Category: Online Marketing

Follow this 3-step method for building a self-generating list machine.

Ever wonder how they do it? Seems that every day you run across internet marketers who clearly have extensive email lists. And it appears to be to working for their business, because they use the list again and again. It’s impressive, but it’s not a secret. It’s actually quite simple – and easy!

This system is used and promoted by David Frey, the Founder of MarketingBlogger.com and the author of the best selling book, “The Small Business Marketing Bible”. (David Frey is a marketing guru. He must be, because he graduated high school 497th of 512, with a D-average – but wrote a book on how to make straight A’s in school “MaketheGrade.com”!) Here’s how he builds lists:

#1 Create a Lead Magnet

A lead magnet solves a very big problem for your target audience. That makes sense, right? What do you do when you sit down at the Google search bar? Well, you type keywords for the problem you’re trying to solve. For example, you’re in the skin care business. What are people looking for? A solution for clearing acne. A solution for covering acne. A way to save money on acne treatment. You could name a dozen more. These are all Lead Magnets. Now write an article or other informational content about it that you can offer online, simply by asking for your visitor for their email address.

Content can be in the form of:

• Videos
• eBooks
• Articles
• Blog posts
• Podcasts
• Audio

Frey suggests that you give it a catchy name, then write 3-4 bullet points about what this product will do for you.

#2 Create a Landing Page

Use a very simple landing page to showcase your product. According to Frey, it should contain:

• A very compelling headline
• A few bullets about the magnet
• An optin form (email address only)
• A graphic of the lead magnet
• (optional) A call to action video
• Admin info (address, legal stuff…)

#3 Drive Traffic to the Page

Now this is where you’re going to be relieved. It’s simple! According to Frey:

“Now that you have a simple, but high converting landing page, all you have to do is drive traffic to that. There are a gazillion ways to drive traffic, but you should focus on mastering only 2 methods.

Just pick 2 methods that work and focus ONLY on those 2 methods.

Here’s a list of possible traffic tactics…

1. Pay per click

2. Article marketing

3. Blog commenting

4. Video submissions

5. Forum marketing

Just pick 2 and focus, focus, focus on those 2 methods. Before you know it, you’ll have thousands of people joining your list. That’s it.

Easy, simple, fast.”

So, there you have it. If you enjoyed this approach, you may want to check out Frey’s other simple marketing techniques that work. He’s gone from D- to Philanthropist!

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is now available at:

· Amazon.com: http://bit.ly/AmazonTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

· Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/BNTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. She helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

Guest Author: Dustin Heap

Defined as less than 500 employees, small businesses today literally make up an astounding 99% of U.S. businesses. Further, according to the State Department, almost 20 million people work for companies employing less than 20 people. In light of these statistics, it’s easy to see the need for savvy small business marketing by owners across the United States. As the marketplace and consumers become increasingly more digital, marketing is even more important in regards to online visibility. Small business owners can follow the tips below to establish a foundation of strong online marketing and increase their visibility in the very competitive online space.

Make Your Site Seen

There are few fundamental elements essential to online visibility. You wouldn’t build a house without a strong foundation and you shouldn’t build a website without one either. Just like with laying a foundation there are some things you first need to avoid to successfully complete the job. Some of the elements to avoid in order to give your website a strong foundation and visibility online include a website without heavy usage of iframes, splash pages, restricted access by login, and Javascript navigational elements.

After avoiding the aforementioned elements there are many things you need to have to build a strong website. One of the major must haves is a website that uses HTML 5 and CSS best practices to ensure that search engine robots can access and “crawl” the website by jumping from HTML link to HTML link. While this may sound foreign and complex to non-digital business owners, most content management platforms today, such as WordPress, come with websites that are designed with SEO best practices in mind. If moving to or creating a new site isn’t an option, then owners should work with their web developer to ensure that SEO best practices are followed as much as possible to ensure maximum visibility from the search engines.

Other quick fixes for website owners can include ensuring that the robots.txt file is not preventing the website from being indexed, optimizing on page tags such as the title and meta tags, and setting up a Webmaster account with the search engines and submitting a sitemap.

With a strong foundation in place, business owners can turn their focus to both onsite and offsite efforts to attract visitors and increase visibility.

Regular Expert Content

One of the best things small business owners can do to increase online visibility is to create unique and expert content on a company blog. Again, this option will be most effective if you’ve made your website search friendly, so be sure to start there. As alluded to previously a 3rd party web developer should be able to include some kind of blogging platform that allows owners to produce content. Even if an entire site redesign isn’t possible with a little bit of custom work this can be put in place as needed.

Creating content by blogging regularly provides many advantages to small business owners. First, it establishes the business as an authority on any given topic. This authority helps communicate to the search engines that your website should appear in search results because it is evident that you would be useful to searchers.

Another by-product of creating such content is that it attracts links. Search engines use links much like votes in an election. The more you have, the more likely you are to appear when users in your area search for your type of business.

Finally, creating this content provides an easy way to answer frequently asked questions, engage with current and potential customers, and communicate company news and promotions.

Regular content creation brings a myriad of benefits and really only requires that someone internally make time to get it written and posted on a company blog.

Business Profile Pages

Another easy and inexpensive way to increase visibility is to list your small business in online business directory sites. These sites include such examples as Yelp, Superpages and many others. While I’ve explained in detail how to build these local listings elsewhere, there are several benefits of doing so that are worth mentioning here.

The first benefit is that these “local citations,” as they are called in online parlance, are vital to ranking for geographic related searches. This simply means that you are more likely to appear for searches done by people in your city or town by having these types of listings online.

Another benefit is that sometimes the listing on the external site ranks highly in the search results by itself. This is because a website like Yelp is viewed as very authoritative by Google. Thus, by listing your business there, your business profile may be the one to show up. When this happens, you instantly get more visibility and there is a good chance that users will then click over to your actual website.

Lastly, having many different business profiles set up gives your customers the ability to leave a positive review of your business on their preferred website. These reviews will then be seen by more potential customers and potentially lead to increased sales. In fact, 52% of consumers are more likely to buy from a local business with positive reviews and 72% trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations from friends or family.

While online marketing may seem daunting to an owner or business first getting started, it doesn’t have to be. By implementing a solid foundation, creating regular unique content, and creating business listings online a small business owner can make a huge impact on the bottom line for a small cost.

Author Bio:

Dustin Heap works at Signs.com as a digital marketer. Signs.com is leading custom sign shop offering custom signage to clients across the United States. Dustin has previously worked both on the organic and paid side of search and with small businesses in a wide variety of industries.

Guest Author: Darren DeMatas

5 Steps To Create a Balanced Content Marketing Strategy

What is Content Marketing?

There’s no doubt that content marketing is growing momentum as an industry buzzword. But what is it really? Simply put, content marketing is creating and distributing customer-centric content that is relevant, educational, minus the sales pitch.

According to eMarketer, more and more companies are shifting their focus to content marketing and using it as a lead generation tool. But why?

Content marketing helps you connect with your target market in an unobtrusive manner. By understanding how your customers discover and connect with your services, you will be able to guide them through the decision making process and position your company as a solution to their problem. If you are looking to build a content marketing strategy, these 5 steps can get you started:

1. Identify Online Communities Where Your Customers Are Active

Social networking within your industry can build credibility with your peers, but you can’t stop there. Look for discussions and forums in your customers’ industry and you will find a wealth of active online communities that are mostly ignored by outsiders. A good place to start is Google+ and LinkedIn. LinkedIn is an optimal tool as it will actually tell you how active a certain community is.

2. Listen To Discussions And Identify Customer Pain Points

Once you join the community, you can search within the community for terms related to what you offer. While you are listening to conversations, you will identify customer challenges that you can help solve. After you have surveyed the community and understand how much they talk about your service, you can start to engage your audience. The crucial element is: do NOT hard sell. Don’t even talk about your company in these communities. It’s tempting, but you have to resist the urge to send a link to your “get a quote” page.

3. Plan Content Marketing Around Customer Challenges and High Impact Search Terms

When you are active in online communities, members will start to look up your social profiles. Make sure that you have plenty of free advice for them waiting. It is critical to time your engagement with strategic posts both on social media and blogs, where you have more control over the messaging.

A business blog can help customers discover your content. You should have identified a series of questions that emerged from your listening. Now is your chance to respond and connect with your audience on your blog. Your blog posts should include topics you uncovered during your listening and high impact traffic terms. To figure out high impact search terms, look for keywords with high search volume and low competition. A great keyword research tool is the Google Keyword Planner. This tool will give you search volume and keyword ideas. Another useful tool is Google Trends. With this tool, you can compare trends of keyword searches over time. These tools can help make sure you base your blog content strategy on topics that are gaining popularity. You wouldn’t want to put all that effort into content that no one searches for, right?

4. Content Building

There is always a new challenge facing a customer. If you spend adequate time refining your listening and content creation, you will end up with valuable customer-centric content worth paying for. By giving it away, you will generate targeted leads of people that need your help. Once you attract them to your site, offer them a free white paper or eBook. You can also ask them to sign up for your newsletter. Email marketing is a powerful way to nurture leads and convert them into customers.

When developing an effective content marketing strategy, don’t limit it to just the internet. Sales collateral, brochures and even datasheets should incorporate the key messaging you’ve created during the content development process. Consistency between digital and traditional media is critical for building trust and credibility.

5.Ongoing Repetition

Don’t abandon your communities once you drum up some business. Keep offering free advice. Don’t be the first to share links to your content; let others do so first. When members of the community start “liking” and sharing your comments and links, you are one step closer to being a credible resource to the community.

Online communities and discussion topics will come and go as the market changes. It’s critical that you continue to listen so your content will not be stagnant. No one wants dated solutions to their problems. This is especially true for internet marketing. SEO and social media strategies of yesteryear may not be as effective today.

Author Bio:

Darren DeMatas is a marketing strategy consultant that specializes in internet marketing and brand development. Prior to his consulting work, he was Product Marketing Manager at Web.com/Network Solutions. Darren has 10+ years of marketing management experience and an MBA in Internet Marketing.

“How and when will this generate sales?” That’s what entrepreneurs typically ask themselves when investing in marketing. “And that is the completely WRONG question to ask,” says marketing expert David Newman.

In his new book, DO IT! MARKETING (at this link you can download a free strategic marketing ebook), Newman reveals the right questions to ask, right away, for marketing a small business with a big impact – both online and off. It all builds on these four fundamental insights:

Insight #1: You need to sell the same way that you buy.

When was the last time you snapped up an offer from spam e-mail? When’s the last time you gave your credit card number over to a cold caller who interrupted your dinner? As a customer, you don’t buy from any company based on its spam, cold calls, postcards, or text pitches. So, why do you expect any customer—let alone, lots of eager customers—to buy based on yours? The right question to ask, in Newman’s book: What value have I added to my prospect’s world in order to earn the right to invite them to a conversation and offer my solution to their problems, headaches, heartaches, and challenges?

Insight #2: Referrals rock, but they’re not everything.

“I don’t need to do any marketing because 99 percent of my business is repeat and referral business.” Maybe that’s what you tell yourself. Do you seriously think that referrals don’t check you out online before picking up the phone? What messages are you sending to valued referrals with an outdated website and abandoned Twitter account? The right questions to ask, in Newman’s book: Does my overall online presence reassure and reinforce the referrals I earn? Does it contain the most current, credible, and relevant positioning, content, and resources to make my advocates look better—not worse—for referring me?

Insight #3: Trusted advisor marketing is a four-layer enchilada.

The first layer—at the core—is your reputation. But if you stop there, you’ll have a very hard time attracting new prospects to your doorstep. The second layer is amplification—ways to make your signal stronger (such as social media marketing and niche PR). The third layer is leverage. This is where you begin to capitalize on your trusted advisor assets (such as white papers, podcasts, or a blog) and reach out to higher-probability prospects. The fourth layer is gravity. Though it takes a long time to get it spinning, the power of momentum—which brings more leads, better prospects, and bigger opportunities—is hard to stop. The right questions to ask, in Newman’s book: Do you want to make more sales to strangers? Or do you want people to recognize, respect, and request you by name when they have a need, project, or problem that you truly are the perfect expert to handle?

Insight #4: Your what comes last.

“What should be my company name? What’s the best headline for this sales letter? What tagline will attract the right customers?”… When it comes to your marketing, what is always the wrong first question to ask. Imagine being asked to write a letter. Before focusing on the what, you first need to know to whom the letter should be addressed (your favorite aunt, your high school sweetheart, the President) and then why you are writing. Once you know who and why, what to say is a piece of cake—because you feel connected with the unique recipient of your message for a specific purpose. The right questions to ask, in Newman’s book: To whom am I marketing and why? Figure out who you’re talking to, talk to them for a specific, compelling, relevant reason, understanding who they are and what’s important to them. Say it so they get it – value it – and ultimately buy it. That’s how smart marketing is supposed to work.

Download a free strategic marketing ebook by David Newman: www.doitmarketing.com

Adapted from DO IT! MARKETING: 77 Instant-Action Ideas to Boost Sales, Maximize Profits, and Crush Your Competition by David Newman (AMACOM; June 20, 2013; $19.95 Hardcover; ISBN: 978-0-8144-3286-0).

About the Author:

David Newman is the founder of Do It! Marketing, a marketing strategy coaching and consulting firm whose clients range from independent professionals to executives at Accenture, American Express, Comcast, IBM, KPMG, Microsoft, Oracle, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, among dozens of the Fortune 500.

Guest Author: Donna Lee

If you’re wondering where to connect online with customers and prospects, and colleagues in the B2B sector, the smart money is on Twitter. According to Technorati, an astounding 85 percent of companies recognize Twitter as their social media platform for marketing. The appeal is easy to understand.

Not only is it a great place to reach out to new customers, but Twitter also offers crowdsourced advice instantly. If you’re looking for no-contract phone plans, a simple search will return real-time opinions and links to providers. While many used to lampoon the site as a place for the self-absorbed to announce their choice of breakfast foods to the world, the reality is that it’s a force to be reckoned with now, offering businesses entirely new ways to reach potential customers, conduct customer service and build their brand.

Marketing

With over 554 million users registered across the globe as of April 2013, Twitter offers business access to a vast audience and free, open platform for sharing marketing messages. This arrangement essentially levels the business playing field. Now, even the smallest micro-business can enjoy the kind of reach once only available to corporate giants. The platform’s interactive nature means that rather than simply broadcasting a message to followers companies can develop relationships with them — a crucial advantage over old-school mass media approaches. Further, as Hubspot’s Mike Volpe points out, Twitter’s 140-character, micro-blogging format is the perfect platform for busy CEOs to contribute to the company’s “voice” without committing to writing long, labor intensive posts.

Customer Service

What’s really interesting about Twitter is that it not only allows companies to reach out to customers, but it also allows customers to start conversations with companies. In practical terms, that often means voicing customer requests. Make no mistake, these customers expect a response, and they expect it quickly — but this provides an ideal opportunity for building a public face. By solving customer service issues publicly on Twitter, a business can both save a current customer and impress future customers who may be watching.

If necessary, be ready to move the conversation off Twitter and into an email exchange or a phone call. Some problems are too complex to be solved in a flurry of 140-character posts, and doing the best you can for the customer trumps keeping the exchange public. More importantly, always provide exemplary customer support on Twitter. Treating a customer poorly in front of a Twitter audience armed with retweet buttons is a bad idea indeed.

Branding

Twitter also offers a serious platform for building your business’s brand. A big part of that, as already mentioned, is establishing your company’s voice in the minds of your followers. Additionally, any business on Twitter should give great consideration to their choice of Twitter handle, avatar, profile text, and profile images. Stephanie Haller reminds companies that followers will see their avatar images and Twitter handles in their stream each time the company posts, making these two elements extremely important from a branding perspective.

Author Bio:

Donna Lee reviews social media tools and apps for project management. A business graduate, she likes to write about utilizing social media to benefit businesses.

Guest Author: Eric Stauffer

If you’re looking to increase your company’s web traffic and improve your SEO campaign, there’s one sure-fire way to do it: create a blog. A business blog can give you a great outlet not just to provide pertinent and helpful information for your customers, but to also afford you additional opportunities to use your keywords, increase links and gain exposure for your website.

But creating business blog posts that are both readable and SEO-friendly isn’t always the easiest task. Need some help? Follow these quick tips.

1. Look for longtail keywords. Longtail keywords are going to be your most effective and lead-generating type of keyword. They are highly specific phrases that are usually three words or more in length. “Black V-neck T-shirt,” for example, is a longtail keyword. When a customer searches for this term, they already know exactly what they are looking for; they’re simply looking for the source. By using these keywords, you’re ensuring your traffic is as qualified as possible.
2. Use your keywords in your title, URL, headings and subheadings. Each of these areas is weighted heavily by search engines. When you place your keywords in these areas, it’s more likely to affect (and improve) your SEO rankings. Additionally, it’s much easier to work long or awkward keywords into headings and titles than it is to integrate them into sentences or paragraphs, where they could muddle your overall flow and confuse readers.
3. Always add tags. Most blogging platforms, like WordPress, Tumblr and Blogger, allow you to add categorical tags to your posts. These signal to search engines (and readers) what sort of information your blog post contains, so they can be prioritized in search results. Take advantage of these tags by working in any applicable keywords. This will not only improve your SEO, but will bring in more qualified readers and customers.
4. Get linking. When possible link important keywords or phrases to other blog posts or pages on your site. These will increase the number of links for your site, and it will enhance exposure for your keywords as well. Both of these can be a great boon to SEO rankings.
5. Use images to your advantage. Name your images using your keywords and phrases, and make sure to include an SEO-friendly alt tag with each one. When possible, add a caption that includes your keywords as well. These actions won’t just increase your on-page SEO, but they’ll also help your images get displayed in Google Image Search (and other image searches) that can lead potential customers to your site.
6. Find a keyword balance. Try to focus on just one or two keywords per post. Aim to work each keyword in once every 100 words or so. This will ensure you get the keyword in enough for search engines to pick up on it, but not so much that you overload your text with keywords, and end up confusing your readers.
7. Add a meta description. If your blogging platform allows for it, always include an optimized meta description with each post you create. The description should be around 150 to 160 words and include each of the keywords you use in your post.
8. Cross promote where you can. If you have a Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or other social media account, always cross promote your blog posts there. Include a link, along with a teaser that both uses your keywords and entices people to check out your content. This not only increases the number of links to your blog, but it also exposes your brand to new potential customers and readers. Plus, search engines give a lot of weight to social media sites, so it could greatly improve your SEO rankings, too.

Eric Stauffer is a professional blogger and small business advocate. His organization, CardPaymentOptions.com, helps business owners navigate the murky waters of the payment processing industry and teaches them how to get a fair deal.

Guest Author: Megan Webb-Morgan

A study from Social Media Explorer found that 90% of the trackable online discussions around banking occurred in online forums, and those online communities ranked first or second in all business sectors. Small online communities represent a significant opportunity for reaching out to new customers.

In a recent Business.com article, SEO guru Nick Stamoulis suggests, “While larger social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn might have millions of members and therefore a much farther potential reach, small and hyper-specialized social communities instantly connect you with exactly your target audience.”

Tactics for marketing to industry peers, partners, and customers within small online communities are vastly different from traditional online marketing. You can’t post advertisements and expect that to suffice – you need to become a valuable member of the community.

Just as social media marketing is centered around follower engagement, marketing within small online communities is centered around thoughtful discussion, valuable input, and relationship building.

Engage in Discussions

No matter what business sector or niche they are dedicated to, message boards, forums, chat rooms, and mailing lists are all centered around one activity: discussion. A member starts a new forum thread by posting a link, question, article, image, or other content and inviting discussion on the topic. The discussion generated is far more valuable than the original content. This is in direct contrast with many social engagement strategies, which focus on shares and don’t take into account the discussions that go on beneath the fold.

Any contribution you make to a message board needs to keep this fact in mind. Posts that are clearly marketing-oriented and don’t add value to the discussion will quickly be deleted, and your account will soon gain a reputation as a spammer (if it isn’t outright deleted as well). Before you can engage in any marketing, you need to establish yourself as a valuable, contributing member of the community.

• Post answers to members’ questions. The answer should not be, “My business/product/service.”
• Ask questions that could help your business or your customers.
• Comment on interesting posts and topics.

Keep your tone professional and informative. The key is to brand yourself as an authority in your industry whose word can be trusted.

Post Valuable Content

Similar to your online marketing strategy, any content you post should be of value to the people looking at it. However, when participating in online communities, it isn’t enough to post a link to your business and ask members to visit. Such threads will be ignored, derided, or deleted. Remember that the only way members will react positively to your presence on the board – and go on to visit your business – is if you provide value.

• Post links to news articles, blog posts, or whitepapers about your business sector that could be valuable to others. Establish your knowledge and professionalism before you start touting the merits of your business.
• Many boards use a member rating system to assess each individual’s social stock. The more you post, the higher your stock rises. Some boards even enable members to rate the quality of each other’s posts.

Build Relationships

Small online communities are just that – communities. Communities are formed by relationships. You wouldn’t throw your sales pitch at everyone in your hometown town – whether in your office, at the gas pump, or in line at the grocery store – because people would soon start crossing the street to avoid you. Instead, you need to build relationships with members of your community that, once again, provide value to all parties involved.

• Building relationships on forums is comprised not only of public discussions, but also via private messaging. Members use the board’s direct message function to expand discussions into other areas, offer and ask for advice, and seek opinions of respected members.

Once you have established your presence on a forum, proven yourself to be a valuable member of the community, and built relationships with the board’s power players, marketing opportunities will arise: from referrals, to offers of partnerships or affiliate marketing, to appropriate occasions for self-promotion.

Guest Author Bio:

Megan Webb-Morgan is a business blogger for a variety of business blogs worldwide. She works for Resource Nation, a leader in the B2B lead generation industry.

Guest Author: Grace Beckett

How Does a Small Business Gain National Attention?

Most small businesses are not localized and can serve customers in any location as they are Internet-based or are e-commerce websites. These types of businesses need to be able to attract a steady stream of leads and customers on a national level. The social media marketing strategy and the content marketing strategy of these companies must not be to promote the brand locally but nationally and to not give the brand a very local identity. So how does a small business gain a national audience?

Create share-worthy content

First and foremost, as a small business owner you should create content that will be of some use to your customers and followers. Create content on your company website, blogs or guest blogging platforms and share it on all your social networking platforms. Most businesses make the mistake of putting phrases claiming that they are the best in certain cities or states and include local statistics. To promote your business nationally, you need to show your audience that you provide the same level of high quality services everywhere. Creating this type of content will also encourage your customers and social network followers to post it on various online forums, which can get you a national audience.

Choose the best social media platform and posting frequency

There are so many social networking sites that it is not possible to use all with the same level of efficacy. Facebook and Twitter is a must for any type of business and you must post content on them as frequently as possible. Make sure to include visual content like videos and images along with textual content as this gets more attention and is inherently more share-worthy. If the product or service offered by your company is more visual or if their USP lies in their aesthetics, include Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, etc. in the social media strategy. Pinterest is an excellent way of getting your products noticed and you can even include product details and prices with the pins.

Posting should be done as frequently as possible – at least once a day. However, the rush to post should not take precedence over the quality of the content. If you cannot post content on these platforms daily without compromising on content, then don’t. Create and maintain a posting schedule that works best for you.

Optimize content and websites

The content that is being distributed by you via different channels should not contain any local keywords or keywords that trigger search engines to list your business in local searches. The keywords should contain words like “national” or “country-wide” to make sure that your national businesses is promoted effectively. Look at the keywords used by competitors and other national companies and use the same. Similarly, you do not have to create different websites for each region if your business is national. One main website can contain links to different web pages for different regions. As most large companies do, they have contact information for each region in different web pages but in the same website.

Promotional strategies

To create a buzz around your social media pages, one of the best ways is to create weekly contests that all your followers can participate in. Hashtag contests are the most popular contests on Twitter, which not only makes your hashtags more popular on the micro-blogging platform but also increases your engagement with fans and followers. You can also reward “Fan of the week” or “customer of the week” award for loyal followers and customers on social media platforms. Supporting a national charity like Red Cross is also a great way to attract more customers and fans.

Summary: Learn social media marketing strategies that will help small but national businesses.

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

About the author

Grace Beckett is a Content Strategist with Godot Media – a leading Content Management firm. She has years of experience in working closely with online businesses, helping them refine their marketing and social media strategies through optimum use of content. Her other interests, besides online content strategy, internet marketing and search engine optimization, are technology, sports and even fashion.

Guest Author: Maria Elena Duron

B2B Outreach

There are numerous social networks available, each with their own unique format and audience for your brand to take advantage of. Facebook is amongst the most popular due to its world-wide network, making it an ideal starting location to market your brand.

While it’s easy to sign up and start a page for your brand, that doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to generate a quality network. In order to use Facebook effectively, there are a few techniques that need to be implemented.

Back to Basics – Four Ways to Use Facebook Effectively

1. Open a business page rather than a personal account

It is wise to utilize a business page rather than a personal profile. This allows you to be “shared”, do more promotional activities, and make use of analytical tools. So, begin your brand page design by starting with a business profile rather than a personal profile. Be sure that you take advantage of the tools Facebook already offers. Use the analytics to study how well you are reaching the audience and tune your content, approach, and timing accordingly.

2. Post targeted, original content

Original material is the gateway to capturing the attention of the audience. While sharing popular trends is going to be the goal, it doesn’t mean that you can’t share them in your own unique way. Take something popular and turn it into your own unique posting. This will make it shareable by your viewers and result in more activity. The question you have to answer is: What do you offer the audience that they can’t get anywhere else?

3. Update your page with interesting changes on a regular basis

Because the online world regularly changes, consider changing themes on a regular basis. Keep your brand’s social image new and refreshed consistently. This has the added plus that it helps boost your exposure on newsfeeds. Update your profile imagery and information regularly. Consider the fact that Facebook’s Timeline now offers some new features over the previous version. Examples are a different screenshot and page feed, but the cover photo is one of the biggest changes. Make sure that your cover photo is appropriate and relevant and, like your profile photo, presents a professional image.

This brings up the importance of staying in the newsfeed with your comments and sharing. Having regular material to post is generally a good place to start and keeps you “in the public eye”. At the same time, you don’t want to overwhelm your network or litter their newsfeeds.

4. Intrigue your audience with a compelling ‘Call to Action’

The fact is that the best way to remain on the feed is to begin a conversation. Rather than simply posting material, drive your audience with a call to action. Ask a question; ask for their input, or even utilize a competition (e.g. share this link if you…) to generate activity. Of course, it’s up to you to keep the conversation going. You have to be sure that you are always ready to mediate and answer questions or ask new ones.

This is perhaps the best method since the new Timeline format promotes “likes” and “comments” that have been made throughout the user’s network. When they interact with you, it will be made available for your friends to see, making it an ideal third-party endorsement.

The social world provides plenty of opportunities to initiate word of mouth marketing through sharing. As long as you can present an image and material that entices your audience (and their friends) to share your brand, you’ll be able to optimize your results and make the most of your social endeavors.

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media

About the Author:

Maria Elena Duron is CEO (chief engagement officer) of buzz2bucks.com – a word of mouth marketing firm. She helps create conversation, connection, credibility, community and commerce around your brand. Maria Duron is co-founder and moderator of #brandchat – a weekly Twitter chat focused on every aspect of branding that is recognized by Mashable as one the 15 Essential Twitter Chats for Social Media Marketers.

Guest Author: Carl Glasmyre

Pinterest reached a milestone in September 2012, when the image-sharing social media phenomenon made the top 50 list of most-visited websites. Pinterest broke into the list by attracting 25.2 million users in September, and visitor numbers are still climbing.

The growing company announced several changes in October. Some of those changes reflect the growing importance of ecommerce and marketing in social media. Others indicate Pinterest wants to maintain its reputation as a clean, safe web destination, and one indicates the social media giant plans to keep expanding.

No More Invites

When Pinterest launched, membership was by invite only. It wasn’t difficult to obtain an invite; if you didn’t already know a Pinner, you applied to the website for an invitation. The system worked well, adding an aura of exclusivity to Pinterest membership and cultivating a sense of special community.

While an inspired gimmick, the time for Pinterest invitations has passed. In response to rapid growth, the website now allows general registrations.

Trust Me, I’m Verified

In a nod to the increased importance of social media ecommerce, Pinterest launched website verification in October of 2012. Users can now verify they own websites listed on their Pinterest profile. Verifying websites should increase user trust, an importance aspect of online marketing.

Verification is a simple procedure. Users access their settings and click the Verify Website button. Pinterest generates an HTML verification file for users to upload to their web server.

The verification program, at present, only works with top-level domains. Blogging platforms and mass-user e-commerce sites cannot be verified, as such sites don’t allow users to upload the HTML file.

Keeping it Clean

As any SEO company can attest, online reputation is extremely important. Pinterest, from launch, has enjoyed a reputation as a clean, safe site. As the site’s user base grew, however, people began posting porn, spam and hate-based imagery.

Pinterest doesn’t want its reputation to suffer. In response to offensive imagery, the website now allows Pinners to block, flag and report other users. Marketers should note this means users also have the option of blocking them, which may influence how businesses present themselves on Pinterest.

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Passive-Aggression

Pinterest’s influence spreads beyond its own website. Facebook, the social media site nobody likes but everyone uses, has taken note of the Pinning phenomenon. In response, Facebook plans to launch a new feature called Collections.

With Collections, companies will provide users with “want” and “collect” buttons on their Facebook profiles. Users will use these buttons to create image-based wish lists their friends can access.

Gee, doesn’t this sound familiar? Facebook hopes Collections will encourage Facebook friends to buy gifts for each other. Clicking an image in a wish list takes users to the appropriate retail page. If Collections sounds like Pinterest’s own wish lists, well, you’re not wrong.

Facebook may have a hidden agenda with Collections. Several prominent Facebook executives jumped ship to Pinterest over the last year or so. Facebook may be warning deserters they’re going to have to fight for their chunk of the social media market. And while Pinterest has loyal users, Facebook has the edge when it comes to sheer numbers.

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

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Author Bio:

Carl Glasmyre is an aspiring writer who currently works for an SEO company. He’s passionate about a variety of subjects including technology, marketing, and anything Internet-related. He’s constantly striving to strengthen his writing skills and is continuously grateful that the Internet allows him to share his thoughts with the world. He can be reached at carlglasmyre@gmail.com.