Tag: Marketing

Marketing on social media the right way can take time to understand. Many of the social media sites are a way to make new friends or speak to existing ones.

Already an internet marketer? If so, you will already understand and be aware they are more than just for entertainment and escapism. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many more have become a way to make money if the right strategies are in place.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so many more are entirely made to make you money. However, you must understand you need to take some time and effort to get recognized by other social media users.

You need to have an effective strategy that will help you build an audience.

Understand unless you are already a well-known celebrity, no one knows you, so your audience does not know what you represent, and why you need to build up an image on your chosen social media platform, if not on more.

Engage with them regularly. Does this mean you need to have an existing store or business? Quite simply, no, not unless you want, or already have one. You may even be a current business owner already looking at how marketing on social media can take you and your company forward.

As your audience grows and you gain a more significant following, newer opportunities will present themselves.

Once you have gained a decent following, there are then many ways to start making money on social media.

Today with celebrities, many brands are turning more and more to well-known figures in the public eye who already have an audience, and usually, this will be in the millions. These people are otherwise known as ‘social influencers’.

With the aid of a well known public figure, companies can get their products promoted and endorsed by them.

They know their followers will copy their every move in many a cases, it would seem.

If you too can create a good following, and with the right strategies in place, there is no reason why you can’t, then do not be surprised if a company or companies reaches out to you asking for their brand promotion. Companies know this is a great way to reach a targeted audience.

You only need to look on social media, television or whatever social media channel you prefer to see, the brands that are continually being endorsed. The simple truth is marketing on social media works, and it works very well if you know what you are doing.

Whether or not you are considering marketing on any platform, it is essential, if possible, you find someone. It can even be in your immediate locality who you think is a local celebrity and who might be willing to endorse your product or service. Do you remember ever boing told, ” if you don’t ask, you don’t get”, this is so true of today’s marketing world.

Are you a big arts and crafts lover? Do you have a talent for it yourself? There are billions of users worldwide who love this, and if you were marketing on social media, you would most probably find there are a lot of people who will be interested in what you do.

I love seeing the talent of others, it’s fascinating to see what someone can achieve and sometimes with tiny things.

Their art of making is truly a craft.

Using the medium of different platforms, you can showcase your talents very quickly, if you know what you are doing.

You may already see many things being advertised on Facebook, Twitter, and many others. Marketing on social media is a science and done correctly, the rewards can be significant. Done incorrectly, and you can end up losing a lot of money on advertising costs, time, effort and ultimately disappointment in your results.

However, running a business and keeping your audience constantly engaged can be quite a challenge. To post regularly and the content to be relevant can also be quite a challenge. If you are not careful and continuously track what you are doing, it can become too much.

With all of the hard work it takes to get your business up, running, and profitable, it’s no wonder why so many entrepreneurs struggle to find the time to maintain their social media presence.

That’s why I’ve invested in figuring out little social media “hacks” – tools and methods I can use to maintain my presence, grow my followers, and make money with social media WITHOUT actually adding to my workload each day.

In this article you are going to discover 7 of those time-saving social media tools:

1) Tweet Adder – With this piece of software, you can automate sending Direct Messages to new Twitter followers (a great way to offer your followers free gifts for following you on Twitter, thereby building your list in a completely automated way). You can also quickly and easily generate lists of relevant people to follow without ever having to log in to the Twitter platform. Easy peasy!

2) Pay With a Tweet – With this piece of software, you can offer followers an alternative to opting in with their name/email address. Instead, they can “pay with a tweet”(they tweet a message out on their Twitter profile, and in exchange, you give them access to your offer). I like to use this to kill 2 birds with one stone: adding value to my list, and building my list. The way this is done is by only allowing existing newsletter subscribers the option to pay with a tweet. When your subscribers send their tweets out, the tweets will contain a link leading back to a landing page which DOES require an opt in. So anyone who clicks from their tweet is then required to opt in to the mailing list, thereby growing your list (again, without any added work)!

3) Meet Edgar – The typical social media scheduling softwares that entrepreneurs use (ie. Hoot Suite and Sprout Social) still require quite a bit of manual work because you have to enter the days and times that the posts go out for each profile. You also can’t re-use content automatically (you have to actually re-enter it in the system). With Meet Edgar, you can load in a bunch of content in bulk and let Edgar choose when to schedule them. And, the more content you post, the smarter Edgar gets (so if a certain post is getting a lot of traction, Edgar will re-use it automatically to help increase engagement on your pages). Love it!

4) Fan of the Week – This app is a great way to show some love for you most active fans on your Facebook fan pages. Each week, the software evaluates which of your fans was the most engaging on your profile, and will reward the fan by announcing them as the “Fan of the Week”. This is an easy and automated way to keep your followers happy!

5) Hub Spot Blog Topic Generator – One of the most challenging parts about social media is coming up with stuff to post about. This includes coming up with blogs to syndicate on your social media. With this tool, you can enter in a couple words related to what you want to write about, and it will generate a list of blog topic ideas for you.

6) Canva – Unless you’re a graphic designer, creating branded graphics for your social media posts can be a pain in the neck (and if you hire people to do it for you, it can cost a pretty penny). I’m techy, but I’m not a designer, so what I do instead is use Canva to create my social media graphics. I customize their Free Layouts with my brand colors, images of myself, and quotes or messages that would resonate with my followers.

7) WooBox – This one’s pretty neato, because you can do quite a lot with it: Contests, Coupons, Quizzes, Polls, Social Media Landing Pages, and more. But the social media “hack” and time saver feature they one that allows you to set it up so that whatever you post on your Fan Page automatically posts to your Twitter. Now, the downside of this is that your content on these platforms is the same (so why should someone bother to follow you on Twitter?) and if you post a longer post, it’ll show up weird on Twitter. But, if you’re super strapped for time, keep the length of your posts in mind, and set up another means for why people should follow you on Twitter (ie. giving followers a unique freebie for Twitter followers only, using Tweet Adders Direct Messaging feature mentioned in #1), then it’s totally worth it.

Armed with these 7 social media tools, you will be able to build a following of fans who love you without having to sacrifice hours each day to coming up with content, creating posts, and thinking of ways to create engagement. (woohoo!)

Now go out there and get sh*t done!

<3 Amanda

Social media marketing is a good way to get the word out about your business, products and/or services. But, there are times when you have to be aware of the fact that social media marketing has the potential to draw you in and become a major time sucker.

If you want to ensure that social media is not controlling you, follow these tips.

Have a Plan of Action

Don’t do anything without a plan. You need a GPS to get to your destination. You also need a plan to ensure that social media marketing will work well for your business.

Create a Social Media Publication Calendar

Plan ahead according to the products and services you want to promote to craft posts and updates that have a purpose. If you have a calendar with pre-written posts, you can easily schedule them to work with your product launches.

Avoid Time-Sucking Activities

You know it is simple to get sucked into yet another personality quiz or discussions about that delicious plate of pasta your friend just made, not to mention all the games – but don’t do it. It’s fine to have fun, but do it after your work is complete.

Outsource Scheduling

Once you create a publication calendar that matches your promotions you can give the list of updates to someone else to schedule and monitor. However, don’t make that an excuse not to engage personally.

Take Time to Comment and Engage

Even if you outsource parts of your social media marketing, be sure to personally comment and engage your followers so that they know you are a real person to trust and know.

Do More of What Works

If you do something that works, do more of it and less of what doesn’t. Monitor the metrics of everything that you do so that you are positive about what is working and what is not working.

Each Post Needs a Reason for Being

Don’t post something without a purpose. If you don’t know why you are posting it, don’t bother.

Don’t Forget Your Call to Action

Everything you do should have a CTA. Whether it is to share, follow, or click, ensure clarity about what you want your audience members to do. If they know what you want them to do, they’re more likely to do it.

Using social media correctly to market your business is an essential element today in the world of advertising and marketing. Social media marketing can be very effective and inexpensive if you are careful not to waste time and effort on messing around and doing things that have no purpose.

Social media marketing is an excellent way to boost your business and profits. However, there are many common mistakes that people make when engaging in social media marketing.

If you are making any of these mistakes, don’t worry. It’s never too late to correct your social marketing and make it better.

Not Engaging with Your Followers

When your followers make a comment on something, share or ask a question, don’t wait too long to respond. If you have someone monitoring your social media, have them inform you of ongoing conversations and potential areas of engagement.

Not Filling Out Your Profile Completely

Incomplete profiles make your business look either sloppy, or fake. If you want to be taken seriously, fill out a complete profile with a good profile picture, your company logo/banner and information so that you can be contacted outside of the network.

Not Focusing on Follower Quality

Some people make the mistake of focusing on the quantity of followers rather than the quality. You want to concern yourself with finding followers who are potential customers.

Not Posting Regular, Relevant Updates

If you aren’t active posting things that resonate with your audience, then you’re not going to get any traction. If you plan to be successful with social media marketing it takes perseverance and patience, not one-hit wonders.

Not Choosing Your Channels Wisely

You don’t need to be on every single social network. Be on the channels that your audience love and that will work out fine.

Not Automating Some Actions

There are a lot of things, such as scheduled updates, that you can automate on social media. Be sure to use scheduling when possible as long as it doesn’t make you look robotic.

Not Interacting Personally

Every chance you get, it’s important to make spur-of-the-moment updates that are relevant to your business and your goals. This will make you look more real in the eyes of your followers.

Not Personalizing Messages for the Channel

Sending out a mass message, using software, to all of your social media networks that you’ve connected with, is a big mistake. Most of the time, you’ll have leads who are on more than one account. If you do this they’ll quickly feel bored or worse, spammed.

Using social media to market your business is a proven technique to get more customers, make more sales, and increase your bottom line, but only if you avoid these mistakes. Take one at a time and make the improvements needed to get on the right track so that you make your social media marketing profitable for your business.

If you are small business owner and you have no idea on how to do marketing for your business, you should read this article. In this article, you will find out why investing in online marketing is crucial for your business. And what is really inside online marketing, and you will find out some mistakes small business owners are making right now. After reading this article, you will be able to avoid many mistakes and start doing marketing online.

Why should you invest in online marketing?

So, why SME should invest in online marketing? First of all, a lot of small business owner who just have enough money for their day to day business. And even some of the companies have cash, what they will do is to put them on traditional advertising, like advertising on television, Yellow Pages or direct mail. Compared to traditional advertising methods, online marketing is much more cost-effective and he can reach a lot of people, who go online every day. Next, we’re going to find out what is inside online marketing.

What online marketing are composed of?

To put it simple, online marketing, just like what is described, is doing marketing online. What you need to of and do is to get people to visit your website, and convert them to do custom. To get traffic, you can either pay for it or get it free. If you want to get traffic immediately in order to test your offer, you can try pay per click, pay-per-view, or banner advertising on high-volume traffic websites. One of the drawbacks is that you have to pay in order to get traffic. And if the offer does not convert well, you do not make any money. If you want to get free traffic, you can write articles and submit to article directory, optimize the website using search engine optimization techniques, or use social media such as Facebook or twitter to drive traffic to the website. Advertising using these methods is usually free, the problem is that you may not get traffic immediately.

After driving traffic to your website, the next thing you should do is to build a customer database, or e-mail lists. Selling to existing customers is much more easier than getting a new customer. Therefore, once they are joined your e-mail list, you can sell to you list again and again. Now let’s talk about some of the mistakes small business owners are making.

Mistakes SMEs Make

One of the problems people are making is that small business owners are spending money on search engine optimization with no purpose. They pay $2000 to a search engine company and try to optimize their website for a very competitive keywords like “insurance”, “car” or “business”, which drives no result. Another problem is that, in their website, there is no place to collect visitors e-mail address, which, like mentioned in the above, you can sell to them later on.

Unlike traditional advertising methods, online marketing can give you a lot more opportunities to reach your target prospects. In online marketing, you can get’s website visitor to your website using paid method or free methods, and built your customer database for your business. Finally, some businesses invest a lot of money on doing SEO but did not get any results. It is because they don’t know what they really want, and just optimize their website for a very competitive keywords. Also remember to put an online form to collect visitors email address that you can sell to them later on. So next time if you want to do marketing, please consider doing marketing online.

For your business to be successful in the modern world, it is crucial to have a robust online footprint in the World Wide Web. Hence, when a business is planning its marketing campaigns, it should integrate a solid strategy for digital marketing. Without an established plan for digital marketing, important aspects of the business are more likely to suffer such as branding, customer acquisitions, customer retention, and profit generation.

The most important elements of internet marketing include organic search, mobile responsiveness, content marketing, social media marketing, and email marketing. All of these elements mixed together will create robust digital marketing campaigns.

Content Marketing

Content is the driving factor in a digital marketing plan. Running a blog for a website is a good way to provide your visitors with fresh and reliable content. This will help you increase website visitors and customer engagement for better conversions. Creating new and valuable content for your website also creates credibility for the business. Through effective content marketing strategies, you can position your business as an expert in your niche.

Organic Search

People today search for information online in different ways, the most popular is through search engine results. The first phase of ensuring that your website will appear in front of your prospect clients and current customers is to properly optimize your web pages. Proper Search Engine Optimization or SEO will help leading search engines – Google, Yahoo, and Bing – to determine what your website is all about, and how it relates to what the person is searching for. With a cohesive organic search plan, you can improve the visibility of the website within the search engines and help in attracting more traffic back to your website. This will also help your business to increase its potential for different opportunities.

Mobile Responsiveness

Mobile browsing is increasingly becoming more popular. More and more customers are even shopping online through their mobile devices. The increasing sales of smartphones and tablets are also a fact that you should not ignore. Taking a closer look at what is possible with marketing through mobile means is very crucial in today’s landscape of the digital world. Every facet of your digital marketing strategy must reflect responsiveness to mobile platforms. It is also important to consider having a mobile optimized website for a more enjoyable user interface experience. Visitors to your mobile optimized website will love the simplicity and ease of information accessibility.

Social Media Marketing

Marketing your business through social media platforms is a good strategy in building and increasing brand image online. This is also a very effective channel in sharing information and distributing information about your products and services. Using different social media channels can create new opportunities to engage potential customers as well as retain your existing clients.

Email Marketing

About 5% of website visitors buy products the first time they visit a website. If your digital marketing strategy is driving traffic to your website, what will you do with the 95% of visitors who clicked the close button? You need a strategic email marketing campaign to help your business get a higher ROI. Based on a research, about 60% of consumers are encouraged to buy from a website with a well planned email campaign. Also take note that most emails opened today are opened through mobile devices. Thus, you need to make certain that all emails are mobile responsive.

Effective Internet marketing is a process of using any number of traffic generation methods for gaining visitors to your website. This often includes free methods such as article marketing, social media, forums or video – as well as paid advertising solutions such as Google’s AdWords. Your time and budget will initially determine which choice you make – although there are also benefits to using various methods of generating traffic from a combination of sources. This article will outline some of the key points to keep in mind when it comes to effective Internet marketing.

Effective Internet marketing through generating traffic from free sources largely revolves around the concept of giving informative or interesting content in return for visitors to your website. Utilising article marketing is perhaps the most commonly used method of generating traffic in this fashion. It also provides the added benefits of quality back-links for your search engine optimisation strategies – which can be provided through other webmasters publishing your article as well as the initial link article directories allow you to have from your article. While not providing the same benefits in terms of back-links and search engine optimisation, marketing by offering similar content through video is growing increasingly popular. The primary goal behind most strategies employing this method is to create a video that will likely inspire viewers to send it to someone else upon viewing it, potentially resulting in a lot of viewers who subsequently visit your website in a short period of time.

Effective Internet marketing is growing less common through paid advertising services such as Google’s AdWords. While it does offer benefits in that you can get a high number of targeted visitors to your website very quickly – it is growing increasingly out of the budget for the average marketer who runs a small business on their own. It is now primarily recommended as a quick way to test how your website performs in terms of converting visitors into buyers, and then make adjustments to increase its effectiveness.

Building a list is an important part of any effective Internet marketing. This commonly involves placing an opt-in form on your site and providing some incentive such as a free guide or sample tutorial video for them to join your subscriber base. Implementing a list is an important method to stay in touch with your website’s visitors and keep them interested in what you have to offer.

Any form of effective Internet marketing should be designed to provide you with a high amount of website visitors that eventually convert into buying customers. Using methods to generate traffic from a wide range of sources will allow you to reach as many potential customers as possible, which will ultimately result in a much higher level of income.

Building a million dollar information marketing business doesn’t start with buying the latest article or blog submitting gizmo or list of 5 million subscribers for $27! It also doesn’t start by investing in ever more popular fly-by-night tactics that work today and are obsolete (or banned) tomorrow.

Instead, information marketing millionaires first build strong foundations for success by focusing on developing an effective business model that allows fast growth.

There are five key components this business model must include. All of them are equally important for long term success, stability, and profitability of your business.

Once you have a specific business model mapped out you can identify the specific strategies you want to focus on. This in turn will dictate what specific tactics you need to employ, and what action steps to take to reach your objective of building a million dollar information marketing business.

So let’s explore those five key components of an effective business model.

Component 1 – Generate Traffic

The first step on this model is to generate traffic. You’ve got to have “duplicate-able”, repeatable, sustainable ways to generate traffic.

You can get your traffic for free – but it will take a bit longer to get it. Or you can buy it and have people visiting your website in a matter of minutes.

Some of the free traffic generation strategies include article submissions, blogging, social media presence, like video and audio podcasts and accounts with popular online networking sites including LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter.

And let’s not forget something as simple as a “Tell a friend” button somewhere on each page of your website.

The fastest way to get traffic to your website is to buy it. Bying PPC (pay per click) like Google’s AdWords is probably one of the most known paid traffic strategy, but there are many others.

You can also buy text links, banner advertising, display ads on other people’s sites and blogs. You can also buy classified ads in other people’s ezines and even solo-mailings to other people’s lists of subscribers.

A lot of savvy marketers also use strategic alliances or JVs (Joined Ventured) to quickly drive massive traffic to their websites. While it’s a very effective strategy, it’s not free. Your JV partners will typically want to get a hefty percentage of the sales they generate with their promotions of your site. But – it will be quick!

Component 2 – Lead Generation

One of the biggest mistakes most people make is they try to get a sale too soon! Instead, a much better approach is to generate a lead first, then convert that lead into a paid first-time customer.

Let’s take this one step at a time – converting visitors into subscribers of some sort – a.k.a. “leads”! This is a critical step because it will allow you to continue communicating with people interested in your products or services.

You’ve probably heard that in any business your money and success are in your list, in your database of subscribers and your relationship with them. It’s very important to learn how to get people to come to your site and then entice them to want to give you their name and email.

It used to be enough to just say something like “subscribe to my newsletter,” or “get updates about my business,” somewhere on your website to get people to opt-in to your database. But those days are long gone.

Today you must be really good at presenting great value fast and making irresistible first offers to your visitors to persuade them to give up their contact information. Strategies that still work great include giving your web visitors access to special reports, audio downloads, or informative video and audio presentations.

Obviously the better the quality of your “carrot” and the better your presentation of it, the better your conversion will be. (Conversion is the comparison of the number of people that take you up on your offer and subscribe to your list to the total number of people that visit your website.)

Component 3 – Lead Conversion

Now that you have a list of subscribers – a.k.a. database of leads – how do you convert them into paid customers, someone who would actually gives you a few dollars? Generating that first sale is your lead conversion.

Just like lead generation, lead conversion strategies will vary from business to business, depending on what you are selling and who your customers are. But the key to your success is to systemize and automate this process as much as possible. Let me give you an example.

Think of a service business, for example some like a professional life coach.

Most likely they have no systems in place. Every new client is gained a different way. A conversation with each new prospect is different from others. Every lead is generated a different way. Every lead is converted differently. It’s no wonder their businesses are overwhelming them and generating very little money. There are no systems in place.

Now let’s look at a different professional and scenario; someone like an orthodontist.

Everything is systemized. From the same lead generation mechanisms to how patients get introduced to the doctor’s office to the first experience when they come in, to how they get to meet the doctor, how their initial evaluation is presented and delivered, how the price is quoted and how the treatment is initiated.

Everything is identical for each new patient! Everything is done the same way over and over and over. Everything is a system. And that’s what you are looking for in successful information marketing business model – systemized and automated lead conversion strategies.

Component 4 – Profit Multipliers

Once you generate the first sale, you will sell more products or services to your new customer. It’s important for two reasons. First, you probably have more products and services that can help that client much more beyond what they initially received from you. And second, that’s the way to maximize the success and profitability of your business!

Here are few examples of profit multipliers.

First there is down-selling. Basically what it means is that if someone comes to your website and says, “I don’t think I’m willing to pay $97you’re your multi-media course – and I’m leaving your website,” you present them with another opportunity to purchase a similar product that sells for $47 or even less and say, “Maybe $97 is too much for your budget right now. Can I interest you in getting a similar highly quality course that costs only $20?”

A different down-sale would be to offer a payment plan. You’d say something like this, “If $97 is too much right now, can I make it more affordable for you by letting you pay in three payments of $33?”

Next, there is a cross-sale. If they pay $97 for your first program, maybe they like to add another program that will help them get more value out of their initial purchase, especially if it’s priced attractively. It’s an effective way to immediately increase the size of each initial transaction.

Then there are continuity programs. For instance, if you are a coach you can have a system in place where after the initial first sale of some type of a home study course the customer receives an invitation to join a group coaching and support program for which they would then pay monthly.

And these are just a few simple ideas of what you can do to multiply your sales and profits.

Component 5 -Scalability

Your ultimate goal is to systemize and automate your business so that its growth can be expended beyond your own efforts.

Once you have all of the key components in place, focus on simplifying, systemizing, automating, delegating – in short, you want to optimize your business for maximum performance with minimum efforts.

Then simply start driving more traffic through this “profit machine”, and, if you designed it well, it will work like a charm and continue making you more money. It’s like of like turn the faucet knob on full blast.

So to have an effective business model first you need to generate traffic to your website, then you need a way to convert that traffic into leads, then convert leads into first-time customers, and then use profit multipliers to maximize your sales and profits.

There always seems to be some initial confusion among my customers as to what an Internet Marketing System really is.

Some of my customers think that it’s just a website set up along with some social media pages. Yes, a website is a feature of a marketing system, but it’s only one part.

Others think that its social media or email marketing. While those are elements of an Internet Marketing System, a complete system entails those elements and much more…

We’ll talk about it more in a few days.

Developing An Internet Marketing System

When developing a new concept for a system, my first rule is to find out what my prospective client wants and needs to accomplish. It’s true, they always say they want “leads”, but what kinds of leads? How do you want to attract those leads and what do you want to offer them in exchange for joining your list?

Many customers know that you’re going to email them and that they are going to see your posts and content on a consistent basis. But what’s most important for you to know is how to develop your marketing system to attract the right target customer and what you are going to offer them in exchange for their interest.

A few days ago, I saw a great ad on Facebook that was offering something that interests me. The ad was written very well and the banner design was attractive. So I clicked on the “Get More Info” link.

Yet, it took me to a lead page that asked me for my contact information without offering me any incentive to give it. The truth is that now days, your request for the prospects info needs to be accompanied by an even trade in their minds.

Of course I clicked away from the page and today I only remember the feeling of not wanting to give up my info so quickly for nothing.

However, a better experience that same day was when I clicked on an offer for free training on how to market a platform I know very little about. I went to the lead page and got immediate free content on how and why I should acquire his program to expand my marketing abilities.

This marketing system took me on a journey about his program. While on that journey, I thought about how I could use this program, not just for myself, but also how my own customers could benefit from it.

I saved his training page to my favorites and added it to my list of products to buy and use.

So as I design an Internet marketing system for an entrepreneur, we contemplate the journey that the prospect is going to take through the system.

What is your prospect going to feel and experience at each interval? How are they going to naturally engage with the system?

My clients and I know that we have to attract them throughout the entire process by getting them involved in the experience instead of the marketing system. Therefore the web marketing system should be built seamless and virtually undetectable.

So the Internet marketing system begins with a great post or ad about the problem your product can solve.

Then it takes them to a lead page that gives them more information about how that solution will benefit them.

Next you offer them a great incentive to learn more about that solution in a series of emails.

Lastly, they get introduced to the problem solving product that you have to offer along with some great bonuses that they didn’t expect.

If you build your offer around the benefits the owner will receive, then you can make it a seamless process.

Next we’ll talk about how long the marketing process takes. I have some great tips on the 90 day sales cycle.

Public speaking is known as one of the most powerful ways to market your business. It’s an important skill that anyone can discover get more prospects, more clients, and of course, more cash flow.

As a professional speaker and speaker trainer, I often teach the best ways any business owner can use public speaking to benefit your business. Yet there is another side of the speaking coin: listening.

If you don’t have an audience, then you don’t have any reason to give a speech. In order to target an audience effectively – whether that’s an audience of one or an audience of many – you have to listen to them first.

One key component is knowing what your audience values. When you know what your audience values you can speak to those values within the details during your presentation. To find out what they value ASK them, then LISTEN! Here are a few tips to the 3 best free ways to listen to your audience:

1. Social Media: Ask a question on Twitter, Facebook, or in other networking groups you belong to. People like to be asked their ideas and opinions and will readily give them. The benefit of this option is you will usually have your answer quickly – often within a few minutes or hours.
2. SurveyMonkey.com: Go right to the source and ask your subscribers what is important to them. When you use this option, the answers you receive will be neatly organized so you’ll be able to see at a glance what’s important and be sure to address what your clients and prospects value.
3. Ask Campaign: Alex Mandossian created this concept. Using a teleseminar format, ask people what is important to them. One question you can ask is, “What is most important to you about X?” And then follow up with, “What is your most important question about X?” Ask via email and social media, then hold a teleseminar to answer the questions, build rapport, and create a space for people to ask follow-up questions.

Once you have listened to your audience you’ll be ready to speak to them confidently knowing you are addressing their values every time. And that’s what will get you the results you want!

What is Social Media Marketing? It comprises the use of certain media to convince potential consumers about the company’s excellence through their merchandise and services. The main objective is to establish a clear communication between the company and its consumers. A clear thorough explanation of details regarding the company’s product or services may be promoted through online or offline marketing. Online marketing consists any e-marketing programs or campaign. This may be in the form of email, podcast, search engine optimization (SEO), internet TV, internet radio, webinar, blog and so on. Offline marketing is an approach such as radio, television, billboard, traditional prints (newspapers, magazines, flyers), personal marketing and sales promotion.

This method of marketing is highly concentrated on the essence of attracting the attention of consumers. This allows them to freely interact with the company using social networking sites. This constant proliferation of opinions from user to user may entice readers, thus making it a network of product endorsement. It is also known as Social Media Optimization (SMO).

Social Media Optimization is a branch of social media that collaborates with the internet in an attempt to attract visitors through a certain website. It is directly related with search engine marketing although there may be a difference. It may be in many ways that it can be connected with viral marketing where the promotion of the product is self-replicating through the use of networking in social bookmarking, video and photo sharing websites.

Advantages of Social Media Marketing

• low-cost and high returns
• broad website exposure
• highly feasible
• limited personnel
• maximize profits
• safe, risk-free and cost-efficient
• impact on search engine rankings
• consumer approval

The utilization of Social Media Marketing should be prioritize as soon as possible for the reason that the trend is spontaneously growing. The possibilities of company exposure is infinite without spending too much resources and effort. Much of our families and friends stay connected with social networking sites such as Facebook, Tagged, Twitter etc. Therefore, the chances of your website being noticed is never-ending.

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Digital marketing trends change often, though not often, to fetch better and more appropriate results. Marketers use different ways to bring their businesses in search engine results, ethical and unethical; but in the coming years finding their way using unethical techniques will lead to rough roads. It will be harder for those who have abandoned the marketing ethics, while the customers rejoice with better user experience and informative content.

Once upon a time, meta tags, keywords, and optimized images defined responsive web designing. A good content together with keywords, hashtags, and links were the parts of search engine optimization (SEO) or social media marketing (SMM) strategies. But now, SEO and SMM are no longer restricted to those elements as Google is changing its search algorithm, and Facebook using different strategies on form feeds to fetch what is more useful to the user.

Time for user-friendly, ethical ways

Brands using unethical ways to get more likes for their promotional posts may lose their sites in black holes. You are in a safer zone if you use ethical ways to promote content that brings better experience for the user. But if you are using shady ways, then it is time to consider some of the tips mentioned in this article.

Social media to redefine organic searches

Facebook has recently planned to include a dislike button to help users express displeasure over news or promotional content. This may give different messages to many, but the Social Media Giant is clear in its way to pull quality content in the search and eliminate junk posts. Ditching hardcore promotional posts and promoting useful posts with great content improves user experience and gives your business a much-needed breather.

In case you are reusing promotional content on Facebook, it’s better to use unique content for every post. It is because in future such posts may not appear in News and Feeds section.

Structured Tweets to trend

Google is not interested in hardcore SEO results, as it wants to see more humane experience in the search results. It may incline more on Facebook and Twitter social media results optimized with images, links, hashtags, and great content that delivers value. With such interesting things happening in social media, digital media interactive marketing creates yet another milestone with brands taking to meaningful and humane ways to reach users.

Google reaches out

Regularly working on your Google+ posts to link Facebook and Twitter posts though keywords, images, and hashtags would help you stay on the search. Following the basics of social media in every promotional post keeps you firmly grounded in the digital media battle!

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Do you plan to market or sell products and services to African-American consumers? If so, in order to successfully market to this community, it is to your advantage to understand certain digital marketing trends: how today’s African-Americans shop, where they hang out, where they are most likely to be receptive to advertising and, more importantly, how they feel about marketing and media.

It’s been said that “2014 is going to be a killer year for social media and small business.” It’s also been said that properly implemented digital marketing strategies can help small businesses grow. So, what does this mean for small businesses that plan to primarily target Black American consumers? It means you need a realistic understanding of where Black consumers fit in this new media and cybercultural landscape. You will want to keep the following findings and/or trends in mind as you customize your small business marketing campaign targeting this consumer:

1. Many, if not most, young African-Americans are early adopters and influencers of pop culture, so you will want to promote new technology and lifestyle products to this consumer demographic.

2. Black Americans are heavy users of social media and huge consumers of video content.

3. Black digital consumers are very receptive to advertising on mobile devices.

4. The Black consumer ownership rate for smartphones grew from 33% to more than 54% and continues to grow.

5. African-Americans use their phones for texting, Internet access, receiving and sending email, downloading picture, downloading music and mobile video, accessing Twitter and Facebook more than other demographics.

6. Black women are huge users of e-commerce involving purchases of beauty products, clothes, healthcare products and groceries.

7. Black men and women are very socially connected to others. 72% of Black adults online have more than one social networking profile.

8. Black women between the ages18 and 35 are 72% more likely to highlight products and web content preferences by “liking,” “following” or linking to an article, brand or website.

9. Black Americans trust Black media more than mainstream sources for information. Ads that reflect benefits of products or services and convey a positive message to the African-American community are well-received.

10. African-American women between the ages of 18 and 35 are 72% more likely to publish a blog.

African-Americans have incredible buying power. Even, in the face of the harsh effects of the recession, spending by the Black community still energized the American consumer market. The Nielsen Company, the global information and research firm, projected that African-Americans’ spending power will reach $1.1 trillion by 2015.

As stated by Marketingvox: “Those consumers are hungry for authentic content; connect with brands that represent them rather than just nod to them; and are highly engaged with digital content and the mobile platform.” So, what does this mean for small businesses targeting this community? In order to leverage the buying power of this community, you have to step up your game and stay in tune with the consumer behavior and digital marketing trends. Lastly, get creative in the methods you implement to tap into the Black American market.

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Does your CVB or tourism bureau use social media in its destination marketing plan? If not, what are you waiting for?

According to a recent study, 81 percent of all marketers surveyed said their social media efforts have generated exposure to their business, and 61 percent of marketers saw an increase in Web traffic. If your destination isn’t keeping up with trends in social media, your CVB or tourism bureau is losing money. Here are a few ways to market your travel agency using social media.

1. Search for groups and individuals’ interests on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to find out what people are saying about your destination.

2. Publish your blog articles on Digg, Delicious, Reddit and other social bookmarking sites to generate a wider viewing audience.

3. Constantly update your travel blog with new information, paying attention to Google Keywords to improve your search engine results rankings.

4. Extend friendships to tourists (former and future) to maintain relationships and keep them coming back.

5. Use photo sharing sites to link pictures taken by tourists to create a community among people who are interested in your destination.

6. Twitter travel deals and packages, as well as updates on area construction, new businesses, events and festivals.

7. Offer contests and promotions through social media outlets to help increase your followers.

8. Create customized URLs to Facebook and Twitter to provide another contact option for tourists. (e.g. facebook.com/yourcvbhere)

9. Create a network or online community among all businesses in your area to provide more information to your future tourists, as well as generate more traffic back to your profiles

10. Post videos on a YouTube account of different activities to participate in at your destination.

Having an active presence in many social media platforms will not only generate more exposure to your CVB or tourism bureau, but it will also redirect people back to your Web site.

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What is Social Media?

The latest buzz around the world is Social Media. Social media is basically a media outlet that you use to communicate through. The growth of social media has been exponential in the past 5 years. New websites with different features and interactive capabilities are being developed constantly. Technology savvy individuals are working towards the new Facebook and Twitter.

The main question that arises now is whether social media is a trend or fad?

The simple answer to that is that social media is a trend and not a fad. The growth and use of social media is becoming very important in today’s society. You use your Facebook and Twitter account to communicate with friends, colleagues, and family and much more.

New Trend in Social Media

The role they have established in our daily lives is becoming larger than ever. They can no longer be categorized as a stage for social interaction. The credibility and trust people have contributed to them has immensely helped their popularity. They can now be seen as media outlets that have become very informative. You can constantly receive information from newspapers, major conferences, and famous personalities. Information can be passed on instantaneously and to millions and millions of people.

In today’s global world, information is only as valuable as to the timing of it. There is no point of receiving important information when it doesn’t reach to you on time.

Internet Marketing

This is a new form of marketing that has catapulted as a result of social media. In simple terms, internet marketing is promoting your website, product, or services over the internet. It is one of the cheapest and highly effective forms of marketing.

Communication and networking are the critical success factors of any business. Build your strategy around internet marketing. When you have a solid base for communication with your customers, then decision making process for your company becomes faster. You will increase your company’s customer intimacy and be better to satisfy their changing needs. Satisfying the demand of your customers will lead to increased profitability. Use internet marketing as a competitive advantage for your company.

Latest Statistics

There are over 95 million Tweets per day, and 700 billion minutes per month being spent on Facebook. By establishing internet marketing as a part of your overall strategy you can market yourself to those statistics. Internet marketing is the gateway to success in the future.

Understanding the importance of these numbers and developing a sound strategy on how to take full advantage of them will set you and your company apart from others.

Conclusion

Social media is a trend with increasing role in our society. Internet marketing is helping small businesses and entrepreneurs that lack advertisement budget to compete with larger companies.

Internet marketing has increased competition between companies. Realizing the importance and how to use it to your advantage will set your company apart from others in the future. The sooner you are able to implement an internet marketing strategy in your company the sooner you will be able to reap the benefits.

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