Social media and blogs are a key part to any inbound marketing strategy. Here are 6 ways they help grow your business:
Quick to Start. You could launch a Facebook page today or get a blog going in a few days.
Low Cost. You can get started in social media and blogging for very little or no money. They are among the most cost-effective methods of reaching your audience.
Instant Interactivity. Both blogs and social media can give you nearly instant market feedback – good or bad. We get all kinds of feedback through the comments on our blog; people also leave reviews and other comments for us on Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media channels.
It’s the Search Engines, Silly. Surveys indicate that 90% or more of people begin their purchasing process in search engines. Blogs and social media make it more likely that your prospects will find you online when they search.
Inbound Marketing. If you read our blog, you know that we’re big fans of inbound marketing at HubSpot. Outbound marketing is telemarketing, direct mail, cold email blasts (not lovely nurturing emails like this one to you), TV and print ads – all the things that buyers tend to block out more and more. Social media and blogs are essential inbound marketing tools.
First Mover Advantage. For blogs and social media, there is an advantage to moving first. If you don’t jump into the conversation, your competitors will (if they have not already) and then you’re fighting an uphill battle to become influential in these online conversations. Start now to claim that first-mover advantage.
How are you using social media today? Learn how you can build a successful inbound marketing strategy that combines social media, blogging, lead conversion, and marketing analytics. Get a complimentary Inbound Marketing Assessment from HubSpot.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/9.png1200800Caitlin McDonaldhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngCaitlin McDonald2011-04-19 09:01:362018-04-07 20:59:49Grow Your Business with Social Media
Huge Disclaimer, it is no wonder that I say you SHOULD outsource your social media, I have a social media marketing company!
What Is A Social Media Marketing Expert
A true social media marketing expert is actually a marketing expert who is using social media as ONE of the tools in their marketing arsenal. Every bit of marketing touches the social media platform including branding, sending a cohesive message, targeting the correct prospect, lead follow-up and more, all the way through the sales cycle and onto a sale. Okay, so a social media guru is actually an expert marketer. I get asked the question a lot which social media outlet do you like the most and if you could choose only one to use what would it be? Well each of them have a unique way of helping to grow your business. Such as Facebook builds an online community and is an easy way to reach out to people, Twitter is a huge traffic driver to your website, LinkedIn a wonderful online resume tool and a way for people to see what your experience has been also to connect to ideal clients, YouTube is such a popular tool people use and allows people to see your personality, also allowing them to learn from you while driving traffic to your site, Blogging is great because you are staying in front of Google and you show people why you are an expert in what you do.
Who Is NOT A Social Media Marketing Expert?
I am on A LOT of mailing lists and get all kinds of come-ons from people wanting to sell me get rich quick schemes. One of the biggies right now is to sell either social media marketing or local marketing and start raking in the dough. An expert has NOT taken a class called anything like this:
New Webinar! Become a Local Marketing Expert
10-no-4 Days to Become a Social Media Expert
Make money as a social media strategist
How to become an internet marketing expert in a short time…
This came in when I was writing this post, “The real kicker is that: most of your revenue is pure profit! Stuff we consider “basic” is mind blowing to most, if not all, local business owners.”
Should You Outsource Your Social Media Marketing Or Keep In In House?
So now we have established what a social media marketing expert is, the next question is should you outsource it to an agency or company or keep it in-house?
If you are not looking at hiring someone who has just left college, the kid who types really fast or a 10-to-4 day “expert”, you are looking at paying that person between 60K and 80K a year. We have some great horror stories from the trenches about how “the kid” set up the whole business network under his own name, left the company and reeked havoc for the next few months. Hiring a reputable company to do your social media eliminates this problem.
You are going to have to provide benefits and taxes for that employee which would not be necessary if you outsource.
If you are hiring a marketing guru, you are still probably going to have to get them some admin help. I can tell you this from experience, the person who is creative and has a brilliant marketing mind does not always have the best admin skills like the everyday tasks that go on in a business. We hire people who implement the marketing plans that we work out with our customers and make sure the daily tasks get done for your business needs.
There are economies of scale for a business to buy the latest software and attend the high level trainings needed to stay up-to-date. When you are spreading the cost of these items over multiple clients, it makes sense to keep to the cutting edge! We are always keeping up to date with the new software, tips & tricks. Remember that is what we do for a living!
We have programmers and others resources to help when the Social Networks change what we need to do. The easiest example of this is Facebook eliminating the FBML capabilities that we used to use to make pages. I got our programmer on it and he sent over the two page document on how we should do it now!
Okay, Why SHOULD You Keep Your Social Media Marketing In House?
It comes down to CONTROL you want to have control over what that person is doing and how they are spending your money and time! That is a valid point and will have to be taken into consideration. I CAN tell you that with frequent communication with your marketing company, you can stay on top of this easily. There will always still be a personal responsibility you will have in your marketing.
No one loves my company like I do – If you are a small company or a start-up, the owner or manager can probably do a bit of social media marketing. My question to you is, I KNOW you love your company, but do you love marketing? Having the best intentions in the world doesn’t help if you do not have the technical and education chops to back them up.
I can get an intern to do it for free – I have tried interns, you teach them, they work for a bit and then leave. Walking back the cat to figure out what they did can take your next marketing person hours or days to figure out! Additionally, you get what you pay for and when you are paying nothing it is hard to expect the kind of dedication that you can get from a real business. Remember they can probably take care of some easy daily social media tasks but they probably do not understand the marketing side of social media and internet marketing in order to get you a ROI. (Return on Investment)
What Types Of Business Should Outsource Their Social Media Marketing?
Business to consumer businesses do well on Social Media as they have a product that people would be interested when they are just surfing around having fun on Facebook or Twitter. Additionally there are neat ways to bring items to market that consumers look on favorably if done right.
Business to business marketing is trickier, as you need to position yourself correctly to find comparable areas to market in and be very careful to make sure that your offerings are social, not salesy. I see this done wrong all the time!
Local companies are uniquely positioned to take advantage of the power of social media because of the ability to target geographic regions in friending and following. These types of businesses fair VERY well in the social media realm.
Businesses with lots of “stuff” are great to promote. If you hold meetings with different topics, sell a million kinds of shoes or have a ton of different product offerings (like pawn shops and ebayers, social media can be a great way to get the word out!
Highly regulated industries. Okay I know that I am going to take heat on this one, BUT I have to say that a financial services guy who positions himself correctly would have a very bare playing field to compete on. This takes finesse and should work within the bounds of your state or federal licensing.
Restaurants and bars have fun people doing fun things. We have a couple of restaurants that we work with and they are the neatest peeps because of the activity and the fact that they are inherently social anyways!
There you have it, multiple reasons to outsource your social media marketing. If you are interested in finding out more about social media marketing, give us a call 720-338-6996 or email us with questions YourMarketingVoice@yahoo.com
Caitlin McDonaldhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngCaitlin McDonald2011-03-22 08:30:322018-04-07 21:00:12Why You Should Outsource Your Social Media Marketing
Caitlin McDonaldhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngCaitlin McDonald2011-03-04 09:24:042018-04-07 21:12:09Social Media Marketing – Social Media REAL Results
Late last week Facebook announced changes to Facebook Pages. The latest overhaul will streamline the look of the site to match Places and personal profiles. Plus, added features expand the options for brands to engage on Facebook.
Here are the highlights:
New Look Mimics New Personal Profiles and Places
Last month Facebook revealed it updated looks for personal profiles. Just as users are growing accustomed to the new look, Facebook announced similar updates for Facebook Pages – plus an array of other useful features for page admins.
What’s Changing: The addition of a photostrip at the top of the Page that mimics the personal profiles. This displays the latest photos the Page has tagged itself in, according to Inside Facebook.
What It Means: Users have done creative things with this section (view examples at Mashable), but because these photos display randomly, there’s not ways to work strategically with these images. Regardless, this will immediately put an increased focus on images.
What’s Changing: Tab navigation is now on the left, instead of the top. Six tabs are displayed by default, and tab names support more characters.
What It Means: The question of whether this move from top to left will reduce the traffic to tabs remains to be seen. As visitors grow more accustomed to the layout, checking that space on Facebook Pages could become commonplace. Plus, the added character space for descriptions might aid in piquing interest. This could make strategic use of default landing tabs more important than ever.
What’s Changing: Info blurb moves from Wall to Info tab
What It Means: For brands that aren’t highly recognizable, this could hinder their ability to give their “elevator pitch” to new visitors. Welcome tabs as default landing tabs can help raise awareness and could come in handy for this issue.
The profile pictures shrink from 200 x 600 pixels to 180 x 540 pixels. Shortly after the announcement, a Facebook bug led many to believe that tab width was changing from 520 pixels to 492 pixels. The tab width will remain at 520 pixels.
Administrators Have More Freedom to Speak on Brand’s Behalf
What’s Changing: Page admins can now “be” the brand on Facebook. This includes:
Browsing Facebook as the brand. Facebook will allow admins to jump between browsing the site as themselves or as the administrator. Along with this comes the ability for a brand to read a newsfeed of its own.
Posting comments on other Pages.
Liking other brands’ Pages.
What It Means: Brands have a bigger voice and greater reach. Not only will brand-to-brand relationships be seen (what if Coke and Pepsi Like each other? Packers and Steelers?), but this will also impact consumer discussions with brands on other Pages. There are co-branding opportunities in terms of cross-commenting on partner Pages. While there are opportunities for spam to increase or consumer fatigue to swell at seeing more brand posts in new places, if used wisely the increased freedom to engage in different parts of Facebook could be somewhat of a game-changer.
What’s Changing: Users will see friends who also like the Page, as well as Liked Pages that the user and the Page have in common.
What It Means:AllFacebook reports this is one of the most requested features. And rightly so – these connections mean more opportunity for organic discovery for brands. This is a good sign, especially with recent discussions around the need to break through the noise of users’ newsfeeds. The importance of having an internal process for commenting as a cohesive Page among team members will become more important to ensure there’s one voice among many admins.
Management Options Updated and How They Work with Shoutlet
What’s Changing: Admins can receive email notifications from Facebook when users post to the Facebook Page. These can be turned on or off by administrators.
What It Means: For small Pages, this will be a lifesaver. For large brands with a significant number of Likes, it will be overwhelming. For Shoutlet users, this feature currently exists. Unlike Facebook notifications that only notify of posts and comments, Page activity notifications from Shoutlet can be tailored and include more notification possibilities. For instance, users can turn off notifications for new comments and only receive email when new Likes are added.
What’s Changing: The order of Wall posts move from most recent to most relevant. If admins choose to display user posts (the other option is Page-only wall posts), Facebook determines the most relevant posts based on factors like friend comments, country, and more.
What It Means: For Page admins managing their Pages within the Facebook interface, this can make moderation tricky. Although there are email notifications, some have complained that without chronological ordering of posts, moderation will suffer. Having a social media management system can help your team catch everything and respond quickly – without being buried in email notifications from Facebook or wading through the Wall to find what’s new.
For current Shoutlet users, all changes are supported and are ready to roll when admins make the switch manually or Facebook converts all Pages to the new layout on March 1.
We’re interested in what you think about the new Pages. How do you think it is going to change the impact of Pages?
Caitlin McDonaldhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngCaitlin McDonald2011-02-15 18:05:042018-04-07 21:12:28New Facebook Pages Mean New Look, Greater Reach, and More
As a Social Media Manager I get asked the question a lot, “What does Social Media mean to you and how do you think of it differently?”
Well to me Social Media means a connection source. If you think about it Social Media connects people all over the world. People have found long lost family and friends; people have done business with each other, even though have never met.
In my environment, the people I am around the most are what I like to call “Light Workers” and these are people that are very authentic, bring spirituality into their business and talk about rising up to a new level of vibration for 2012. I always tell them by using social media the right way we can accomplish that. They give me a funny face most of the time.
Social Media is a tool we can use in the right way to find people nationwide that have things in common with us. We then build those relationships. We have videos we create to teach people what we do and who we are, we put those up on our Social Media profiles and that builds relationships. Sometimes people think that everything is going on the internet and we are getting away from face to face connections and growing part from each other. That is one way to think about it, OR you can think about it like this: there are thousands more people on the Internet that you can connect to. Yes people are using Internet more than going to meeting and events to find people. At the same time there are tools like Skype and GoToMeeting where we can still see that other person face to face.
I just want you to remember that Social Media is about building relationships with people from all over, it is NOT about selling.
Social Media can be our connection source to the world!
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.png00Caitlin McDonaldhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngCaitlin McDonald2011-02-03 15:28:282018-04-07 21:12:28How do you think of social media?
Facebook can be a little tricky on how to get more fans. You will see a huge increase in fans if you do these following steps:
1) Creating a “List” on your personal side and name it business, anyone you add as a friend you will put them into this list of people
2) When you create your page use the widget code Facebook gives you to add on your website
3) Add your Facebook Page link on your email signature
4) Send an email out through your email system like Constant Contact, Aweber, iContact, ETC telling them you are on Social Media and giving them those links
5) Make a compelling video to put on your welcome page on Facebook
6) Have customers tag photos of you and your products
7) Using Facebook Ads to get more fans
8) Run a contest
9) You can use Mobile marketing to have people check out your Facebook page and “Like” it
10) Have your Facebook Page link on all marketing materials
11) Post your Facebook page link to Twitter
12) Use the Suggest to friends on page and suggest to that List you have been creating
By using these steps you are promoting you fan page. Also you want to encourage your customers/clients to leave comments, feedback and questions to your page. Facebook ads are a great way to get more fans quickly and easily, BUT you want to make sure you are doing the ads correctly like make the message compelling so people want to come to your page. Use a creative picture, good message, maybe free offer. There are steps you need to follow in order to get a return on the ads. Facebook is a great way to really make those connections with people all over the world and a great place to get closer to your customers/clients. I hope this post was helpful. If you need help on any of these steps please let me know and I can help assist you with them.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/facebook.bmp205353Caitlin McDonaldhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngCaitlin McDonald2011-01-13 13:42:432018-04-07 21:12:28How to increase fan on Facebook
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.png00Caitlin McDonaldhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngCaitlin McDonald2010-12-30 10:00:372018-04-07 21:00:14Growth of Social Media
I found this article on http://mashable.com/2010/12/28/back-up-social-media/ and thought it would be great to share!
Remember how we were all freaking out on New Year’s Eve, 1999, convinced that the world as we know it would end — at the hands of machines, of course? Well, we weathered that storm and then some. Still, as we shamble forward into the next decade, it might be prudent to take pause and take stock of the years behind us. Translation: Back up your stuff.
Think of it as stockpiling food and building a fallout shelter for the 21st century. We have a ton of information, photos and memories scattered around the web that we would be loathe to lose, and while it’s unlikely that the entire Internet is going to come crashing down in the next week or so, it still might be wise to put some of that stuff in an iron box for safe keeping.
We’re coming pretty close to living our lives on Facebook — it’s our photo album, diary and mailbox, all in one — so why leave all that info up to the whims of the all-mighty servers? This October, the social network got hip to data portability after it started allowing users to download their profiles — photos, statues, updates, videos and all.
The process is really too simple to forgo. Here’s how you can stow away your social life for safekeeping: 1). Go to Account Settings, 2). Click on “Download Your Information” and allow Facebook to download your info, 3). Wait for an e-mail that will let you know your info is ready (it takes a while, what with all the stuff you probably have on Facebook), 4). Go through the security test that allows you to download your info (kudos on that one, Facebook), and, voila, your profile is ported to your desktop in a nifty folder. Do this before you go through with that New Year’s resolution to make your profile less scandalous — you know, for when you’re old and gray and full of sleep and nodding by the fire.
… Back Up Your Tweets
Yes, the Library of Congress is now hoarding tweets, but that doesn’t do much for the casual user looking to keep a log of his own mundane musings, now does it?
Thankfully, you’re got some options. There’s TweetStream, which lets you back up your data as well as mine it for information and statistics. (Be warned, this service takes a looooong time to gather your info).
And if TweetStream doesn’t strike your fancy, TweetScan, a site we covered back in 2009, will track your data back to 2007, and, using OAuth, will even grab your timeline, tweets from friends and direct messages.
Pinboard, a paid, Delicious-like (RIP) tool, also lets you store your tweets — you can also back up or archive tweets from other usernames or from hashtags, as well as add favorites from a username and turn links embedded in tweets into bookmarks.
… Back Up Your Blog
After Tumblr’s epic outage the other week, we showed you all how to back up your blogs. Well, we’re just going to reiterate that right now, along with some solutions for WordPress as well. Remember how you felt when your mom threw away all your old journals, crammed to the margins with angsty poetry? Well, that’s not a feeling one would like to replicate later in life (unless it was relief — in which case, disregard).
Tumblr
Last year, Tumblr launched a backup app that allows users to save their blogs so that they can be viewed on any computer, burned to a CD or hosted as an archive of static HTML files. The app is super easy to use: Simply download, enter your Tumblr sign-in info and save your blog to your desktop (it looks like the below screenshot). You can launch the app and backup more info every time you post as well.
Note, this app is only for Mac OS X (10.5 or higher), but there are otheroptions for those who use different operating systems.
WordPress
If your blog or website uses WordPress, grabbing a backup file of all your posts, pages and comments is easy. In the WordPress dashboard, just go to Tools, Export and choose what types of posts you want to export.
If you want a backup of your entire WordPress database, the excellent WP-DB-Backup plugin can make scheduled database backups for your WordPress site at intervals you choose and even e-mail you the backup file.
… Back Up Your Photos
If you’re like millions of Internet users, you probably upload most of your photos to a photo-sharing site like Flickr or Facebook. While you’re backing up your blog entries, tweets and Facebook messages, it might be a good idea to go ahead and archive all of your photos, too. If nothing else, this is a great way to destroy the evidence from that sorority beer bong tournament in college.
Flickr is a great service and in terms of reliability, it’s consistently solid. What’s less consistent is the whims of its parent company, Yahoo. If the Delicious debacle has taught us anything, it’s that Yahoo isn’t afraid to sell off or shut down a service with millions of daily users.
Lots of apps and tools let you back up your Flickr photo stream, but a quick, fuss-free way to unload years of photo uploads is the Adobe Air app Flump. The app works on Mac, Windows and Linux and downloads a copy of each photo in your stream to a folder of your choice.
Be aware that while this will grab each and every photo, tags, titles and photo sets are not preserved. There a few other alternatives if you’re willing to invest more time in the process, but Flump gets the job done.
Caitlin McDonaldhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngCaitlin McDonald2010-12-29 08:10:052018-04-07 21:00:14HOW TO: Back Up Your Social Media Presence Before the Ball Drops
Facebook is about building relationships and building community. When you create your Facebook Business page it is NOT for selling it is to educate people on your industry and to help them in their business. It is to share why you are so passionate about your work and what you love to do.
Here are 5 steps to follow that will increase your return on Facebook for FREE!
1) You want to brand yourself on Facebook, people will do business with you when they know, like, and trust you. It does not matter what “Company” you are with it is about your personality, your enthusiasm, your authentic self. You want to share your niche!
2) When posting on your business page you want to have valuable content. When you are writing your blogs use those as content to share on Facebook, talk about tips people can use, think about what your niche market is looking for on Google and write about that.
3) The goal with social media both Facebook and Twitter you want to build a targeted following. In my opinion it is not about the quantity of fans or followers it is the quality. I want people to “Like” my page and follow me because they want to hear what I have to say and may even want to do business with me. When you are writing your blogs be sure to share them to Facebook and Twitter and also have your links on your blog so those people that read your blog can also “like” your page and follow you.
4) Ask for syndication from people. Once you have built the relationships with people ask them to share your blogs, posts, tweets etc. That way there is more than just YOU promoting YOUR business. Remember you want to do this for people as well. If you have great power partners make sure you are sharing their stuff. Now one thing with syndication make sure it is within your industry and makes sense, what I mean is I do Internet Marketing so I am not going to promote jewelry or make-up on my business page. I can share it with my personal friends but not with business people make sense?
5) Last but not least, ALL traffic points back to your blog. Your blog is your hub that is where people can really see and learn who you are. Then from there they can purchase products or be pointed to a site where they can purchase. When people come to your blog they want to read and or watch what you have to say and learn from you. This does two things, one builds your database when they subscribe to your RSS feed and two allows them to learn about you to decide if they want to do business with you.
Now with all this great information these steps are not just a onetime thing, these steps are to be done on a consistent basis and from doing these steps you will see an increase in fans and increase in traffic to your site. An added bonus you will see business come in!
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.png00Caitlin McDonaldhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngCaitlin McDonald2010-12-08 10:30:152018-04-07 21:00:15What to do with Facebook
In the age of the internet, marketing has been truly transformed. Social networking and blogging strategies that use search engine optimization (SEO) are the most typical methods of marketing online, but there are other creative ways to market your website or business on the web, including video. YouTube is the web’s top site for streaming user-generated video content, and has been used as a springboard for many successful entrepreneurs and businesses. You can find a video for just about anything on YouTube.
YouTube has viewers from every walk of life; it’s an extremely effective way to get your content seen by a wide array of people. When you do blogging and social media people are just seeing your picture and reading your posts, when you do video people can truly connect with you. Some videos become so popular so fast, they’re more commonly called “going viral”, people who aren’t avid internet users have heard about them. Viral video marketing is a great way to get yourself noticed by a huge amount of people in a very short amount of time. This is great news for any freelancer or business that is looking to get its name out there!
The art of viral marketing is a tough business, and not easy to crack. With a rumored 50,000+ uploads each day to YouTube, it’s difficult to get your video noticed right away. Some videos become viral naturally through great content, and even more still become viral through detailed planning and effort. With the help of blogs, forums, social networks, email, and word of mouth, videos can become viral rather quickly. This is not without work, however.
The benefits of Internet Marketing along with Video Marketing are never ending. Not only will you reach a large amount of diverse people, but your company’s name can become the topic of many conversations overnight. If your video becomes viral, chances are people will discuss it with their friends and family who they think might find it interesting. Thus, viral video marketing is a highly effective way to get your brand name into the world, or keep it there.
With the resulting traffic that is sure to head to your website, your business is sure to grow as people become more acquainted with your products. Fact; I have had over 5 people I have personally done videos for and put up on YouTube and their social media and they have seen results right away. Either it was purchasing of a product, sign up for an event, or new client in the door. You can see how important it is for your business so now I challenge you to start with your video blogs and YouTube channel. It is so much fun trust me! Please let me know if you have questions about videos I would love to assist you in this new journey!
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.png00Caitlin McDonaldhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngCaitlin McDonald2010-12-01 08:30:152018-04-07 21:00:15The Power of Video Marketing
Social media and blogs are a key part to any inbound marketing strategy. Here are 6 ways they help grow your business:
