Social Media Marketing Tips to Consider

Using social media as a marketing tool is one thing that a lot of business owners don’t look at. Do not be one of these businesses! Use social media to help your business grow. Your business can seriously improve its customer base if you use social media marketing properly. This article contains some essential tips to help you to get your social media marketing campaign started.

You need to add entertaining content in order to get people to interact regularly on your Facebook page. Just check out some YouTube videos, some funny articles, links to joke sites, and other potential pieces of content. Maintain a professional demeanor while increasing the communication between your company and your customers.

It’s important that you respond to questions and comments promptly if you want to use social media marketing successfully. Take the time to look for these each time you visit your site.

To get good results from marketing through social media, create useful links that bind all your sites together. Include links if you have a blog where your consumers can see you on Twitter, YouTube and also if they want to like you at Facebook. Include links to your FB page and your blog in your Twitter profile. Link your marketing across different social media platforms for increased customer traffic.

Here are some steps to help you make the most of your campaigns in social media marketing. Focus your energy on the big sites, such as Google Plus, Facebook and Twitter. By directing all resources, you are able to develop a better marketing campaign which can lead to a more successful business.

Using social media marketing means being able to tackle each website’s specific functions. One good way might be to click on the postage time of a particular tweet. This will put the tweet on its own permalink. This is the perfect way to set up a linkage web that goes from one specific tweet, rather than the entire stream or profile.

To motivate people to share the information you post, make it easy to get even for those that are not in your target demographic. Use humor and avoid technical terms in your posts. Although your target audience may understand technical terms, your followers may not share the information with their friends if they think the information is too difficult to understand.

Look for opportunities to combine print ads with social media. Whether your print ads consist of publications, posters or flyers, you should always include a link to your social media profiles. You can also upload images of your print ad campaigns to online photo albums. Show your print campaigns online to finish the cross-promotion!

The frequency with which you update your social media status should change with the situation. If you have a new campaign or product, frequent updates will be expected by your visitors. If you find yourself struggling to find new content to post, you may want to think about decreasing how often you update your status.

If you use these tips from this article you can find a way to market your business so you can crush the opponents. Keep your content fresh, current and updated, and continue to develop your marketing strategy over time.

Do you need a new way to stay in touch with your audience? Many options for reaching potential customers exist, though they all have specific costs and negative aspects. Social media allows businesses to reach many people at once. This article will help you establish some of the important ideas and routines needed to accomplish that goal.

Regularly review the sites in your niche that get the most visitors. Study them to get ideas for your own social media pages. What kind of updates do they share? What sort of page layout do they use? Do they have apps? These pages can serve as a base for designing a page that uses the most successful strategies for your niche, but still differentiates your brand from everything else out there.

To entice consumers into reading what you have to say, come up with a catchy headline. You should ask a question they may be interested in. Choose words that grab readers’ attention and make strong statements. For example, why say your products are “good” when you know that they’re “fantastic”? The more curious people are, the more likely they are to read what you’ve shared instead of passing it over.

Educate yourself on social networking itself. Maybe you are already familiar with Facebook, but it is best to know that marketing through a social media site is a lot different than just chatting up your friends. Take the time to learn what has worked for other professionals.

You can also add a review area to your site and post it to your Facebook profile. That will let visitors write reviews to share. You will be able to edit these reviews and remove the ones you do not like. You might even organize an event, such as a contest, to increase your number of reviews.

To attract lots of visitors to your social media page, make sure your content is always fresh and interesting. Write instructions on how to complete a task that many people frequently struggle with. Write honest reviews of other company’s products. Quality content will be shared across social media, so make sure yours is top notch!

Do not begin marketing on social networking sites until you come up with a plan. What kind of layout do you want? Who is going to manage your page? Like other marketing campaign, create a timeline to accomplish any goals. If you adhere as closely as possible to your plan, your social media marketing efforts will be successful.

If you own a small business always represent yourself with social media. Auto-responders can frustrate your clients and harm your social media presence. They can send messages which look like spam, irritating followers and hurting your company.

Start using social media marketing methods to promote your business. You can use social media to reach a whole new audience and improve your bottom line. The business owner is still responsible when it comes to supplying quality products and services, but the tips provided can help you create a great company.

connections

Many potential customers log in and spend many hours each day on social networking websites. People rarely spend a day without logging onto favorite social media websites. How is it that you can make use of the potential audience there? The advice from this article will help you learn what to do.

By using their cell phones, Facebook Places lets the users check in to the places they go. Offer your customers a discount or freebie for mentioning your social media profile to the cashier. Foursquare is another popular networking site that can help you to promote your business.

Devise a plan before attacking social media marketing. Figure out who will manage the pages, what type of layout you want, and how much time you would like to invest into it. Give yourself a timeline as you would with any other campaign. Always follow the plan as closely as possible and you will win with SMM.

Your social media marketing efforts will be more successful with judicious use of advertisements. Position the ads and images in a place that is readily visible to site visitors. If the ad isn’t in a good location, most users will pass it over, and you will not get much of a boost in sales as a result.

Read up on social networking so you become knowledgeable about the topic. Perhaps you already have a Facebook profile, but you should always remember that using social media professionally is different than using these sites to talk to your friends. You can locate many helpful tools all over the Internet, as well as many people that are happy to help out.

Social media is a great way to draw in new customers. Inform them of any new discounts, sales, or locations you have coming up. Put printable coupons on your Facebook page to lure your Facebook friends into your stores. Give people a reason to believe that becoming your friend on Facebook will be a good thing for them.

Always choose your words wisely and be careful what you say on any of your social media pages. All the things that you say can have an impact on your business. Therefore, never speak ill of other people or businesses because this could come back to bite you.

In order to get the most out of marketing through social media sites, a good grasp of the functions and operations of each website is vital. A good example is clicking on a tweet’s postage time, which thus isolates that tweet into an individual permalink. This is useful if you want to direct users to a specific content item, rather than your social media profile in general.

Merge the world of email marketing and social media. Add social media buttons to your emails. Say that customers should contact you there if they have questions they want you to answer personally. You could also encourage people to join your newsletter by posting a link to the registration page for instance.

Daily users of social media may become daily visitors to your sites as well. These suggestions will help you to get the most from your social media marketing efforts. Your traffic will increase, and your content will be seen when you use social media as a marketing tool.

187440476If you’ve ever wondered how you could attract people to your business via the Internet, then you may have wondered about using social media marketing. Where other plans would result in your company failing if they failed, SMM is inexpensive and any mistakes are fixable. Often, you’ll simply receive feedback and you can approach things better every time you do them. By using the information presented here, you will surely see a surge in traffic to your website.

If you are a home business or small business owner, do not try to create a stand-in for yourself on social media pages. Auto-reply software can have negative repercussions that can damage the credibility of your social media web pages and your business itself. Auto responders will often send out messages believed to be spam. As a result, your followers will quickly drop you.

Always proofread your tweets and Facebook posts before you hit that post button. Proofread content gives your work an air of professionalism. Though some Twitter abbreviations are fine, remain cautious when using them. Go out of your way to publish content that reflects well on your business.

Always test and tweak your content before you make it accessible to the general public. Even after your launch, it is a good idea to run tests elsewhere until you have reached the desired effect. This is a good way to ensure that everything you post will enhance your image and further your business plan.

You will find that you can learn a lot by interacting with social media sites you are on and their communities. Your followers aren’t just there to be marketed to, they’re also available to give you something back. Learn about them, explore their habits, and understand their preferences and dislikes. This will help you to gain a greater understanding of people and teach you the basics of connecting with them.

You should always post often to Twitter so your followers can always have updated, and not buried, information from you. Twitter is all about volume. You need to make a lot of high quality posts to get seen. With the short posts on Twitter, you can definitely get multiple tweets from a single event.

The titles you come up with for your Youtube videos can attract more followers. Believe it or not, titles are very important for marketing. The title needs to draw someone in, prompting them to play the video. You can also add in a keyword to make the video even more relevant.

You can enhance the effectiveness of your social media promotions by encouraging your potential buyers to take part in a photo contest involving your company’s brand. Let your followers know that you’ll give a good prize to whoever offers the coolest picture featuring your brand. When your customers upload photos of your products on social media, their friends may see the photos and become interested in your company.

After you have taken the time to polish your social media marketing skills you should have an easy time figuring out how to market forever. If you post your content you are publishing media your visitors will see. Continue to watch and grow, refining your profit-making efforts.

How to create a sitemap

166150527A sitemap of a website is similar to the table of contents of a book. Sitemaps are important because it guides web surfers to the particular part of the website they have a point of interest in. With it they would save time following links and get right to the point instead.

Sitemaps are also where search engines look at if somebody is looking for a particular keyword or phrase. If you have a site map, you can most likely be searched.

Creating a sitemap, now with software technology surging in, is relatively easier than before. You need not be a programming guru to be one. All need is a notepad, a program editor, and some patience. Here’s how you do it:

Create the listing on a notepad.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be a notepad. Any word processing program will do. First off, make sure to type in all the parts and pieces of your website. Include all pages and all links you have. Create it as if you listing the contents of your book. Make a draft first. You’re sure no to miss something out this way.

Create a new page for your sitemap.
You can insert the sitemap on your website on one of its pages or you can create an entirely different page for it. Using your notepad, incorporate all tags necessary to it to make another webpage. Open up your website creator program and tag your sitemap using it. If you have created your website on your own, this will be easy for you.

Create a link for the sitemap.
You won’t be able to view the sitemap if you won’t put a link for it, of course. Create the link on the front page of your website so that visitors can view it right away and be directed appropriately.

Check your work.
It is important to validate the functionality of the links you created on the sitemap. Test each and every one in there and if you get an error, be sure to fix it accurately. Run through every single page to make sure that all are accounted for.

Upload your work.
Place the sitemap now on your live browser and double check it. It should function as smoothly as the dry run. Error should be minimal at this stage since you already have verified it locally.

The steps provided herewith is the manual way of creating a sitemap. These days, if you search hard enough on the web, you will find online programs that will do all these work for you. All you have to do it type in the URL or the link of your website and they will create the sitemap with click of a button.

Of course that method is generic. All of you who have created their sitemap that way will have an end product that is all the same, plus there’s that possibility that something else will be inserted in there too. Then again, the process is less taxing and way, way simpler.

But if you want a more personalized output, and you are pretty good with computers and programming yourself, better make one of your own. And since you made your website anyway, creating sitemap is just like creating any other page on the website. Other than you’ll know for sure the links are accurate, you can organize the links the way you prefer it to be. Major parts of the site are emphasized compared to less significant. This is important especially if you are selling products or offering services online.

Sitemap is vital to a website. People search the web a lot for something. If your website has what that particular person is looking for, and your sitemap reports it, then you have a new customer looking at your items. Not only that, they will see some other things up for sale that they might be interested in as well.

Sitemaps, be it generated by a program automatically or you made it yourself, presents the same purpose. That is to lead your visitors to where they’re likely headed, and for you to be seen on the World Wide Web through search spiders. So with these, make sure your website has a sitemap of its own, lest make one.

WebDevMarketers in 2015 will have a record-high number of technologies, channels, and tactics to choose from. The first step toward a solid strategy is finding focus amid the noise and increasing chatter, whether that noise is coming from a social network claiming to own the most valuable audience or a declaration that the one executive is now the chief officer of something new.  There is an ever-increasing number of responsibilities and strategies based on the new technologies and platforms.   Marketers must keep a strict focus on the metrics that matter to their business.  Revenue growth was the number-one metric for surveyed marketers.

Revenue growth will continue be the primary metric that marketers use in 2015 to qunatify success, while customer satisfaction is a close second: 30% of marketers say that customer satisfaction is one of their top metrics. The third most important metric was a tie between ROI, customer retention
rates, and customer acquisition, demonstrating that 2015 focus will largely center on attracting customers and engaging them long-term.

With so many technologies demanding substantial time and effort, marketers must evaluate which tools will be most effective for their unique business goals. There is a long list of potential channels and strategies to invest in and a longer list of marketers who currently use them. .

There’s about to be a mad rush among e-commerce merchants to remove social sharing icons from product pages.

A new study from website conversion and testing platform Visual Website Optimizer (VWO) on Finnish e-commerce retailer Taloon.com found that by removing social sharing buttons from its product pages, the retailer experienced an 11.9 percent higher conversion rate over pages that contained them. That got your attention, didn’t it?

Taloon’s Jani Uusi-Pantti ran an A/B test for one week to answer whether the presence of social sharing icons had any impact on the main call to action before implementing the change on the website. The answer seems to be a resounding “definitely.”

This really flies in the face of most of the social media research available today. For example, most marketers believe social sharing is effective in fostering and supporting conversations with consumers, and nearly everyone is on these social media sites, right? So what was the problem? Why did Taloon’s social sharing buttons provide such a poor result?

VWO and Taloon proffered a few possible reasons the sharing buttons might have had a negative impact, including a general distraction from the main goal as well as negative social proof (most of the product pages had no shares).

Does this convince you to remove the social sharing buttons on your website?

 

179693002Since its inception, Facebook has seen unprecedented growth. Today Facebook is the largest online community with over 1.3 billion users. Did you know that 67% of the US Internet users are on Facebook? 66% of all sharing on iPhones actually takes place on Facebook.

Here are some major changes on Facebook in 2014:

Facebook started premium video ads back in March 2014 and in April, Facebook introduced a business manager tool which is designed for marketing agencies. Facebook pages also caught simpler and in June launched a layout which is a simple one column layout. Videos started to autoplay in September and video count was also introduced. In December 2014, Facebook added a call to action button for all pages. By the end of 2014, Facebook put an end to “Like-Gating” which by the way was the most used shortcut to gain likes on Facebook.

So what should you be concentrating on this year?

To be successful and reach her audience on Facebook, you will really have to consider paid ads. Custom audiences and look-alike audiences will be a major tool for targeting optimization. Major brands will rely on re-marketing or re-targeting to follow customers in the purchase decision. Mobile payments and e-commerce will finally arrive on Facebook in a major way. You need to be ready.

So if you need to have a better understanding on how Facebook can be a part in your online marketing strategy, give us a call at  416 – 7 81 –  3006.

 

187440476How many times have you caught yourself saying that there could be no other solution to a problem – and that that problem leads to a dead end? How many times have you felt stumped knowing that the problem laying before you is one you cannot solve. No leads. No options. No solutions.

Did it feel like you had exhausted all possible options and yet are still before the mountain – large, unconquerable, and impregnable? When encountering such enormous problems, you may feel like you’re hammering against a steel mountain. The pressure of having to solve such a problem may be overwhelming.

But rejoice! There might be some hope yet!

With some creative problem-solving techniques you may be able to look at your problem in a different light. And that light might just be the end of the tunnel that leads to possible solutions.

First of all, in the light of creative problem-solving, you must be open-minded to the fact that there may be more than just one solution to the problem. And, you must be open to the fact that there may be solutions to problems you thought were unsolvable.

Now, with this optimistic mindset, we can try to be a little bit more creative in solving our problems.

Number one; maybe the reason we cannot solve our problems is that we have not really taken a hard look at what the problem is. Here, trying to understanding the problem and having a concrete understanding of its workings is integral solving the problem. If you know how it works, what the problem is, then you have a better foundation towards solving the problem.

Not trying to make the simple statement of what problem is. Try to identify the participating entities and what their relationships with one another are. Take note of the things you stand to gain any stand to lose from the current problem. Now you have a simple statement of what the problem is.

Number two; try to take note of all of the constraints and assumptions you have the words of problem. Sometimes it is these assumptions that obstruct our view of possible solutions. You have to identify which assumptions are valid, in which assumptions need to be addressed.

Number three; try to solve the problem by parts. Solve it going from general view towards the more detailed parts of the problem. This is called the top-down approach. Write down the question, and then come up with a one-sentence solution to that from them. The solution should be a general statement of what will solve the problem. From here you can develop the solution further, and increase its complexity little by little.

Number four; although it helps to have critical thinking aboard as you solve a problem, you must also keep a creative, analytical voice at the back of your head. When someone comes up with a prospective solution, tried to think how you could make that solution work. Try to be creative. At the same time, look for chinks in the armor of that solution.

Number five; it pays to remember that there may be more than just one solution being developed at one time. Try to keep track of all the solutions and their developments. Remember, there may be more than just one solution to the problem.

Number six; remember that old adage,” two heads are better than one.” That one is truer than it sounds. Always be open to new ideas. You can only benefit from listening to all the ideas each person has. This is especially true when the person you’re talking to has had experience solving problems similar to yours.

You don’t have to be a gung-ho, solo hero to solve the problem. If you can organize collective thought on the subject, it would be much better.

Number seven; be patient. As long as you persevere, there is always a chance that a solution will present itself. Remember that no one was able to create an invention the first time around.

Creative thinking exercises can also help you in your quest be a more creative problems solver.

Here is one example.

Take a piece of paper and write any word that comes to mind at the center. Now look at that word then write the first two words that come to your mind. This can go on until you can build a tree of related words. This helps you build analogical skills, and fortify your creative processes.

So, next time you see a problem you think you can not solve, think again. The solution might just be staring you right in the face. All it takes is just a little creative thinking, some planning, and a whole lot of work.

WebDevSetting up a website is the very first step of an Internet marketing campaign, and the success or failure of your site depends greatly on how specifically you have defined your website goals. If you don’t know what you want your site to accomplish, it will most likely fail to accomplish anything. Without goals to guide you in developing and monitoring your website, all your site will be is an online announcement that you are in business.

If you expect your site to stimulate some form of action, whether it is visitors filling out a form so arepresentative can contact them, or purchasing a product, there are steps you can take to insure that your website is functioning at peak efficiency. One of the first indicators of how well your site is working for you is finding out the number of visitors in a given period of time. A good baseline measurement is a month in which you haven’t been doing any unusual offline promotional activities.

However, just because hoards of people have passed through your gates does not mean your site is successful. Usually, you want those visitors to actually do something there. It is equally important to monitor the number of visitors to your site who made a purchase. This figure is called the site conversion rate, and it is an essential element of the efficacy of your website.

To find the site conversion rate, take the number of visitors per month and figure out the percentage of them that actually performed the action your site is set up for. For example, if you had 2,000 hits to your site, but only 25 of them purchased your product, your site conversion rate equals 1.25%. To get this figure, take your number of visitors and divide that figure by the number of visitors who made a purchase. Then divide that result by 100 (25 ?00 X 100). If your website is set-up to get visitors to fill out a form, make sure to then figure out what the difference is between your site conversion rate and your sales conversion rate. This is because not everyone who fills out your form will actually become your customer. However, whether your site is set-up to sell a service or product, or to get the visitor to fill out a form, the site conversion rate will measure the success or failure of your website whenever you make changes to the site.

You may find that you need to implement some additional marketing strategies if you find that traffic to your site is extremely low. There are several effective methods to improve the flow of traffic to your website, particularly launching a search engine optimization campaign. This campaign is targeted at increasing your position in search engine results so that consumers can find your pages faster and easier. You can either research the steps you need to take to improve your search engine rankings, or employ a search engine optimization company to do the work for you. In either case, after your have improved your search engine positions, make sure you keep on top of them by regular monitoring and adjusting of your efforts to maintain high positions.

Another factor to examine is how easy it is for a visitor to your website to accomplish the action the site is set-up for. For example, if your goal is for the visitor to fill out a form, is this form easily accessible, or does the visitor have to go through four levels to get to it? If it’s too difficult to get to, the customer may just throw in the towel and move on to another site. Make sure your buttons are highly visible, and the path to your form or ordering page quickly accessible.

Finally, have a professional evaluate the copy on your website. The goal is, of course, to get your visitor to make a purchase or fill out your form. Website copy must be specifically geared to your online campaign and not just a cut and paste job from your company brochure. The right copy can make the difference between profit and loss in your online campaign.