How to Leverage User-Generated Content in Your Marketing Strategy

Users today are bombarded with ads. We see them on TV, on our way to work, even on social media. Because of this, people learn to tune out these advertisements. What they value, however, are the opinion and feedback shared by your clients and customers.

People who had great experience with your company are likely to share this with their family and friends. People value these feedbacks. In fact, they can affect the buying decision of prospective customers. If you are looking to attract potential customers and increase your sales, we recommend that you use user-generated content to your advantage.

Here are some tips on how to leverage user-generated content in your marketing strategy.

Run a contest

Running a contest is one of the easiest ways to capture the attention of your target audience. This encourages people to share their story or upload a photo of themselves. In return, you get free endorsements from previous customers.

Through a contest, you can gather some valuable insights from your customers while building a relationship with them. This increases brand visibility and can help you build trust with potential customers.

Advertise with reviews

Instead of flooding your social media accounts with advertisements and company blurbs, why don’t you just share photos or screen shots of customer reviews. This is a great way to show people who happy your customers are with your products. Plus, customers trust customer reviews more than branded content because they come across as honest and reliable.

Encourage engagement

To build a relationship with your target audience, encourage them to share user-generated content. Starbucks had one of the most successful user-generated content campaigns.

A few years back, Starbucks encouraged its customers to decorate their iconic white cup. As expected, people came up with their own unique designs and shared them on social media. They received over 4,000 entries in just 3 weeks. The coffee chain used the winning design on their reusable cups.

August 28, 2017/by Caitlin McDonald

Internet Marketing, Social Media, Twitter

Twitter Hacks for Better Marketing

As marketers, creating compelling content through social media is the key to our internet success. But, without the ability to reach a large audience and attract followers, our content can be easily lost and forgotten. The world of social media is constantly changing, and staying on top of the latest tips and tricks to help make sure you stay present is crucial to your success. For many businesses, Twitter is the go-to platform for attracting customers, promoting products and services, and making sure people are actually noticing their content. Here are some useful hacks to make sure your Twitter posts are reaching the right people and attracting more customers.

Pinning Posts:

Pinning your Twitter posts can be used to highlight AND pin your key tweet. This is a great way to make sure your richest content has a longer lifecycle and is visible to newcomers. How do you pin a Twitter post? First, find a tweet you want to pin on your Twitter profile. This could be a post that received the most favorites, had the most comments, a retweet from someone who mentioned you etc. From there, click the three-dot icon that appears at the bottom of the tweet, next to the favorites account. From the drop-down menu, select “Pin to your profile page.” This can also be done through your mobile device! When you refresh your page, your pinned tweet should appear at the top of your most recent tweets.

It’s important to note that pinning the tweet does not add the tweet back to your follower’s newsfeed. Only people who look through your profile directly will see the pinned tweets. Pinning your tweets is affective because it helps direct newcomers to the content you feel grabbed the most attention. This leads to even more retweets and favorites with new followers, and overall more exposure to your Twitter profile.

Twitter Cards:

Major brands have been jump-starting their Twitter posts by using Twitter Cards. A Twitter Card allows you to decide how you want your content to be displayed within tweets and helps you stand out amongst the clutter. This leads to increased likelihood that customers will click on and retweet your posts. There are 7 different types of Twitter Cards that help your posts stand out and drive more traffic to your website.

One of the greatest Twitter Cards for marketers is the Twitter Summary Card. This allows marketers to customize the content description that appears in the summary before it’s posted. Whether you want to share your opinion, provide a short overview, or ask a question, the Summary Card makes it easy to eliminate the sometimes off-message default lines of text that appear with a particular link.

How To Enable Twitter Cards for Your Site:

Using the Yoast WordPress SEO plugin, enable Twitter card meta-data from the Social>Twitter menu.
Visit the Twitter Card Validator and enter the URL for your blog.
Once your site validates, request that your url is added to the beta program. Twitter will likely have you validated in just a few days.

Organize Weekly Twitter Chats:

Twitter chats are directly tied to specific and original hashtags through which tweets are organized and tracked and are great for your overall Twitter marketing strategy. To have a successful Twitter chat, set a date and time when most of your followers will be online, then choose a hashtag. Keep your hashtag short and concise, but also memorable and unique. Before starting your Twitter chat, make sure you have staff to keep things running smoothly and to prevent your hashtag from being hijacked. There are various tools to help organize your chats such as Twubs, Nurph, and ChatSalad.

5 Ways to Improve Your Twitter Marketing Results

1: Turn a Pinned Tweet Into a Feature Box

The Feature Box is an email form you place at the top of your homepage, which offers your website visitors a freebie in exchange for signing up for your email list.You can add a similar feature to your Twitter profile page by combining two of Twitter’s native features: a lead generation card and a pinned tweet. Simply create a Lead Generation Card that includes an incentive for people to opt in. Offer regular email updates, a special freebie or a subscribers-only discount. Pin the tweet to the top of your Twitter profile and you’re all set.

2: Communicate Less and Tweet More Links

A recent study by Dan Zarrella looked at the “reply rates” of about 130,000 random Twitter users and discovered that highly followed accounts tend to converse less. Keep in mind, the study results don’t suggest that Twitter conversations have a negative effect on your following, just that conversations aren’t what motivate people to follow you on Twitter. According to another study by Dan Zarrella, the way to get more followers is to invest more time tweeting relevant links to your followers, rather than communicating directly with them.

3: Ask Twitter Influencers for Help

According to BuzzSumo who recently studied the share counts of more than 100 million articles, when influencers share your content, the reach increases substantially. If one influencer shares a piece of content, it will get 38.8% more social shares. Three influencers double the social shares and five influencers quadruple them. It’s crucial to network with influencers and develop relationships with them. Then, when you have an important piece of content you’d like to get seen, you can ask the influencers you know to share it.

4: Use Twitter’s Recommend Feature

Recommend is a new feature of Twitter’s tweet button that many people don’t pay attention to. After a visitor tweets an article from your blog, the window recommends they follow you on Twitter, if they don’t follow you already. This is an excellent way to grow your Twitter account, since people who just tweeted your article are likely to want to follow you. Look at the code of your tweet button and make sure the recommend field contains your Twitter username. To double-check you’ve set up the feature correctly, ask a friend to unfollow you on Twitter and then tweet an article from your blog. If the recommend field contains your Twitter username, you’re all set.

5: Repeat Article Tweets

According to a study by Wisemetrics, the second tweet of an article gets as much as 86% of the performance as the first tweet. Clearly the performance will fade with each new tweet, but considering your followers are probably in different time zones, you still need to tweet your most valuable content more than once. Your new followers will appreciate it, since the content will be new for them.

And finally! Here are some Tips for Writing Great Tweets!

Composing the perfect tweet isn’t easy. With only 140 characters at your disposal plus million of users from all over the world generating more than 500 million tweets a day, it can be extremely difficult to get through the noise.

While there is no such thing as the perfect tweet, there are some guidelines to follow for writing one that will capture the attention of people.

Tips for writing great tweets:

Get to the point

According to studies, tweets with less than 100 characters get 18% more engagement. When writing tweets, make sure you keep it short, concise, and interesting. Get to the point. Make every character count. If you have a longer message to convey, we suggest that you include a link to a blog post.

Start interacting

If you want to reach more people, make sure that you interact with them. This can be done in many forms – by asking a question, retweeting other’s posts, responding to other users, following interesting people, engaging in conversations or sharing valuable information.

Command action

Recent studies show that tweets that command action receive better engagement and retweets. When writing tweets, make sure that you include a call to action. Whether you want people to follow you in other social networks, retweet your posts or enter your contest, you need to be clear about what you want people to do.

Use hashtags

A hashtag provides a way for new followers to find you. It is how you identify your content as relevant to a certain field or group of people. Make sure you include hashtags in all your tweets, but don’t overuse it. You can use an existing hashtag or create your own.

Proofread

As a business professional, you want to make sure that your tweets are free from grammar and spelling errors. Your tweets will only be composed of 1 to 3 sentences, so make sure that you get them right. Avoid slang and abbreviations.

August 21, 2017/by Caitlin McDonald

Branding, Membership Only

How to answer the question, what do you do?

Picture this, you walk into a room of other business owners who immediately turn to you and ask, “So, what do you do?” As a freelancer, do you know how to respond? Do you always say the same answer or do you try and switch it up depending upon with whom you are speaking?

More often then not, business owners and freelancers who aren’t purposeful about how they approach the answer to “what do you do” try and encompass every aspect of their expertise within one answer. They are so interested in making sure the listener sees the breadth of their experience and offerings that the messaging becomes convoluted and lost.

I did this for months as I kicked off my marketing agency and it wasn’t until I attended a workshop on networking skills that I realized my short comings. In fact, it was so bad that I even switched my service offerings from PPC management to social media management for small businesses because I confused other networkers so much that all they got out of our conversations was marketing businesses online > social media is a type of digital marketing > Oh, she must manage social media accounts. Recognizing that this appeared to be low hanging fruit, I shifted to social media and blogging, but that’s another story for another day.

So, to give yourself the best possible chance of actually providing the freelance services you set out to, there are a few techniques that can completely transform your messaging and ability to concisely explain what you do to your tribe. In this blog post, I will be providing the actual steps you can take to answer the question “What do you do?” as a freelancer.

What do you do?

Tip 1: Think about the following questions

What makes you unique?

Is there anything that sets you apart from your competitors? This can include your skills, your experience, or even your personality and values. Especially as I was growing my business, I found so many clients who had been screwed over by other freelancers. They were hesitant to even have a conversation about their marketing needs because of previous experiences. To overcome this objection, I used my values and the fact that every new account that I managed was set up in the client’s name rather than linked to my personal/business accounts, so my client retained complete ownership of their marketing and business materials. This unique proposition isn’t as unique now, but it absolutely helped prospects feel at ease when we talked specifics about projects.

What is your ideal project?

Here, I mean to think about short vs long-term projects. It is alright to have a combination of the two, but very clear about what services constitute as a short term vs long term project.

Example 1: Web designer. A front-end designer may really emphasize their website build-outs, which are short term projects. For more robust offerings and to provide more passive income, the same web designer could also offer maintenance plans through the web hosting company.

Example 2: Copy writer: In copy writing there are always both short and long term projects. Creating blogging packages, for example, can create monthly recurring revenue for your business, but a full website rewrite or manual creation could command a higher hourly or per word rate, though it is a short term project. You may prefer to get in and get out, but be available for future short term writing needs for your clients, or you may find you excel more at really getting to know your clients through writing multiple blogs and newsletters for them each month.

Who is your ideal client?

Have you ever heard yourself say that you work with anyone and everyone? Do you really want to? When you think about your ideal client, it can be broken down in terms of business size (large corporations, small startups, or family owned businesses). One tactic I’ve found to work well is if you think of what specific service applies to which ideal client. So when you are talking to a soloprenuer, for example, you are only focusing on the one or two freelance services that really speak to their needs and budget.

What is your ideal target audience?

In addition to considering the size of the business, it is also important to consider the types of industries you want to focus on. Are you passionate about health and wellness, SaaS providers, consultants, etc? When you focus on one niche, you can start to optimize your efforts more effectively. You may find some processes work well for one industry in particular, which aides in building your expertise and loops back around to allowing you to articulate what makes you unique.

Tip 2: Use the Who, What, Why, How framework

Once you have taken the time to work through what makes you different and which services are most appropriate for your niche target markets, you can start constructing your answer to the question “what do you do?”

The Use the Who, What, Why, How framework is broken down into:

WHO you are: By answering Who you are, you are providing your job title. Many answers to the question of what you do fizzle down after this is answered, but I urge you to keep going.

WHAT you do: This is where you can add context to your job title. What does it actually mean?

WHY you do it: Have you ever told someone why you are freelancer? It is okay to incorporate this into your answer for what do you do. You can focus on flexibility, challenges, making personal relationships with your clients, really whatever your story is for why you are on this path. You’ll find that your story can open the doors to more in depth conversations.

HOW you do it differently: This is where you can explain your unique value proposition. How do you run your business different than the next guy or gal? Are there any case studies you can highlight?

Bringing the Who, What, Why, How framework together.

Now that you have your who, what, why, and hows thought through, try explaining what you do. For me, this comes down to:

I own a digital marketing agency that focuses on social media management for soloprenuers and small businesses. We help our clients create consistent content so they can better connect with their target audience online while freeing up their time to focus on their business.

Tip 3: Have different answers ready for various situations

It’s all good and well that you have your answer outlined to what do you do as a freelancer, but what if you are spending time talking to very different tips of people. The questions below are prompts to get you started down the path of accurately positioning yourself as a freelancer.

What are three pain points you can help to resolve?

Having a list of three pain points allows you to mention just one for each niche market or type of project. Through highlighting a pain you can draw people in, and then you can explain your solution to the issue. Rather than focusing on the ‘features’ of your services, try to emphasize how working with you made your clients feel.

What example project can you discuss that truly made a difference for a client?

This example project that made a difference can make a mini case study that you can use to highlight what you do, how you are different, and why someone should hire you. Telling stories is a way to help your prospects understand what it would be like to work with you.

Have you ever…?

Ask a question back to the individual as a way to describe what you do. An example could be, “have you ever started to write a enewsletter only to get frustrated with the program you were using? I help my clients optimize their ability to communicate directly with their tribe through Mailchimp email campaigns.

Do you have a special offer or promotion such as a free consultation?

Free consultations are one way to get people in the door. An example of how you could use this is: I work with small businesses to make sure they can be found on Google. If you would like, I offer a 30 minute free consultation where we can actually walk through your website and see if there are any areas for improvement to make sure you can be found online.

It can be daunting to answer the question of what do you do, especially as you are just getting started, but being able to do this can transform your messaging and ability to open the doors to new introductions and conversations. As you create your elevator pitch, recognize that you don’t need one pitch or commercial for every situation.

Each conversation can fully depend on the individual with whom you are discussing your business. If you sense yourself trying to explain every detail of what you do, take a step back. Did the other person’s eyes just glaze over?

Take a deep breath.

You’ll have another chance to explain what you do in the next conversation!

August 16, 2017/by Caitlin McDonald

Branding, Social Speak

What should every entrepreneur have in their business?

We are so excited to have had Russ Barnes on our radio show August 12th, 2017. He is such a remarkable person! Here are just a few topics we covered:

1) Customer, customer, customer – without the customer you are out of business. Listening to the customer will help you improve your product or service.
2) Message, message, message – in order for customers to find you, they must believe that you can solve their problem in such a way that they are willing to pay for the solution.
3) Value, value, value – the more value you can deliver, the less resistance you will experience when acquiring customers.
4) Target market – be a big fish in a small pond. The idea that EVERYONE can use your product or service positions you as a tiny fish in a huge ocean. When you try to appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one.
5) Decision making – successful business is certainly what you do, but it is more effectively achieved by how you think about what you do. Resource management is critical.
6) Progression – understand what it takes to get from where you are to where you want to be. This is your growth strategy.
7) Advisors – build your team of advisors carefully. No one develops a successful business alone. Cooperate and collaborate, but compensate. No one wants to work for free.
8) Earn money to hire experts. Focus on what you do to make money and then pay experts to do what they do best to help you maximize your time and rapidly achieve outcomes. Know the calculation that will tell you whether you can hire an expert and when you can hire the expert.
9) Don’t get complacent. Never stop learning. Perhaps we can talk about books, magazines, webinars, libraries, incubators, or other educational resources that business owners can access for little to no money.
10) Love, love, love what you do or find a way to transition into something that you do love.

Here is a little bit more about who Russ Barnes is:

Russ Barnes, USAF Colonel (retired), MBA, MS

Colonel Russ Barnes is the CEO and Senior Business Advisor to Entrepreneurs and Executives at Systro Consulting, an organization design firm specializing in small business development. He has more than 30 years of experience in organization development drawn from military service, franchise ownership, academic programs, and strategy consulting, specifically with small businesses.

As an aviator, Russ flew combat missions during Desert Storm and later held senior leadership positions in several higher headquarters staff organizations which include Air Combat Command Headquarters, the Pentagon, Strategic Command Headquarters, European Command Headquarters, and Central Command Headquarters. He has received the Legion of Merit, Air Medal, Defense Meritorious Service Medal and more than 20 other peacetime and wartime decorations.

After retirement from the military, Russ grew his franchise territory from zero to profitability in less than three years. His growth was based on a clear vision, building an effective network, consistently delivering a quality product and maintaining a relentless focus on customer service.

Russ is a graduate of the Referral Institute Certified Networker program where he received extensive training in referral marketing. He received his Bachelor’s Degree from Manhattan College (NY), his MBA from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and his Master of Science degree in Strategic Studies from Air University. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Organization Development at Benedictine University.

Contact Info:
Email: Russ@systro.org
Website: www.systro.org
Social media: www.linkedin.com/in/rcbarnes
Phone number: 813 520-5770

August 12, 2017/0 Comments/by Caitlin McDonald

Business Advice, Business Management, Internet Marketing

Tips for Creating a Successful Online Business

Not too long ago, people would visit the local stores and endure the long lines just to get the things they need. Today, however, people prefer to shop online. In fact, studies revealed that consumers make 51% of their purchases online.

With the growth on online retail and shopping, many of you probably have an existing e-commerce business or looking to start an online business.

Here are some tips for creating a successful online business.

Bring your products to life

Product photography can mean the difference between losing customers and making a sale. High quality product photos are a must when trying to persuade people to buy your stuff.

Internet users are bombarded with ads, emails and news stories. With so many businesses vying for their attention, you only have a few seconds to capture the attention of your target audience. Unique and visually appealing photos can help you do just that. If you’re selling clothes, we recommend that you hire a model. This way, people will have an idea how the clothes look like when worn.

Clean and user-friendly design

A professionally-designed and user-friendly website can go a long way in the success of your online business. It also adds credibility and will help increase trust in your company.

According to studies, 42% of online shoppers base their opinion of a business based on the overall design of their website. Majority of consumers didn’t push through with the sale because the site has poor aesthetics.

Fast loading time

An average person has an attention span of 8 seconds. Yes, you read that right. They want to get things they want fast. This is why we’re in the age of fast – fast cars, fast foods and fast websites.

Survey revealed that people expect websites to load in 2 seconds. They would leave the site if it doesn’t load within 4 seconds. Slow loading time can drastically affect your sales. People aren’t going to stick around if it takes a while for your website to load.

Easy payment process

Most people prefer to shop online because it’s more convenient. As such, you want to make the shopping process easier for them. The more methods of payment you offer, the more likely a customer will buy.

Credit cards and Paypal are the quickest and easiest ways for customers to pay. You may also offer cash on delivery, money order, personal cheque, direct deposit into your bank account.

August 7, 2017/by Caitlin McDonald

Social Media

3 Types of Social Media Content to Help Increase Engagement

#1 VIDEO:

A study by Animoto asked 1,000 consumers what they want to see with regard to social video. It also surveyed 500 marketers to determine whether they are fulfilling those expectations.

Highlights from the study were compiled into an infographic, which includes the following findings:

39% of consumers are more likely to finish videos that have subtitles. (The infographic reports that, according to Digiday, 85% of Facebook video is watched without sound.)
Preference between pre-recorded video and Facebook Live was split nearly down the middle, with pre-recorded video having just a slight edge (52% vs. 48%).
81% of marketers optimize their social videos for mobile.

#2 GIFS:

GIFs are the newest, coolest trend on social media and getting a lot of attention because not only are they easy to view, they also usually offer a call to action. Fun Fact – We may think that GIFs are a recent phenomenon in the world of digital marketing, BUT animated GIFs have been around for more than two decades!

Here are just a few ways how to incorporate GIFs into your digital marketing strategy:

The attention span of your audience is very low. GIFs are a smart way of reaching your target audience with a living picture of your message.
GIFs are an easy way to get engagement from your target audience and show them how something works.
Another way to use GIFs is through your email marketing, blogging, and other digital materials. It has been reported to raise the click through rate as well! GIFs are fun to watch, easy to find and easy to upload.
GIFs can be about a new process you have, new products, telling a story, explaining a situation, tell a joke etc.
GIF format can be done through Boomerang, GIF Keyboard, and GIPHY. There are tons of options out there for you!

#3 Infographics:

Remember last week we talked about ‘Stopping the SCROLL’? Great article by B2C:

6 Step Process to Amazing Infographic Design

Step 1: Choose your topic and research your audience.
Step 2: Take a look at your data and consolidate it.
Step 3: Craft the copy.
Step 4: Design!
Step 5: Review, review, review.
Step 6: Publish and promote.

August 4, 2017/0 Comments/by Caitlin McDonald

Social Media

5 Social Media Tips You Need For Your Business

Social media can be overwhelming and daunting as a business owner, some even tend to avoid or do the bare minimum when it comes to social media marketing. We want to help break through that confusion, frustration and make it easier for you as a business owner to be successful with social media marketing!

Here are 5 of our favorite tips when it comes to social media:

Have a purpose and goals:

What are you wanting out of social media? What is your purpose and goals ? Is it for brand awareness? To drive people to your website? To position yourself as an expert in your field? Whatever it is, write it out and make sure each and every post moves you towards that goal and purpose.
Have a plan:

Once you know why you are on social media, create a laid-out plan and a content calendar. The content calendar can be weekly, monthly, or even quarterly, whatever works best for your business. This one tool will make social media so much easier for you. Think about it, if you know the topics you are going to write and talk about on social media, the content will flow! Think of different causes you are a part of, websites you visit, company news, events, myths, trends, etc.
Choose 1 platform and grow from there:

This is KEY! Yes, we want you on all the social media platforms but don’t worry about being on all of them all at once. Select 1 – ideally, it should be the social channel where you can find the bulk of your target market or niche. Get to know this social channel inside and out so it becomes second nature to you and your business. THEN, and only then, move on and grow from there.
Always provide value:

What’s in it for me (meaning your audience) Steer away from the selling mentality, we all want more business, but just selling on social media without value isn’t the correct move. If your audience will not benefit from the post, it may be time to re-think your message.
Measure your results:

Make sure that whatever you select as your purpose in tip #1 it has the ability to be measured. If you can’t measure your results, you will never know if you are on the right track or if you need to pivot and adjust your messages.

BONUS TIP: Your main goal with social media marketing should be STOP THE SCROLL!!! Remember to make each social media post, image, graphic and video compelling enough to stop people from scrolling on by. Keep your followers intrigued and offer something unique to keep them engaged with your social media account.

July 29, 2017/0 Comments/by Caitlin McDonald

Facebook

How Your Business Can Capitalize on Facebook Live

Facebook live has become increasingly popular with businesses, organizations and the general public. It allows you to stream and share live videos with your fans and followers. It has opened a whole world of opportunities for businesses from around the world.

Facebook live in more than just broadcasting a brief episode on Facebook. It can add a personality to your brand and really work to broaden the sincerity and breadth to your business on Facebook.

What topics can you discuss on Facebook Live?

Whether you are camera shy, feel like you don’t have anything to put out there, or are just dragging your feet, I highly recommend jumping onto Facebook live. This list should help you feel more empowered to find a topic to discuss live!

Hot topics in your business or industry
Q&A or review the FAQ on your website in a video
Breaking news
Conduct an interview
Are you a performer? Perform!
Give a behind the scenes look at your profession
Record a demo or tutorial and teach your fans.

What topics have you found to get a lot of response from your viewers?

Now that you have decided on a topic, there are some tips to help you get the most views and engagement.

6 Tips for Better Facebook Live Engagement

Tell fans you are broadcasting
Make sure you have a strong internet connection
Add a description to your live before you actually click to go live on Facebook
Take the time to say hello to your live viewers and respond to their comments in real-time
Don’t always keep it short – longer broadcasts pick up more viewers
Use a closing line to signal the end of a broadcast

Here are 4 ways your business can capitalize on Facebook live.

Real time engagement

One of the biggest benefits of using Facebook live is that you get to engage with your audience real time. You can see how many people are watching your video, ask for their opinion, and determine whether or not your content is working. Because of the real time connection with the audience, studies suggest that Facebook live gets 10 times more comments than other contents.

Most business use social media to interact with their audience. You can take it to the next level by using Facebook live. We’ve seen a lot of business use this to conduct Q&A sessions. People can ask whatever they want. Since this is a live version, they can get an answer to their questions in an instant.

It is more convenient

Business owners have a lot on their plate. Sometimes, creating new content can be time consuming. If you want to increase engagement without spending too much time creating new content, Facebook live is the way to.

You can conduct a Q&A session without all the big production behind the content. Live streaming also provides an easy way to disseminate information to your fans and followers. It’s a lot easier than writing a blog post or newsletters.

Create better relationship with your audience

Live videos are spontaneous. They are not rehearsed. There are no cuts. There are no edits. People want authenticity. It’s the total transparency that draws people in. Through these videos, they get to see the people behind the company and interact with them directly. It humanizes your brand and creates a new level of trust. It also provides a more intimate level of engagement.

Reach more people

People have a very short attention span. They prefer to watch a 1-minute video than to read a 1,000 word blog post. Considering that there are more than one hundred million active users on Facebook, you are likely to reach more people with Facebook live. What’s great about live streaming is that it people can watch the video even after it has ended. That means you can engage new audience.

July 25, 2017/by Caitlin McDonald

Social Media, Social Speak

How do you incorporate your offline and online marketing?

Here are 3 social media tips to help your business:

How should your online and offline marketing efforts work together?

It is important to have the same branding online and offline. For instance, your website, social media and even email signature should have your logo; same colors, and even your slogan should be the same as your print media. What people see on your marketing materials, ads etc., should look and feel the same.

If you use different logos or colors in your email signature, website, brochures and business cards, people won’t recognize your brand. You may start to lose customers. It’s all about the brand message and being consistent!

Marketing Materials – What should you have on them??

Your marketing materials are all about the first impressions, right? You want to make sure your marketing materials are simple and, yet, effective. So, let’s talk about what makes your marketing materials effective.

The purpose behind your Marketing Materials:

Inform customers and potential customers about your business
Attract more customers
Maybe get the word out there about an upcoming event, conference, workshop you are hosting
The BIG thing is to create a positive customer experience

What needs to be on all your online marketing and offline marketing materials:

Business Name
Business Logo and Slogan
Business Phone Number (Is it ok to text?)
Business Email Address
Business Address – if you have a physical location
Business Website URL
Social Media links to Facebook, Twitter, instagram, LinkedIn, etc. Wherever you are consistently posting is what you want to promote

Here is a great resource we will add to our website that talks in more detail about how to create effective marketing materials: http://inkbotdesign.com/effective-marketing-materials/

Monitoring your metrics – how do you know what is working?

As a business owner, it is important to know that your efforts are paying off! In the social media world, we would love to be able to say, if you post 3 times a week with these types of posts you will make this much money . . . BUT it doesn’t happen like that, unfortunately! SO, social media works different for each business.

A few resources that you can monitor to see what is working for you would be:

*Google Analytics – This is a tool that is embedded into the backend of your website and monitors all traffic that comes to your site; where they are coming from, such as country, state, social media platform, email links, and so much more. Google Analytics also tells you how long people are staying on your website, what pages they are looking at, and your bounce rate; are they getting what they want from your site? This is a great big picture tool to monitor!

*Facebook Insights – It is important to look at your Facebook Insights on your business page on a monthly or even weekly basis, just to see what posts are getting the most engagement, what time did you post it, what did you post, etc. This will help you figure out what types of posts you should be posting and what times, so you are reaching your audience when it’s the best time for them!

* Buffer and Hootsuite – These are two FREE resources as well that help give more of an overview of all your social media metrics, like Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, Pinterest, so you can see everything in one area – what is working best for you, from a social media standpoint; then you can see what the numbers look like and if you should continue with each platform. You might want to consider letting one go or spend less time on one. Remember, you always want to focus on where YOUR target audience is.

July 22, 2017/0 Comments/by Caitlin McDonald

Branding, Social Media

3 Social Media Trends To Pay Attention To

Here are the 3 social media trends we covered on our radio show this past Saturday. Each week we will bring you new social media trends to help grow your business and your social media strategy!

Brand Loyalty:

Celebrate your fans and followers and build loyal brand followers on Facebook. Post special % off discounts only available on Facebook. Also use Facebook ads to help grow your brand awareness and brand loyalty. Grow your following and your brand by offering unique content on a regular basis. Stand out and be leader in your niche.

Online Reviews What to do??

Check online reviews constantly and respond to the good and the bad. A bad review is the opportunity to start a conversation and turn it into a positive. When responding to a bad review, handle it off line and in a private forum. Where to check your reviews?? Google, Facebook, Yelp

Building your followers organically or paid??

There are a couple of reasons why this is not a good idea.

Low engagement. Purchased likes and followers are not your ideal customer. You will never be able to engage with them or have a successful purchase history with them.
Think about your brand reputation before even considering buying likes or followers. It looks spammy and suspicious when you jump from a few likes to thousands in a short time.
Algorithms. Social media channel algorithms are smart. If they record a suspicious jump in likes and followers, your organic reach may be compromised.

July 17, 2017/0 Comments/by Caitlin McDonald

How to answer the question, what do you do?

What do you do?