Last updated 1 year ago
In this day and age, social media must be one of your top priorities for increasing the online visibility of your online business. Social networks are so popular & have such a massive reach across the globe, you would be mad not to tap into this method of online marketing.
Although social media is a great source of targeted traffic and potential clients, you must learn how to approach each specific network to get the best response. You cannot literally open an account, spam all your product or service links on peoples profiles and expect to generate sales. That is not why people have a social network account in the first place.
After all, people are generally on social networks to connect with friends, be entertained by playing games and sharing their favorite links, videos or music with each other, so you must think outside of the box to fulfill the needs of social network users, yet integrate subtle marketing messages that will not bombard users with endless marketing jargon.
Your campaign must be fun, entertaining and useful enough to persuade people to share it with their network of friends. Something controversial that’s related to your target market has a better chance of going viral than a boring marketing message that’s designed specifically to generate sales. Never go for direct sales, this puts people off and will make it much harder for you to connect with your target audience.
Check out BlueCross BlueShield’s video that went viral via Social Media:
Not only can social media be a very effective, viral marketing method, but it also offers you the opportunity to defend and develop relationships with new and existing customers. Providing several different methods of communication on sites such as Facebook and Twitter, will enable you to broadcast new promotions or even provide support to any issues your customers face.
Remember, a happy shopper equals long term profit & word of mouth marketing. If you are quick to respond to issues posted on your social networks, people tend to share your Facebook pages, updates and promotions more willingly.
With professional Facebook applications becoming more popular, you can use these within your campaigns to better engage social network users. By using the viral capabilities, every time someone connects & uses your app, you gain free exposure on the profiles of your users. Once again, you must ensure to create an entertaining application that provides something useful to the social network users, but at the same time, you can integrate subtle marketing messages for massive exposure and brand awareness.
Do you have a Facebook and/or Twitter page for your business? How often do you post? What sort of success are you seeing?
About Alan Moore: Alan is an Internet Marketing Consultant with ReachLocal Baltimore. His mission is to help you increase your revenues and decrease unproductive advertising expenses through proven, online marketing strategies. He manages over $1,600,000 in yearly marketing budgets and has worked with local businesses, agencies and the US government. Give him a call at (877)655-3438 to schedule a Free Online Marketing Consultation.
To read more of the article that inspired this blog, please visit: http://www.mashable.com/2012/02/26/clever-social-media-campaigns/
Last updated 1 year ago
When online business owners think of content marketing, the most popular methods followed would include article writing with submission & blog or guest blog posting. Although content marketing allows you to develop search engine presence, it’s more important to create content designed for your audience, rather than creating this directly for the search engines.
First and foremost, independent research of specific areas within your business sector can be used very effectively, due to the interest you can develop from major players within your market. If your market research is relevant, it can create viral distribution, as many other content writers within the same market may cite your findings & opinions on their website.
Rather than writing content especially to rank within the search engines for specific keywords, you must think of your readers first. Providing compelling content that actually provides useful information will provide your content marketing campaign with much more exposure due to the fact that people share and distribute information of value.
Developing yourself into an authority within your business sector is of great importance. The more useful information you provide, the more people will follow and share your content with their own network of business associates via social networking. You are also easily able to add sharing buttons within your website or blog to encourage viral distribution.
It’s important to note that the internet is powered by fresh content, which is required by people searching for products, services and information related to your business. Rather than traditional methods such as “interruption marketing” which includes television commercials or direct mail, content marketing allows you to deliver information requested by the consumer which generates authority & credibility.
The most successful content marketers will initially provide the valuable content without any sales agenda, but will include periodic sales messages which enable you to break through the barrier of sales resistance. It’s much easier to sell something online to someone who does not feel obligated to make an instant purchase, as people can recognize value.
You will be much more successful within your content marketing if the content you provide rewards your readers. Will your content provide a solution to common issues? Will your content entertain your readers? Providing content that covers these two points will increase the response you gain from within your market and will entice new & existing clients to open your emails and read your content, as your name will be known for delivering consistent quality.
Once your readers know, trust and follow you, its becomes so much easier to increase your revenue using content marketing, as long as you take the subtle approach to promoting your products and services.
Do you blog about your industry, product(s) or service(s)? Why or why not?
About Alan Moore: Alan is an Internet Marketing Consultant with ReachLocal Baltimore. His mission is to help you increase your revenues and decrease unproductive advertising expenses through proven, online marketing strategies. He manages over $1,600,000 in yearly marketing budgets and has worked with local businesses, agencies and the US government. Give him a call at (877)655-3438 to schedule a Free Online Marketing Consultation.
To read more of the article that inspired this blog, please visit: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/to-blog-or-not-to-blog-that-is-the-question/42315/
Last updated 1 year ago
In this age of fast advancing technology, retailers need to pay close attention to mobile marketing as a way to increase sales, both online and in-store. More and more companies are realizing the power of mobile marketing and making it a part of their ongoing advertising strategy.
It's no secret that tablet and smartphone owners use these devices for consumer shopping, but the role they play as far as actual purchases varies. While many use mobile devices as launch points to shop for goods and services, they often end up buying in-store. Often they use the mobile channel for researching goods while out and about, but later purchase online at home.
"US Digital Consumer Report" reported 29% of the owners of smartphones used their device for shopping activities as follows:
* 32% for online product reviews
* 38% for browsing apps and/or the mobile web
* 38% for comparison pricing
An after holiday consumer shopping study conducted by Google reflected the following:
* 46% of those who used their smartphones for holiday shopping did online research and then went physically into the store to make their purchase
* 37% said they did research online and then purchased online via computer
So regardless of how the final purchase was made, in-store or online, mobile marketing devices played a part in the holiday shopping process.
Retailers Need to Be Prepared
The consensus is that consumers are way ahead of retailers when it comes to the mobile shopping experience, even though you would think retailers would already be fully prepared for and committed to making the experience highly optimized for the user.
Google's retail industry director advised eMarketer that retailers are in need of making vast improvements in how they connect with the mobile shopper, both online and in-store. Failing to keep up with the advancements can make a big difference in the bottom line; it is important to appeal to this fast growing trend of online mobile shoppers.
As retailers structure their advertising campaigns, they need to consider peak usage times. For example, on weekends there are surges in smartphone usage related to shopping, but during weekdays the spikes occur after work hours. Using research statistics is essential for mobile marketers because it is fairly certain mobile channel usage for shopping purposes will only continue to increase.
ReachCast is ReachLocal's award winning solution for business owners who wish to outsource their web presence optimization (Search Engine Optimization, Social Media and Reputation Management rolled into one) to trained experts in the field of Internet Marketing.
Is your website mobile friendly? Are you surprised that so many consumers are using mobile devices to “do business”?
About Alan Moore: Alan is an Internet Marketing Consultant with ReachLocal Baltimore. His mission is to help you increase your revenues and decrease unproductive advertising expenses through proven, online marketing strategies. He manages over $1,600,000 in yearly marketing budgets and has worked with local businesses, agencies and the US government. Give him a call at (877)655-3438 to schedule a Free Online Marketing Consultation.
To read more of the article that inspired this blog, please visit: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008871
Last updated 1 year ago
For business owners looking to increase their Hispanic social media marketing presence, there is good news. US Hispanics spent more of their Internet time on social sites than other ethnic groups; this according to a recent survey from BigInsight. On an average day, 26% of Hispanic Internet users in the US spent six or more hours on social media sites.
The social media sites benefit greatly by having this large segment of the US population spending so much time on their sites, especially Facebook and Twitter. Stepping up your social media marketing on these sites could help you grab the attention of your target audience, at a place where they spend a lot of their time.
Furthermore, US Hispanics were early adapters, spending more time on newer and smaller social network sites like Pintrest and LinkedIn. So, business owners can also grow a following by targeting Hispanics on these upstart social sites. More data about when and which sites Hispanics prefer will be important for business owners to further target Hispanic users.
With so many Hispanics spending so much time on social sites, the social media sector is a great place to find new followers and customers by specifically targeting Hispanics through Hispanic social media marketing.
Were you surprised by the finding of the survey? The Hispanic market is enormous; are you targeting that segment of the population to help grow your business? Why or why not?
About Alan Moore: Alan is an Internet Marketing Consultant with ReachLocal Baltimore. His mission is to help you increase your revenues and decrease unproductive advertising expenses through proven, online marketing strategies. He manages over $1,600,000 in yearly marketing budgets and has worked with local businesses, agencies and the US government. Give him a call at (877)655-3438 to schedule a Free Online Marketing Consultation.
To read more of the article that inspired this blog, please visit: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008877
Last updated 1 year ago
Everyone is trying to game Google’s algorithm into ranking them higher than their competitor. Several hundred factors, called “signals”, go into the algorithm that populate the search engine results page whenever you do a Search on Google. Hundreds of factors! The best search engine optimization firms in the world know the basics: content, links, authority, relevance which for now appear to be most important to the Google algorithm. More recently though, it appears social media and online reputation along with “connected search results” from friends that make up your online circle appear to be gaining speed as well. It is all very complicated to say the least, in a day in age, where even personal searches you do on your computer behaviorally steer the search engine results page after looking up something on Google.
Very complicated, indeed.
“The query is sent back to Google through the Internet,” Google Fellow Ben Gomes told Jon Mitchell. “Typically, this is a journey of over 750 miles in either direction. We have data centers all over the world, but, on average, your query travels about 1,500 miles.”
Were you aware that in the split second between hitting enter on your keyboard and the results appearing on your screen that the information you sent travels that far? I never really thought of it either.
Technology, isn’t it amazing?
About Alan Moore: Alan is an Internet Marketing Consultant with ReachLocal Baltimore. His mission is to help you increase your revenues and decrease unproductive advertising expenses through proven, online marketing strategies. He manages over $1,600,000 in yearly marketing budgets and has worked with local businesses, agencies and the US government. Give him a call at (877)655-3438 to schedule a Free Online Marketing Consultation.
To read more of the article that inspired this blog, please visit: http://www.webpronews.com/how-far-does-your-google-search-query-travel-2012-03
