Tag: Tips

Nowadays there is huge competition prevailing in the online marketplaces. Thus, it has become very important to improve your online sales process and provide a better user-friendly experience. However, you will need effective tips to connect with your potential customers on your social media channels. By using the right plan, you can improve the experience of your visitors and create more sales.

In this post, you will explore seven tips for improving online sales using social media:

1. Use messaging services to offer excellent sales support

You must focus on providing sales support by using native chatting within every social network. By using conversational e-commerce you can use the messaging services that will help you to personalize, automate and customize your communication. These messaging apps have become great go-to-choices for many customers. It helps them to directly interact with companies as these apps have increased engagement and retention rates.

So, if you aren’t using messaging apps to automate confirmations and for selling, you’re losing a big social e-commerce opportunity. However, make sure to be careful while using automated chat apps such as Facebook Messenger Bots.

2. Analyse conversations about your brand and services

When it comes to participating in conversations with your customer’s social media is the most effective tool. However, the continuous attack by customers make it difficult to determine the useful information. Thus, keeping an eye on your users online activities will help you to understand the confusing situations. You will be able to generate more leads and create effective marketing strategies.

Brand listening is the skills of developing important insights by analysing your clients’ conversations about your services, brand, and competitors. However, you will need to need to focus on more than simply monitoring your official social media accounts.

3. Encourage your users to share their personal experience

There is no doubt that the success of every social media is not based how much they talk about themselves. Instead, it depends on how much their customers talk about their services and brand. Thus, you must provide your customers an option to share their experience before, during and after making a purchase.

A recent evidence has shown that 1 out of 3 Facebook user has first shared, liked and commented the product prior to purchasing it.

4. Provide easy and quick buying options on your social channels

These days we can see a great expansion in retail sales that are driven by social channels. In these channels buying buttons play a major role in generating more sales. With the help of the buy buttons your clients can make smooth and secure purchases from within the social networks. This reduces the need to follow a multi-step process and limit it to a single click sale process.

5. Feature User-generated content (UGC)

The content that is created and shared by your customers, followers and fans on social channels also generate content – User-generated content (UGC). They either create it instinctively or through other options like giveaways or contests. Curating UGC’s work effectively for e-commerce businesses. Usually, people who see UGC are 97% more likely to buy your services, according to Business Insider.

The content generated in the form of images by the customers also work effectively. In fact, 77% of online shoppers choose Instagram pictures when they were to make a choice between UGC (like images posted on Instagram’s) and professional images (given on the pages of product description). When you use authentic pictures it works as a social proof, enhance your ad performance, attract high-intent visitors from Instagram to product pages and improve on-site conversion rates.

6. Develop seasonal and business-related content

Almost all eCommerce businesses create effective business-related according to the seasonal calendar. They perform very well in generating sales, creating special offers, incentives and emails. They also outdo at stocking their social channels with announcements about all related seasonal e-commerce activities.

But when you create seasonal content that isn’t highly promotional most stores fall short. Therefore, it is best to stay organized with an effective content creation platform on your social media channel.

7. Create social-friendly visuals

Nearly all businesses using social streams are hard pressed to create social-friendly content. As users are more knowledgeable and they avoid generic stock images. According to a Chute Digi day Study over 70% of users find it at least two times more effective to use pictures than only written content alone.

However, the problem arises when a web owner is not able to hire a professional designer. In that case, you can consider using Buffer’s Pablo, which offers more than 600,000 royalty-free photos to choose from. On the other hand, if you need pictures for graphics and infographics, using Venn gage will be a great option. It offers hundreds of design templates to generate detailed images quickly. These templates are usually are categorized into Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. So, you can choose pictures according to your level of expertise.

Let’s explore becoming a blogger and the proper use of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn advertising on your blog and website. Facebook and Twitter have very specific instructions for using their logos, but it seems that on the Internet, very few people are following those guidelines. If you have any questions, you should ask your attorney. Having said that, there are common practices that webmasters and bloggers are using to promote their brand on these social media sites.

It is not legal to take someone else’s brand and alter it. But the Twitter and Facebook logo are everywhere and that is what has made these social media sites so famous. Facebook and Twitter both have trademarks on their logo and their iconography. For example, Twitter’s trademark is the little blue bird. They have their name and logo trademarked, therefore, you can not alter them.

Their guidelines are important so pay attention to those guidelines in relation to their name and logo allowed use. Legally you can not take their brand or trademark and alter them. Both Facebook and Twitter do allow, however, certain kinds of things. Facebook allows webmasters to use the “F” in a square and use it on your branding and include text, for example, “Fan us on Facebook”. They do not allow you, however, to use the F in a different color or FB in a different color. These are their general guidelines. Twitter, on the other hand, does not want you to put a T in side of a blue square. So what you as a webmaster need to ask yourself is whether or not you want to comply with their general guidelines. If you have any questions, it is best to ask an attorney or read their guidelines on the Facebook or Twitter website.

It is not recommended, for example, to use a little F or a little T on any of your online branding at all. A little T that says “Follow us on Twitter” or a little F that says “Fan us on Facebook” could actually cause your website to lose valuable traffic because all this does is encourage visitors to leave your website. It sends people away from your website to the social media giants. Instead, what is recommended is to employ the widgets that are available for webmasters to put on their site so that visitors can like you on Facebook or follow you on Twitter without leaving your website. The old way of doing things is sending someone away from your website. The new way is to keep your hard-earned visitors at your website. By using these widgets, visitors can become a fan or a follower without ever leaving your website. Keep visitors on your website while at the same time encouraging them to be fans or followers. It’s a win-win strategy.

Your Blog and Your Web Hosting Account

Content marketing is a well-known successful way to market a business online without spending a great deal of money on advertising. Blogs are a main way to attract leads and educate prospects. With some companies, all their leads come from their blog and they do not need to do any advertising whatsoever. Instead of spending a great deal of money on advertising, these companies post 500 word articles to their blogs on a daily or weekly basis. Many business owners have been able to leave their 9-5 jobs because of blogging. These companies use blog posts as their number one strategy for advertising. Build a strong following by blogging. It is a great way to start without advertising and spending a great deal of money on a start-up. Blogging is a cost efficient way to build a company online. With your own web hosting account, you will have blogging software that makes it easy to get started blogging and posting your content on your own website or blog.

Traits of Successful Bloggers

What are the traits that someone should have to become a successful blogger? Start with the notion that there are five roles that people play. Every person has at least one of these traits or roles.

Five Traits of Successful Bloggers

1. Are you a dreamer? You are a visionary and you want to tell people about it.
2. Are you a good storyteller?
3. Are you a teacher?
4. Are you a persuader? Every person has an opinion.
5. Are you a curator? A collector of ideas is a helpful trait for blogging.

The idea is to take that one trait that you have, recognize it, and build on it. Some people have more than one of the above traits, which is also good. An example is to take your trait and incorporate real-life events into a blog post. Successful bloggers have one trait and everybody does have one of these traits. If you have more than one or even all of these traits, it is even better. Some people have a natural tendency to blog. Ask your friends or family members to tell you which of these traits you have in your DNA. You will get some interesting feedback.

Do You Need to Be a Good Writer to Be a Good Blogger?

When people think of writing, they think of Pulitzer Prize winning books. That is not the case with blogging. With blogging, you need to be a great conversational writer. Do you have an easy, natural way to get your point across? If, for example, you can sit down with a person and have a drink with them and enjoy a good conversation with that person, you can be a blogger. As a blogger, you wouldn’t talk to that person like you are in a board room, but rather you would talk to that person like they were your friend. You need to be able to communicate in a way that builds rapport and relationships.

How Is a Blog Writer Different Than an Article Writer?

A blog writer is looking to start a relationship that is very personal. Your own opinion is infused in that writing. Even the structure of blog writing is different than articles. Your blog articles need to be intimate and give the reader a feel for who you are. It is very personal. Be a conversationalist. Have a dialogue that is easy for people to follow. Speak in every day terms and your blog writing will resonate with people. If you have trouble starting a blog article, you can always talk it out and record it, then transcribe it back into text format.

Technology That Can Help You Write

There are a lot of great technology options that can help you to write. Text-to-speech tools like “Dragon Naturally Speaking” let you talk and have it transcribed. If you have an iPhone, Siri will do it. Use your voice to write the article and save time. This technique is also helpful if you have trouble writing because it makes the task more of a conversation, rather than writing. This is exactly what blogging involves.

It is not just about text. Video blogging is another way to advertise using blogging. Writing is only one way to express yourself on a blog.

How Do You Decide if You Have What It Takes to Be a Blogger?

1. Do you have an obsession with a topic? This goes beyond with a passion for a topic because if you are talking or writing about your topic every day, you must be borderline obsessed with the topic, otherwise you might not be able to sustain yourself on your topic. You don’t want blogging to be a chore so choose a topic that you are obsessed with.
2. Are there others like you? If you start a blog about a certain topic, you need to have an audience that is interested in your topic.
3. Assess whether you have a marathon or sprinter mind-set. Successful bloggers have one of these two mind-sets. In some cases, a successful blogger can take years. Define your craft, take time, put yourself in a zone of kicking out content, refining it, and realistically looking at what your vision is for your blog in two years. Expect nothing to happen for two years because blogging definitely takes time to become successful. In the beginning, don’t expect any re-tweets or comments for a while. For the first three years, you can literally have only one or two hundred visitors visiting your blog. When you finally figure out essentially the kinds of blogging strategies that “work” in your industry, that’s when you will see results. Eventually, it is very possible to have several hundred thousands of visitors to your blog which can lead to a completely sustainable business of your own as a result of blogging. It doesn’t have to take you that long to be successful. In the early days of blogging, no one really knew what they were doing. The good news is that now there are many strategies outlined on the Internet that can give you a head start. No point re-inventing the wheel.

Tips on How to Create Content

Stick with it. Know that you are fighting the good fight. Train your brain to notice potential topics by writing down every idea that pops into your head. It doesn’t matter if you are writing these ideas on post-it notes, index cards, or on your iPad. Just let your brain learn that every good idea is going to be noticed and used in some way.

Turn content creation into a habit. Set aside some time for at least a couple of weeks when you tell yourself that it is your “time” to create content. Make a daily appointment with yourself. If you are a night person, set aside a couple of hours, for example, between 10:00 and midnight. Turn content creation into a habit. Content creation during your most productive time of day will help you to kick out some great material because it will become a habit.

Done is better than perfect. Some great bloggers are such perfectionists and are constantly refining and refurbishing their content, but because they are never done with it, the content stays in their draft folder forever. You don’t want your content to stay unfinished. Just get your content out there. Get leverage with yourself by telling people how much content you plan on releasing. This will give you added motivation to deliver on what you have promised by increasing the frequency of your blog posts. You will feel like you need to follow through. Get content out on a regular basis, but be careful with the word “regular”. Be reasonable. Find your tempo and stick with it.

How Do You Find Ideas for Topics to Write About?

If you are super passionate about a certain topic, your friends and colleagues will ask you questions about it. Take notes of those questions because each one can be a blog post. Every time someone asks you a question, pay attention to it. Look at the news section at local book stores or other stores, such as Walmart, and take note of the headlines. What are the headlines and how are the other writers leading up to those headlines in their articles? Crack open the magazines to see how others are addressing news or general topics. It adds fuel to the fire and gives you quick ideas.

Multi-purpose your content. If, for example, you give a presentation somewhere you can take that presentation and multi-purpose it into two or three blog posts, possibly even more. Metaphors are important. If you like to do something, you can use metaphors and write about them in many different ways. You can talk about a topic many different ways.

How Do You Draw People to Your Blog?

To get more readers, you need to be relevant. The daily news is your friend. Look at what is being talked about and find a way to connect it to your topic. This draws people into your blog. Tap into the trends of the moment. Hang out at the watering hole, like forums or other blogs and find out what the audience is being fed. Find out where the audience is hanging out and join in. Be helpful to that community and a fixture in that space. See what people want and jump in. Find out what people want, then write about it. People will see your advise and eventually, people will notice you and come to your blog.

Content hubs are websites that collect a certain type of content and use that to attract an audience. For example, SlideShare is a content hub that collects presentations. They have a really large audience of people looking for presentations. Re-purpose your content and put them on those content hubs and your audience will grow exponentially. You will bring in readers from many different sources.

When you write special reports and package them up in PDF format, take them and turn them into online special reports. Every page can be a blog post. Because the pages are interlinked, Google will see it as relevant and not only index it, but list it higher in searches. That type of content can become very successful. Drip the content out over time and Google will take notice of your interlinked content. If the content is focused on one theme, it will do really well.

Email and Blogging

The connection between email and blogging is very important. Email is critical to a blogger. If you have an email list, you can get people back to your blog on a regular basis. When people join your opt-in email list, you should email those people to let them know whenever you have a new blog post. When things are on your mind, email the people on your list. It builds a relationship. Building a maintaining an email address list is absolutely necessary to build your success over time. If you have a blog, get an email opt-in form on your blog immediately. Most of the people that come to your blog are new after a new blog article is posted because RSS (really simple syndication) has a pull and draws people in. So, the advantage of capturing those visitors’ email addresses is that you can re-seize those peoples’ attention and mobilize them. Write a special report and a good piece of content and people will join your email list. By capturing names and email addresses, you can build a loyal following. When you have something to sell, your email list makes all the difference in the world. Some bloggers say that their email list is what feeds their family. Create a product and offer it to your subscribers.

Your voice is unique. Everything that you have to say is important. There are a lot of bloggers out there, but you owe it to yourself to try. With all the blogging tips and strategies online, you can get up the learning curve very quickly and become a successful blogger.

Web Hosting and Blogging

Which software should you use for blogging?

WordPress is currently the most popular blogging platform. In many cases, you can get it for free with your web hosting account. And it is easy to install. For example, some web hosting providers offer WordPress installed with just a few clicks of your mouse inside your web hosting control panel. Don’t be intimidated by the technology. WordPress is easy to use and easy to learn. There are no barriers that are holding you back. So, start blogging and start today building your email list to build a loyal following. And when you ask yourself why you are working so hard to crank out content. Well, it’s because you are a blogger.

There is no doubt about the fact that online advertising helps to boost sales while costing a lot less than traditional methods such as TV ads. The big question is whether your strategy is effective enough to produce the best possible results. Discover the main techniques which are guaranteed to help you succeed.

1. Always promise something.

This is one of the fundamentals of online advertising and of advertising in general. Just placing the name of your product on the ad or describing your service briefly is highly unlikely to make any person take action. What you need is a keyword that people will be attracted to. The list includes “free”, “discount”, “special deals” and “low prices” and so on. Of course, you have to fulfil what you promise. The more creative you are the better.

2. Create target ads.

There is no such thing as an internet marketing strategy targeting absolutely all web users. You have to define your target market group or groups and create ads which will appeal to them. Similarly, you need to advertise on websites which your target audience likes and visits frequently.

3. Adopt social media advertising.

This type of online advertising has taken ads to a whole new level. Instead of appearing in the bar on the right-hand side of the screen, now ads are directly placed in the content which the user receives via friends and contacts. For instance, the so called social ads on Facebook now appear in the News Feeds. In this way, they have a 65% higher click rate. It is definitely worth investing in innovative strategies which produce excellent results.

4. Use retargeting.

This is another one of the trendiest strategies at present. With the use of cookies, you can track the visitors to your website who did not take any action. Then you can have your ads appear on the websites which these internet users visit. In this way, they are more likely to return and get converted into customers. This strategy can be used with various ad networks including Google AdWords. It produces excellent results.

5. Invest in content ads.

The popularity of this form of advertising has grown immensely in recent years thanks to its effectiveness. It is all about creating attractive, interesting and informative content and integrating the ad. You can create articles, videos and even slideshows. They work to grab the attention of internet users and to turn them into leads. They are great for branding as well.

Use these tips to create the foundation of your online advertising strategy.

10 Grammar Tips for Your Social Media

There are some very often grammar mistakes that occur in the Twitter messages. We have summarized a list of for you.

You may know that marketing needs a compelling copy of your business ad and to write a compelling copy, you need a good grammar and a medium to display. The internet is a vast field and it accommodates almost every business through various types of social media ads. One of the various best social media sites is called Twitter.

Entrepreneurs who are marketing through the web are aware of this fact that tweets can be retweeted but often times they ignore the very important aspect of writing a good tweet by putting in or just ignoring the grammar related mistakes.

1. Compose your tweets with caution. My college professor always said that if I count the words that I write, I am not writing the words that count. This happened before the birth of Twitter. Today not only the words that we write are counted, we even count our characters that are written. It is recommended to proofread your tweets before posting.

2. We often communicate through writing but not always with a pen as the mediums of writing have changed, the digital media has only changed the tools. As a matter of fact, with the evolution of the new ways of communications, the importance of traditional skill of writing to convey information has gained more prominence nowadays.

3. People often confuse “Accept” and “Except” or vice versa ignoring the fact that what is needed or which word is required. “Accept” stands for “receiving” or “admitting” anything, for example, you must accept the reason of the accident or she accepted the medal on behalf of the entire company. Whereas, “Except” stands for “excluding” someone or something, for example all the students are going to picnic except Jane or I like all nuts except peanut.

4. People on Twitter also confuse “Advice” with “Advise”. Advice is a noun while Advise is a verb, the improper usage change the whole meanings, for example if someone write “The advice he gave to me helped me a lot” means the direction given was helpful. On the other hand if anyone writes “He advised her to be vigilant while dealing with certain people” it means that there is sort of a caution in the speech for a person who is going to deal with certain people.

5. Same is the case with the words “Among” and “Between”. Among is used for a group, for example, “mingle among the people”, in the other case it is “between two people” or “between two points”.

6. “Anxious” and “Eager” are also confused by people while tweeting. “Anxious” stands for a worry or someone is worried or restless about something, like, “Why are you so anxious about this job?” whereas “Why are you so eager to get this job” stands for a keenness or willingness for a job.

7. People/Peoples: This is a common mistake. There is no such word like “peoples” and “people” itself is a plural.

8. Illicit/Elicit – The common confusing words for Twitter followers. “Elicit” is “to obtain”, like, “Ask questions about the subject to elicit the views of others” while “Illicit” stands for “Naughty” or “prohibited” like “illicit drugs” or “illicit motives”.

9. Be careful with “loose” and “lose”. “Loose” carry the meanings like “free” or “irresponsible”, for example, “a loose knot” and “a loose talk” while “lose” carry the meanings like “loss” or “missing”, for example, “I lose my homework so doing it again” or “I cannot afford to lose my watch”.

10. “Disinterested” = unbiased, fair. “Uninterested”= unresponsive, unconcerned.

Examples: We should seek a disinterested person to settle our dispute.

The student is so uninterested in the class that she fell asleep.

Freelance writing offers many niche areas to select. Going by your passion, interest and skills, starting off is much easier. Having your own blog and developing various blog post ideas for publishing, sets you to achieve mastery. However, it does not end there. Because, you need to constantly publish articles to advertise and market your expertise.

How to describe expertise

Familiarity in writing does not count for customers as expert writing levels are growing in demand. If you have worked through many articles extensively that convey your knowledge and authority over a topic, you are assured of winning contracts.

Another aspect that signifies your expertise is the comment section. The views, likes, shares and discussions from readers confirm that you have mastered the niche.

Keep your style unique, interesting and follow the industry jargon along with SEO keywords.

How many articles to publish

Publish unlimitedly. Find as many sources as you can while ensuring that you deliver quality content. In fact, many small business owners keep a practice to publish articles to have dominion over running a successful business. Maintain a content calendar and record titles in excel sheet.

Use Headline analyzer

Get high score for title. This is very important to drive traffic. It need to have most compelling words and emotion to derive clicks. Score anywhere between 70 to 80 or more promises guaranteed views. Further, it grows interaction and content engagement.

Submit website / blog to directories

There are few directories that index URLs for free. Social submission sites like free submission, Anoox, add more traffic etc, welcome more links for submission. This is one strategy to invite traffic.

Link Building strategy

Take time to read the articles of other writers and appreciate good work. You get a link back to your website. That’s how you grow popular. Stay honest in your opinions and comments. Keep the motive of commenting as professional rather than being commercial. It really helps.

Build Network

Connecting with those in the same field, participating in social media groups and actively voicing your opinion fetches you more followers. As you grow popular, your expert areas are also revealed to your audiences. This is an assured way to grow your business.

Conclusion

While quality publishing takes maximum of your efforts for building expertise, there are also other segments available online that bring you a new foray for your brand marketing. It’s not hard. Just you need to begin and stay active online.

Over the past couple of months, Facebook has been sharing a weekly series of insights into its various video tools via interviews with the Facebook staff who are working on them, which has provided some new and valuable perspective into why they’ve added each function and what needs it can serve.

Thus far, Facebook has shared interviews looking at:

The latest video in the series, published this week, looks at video Playlists and Series, and how each option can help video creators maximize their exposure and viewership in different ways.

The video goes through the difference between the Playlist and Series options, and why the options were created:

“Facebook Watch is a video destination and as Facebook Watch continues to grow, we actually really wanted to focus on making publishing videos on Facebook way more flexible than it ever has been before, and with that, we wanted to create powerful new ways to publish, organize and drive discovery around your content. Playlists and Series is a way to do that, and a content format type to enable three things – organizing videos, driving discovery, and publishing content.”

Facebook also provides further definition as to the purpose of each option:

• Playlist – A collection of videos that shares a particular theme or a topic, not a group of ‘episodes’ in one series as such.
• Series – Videos in a Series are, as you might expect, all within the same program sequence, collecting one program into a set. Series also enables creators to put together trailers and add additional seasons, so viewers can watch content in chronological order

Facebook says that the difference between the two options is that, if you’re content counts as episodes in a set, then its a Series, but if you’re doing tutorials and thematic content that doesn’t necessarily fit into a traditional TV series format, but can be grouped together, then Playlist is a better option.

So why should creators use these options?

Well, aside from helping to guide viewers through your series’ and sets in sequential order, Facebook also notes that grouping your content can increase engagement by keeping people looking through more content that you’ve created. 

In addition to this, Facebook notes that when you organize your content into themes and topics, you increase your chances of being found in related searches.

“When people are actually searching for your playlists and series, videos that are in those playlists and series will actually appear more highly in search results.”

Facebook also notes that Playlists and Series each have a unique URL, which can help you drive more viewership for your collections by directing your audience to your video collections.

Creators can build Playlists and Series in Creator Studio, with specific options in the Content Library tools.

Creators can also add their videos to an existing Playlist or Series at the upload stage within Facebook, which also applies to bulk uploads.

It’s not a revolutionary function that will suddenly bring you millions more views guaranteed, but with Facebook looking to emphasize Facebook Watch, and keep people coming back to its video platform, Playlists and Series can play a key role in maximizing engagement, and aligning with how Facebook looks to promote its unique video content.

If you have enough videos in a certain theme, it’s worth considering both options, and testing to see whether they help increase viewership. 

Free Speech Social Media Platform

Whether you have a startup or you inherit one, you cannot deny the fact that social media will now be an essential part of your marketing strategy.

However, it is very easy to go wrong on social media, and this can have a negative impact on your brand. So, we’re going to give you a quick rundown of the top five ways through which you can make your strategy work.

Here are 5 things that businesses can implement to maximize the effectiveness of their social media campaigns:

1. Plan Your Social Media Marketing Strategies

Many business owners think social media marketing basically means creating a new account and sharing a couple of updates. They apply the same theory on multiple social media channels and expect the same results. They think – “If you build it, they will come!” When they don’t get any foothold, they give up instantly thinking that social media doesn’t work. However, the harsh reality is that they did not formulate a real plan.

2. Schedule Your Social Time

Stability is the name of the game when it comes to social media marketing. The time and the frequency chosen for posting are crucial. You will have to keep an eagle’s eye on the current trends and alerts that are relevant to your business, and keep a track of what your customers are doing and saying. Interacting regularly and having conversations with your customers is necessary. Rule of thumb: Allocate at least two hours a week to every social networking site you are present on!

3. Engage With Your Customers

Focus on connecting and engaging with your customers. A business can engage with customers and prospects by promoting their updates, sharing what they are saying, mentioning them frequently, replying to their questions, asking them questions, inviting them to events, asking them for feedback or sending them a direct message. Frequently engaging with customers and regularly promoting what they share ultimately leads to more customer satisfaction and higher sales.

4. Content is Still King

Writing and sharing high-quality content with your audience and prospective customers should be one of your priorities because of the key role it can play in how you communicate with your readers and get your message across. A great write-up will attract people organically, and they will hang around much longer.

5. Be Fun

Last but not the least – your social channels should be useful; however, they also need to be relevant. Everyone loves to laugh and bond; so make time to engage your audience by playing with words or through jokes or fun images.

There is so much information available online; hence, hearing an advice from true and renowned expert will take you in the right direction. Focus on your goals, create high-quality content and keep up pace with the latest trends.

Lyfeloop

A strong social media presence can be challenging to accomplish for B2B (business to business) insurance agencies. Many B2B companies struggle to showcase their professionalism, and build an audience through social media marketing. Consider the following tips to help make sure your agency is maximizing your social media marketing efforts.

Create Your Online Persona

Your social media presence should have a well-defined personality. Informative, helpful, engaging, timely and relevant are all characteristics top B2B social media accounts consider when creating their online persona. Decide what your online voice will sound like. Will you be formal or informal, speaking to individuals or businesses, sounding like a reporter or an op-ed contributor? Will you be sharing company employee events, creating contests, reporting on industry changes or regulations, or all of the above? Your agency goal is to build rapport and a sense of community with both clients and prospects. But first you need to determine your social media persona.

Create a Written Strategy Including Prospect Scorecard & Buyer Persona

When creating your marketing strategy, ask yourself these questions:

• Who is your target online audience – and how diverse is this group? Start by creating a Prospect Scorecard.
• Which social platforms will best target that audience? You may have to search the different platforms to see which social media platforms are most applicable to your clients and prospects.
• What type of content will that target audience find most useful? Would it be infographics, long-form articles, tech support information, breaking news commentary, regulatory updates, or some combination of all of these?
• What are your short term and long term social media goals? Perhaps your short term goal is simply consistent content sharing. And your long term goal includes an ad budget for growth and prospect engagement.
• How are your competitors using social media? You can learn a lot about what to do and what not to do by studying your competitors.

Comment on News & Regulations Relevant To Your Target Industries

Offering commentary on breaking news and changing industry regulations is a great way to demonstrate your knowledge in your industry and to provide your clients with insights on how to understand these updates. This can lead to higher engagement levels and increased exposure to your social media pages. You can use Google Alerts and social media alerts to monitor industry keywords and stay on top of dynamically changing events.

Organic Vs. Paid Posts

Once your insurance agency is consistently posting quality content, you can consider posts boosts and ads. You may want guidance with this, as the budget can get spent quickly, and multivariate split testing with compelling images and custom graphics can dramatically improve your reach and ROI.

Achieve A Respectable Follower Base

Looking professional and demonstrating a respectable number of followers and engagement level is half the battle when starting on your insurance social media marketing initiative. The top platforms your agency should leverage are: LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Google+, likely in that order, though your target markets could impact this. LinkedIn and YouTube can be very valuable to B2B businesses. LinkedIn is a good place to start, it’s very much a business centric platform. Then leverage YouTube using videos, recorded webinars or even simple voice over PowerPoint updates. Try to build up your follower base as quickly as possible, to a respectable number. For example, this might be 500 followers on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Though 5,000 or more would be great, initially your agency is striving to attain a baseline of professionalism and credibility.

Lyfeloop

Selling online has never been easier, and using social media marketing correctly can make it even simpler and more effective.

1. Create Valuable Content to Share

So that you have something to share on social media, create content that adds value to your audience. For example, create infographics, case studies, blog posts, and more, all designed to showcase your products to your audience.

2. Start Strategic Groups for People Who May Want Your Products

On Facebook, you can start a niche group for subgroups that might want to buy your products. For example, if you sell makeup, you can start a group for people who love makeup. On the group, you can do live events showcasing the makeup, showing how to wear it and even having a shopping network such as sales.

3. Work With Influencers on Various Platforms

A really great way to use social media is to contract with influencers on platforms that your audience loves. An influencer is someone who has a following that includes your target audience. They may unbox your item, use it in their videos often, or do a review.

4. Brand Your Social Media Platforms Properly

It’s very important that you find your brand voice. Some companies that have done a really good job of developing a brand voice for their products include Penzey’s Spices, Dove, and Dominoes. You can check them out for yourself to get ideas.

5. Engage Your Audience Often

Social media is supposed to be first and foremost a social interaction. That’s why it’s called “social media“. So many businesses make the mistake of making it a one-way thing. But, you should seek a conversation with your audience so that they feel as if they know you and you feel as if you know them.

6. Follow Your Customers Too

Don’t make it all one way. Be sure to like, follow, and reciprocate with your audience depending upon the platform. If you make it only one way, it’s not very friendly and isn’t a good way to use social media platforms. On Facebook, make sure you create a business page and possibly a public persona account so that you can freely follow your customers as your public personal profile has limits.

7. Integrate Social Sharing on Your Website

Let others do some of the work for you. Make it easy for them to share products by adding social sharing to multiple platforms on your site. Ask them to share and give them incentives to share, and they will.

It’s important to select the right social media platforms where you know that your audience exists and wants to see your information. That way they’re interested, will engage with you, and will respond to the things that you post.

Lyfeloop