across all industries. Imagine getting better results without having to spend on traditional marketing methods. Here are some great tips that will help you gain the most from your social media marketing campaigns:
Using Social Media to grow your business can be an excellent strategic decision that put you on the fast track for growth. Are you ready to take your big leap?
Internet Marketing Promotion Ideas Internet marketing promotion is one of the most cost-effective ways of expanding your customer base. For small businesses, especially, Internet marketing is an excellent way to establish a brand image within a limited budget. The following are two little known but effective Internet marketing promotion ideas:
Low competition Long Tail Keywords: Long tail keywords are 3-4 word phrases. These keywords work well from SEO perspective, as they are likely to get you better results. Let’s take a simple example, say you run an online fashion store and if you choose a single word like “Fashion” as your keyword, then you are likely to face a lot of competition. However, if you were to choose a long tail keyword like ‘Fashion Tips For Women’, you are likely to get better results quickly as the competition will be less. Ideally, you should choose a long tail keyword with over 1000 monthly searches.
Niche Network Marketing: There are social networks and there are niche social networks. The latter are those that are focussed on common interests, professions, geographical areas, age groups, etc. Baby-boomer, young entrepreneur, parenting, music and books based social networking sites are examples of these niche networks. They are excellent platforms for marketing as they offer entrepreneurs their target customer bases on a platter. For example, let’s say you run a small plumbing business, community based social networks in your target region would be the best platforms for you to market your services.
Internet marketing promotion ideas can help you turn around your small business. So, if you haven’t explored virtual world marketing options, it’s time you started.
Strategic Internet Marketing or Offline Advertisements? Strategic Internet Marketing is an essential tool for small businesses that are usually grappling with tight budgets and low-awareness levels.
Think about it. For any new business to get noticed, it needs to get as much exposure and visibility among its target audience. Sure, you could spend truckloads of money on a full page advertisement in the local newspaper, but it would not have as much impact as a simple low-cost Strategic Internet Marketing model would. And if tight budgets are the bane of your existence, then Strategic Internet Marketing is the only way to get your business visibility.
The first step in Strategic Internet Marketing is to create a website. Your website is the first door to your business that will allow you to showcase your products and services. Unlike what people will have you believe a basic website can actually be set up for about a $1500-2000.
Strategic Internet Marketing involves other aspects like search engine optimization, article marketing, and social media marketing. All these are cost-effective options that can produce excellent results. You can join most social media websites for free and the writing market is quite competitive, so if you are smart you can get a good article writer for less than 1/10th the price of a real world publicist.
Strategic Internet Marketing elements must be combined together in order to get due visibility for your business. For instance, if you have just opened a business of selling cupcakes online, then your strategy should include designing an appealing website, writing articles on cupcake designs and recipes, advertising online, etc.
Strategic Internet Marketing becomes very important for small-scale businesses due to their heavy reliance on the internet medium for generating awareness for their products. Given the affordability of internet marketing, whether through banner advertisements, article marketing, micro blogging, etc, most small businesses use the digital platform to drive their marketing objectives. Hence, a Strategic Internet Marketing approach is crucial to a successful internet marketing campaign.
First and foremost, create a website for your business. A website will be the official spokesperson for your business where prospective buyers can find detailed information about your company, the services you offer and your brand promise.
Second, ensure that your website content is entertaining, exciting, visually stimulating and interesting. Today, in order to break the advertising clutter, marketers need to be as creative as possible to make their content attractive and entertaining. Strategic Internet Marketing can be best achieved with top-notch content that drives engagement with the audience.
Moving on, accelerate all your search engine optimization efforts toward Google. Today more than three-fourths of all searches, especially for new products and services, are done through Google. Hence it becomes very important for small businesses to align their SEO operations to be as Google-friendly as possible.
Another popular approach to Strategic Internet Marketing is leveraging social networking websites, especially if your business is targeted toward youngsters. Today youngsters are constantly wired and perpetually connected via social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Since such websites are used primarily for information exchange and sharing of thoughts and desires, small businesses would do well to cash in on the lively traffic. Establish Strategic Internet Marketing initiatives such as creating a Facebook fan page and running contests on it for your fans. Give away freebies to encourage word-of-mouth publicity too!
Strategic Internet Marketing definitely pays great dividends in the long run. Especially for small businesses that have to contend with tighter purse-strings, Strategic Internet Marketing will give them a bigger bang for their buck.
Viral Campaigns are one of the best and most effective ways to get people talking about your brand. As the name suggests, Viral Campaigns are those marketing efforts that cause your brand message to permeate across the web audience with virus-like speed. Essentially, such marketing campaigns trigger off a ripple-effect across the web with audiences typically passing on the news to more and more people.
Since the success of Viral Campaigns relies on people’s inclination to spread the word, it goes without saying that Viral Campaigns should be interesting, unique and have superior content. If it’s eye-catching, then there are greater chances of the campaign going viral.
One of the best ways to make your Viral Campaigns attractive is by attaching a freebie or offering your audience a free gift for every time they spread the word. For instance, if you are running a campaign via email, offer customers a free cap or mug if they forward that email to 20 other people.
An easy way to achieve successful Viral Campaigns is by designing unique videos about your brand. Previously unreleased advertisements, quirky videos, humorous videos etc. spread like forest fire.
Viral Campaigns can have a self-sustaining effect on social networking platforms like facebook, twitter, linkedIn etc. Viral Campaigns can benefit greatly from the high degree of involvement and interaction on such sites.
Video SEO is fast becoming a popular and effective way to boost traffic to your website. With increased internet penetration, high-speed broadband connections, and widespread usage of smart phones, videos are now easier to stream than ever before and subsequently, a widely used vehicle in the online medium.
Search for a new product on any of the search engine giants like Google, Yahoo and Bing and more often than not, they will throw up video content for your viewing pleasure and discerning taste! Videos are now being viewed with immense fervor and the onslaught of social networking sites only makes more room for greater amplification. Without a doubt, Video SEO is the way to go for internet marketers.
There are numerous video sharing sites around, but the big daddy of them all is definitely YouTube. YouTube, with its phenomenally large viewership, allows marketers the best way to maximize Video SEO by posting unique and engaging video content. By inserting backlinks to your original website, you can ensure increased traffic onto your website. Just keep in mind that your video content must be short and crisp yet concise and interesting. Fun elements, jokes, topical humor etc. are all great ways to attract eye-balls.
Video SEO is a sure-fire way to get noticed. Videos are now increasingly easier to consume and therefore must be an integral part of the internet marketing campaign.
