 Social media marketing has become a challenging “game” for Businesses, both large and small. Getting your brand out there in the cyber world is getting tough. Despite social being more relevant than ever, organic reach isn’t just dropping, it’s plummeting. That makes things difficult for brands that are prioritizing native content over paid ads to reach their audience. In spite of the fact that social platforms are making it difficult to reach your target audience organically, people are still inundated with an overwhelming amount of branded content. There’s a lot of noise out there. The only way to take advantage of the reach you do have is to create social media content that really makes an impact. Here are four tips I found that are useful to make your content resonate on social. 1. Be ready to respond to breaking news quickly This is where being on top of things that are relevant to your audience can really help. If you’re the first to share breaking new, or to leverage a trending hashtag, you’re going to get the attention and engagement that latecomers are not. To do this, subscribe to relevant news feeds. Set your Google Alerts for topics that are relevant to your audience, and be otherwise actively on the lookout for news and events that are of concern. 2. Initiate a conversation Try to think of your social platform as a conference table sharing ideas and not as a podium where you are the one throwing out topics. A poll is a great tool for seeding a conversation. Not only will people answer the question you’ve posed, they’ll also engage with you and one another over the topic you’ve chosen. Your job is to find a topic that really sparks interest, then be an active participant in that conversation. 3. Add more emotion to your posts Emotional content gets a reaction. It earns shares and comments. Think about it. What is more likely to make you share something than a post that makes you laugh out loud, that brings tears to your eyes, or that motivates you to take action. When you only have a couple seconds of the viewers’ attention, this connection can make all the difference. Not only is emotional content compelling to a viewer - it’s also extremely sharable. Before you can expect loyalty, you have to tap into what is important for your audience and establish an emotional bond.” To use emotion in your social posts you can: · Engage in storytelling. · Share your human side. · Use the right visuals, text and music to paint an emotional picture. · Encourage your audience to share their stories as well. · Use Live Video Using live video will increase your organic reach. No question about it. It’s one area that doesn’t seem to be nearly as impacted by the downturn of unpaid social reach. Live video draws people in. It makes them feel as if they are a part of something important, and it encourages them to participate. Use live video at events, to share behind the scenes content, or simply to give live updates on topics that you think will interest your audience. Remember that great hosting is really important. Recruit someone who is outgoing and has a great camera presence. Your social media posts are probably reaching fewer people than ever. The only way to combat this is to ensure that your reach goes as deep as possible. Accomplish this goal by using these tips to create content that makes an impact. -Roy #Tags: #socialmedia, #marketing, #content, #engagement, #socialplatforms, #advertising, #businessmarketing
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 Are you aiming to get more traction from your blog or website’s content through social media shares and re tweets? Perhaps your goal is get a 180 on your links. If this is the case may I suggest you take a deep dive into your visual content that you post.
It has been tested time and true that by using images: · Your presentations that are accompanied by visual aids have been proven to be 43 percent more effective. · We are all visual learners one way or another · Of all the information that is processed by the brain, 90% of it is visual stimulation. Hopefully this week's blog post t will give you some insight on various types of visual content that will help you grow your online growth and engagement. Images That Will Engage Your Readers Splitting up the body of text on your posts with high quality, exciting images that are relevant to your story idea will compel your audience to continue reading what you’ve written all the way to the end. Images sell your written information! Sadly, today, our attention spans have hit a new low. Without those images our readers today refuse to read any long blogs or content. Articles containing images receive 94 percent more views as compared to those that don’t have any images. Tweets that are posted with images are re tweeted 150 percent more compared to those that are composed of text only. Facebook posts that are posted with images receive 3x more engagement than posts that don’t have any images. Image quotes: For whatever reason, people love to share quotes that are either written within the image or directly below it. Images that evoke emotions: A simple thought provoking image captures the heart or the soul of many of your engaged audience and will get you a share of that image. Screenshots: Screenshots are an effective since they give your audience a first-hand perspective of how your product or service works. An excellent example is a screenshot of your app as you use it, to give the consumers a kind of visual proof that your app actually does what your marketing messages claim. This way, your audience will trust you more as they have verified your claims. Essentially, screenshots are the best way to secure the trust of your consumers as they can easily confirm for themselves using their own eyes. Memes: “Meme” refers to an image that is accompanied by an amusing caption. When memes started gaining viral popularity online, no one ever thought that they would end up becoming an integral part of online marketing. For instance, if your brand is aimed at engaging a younger demographic, then memes are an excellent choice for creating inside jokes in your trade. This kind of humor is a remarkably effective way of bringing your audience together. Memes are a great source of entertainment, they are the most common types of viral social media content that has the potential to get millions of shares. Slides & Presentations: Currently, slides are an effective means of expanding your brand’s outreach as they allow you to educate and communicate with your audience.Just slides and presentations largely depend of color and design in order to convey the message or information in the most effective manner. Always make sure that your slides are not only engaging, but they should also give the consumers solid advice that is practical and create action. Presentations usually contain several slides, you have to have some consistency in the design, color and even the font so that your message and/or information stays streamlined as the audience consumes it bit by bit. Video Content: If you want to show how effective a solution your product is, there’s no better way of doing it than using a video. And for your video to be effective it must be engaging, educational, and entertaining. This is my fave. There are other cheaper, less complicated forms of visual content advertisements – but then again, you’ll realize that going that extra mile to create a quality video is totally worth all the trouble. Video has more engagement than any of the other type of digital content. With all the potential that videos present for your business, you should be very particular with the types of videos that you use to enhance the strength of your brand. Some of the best types of marketing videos are customer testimonials, demonstrations, how to videos and even explainer videos. As an example, you can start your video by presenting a common problem, then finishing the video with the solution that your product offers. When properly executed, visual content also gets you more links and your readers will share it more among their peers, which is overall, free advertisement for you! -Roy You take pride in creating content for valuable resources such as blogs, e-books and training videos. You make sure you're dedicated to producing quality work that will “wow” your audience. You set aside specific blocks on your calendar to write and revise. You prepare yourself for deep focus and concentration. You even pay for professional design, editing and copy-writing. When you see the final product, you feel pro. You can’t wait to share it with the world. You post it everywhere and patiently wait. This is the one -- and it’s going viral, baby! The results? Minimal traffic, a few leads and no conversions. But how? This was the "no-boundaries" content you knew your audience craved. And you should know by now: You’ve been doing this for months with little to no return on investment. So why isn't your content marketing working? Take a look below to see if you spot any missing elements that are burning up your time, energy and money. 1. Captivating personality. Knowing your business brand will help you nail down your voice. The tone, language and messages that represent your brand will help humanize your business. Together, they bring your products, programs and services to life. When you add personality and soul to what you do, it becomes much more emotionally engaging in the marketplace. People will want to read, watch and listen. It resonates with something inside them and ignites their imaginations. If your content isn't reaching viewers at a personal level, it will cost you. 2. Clear personas. Profiling your audience helps you narrow down detailed target markets and precise buyer personas. When you've clearly identified key demographics and psychographics, you can effectively streamline audience needs, wants and other invaluable specifics. As a whole, these tactics can help you gain your ideal customer's attention. Get these down, and you can bridge consumers' knowledge gaps with relevant information. In the process, you'll earn trust along with their interest. Each time your content helps them gain perspective, confidence and progress, you're positioning your brand as one that's hard to forget. This directed content also can increase organic clicks, likes and shares. Without it, you’ll struggle to connect. 3. Precise content. Content type and a known customer buying cycle help you create relevant, valuable content for your audience. But what about the right format? Do you know where and when it’s best to drop an e-book in front of your audience? Or which time and place your followers will watch a video instead of reading your amazing white paper? Understand how and when your audience prefers to receive information, and you'll make an impact that transforms costs into profits. 4. Concise placement. All of the above can help you pinpoint better, more relevant platforms. You understandably want your logo and products to be seen in as many places as possible, but you don’t want your brand to be just anywhere. Focus on finding two or three primary platforms to start. Refine your approach until you’ve optimized these through traffic metrics, leads and your desired return on investment. Saturating the market with too many locations will spread your message thinly across scattered channels. Your team will end up doing more work and having fewer conversions to show for it. This costs you in more ways than one as employees grow frustrated and your marketing dollars dwindle. 5. Consistent promotion. Promoting inconsistencies will kill your content-marketing efforts. Whether you’re generating leads or practicing your lead-nurturing activities, it's imperative that your brand stay top-of-mind for audience members. It’s easy to get caught up in prospecting for new traffic and leads, but don't forget your current email and social-media communities. It's more profitable to serve your existing customers first than to expend resources finding new ones. Learn from the audience you already have. They'll help you save time, energy and money so you can operate even more effectively. 6. Collaborative planning. Taking time to plan strategically is indispensable. As much as it’s enticing to jump on the current hot tactic, don’t -- yet. You'll certainly want to explore different platforms and tactics, but think it through first. Make sure these moves make sense for your brand, your audience, your team and your bottom line. That being said, overthinking during the planning stage can needlessly delay action and lead to missed opportunities. Find your balance between implementation speed and precision strategies. 7. Calculated production. the results we anticipate. Strategies can fail miserably. That's why you must put in place methods to test, track and measure your predictions and expectations against actual outcomes. Every business is different, every audience is special, and new technologies mean the marketplace is a dynamic one. The content you "know" will go viral sometimes bombs. A campaign you think smacks of effort half-done turns out to generate massive engagement. The market can be surprising and often is unpredictable. Unless you have a system for tracking, of course. Capture data and use it to better calculate outcomes so you can produce better results in the future. Learning to effectively and profitably promote your content will take time, energy and money -- period. But it shouldn’t put you in the red. Be clear, be strategic, and be sure to evaluate these seven planning considerations. Your upfront effort will pay for itself many times over. Roy Garton FDMC Social & Digital Media www.floridadudemarketingconcets.com There's no question your customers are spending time on social networks, whether it's Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Tumblr, YouTube, Twitter, or any number of other apps and websites where folks are hanging out in digital form. Since you want your brand to be where your customers are, it makes sense to figure out how to grow your business using these platforms. 1. Optimization. Find a way to analyze your social media posts, rank them in terms of engagement, and figure out why they perform well (or don't), adjusting what you're putting out into the world accordingly. Listening tools such as Google Analytics is good to use. 2. You need to create great original content. Doing so involves understanding trends, who your audience is, and how they want to engage with social media. If you want to target say stay-at-home mothers, because they're the primary shoppers for the family.then it makes sense to post on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram, which 74 percent, 32 percent, and 19 percent of this demographic respectively visits on a weekly basis. So, while Snapchat and Twitter might be trendy for other audiences, it's not where many moms are hanging out. 3. Asking questions is a great way to drive engagement. People want their opinions to be heard. It's just a matter of finding creative ways to encourage the sharing of them. Consider giving you customers or clients free products or coupons in exchange for their feedback. 4. Sweepstakes are a great way to drive engagement. People love having the chance to win things. And, you can exponentially grow your following by requiring them to tag a few friends to enter a contest. 5. Featuring popular blogs works, too. Consider the popularity of how-to videos on YouTube. "It's huge--whether it's putting on makeup, changing a car tire, or doing an anti-aging skin care regiment, there's somebody out there giving a tutorial in pretty much every category, You just have to look at the number of views these people are getting, sometimes in the tens or hundreds of thousands. They're clearly getting very strong airtime. You probably already know why your business should have a blog. Most small businesses do not and the answer I get the most is "I don't have time for that!" You do know you’ll increase traffic to your website, (if you don't have a website, shame on you and give us a call) blogging will also help build authority, provide useful information, and engage with your customers. You might even provide the information they need to make a buying decision. Unfortunately, most blogs get very little traffic and it is not that they can't it is because the way most people write them. Here are some tips to better blogging. Who do you think you’re talking to? Depending on what you sell or service you offer, your customers or clients might be a wildly diverse group of people and you might need a different approach for each type of person. So you might need to develop a number of writing styles to fit who you are trying to reach. Bring your style of writing to life. Basic demographics are fine, but you really need to know what your customers care about. When you know what they care about and what their pain points are, you can create blog posts they will be really interested in. Way too many businesses confuse dry, old-school articles with blog posts. Blog posts are a whole different animal. They are lively, often opinionated, casual, colloquial, and sometimes funny. In other words, they are chock-full of personality. Make it so. Just make sure to understand the difference between “controversial” and “abrasive” before taking any hot-button political stands. You also need to be ready to respond to your client base if they have questions or have their own idea or opinion about what you are talking about. Don't be holier than thou. Respect your customers or clients and respond! Make a plan I see two mistakes consistently made in content plans. Some businesses don’t have one, and their websites are like employee diaries. Have fresh content on your websites. I have actually found websites with old business addresses that the business was at a year ago. They moved and never updated their website. Websites are also not Facebook fan pages. Don't post personal things about you or your staff there. Nobody cares. They are there for information about your business, not your dog being in heat. Mistake two is having too rigid a plan. Some larger corporate blogs follow a theme, and offer a lot of posts about one or two topics. This is a fine idea if you’re building a wheel-a central landing page that links out to a bunch of posts covering different aspects of one subject. But it’s pretty restrictive for small businesses to do this. Be open and creative and if you run out of ideas then start blogging on related topics relevant to your business. If you sell shoes, talk about how shoes made overseas might influence prices as a topic. Branding customers are looking beyond products to see what kind of company you really are. Millennials, especially, want to know how you treat employees, what causes you support, and whether you’re worthy of their hard-earned money. And since there are now millions of millennials now, every business needs to care about what they want. Millennials are connected socially, interact heavily with brands, are not impressed with advertising, and read blogs before making buying decisions. They place very high values on trust and accountability. More than ever before, businesses have to think beyond selling their products and build a brand reputation. Your blog is the perfect place to start, hand in hand with social media. That means revealing your mission, your future plans, and your inner workings. It means telling customers about your people, and showcasing your customers’ stories. Get personal. Ask for input and then implement it. Treat customers like part of the team. You must interact or have that option there to do so and respond back. Let them know there is someone behind the keyboard they can talk to. Pain Point Finding Why do customers buy your product? What need are they answering? How can your product fix their problem or make their lives better in some way? Answer those questions in your blog. That’s what will draw people to your blog. Promote The initial success of your blog does not depend on the quality of your posts. Quality is what brings people back. You need to build your blog! Attracting your first group of readers is the hardest...so don’t start cold. You may not know it, but you have influences such as vendors, for example. People you do business with, your customer list, and even businesses physically near you. Your local radio and television stations might even help out. Plan a big post for a local or online event you can leverage for publicity. Sponsor or present at an event and live-blog as it’s happening. This is a whole different topic which I will cover at another time. Video blogging is hot right now but I degrees. Host a giveaway or raffle. Do something big that fits your business and blog about it. Then keep blogging. Once you have done one or two, they become a standard part of your work plan. Roy Garton FDMC Social and Digital Media www.floridadudemarketingconcepts.com Whether you are a small business owner, a startup or a large operation, marketing has become an essential and integral part of everyday business functions that needs to be diligently pursued. A sustainable business requires multiple marketing techniques in today’s fast paced world filled with interested people with very short attention spans.
Not every business, especially a small one, can afford to spend generously on marketing. Still, there are quite a few techniques that do not require large budgets, but can still be effective if done well and with complete conviction. Here are five marketing tips that a small business owner can employ to spread the word about the business and achieve customer engagement without burning a hole in your pocket: Instructional videos: Thanks to YouTube, small business owners can easily upload videos about their products. However, merely putting up lengthy promotional videos won’t draw viewers and potential customers. Audio-visual marketing experts advise creating content that includes your product and its uses, instead of showcasing what your products can do. While anyone with a digital video camera or a smartphone can create and upload videos, it will certainly be helpful to create video content that appears professional. What majority of small business owners often neglect is the description below the video, which can also serve as free advertising space. Instead of merely cramming in links to your product page, a professionally created content at the bottom of the video can prove to be a great SEO tool as well. Contact us here at FDMC and we can help. Create and publish textual content: While videos are a great audio-visual tool to promote your business, the written word still rules the digital world. While you can create content yourself, it is not about mere creation, but about crafting the words and placing them in all the appropriate places so that potential customers are drawn to your website. Creating content that’s tailored to suit your business and products is not only essential but it also helps generate a lot of interlinking digital chains that ensure the content stays evergreen in the online domain. If you think you just don't have the time to write content for your blog or website, consider hiring a professional content writer. Use Social Media platforms: In today’s world, it is imperative to generously include the social media platforms to market your business. However, many businesses focus merely on pushing content and often neglect to listen to what their readers are saying. While many, who visit the pages created by you, won’t offer much, there will be tons of important insights shared by your audience. Merely incorporating the advice isn’t enough. Businesses have to acknowledge the contribution and in certain cases, even reward them. With a multitude of social media platforms like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, it might not be a bad decision to just focus on a few to get your feet on the ground in social media. Digital platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat or Vine for mobility users is also worth considering if you have a younger target audience. Go to the customer: While engaging your potential customers on a digital platform is a must, it is equally important to step out and physically interact with them if your product so demands. By attending events that are created with a special niche, you get to meet people who are already interested in the product but aren’t aware of your company. In case an event doesn’t exist for your product, attending the one that’s slightly oblique could also work wonders. If there’s none, you can also create your own. While you can certainly start small, other businesses can take it further in the near future. Do something good for the society by working with non profits: While employing these techniques diligently should boost customer awareness and engagement, it would be wise to participate in some charity or philanthropic organization. While it doesn’t cost much, such venues offer tremendous exposure. Roy Garton FDMC Social and Digital Media www.floridadudemarketingconcepts.com Is your marketing plan implemented correctly? Have you busted your hind end on what you thought was a great effort only to come up short on your ROI? Maybe you just need to take a deep breath and look at a few key points and ask yourself some questions about what did and did not work. Here a few pointers I have come across in my experience with marketing plans and perhaps they can work for you as well. They are very basic but when you execute your plan of action , think about these points first and 9 out of 10 times you should see a better effort.
1. Content. How effective is your content in your marketing campaign. Are you clear and concise and do you have a call to action for your customer? 2. Is your content relevant to what you are trying to convey to your customers? Are you trying to build relationships with your customers through networking with them? What techniques are you using to build those relationships in social media? Are you using the latest technology to launch that content? Digital Media, mobile platforms such as Vine, Instagram or Snapchat are hot right now. 3. Who is your customer? Do you know your verticals and channels to sell to? I mean do you really know your market? You might be surprised how many SMB's don't know their client mx. Age, gender, who is buying what, where they live, etc.. All of this is important before you execute and start spending on a good marketing campaign. 4. What is your competition doing? Always know and follow your competitor's marketing campaign. You may not have their budget but you can sure follow them like everyone else and see what is working for them. What works for them since they are your competition. will probably work for you. Follow some of these basic steps before you launch and you should be pleasantly surprised that those hard earned dollars spent on your marketing plan will get you a more solid ROI. Good luck! Landing pages are designed to keep things simple, yet sell your brand or organization. The story you tell on your landing page or call to action has to be inviting yet brief. Today's visitors to your landing page are easily distracted, have very short attention spans so you have to grab their attention quickly. Of all the landing pages out there, your website is probably the most difficult to sell and other social media platforms such as Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter are the easiest.
Here are some tips that will help you keep your landing pages fresh and within the platform for which it is sitting. Remember, each platform attracts a different type of visitor. Their demographics could be different, their reason for dropping in could be different so always keep that in mind. Someone visiting your website could be looking for more detailed information about your business yet if they stop by your Twitter landing page, they might be looking for quick tip or something in connection with your business that is socially prevalent that you are kind enough to "tweet" about. As for the tips: Keep your content Fresh and consistent with your customer or fan base. Keep your images nice and clean and in line with your landing page theme Don't make your landing pages a huge advertising "gimmick". It turns people off Keep your blogging or conversation basic and upbeat If using a lot of images or video, keep in mind that platforms such as YouTube or Pinterest might be a better choice for obvious reasons. Always keep you mobile users in mind when designing your landing pages. While most are compatible to mobility, the less you have, the better it looks on mobile. Mobility also means use of user-friendly applications such as radio buttons or check boxes over text inputs. They don't have the time or the space to do all that. Make engagement easy for your mobile users for call to action items. Make the buttons and check boxes large enough so they can be easily tapped. Don't try to be everything to everybody. Choose several social media platforms along with your website and call it good. Know your market in relation to what you are offering. Use analytics to know how your sites are doing. Free programs like Google Analytics or Pingdom give you excellent data to help you know what your site is doing. I hope these ideas are helpful and after you have redesigned your landing pages try an email campaign and let your client or customer base see the new "you!" Social Media continues to evolve. It seems to be changing every month with new platforms, new trends, and applications. So you have your business on Facebook and Twitter and you think you are doing just fine in the world of social media. But are you really? Here are a few facts with business and social media. As Facebook becomes more of a "We want your money" operation, more and more people are drifting away to find the free platforms for their business to reach their masses. If you want the goodies now on Facebook, you are finding you have to cough up some dough to get it. Facebook's recent audience network launch program means for the business, the days of something for nothing is over.
What is becoming more popular for target marketing is video and images. Many of the Fortune 500 companies are moving in this direction for advertising and marketing. Images tell a lot and young shoppers especially are using this to their advantage and in their shopping habits. Pinterest and Instagram are picking up not only more users but advertisers as well as they pull away from traditional desktop platforms. Mobility, video, and photo images is 3 key words you as a business need to grasp and embrace for marketing and advertising. Video and still images have helped push Instagram, Pinterest, and Vine to new heights. Another popular tool for the young 15 to 25 crowd is Snapchat. While advertisers and still trying to figure out how to capture this new hot platform, Snapchat has become very trendy to this key target market. While I am not saying you should not still keep a solid market plan in place for Facebook and Twitter, businesses need to be open to new platforms and monitor social media trends to capture that market share. keep up regular engagement conversations with your customers and stay connected. Remember, spending your marketing dollars in an empty room is not only fruitless, it is silly. Capture your market share and stay abreast of technology changes. Be a leader in the social media circle. Reach your goals. Social Media marketing is no longer for B2B companies as a company. What I mean by that is branding your business means putting you as a person who owns that business out there so your clients and customers know you are real. You are reachable and you are a human. Engaging your audience by creating that on-line personality not only helps you, it helps your brand. People will feel they really do know you.
Over 90% of B2B companies enjoy a presence on LinkedIn and more than 80% use Twitter and Facebook to reach their audience. Being social tough does not mean they know what they are doing. Using social media takes planning and strategy. Less than 50% of marketing planners have any kind of plan to make sure they are getting any kind of ROI on investing their time, money, and production in using social media platforms. To make your social media investment profitable and useful, consider what your audience wants to see and hear. Use their perspective and not yours. Be human and not a machine or a huge wall of corporate stats that nobody understands or really cares. Make your brand fun, enjoyable, interactive, and let the people engage in talking to you about it all. Now here are the 3 most used platforms for B2B social media. Linkedin. The top site for business interaction. Linkedin is very virtual for networking. It is wonderful for promoting leads, leadership, and relationships. Linkedin allows for uploading images, video, and presentations. You can customize your header, profile, and content. While a professional network it is still a platform for reaching individual people. Blogging. Start using a company blog to talk about what you as a person is doing to enhance your brand and your business. Offer tips and share your knowledge. Let your customers know you care about what they want in your business and share those thoughts. Be approachable through your blog. Your blog can also be about related topics or even your own hobbies and interests but don't get political or narrow-minded or aggressive. Keep it fun, fresh, and interactive. Websites. When is the last time you updated your website? Is your content changed out at least monthly? Are you tracking your analytics? How are those images or videos doing you uploaded? Have you even put any on your site? Don't make a website just a place holder of your brand. Make use of it and allow interaction. Link your website to all your social media platforms. Good luck with your B2B marketing plan and remember. Put "you" before your company. |
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