Posts

, , , , , ,

Social Media Red Flags: 5 Signs You’re Using it Wrong

The sheer value of social media marketing combined with the rapid rate in which these platforms are progressing is something most business owners and companies cannot cast aside.

Social media marketing works and is here to stay. Everybody knows that. But that does not necessarily mean you’re using it right.

In an attempt to help you, we have outlined 5 signs that you’re using social media wrong plus a few tips on how to fix it.

Not updating regularly

Not sticking to a regular posting schedule is the most common mistake new social media marketers commit. If your profile runs dry for a few days or weeks, your followers may fall out of habit of checking in with your business.

Your tone is inconsistent

The internet is a noisy place. If you wish to cut through that noise, then you have to employ a unique tone for your business. Employing a unique voice will help you build trust, build and maintain your reputation and engage in meaningful conversations with your followers. Without it, your message shall be left twisting in the wind.

You are constantly broadcasting

Social media is all about interaction. Sending your thoughts in a one-ways fashion will not help you in any way. Instead, you’ll be missing out on the powerful benefits of engaging with people.

You ignore negative comments

No matter how popular your company is, you can’t prevent negative comments from coming. Instead of ignoring or deleting them, it would be best to offer your sincerest apology, provide them with a candid explanation and any actions you might want to take. Plus, re-assure your client that this won’t happen again in the future.

You are focused on quantity

When it comes to building a social media following, you should not focus on quantity alone. You may have a lot of followers but if your engagement rate is close to non-existent, then you’re definitely doing it wrong.

Build a following that would help you grow your business. Try to connect with people who would find your contents useful and whose content you can benefit from as well.

 

/by
, , , , , , , , ,

How to Use Social Media in Launching a Product

social media goals

Social media gives you the opportunity to connect and engage with people with minimal effort and limited budget. If you are on the lookout for a creative means of launching your product, you might want to consider using social media.

In this article, we’ll give you a list of ways on how to use social media in launching a new product. Read on as we give you a few suggestions that will help you with your next launch.

Teaser campaign

Before the launch, try to think of creative ways that could hint your followers that something big and exciting is coming very soon. This will spark the interest of your audience.

Months before the launch, you can post random images that could be associated with your product. Also, feel free to use code names in all your updates in order to create a buzz within the online community.

Create a video

Social media provides business owners to easily connect with their target audience. Why not take advantage of this opportunity and create a video that is focused on the need you wish to address while providing a hint at the solution you wish to offer.

Create a founder’s list

Create a list of people who shows interest in your product and would want to learn more about your launch. Create a special page where you can direct these people to. On this page, consider placing an option where they can sign up for special updates.

You main goal is to gather a group of people who have shown interest on the teaser and video that you have posted. You can ask for the help of these people to spread the word about your product later on.

Behind the scenes

After creating a founder’s list, it is important to provide them something substantial that would keep them interested in your campaign. Creating a personalized video and giving them a peak of what’s happening behind the scenes will get them excited about the launch.

Encourage people to spread the word

Building a loyal fan base is one of the key advantages of social media. When the time is right, you can ask for the aid of these people and encourage them to spread the word.

The simplest and fastest way of doing this is by creating a clickable tweet. You can use ClicktoTweet to do this.

/by
, , , , , , ,

4 Social Media Marketing Tips for Beginners

Social media marketing is beneficial for small business owners as it helps them build awareness about their business and products or services through different social media channels. With the right tactics, you’ll be rewarded with increased product visibility, a new batch of potential clients and bountiful sales as well.

As a beginner, building a social media presence may not be that easy. We have compiled a few tips to make the process easier for you.

Choose a social media platform

As a beginner, it would be best to choose 1 or 2 social media platforms and stick with it. This would be easier instead of working across different platforms at the same time.

A great way to determine which platform is best for you is to follow the influencers and learn about their success story. Follow the leaders in your niche and check out their Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and other social media accounts.

If they have 50,000 Facebook fans but only 5,000 Twitter followers, then Facebook may be a more suitable social media platform for your niche.

Optimize your social media platforms

Decide which social media tools you’ll be using and optimize your profiles. You are more likely to get more followers and boost your SEO efforts by optimizing your profile.

If you wish to have a trusted profile, then using a real photo would be of great help. Social media is all about connecting with people, so you have to show the people who you are in order to get their trust.

Connect your social media accounts with your blog or website

If your social media profile is ready, connecting your blog or website to your social media account would be the next step. Each platform has a certain set of procedures to follow. So, you have to abide by these rules and do it correctly.

Add social media buttons to your blog or site

Adding social media buttons on your blog or site is beneficial as it could help reader share your content easily.

For increased exposure, it is best to place the buttons above the fold. Also, larger buttons are more visible and are more likely to get you more clicks compared to smaller buttons.  

/by
,

Social Media Tips for Small Business Owners

Planning and implementing an effective marketing strategy is one of the biggest challenges business owners are dealing with. Being successful in marketing your brand through social media means being able to introduce your products or services in a fun and creative way.

 

In this article, you’ll be able to discover some of the strategies experts use to boost their social media marketing. Read on and we’ll tell you more about it.

Diversify your social media presence

While Twitter and Facebook still dominate the social media scene, there are a lot of social media platforms being introduced from time to time. Instagram has also been increasingly popular among users.

In order to see better results, it is important for business owners to diversify their social media presence and interact with their clients through a variety of platforms.

Tell your unique story

Make your company stand out from the competition by sharing your unique story through social media. This way, consumers may be swayed to purchase from you instead of your competitors.

While most of your existing customers are familiar with your story, your potential clients may have no idea about it. So, try to maximize the power of social media and share your story to your audience.

Research popular content from your competitors

Try to sneak a peek into your competitor’s posts and see which types of content are popular with their audience. If this catches the attention of their audience, there’s a great possibility that your followers would be interested too. It’s not about copying their content; it’s about creating contents around a similar topic.

Use images to amplify your updates

Fan engagement is necessary in order for your post to be continually seen in the newsfeeds. So, if you’re Facebook posts are not generating enough shares, likes or comments, you’re wasting time.

One of the easiest and most effective ways of boosting fan engagement to your status updates is by using images. You can search for blank images, edit them and add a text or a question that your followers could answer or share with their friends.

 

/by
,

Rules of Social Media Marketing

Leveraging the power of social media and content marketing could help increase your followers and customer base dramatically. So, it is important to understand the basics of social media marketing. From increasing your online presence to maximizing quality, abiding by these rules could help you build a foundation that will help stabilize your brand and increase your sales.

Rule of listening

Your success with content and social media marketing requires less talking and more listening. Know your target audience and join discussions so you’ll have a better idea of what they think. After this, you could create content that would capture their attention and spark conversations.

Rule of quality

Quality is more important the quantity. It is better to have at least 800 people who read, share and discuss about your content rather than having 8,000 people who would disappear after reading your content.

Rule of patience

It is impossible to achieve social media and content marketing overnight. If you are determined to introduce your business through social media, you’ll have to invest a lot of time and exert a lot of effort in order to see results.

Rule of compounding

If you publish high quality and interesting content on a regular basis, there is a greater chance that your audience and followers will share them in their own social networking accounts like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and even their own blogs.

When people shares and talks about your content, this provides more entry points for search engines; thus, allowing your keywords to appear in search engines. These entry points could potentially grow into thousands of ways for people to find you online.

Rule of acknowledgement

Acknowledging people who reaches out to you online is important. Building relationship with your followers and audiences is one important aspect of your success. So, try to reach out to them as much as possible.

Rule of accessibility

Publishing a great content and then disappearing afterwards won’t do you any good. Instead, try to come up with high quality and interesting posts once in a while and don’t forget to take part in the conversation. Online readers could be fickle and they won’t even hesitate to jump to another site if you disappear for a week or so.

/by
,

Things to Consider When Measuring your Social Media ROI

If you think tracking the return on investment of your company’s social media is not necessary, then you might want to re-think your priorities. When tweaked and tracked properly, it could provide a powerful web presence to any start-up company and could help you keep up with large companies. Plus, it helps business owners to determine if their marketing strategies are working or not.

Web analytics

Web analytics is one of the most efficient ways of gauging your social media marketing ROI. Most business owners use Google Analytics to do this. By using this tool, you can easily determine the number of people who clicked on the link you shared on any social media channel. Most importantly, you’ll have a more accurate count on the number of people who visited your site through the link.

Engaging contents

Before focusing on the metrics, you’ll have to post meaningful and interesting contents through all your social channels on a regular basis. Also, take note of the kind of contents that your followers share, like and comment on the most.

Create posts that will capture the attention of your followers. This way, they’ll be interested to share your posts and could lead to a more solid fan base. Though there are no guarantees of turning these followers into paying customers, having numerous followers might actually help.

Frequency

While we fully understand the importance of keeping track of your social media ROI, knowing how often you should check on the metrics is also helpful. Experts suggest you keep track of your metrics at least once a week. This way, you’ll be able to understand the types of content which drives the most number of web visits. Most importantly, you can focus on determining which content turns into sales.

Mistakes

Obsessing over the number of likes and followers your company gets is one of the biggest mistakes most business owners commit.

Please bear in mind that these information could be used in improving your social media marketing campaign. So, dig deeper and focus on the metrics that could help you climb the ladder of success.

 

 

/by
, ,

Top 10 Benefits Of Advertising On Facebook

  1. Facebook is one of the most popular websites on the Internet. With approximately 250 million unique visitors each month, Facebook is the 2nd-most visited website on the Internet (behind Google). All those eyeballs mean plenty of exposure for your ads.
  2. Facebook offers targeted advertising. Facebook allows advertisers to target a specific group of people based on age, personal interests and more. Facebook can even comb through user profiles to place your ads only on pages that mention a specific keyword.
  3. You can increase customer loyalty through a Facebook fan page. Countless businesses have created Facebook fan pages that users can join. These pages allow your business to interact directly with your customers so that you can build loyalty and brand image.
  4. Offer special promotions through your Facebook fan page. Your fan page can also be used as a platform to promote new products or ad campaigns. Updates on new product launches keep your customers more informed and up-to-date on what products or services you offer.
  5. Facebook ads are more flexible than Google AdWords. Compared to Google AdWords, Facebook offers additional character length for ad descriptions. The ability to create image-based ads also adds flexibility.
  6. Facebook users offer heightened audience engagement. Facebook users visit the website not only to consume information, but also to create it. This results in a higher retention rate that improves ad visibility.
  7. Facebook facilitates multiple ad views. Your ad has a better chance of getting noticed or having a positive effect when seen multiple times. A high number of Facebook users visit the site several times a day.
  8. Choose between PPC and CPM pay structures. Facebook allows advertisers to purchase ad space on a click-based or impression-based fee structure. This allows you to tailor your ad campaign based on budget and other preferences.
  9. Advertising on Facebook can be inexpensive. Thanks to the targeted nature of Facebook advertising, your online campaign can reach your target market for a fairly affordable price. Range of packages for impression-based campaigns is also fairly large, allowing you to reach as many users as your budget allows.
  10. Ability to reach smart-phone users. Facebook is accessed via smart phones worldwide every single day. This fact means advertisers not only have the ability to reach computer and laptop users, but people out in the world as well.
/by
,

5 THINGS YOU NEED TO DO WITH GOOGLE+ NOW

If you haven’t already heard, Google+ is become a force to be reckoned with on the web. It’s still too early to predict if it’s a “Facebook killer”, but it’s already obvious that Google+ has caused a major shakeup of the social aspect of the web. It will affect you; I’d like to explain what Google+ is, how it will affect you, and the five things you need to do with Google+ now.

What Is Google+?

Google Plus is essentially a way to connect your entire Google experience with the people you know. Think of it as a very Google-centric version of Facebook. In fact, you will find it very similar to Facebook – except all the features, and their connection to your browsing experience, are amplified.

The most noticeable example of this is the +1 button. This works similarly to the Facebook Like button in that it functions as an upvote for pages you like. Site owners can install code for +1 on their site in order to allow people to vote, and when you vote for something using the +1 button, it shows up in your activity stream. The button also shows up directly in search results (if you’re logged in).

What are Some of the Main Features of Google+?

Instead of having “friends” a la Facebook, you have “circles” in Google Plus. These are groupings such as “Work”, “Friends”, “Acquaintances”, etc. that allow you categorize your connections with people. It gives you a bit more flexibility than the Facebook “friend” – especially since Google Plus allows you to make your own types of circles. This is a major difference with Facebook – and Google Plus has the advantage.

Another useful feature of Google Plus is it’s “Sparks” feature, which is similar to an alert feed. Not everything in sparks has necessarily been shared before in Google+, and it’s a good way to keep up with topics of interest to you.

A feature of interest to people who use instant messaging or Skype is the “Hangouts” feature, which is similar to Skype. Hangouts are virtual chat rooms that you can setup and participate in voice (using Google Voice) or text chat sessions. This can be very useful for business use.

How Does Google+ Affect the Rest of the Web?

Google+ is bound to affect the search ranking calculations, if it’s not doing so already. Twitter and Facebook shares, along with other socially-connected sites such as Digg and StumbleUpon already play a part in the ranking algorithm – and Google is sure to use +1 votes in a similar fashion. Aside from that, +1 votes already affect personalized search results. Expect to see different results delivered to you depending on what you’ve voted for in the past!

Google+ has well over 10 million users, and that number will only grow exponentially as more and more people adopt Google+ as just another aspect of the Google services most web users depend on in some way. Expect Google+ to become a vital part of social traffic – and get used to seeing the +1 button all over the web.

OK, OK…But What Should I Do Now?

There are 5 things you should do now – now that Google+ is beginning to influence the web.

  1. Grow your following, and don’t be afraid to add people.
  2. Treat it like Twitter: follow, follow, follow.
  3. Ask for shares and +1 on your posts.
  4. Add a +1 button to your site – either directly or by using one of the many social plugins.
  5. Share good content with your circles – because content is still king

(http://www.searchdiscovery.com/blog/5-things-you-should-be-doing-on-google-plus/)

/by
, ,

Tweet Science– One Reason Twitter’s Confident About Its Ad Possibilities

At Boundless, we know that Twitter is a powerful tool to help businesses grow and share information about it’s products and services. But lately, one of the big questions facing social media giant Twitter ahead of its New York Stock Exchange debut this week is how much money it could actually make for investors.

Here is an interesting article we found and wanted to share.

“We have incurred significant operating losses in the past, and we may not be able to achieve or subsequently maintain profitability,”the company writes, in its business prospectus.

Twitter expects revenue growth, but that it will be slow. We’ve written before on how it’s planning on cornering mobile advertising as its main revenue booster. These user numbers a new Pew/Knight study out this week help its argument.

Even though Facebook dwarfs Twitter in the number of users (Facebook’s at more than one billion to Twitter’s 200 million), the study shows those who consume news on Twitter are younger, better educated and more mobile than Facebook news consumers. That’s a huge selling point for Twitter in its bid to lure advertisers.

“Mobile devices are a key point of access for these Twitter news consumers. The vast majority, 85%, get news (of any kind) at least sometimes on mobile devices. That outpaces Facebook news consumers by 20 percentage points; 64% of Facebook news consumers use mobile devices for news. The same is true of 40% of all U.S. adults overall, according to the survey.

Twitter news consumers stand out for being younger and more educated than both the population overall and Facebook news consumers.

Close to half, 45%, of Twitter news consumers are 18-29 years old. That is more than twice that of the population overall (21%) and also outpaces young adults’ representation among Facebook news consumers, where 34% are 18-29 years old. Further, just 2% of Twitter news consumers are 65 or older, compared with 18% of the total population and 7% of Facebook news consumers.”

The study is based on survey data and a multi-year data analysis of tweets around news events.

That this group relies on Twitter as a “second screen” during major news events means Twitter can promise advertisers an “in” to target certain groups at moments they’re paying attention. The mobile-first behavior also plays well into the company’s revenue plan, as it recently acquired MoPub, the world’s largest mobile ad exchange, as a way to sell mobile ads that target their dedicated users based on data that Twitter has collected from them.

 

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/11/05/243221309/one-reason-twitters-confident-about-its-ad-possibilities

For more on Twitter’s business prospects, check out Joe Hagan’s piece from New York Magazine,

/by
,

The Wild and Crazy Career Paths of 5 Self-Made Billionaires (Infographic)

Just starting your business and feeling lost? From their humble beginnings, all of these self-made billionaires have changed course scores of times. Let these stories serve as inspiration for you!

Virgin Empire founder Richard Branson’s first job was selling Christmas trees. NBA Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban’s first job was selling garbage bags. Las Vegas Sands Corporation CEO Sheldon Adelson’s first job was selling newspapers. Groupon co-founder Eric Lefkofsky’s first job was selling carpets. And Elon Musk, the founder of Telsa Motors and PayPal, started his working life writing video games.

The infographic below, generated by San Francisco-based startup organization Funders and Founders, shows just how many different businesses these legendary entrepreneurs launched.

Funders and Founders also analyzed all 1,426 billionaires in the world. From there, the company segmented out the 960 that are self made and determined that 830 of them earned their wealth from more than one business.

Source: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228067

 

/by