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Social Media Energizes Your Digital Marketing *

by International Associations | Aug 18, 2021 | Social Media

What is Social Media Optimization?

Social Media Optimization (SMO) is the use of a number of outlets and communities to generate publicity. Doing this increases the search awareness of a product, service brand or event. This raises it’s potential exposure in search queries. Do you use social media optimization to raise your product awareness?

Types of Social Media Included

Types of social media involved include RSS feeds, social news and bookmarking sites, as well as social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, video sharing websites and blogging sites.

SMO Goal is to Increase Traffic and Awareness

Generally, social media optimization refers to optimizing a website and its content. Doing this encourages more users to use and share links to your website across social media and other networking sites.

Social Media Optimization is similar to search engine optimization. The goal of SMO is to generate web traffic and increase awareness for a website. This is done by creating inbound and outbound links which add credibility to your website.

Social Media Optimization Tools are Available

Social Media Optimization also refers to software tools that automate this process, or to website experts who undertake this process for clients.

Social Media Optimization Engagement

SMO is Social Media Engagement

The goal of Social Media Optimization is to create interesting online content. This can range from well-written text to eye-catching digital photos or video clips.

This content is designed to encourage people to engage with a website and then share this content. It’s all about shares and sharing , with social media contacts and friends.

Engagement Means Likes and Shares

Common examples of social media engagement are “liking and commenting on posts, retweeting, embedding, sharing, and promoting content”. Social media optimization is also an effective way to perform online reputation management.

SMO can Help With Reputation Management

It’s important to get out front, if someone posts bad reviews of a business. An aggressive SMO strategy can ensure that the negative feedback is not the first link to come up in a list of search engine results.

Social Media Optimization Affects SEO

Social media optimization is becoming an increasingly important factor in search engine optimization, which is designing a website so that it has as high a ranking as possible on search engines.

Search engines are increasingly utilizing the recommendations of users of social networks. Your likes and shares on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Reddit are used to rank websites and web pages in the search engine results page.

Likes and Shares Help SEO

It is implied that when a webpage is shared or “liked” by a user on a social network, it is as if they “voted” for that webpage’s quality of content. Because of this sharing, search engines can use such votes accordingly to properly ranked websites in search engine results pages.

Search Engines Love Social Media

Since social media makes it more difficult to put a finger on the scales or influence the search engines in any way, search engines are giving more credibility to social search. The increasing popularity of social search, coupled with the growth in personalized search based on interests and location, has significantly increased the importance of a social media presence in search engine optimization.

Due to personalized search results, location-based social media presences on websites such as Yelp, Google Places, Foursquare, and Yahoo Local have become increasingly important. While social media optimization is related to search engine marketing, it is different in some important ways.

SMO Helps More Than Just Search Engines

Social Media Optimization is focused on driving web traffic from sources otherthan search engines. Improved search engine ranking is also a benefit of successful social media optimization.

SMO is helpful to target particular geographic regions in order to target and reach potential customers. This helps in lead generation.

SMO Engages Visitors

Social Media Optimization helps find new customers and contributes to high conversion rates. SMO helps convert previously uninterested individuals into people who are interested in a brand or organization.

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SMO Taps into Viral Content

SMO Embraces Viral Marketing

Social media optimization is connected to viral marketing or “viral seeding”. This happens when word of mouth is created through the use of networking in social bookmarking, video and photo sharing websites.

An effective SMO campaign can harness the power of viral marketing; for example, 80% of activity on Pinterest is generated through “repinning.” By following lifestyle trends and using alternative social networks, websites can retain existing followers while also attracting new ones.

This allows you to build an online following and presence, all linking back to your company’s website for increased traffic. With an effective social bookmarking campaign, not only can website traffic be increased, but a site’s rankings can also be increased.

Similarly engagement with blogs creates a similar result by sharing content through the use of RSS in the blogosphere and special blog search engines. Social media optimization is considered an integral part of an online reputation management or search engine reputation management strategy for anyone who cares about their online presence.

SMO is not Only for Marketing

Social media optimization is not limited to marketing and brand building. Increasingly, smart businesses are integrating social media participation as part of their knowledge management strategy.

SMO plays a bigger role in product/service development, recruiting, employee engagement and turnover, brand building, customer satisfaction and relations, business development and much more. Social Media Optimization is key to your online reputation and your social media presence.

Social Media Optimization can Build a Community

Social media optimization can be used to build a community of associated sites, allowing for a healthy business-to-consumer and business-to-business relationships.

Stop Marketing, Make Your Social Media Work by Engaging *

by International Associations | Apr 8, 2021 | Social Media

Start Engaging Others With Your Social Media

Do you use social media marketing to grow your business? Are you wondering how to get others to engage with your social media? Would you like to have others say great things about your brand or product on your social media?

This article will try to help you discover the common mistakes social media marketersmake and how to fix them. I want to share how you can improve your social media reach by engaging your audience.

You’ll discover how to use social media marketing effectively. Learn how you can have your brand talked about in a positive way.

Stop Marketing on Social Media

I used to look at business books in bookstores, and they would all have the same information, just a different title. The problem is that these books reinforced the traditional marketing methods of the past. In today’s digital age, too many try to use the same old marketing methods to sell their product or servcie. Rather than clinging to the past, moving into the digital marketing age it’s all about engagement.

Our information is aimed at entrepeneurs. Business people who are ready and willing to try something different. When social media exploded, it took everyone by surprise. No-one saw that coming and many still wonder how they can make social media work for them.

You need to determine where your desired audience is and use the social media platforms to get your message out

When social media first began, the term “social media strategy” did not even exist. You may not understand the term yet, but that is what you need to adopt and develop. You have to find your own unique social media strategy.

Find what works for you. You can’t just jump on social media and expect to have an immediate impact. Instead you should give to the network, rather than go out there and sell. I write three blogs about my interests in business marketing, web accessibility, and business sustainability. and sharing my blog posts on social media helps me to engage with a diverse audience.

There are an abundance of social media platforms to choose from. And each of these platforms is home to a slightly different audience. You need to determine where your desired audience is and use those platforms to get your message out.

What Drives You Mad About Social Media Marketing?

Are there things about social media marketing that simply drive you mad?

I observe a lot in the marketing world, paying particular attention to social media marketing. I think that the biggest problem for many brands is being dis-engaged. Some brands have a presence on every platforms, but are not actually present. It’s better to be on just a few platforms and actually be engaged in conversations with others.

If you schedule your social media posts using a social media management tool, you also need to make the effort to do more than just respond to your comments and shares. Be engaged in conversations with subjects you care about that are active on your chosen social media platforms.

It’s a problem if you’re not there for everybody else’s tweets about other things. You are not unconditionally giving back to the community. Don’t be someone who only answers when people talk to you.

Engagement on the average Twitter account today is much lower than it used to be

The engagement on a new Twitter account today is nowhere near as high as it used to be. Intoduced in 2006, by 2009 when you tweeted you could expect to get at least 100 replies. Today you’re lucky if you get 12. What you need to understand is that few people hear you unless you are @somebody.

Because of this, many marketers spend less time on Twitter than they used to. Too many marketers look at the phrase social media, and they only think of the media part.

The message for marketers is don’t rush out and do something just because everybody else is doing it. There are too many marketers who focus on broadcasting and don’t understand the engagement side.

Dre Headphones Does Social Media Right

I bought my grandson some Beats by Dre headphones, which broke. Apple told him that he would have to contact the company directly. I dreaded contacting them because I don’t like to deal with customer service people.

Dre Headphones website has great contact information for their customers

When I looked at their website on my phone, I saw they had a customer support Twitter handle. I tweeted them and 4 minutes later I got a response, which included an apology and said they appreciated my purchase and asked me for a DM for his email address.

So they could set up a return for him. Within 3 minutes, he received an email providing instructions for the return.

He was then handed over to his own personal agent, who dealt with the problem. I was amazed that such a smooth process came through customer service on Twitter.

I found that Beats by Dre has a customer support Twitter handle.

Beats by Dre Support was 100% on task when I tweeted them. We all understand that mistakes are made, products break and services let us down. What matters is how the company resolves them that counts. As a brand, you need to be accountable.

How to do Things Worth Talking About

I’ve memorialized the Beats by Dre customer service on Twitter. However, they have to remain consistent with their brand message and concern for customers, no matter how many followers they have. This is a huge key to customer service.

Beats by Dre remains consistent with every single customer. You can’t pick and choose whom you want to treat right. You need to fulfill everyone’s expectations. You have to remember with Twitter that content can spread because it’s a publicized customer service.

How you handle your day-to-day business can be something worth talking about. Unfortunately, to be considered great, sometimes you only have to be mediocre.

To be worth talking about, you don’t have to create the tweets or the content on a blog. Instead you have to take the actions that somebody will want to blog about.

The best way to create a story is to hire people who believe that every problem is an opportunity to create a great story. Sometimes these stories will get shared and other times they won’t.

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How Should Marketers Start with Social Media?

I feel that marketers to select one platform to start. I’m on Linkedin to connect with other business owners, because when you own a business Linkedin membership helps me to feel less isolated.

When you join a social media platform, start by talking to five people. Send five messages commenting on other peoples content. Just begin by talking to people about the things that you are interested in.

There should be no pressure. Also give yourself permission to not do social. Once you take the pressure off, then you might want to give social media a try.

How Your Digital Marketing Strategy Build’s Your Brand *

by International Associations | Mar 25, 2021 | Marketing

Use Landing Pages to Manage Your Reputation

Building your reputation, which is synonymous with your brand is how successful businesses establish themselves. It’s how you build the brand that your customers trust and engage with. You need to monitor your social media for mentions, checking reviews, and cultivating shares. They’re the real gold of social media marketing.

Landing Pages Are Inexpensive and Effective

Landing pages are an inexpensive and effective way to manage your Reputation and build your Brand. Landing pages allow you to control how your business is seen by the public.

You may feel that you have done your best to build your Reputation and your Brand. Have you been happy with your results? Have you considered building landing pages to expand on what you have accomplished?

Landing Pages = Reputation Management

Landing pages promote reputation management because Google will rank each of them for your brand name and keywords. Landing Pages also work to increase your traffic and lead generation. If used correctly, landing pages effectively help visitors connect to your brand. Landing Pages are also a great way to build your all important Email list.

Can anything else be as effective in connecting you to more customers? Can Social Media pages? Blog comments? Video Responses? Landing pages present the image and information you want customers to see and they quickly and inexpensively connect you to the customers you desire. Connecting to qualified customers is what your business needs to succeed.

Use Landing Pages to Engage Visitors

Holding customer engagement campaigns is just one of the many ways that you can use to build your brand. Others include using influencer marketing and using paid review posts on popular blogs.

You expend these efforts to develop the company brand and through that the company reputation.

Your Reputation Management Landing Page

Reputation Management is the key to your landing pages serving a dual purpose. You want your landing pages ranking high in Google for your brand keywords and phrases. Secondly your landing pages guide customers to your most important content and selling point.

Google Ranking is Your #1 Priority

How you rank on Google is your #1 priority. Having your landing pages ranking in the top 10 for your targeted search queries is your goal. Multiple landing pages provide more opportunities to focus your keywords on brand specific search queries.

It’s all about focusing on the search queries that help your new customers discover your business. Content rich landing pages allow you to engage and educate visitorsand turn them into customers.

Build Your Brand With Landing Pages

Following are five examples of the types of landing pages you need to create. These landing pages focus on your brand’s keywords, helping to build your email list, sales leads, credibility and reputation. Landing Pages provide more keyword focused opportunities for your customers to connect with your business.

Your Start Here Landing Page

Your Start Here landing page is an introduction and doesn’t have to be long, although some long landing pages have been found to be more effective in converting visits into clicks.

Your Start Here landing page tells customers what you do, what your mission is, and what your business offers to your customers.

Don’t assume that your visitor knows what you do.

Your Start Here landing page allows you to control the narrative and your brand image. Your Start Here landing page gives your brand a face and establishes the tone you carry through your promotional materials and content.

Your Start Here Landing Page can also be your “About” page, however I prefer to have both. One page is directly attached to the website while the other is a “hello” introduction that is less about informing and more about engaging and informing.

Your Coming Soon Landing Page

Several years ago SEO Smarty was launching a new content marketing service. Their original plan was to use the website to generate leads via email subscriptions. They quickly discovered that engaging visitors using content might not be effective for direct B2C engagement. Their User Experience fell short, making it impossible to get the desired results using old methods.

Three months before site launch, SEO Smarty created a landing page using Launchrock, that created the desired engagement from visitors. After the landing page was created, promoted, optimized, discussed in guest posts, and linked to on social media, the results improved the ranking for the page in particular, instead of the website.

Their landing page had a video introducing the coming service. The landing page also displayed the launch date, and an email subscription form with an invitation to the initial opening. It generated so many leads that it made SEO Smarty a big believer in using landing pages for lead generation.

Templates and Tools are Available

Many cool templates and ideas for your own coming soon landing page are available. You can even find some cool Coming Soon templates here, giving you the opportunity to test several till you find the perfect template for you.

The Seasonal Landing Page

HubSpot created a Seasonal Landing Page for the holidays called HolidayHub. They paired it with a hashtag campaign of the same name and promoted it widely. Their Seasonal landing page was the same as their regular website but in a smaller form, with limited features and a holiday theme. Their mini-site for the holidays was a landing page, with a bit more.

Seasonal Landing Pages Engage Visitors

Their Seasonal Landing Page engages visitors with it’s holiday theme. The top of the Seasonal landing page has a countdown to the next holiday or special event. The middle of the page includes guides and tools to help and inform those visiting. The bottom of the page has a sign-up form for a free assessment through their service.

Effective and Popular

Their Seasonal landing page was not only effective, it also popularized minisite landing pages. Mini site pages are the most suggested landing page styles by experts, because they provide the flavor of the website without overwhelming.

Better Message Control

Seasonal landing pages allow better control of what visitors see and should be theme based to engage and inform visitors through the season. A new domain for your Seasonal landing page is inexpensive, and a dedicated domain helps the landing page rank for your brand name or other terms.

A great Seasonal landing page used by CouponSherpa.com is Free Shipping Day, operated as a separate website which ranks for a variety of free shipping related queries.

When the season for that theme passes? Simply make another one!

Your Social Digest Landing Page

Social media draws attention, however it is disconnected from landing pages and content marketing strategies. It acts like a secondary platform, combining Social Media and your business website can be hit or miss.

Connect Your Business and Social Media

That is why it’s a great idea of using a Social Digest landing page to display all of your Social Media. The Social Digest landing page is my new favorite method of connecting your business and your Social Media.

A great resource, Miappi takes all of your social media and curates the best content that is gaining the most attention from your followers. Miappi brings it all together on your landing page in a digest format that visitors can check out and get updated with regularly.

One Page for all Your Social Media

What I love about this, it allows your followers to go one Social Digest Landing Page to view your posts from all of your Social Media platforms. I don’t post the same thing to all my accounts since that is an ineffective strategy. I’ve created a strategy using each platform for its own unique engagement.

A Social Digest Landing Page takes advantage of that, allowing visitors to access and view all of your Social Media posts at one source.

Your Offer Ended Landing Page

Special offers expire, and products become outdated. However expired offers continue to haunt long after they have expired. Expired offers still have a strong association with your brand that the Offer Ended landing page takes advantage of.

Customers will ask about your expired offers long after the offer has expired. Don’t delete those expired offer landing pages, those pages still can rank for your brand name! Instead, remake them into something that will help to attract visitors and turn them into customers.

Re-purpose With New Offers

The Offer Ended landing page will direct people to posts, pages, products, updates, or anything else relevant at that time. Imagine that you have a new promotion that gives 20 percent off a year’s subscription to your service.

You can place a banner up on the landing page that announces and links to your cart with a promo code auto-filled. Another option is a new end of year guide with all of the tips you provided over the past twelve months, placed prominently front and center.

Offer Ended Landing Pages Engage Visitors

An Offer Ended landing page helps your visitors find what they didn’t even know they needed.

Many great examples of “expired offer” pages can be found with conference landing pages. If you don’t have the next event ready yet re-direct your traffic, utilize old landing pages to develop interest, as well as build your mailing list.

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Landing Pages Engage Your Visitors

There are many types of Landing Pages and they can all be designed to reach out and engage the specific visitors that you want. They provide a unique and inexpensive way to spread your message.

Your Blog Posts Can Emulate Landing Pages

If it seems overwhelming to use landing pages, take a serious look at blogging to get your message out. You can emulate what you would do with landing pages by tailoring your blog posts to different audiences. Give it a try, you might be surprised by the results.

20+ Ways Your Business Benefits From Using Social Media *

by International Associations | Mar 23, 2021 | Social Media

How Can Social Media Benefit Your Business?

It’s hard to believe that today more than 3 billion people use social networks around the globe. Many companies are using social to engage people with their brands. Sherpa Marketing discovered that more people follow brands on social media than follow celebrities. On Instagram alone, 80 percent of people follow at least one business.

If you’re not taking advantage of social, you’re missing out on a fast, inexpensive, and effective way to reach almost half the world’s population.

How Can Your Business Benefit by Using Social Media:

Building Your Brand
Growing Your Business
Creating and Distributing Content
Communicating Your Message
Gaining Business Insights
Advertising Your Business

Benefits of Brand Building Using Social Media

Social Media Humanize’s Your Brand

According to a UK study from Trinity Mirror Solutions, more than half of adults do not trust a brand until they see “real-world proof”. To gain the trust of just 50% of adults, your brand must constantly prove that it’s keeping its promises.

To build trust and connect with customers, you have to engage your visitor’s with the human side of your brand. Do you engage visitors with your brand values? Do you even have brand values? Do you look out for the best interests of your customers and employees? Does your product not only meet, but exceed your customers expectations?

Creating real human connections is the main benefit of using social media for business engagement. We call these Meaningful Relationship Moments. Introduce your followers to your companies key employees. This allows you to also showcase how existing customers are using and benefiting from your products.

A social media advocacy program can be a great way to humanize your brand.

Increase Your Brand Awareness

Since nearly half of the world’s population uses social media, it makes social media the natural place to reach new and highly targeted potential customers.

Do you believe that people only connect with brands they already know on social media? You need to understand that 60 percent of Instagram users say they discover new products on the platform.

When Absolut Vodka ran an Instagram campaign to promote its limited edition Spark bottle, the company achieved a five-point lift in brand awareness.

Make Your Brand a Thought Leader

No matter what industry your business is in, social media offers the opportunity to establish your brand as a thought leader. Become the go-to source for information on topics related to your niche.

Though leadership, along with brand advocacy is a great way to build consumer trust. In fact, LinkedIn research in partnership with Edelman shows that marketers underestimate just how much thought leadership can impact trust consumer trust.

Almost half of B2B marketers surveyed believed their thought leadership would build trust in their companies. However, more than 80 percent of buyers said thought leadership builds trust.

63 percent of people trust technical experts, compared to only 42 percent of people who trust businesses.

The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer also found that 63 percent of people trust technical experts, compared to only 42 percent of people who trust businesses.

LinkedIn is a great social network to focus on when aiming to establish yourself as a thought leader. With more than 550 million users LinkedIn regularly ranks as the most trusted social network out of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

While LinkedIn isn’t the largest social media network, it’s highly trusted by those that use it. LinkedIn provides a unique opportunity to have your voice heard and bolster your standing as an expert in your field.

I’m often asked, “What type of content should I post to LinkedIn?” While at it’s core, LinkedIn is a social network, two types of posts that may engage visitors better on LinkedIn than other social networks include:

Engage Social Media Users

Most social media users log into their accounts at least once per day, according to Pew Research Center, and many people are checking social multiple times per day.

Every time your fans and followers log into their social media accounts gives you a new opportunity to connect and engage with them.

A majority of Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram users visit these platforms daily graph

You have to keep your social posts engaging and informative. If they find it useful, your followers will look forward to your new content in their feeds. Engaging them like this will keep you at the top of their mind. This will also make you their first stop when they’re ready to buy.

How Can Social Media Help You Grow?

Use Social Media to Increase Website Traffic

Social media posts and ads are two ways you can drive traffic to your website. Sharing great content from your blog or website to your social channels is a great way to engage readers as soon as you publish a new post

It’s important to not only post your great content. It’s important to engage your readers, developing a conversation with others, sharing ideas and opinions.

Participating in social chats is also be a great way to increase your visibility. You need to get attention from new people, showcase your expertise, and drive traffic to your website. The key for you is to offer value in the chat, don’t be too promotional.

Just make sure your website address is included in all of your social media profiles so that people who want to learn more about you can do so easily. Even better use a pinned post during the chat, highlighting a relevant landing page on your website.

Use Social Media to Generate Leads

Social media offers an easy and low-commitment way for potential customers to express interest in your business and your products. Lead generation is such an important benefit of social media for business that many social networks offer advertising formats specifically designed to collect leads.

For example, Renault Europe used Facebook lead generation ads allowing people test driving a new model to book their test drive directly from Facebook, with just a couple of taps.

The ads had a 7.9 times lower cost per lead than ads linking to a form on the car manufacturer’s website.

Renault UK ran a great ad to Book a Test Drive Today

Use Social Media to Boost Sales

No matter what you sell, social media can help you sell it. Your social accounts are an indespensable part of your sales funnel.

As social media use continues to grow and social sales tools evolve, social networks will become increasingly important for product search and ecommerce. Now is the time to align your social marketing and sales goals.

For individual sales professionals, social selling is already a critical tool.

Influencer Word-of-Mouth Drives Sales

Word of mouth drives 20 to 50 percent of purchasing decisions. You build your brand awareness and credibility when you get people talking about your product or company on social media. This also helps you set yourself up for future sales.

One key way to drive social word of mouth is to partner with influencers who have a large following on social media and can draw the attention of their following to your brand.

Research from Nielsen, Carat, and YouTube shows that collaborating with an influencer can give your brand four times more lift in brand familiarity than collaborating with a celebrity.

Benefits of Social Media for Content Creation and Distribution

Promote Your Content on Social Media

Promoting your content on social channels is a great way to get your content in front of new people, proving your expertise and growing your credibility and audience.

For example, Adobe used LinkedIn Sponsored Content to showcase its research, including infographics and videos.

Marketing decisions-makers exposed to Adobe’s promoted content were 50 percent more likely to view Adobe as shaping the future of digital marketing and 79 percent more likely to agree that Adobe could help them optimize media spend.

To maximize the social media for business benefits, make sure to have a content marketing plan in place.

Source Your Content for Social Media

There are two key ways your business can source content on social media:

Source ideas: Ask your followers what they want, or engage in social listening, to come up with ideas for content you can create yourself. Give people what they’re asking for. It’s a sure way to create content that people will want to read and share.
Source material for posts: Create a contest or use a hashtag to develop user-generated content (UGC) you can share. Getting your followers involved can build excitement about your brand while also providing you with a library of social posts to share over time.

How much content can you get through a UGC campaign? Check out the #wanderlustcontest hashtag from National Geographic, which has generated more than 60,000 posts.

Use Social Media to Go Viral

Your content is exposed to new audiences as people begin liking, commenting on, and sharing your social posts with their friends and followers. Going viral takes this concept one step further.

As influencers share your content across their network, and their networks follow suit, your content can spread across the internet. This could result in thousands or even millions of shares.

This exposure is beneficial to your brand because all those shares, likes, and comments show the existing connections with your brand. If I see that my friend likes your article, I may be inclined to check out what you have to say. Even if I’ve never heard of your company before.

A friend’s social sharing is a pre-screening and acceptance of your content. Today there is more content than any one person could ever consume, we all click on and engage with some of the content that our friend’s like or share.

Going Viral is not easy, however without social media it would be nearly impossible.

Manage Your Reputation Using Social Media

Your community is already talking about your brand on social media. You need to get ahead of your competition, using social listening will to help you discover critical issues in social posts about your brand before they turn into something major.

Is someone saying something about your business that’s not true? You have to share your side of the story. But do it in a polite, professional way. Is someone praising your brand? Express your thanks and draw attention to their kind words.

The important thing to remember, your content should be geared to establishing a positive conversation with your audience that will highlight your brand.

Social Media Makes Communication Easier

Engage Your Audience Using Social Media

Social media networks give you the unique opportunity to interact directly with your customers and fans. Using analytics it has become possible to personalize your message targeting specific customers. Social media also gives your audience the ability to interact directly with your brand.

Social media is unique in that it allows a direct conversation between your brand and your audience. This ability to establish two-way communications is very different from any past media enagement opportunities.

Using traditional media in the past offered only one-way communications from your brand to your audience. These were hit-or-miss because of their inability to target small groups effectively.

You have to be engaged if you want your customers and followers to be engaged. Your goal is to establish a conversation with your audience. Do so by actively responding to comments and questions on your own social media posts in a way that’s appropriate to your brand.

You can also use social media monitoring to keep an eye on what people are saying across the social web. Do you use analytics to measure your engagement success?

Use Social Media for Crisis Management

When a Philadelphia Starbucks store had two black men arrested, the hashtag #BoycottStarbucks quickly went viral. Starbucks was experiencing any companies worst nightmare. The #BoycottStarbucks hashtag was used more than 100,000 times in just three days. That would officially qualify as a crisis.

Starbucks, to its credit, responded quickly. After their first apology, the company followed up with several more statements on social media. Starbucks then announced that it would close all of its stores for a day of racial-bias training.

Starbucks apology for Philadelphia incident with 2 black customers

Only time will determine if there are long-term negative effects for the Starbucks brand from this incident. However, the fall-out would have been worse if they had not taken immediate and appropriate steps to address their crisis on social media.

Social media is primarily used for building your brand recognition and credibility. However it does have another critical use, giving you an effective method to reduce damage to your brand during a social media fueled crisis. Does your company have a plan in place for dealing with a serious crisis affecting your brand?

While small brands may not have a crisis blow up to such a large scale, even a small number of negative shares could be devastating to your brand. Silence is not an option when it comes to responding to a crisis on social media. Maintaining well managed social accounts and having a plan in place can help make sure you’re present and ready to engage if the worst occurs.

Customer Service Needs to be a Great Experience

It seems to just be common sense that your business must have good customer service. But how valuable is it really? Could great customer service actually make you more money?

Today, people expect your brand to be available on social media. Consumers are increasingly turning to social media to resolve their customer service issues. Are you prepared to respond to their concerns?

Research published in the Harvard Business Review shows that brands who aren’t meeting those expectations are damaging their bottom line. It’s not all bad news though. It’s a great opportunity for you to turn those angry customers into loyal ones.

Responding quickly yto customer complaints makes them willing to spend more in the future

The HBR research, looking specifically at Tweets is eye-opening. The research shows that customers who receive a response to their Tweet would be willing to spend more with the brand on a later purchase.

Especially if they get a response within five minutes. This is true even when the initial Tweet was strictly a complaint. How quickly do you respond to inquiries or complaints?

Benefits of Social Media for Gaining Insights

Monitor Conversations Relevant to Your Brand

Above, we mentioned social media monitoring is an important part of understanding your audience engagement. But it’s also an important source of intelligence about your brand, your competitors, and your niche. Do you follow your competitor’s on social media? Why not?

Analytics Help You Understand Your Customers

Social media generates huge amounts of real time data about your visitors and your customers. Have you thought about how you could use this data? Understanding the gathered information could help you make smarter, and more informed business decisions.

The social networks all offer built-in analytics that provide you with demographic information about the people interacting with your social media account. Use this information to help you tailor your strategy to better engage your audience.

Gauge Social Sentiment About Your Brand

Lots of mentions on social media is a good thing, right? Yes, in the majority of interactions. However, if you’re getting lots of negative mentions, you need to quickly figure out what’s gone wrong and address the problem.

Nick Martin, of Hootsuite defines social media sentiment as “the perceived positive or negative mood being portrayed in a social media post or engagement.”

While it’s important to know how much people are talking about your brand online, it also matters what people are actually saying about your brand. You should be engaging both the negative and positive commentors in a conversation.

Know What Your Competition is Doing

It’s important to know what people are saying about your competitors. By tracking mentions of your competitors you might find weaknesses with their products or services. Knowing about their failure, allows you to address it and reach out with a solution. Doing so could win you new customers.

Uber Canada had a great idea to deliver free ice cream for a day in Vancouver. This should have been a huge win for Uber, because who wouldn’t like free ice cream. Unfortunately things went spectacularly wrong. The success of Uber’s promotion was overwhelming. Uber was unprepared to meet the demand.

Uber failed because people couldn’t get their free ice cream. Because people were not happy about Uber’s failure to perform. These unhappy people took to social media to vent their frustrations and complain about Uber’s failure.

The folks at Skip The Dishes saw an opportunity and reached out to people complaining on social media about Ubers failure to deliver. They offered a free ice cream delivery of their own, in the form of a Skip The Dishes credit.

All those Uber haters quickly turned into Skip The Dishes fans, and potential new customers. To get your free ice cream you had to create a Skip The Dishes Account. Uber failed because they oversold the idea of free ice cream while Skip The Dishes found a clever way to profit from Uber’s failure.

Monitoring your competition on social media also means you’ll be aware when your competitors launch new products, run promotions, and release new reports or data. All valuable and actionable information.

Know What’s Happening in Your Industry

Things change quickly in the business world, however in the online world changes happen faster than ever. You need to be aware of these changes and be able to react to protect your brand in a timely manner. You can’t afford to get left behind.

You have to keep your virtual ear to the ground. Using social listening ensures that you’re informed about upcoming industry changes that could affect the way you do business.

Benefits of Social Media for Advertising

Embrace and Use Targeted Advertising

Great Social Media ads are an inexpensive way to promote your business and distribute your content. They also offer powerful targeting options so you can reach the right audience and make the most of your budget.

Savvy marketers have embraced this key benefit of social media for business: Marketers spent twice as much on Social Media ads in 2018 as they did on newspaper advertising.

With ad targeting options including Facebook demographic information, geography, language, and even online behaviors, you can craft specific messages that best speak to different groups of potential customers, and only pay for the exact viewers you want to reach.

Retargeting Turns Visitors Into Customers

Nearly 70 percent of online shopping carts are abandoned, never completing the transaction. Why do you think that happens? Have you ever abandoned a shopping cart before completing the transaction? Why did you abandon your cart?.

The people who have abandoned products in your shopping cart are your prime potential customers. They have already found your website. They have browsed your products. They even made a decision to add something to their cart.

People who have abandoned products in your shopping cart are your prime potential customers, how do you get them to click the buy button

You were so close to your goal. Why do you think your customers are abandoning their carts? The truth is that people abandon shopping carts for many reasons. However, you can’t just ignore anyone who has shown so much interest in your company.

Using tracking tools like Facebook Pixel, you can show these potential customers social media ads for the exact products they have browsed on your website or placed in the shopping cart. Retarget these potential customers. Make the extra effort to convert these visitors from walk-away to take-away customers.

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Benefits of Social Media for Proving ROI

Social Media Reporting and Analytics

It is always a challenge for marketers to prove their return on investment. However, with good social media tracking and analytics tools, you can see the full impact of your social media activities. Track everything from follows to engagements right through to purchases.

Tools like Google Analytics help you track your website traffic generated from social media, your conversions, email sign-ups, and ROI for both your organic and paid social media campaigns.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Pinterest have all developed their own analytics within their platform. There are also many free and paid commercial tools available to help you analyze your web traffic.

So there’s no excuse to be in the dark about how your customers and social followers are engaging with you.

6 New Rules to Ensure Your Landing Page Success *

by International Associations | Mar 9, 2021 | Marketing

Limited Budgets Hamper Small Businesses

It’s just a given that small businesses have limited resources for their marketing budgets. Because of this their limited funds as well as their time and other resources, must be used judiciously.

Two of the most common marketing used by small business are email marketing campaigns and paid ads. These methods are used since they tend to yield the best returns.

But if you’ve invested in these approaches and haven’t seen the response you hoped for, you might be missing something important. Engaging and effective landing pages.

Continue reading to learn how one company increased their campaign conversion rates once they restyled their landing pages, and how you can use their tactics to do the same for your business.

Is a Bad Landing Page Better Than No Landing Page?

Few companies are as strapped for time as small businesses, there is so much to do that seemingly minor moving parts can slip through the cracks. This question begs to be asked. Is having no landing page for your marketing campaign better than having a poorly constructed one? Or is it best to still use a landing page, even if you don’t have a lot of time to devote to building it?

Landing pages are crucial to your marketing campaigns success, so it’s obviously better to have one. Thankfully there are new methods for creating high-quality landing pages that won’t take a lot of your time while still allowing you to treat them as a high priority.

Embracing a New Landing Page Approach

Master Oil Painting needed a better way to capture more leads and increase conversions. They had tried landing pages in the past, but their average conversion rate was stuck at 4.4 percent. Setting up landing pages was a tedious process for MOP, with limited ROI for the effort expended.

The Master Oil Painting people knew oil painting, but needed a solution that could help them create more professional-looking landing pages in minutes. They wanted features that would enhance their customer experience and provide better results.

Master Oil Painting searched for a different way to gather more leads, better capture their leads data, and provide higher conversion rates. They understood that their approach to landing pages just wasn’t working for them.

Improved Numbers Provided Proof

Master Oil Painting decided to adopt Infusionsoft’s new Landing Pages feature. The company quickly and effectively learned the important components of a landing page.

They implemented what they had learned within the seamless system and saw their conversion rates jump from 4.4 to 11.5 percent.

On top of that, their email click rates nearly doubled with a corresponding increase in their monthly sales figures.

Master Oil Painting discovered what works within landing pages, and what fails.

The Basics Needed for Your Landing Page Success

No matter what system you use to create your landing pages, there are six key aspects to keep in mind to get the most conversions.

Ease and Time

You can’t spend large amounts of time agonizing over the details in your landing pages. Find templates that include placeholders for the information your customers expect to find. You should also be able to move things using drag-and-drop. This will save you time, and give your pages the polished and professional appearance you want.

Aesthetics and Experience

Your landing pages need to be eye-catching. Ensure that your landing pages are responsive and give a smooth experience on a wide variety of devices. Use royalty free images and test your landing pages to be sure they load quickly. Your prospects will give you 2 -3 seconds for a page to load before clicking away.

Compelling Call-to-Action

Your landing page needs to have a call-to-action button that draws your visitor in. For example, invite your visitor to request a free consultation or download a useful ebook. They’ll need to receive something valuable in exchange for handing over their information, so you want to make this part of the deal as enticing as possible.

Form Fields and Data Collection

Landing pages sole purpose is capturing customer data and providing a follow up method. Any web forms need to be brief and gather the minimum information as quickly and easily as possible. l addresses, phone numbers, or other information that you want to use. Relationship building can come later.

Integration and Support

Your landing page builder needs to synchronize with your CRM or marketing software. This makes follow-up and data consolidation a whole lot easier.

Customization

Finally, consider how custom domains and messaging can help increase your respnse rate. The right domains can help boost your SEO rankings. Personalized messaging can be the difference between converting prospects or not. Your landing page needs both.

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Design Effective Landing Pages That Convert

If you’re already spending your limited time and money on email marketing campaigns or paid media, you need to make sure you’re spending equal attention on designing an effective landing pages. You can get a boost in conversions by focusing on the points above. Here’s to creating engaging landing pages and excited prospects who convert into customers.

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