What Mad Men Can Teach Us About Social Media Marketing

Don Draper and the team at Stanley Cooper.

I have just discovered Mad Men. Where has this amazing television series been hiding? Ok, it’s been on my watch list for some time now (about 5 years), but I have finally crawled out of the pile of Real Housewives of Atlanta and Keeping Up With The Kardashians (Oh, the humanity!) and started watching some quality television. Not surprisingly, I have noticed some parallels with the work that is done at Blonde 2.0 and by the Sterling/Cooper gang.

Ok, so Joan Holloway isn’t swanning around and there is significantly less alcohol involved, but when it comes to the underlying methods, they remain almost the same. Technology and marketing tactics have changed the game, but there are some approaches we can apply from Don Draper and the team to social media today.

Every post you make is a chance to win over potential clients. An opportunity to connect. Conversations that you have on social media are like a potential pitch to the consumer, although technology has made delivery process faster, we need to connect every time and not miss an opportunity to make a lasting impression.

Build Relationships
At the end of the day, people still buy from people. It doesn’t matter if they are getting the message in a different way. One of the best pitches came from Don when he pitched to Kodak and made the important point that, “One must develop a deeper bond with the product.” Kodak was concerned that the new technology was boring, but Don’s pitch was authentic and he made a genuine connection with the client by getting down to their level. Not by preaching to them, but by sharing a personal story. This is what we brands, marketers and individuals need to do in social media. We are not robots and neither are the people with whom we are engaging. The need to build a relationship with the product carries over the years, no matter which platform you’re launching from.

Know Your Audience
Peggy Olson first made waves at Sterling Cooper in the first season when the lipstick company, Belle Jolie wanted to showcase their large range of different lipsticks. They thought that women wanted choice. 

However, by focusing on what they thought the customers that they were targeting needed, rather than what they wanted, they missed a vital point. With Peggy’s help, Don’s pitch was not that there are so many colors to choose from, but that every girl is an individual and wants to be unique. From SEO to PPC, targeting your audience is the difference between success and failure. But, before you can do that, you must first get to know who you are targeting. Get into the psyche of these people and make it personal. Make it count.

Be Creative
Technology is only the holster for your smoking gun. While social media is an amazing marketing tool it’s not the deciding factor. The content is. Facebook ’likes’ are not always measuring the success of the product, although it may be measuring the abilities of your media team.

In the 60’s it was all about capturing the attention by being creative. More than 50 years later, not much has changed except now we are looking at potentially reaching a much larget audience. The same way that Don Draper puts energy and imagination into his pitch is the same approach you should have in your social media strategy. You have been hired for your creative talent so make sure you are using it.

I like to think of my Mad Men marathon as research. As I get further into the seasons, I am sure I will come across many more similarities between us and them. In some ways it’s comforting to see that, although we are rapidly moving towards a more digitally enhanced world, the core values stay the same.

These are valuable messages that we can take away from Mad Men and apply to social media marketing today: Build Relationships, Know Your Audience and Be Creative.

So next time you’re staring blankly at your screen, do yourself a favor. Pour a whisky, inhale some cigarette smoke and transport yourself into the office of Don Draper, but most importantly, get inspired.

Article courtesy of Social Media Today

9 Twitter Tips and Tricks

Twitter is one of those tricky networks. The users who have been on for the longest time will have more followers than those who are new to the Twitter game. These Twitter tricks will help you get the most out of your Twitter strategy, while increasing engagement and followers.

9 Tricks & Tips To Get "Good" At Twitter

1. Chose A Good Name

This can be your business name or your personal name (Though, of course, you can have both). The important thing to remember here is to create something that is easy to remember and not too long. Remember—on Twitter, characters count. If anyone Retweets you, your name will count toward the total amount of characters used. I'd also avoid using too many special characters, like the underscore and multiple vowels. For example, if your name is Sheri but the Twitter handle @Sheri is taken, don't go with @Sheriiiiiiii—how is anyone going to remember how many i(s) there are? Keep it simple and keep it memorable.

2. Mind The Character Limit

You only have a limited amount of characters in your hands to begin with. My advice is to use only about 120 of the 140. The reason for which is this: if someone Retweets you, you want your original tweet to stay in tact, without them having to edit or abbreviate it. If you make your Tweets too long, the Retweeter might have to shorten your tweet with things like "2" instead of the word "to," or "u" instead of "you," and "w/" instead of "with."

It just looks bad, and since the person seeing the Retweet might not have seen your original Tweet, they might take the altered, broken Tweet to mean you're illiterate. Okay, so maybe that's the worst case scenario, but just avoid too many characters to allow maximum Retweets.

3. The Hashtag Debate

Hashtags originated on Twitter and they're still going strong. They used to be a way to categorize and search content on Twitter. They still serve this purpose, but as Twitter search has advanced, you don't necessarily need to use hashtags to be found for that specific content. People use them now as a way to make a final point or build community. I'd recommend using two hashtags max, per Tweet.

4. Replying To People

So many times, on Twitter, I see people starting their Tweets off with someone's handle. For example: "@StephanieFrasco writes…"—Don't do this. If you're going to start your Tweet with a Twitter handle, make sure you put a period in front of it. This way it will show up on your followers' Timelines. If you only put the Twitter handle (without the period), Twitter sees it as a reply, and only the person you include in the @handle will see the Tweet.

5. Favorite Tweets

This is a great way to increase followers and to capture the attention of Influencers who are Tweeting content that you like. By favoring a Tweet, you get a smile from the person whose content you starred. It's likely that they'll return the favor and follow you back. At least, I do. Favoriting Tweets is also a great way to use Twitter as an RSS feed and save content to read later.

6. Headlines Count

Make your headlines short and sweet, yet to the point. Humor or newsworthiness works best here. Think like a broadcast journalist. You need to capture the attention of the reader instantly in order for them to take that next step with you. A few things people love to click on via Twitter are Top X lists, a promise of something to come, a call to action, or an engaging question. 

7. Don't Be A Walking Billboard

To get the most out of Twitter, you need to mix up your content. Of course, a little self-promotion is good, but it's not good if that's all you do. You should have a mix of 40% engagement on others' content, which includes replying to others and Retweeting them, 45% keyword/industry related content to brand yourself as a thought leader. If you create your own content this should be included here. The remaining 15% could be straight out self-promotion. You want to showcase yourself but, do so in a tasteful way that showcases your brand's personality

8. Listen To Others

By being a good social listener on Twitter, you're giving yourself an advantage to infiltrate different groups and Influencers on Twitter. "Infiltrate" might not be the best word, but you can certainly gather intel and learn about your competitors and what your customers like, what they want and what they dislike. 

9. Timing Is Everything

In order to get the most bang for your Twitter buck, you should be Tweeting at the right times. According to RadiumOne, there are two peak times at which you should Tweet during the day. They are 10AM to 12PM and 8PM through 10PM. If you want to see the most shares, with the highest click-through, you should be Tweeting from 12 noon to 2PM. Of course, this content regulation changes based on where your audience is. Connect with your audience when they are online. Bottom line.

What Twitter tricks do you use? What type of content is the most engaging for your audience?

 

Article courtesy of Social Media Today

21 Quick Tips: How to Write a Blog for Your Business

Do you want to improve how you write a blog for business?

Here are 21 tips on how to write a blog for your business blog in a step by step way. Below the how to write a blog for business graphic is a few tips on each step to help you get more clicks, more traffic and build your brand community.

21 Tips On How To Write a Blog For Your Business

My father always used to lecture me of getting the foundations right, getting the research or work done so you know what your doing. As a teenager whilst that was good advice I often ignored it and learnt the hard way (luckily no serious damage was done only some minor accidents e.g. a tree house that fell down with friends and me in it), that this approach did make sense despite my impulse to just jump in and do it.

If you want to learn how to write a blog then you need to understand your customers and write content that they are going to find useful and engaging. Do your homework and you will get more traffic, more click and more leads. But it does take time to get it right and for it to be on target with your customers. You need to prepared to make mistakes and learn from them. Here are 21 tips to help you write a blog for your business blog and get better results.

1  Targeting Your Customers
When you are learning how to write a blog you can easily spread yourself too thin and you will not get the results you are looking for – staying focused is critical.

• Key action – write down who you key target customer is just one e.g. if BtoB: size of business, number of people, turnover, their sectors, greaography…
• narrow down your marketing to niche market/market segments – think long tail here
• Use marketing personas to build out who you are targeting and give them a personality.
• Use any data you have to support your marketing persona e.g. age, demographic data.
• Check with others in the business e.g. sales, customer service – that the persona(s) are right.

2  Find Them Online
Understand where your customers spend time online and you will be able to listen to them and connect in the right places.

• Key action – Write a list of the channels/forums/communities they use e.g. key Linkedin groups
• Look at the demographics e.g. Pew Interest, but then dive deeper…
• Play detective – here is a great article by Jay Baer

3  Social Media Listening
Set a budget for the tools – whilst some are free, the better ones do cost but are worth the investment.

• Key action – choose 1-2 tools and get to know them really well. Budget for them.
• For a deeper dive into social media listening and monitoring – here is a comparison of the main tools

4  Understand Their Problems
When you are trying to master how to write a blog always put your self in the shoes of your customers. Listen to their problems – what information are they searching for, what service problems do they have, is their misunderstanding about a product or service, do they have wishlists…

• Key action – Write a list of the most common problems, gaps in information and issues
• Prioritise your list

5  Identify How You Can Help Them
This is where you need to be realistic and match what you and your business are good at to their problems.

• Key Action – With the list of problems highlight the ones you are confident that you can write about and fit to your business.
• Draft a list of ideas around each problem – this will be used later

6  Review The Competition
Take into account what your competition are blogging about, what topics tehy are focusing on
Key actions

• Identify their key topics e.g. categories on their blog page
• See what posts have been popular and assess why
• Identify how you can be different / better than them
• Don’t be a copy cat

7  Identify How You Can Help Them
What do you stand for and why should people follow your – what is the core message that will attract and be relevant to your audience.
Key Actions

• Develop an easy strap line that helps people understand what your about
• Build your message into your blogs and communications

8  Set Your Goals, Objectives and Metrics
This is the critical part. If you are going to invest in blogging set your self some clear goals for the results. What do you want to achieve (be realistic) and what business benefit will it deliver e.g. 5 leads per week. Key Actions

• Use SMART objectives (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timed)
• Be sure you can measure them
• Produce a spreadsheet and plan out your targets by week/month and then your results

9  Develop Your Strategy and Tactics
Plan in the strategy that is going to work for you – how your blog content fits to your overall marketing plan and communications mix.
Key actions

• What are the key resources and actions needed to achieve your goals?
• What are the daily/weekly tasks you are going to schedule?

10  Build Your Blog
A good blog needs a good home. Invest in a WordPress blog that is going to fit to your brand and be easy for people to engage with. Key actions

• Make sure you choose a responsive theme – the rise of the mobile consumer is here 
• Build in the styles and design features that can help your blog stand out
• Blogs are increasing becoming more visual so add in the styling that will help you produce a good visual layout – think more magazine than blog

11  Build Out Marketing Functionality
Your blog needs to be able to turn traffic into buying customers and to do that you need to have the right marketing functionality. Looking good is not enough.
Key actions

• Build in your key conversion points and methods to convert customers
• Add in tracking e.g. goals so you can measure performance

12  Link Your Social and Email
Key actions:

• Hook up your blog with your social networks so that people can easily share your content.
• Also build in your email subscriptions to build your email list.

13  Develop Your Editorial Calendar
This is probably on of the most important steps. An editorial calendar will help stay focused and give you a good schedule to work to. It is even more important if you have more than 1 person in your business blogging.

Key actions

• Be realistic and don’t forget to add in the other content that you are producing
• Balance out your categories to make it more varied and interesting for your audience

14  Research Your Keywords and Phrases

Key actions

• Do you keyword research and focus on the long tail keywords and phrases for your niche
• Optimise your on page SEO as well for each post

15  Develop Your Killer Headlines
Your titles make the difference between a click and no-click a share and just a read. Spend time coming up with awessome titles.

Key Actions

• Think like a magazine editor here

16  Write Your Blog and Format
Write your blogs and rewrite them. Find your own personal voice and practice – it takes to to develop a writing style that is right for you. Write as if you are talking to your marketing persona and helping them.  
Key actions

• Don’t be afraid – everyone goes through times of uncertainty and doubt when writing. It can be hard but bit by bit you will improve
• Remember there is only one you and that is unique and special use it to to your advantage and intertwine the personal and business
• End each post with a call to action or ask for people’s opinions

17  Publish To Your Social Networks
You have to promote your blog and ensure it is found.  
Key actions

• Publish to your main social networks and invite comments and feedback

18  Respond To Comments
Comments are the gold of blogging and so actively invite comments and always respond promptly to them

• Use a good commenting system such as Disqus
• Respond and be helpful, never rude. Remove any spam to keep you blog clean

19  Track Your Performance
With each blog post you move one step closer to achieving your goals. Track your metrics and review regularly.

20  Rinse and Repeat – Improve
Some blog posts will do well whilst others may not achieve the results you had hoped for. Learn from your spikes and dips and continually refine your editorial calendar to improve titles, content and how you reach and attract your audience. Importantly make sure you are turning your blog into tangible business results.

21  Don’t Forget To Enjoy It and Be Creative
This may seem obvious but have fun, enjoy it and if you are passionate about helping people and equally enthusiastic about your business your blog will do well. Experiment by adding in different media and help to make your business human. Your customers will appreciate being part of your tribe.

Article courtesy of http://socialmediatoday.com/tribalcafe/1440676/21-quick-tips-how-write-blog-your-business

5 Ways Small Businesses Can Use Pinterest

The rapid growth of Pinterest was one of the big social media stories of 2012, and by all accounts, the platform is continuing to see strong growth in the first half of 2013. 

What was originally a platform used by women is now expanding across wider demographics, and some businesses are even using the network in rather creative ways. If your small business or nonprofit is not yet using Pinterest, now is a good time to take a look at how it might fit into your overall digital communications plan.

Remember, anyone can just pin their products to Pinterest. That’s boring. Look beyond the obvious and find more creative ways of drawing people in and encouraging growth and repinning activity.

With that in mind, here are 5 ways that small businesses can use Pinterest more effectively:

1. Employee boards

Have you ever walked into a music or book store and seen a shelf of employee recommendations? Pinterest is perfect for this sort of things. Give each of your trusted employees their own board to play with. For a high end salon, let each of your stylists have a board to show off their work, or images of hair styles they like, to give customers a sense of their individual styles. You hire employees for their expertise and they are a big part of your brand. Let them show off their styles, interests, and sensibilities.

2. Customer boards

Your customers are the reason you are exist. They buy your products and services, and presumably are happy. Think about opening up some boards for all of your customers, or maybe just a few for some of your more loyal customers, to let them share what’s on their mind, particularly in relation to your products. Perhaps they can show off how they are using your products to inspire other customers.

3. Ideas and How-to

Rather than just showing off your products, explain to users some of the ways in which they can use your products. My friend Kim Carlo works at Stauffer’s of Kissel Hill, a regional chain of grocery stores and garden centers, and she does a great job with their Pinterest boards. Since they sell food, they offer boards with recipes on how to use that food. Another very popular board is one on Fairy Gardening and Terrariums, with ideas on how to use plants and other items purchased at the store.

4. Share a wide variety of content

We hear the phrase content marketing a lot these days, and it simply means you are creating some sort of content for your customers, whether it be blogs, ebooks, videos, or something else. It’s one thing to create that content, but another to give it legs. We share our content on Twitter, Facebook, and G+, but why not Pinterest? As you can see from the above image, SKH creates original “Gardening How To Videos” that are not only on Youtube and their website, but are pinned to their own board. I have a board of my own where I share both my own blog content as well as other blogs that I find interesting. It ends up being a good source of traffic. Plus, sharing the content created by others is just a good thing to do.

5. Contests

Brands big and small have learned that Pinterest can be a great place for a contest. “Pin it to Win it” contests have been done by Macy’s, Land’s End, Campbell’s Soup, and Volkswagen, to name a few. Have your customers pin their own images to your boards (perhaps integrated with Instagram) as a means of winning a prize. It’s a great way to get user generated content while building buzz and engagement.

Consider these ways of using Pinterest, and see if any might work for you and your business. Understand your audience and discover if they are using Pinterest, then figure out how they are using it.

What other creative ways have you seen businesses using Pinterest?

Article courtesy of Social Media Today

Top 7 Must-Have Free SEO Tools for Beginners

 

You can never see too many lists of free tools if you’re just starting out in SEO. Tools are crucial to practicing SEO and grasping a better understanding of how the industry works, but many of them are very expensive. As a beginner, it is not necessary to start by buying a tool that costs a lot of money. Once you know what you’re looking for and know what you’re doing, then you can move on to something advanced. For now, the free SEO tools out there will absolutely get the job done. In fact, many are surprised at just how many quality tools SEO professionals give out for free. Below are some of the top choices for beginners:

1. Google Analytics. A great tool to get you started. Even the most advanced professional who make SEO a full-time job are using Google Analytics. It might be confusing at first, but it will help any beginner get a sense of what is measured (website traffic, conversions, audience, etc.) and therefore what is important.
2. AdWords Keyword Tool. Completing keyword research is an incredibly important aspect of SEO (you have to know what and where to optimize, after all). This tool will show you the competition, global monthly searches, and local monthly searches for every keyword you try. Even the most advanced SEO professionals turn to this tool for their research.
3. Open Site Explorer. This tool will help you find link opportunities through competitor backlink research. The tool comes from SEOmoz and helps you determine if you can earn the same links that your competitors have earned (not to mention do a little bit of snooping).
4. SEO by Yoast. This is my favorite SEO plugin to install on a website. It helps walk you through the different steps of SEO to make sure that you’re optimizing each and every webpage. This works best when you’re focusing on optimizing the content on your website.
5. PageRank Status. You can download a free browser extension to help you see the PageRank of every webpage you visit. This will help beginners get a sense of where the website ranks on Google (it doesn’t always mean that one website is better quality than another, but it does mean it is more established). This is a great way to find authoritative link building opportunities. You can see SEO stats, site info, page info and page speed all by just clicking on the plugin.
6. Google Webmaster Tools. Every SEO professional has a Google Webmaster Tools account, so the sooner beginners get on board, the better. The tool allows you to monitor the indexing of your website, keyword clicks, sitemaps, and lists of links (external as well as internal) to you site.
7. Bing Webmaster Tools. You can’t forget that Bing is still the number three search engine out there, so optimizing for it is important even if you’re a beginner. Bing has a few different features than Google Webmaster Tools, but for the most part it serves the same purpose—giving you insight as to the number of clicks, links, indexing, etc.

I highly recommend clicking on the links to learn more about the free tools and what they can offer. The above just gives a quick overview, but each individual tool is chock-full of information to learn. If there is a free tool that has helped you learn SEO in past, let us know.

Article curated from Social Media Today

The Godfather Strategy: 8 Simple Ways to Monitor Your Competitors

"Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer."

This is one of the most famous quotes of Sun Tsu, the ancient Chinese military general and author of The Art of War. The statement was given more contemporary relevance in the 1974 film The Godfather Part II when spoken by Al Pacino’s character Michael Corleone, hence it’s often referred to as “The Godfather Strategy.”

The point? Know your enemies even better than your friends, because in battle, knowing your enemy’s strategies and next moves provides the ability to launch a preemptive strike or at least to plan counter strategies to their next move on the battlefield. We shoudn’t get carried away with the metaphor, but the advice can be very helpful for businesses. Here are 8 simple ways to monitor your competitors:

1) Competitor Analysis on Twitter

The time where you had to send spies off to the enemy camp is over. In their eager to communicate, most companies tend to share a lot of information on social media. Twitter one of the easiest way to keep up to speed on whats going in the “enemy camp.” If you want to take it one step further, why not follow a few of their key people on Twitter? There are plenty of great software solutions out there that allow you to monitor certain keywords and topics.

2) Google Trends

Google just merged Insights For Search into Google Trends, creating the “new Google Trends.“ This powerful tool shows you how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages. Google Trends also allows you to compare the volume of searches between two or more terms. This way you can monitor your products and services in comparison to your competitors. This brilliant competitor analysis tool also gives you valuable advice on rising trends in the market.

3) Google Alerts

Google Alerts is another free service from Google that helps you monitor the Web for interesting new content. Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your queries. Simply enter a search query you wish to monitor and Google will send you a daily update on the competitor or industry news. It’s understandable that most companies don’t want to invest in expensive competitor analysis tools, but this should be the absolute minimum for any company that is serious about its business.

4) SEO ranking tools

A company’s visibility in search engines can tell you a lot about their future strategies. By monitoring your competitors ranking in search engines, you will be able to see how your company performs in the big picture. Understanding your competitors' SEO strategy helps you understand their businesses.

5) Social Media Monitoring

By using social monitoring tools like Sysomos and Radian6, you can monitor how your brand and products are perceived in social media. Used the right way, social media monitoring software can also help you understand the performance of the companies you admire. The market leaders often spend a lot of money mapping out the social media strategy that works. Why not benefit from their investment?

6) LinkedIn

Most successful companies have their own LinkedIn company profile. By following you competitors company profile, you will learn more about their company dynamics and the key people behind their success. LinkedIn’s update function is much more robust than it used to be (it has been taking some tips from Facebook and Twitter). People can now “like” and “comment” on your updates, which helps to build relationships within LinkedIn. By using services like LinkedIn Signal, you can monitor your own brand, your competitor’s brand, your competitor’s key people, your industry, and potential clients.

7) Finance monitoring

If you are going to spend resources on competitor analysis, you better make sure that you are monitoring the right (and by that I mean the most profitable) companies. Most countries have their own governmental websites that will give you free access to financial information. If your competitor is publicly traded, you can perform a search via Google Finance, where you can review income statements, latest news stories and blog posts about your competitor. Google Finance offers a broad range of information about stocks, mutual funds, public and private companies.

In addition, Google Finance offers interactive charts, news and fundamental business data: http://finance.google.com

8) Online surveys

The best way to keep up with your customers is to know exactly what they want. Guesswork and gut-instinct won’t cut it, so business owners and marketers often turn to surveys to gather data about their target consumers. You can unlock the power of surveys to research a target market, understand buying habits, get product feedback, measure customer awareness and gain new customers. You can also find out what they think of your competitors.


Article courtesy of Social Media Today

5 Things Small Businesses Need to Know About Customers and Smartphones

As cellphone technology advances and becomes more affordable, small businesses are starting to take notice. Or at least they should be. The fact is, many small business owners are smartphone users, and as consumers, they understand the importance of a good mobile experience. But many don’t seem to translate that and make the leap to apply that to their own business presence online.

According to a report from Flurry:

"The rate of iOS and Android device adoption has surpassed that of any consumer technology in history.  Compared to recent technologies, smart device adoption is being adopted 10X faster than that of the 80′s PC revolution, 2X faster than that of 90′s Internet Boom and 3X faster than that of recent social network adoption."

Additionally, mobile technology analyst Horace Dediu reports that even with 57% penetration, “the rate at which Americans are buying their first smart phone isn’t slowing down.” Meanwhile, the Teens and Technology 2013 study from the Pew Research Center finds that, “78% of teens now have a cell phone, and almost half (47%) of them own smartphones.”
In short, smartphone and mobile technology is growing fast, with no signs of slowing down. Small businesses need to consider this as they build and maintain an online presence. Those with no online presence are falling behind, while others need to adapt to the new mobile reality.
Here are five things we need to consider as we seek to remain relevant in an increasingly mobile connected culture:

1. Small is the new big

While our television screens seem to be getting larger, our computer screens are getting smaller. More of our online experience is happening on mobile devices than ever before, and smartphones and tablets are becoming more prevalent. This means your customers will very likely be accessing your website and other online properties on a small screen, not just a laptop or desktop. Tablets and smaller phone devices are becoming the norm. This means your website needs to be mobile ready. For WordPress users, there are plugins that can fill in the gaps for a short time, but a responsive theme is more important. (Right now I use the WPTouch plugin, but will be moving to a more responsive theme in the near future). Don’t wait until you have to play catch up. Start being more forward thinking so that you’re not only helping your current mobile-using customers, but also ready for those who haven’t yet moved to smart phones. The time is coming soon.

2. Apps over browsers/Social over search

If our customers are doing more on their smartphones, we need to know HOW they are doing it. When it comes to mobile devices, either phones or tablets, the browser experience is still a bit slow and cumbersome. The easiest and most pleasant moble experiences usually happen through apps. For this reason, among others, social networks have a real edge over search engines when it comes to smartphones.

All of the major social networks have apps that your customers are using. Make sure your social presence is strong and fully optimized. This doesn’t mean you need to be on every network; as always, only choose the ones that make sense for you. But a strong presence that is accessible by apps on mobile devices makes it easier to be found via mobile devices.
One caveat: SEO is still important. People still use laptops and desktops and still use search engines. But the face of search, and the role of SEO, are changing.

3. On the road and on the go

This may be one of those “master of the obvious” moments, but one of the major draws of smartphones is portability. A computer in your pocket. That’s right, you too can butt dial the entire internet. We’re no longer tied to our homes or desks. We can go online and check out your business (and your competitors) no matter where we are. In a car, on the sidewalk, or even right outside your door. Your marketing, messaging, and communications plan need to created and conducted with mobility and portability in mind. While some believe social networks force people to stay at home on their computers, mobile technology allows us to be out and about more.

4. Now is the most important time

Everything happens in the now. With smartphones, your customers can be online while in your business. Think of the smartphone as a megaphone. They are talking about you online, while talking to you offline. Not only are we no longer confined by space, we are also no longer confined by time. Customer service is a 24/7 proposition. Your customers might not expect you to respond to their questions or complaints at 2 a.m. on a Saturday, but they do expect a response, and they do expect it in a timely fashion. You can’t put your online presence on auto-pilot. Monitoring is of utmost importance.

5. Your competition is in your house

When your customers bring their smartphones into your business, they’re bringing your competitors with them. As they peruse your products and pricing, they might  be comparing them with those of your competitors. And your competitors aren’t just the guy around the corner; they include other small businesses from around the world, as well as larger online retailers like Amazon or eBay. This means you need to up your competitive level a bit and find a way of standing out. Perhaps one of the most important areas where you can excel and compete is that of customer service. They might be bringing your competitors through your doors, but that doesn’t mean they have to win.

Now is the time to take a look at your business model and your marketing plan and look at them through the smartphone lens of your customers.

How do they experience your business on their mobile devices? Answer that question and make the adjustments that will make you more competitive.

Article courtesy of Social Media Today

Upgrade Your Blogging Skills

Here's a crash course in journalism that will upgrade your blogging skills.

Having never attended journalism school, I constantly find myself trying to improve my writing skills and emulate the best in the business. In my search for educational resources, I ran across a brief, yet complete guide, The Reuters Handbook of Journalism. Use this guide to upgrade the journalistic integrity of your organization's blog or news releases.

The Handbook is divided into six sections. Here are a few highlights from each section:

1. Standards and Values

This section introduces the foundation on which journalistic integrity, standards, and values are built. You may be tempted to skip this section, but the content here can improve the overall quality of your blog articles.

The 10 Absolutes of Reuters Journalism

Print out this list and keep it nearby when you write. The items on this list may seem obvious, but I see them violated all the time in blog posts. The tenth absolute--never offer or accept bribes (such as free products or money for article placements)--is especially relevant to SEO and blogging.

One Seemingly Innocent Word Can Suggest Bias

Even your choice of words can imply bias. Reuters warns against using words like "claimed" and phrases like "according to," which can suggest doubt or taking sides. Use caution with verbs as well, like "rebut" or "refute," which Reuters states can "imply an editorial judgment."

2. Guide to Operations

This section is essential for bloggers who didn't attend journalism school or take intensive writing courses in college. You'll find a concentrated guide on story structure, length, headlines, slugs, keywords and many other tricks of the trade.

Growing the Story

This sub-section is a list of valuable bullet points that will help any novice cultivate a coherent and engaging story. There are also great suggestions on how to bulletproof your story and maintain fairness and accuracy.

The 10 Keywords Approach

This is not about SEO; instead, this approach is a process by which you can organize thoughts, concepts, and facts about a story. The guide suggests making a list of 10 key words that are crucial to telling the story effectively and engagingly. Make sure to include most or all of these words in the first few sentences of your article.

Tricks of the Trade

Many of these suggestions are the unspoken rules that give articles a professional feel. Using insider secrets such as signposts, building blocks, crossheads and sequential writing will raise the bar of your blog articles overnight.

3. General Style Guide

To the novice writer or blogger, style guides are great for maintaining consistency and not sounding like an untrained beginner. This section covers word usage, spelling, and context from A to Z. This page is an indispensable bookmark that I keep handy when writing my articles. Since discovering it, I haven't written an article without referring to it at least once.

4. Sports Style Guide

Don't know the difference between a "field" and a "pitch?" Sports fans will ridicule ignorant or uninformed reporting. Use this alphabetized guide on sports style, along with special sections for cricket, golf, motor racing, soccer, tennis, and winter sports. Common terms, rules, and context are provided for each of these segments. Consult this guide before covering any sporting event.

5. Specialized Guidance

Most of the information here is primarily relevant to large news organizations; however, I've been able to take away some helpful advice from the section on dealing with complaints. The guide on first responses will help your organization build a process to deal with complaints quickly and ethically. There is also an official Reuters.com response attached at the bottom, which can be modified for your specific organization.

6. Links

There are links to the Reuters Financial Glossary and a link to the Wikipedia markup cheat sheet. Like the sports guide, the Financial Glossary provides definitions, use, and context information for commonly used terms that may not be familiar to you.
Most novice bloggers will find the Guide of Operations the most helpful in the short term; but the handbook should be read in its entirety for a quick crash course in journalism. With the Reuters Handbook on Journalism, you can publish interesting, informative, and professional content with high journalistic integrity.


Article courtesy of Inc. Magazine

Understanding Your Audience: Three Ways to Improve Engagement

Facebook is a beast. Small business owners who attempt to tackle the beast have the best intentions in mind, but the beast inevitably wins and the small business owner gets lazy. If this sounds familiar, we’ve got your cure to improving Facebook engagement by truly understanding your audience. You might think you know who your Fans are, but your engagement numbers are telling a different story. Let me walk you though a few simple tasks that we’ve learned at Linwright Design to get you back in the game.

#1 – Attract the Right Fans
With targeted FB Advertising through Facebook Power Editor, as well as Facebook integration onto your website and marketing materials, you can place your Facebook Page in front of those who are already interested in your brand. These are the Fans you want to Like your page. Consumers and potential consumers who have landed on your website or picked up one of your business cards are showing interest in your brand and will engage at a higher level with your page.

Facebook recently added an Invite Friends feature under the Build Audience tab on the Admin Panel. This new feature allows you to easily share your Facebook Page with your business contacts and email marketing lists. By importing your MailChimp lists, you can pull in Fans who have already double-opted-in to your email marketing campaigns, making them the perfect demographic to engage with your brand on Facebook.

 #2 – Review Your Insights
Head over to your Admin Panel and take a look at the Overview of your Facebook Insights. According to EdgeRank Checker, the average Virality Rate for Facebook pages was 1.86% as of March 4, 2013.  Facebook suggest to strive for one to two percent Virality Rate for your posts. How does your Virality Rate compare?

Take a look at those specific posts that show a higher than average Virality Rate, and do some digging. What topics seem to spark an interest in your Fans? What time of day are these posts receiving the highest engagement? What days of the week? Using tools such as EdgeRank Checker and Simply Measured can help you determine which of your Facebook posts are receiving high engagement. 

#3 – What Interests Your Audience?
If you’ve completed step number two, you’ll have a pretty good understanding of what brand-related topics your Fans respond to, and you can post according to those findings. But, if you want to dig a bit deeper into what interests your Fans have, try Facebook’s new Graph Search. With this tool, you can take a look at the all-around demographics of your Fans, giving you greater insight into a broader range of posts that will increase engagement.

For example, if we were to research the interests of Starbucks Fans on Facebook, we’d type “Fans of Starbucks” into the Graph Search bar. The results give you thousands (Stabucks has nearly 35,000,000 Facebook Fans) of profiles – a little overwhelming. But if you look to the top-right you’ll notice a pull-down menu. Drop this down and you’ll notice a variety of option to refine your search.

You can refine the search not only by gender, city and employer, but by movies they’ve Liked, Activities they enjoy, even other Pages they’ve Liked. This opens up a whole new array of possibilities to understand additional details of your Page’s demographics.

Interestingly, thousands of Stabucks Fans are also Fans of ‘Cheese.’ What interests and activities can you pull from your very own audience to increase engaging posts with?
Many small business owners, even Facebook marketers, often forget how important it is to fully understand their audience and Fans. By appreciating the interests of your audience, you can share your brand message while at the same time increase overall engagement.

Article courtesy of Social Media Today

Time for a Social Media Spring Cleaning?

After a long cold spell, spring has finally arrived which means it’s time for a long-awaited spring clean.

All those warm winter clothes have to be put away, which means tidying up your storage spaces and cupboards. Inevitably you will stumble across long lost clothes that used to fit, or were fashionable … once! It’s rather satisfying to make way for the new and clear out the rubbish from time to time and the same can be said for your social media accounts.

It’s the perfect time to find out what doesn’t fit and what really isn’t in fashion anymore. This thought works nicely when you apply the same attitude to the social media accounts that you may have been running for a few years, but there are a few things that need to be considered before you start your social spring cleaning.

Evaluate Your Business Goals

Even before you start to think about your social media channels, look at what you are hoping to achieve with your current business plan. Your goals and aspirations may have changed since you first started using social media so sit down and take a good look at your business. For instance: Has your business grown? Are there more competitors now? Have you changed your original products? Where can you make improvements?

Of course, we are all different, but only you know the goals that are applicable to your business. However, it’s quite easy to find out which of your social media channels which have been driving traffic, discussion and sales. This should you give you a good idea of where to begin when spring cleaning your social media accounts.

• About You – This is one area that many businesses forget about. Your company description may have been written years ago on your social media profiles, but it has been updated on all your websites, printed materials and promotional items. Ask yourself when was the last time you updated this? Take a look at ALL your online presence and update your current mission statement and brand identity so it’s consistent across all your channels.

• Find those unused accounts - Did you once use Xanga? Did you fancy the idea of using Tumblr every day? Perhaps you were really excited when Pinterest came along and haven’t used it since last summer? Having accounts that are not used can look as if you don’t care and nothing looks worse than orphaned social media accounts. Remember they still show up in Google, so either delete these accounts or see if they are worth using again properly.

• Review your design – Are your profile images, backgrounds, avatars & cover photos up-to-date? Make sure your images are optimised to each individual platform and your branding is consistent on all your accounts. Also, make sure you are aware of new layouts that may be available. Google+ for instance allows you to have a larger header image than before, so make use of these changes. Ask your design department to bring your logos and branding up-to-date so that your logos look fresh and work on whichever platform you are using.

• Discover new social channels – Just because you’ve had platforms that didn’t work for you in the past there are many more to choose from that may suit your business perfectly. Your social media strategy isn’t just about Facebook or Twitter these days! You could try Google+ communities, which are growing in popularity for sharing knowledge around specific industries. You could explore new social video tools such as Vine, or make use of the popular image sharing platforms Pinterest & Instagram which have worked really well for retail brands.

• Involve everyone – Almost everyone has some kind of social media presence these days, be it a LinkedIn profile or a Twitter account. If you are the social media or marketing department, take a look to see how many other employees are active on social media and encourage them to help out. It’s often easy to pick your marketing department to write most editorial pieces, but maybe you have other employees that might come up with some innovative and interesting personal ideas for your blog. Take the time to check that everyone in your business has the correct branded email signatures with your social media follow/like buttons. The same can be said for promoting your social channels on new business cards.
  

Find the space for something fresh

It shouldn’t take long to review your objectives to help put the stepping stones in place to aim towards success, so take the time to find out what works, but more importantly, what doesn’t. Your social media spring clean is just the same as tidying up your cupboards at home. If it isn’t fashionable, doesn’t fit anymore or you’re never going to use it again then remove the junk and find the space for something fresh and new.

Article courtesy of Social Media Today

Avoid Burning Your Cash on a New Blog: Start Simple

When you get your business blog started, it’s tempting to invest in a custom blog design, theme customization, or other features that will set your business’ blog apart from the rest.

My advice on this is quite simple: DON’T.

Don’t pay anything from a tech or development standpoint to get your blog up and running, particularly before you’ve figured out exactly what you will be blogging about, how your blog will contribute to your business goals, how you plan to convert your readership, and have experience blogging for some time.

There are a huge number of free options
WordPress, Blogger, and Tumblr are fantastic blogging platforms, and for basic features, they’re free.

When you’re getting started, don’t feel pressure to invest in something that is beyond your needs. Even free blogging platforms offer incredible feature sets and options for customization.

It might take a wile to determine your needs
It’s incredibly difficult to determine exactly which features are going to be desirable and useful for your blog and to your consumers until you get started and see how it is going to evolve and grow.

Spend time utilizing a free blogging platform so you will better understand which features will be most valuable to invest in when the time is right to customize your blogging experience.

Establish blogging as part of your routine
The number of custom designed blogs I’ve seen that haven’t been updated in over a year is staggering.

Before making a significant investment in you business’ blogging platform, make sure that blogging is going to be something you can sustain, and that will yield real business results. When you do, you’ll better understand your potential ROI and will be able to make informed decisions about your investment.

In time, you might find more cost-effective solutions
Robust developer communities support many of the large blogging CMS platforms. This means there are a huge number of developers and designers who are sharing their themes, templates, designs, plug-ins, and more for incredibly affordable rates, and in some cases for free. 

Chances are that even if you have very specific requirements in mind for the function, format or features of your business blog, that there is probably someone out there who has already developed a low cost solution that you can take advantage of.

Instead of rushing into making decisions about every last detail to do with the design and function of your blog and relaying those to your developer, take your time to see if there are more affordable solutions that you can implement. Chances are, there will be.

At the end of the day, your business blog is all about value
The value you offer consumers with your content should be the focus of your business’ blogging efforts, not the minutia of every little detail of design and functionality.

When you’re just getting started blogging for your business, don’t get caught up in all of the bells and whistles. Instead, focus on producing killer content that is going to build, sustain, engage and provide value to your current and prospective consumers.
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Instead of investing heavily in the custom development or design of a blog for your business, invest resources in producing absolutely killer content for your targeted consumers, and promoting that content through relevant channels. The results you will achieve by providing valuable and engaging content will far outweigh the results you can achieve by paying to add the one or two features or design flourishes that you’d ideally like to see on your blog.

Be patient in the short-term and develop blogging to become an integral part of your business’ value proposition. When you’ve gained enough experience to see what works and what doesn’t, you’ll be in a better position to make wise investment decisions for customizing your business’ blog for you, and your consumers’ needs.

What blogging CMS do you use for your business? If you use a common blogging CMS, what features or limitations would you love to see implemented? In your experience, what has been the single most valuable aspect of blogging for your business?

Article courtesy of Social Media Today

Personal vs. Business When It Comes to Social Media

 

Social Media has been an evolving and overwhelming force over the past 6-7 years, taking over personal lives and forever changing the way people communicate. Social Media has connected people like nothing we have seen before! It has also become a major part of online marketing and business networking forcing itself on the business world. This has resulted in an overlap in individuals' social worlds, blurring the line between personal and business communication.

For some people this blurring of the line is not only OK, but welcomed. While others struggle to find a way to keep a balance and to keep each world separate. How do you accomplish this task without making one of the two different social worlds suffer? The first step is figuring out your individual line.

Figuring out your line could be a difficult thing to do, and could also make you realize that you don't mind the two worlds mixing on occasion. Most people will try to keep separate accounts, but will depend on reaching out to friends in the beginning to help create a fan base. But where does this end? Friendswill support you up to a point before they start to ignore your posts / requests. This is the problem with social marketing. Social media was originally built for people to interact with their friends, and interests... and not to endlessly market to them. So then the big question becomes what is too much?

Another issue that many see is how your posting habits change from your personal world to the business world. Most of the posts you direct out within the business world are to make people aware of your product, industry, or about your company (things that people don't care about all the time in your personal world). Compare that to your personal posts which will include candid remarks, pictures of friends and family, funny pictures or videos, etc. These are posts that should not cross over into both worlds, but they usually do (business to personal).

So what is the right balance? There are many guides, books, webinars, and companies out there that are meant to help you with your social media marketing. They show you how to engage your fans, what to post and how to keep them interested. They usually focus on not overwhelming your fans, and an overall social strategy, but nobody really talks about how to interact with your family and friends. Some will say that they are going to be 100% supportive and you don't need to worry about it, but that is not the case.

So the answer I have found is that it depends... I know, great answer. It will come down to your knowledge / skills with social media as well as your knowledge / perception of your friends. I don't think that there is a set balance or guide to how to proceed in this delicate area, but I believe it is a topic that should come up more and not have a simple answer. Below I have included a few tips that I hope will help you begin to see the line again.

1) Keep your friends aware of your business. If they are your friends they will be interested in what you are doing, but might not always be willing to participate so don't beat them over the head with it. They may be able to provide some insight and even offer some suggestions that you haven't thought of yourself.

2) Keep separate social media accounts. While your business accounts should have a personal touch that let people get to know you, over sharing of your personal life with your business life is never a good idea and may come back to bite you.

3) Your personal social media accounts should be spontaneous, while your business accounts need a plan.

4) Posting about your business via your personal account is OK to do every once in awhile. This is just to help them keep informed about your business without forcing them to take a bigger part.

5) Make sure to never force the conversation in any world, try to present yourself to people who have an interest in your field (not just any random person).

Where have you struggled to keep a balance between personal and business, and what have you done to overcome those challenges?

Image courtesy of MiiiSH, Flickr.

Article courtesy of Social Media Today