by Miriam Hara | Nov 22, 2013 | Latest, Social Media
Content creation is used by businesses to showcase their expertise, know-how and provide useful information to their potential target. Many businesses have had to play catch up and in order to “get into social media” have hired an in-house content marketing specialist… and let them go at it…with a huge sigh of relief. Finally, their business is on the platform that so many are talking about, and more importantly, engaging with. But is that really the solution or only part of the solution?
This reactive strategy, I believe, stems from a lack of understanding about social media on a conceptual level.How can you actively participate and showcase your entire service offerings with just one head count allocation? Afterall, social media isn’t only part of the marketing equation, today it’s a big part of the sales equation too. Integrating social media in overall marketing initiatives is now pretty common practice…well, more so than just a year ago. Whether you run a small business, medium business, big business… today, you just can’t ignore the call of social media, especially for sales.
By now we all understand that the thrust to many social media initiatives is mostly about content creation. We’ve all been hearing about content marketing or what many refer to as blogging. Well, it is true and it does work.
Social media and content creation go hand in hand.
In truth, many businesses who have been slightly ahead of the curve also create content for SEO, but that’s a topic for another post. The need for generating compelling content with a wide scope is key to establishing your parameters within the social media environment. This should include as many facets of your business as possible. Customer service, sales, marketing, product development, design, etc…. This allows viewers to see the total perspective of your business. That is why content generation must be part of company culture. So how does one go about promoting and integrating social media in their business culture. Here’s a few tips:
- Define your goal of success in the social media context and develop a plan.
- Identify the qualities of your personnel and make sure to take advantage of their strengths. Not everyone has to write. Content creation largely includes visual content link videos (youtubes, webinars) and photos (Pinterest, Instagrams, info graphics). Embrace the differences.
- Build a team within your organization that will be the social media ambassadors… and be sure to integrate as many of your staff members as possible to provide a depth of content creation.
- Establish a measurement criteria that shows progress and aligns all the efforts. Social media isn’t about hoping for the best. Make sure key strategic players are at the table participating and contributing, if only directionally, to the content that will appear in social media.
- Celebrate the milestones… big and small. The first comment from a post, the number of subscribers on a business blog, the first contact from a potential customer coming from your social media initiatives. Yes it does happen!
It doesn’t matter if your business is b2b or consumer based…whether your business is local, regional, national or international…content creation is playing an increasingly important role in the sales context of any business. If your business hasn’t ventured in social media yet and want to get started, click here to access our ebook. At the speed of business, it’s best to start now. 😉
by Belinda Lui | Nov 18, 2013 | Interactive, Latest
I’ve always enjoyed analytics and learning about online behaviour; like what interests my readers and what type of content is most engaging. Analytic tools such as that provided by WordPress.org, Google Analytics, and Alexa.com are all great for understanding what works and what doesn’t so that you can find a way to make your site or blog better by implementing a concise SEO strategy.
So how do you design a website or blog that will be more optimized for search engines?
Before you hire a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) company, here is an SEO strategy checklist that will increase web traffic on your own:
1. Keywords:
The basis of any SEO strategy starts with keywords. Ensure that you choose keywords that are relative to your website/blog post so that people who are searching for those topics can easily find you. You can use Google Adwords to learn of a keyword’s competition level and search volume. Aim to use words that have low competition and high search volume for optimal results.
2. Meta-description:
This is what shows up in search engines when you appear as a match. Type a sentence or two that describes your website/post. Be concise. Be interesting. There’s no point in giving it all up front – you want to leave the visitor wanting more so that they will click on your link. Part of any SEO strategy includes good “ad” copy.
3. H2 tags:
A solid SEO strategy includes the technicalities. Make sure that each post/page on your site has a sentence that captures the tone that you are trying to portray. Then make that your H2 tag. This is a technicality that makes your site/post more appealing and search-friendly for Google.
4. Image:
Be sure to provide an applicable image along with your site/post and write your keywords in the caption. This makes the image searchable as well as your site/post since they are linked.
5. Sharing:
After you’ve optimized your site/post, be sure to share it among all of your social media. This helps to increase traffic and engagement.
The difference between a site with SEO strategy and one without it could mean thousands of visitors, hundreds of thousands in website ranking (Alexa.com), and immeasurable exposure that your site/blog could really use.
There are far more tricks than the ones I’ve mentioned above, but this is a great way to get started. Search Engine Optimization can cost you thousands of dollars (and it really makes a difference), but hopefully you’ll see some increase in traffic from the pointers that I’ve provided above.
What are some SEO tips that you could share that would help increase site/post traffic?
by Suzy Godefroy | Oct 4, 2013 | Latest, Social Media
In our last blog we talked about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and today we are going to cover SEM (Search Engine Marketing) and Google. SEM is essentially the process of gaining traffic and visibility from search engines through paid advertising and unpaid advertising in Google, Yahoo, Bing, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media applications and on-line websites and blogs.
First and foremost, you need to make sure that your business and/or company is part of the Google family! So be sure to set up your Google accounts as there are several different platforms from Google, so the more user-friendly you are with these tools the more savvy you will be with SEM.
At the #GA Summit a new set of API’s (Application Programmable Interface) were announced to help large companies and their web developers and IT Departments better manage their metrics. These upgrades allow users to seamlessly integrate their software with Google Services such as Google Analytics, Google Adwords and YouTube. As many large corporations have unique demands, manage several websites and have many users. The new API’s will streamline configuring the reports from Google Analytics and cut the amount of time spent reviewing and compiling all of this information so that IT Departments and Marketing can spend more time analyzing the factual insights.
Google Platforms:
Google +: If you are not using Google Plus properly this will affect your ranking with Google and ultimately your SEO or Search Engine Optimization. So make sure you have an account and are updating your account with newsworthy content! Google Plus content helps you with your page rank, and your information stays around for a long time!
Google Analytics: If you are looking to boost sales, improve your mobile app and increase the number of visitors to your website, Facebook followers, Twitter followers, you need to be using Google Analytics and you need to be reviewing this on a regular basis.
Google Tag Management: Just recently, Google has added a new feature called Google Tag Management , which was launched at the #GASummit last week Link to summit . The theme this year was ACCESS, EMPOWER, ACT with numbers and metrics. VP Engineering Paul Mure and Product Management Director Babak Pahlavan talked to the masses about what is coming down the pipeline for Google Analytics. So it was not surprising that Google launched Google Tag Manager. As Tagging is vital to your Search Engine Marketing and performance. Google Tag Manager will help you manage your metrics through Google Analytics and your conversion rates. You can click here to hear the live stream from the #GASummit.
Google AdWords & ADVERTISING: How Google AdWords work is that you set up an account and pay based on a cost-per click. You can also set the payment parameters base on a daily budget that you and your client are both comfortable with. The best part about Google Adwords is that there is no minimum and you are not locked into a contract. You are only charged when someone clicks on your ad to go directly to your website. Again essential for Search Engine Marketing.
YouTube: Again if you are looking for more opportunities for your SEO and SEM make sure you are up-loading content on YouTube. Control your story, start a conversation and keep your audience growing with YouTube and be sure to use YouTube analytics!
by Jenna Elberson | Dec 30, 2012 | Advertising, Business Success, Latest
The jury is back and the verdict is in, customers are going mobile. We all kind of intuitively knew that was coming, but the reports are now verifying what we already wondered. If your business is not mobile you are missing a whole lot of customers. What do we mean when we say mobile anyway? By mobile we mean that customers are using mobile devices to track down and find businesses, both local and non local businesses. Let’s look at a scenario; customers will use a phone to perform a search for a local business when they are out and about. They will not bother going home and looking in a phone book or even using a desktop computer to find what they are looking for. They will search with mobile and act fast. Of all the searches done for businesses, 9 out of 10 people reported they reached out and contacted the businesses they found. Thos are great odds for the luck business found. If your business cannot be found on local searches then you will be missing out on a lot of people. Get your business on as many local search results as you can. Every major search engine has a local section. Google Local, Bing Local, etc. There are also rate and review sites to be found on like Yelp, AngiesList, and more. The process is not difficult to do, but it should be done post haste to start capturing the online traffic ever going mobile. This infographic will give you an idea of what can be done in terms of online search.
This guest blog was presented by: www.Vistaprint.com
by Jenna Elberson | Dec 12, 2012 | Business Success, Social Media
How often have you heard, or said yourself “Google It”. Google has changed the way we socialize, the way we interact. It has made us become a generation of immediacy. No matter where you are, or who you’re with, when conversations turn into topics that facts, figures, dates, information is required, the it’s the norm nowadays to say, “Google It”. No longer do we need to wait for the library to open its doors or call up a friend “savant”. It has become so much part of our everyday cultured and is in our everyday vocabulary… the word googling is even in the Webster’s dictionary! Needless to say, Google has fast become the ‘go to’ company for knowledge and advanced technology and with the launch of Google Glasses and Google Fibe, it has become nearly impossible to escape its vast empire.
When Google launched Google+, I thought this would be the social media site to sweep Facebook from under the rug and reign in as the new “King of Social Media”. With all of the great new features that could easily top those of Facebook’s I had no idea there would be a lack of momentum even with everyone on the “Google Fan” craze.
Suffice to say that the audience for Google+ is completely different from that of Facebook. They are loyal to their brand and what they love. When you delve into the realm of Google+ you have to pull yourself away from thinking it’s like “Facebook”. It’s not. Google+ is more people focused not brand focused. Google is trying to keep this social media platform as human as possible.
Google+ with it’s 500 million users still remains today in my humble opinion, a big contender on the social media battlefront. If your brand or business hasn’t engaged in the Google+ platform yet, there’s a lot of you’re missing out on. Here are some reasons why you should invest time into getting your brand/business on Google+.
1. The big one: Being Found. With all the searching going on, it’s important to get found. It may be self-serving but the importance of Google+ for SEO is pretty obvious…. simply because, well Google owns it! This alone should be enough of a reason for you to take advantage and be part of Google+. If you’re still not convinced, try this: if you already have a Google+ page, Google your company name and see if it comes up close enough to first search result. The advantages of this are self explanatory… for your brand and for your customers.
2. Google+ supports the use of hash tags. Recognizing the importance of trending, Google+ supports the Twitter way of classifying via hash tags. This way you can hit trending terms that are relevant for your business quicker. In our business hash tag examples would include: #marketing, #branding and #socialmedia or, #design. Like Twitter, trending topics that you participate in will see an increase in followers.
3. Carving out Communities. The Google Community allows the user to become part of a community that they are interested in and get daily posts about that topic. So for example if you have a health product, you can become a member of a Health and Wellness community and make posts that will be specific to that group of people. It’s not just your followers or fans you’re targeting too it’s a whole new spectrum of potential consumers that have defined one aspect of their psychographic profile that reflects the specific niche that is your market definition.
4. Google owns Google+. Yes, I’ve already said that, but thing about the total integration potential your business might benefit from. Starting with Gmail, Google Calendar, Google maps… all these properties are all at your fingers tips to use along with all the other Google+ features. This can be helpful and seamless when setting up an event for your company or a product launch.
5. Google Hangouts! As an avid nerd this is my favourite feature. It’s great for businesses to have a round table discuss from a far. For people who have a passion for a product, gathering them up to discuss the product and what they would like to see provides an awesome opportunity to get honest feedback and real consumer insights. A perfect example to utilize this feature would be a weekly virtual book hangout. If your brand pushes out books or your company has an ebook set up a hangout to discuss the content of the book and new book ideas. This allows you to be closer to your audience and interact with them instead of just commenting on a status they posted.
Just remember Rome wasn’t built in a day, so expecting that your growth or reach on Google+ will grown exponentially quickly isn’t realistic. Unlike Facebook you get the chance to be more interactive in new ways with your followers, help them see your brand/company is focused on THEM and you’re steadfast in working with them to help you and your brand/company improve for them. Over time your ROI will be worth the effort you put into Google+ and the attention you give to your audience as well.
