How To Use LinkedIn For Business

LinkedIn is very much popular and known to everybody who is in business world. Its one of the best tool for networking and promoting brands. LinkedIn has made changes in the past year that allows organizations to communicate with customers, and promotion of the products.

Organizations are not utilizing LinkedIn company pages to their full extent even a lot of organizations have not begun to consistently update their company page status.

Find below the top 10 tips to use LinkedIn for business :

1. Administrative Controls For Page :

Once you open a page for your company then you should have proper control to manage the page. You can add administrator to the page, who can help your company to deal with marketing, sales and HR stuffs. Give proper permission to the people to update the status on the page.

2. Include Company  Information :

Fill up the details in company overview section, including description and the way you want to offer service to your customers. 

3. Update Product & Service Information :

You can include links to product pages and website pages and information on product & service in details.

4. Upload Images :

If you have some product specific images or logo or banner then upload them to the page so that the page will look good proving your customer the option to see the products also.

5. Other Social Media Links :

Include all the other social media profile links in the page so that people who wants to know about the company, products and service can also check the other social media profiles.

6. Network Connection :

Once you set up your company page now its time to include other members related to that company to endorse the products and services offered by your company. They can get engaged into that page and can update regular updates and required information. If there are some employees then LinkedIn profiles of those persons can be included to the page.

7.  Posting Procedures :

Always posts that are related to company and business. Post information about recent service offerings or jobs at your company. If you provide valuable content, you will create a vibrant LinkedIn community centered around your company.

8. Proper Monitoring :

It is the most important thing that you should monitor your LinkedIn page daily and forward relevant messages to the proper person within your company, whether that be HR, marketing, sales, etc.

9. Testimonials & Recommendations :

The other best idea is to share testimonials about your products and services. People will visit your LinkedIn company page and if they can see which of their network members have recommended your products then it would be easy for your to keep those visitors onto your page. When a member recommends a product, their network connections are notified and the recommendation also lives on your company page. You can ask your valued customers to recommend products through the LinkedIn "Request Recommendations" module.

10.  Review & See Result :

Keep reviewing your page about the details and information regarding the company products and services and if you get any response from customer, response fast.

That's all. If you find this information helpful and if you have something to say then share your experience and suggestions also with us.

How To Attract More Visitors To Your Blog Posts From Social Networks

Every blogger has the motive to attract more and more visitors to their blog or website. But how about the way getting from social media shares? How about the people share your posts over social media? Sounds great! Are you sure that the posts from your blog when shared on social media network do have proper description with an image so that people can click on the link easily?  Well, you need to always control the images that accompany your posts when they appear in status updates on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ because it is more likely that visitors will click on the shared link and re-share it.

How They Look On Each Social Platform :

It is very essential that you examine the social snippet looks while sharing on Facebook or Google+.

Facebook Social Snippet

The Facebook social snippet is a combination of the page title and image

Google+ Social Snippet

The Google+ social snippet also has a title, domain and image.

Here we have shown how it looks on different social media platforms :

How To Manage Social Snippets Looks :

This can be fixed easily by adding tags into the HTML code of your document. Try to add the appropriate tags so links to your content will show the right image in any status update. If you are comfortable using HTML codes, then follow the below steps :

1.  Adding Title and Meta Description Tags :

Include these two page elements into your blog as these two elements are used to show your post into Social Media:

<title>…</title>

<meta name=”description” content=”…” />

2.  Schema.org Micro formatting :

Schema.org has some common set of rules for most of the search engines and used for all the social media networks. You can control your social snippets, you’ll only need these tags:

<body itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Product”>

<h1 itemprop=”name”>Interesting Headline</h1>

<img itemprop=”image” src=”{image-url}” />

<p itemprop=”description”>Thought provoking description</p>

</body>

3. Add Open Graph Protocol Tags :

Most of the social media sites use Open Graph standards for tagging content. So you can add tags to set the image in status updates:

<meta property=”og:image” content=”/image.jpg” />

Open Graph tags can also be used to set the title and description.

<meta property=”og:title” content=”…” />

<meta property=”og:description” content=”…” />

4. Add Use Image_SRC Meta Tags :

It is very useful if you can add image_src meta tag between the <head> and </head> tags to manage the images in social snippets.

<link rel=”image_src” href=”http://www.example.com/image.jpg” />

How Do You Manage These Tags ?

Here’s a quick guide showing how to put the tags into the right places :

If you are using WordPress then try the below plugins :

1. All in One Schema.org Rich Snippets Plugin:

It provides the control over tags for social snippets and also make your search listings look better when you rank in search engines.

2. WP Open Graph Plugin:

It also works like Schema.org plugin and the tool will add all of the Open Graph meta tags automatically.

3. Custom Image_Src Plugin:

For images appearing in social networks, this one is the best tool.  Create the image_src tag and this plugin will force Facebook to use image what you choose.

Note : You install the plugin and manage the tags from within WordPress. If you face any issue with Facebook sharing and you can also clear your Facebook cache using the Facebook URL Debugger.

Hope this effort will have an impact how your content appears in social media streams when it’s shared and we are very much sure that it will be able to receive a lot of clicks and shares gradually.

We would welcome your comment and suggestions if you have something to share.

How To Choose Affiliate Program

If you have a blog or website, we assume that you are running Google AdSense to monetize it. What about the option where you can ensure some extra income? Sounds great! There are a lot affiliate marketing programs available over the net but out of thousands of affiliates which one you should choose for your blog. You may get confused seeing all the affiliates available over net and hence it is required to study a lot before choosing any program.

We have summarized some important points which we should keep in mind before choosing affiliate :

1. Choose Your Niche &  Relevancy  : 

Choose your affiliate according to your blog niche. If your blog niche is  based on technology with hosting information then go for some affiliate programs who serve web hosting only.  Do not promote any other niche affiliate program. So before joining any program check whether it is relevant to your website content or not.

2. Good Reputation, Trustworthy  & Quality :

Before joining the affiliate program, check the product's reputation over net and make sure that the affiliate merchants can be trusted. Suppose you have written a review on mobile phone and you found a program who deals with mobile, here you need to check the popularity and sales of that brand so that you can make sure that while visiting your site people may buy that.

3. Build Your Platform :

Build your platform with enough number of visitor first. Then only while visiting your site people will find the program and will go for it.  You should go for a blogging platform with good hosting ensuring your website has maximum available uptime and can opened fast.

4. Real & Viable Product : 

Read several times about the product which the affiliate programs holds. Get more information from customer or members  on the credibility of the program.

5. Minimum Payment Threshold & Payment Method:

Check the minimum payout threshold so that once you reach to that level you can get paid. Most of the programs set to $50$ or $100. Make sure the payment mode is permitted in your country or make use of PayPal account to receive if applicable.

6. Cookies : 

Most of the tracking happens through cookies in affiliate marketing. Actually money is used to secure the visitors (eg, cookies and IP-address) who came to your link, and the longer the time of their lives, the better. Unfortunately, most of the visitors rarely gets the goods or services at the first transition to the partner site. You should look for a program that gives a high cookie life which is ideally 2-3 months. 

7. Fraud Protection : 

You should always ask your merchant to provide you with a fraud protection service so that your clients can know multiple signups. We have observed some fraudulent practices of some affiliates. You should be protected from them. They deal with below practices :

Duplicating: creating deceptive clones of legitimate site

Diverting: creating deceptive links that do not pay the intended affiliate

8. Tracking Method : 

Make sure that the affiliate programs provide good tracking method so that your sales statistics will be readily available to you. Real time tracking would be the best one if any affiliate program offers the same.

9.  Compensation Plan :

It is a must have option. It pays out a residual income and a payout of 40% or more would be a great choice. There are some programs offering this kind of compensation and try to avoid the programs which do not offer reward for your hard work.

10 : Tools & Resources :  

Make sure that the affiliate program has sufficient helpful tools and resources so that your business can grow quickly.

11. Customer Support : 

Check the options where you can get easy support from the  affiliate program. Make sure they have a proper emailing facility or customer service over phone facility.

12. TOS : Read and accept the TOS before joining any program. Some program has very odd policies and payout threshold. We normally accept the TOS without reading it. Take time and read whole.

Last but not the least, do you like the program? If yes, then only promote that. If you like the program and its offer then only your visitors will be attracted to them. Make sure to think as a customer and if you are given the opportunity so you will buy the product. Do inquiries because there are forums and discussions sites where you can participate in to get good and reliable feedbacks.

Hope the above tips will help you choosing the right affiliate program. If you have any other suggestions,  we would welcome you.

Samsung Introduces Smart Watch Next Month

The most discussed over internet and rumored smart watch from Samsung, Galaxy Gear, is going to be introduced in September and it will be available in stores afterwards. According to the report by Bloomberg, it will be unveiled on September 4, just two days before the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin. 

Galaxy Gear is a wristwatch-like device and has the facility to make phone calls, surf the net and handle e-mails. It will be powered by Google's Android operating system. Samsung, the biggest technology company in Asia, is going to to create a new industry of wearable devices as the market for top-end handsets nears saturation. It will compete with Sony which already introduced its wearable android watch.

An Internet Version Image

The Galaxy Gear which will be released next month will not be having a flexible display, though the company is continuing to work on developing a bendable screen. It will be unveiled the same day as Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3, a phablet series gadget.

Apple Watch is also in the pipeline and Apple didn't revealed any date of release the product. Samsung became the world’s largest smartphone maker last year, overtaking Apple. But Apple is continuing its release on iPhone series and will be relesing iPhone5C (a low cost iPhone) and upgrades for iPhone5 (known as iPhone5S) according to rumored reports.

So as of now we have a rough idea that two smartphone giants are working on introducing smart watch. Lets wait for the devices and we will get to know more.

How To Grow Business With Content Marketing [Inforgraphic]

Content Marketing means creating and sharing valuable free content to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into repeat buyers. The type of content you share is closely related to what you sell; in other words, you’re educating people so that they know, like, and trust you enough to do business with you.

Content marketing has become one of the most important marketing tools in the web world. The following infographic presented by Dendritepark describes how to GROW your business by creating a so-called “wisdom tree.” Let’s see what this wisdomtree is all about:

Source : Dendritepark

How To Get More Engagement On Facebook

Publishers usually spend huge time on sharing their contents and getting likes and comments from their posts. But sometimes it seems to be very difficult while getting a proper response for your posts. Even after we have original and real contents, we get unnoticed. But there are several ways which can be followed to get more likes and comments on your posts. PostPlanner has provided  a very useful tip for getting engaged in Facebook quickly. Here below, we go with the simple steps :

Source : PostPlanner

Ways To Increase Facebook Interaction [infographic]

Sharing something by including your thoughts don't yield any kind of response at all. That’s when we should learn that our current following has little or no interest in the subject being shared. It really doesn't have to be harder than that. It all becomes clear when we check out this infographic presented by LinchpinSEO called Facebook: Wall Post Cheat Sheet.

Source : LinchpinSEO

11 Necessities To Grow A Successful Business [Infographic]

Various ways are there by which you can grow your business. But how many ways lead to success? We don't have any idea on that. A lot people start a business thinking that they'll turn on their computers or open their doors and start making money, only to find that making money in a business is much more difficult than they thought. You can avoid this in your business ventures by taking your time and planning out all the necessary steps you need to achieve success

Here is a beautiful infographic explaining  11 steps of the necessities and the factors which can be referenced when we are going to make a business successful.

Source :  Merchant Resources International

Brand Imaging & Build Leads Via LinkedIn [Infographic]

Brand imaging is the most important thing while doing business online or offline. We do it via several  personal social networking and microblogging sites and we are very much successful on that. Here is a professional way which involves the massively popular professional networking site LinkedIn.

Check out the infographic below to become fluent in LinkedIn. You may even realize ways to both promote a positive brand image and connect with your customers.

Source : PayStream

How Social Media Helps In Recruiting [Infographic]

Social recruiting helps the companies to get connected with large number of qualified candidates across the world looking for a appropriate job. The benefits associated with social recruiting are it helps you to connect with largest pool of qualified job seekers, send multimedia text to targeted job seekers and it reduces the cost incurred in sourcing.

While executing social recruiting strategy to hire employees, it is important to encourage the existing employees to spread the recruitment notice through social media, place the content that is related to job opening, allocate specific time for yourself to communicate with the potential hires. Measure the success that you achieved in recruiting through social network and look for avenues that you need to tweak. Here is an infographic which explains this in a easy way.

Source : Jobvite via graphs.com

How Much Data Is Generated In One Minute [Infographic]

We sleep but the information over internet? Never. There is no downtime for the hugely transferred data over internet in every minute. As highlighted by DOMO, ‘every website browsed, status shared or photo uploaded leaves a digital trail that is growing into a mass of  data’.

Some interesting statistics from the infographic include:

a) 2 million search queries through Google.
b) 684,478 new pieces of content shared by Facebook users.
c) $272,070 spent shopping online.
d) 217 new users on the mobile web.
e) 47,000 Apple app downloads


Source : DOMO

Digital Acquisitions & Mergers Between Most Prominent Businesses [Infographic]

A lot of acquisitions have been going on since years and gradually they merged business processes and been on track of business strategy. Is it a matter of looking within your marketplace, identifying potential disruptions to your business and then looking to find a solution that will avert that pending collision? Or rather broadening the search beyond traditional areas of operation, in order to leverage opportunities in new growth areas yet to boom? 

Whether an acquisition occurs, no doubt businesses that keep aware of these opportunities will be better poised to respond if and when their industry is disrupted. The following infographic provides some interesting insights about digital acquisitions between some of the most prominent businesses in the world and why they think these alliances will work.

Source: marketdominationmedia

Steps To Calculate ROI Of Social Media [Infographic]

To calculate social media ROI, you first have to have a bunch of metrics that you have gathered throughout your social media marketing campaign. Make sure you have the correct metrics since it will highly impact the end result. When you have it all divided into each social network, you can finally start calculating your social media ROI.

Social Media ROI can be calculated in terms of interaction made over social media websites. Below is a nice presentation where the social media giants facebook, twitter's statistics are shown along with memes, youtube streams, infographics and blogs.

Social Media ROI Calculator

How Safe You Are Online [Infographic]

We all know that the two most populated countries in the world are China and India. Do you know the internet users across the world exceeded the total number of the population of China and India when combined? Social media, banking, eCommerce like the possibility of the internet is overwhelming. Do you know how safe you are online in this digital world? Check the below infographic from Trend Micro Trend Labs. The infographic is titled Are You Safe Online?

Topics covered on this infographic are:
What do you do when you are online, what cyber criminals spread when you are online, redefined basic threat protection, and added security against today’s threat.


Source: trendmicro

Building Brand Advocates [Infographic]

Brand advocates are consumers and business buyers, usually with a large online network, who frequently recommend brands, products and services without any expectation of compensation. They are a virtual referral and sales force, creating positive testimonials and all-star ratings for brands on online review sites. They share your brand’s content and offers, assist other customers with questions and problems, and loyally defend your brand against detractors.

In a worldwide Nielsen survey, 92% of online consumers said they completely trust or somewhat trust recommendations from people they know and 70% said the same of consumer opinions posted online. Brand advocates are an invaluable resource both on and offline. So how do you create more of them and continue to engage your current power advocates? This infographic from Parature offers some constructive advice:

Source : Parature

Using Infographics for Marketing

It is a famous saying that a picture speaks a thousand words and that is certainly true. Thinking like a true professional, you can imagine what wonders it can do if you can simply add graphics to the material you are using for marketing – and not just any graphics, infographics. Now to tell you a little about infographics – a graphic or image that is created specifically so that the information delivered is easily understandable and visually appealing. An online banner is an example of infographics. Infographics is a way to make boring information more engaging through the use of animation, typography and visual cues.

May it be any topic or subject; infographics can make it more interesting. Infographics is especially useful in the modern time where the attention span of a user is of a very short period and he wants something that is easily accessible to him. It is also an effective way to get your marketing message across to a wide range of audiences.

Investment in Online Infographics

Although there are quite a lot of infographics created by graphic designers and a number of schools use these tools in their study courses and businesses use them in their promotional packages, however, there is a sudden demand and need of online infographics that is observed recently. Expert graphic designers attribute this upsurge in the demand of online infographics to a few things.

First, infographics are visually pleasing. The average computer user spends a substantial part of his day looking up boring content on the websites. Infographics make this boring content seem fun somehow and when a user knows that he is looking at something cool, he is actually reading the same boring content but is also learning from it. The second fact is, infographics are a good way to keep a user hooked. As bait, infographics are used as people love to share stuff that is well designed. Sites like Twitter, Facebook and Digg can bring a lot of traffic and a bunch of link-backs to your website as they spread really fast on such social websites.

Things to Remember When Marketing Through Infographics

Professionals Should be Preferred

The best Infographics are simple yet engaging. The layout has to be such which is well suited to the images used and is incorporated seamlessly into it. In that case, it becomes crucial that you hire the services of a professional marketing company. The basic idea behind a good infographics is that it is clear and precise therefore it has to be free of clutter otherwise your layout will only be confusing for the user and awkward for the one looking at it and it will do more harm to you than good. Expert suggests some things that should be kept in mind while designing an infographics. These things include making use of the negative space to make it more productive, adding bullets to the chunks of text so that it is easily readable and adding fonts that are easy to read and not too overwhelming for the looking eye.

Infographics for the Sake of Information

Infographics may have focus on the images but at the end of the day, its function is to provide information. The whole value of infographics come from the kind of information they contain. So when you set out creating infographics, you have to make sure that the content contained therein is worth sharing. It is best that you take out time to conduct research on your own and provide that to your graphic designer. This is, again, to make sure that the information you are giving out if relevant to your business and taken from authentic sources. You can also use secondary sources in case you cannot carry out research on your own.

Interactivity 

Making infographics interactive is the best thing as user wants to be engaged in the thing they are looking for. You can add Flash animation or video embedded in your page to enhance interactivity. This can also ensure that your readers will have something to look forward to when they come to your website.

Top 10 Restaurants In Social Media [Infographic]

If you're like most people, you go out to eat a lot. Chances are, you like to hang out at a major limited service food chain and are social when you're doin so. Between checking out specials on Foursquare, interacting with the brand on Facebook and Twitter and posting images on Instagram, there's a lot behind the inner workings of popular fast food brands on social media. Let's take a deeper look at the top players in social media when it comes to fast food.

Coming in first place for top restaurants is Starbucks Coffee. Starbucks Coffee has a total of 31,381,422 likes and growing. Starbucks actually beat out the world famous McDonald's, who came in second place with 21,768,039 likes.

There's just something about that caffeine boost and morning muffin that has people following Starbucks all over the web. Coming in first place, Starbucks coffee beat out everyone on the number of followers on Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest. Although, coming in second place for YouTube subscribers and scores on Klout, Starbucks really takes the cake in popularity on the Internet.

Since Starbucks Coffee was second place for YouTube and Klout, what took the gold for these social media sites? Burger King took the crown for YouTube subscribers with 27,488 people following the famous viral video site. Taco Bell took the first place rank on Klout with a score of 85.

Check out the infographic below to learn more about the top restaurants in social media.

Credit : QSRweb.com and Foodservice Social Media Universe

Total Online Presence - 7 Essential Stages

Online element's  importance are increasing with each passing day. But, marketing is a system, and to effectively operate this system you must assemble and integrate each of the important parts into something that looks like the whole.

Your online presence is your key to success no matter what your business sells – no matter if all of your transactions are done face to face – no matter if you don’t yet see a way to get a return from your Facebook page – no matter if you have never bought an online ad.

The main thing is to build a Total Online Presence, much like you would a tall, sturdy building, by constructing floor by floor in specific order or in stages. Your stages may differ just a bit based on where you are today and you’ll surely come back and revisit, add on and revamp each stage as you grow, but I believe the following model is the surest way to view your online marketing as a system.

Below are the 7 stages of building a Total Online Presence.

1. Content Platform

So much of what happens online revolves around content. It’s how you get found, why people pay attention and how you start to exchange value. Without a content platform to build from a great deal of effort in other stages will be wasted.

To me the content platform starts with building a listening station with tools like Google Alerts, TweetDeck, Trackur, Social Mention, Sprout Social orRadian6. From this point you can you can gain insight into your market, your competitors and important groups, such as key journalists, while starting the work of better understanding your most important keyword phrases.

Keywords are like chapters in your total body of content plan. Doing research, using tools such as Google Keyword Tool or Wordtracker, on the most important ways to show up when people search for a business like yours and creating blog posts around these chapters, using an editorial calendar approach, is how you fortify your content platform.

Once you start consistently creating content, you can produce valuable eBooks that will be the pivotal element of your email lead capture stage.

There’s really very little reason to play this game if your don’t put the effort in at this stage.

2. Organic SEO

Having someone type a search phrase that is key to your business and finding a blog post or page from your site on page one of the results is the ultimate payoff and, long-term, may be the difference between success and failure.

Search Engine Optimization can be complex and time consuming, but most businesses can generate significant results without making it so, if you simply focus on the following three elements.

Produce keyword rich, educational content – we covered this above, but search engines live on blog posts and other educational content. Use a tool like Scribe from Copyblogger to help you write more search engine friendly content.

Make it easy on the search engines – Make the on page elements such as your blog titles, URLs, ALT image attributes, subtitles and internal links work for you and use XML sitemaps that make it easy for search engines to grab your latest. Check out Search Engine News for great primer.

Draw lots of links naturally from other sites – Simply writing great content will start this process, but so will writing guest posts, uploading content to places like YouTube and Slideshare, making thoughtful comments on other blogs, submitting online press releases and amplifying your content in social networks. (Covered below)

3. Email Marketing

An engaged email list, eager to hear from you, is the most valuable asset your can build. 1000 responsive email followers trumps 25,000 Twitter followers every day when it comes to actually promoting the things that make your money.

Focus on building a list of email subscribers that want to hear from you and social media will become a tool set to help you do more of that.

Choose an email service provider (ESP) such as Constant Contact, GetResponse, AWeber, MailChimp or Infusionsoft and go to work on building email capture forms with the offer of your free eBook or weekly newsletter before you move on to social media.

GoDaddy email marketing is also offering very good service.

4. Social Media Marketing

This is certainly an area where you should consider strategy before tactics.

The first step is to understand how your current customers are using social media and how you can use social media to somehow serve them better. If you do that, you’ll get immediate value.

Create Twitter lists of customers and add their social profiles to your CRM tool. Add a tool like Rapportive to your email.

Then claim and build your profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Picasa, Slideshare and Pinterest.

Your plan to work and engage prospects in all of these networks may not be clear yet, but the first step is to claim the free real estate so you can start exploring.

Once you start to share content, build connections, reshare other people’s content and discover best practices in each individual network, you can begin to amplify your content and start finding ways to drive prospects to your eBook and newsletter in an attempt to start a relationship headed towards conversion.

5. Online Advertising

Many people waste advertising and then conclude it doesn’t work. Pay per click advertising can be very effective when done right. One of my favorite things about it is that a platform like Google AdWords allows you to test your thinking a dollar at a time.

Here’s my take on how to make ads pay – Use your ads to drive content awareness instead of simply to sell. Drive Facebook users to sign up for your eBook first and then you can sell them over and over again.

The basics of PPC are this: Use lots of punchy, dramatic ad copy, but test, revise and test. Create tightly focused ad groups with highly relevant ad copy, work negative keywords out of your list. Test some more.

6. Mobile and Location

Mobile is more of a behavior than a tool. The first step is to analyze what behaviors your customers are exhibiting before you dive into or dismiss Foursquare or text messaging.

I can assure you this however, your customers are reading content, searching for things to buy and using reviews to make decisions on mobile devices. Claim your location based profiles in places such as Foursquare andYelp.

Create mobile and tablet friendly viewing options with tools such asWPTouch, Tekora or GoMobi. Start creating mobile specific ads, landing pages, coupons and offers that take advantage the growing use of mobile devices as a major part of the purchasing process.

7. Analytics and Conversion

Like many stage-based processes there is a cyclical aspect as well. For some, creating benchmarks and key performance indicators is really the first step. So, if you’re one of those folks you can start here, because no matter where you are in the process this stage will always evolve.

Many people can’t start the process of measuring success until they are measuring in real time or can’t start the process of tweaking and testing until all of the elements are in place.

As you build make certain you install tracking code from a tools such as Google Analytics, Spring Metrics or KissMetrics so you can begin to build the data to test and refine from.

Then you can start building conversion goals, funnels and events, tracking your ads and split testing your landing pages, opt-in pages and sales pages to discover ways to increase conversion.

Even something as overwhelming and complex as the changing face of marketing online get just a bit more manageable I think when you start to view it as a system.

Source : Ducttapemarketing

6 Elements of Social Media Strategy

Here is a presentation on vital 6 Elements of Your Social Media Strategy to keep you and your staff on track. No matter where you are in your online marketing, whether you’re just getting started or are a veteran, it helps to have a reminder.

Image Credit : Google

1) Who is your audience?

Where do you start when it comes to a social media strategy? How do you begin a strategy when you’re not sure where to start? That’s what this series of articles will step you through: what you need to know so you can develop an effective social media strategy for your business. Your plan will look widely different from others taking this same course, because their business is unique from yours. No two strategies will be exactly alike. 

2) What are your goals?

You wouldn’t think of starting a business without a plan, would you? What about your marketing strategy? It’s critical that you identify goals for your social media strategy, because they will drive every decision you make, every tactic you use, and all the research you do.

3) Where are your customers in the social media landscape? 

What tools do they use? Let’s briefly review the most popular social media platforms and who you can reach using them:

Blogs

Readers tend to be under 45, but more seniors are catching on. Blogs, along with video, are the best way to increase your Google search engine ranking, and a fabulous method for reaching out to both new and existing customers. Be prepared though: blogs take time to do well and consistently. What do we recommend as  blogging platform with hosting? You should have WordPress with Dreamhost. Awesome customer service which is very important if you face any issue.

Email Newsletters

The deepest content channel of them all, they are great for reach existing customers and telling them what’s new with your business. Also great for educating customers because you have the space to do it. Key advantage of email newsletters is they appear in your customer’s inbox, but be savvy about your subject line, as Google’s Gmail is a tough spam blocker and often blocks credible content. I use iContact for their ease of use and superior customer service.

Facebook

Everyone is here, period. Whether you love or hate Facebook, if you do business with the general public, you need a Facebook page. On your wall, don’t make the mistake of hitting people over the head with a hard sell: give them helpful information that makes their lives better and relates to your product. The fastest growing demographic on Facebook? Females over 55. Best time to post on Facebook? 6-11p.m., when people are at home and spending leisure time on the internet.

Twitter

Micro-blogging in under 140 characters. Twitter is huge in metropolitan areas, for B2B networking, and for under 40 demographic. Excellent for restaurants. Upscale mobile taco stands in Los Angeles have customers lining up when they let them know their location for the day. Rural areas? Forget it.

YouTube

The second most-visited search engine, behind Google. If you don’t have a YouTube channel, you are missing out on customers, period. Your videos don’t have to be slick or expensively produced. Authentic is the new black. Get a Flip video camera and upload your own videos without breaking the bank. Great for new and existing clients, and people can subscribe to your videos, automatically getting new ones.

LinkedIn

Great for B2B networking and catching up with colleagues. After every in-person meeting you have professionally, make sure to connect via this social network. LinkedIn is a great platform to establish credibility by answering questions and find online groups in your niche.

4) When do you plan on communicating with your customers? 

How often? Do you currently have an advertising schedule that clearly defines when you advertise and in what publications? Start there.

Think in terms of your business calendar, and identify the seasonal nature of your product. If you’re an accountant, then April and October will be your busy periods, and you need get in touch with customers before those months. If you are a retailer, your merchandise changes with the seasons, and you want to let your customers know about your changing inventory.

5) Why should customers choose your company? 

What’s in it for them? Identifying the why in your social media strategy is often the toughest step, because it requires you to really differentiate your products from all the rest and tell why you’re special. Word to the wise? Don’t do it by belittling the competition: negativity only makes you look bad. Example? Negative campaign ads. When was the last time you felt good about voting for a candidate? If you and your competition spend too much time pointing out each other’s negatives, you both look bad and no one wins. You want loyal, raving fans.
6) How will you reach your clients? 

What tactics will you use? How will you incorporate the previous 5 W’s into your strategy? Here are several best practices for how to reach your customers via social media:

• No amount of outstanding social media will overcome poor quality products and services. Before you invest in online promotion, ensure you offer superior quality. Social sharing makes it simple to spread the word, and you want positive news being shared about your company.
• Educate instead of resorting to the hard sell. Once consumers feel you are competent, qualified, and trustworthy, they want to learn from you. Teach them.
• Give people a sample of your company by offering something for free in exchange for their contact information. I offered a free first chapter of my book, Color Mastery, and at the time I was the only one in my industry doing it. Readers could figure out whether my book was for them and where they could buy it.
• Make it easy to contact you and buy your product. Put your telephone number on every page of your website, along with all of your social network links. If you make it difficult to get in touch with you, people won’t, period.
• Incorporate your social media into every aspect of your business. Put your social network information on your receipts, invoices, and every printed marketing material you use. Have salespeople in the store remind buyers they can find you online and encourage them to do so.
• Give people an incentive to join your social network. Offer incentives, exclusives, or other special promotions exclusively for your email newsletter subscribers, Facebook fans, and Twitter followers.

Latest Trend In Social Advocacy By Donating Twitter Characters

You can donate clothes, canned goods, old eyeglasses and even your rusty ’87 Yugo to charity. Now a growing number of causes are urging donors to chip in their unused Twitter characters, too.

Image Credit : Google

It works like this: send a tweet through special app, and any unused space is filled up with a public-service announcement like “Support injured servicemen and women” and a link to the charity.

Groups are using it to drum up support for Japanese earthquake relief, fair trade efforts and – this month – the Wounded Warrior Project, which helps injured veterans.

“Many people add a bumper sticker to their car or wear an advocacy bracelet to show their support of a specific cause,” said Pam Wickham, vice president of communications for Raytheon, which is funding the Wounded Warrior effort. “But stickers and bracelets only have an effect on people who are actually there to see them. Social media advocacy has no limits — and better yet, it gets people actually engaged in your cause.”

Last year an ice cream company used the concept to promote May 14’s World Fair Trade Day. A website counter showed a running tally of donated characters.

The Japan Up relief campaign took a more visual tack, posting a graphic of a tattered Japanese flag that was slowly restored as people donated characters.

The idea is to contribute “social capital” as a kind of free publicity, said Mark Wilson of the Boston Group, which designed the Raytheon campaign.

“You’re basically donating your influence,” Wilson said. “It’s a very powerful indicator of participation.”

The Raytheon campaign, called Hashtags for Heroes, adds mobile applications for the Android, Blackberry, iPhone and iPad.

The Boston Group built the app in-house over 3½ months, Wilson said.

The Apple app store took about a week to test and approve the iPhone app. Approval from the Android and Blackberry app stores three or four days, Wilson said. None of the stores asked for any changes.

Programmers also built a set of browser plug-ins and a website. Stephanie Schierholz, a former NASA social media manager recently hired by Raytheon, helped guide the writing of 133 standardized tweets for the program.

Ads in Defense News, Politico, and the websites of the Wall Street Journal, the National Journal and Roll Call urge readers to download the apps. A video available on YouTube shows users how to use them.

Raytheon launched the program on May 3 and collected more than 87,000 characters in the first week. The company has also built a microsite featuring profiles of veterans, interviews, slideshows and a counter showing the total of donated characters.

“I think we’re at the beginning of a trend,” Wilson said. “In this day and age, that’s what it’s all about – connecting with as many people as possible with as great a frequency as possible, so that people learn more about this cause.”

While there’s no receipt and you can’t write it off on your taxes, these twitter donations can be just as powerful as cash, Wickham said. “Awareness and advocacy are powerful motivators in any community, and the online community is no different. “We’d love to see not just thousands of characters donated, but thousands of new supporters of the Wounded Warrior Project That’s the power of social media.”

Source : Socialnomics.com