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Content Marketing: Tips for Generating Fresh and Relevant Content

BIMS blogYou only have a few seconds to capture the attention of your target audience. Think about the books you’ve began and the articles you’ve read in the past. Through the first few sentences, people will decide whether they want to spend more time to read your content. With so much articles posted on the web, you can’t expect people to invest so much of their time trying to overcome a tepid introduction.

Despite the intense competition, some people were able to generate thousands of laser-targeted visitors to their sites. If you’ve ever wondered how they did that, then you’re in for a real treat.

Here are some tips to help you generate fresh content and increase the popularity of your site.

Find other blogs to read

Set aside 10 minutes of your time browsing through other blogs in the same niche. This will help ensure that you have fresh content ideas when you’re ready to sit down and create new contents for your site. Take what you find and make it even better.

Don’t be afraid to dedicate more time everyday to read other’s blog posts. Mind you, the best writers spend majority of their time reading and learning how to inject different voices into their work.

Pinterest

If you’ll be hanging out on the same platforms as your competitors, there’s a good chance that you’ll be writing the same old stuff.

Pinterest actually drives more traffic as compared to Youtube, LinkedIn and Google+. So, focus there and use it for content mining.

Pinterest pins are ranked according to likes, comments and repins. So, keep an eye out for topics with the most number of repins.

Check the comments section

If you have an active community on your blog, then make it a point to read the comments.

Your site should focus on your visitor’s interest and address the question of what’s in it for them. By listening to what others have to say, you’ll be able to pick up some ideas to write for your next blog post.

However, if no one is commenting on your posts, we suggest reading the comments on other blogs within the industry.

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How to Drive Business Using Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites have been used by business owners to build their network, engage with their
customers and bring team members together. If you are a business owner and still hasn’t been
embracing the benefits of using social networking sites, now is the best time to hop onboard.

Social media also has the ability of dividing industries as outdated companies usually fall behind their
competitors. With the advancement of technology, it is also seen as a way of opening up opportunities
for small, medium and large businesses. Having said that, it becomes clear that social media is one of
the most important aspects of doing business today.

Developing a social network strategy
Before you decide to open an account and become an active member, you first have to consider what
each site has to offer and how you can benefit from them. Also, take a look at your current social media
strategies and see which one would best suit your target audience. Without a fully-developed plan, you
may end up meandering through a variety of sites and eventually realize that you have wasted too much
time and resources in the process.

Choosing a site
Choose a social networking site that would best fulfill the goals of your marketing strategy. Though most
of these sites are similar in nature, they are also categorized according to the purposes they serve. If you
have enough people to handle a number of social networking sites, then that would be great. If not, it
would be best to focus on 1 or 2.

Social network marketing
This is not about selling your product; it’s about interacting with your followers. Companies who interact
more with their followers and share contents that are related to their brand are the most successful at
converting followers to paying customers.
Feel free to ask questions on your wall, comment on other user’s post or post links and events related to
your business.
Social network recruiting
This is one of the most effective ways of using your networks in finding the best candidates for your
company. Social networks have truly changed how companies build their team. Plus, it helps business
owners to zone in on the best candidates for free.

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New changes to Facebook’s Algorithm

Facebook is always making changes to the look, feel and back-end and the system and profiles. This article came out yesterday on HubSpot about  5 Ways You Can Capitalize on Facebook’s News Feed Algorithm Update We wanted to touch on this real quick, as a social media management company we are always making sure with the tools and strategy we are using that our clients posts are coming up in peoples news feeds on a daily basis. This can be a very difficult task to achieve for some people.

Here are the 5 steps HubSpot talks about to read this article in full please click here 

5 Marketing Takeaways From the Facebook News Feed Update

1) If you’re using Facebook for lead generation, you need to make sure that every post counts.

With the new Story Bumping feature (which resurfaces older posts that you may have “missed” to the top of the News Feed), you have even more opportunities for your content to be resurfaced to your Fans — that is, if it’s good.

We’re guessing that visual content will be even more important than it already was, as photos get 53% more likes than the average post — so figure out how you can make the most of your images and cover photo updates to benefit your Facebook lead generation. If you’re trying to reach your Fans in order to generate leads, really think about what content would be most engaging; you might end up staying in the News Feed for longer than you used to. (And if you need a few ideas to jump-start your lead generation creativity, check out this blog post.)

2) But if your Facebook posts flop quickly, you’ll have more chances to get it right.

On the flip side of Story Bumping, if your content isn’t performing as well, it will be pushed down much more quickly. While at first glance this means that your content must perform well — and perform well fast — to remain in the News Feed, it actually is a positive thing. According to EdgeRank Checker, Story Bumping will decrease the effect of Time Decay — which means if you’re swinging and missing with Facebook content, you’ll have more opportunities to test content to engage with your audience.

3) At the same time, you could also get knocked for posting a flurry of updates … so find a delicate balance for your Facebook posting schedule.

That being said, once Facebook gets the Chronological by Last Actor feature right, flurries of updates will get grouped together in the News Feed … which means your individual post engagement (and potential for lead generation) could decrease. With this new change, you should really monitor your posting frequency to make sure you’re not posting too much. Plan out spaces between your social media updates accordingly and then test to see if you can adjust the timing between posts to increase engagement and conversions.

The good news about the overall algorithm update is that it won’t help people who send out spam update after spam update, as they’ll get removed again and again from the News Feed.

4) Throw out impression-based metrics: Engagement is king.

The whole Last Actor part of the algorithm is a huge indication of the core metric Facebook values: engagement. So while “post reach” is an interesting metric you may want to keep an eye on, Facebook seems to care more about people actually interacting with your Facebook content. This is a huge win for small businesses or companies who have small Facebook Company Page followings — focus on engaging people with your posts, and you should appear in their News Feeds more often.

5) Supplement your efforts with Facebook advertising to potentially increase engagement.

If you’re trying to ramp up your engagement metric but your current fans’ engagement isn’t enough, you might want to consider testing Facebook Ads. They could help you reach a new audience that would love to engage with you — again, taking advantage of the Last Actor metric. Also, keep in mind that the Story Bumping feature does not affect ads on the News Feed — ads are determined by a different algorithm. If you need help getting started with Facebook ads, check out this free ebook.

The moral of the story all comes down to one thing: with all of these changes, you need to test what works on your Company Page with your Fans. What works for one marketer in one business could completely fail in another. So get testing — with the right data, you’ll start increasing your Facebook engagement and leads in no time!

We love getting updates from HubSpot!

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Creating a Social Media Strategy

Social media can seem very time consuming when you are getting started with it either for personal use or even more with business use. As a business owner it is so important that you have an online presence, it is your reputation these days. If someone is searching for you, and they can’t find you online, then you may be losing customers and business. If you are just getting started with social media you need to make sure you have a strategy behind what you are doing. Here are a few tips to help with your social media strategy:

# 1 – Know what your goals are going to be

When you are starting to market online with social media you need to spend some time figuring out what you want to put into social media and what you want to get out of social media. Really take time to write these things down. Be realistic, most people think since you have a Facebook page that your phone is going to start ringing off the hook that is not the case!  Sometimes your business and your personal life on social media can easily blend and distract you from your real goals, so it’s important to know where you are spending your time, and what tactics work to earn you more business. Figure out how much time you are willing to spend each day to put into social media, we usually recommend an hour a day. Use a time block that will work for you and your schedule. For example, if your goal is to use Facebook to drive more traffic and leads to your blog then make sure you are blogging frequently so people want to read your blog!

# 2 – Building an online Brand- Know your audience.

For some people and companies, it can take some time to really understand what your brad is. Having a clear picture on what your brand is and who the audience is, and then you can choose the right social media platforms, that you feel would be the best for your brand.  Remember, if you can’t be on a platform, and do it consistently well against your local competitors, figure out which ones you will choose to focus on.

 

# 3 – Measuring your success – ROI

When it comes to analyzing your return and success, this is one area that is peoples least favorite and most often overlooked. The ONLY way you will be able to see if social media and Internet marketing are working for you, is to be analyzing it! From Search Engine Optimization (SEO), blog traffic, referrals, mobile and social media, having a firm understanding of how and when you reach your audience is the best way to know what social media efforts are paying off. Which content is popular? What gets shared the most? Do you ask how the callers on the other end of the phone how they found you? (A lot of companies DO NOT ask where their customers are coming from. CRAZY!)

Here are some basic steps:

  • Set up Google Analytics on your blog. Take one to two hours familiarizing yourself with the various free tools, real-time traffic, social referrals, and mobile activity.
  • Do research on hot keywords for your business through Google Here is a great tool for Twitter on hashtags http://tagboard.com/
  • Use social media measuring tools like Hootsuite to help you understand who is retweeting you and following you.
  • Did traffic increase when you started doing more posts on LinkedIn? Did your use of Pinterest for 30 days increase views of your website? Get your coffee, a quiet morning once a week, and analyze. You’ll be doing more for your business than more than 80 percent of marketers on social media!

# 4 – When is it time to try something new?

The one thing you can always count on with social media is it is constantly changing, as are the consumers who interact with them. Be watchful of these trends, not the ones of those you compete with in the industry. It’s very common as an industry to follow our crowd of opinions and do something because someone said it was a groundbreaking new technology, or suddenly everyone started doing it, or a report came out saying all the popular people in the industry were doing it. These are NOT the metrics upon which to decide a social media or marketing strategy. 

Be cautious; be analytical; try new things; have fun; be yourself; build your brand voice; and measure your success!

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Ever had somebody asking you about your social media ROI?

This is a great article we found at  http://ezinearticles.com/?Improving-Social-Media-ROI-the-Easy-Way&id=7810932 As social media managers, one thing we get asked all the time is “How do you get a ROI with social media” here are a few great ways to monitor your ROI. One thing to remember is if you are spending time or money on managing social media, it is not a dollar to dollar return, you want to monitor your interaction, your likes, comments, new likes, followers, Re-Tweets etc. Please let us know if you have any questions with getting an ROI with social media, we would love to speak with you.

Chances are you are either one of the two kinds of people:

1. Somebody who definitely no idea what social media ROI is or

2. Somebody who knows it is but has trouble giving an exact number.

Fret not my friends. Around 1/4 of the marketers we have worldwide realize that finding their social media ROI is one of the biggest challenge they face as marketers.

To further help you, I will list down some techniques you can implement on your social media campaigns so you can easily reach your ROI.

#1 Promote offers using social networking sites – We all know and recognize the power of social media. It is a very important channel to promote anything one creates. It can be a white paper, a report, an eBook a simple article or even a webinar. Promoting your products or offer using social networking sites is not as tough as you think. Fun in fact!

 

  • Twitter

 

Twitter marketing is quite easy as you just need to put a link that includes your content/product/offer. Also, don’t forget to use #hashtags. Tweets with words that are hashed are more valuable that tweets that are not. Once you hashtag a word, it goes to the world of hashtags. Your tweets will become more visible to your followers. But there’s a rule. I recommend using only 2-3 hashed words per tweet. Using too much will make you look like spam.

 

  • Facebook and Google +

 

People are visual when it comes to Facebook and Google+. Take advantage of this behavior by using pictures on your post with your link. And like Twitter, these two social networking sites have adopted the #hashtag, so make sure take advantage of this new feature also for maximum visibility.

 

  • LinkedIn

 

Post on marketing groups that are discussing principles or ideas that are same as yours.

#2 Use tags on URLs to track traffic – To further understand social media ROI you have to know where people are coming from when they get to your site. If you are promoting your work on multiple platforms, you have to know what campaign works and what is failing. This will make future campaigns easier. In order to successfully track traffic, you have to put tags on URLs so you know if it comes from a specific platform. Remember that the whole idea behind this technique is finding campaigns that work and find out those that needs to be tweaked.

Surveys – You can also use a tried and tested method of knowing how your visitors get to your site is through the use of a simple survey. If you thought that surveys are a thing of the past then you are gravely mistaken.

#3 Take advantage of Google+ – I asked some friends the other day as to what they think the best social media platform for Google is and I got varied answers. I really can’t blame them because most of them had no idea what I was asking. As for internet marketers, Google+ is hands-down the best SEO partner you can have for your campaigns.

Other than Google+, make sure to make your presence felt using Google Places and Google Authorship. The overall idea of a social media campaign is for more traffic to your site so this means that a good presence on all Google platforms might just equate to more traffic for your site.

Bottom line, use the best social media practices to improve your ROI.

You may be into Twitter marketing or Pinterest or Facebook but you always have to remember that social media marketing is not a magic cure that will surely remedy your problems in no time at all.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7810932

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