Businesses everywhere are finding new opportunities to engage with consumers through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest. It’s known that Twitter gets about 460,000 users to sign up per day, and Facebook is expected to reach 1 billion users by August, so it’s easy for businesses to realize that each and every one of these users have the potential to be a customer.

But social media marketing is more than just making an account and adding friends and followers. It is critical to have a well-established strategy and to do your research so you can develop the best social media plan for your company.

Follow these tips before you hit the social media highway

1. Have A Plan

Too often Facebook becomes littered with inactive company pages. These pages are the result of marketers making a company page without a goal in mind.

It’s important to understand your objectives. State what it is you want to accomplish. This might be to create brand awareness, to provide a platform for consumers to give input and ask questions, or to build customer loyalty with promotions and specials.

Also, you’ll want to make a plan for measuring your ROI. It’s very helpful to be able to tell if your efforts are paying off. If your efforts aren’t getting results, then you can have a plan set to help you modify your marketing tactics.

It’s also wise to know you’re target audience. Define the demographics of who would be most interested in your products and services so you can send your brand message to those specific people.

Finally, make sure you have the time necessary to run your social media marketing plan. If you can’t make the time needed for your social media marketing, your attempts will not get very far. Consider hiring someone to help you so you can have the time to make a successful social media marketing campaign.

2. Keep It Simple

After you’ve got a basic plan set up, don’t go overboard and try to join every social network site out there. That will only end up fragmenting your efforts. What you should do is focus on creating one or two accounts on social media sites and grow your audience there.

3. Don’t Spam

With social media, it can be tempting to start promoting your products and services like crazy, but advertising should not be the main focus of social media marketing. Facebook users don’t go on the site to just look for something to purchase, so make sure you’re engaging with followers and fans on a level beyond advertising and promoting.

4. Communicate

Silence is not golden in the social media world. Communication is a must for any business, especially social media marketing. If you are not able to maintain ongoing communication with your customers, you will lose the value of having a social media presence. So be “social” and make contacts and boost your reputation.

5. Build Your Fan Base

It’s easy to gain customers by building your fan base. If you communicate well through your social media sites, your fan base will grow, and the potential for more customers will grow as well. Be sure to post interesting and unique information often, and follow people who are relevant to your brand, and they might just follow you back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Twitter is one of the most important sites to use in any Internet marketing campaign. To strengthen your Internet marketing, it is crucial to understand the latest and greatest strategies to use in your marketing campaigns, especially those that work for Twitter. To stay ahead of the Internet marketing game, use these tips on your Twitter account regularly.

1. Focus On What’s Important

A major problem social media marketers might run into is not being focused and precise. You must keep in mind that your followers like your brand and want to read your updates because they are in your target market and are interested in the topics you tweet about.

Don’t tweet mindlessly; tweet about the things you know your consumers are interested in and the things that complement what your brand represents. Having targeted, precise tweets will keep your brand focused on reaching those who are most interested in what you have to offer.

2. Be A Professional

On Twitter, being able to write snappy headlines is key. You only get 140 characters to tweet, so it better be meaningful and interesting in order to excite followers. Your content should be quality and attention grabbing, so that traffic to your site will continue to grow.

Don’t worry about how many followers you have. It’s better to have a fewer number of followers that are followers who are clearly in your target market. Your tweets should address those real customers who enjoy visiting your site and are likely to retweet your posts, which will then lead to new consumers who also share the same interests.

3. Communicate With Your Followers

Remember, Twitter is a SOCIAL media; therefore you must be social for it to work for your company. Twitter is about connecting, sharing and communicating. If you interact with your followers, you will get to know them better and as a result, you will be able to create tweets that you know your followers will be interested in and appreciate.

Start commenting and asking questions to your followers about things that are relevant to your brand, and that you know they’re interested in. Then take it a step further and try interacting with your followers’ followers as well, so you give your brand more exposure to others who could become potential customers.

These tips are easy ways to help make the most out of your Twitter account. They must be part of your Internet marketing campaign in order to see results. Twitter is hugely important in increasing traffic, so use it efficiently and your campaign will be successful!

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s now a well-known fact that online marketing is an important part of any business plan. Online marketing offers a wide variety of tools and tactics to use in order to expand your business and connect with new consumers. While managing all of the various aspects of online marketing can be difficult, it’s a responsibility that must be handled carefully in order to see results!

With that said, take a look at these five major online marketing mistakes and steer clear of them so you can carry out successful marketing practices!

1. Not Optimizing Your Landing Page For Conversions

A major goal of online marketing is to get people to land on a specific page on their website. However, even with all their efforts to direct people to that page, the business may be missing out on a lot of prospective consumers if it is not optimized for conversions.

Think about making your contact information prominently displayed at the top of your page, or make sure that there’s a clear call to action that will direct visitors to do want you’d like them do to, such as call your business or fill out an informational form. Also, you should have the most important information clearly made available at the top of your website, so visitors don’t have to scroll down or spend time searching for what they’re looking for.

2. Not Targeting Your Online Marketing Locally

Small businesses tend to be made up of mainly local customers. Therefore, if you are investing in online marketing without targeting it locally, you’ll end up paying more to target national keywords and ultimately miss out on reaching customers who are searching for local business.

If you locally target with your online marketing strategy, you’ll see a greater ROI and be able to reach those consumers who are looking for local businesses more effectively.

3. Failing To Train Staff On Lead Handling

A major mistake many businesses make in their marketing efforts is focusing mostly on the front end of the marketing funnel. As a result, they miss out on the most vital component of the marketing process: deciding what happens to a lead after they show an interest in your business.

A costly element in marketing is figuring out how your staff handles the leads you get. Keep in mind that every lead counts! After all, you are investing a lot into generating leads, so you should properly train your staff on how they should respond to a consumer request and how they should answer phone calls.

4. Neglecting to Track Your Online Advertising

The main benefit of online advertising is the ability to track it! You should be tracking the clicks you get to your landing page or website, and also monitoring what happens after the click. Look at whether customers respond by calling, filling out a form, or leaving your page after they’ve clicked. There are lots of great online marketing tools that allow you to track this and more so you are able to see how effective your campaigns are and optimize them based on what seems to be working the best.

5. Not Claiming Your Google Place Page

A Google Place Page is a great tool that allows your business to show up in desktop and mobile searches to local customers searching for a business. For no charge at all, you can claim your Google Place Page so you have better control over what gets listed about your business. You will also get a valuable space on Google for important business keywords in organic searches.

While there are other mistakes that can be made with online marketing, by making sure your online marketing efforts don’t commit any of these five online marketing sins, your business will nail some of the most important concepts of online marketing!

 

 

 

Lots of companies today are putting in a lot of time and effort to create their business’s social media platforms. They are creating engaging campaigns, producing quality content and making a true effort to communicate with consumers.

But, after creating a strong social media presence, you MUST have an equally strong website that is easy for consumers to navigate otherwise all your social effort could be lost. Consumers who are initially interested in your brand after engaging in your social media platforms will be turned-off by your brand if your website rubs them the wrong way.

Too many companies get too focused on elaborate web design, and in the end their website can end up being too flashy, hard to navigate and confusing. Try to avoid these issues by creating a simple design strategy to compliment your social media efforts.

One of the major mistakes when designing websites is that there is no distinct call to action. Before making your site, ask yourself, What do you want consumers to do once they come to your site? Do you want them to contact you? Buy from you? Ask for more information? After you address these questions, then you have a set purpose in mind and you can design your website around that purpose to get the results you want.

Another mistake is confusing navigation. You do not want your potential consumers to arrive at your site and end up wasting time trying to find what they’re looking for. You want your site to be easy for users to navigate. Design it so that they are able to conveniently go back and forth from their location. Set up your site as if it’s a department store: you want clear signs shown obviously so users can see exactly where it is they want to go.

Additionally, you want to try out different browsers before settling on one. You might find a browser that looks great in Internet Explorer, but consider how it will look in other applications like Safari or Chrome. Before choosing your website design, test it out in a variety of different browsers so it is appealing to users no matter what application they’re utilizing.

Poor readability is another common issue with website design. Green and orange may be your company’s colors, but they might not read so well on the Internet. Make sure your visitors are able to read the text on your site by avoiding clashing colors. Also make sure that the size of the text is not too big or too small. If you have text that’s placed over images, check that the text is still readable.

The final mistake made when designing websites is enabling too much Flash. Websites that highlight important information with Flash elements are likely to run into several issues. One of these issues is that the design ends up being harder to read. Flash elements also slow down the load time of your site and consumers might end up leaving the site before it’s fully loaded. It’s also important to know that Flash is not good for SEO. Anything in Flash will not be indexed in search engines.

By avoiding these common web design mistakes, consumers enticed by your company’s social media will be more likely to stay interested in your brand by creating a well though out website. A simply designed website will be attractive to consumers and traffic to your site will ultimately increase!

 

 

 

 

New research from the National Restaurant Association found that restaurants are increasingly using online and email marketing to give customers personalized offers. This electronic use of marketing channels has been proven to complement traditional marketing techniques, resulting in a hugely successful marketing mix.

The daily deal site, LivingSocial funded this research, which evaluated current practices in the marketing world used by restaurant operators and the consumer perceptions of a variety of marketing tools.

According to Chief Marketing and Communications Officer of the National Restaurant Association, James Balda, “Finding the right marketing mix is crucial to success in the restaurant industry. Our new research outlines the challenges and opportunities o both offline and online marketing to help restaurant operators find the ‘sweet spot’ for promotions by identifying what consumers respond to and how various messaging vehicles are perceived.”

Some of the major findings from this research include:

-Restaurants using online marketing tools tend to be viewed as more popular and modern to consumers. In return, restaurant operators feel that websites, TV ads, social media, emails, and daily deals to be very effective in gaining new consumers.

-Restaurant operators and consumers agree that savings provided through customized messages are very important for business.

-95% of restaurant operators find savings offers to be a crucial marketing tool.

-78% of restaurant operators perceive daily deals as an effective way to increase revenue for their restaurants. And 69% of customers claimed that emails from daily deal providers motivate them to check out that featured restaurant from that daily deal.

-40% of restaurant operators claimed they plan to partner with a daily deal provider within the next year.

-87% of consumers would order from or go to a restaurant if given a savings offer.

-Consumers are likely to go to a restaurant if they received personalized marketing messages that referenced previous restaurant patronage, permitted reservations, and identified them by name.

-84% of restaurant operators feel that restaurant-specific marketing emails are an effective way to increase revenue for their restaurant, and 78% of consumers feel that an email from a restaurant would entice them to go to that restaurant.

-Online marketing can boost a restaurant’s brand image and bring in new customers.

With this interesting information, it is clear that the use of LivingSocial and other daily deal sites, or simple email offers, may be a great way for your business to take online marketing to the next level and see an increase in revenue and customers!

 

 

 

 

 

Hubspot, an inbound marketing company based in Boston, has developed a comprehensive suite of marketing automation software tools to assist companies in managing their online marketing efforts efficiently.

Hubspot provides an all-in-one solution to connect your business to prospective consumers who may be interested in your product or service, helps drive leads, and ultimately increases sales. By creating multiple tools to integrate your online marketing with your social media, Hubspot is making company’s online experience easier than ever.

The helpful analytic tools that Hubspot provides users with lets companies measure the results of their online marketing AND social media marketing-one of the unique benefits to Hubspot.

Many businesses are new to social media and are just starting to realize the importance of the tool in online marketing. And because social media is a digital medium, it is very easily measurable.

There are several major marketing analytic tools to use on your social media accounts. Important analytics include measuring your social media reach, how your audience views your brand, how much traffic your social media is driving, as well as the number of sales and leads your traffic is generating.

You can use Hubspot to measure these important metrics so you can effectively measure your social media marketing efforts.

1. Social Media Reach

The larger your social media audience, the greater your social media reach. That is why it’s critical to track the number of people on your social media channels who are engaging with your brand. If your company has a broad social reach, you will be able to pump up your brand’s content and messaging.

You can measure all the various interactions among all your social media channels with Hubspot’s software, from your YouTube video views, to you’re your Facebook “Likes” and blog comments. Then, this data is integrated into real-time graphs that you can download into Excel.

You will find how to modify your content in order to reach your target audience by analyzing your social media reach.

2. Social Media Traffic

One of the main reasons companies use social media marketing is to drive traffic to their website. This leads to generating more visitors, leads and sales.

 

You can track the percentage of visitors to your sites that come from your social media channels with Hubspot’s software, which records the referring sources within your web analytics platform.

3. Social Media Conversions

Conversion is the ultimate goal of social media. Hubspot’s platform lets you analyze the percentage of visitors from your social media sites that convert to leads and sales. This tool is completely necessary when measuring your social media’s overall value.

Track visitor-to-customer, visitor-to-lead, and lead-to-customer conversion rates across all of your social media platforms then compare it to your conversion metrics from your other marketing channels. This allows you to accurately measure your social media ROI. Give Hubspot a try and if its analytic program is right for your business!

 

 

 

 

 

Human-to-human contact is original social marketing. When it comes to marketing, this is one of the most important connections to make. However, human-to-human contact through social media is not a one step process. Making connections with your consumers can take time and money.

Luckily, social media, email marketing and PR are great resources to use for businesses trying to humanize their company and connect personally with their consumers to increase engagement.

Here are six digital marketing tools to start using today to make real, valuable connections with customers.

1. Blogging

Blogging is not a one-way communication tool. Blog posts should create new conversations and debates which will assist in discovering the next “hot lead” to tackle. In addition to being a great resource for social media and email marketing, blogs are the perfect SEO tool. Blogs can also be used to increase social media engagement and drive email by adding subscription forms, as well as social media buttons to every page.

2. Live Events

While events can be a very expensive way to market to current and potential consumers, there is no doubt that the live environment of an exciting event creates lots of buzz around a brand. Some ways to lower the cost of hosting an event could be to run it at a local library, college or university. These types of venues offer facilities that are similar in resemblance to traditional venues, such as hotels, which are much more pricey.

3. Webinars

Webinars can be a great solution when trying to reach a large amount of prospects without even having to leave the office. Webinars are an opportunity for potential consumers to listen in and learn from others’ questions. Push your attendees to discuss your business’s insight in the webinar by promoting a Twitter #hashtag throughout slides in the presentation. Afterwards, encourage guests to reach out if they would like further information.

4. Social Sharing

By including social media sharing buttons within email marketing campaigns, subscribers will have much more of an incentive to share information. These buttons couldn’t make it any easier to spread quality content with others. This is an extremely simple way to see an increase in consumer engagement.

5. Different Levels of Email Subscription

While marketers strive to increase leads into a business, sales managers often want fewer leads with a better insight into the quality of potential consumers. The solution to these different goals is to provide multiple levels of subscription. Offer subscription forms for newsletters that are short and sweet; just a name and email address. Then use these addresses to re-market more detailed campaigns and promote events, webinars, white papers, and more. By offering highly perceived value, you can then get more details, like company names, positions and turnovers. By using sites like LinkedIn, it is not hard to reach potential consumers.

6. SEO With PR

Try using services like PRWeb to compose a strong press release and get the message out to thousands, and maybe millions, of viewers. This will also increase social media engagement and conversions. Additionally, it’s an efficient way to promote new product launches, upcoming events, webinars or announcements to prospects who may not be well aware of your company.

social media marketing experts

 

 

 

 

With consumers spending more of their time on social media sites, companies everywhere are trying to reach them by social networking. There’s now a common expectation that a strong online marketing strategy is necessary for any company trying to see an increase in their marketing efforts. Lately, those companies in the hospitality market have been really utilizing social media to see an increase in sales.

 

Why hospitality? It’s an industry driven by recommendations and reviews. People make purchasing decisions with different criteria in mind, yet peer reviews and recommendations are among the most popular ways to persuade. With the popularity of social media and the growth of the Internet in recent years, consumers jump online to give their positive or negative reviews of brands.

 

Hospitality is an industry where customer service is crucial, so it makes sense that the industry would want to develop the greatest customer service experience possible. Social networking is being viewed as a new and improved customer service platform for a variety of companies. Social media provides online visibility and lets companies market their products and services online to people everywhere, increasing their reach and exposure to potential consumers.

 

If you’re in the hospitality industry, there are some things to keep in mind when developing a social media strategy.

 

Consider what your goals and objectives are with social media. This will assist you in choosing the perfect social media platform to start with. If your company is new to social media, start with setting up just a single platform. Once you get more comfortable using this platform, record how much time it takes you on a daily and weekly business to manage the site then consider making other presences on different social media sites.

 

Also, have a content strategy. Think about what you want to put out on your social media sites and how often you’ll put it out there. Keep your customers in mind at all times when choosing content. Think about if your consumers want to view constant promotional messages, or if they would prefer to view interesting articles you found and shared.

 

To make social media work for your business, you must use it regularly and be constantly engaging in conversations with your consumers!

 

Carefully choosing the right social media platform to start with is very important. In considering Twitter, know that it lets companies connect with consumers, and other companies on both a local and a global scale. If it is important for your company to have fast customer service, Twitter can be used to respond quickly to questions, comments or complaints consumers might have.

Immediate, real time customer service is marketing in itself. It should generate positive emotions from your fans and followers and lead to influential word of mouth recommendations for your company.

 

With Facebook, your brand’s page acts as the online “headquarters” of your company. It’s like a marketing hub for consumers to come and see what your brand has to offer. You should give your Facebook fans exclusive information about your latest specials and deals, as part of your online marketing strategy. Also, think about making Facebook check in deals to reward consumers for checking into your business by giving them coupons or discounts.

 

Blogging can also be used in your marketing strategy. You could set up a company blog on your website, and also find influential bloggers who can review your products and services then direct readers to your site. A business blog lets you position your company as an expert in the industry. Blogs are also good to use for sharing company milestones which consumers would be interested in knowing, like if your company has changed locations, or opened a new office.

 

YouTube is another great site to consider. It’s a great platform to show off important and fun events happening in your company. It gives consumers insights into your company and promotes curiosity, which can lead to an emotional connection with your brand. You can increase the effectiveness of your videos by posting them on any other social media platforms you might have.

 

There’s also Pinterest. It’s the latest trend in social media, allowing users to “pin” their interests onto boards that they create. For your marketing strategy, you could create a board to show off your products, or pictures from company events to catch the interest of users. A great benefit of Pinterest is providing consumers a visual appeal to your brand.

 

While there are many options available to develop your marketing strategy, remember to start small, then become comfortable with how your strategy is working, then build your social media presence gradually to provide quality customer service to all of your consumers!

Amber is a wizard with Social Media!  I was reluctant and slowly started building a facebook community over many months and now I actually enjoy it. The next step was creating strategies that supported my business–that was over my head. Amber turned my uneasiness into trust, safety and confidence.  She is knowledgeable, has great skill at putting me at ease when I feel overwhelmed, and she effectively implements my social media strategies that we developed.  She answers questions and offers great recommendations to further develop my business and helps me develop myself. I would never have believed I would have done a you tube video–much less two!  Wow, what growth, and a testament to Amber’s ability to create trust, ease and confidence with this fun and wacky world of Social Media! I would highly recommend Amber -Your Marketing Voice to anyone who is ready to take the plunge or expand your existing strategies.  With many thanks, Regina Sisco

“Since I have used Amber’s services to do my social media, the traffic to my website has increased by 30%
and is getting more attention than without her services! Thank you for helping me become more visible in the community online and offline. ”www.Places2Network.com

“As a small business owner, I know that it’s very important where to put your marketing dollars, and most importantly, who has your best interest and knows what they’re doing!  Amber with “Your Marketing Voice”, is well educated and passionate about social media, and she has brought a professionalism and an internet presence out there in cyberspace for me and has brought new customers to me with the Youtube videos, (which I highly recommend). In this new era, businesses need to stay consistent with the times, and your marketing voice can take you there!!!” Lisa Keyeswww.VisionsofNaturalHealth.com

“I started my own business knowing that social media was now a very important part of marketing my business, but did not have any idea where to start.  Amber has not only given me that starting point but all the points.  She is very passionate about social media and the businesses she serves.  I found her to be informative and conscientious.  She just has a flare for this business and brings that flare to your business.  Hire Amber and watch your business grow!” Ann Waller www.prepaidlegal.com/hub/awaller16

“I have had the opportunity to have Amber Montel teaching me  the process of internet social marketing.  She is teaching me how to navigate on all the network sites.  Before meeting  Amber I took a class from another person who I felt taught me nothing.  I was more lost after the class with that person and did nothing more with network media sites until now.    Amber is easy to work with and explain things more and she wants to make sure you understand how each site works to benefit your needs.  I have a long way to go, but I am feeling more confident now to proceed further.

If anyone is looking for a teacher in network marketing I strongly suggest calling Amber!” Betty Smith