Erik Qualman's Blog, page 574

5 Things to Think about Before Launching a Website

In e-business, just like in many other spheres, the success of an enterprise is determined at the stage of planning: no matter how hard you work later on, if you’ve made some blunders in the very beginning all your efforts may go down the drain.

Here are 5 things you should take into consideration before you launch your website. They don’t guarantee good results, but make them much more likely.

1.      Domain name

In ideal, it should repeat the name of your business – which is a yet another reason to have a brainstorming session and think up a really catchy, . Of course, as far as it is appropriate – people may find a funnily named funeral parlor to be in bad taste.

However, before you register your business under this name, check if it has already been taken – if the name is less original than you thought, you may have to think of something else.

2.      Hosting

Many beginners deal with the choice of hosting as an afterthought – which is a mistake. Performance, stability and overall speed of your site heavily depends on which web host you choose. This means that you should carefully study all available information about the hosts you are interested in and, preferably, ask their representatives additional questions: what kind of hardware they are using, whether they provide round-the-clock customer support, in what ways you can contact them and so on. To choose a good, respectable and stable host at the outset is much easier than to relocate your site further on.

3.      Usability

Your website should not simply look pretty – it should work as intended. Think who your potential and desired audience are, what their interests are, what they expect from your site, what they will like and what will annoy them. Make sure your site is easy to navigate, that you are not sidetracked by your own ingenious design decisions – make it inconvenient.

If you are not sure about something, the rule of the thumb is to avoid excessive complexity. Clean and simple is an all-time favorite of most people.

4.      Content

Whether you are going to start a blog or a static site, one thing is certain – in order to succeed you have to provide it with first-rate content. Times when it was enough to stuff a website with keywords to get into the top ten have long passed – modern search engine algorithms do their best to sift out sites that contain poor or plagiarized content. What is so special about your site, why people should prefer it to competitors? Make sure the content reflects your business’s unique features.

5.      Search Engine Optimization

The reverse is true as well – those who say that ranking is all about content now are as far from truth as webmasters who stuff their websites up to the eyeballs with keywords. SEO is far from being dead, and you should learn a thing or two about its current trends before starting out as a webmaster.

Starting a website isn’t hard – in fact, everybody can do it today. Starting a website that will be successful is a quite different story. But with some thought, effort and planning you’re likely to be on the right way.

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How a Solar Company Uses an App and Social Network to Connect With Customers

The kinds of people who invest in solar panels are usually the ones who are just a little obsessed with their household energy usage. SolarCity, a leader in full-service solar power systems, is banking on that enthusiasm to drive new business with a redesigned app that helps solar energy fans build their tribes while also keeping closer tabs on their real-time usage.

SolarCity’s newly relaunched MySolarCity app offers basic energy assessments via EnergyExplorer, shows usage stats, measures energy production and displays the cost per hour, but those metrics will all be familiar to anyone who is fanatical about energy. There are plenty of monitoring apps out there, after all (though not many that will let users track the location of visiting technicians). What makes the MySolarCity app different is the built-in social component.

While MySolarCity won’t show users the exact location or name of other SolarCity customers, it does display a map of nearby users. The newly designed app also gives solar energy devotees a place to chat, swap solar stories and even share photos of their installations.

“People are very excited [to share] that they’ve gone solar, but if you go to a BBQ or a bar, you can’t take your solar panels with you,” Peter Rive, SolarCity’s chief technology officer told the Washington Post. “The next best thing is to take out your phone.”

The app is more than just a fun extra for existing customers, of course. MySolarCity may eventually give the company a forum for market research and a means of spreading promotions via an already loyal and passionate fan base. More importantly, the app could fast track the mainstream adoption of solar panels via crowdsourcing.

SolarCity designed the app specifically to make it easy for existing customers to become brand ambassadors. Like Rive explained, it’s as straightforward as taking out the phone and pulling up a couple of photos of an installation with MySolarCity. Customers who pair their share with a sales pitch (think solar panel costs versus benefits) stand to earn $250 each when friends and family sign up. With plenty of information regarding solar panel costs and the ability to get a free quote online, existing customers can simply refer interested friends to SolarCity’s website. There’s even a game element – users can compare their referral numbers with other users from around the United States.

The company is working with a large network already, with more than 168,000 customers across the U.S. – the majority of which are residential. Considering that solar energy companies have found that traditional online marketing has been much less effective than word of mouth, it’s been challenging to find a means of using technology to draw new customers into the solar energy fold. Ideally, MySolarCity will bridge the gap between face-to-face referrals and sign ups. Future iterations of the app are set to include a “simple and frictionless” sign-up process modeled on technology used by Amazon and Uber.

All of this may add up to lower user acquisition costs for SolarCity and more visibility for solar energy, with loyal fans doing most of the heavy lifting. That’s not a bad set of returns for a single app.

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How to Attract Visitors to Your Site

There are two questions that bother webmasters: how to attract new visitors and how to keep them. Unfortunately, one thing doesn’t automatically presupposes the other – so let’s take a look at how it can be rectified.
1.      Holistic Approach

Most webmasters make one mistake when it comes to promoting their website, and this mistake make all the rest of their efforts futile: they concentrate on one aspect of their work while completely neglecting all the others. For example, they may make a bet on content marketing and forget about good old internal optimization, believing that its time has passed.

The path to victory is comprehensive approach to SEO. Advance in all directions at once, without forgetting a single way of increasing the number of your visitors.

2.      Testing: From Basic to Complex

Testing is what you should do regularly throughout your website’s lifespan, but especially in the very beginning. There are myriads of factors that may influence its performance, and without solid statistics to back you up you are going to move on blind, without proper understanding of what works and what doesn’t.

When you are just starting out, it is better to stick to the basics: site navigation (how easy it is to find things and place an order, how many clicks it takes), order process (the simpler the better), texts (infinite variations), opt-in offer (how good you are at getting your customers’ contact information).

How to get the traffic you need for testing? Simple – purchase it via Pay-Per-Click search engines.

3.      Free Content

There is not so much truly original content in the Internet, for all its worth. Most websites recompile, rewrite or simply copy content from other websites. Which doesn’t mean that you should do the same – on the contrary, you have an opportunity to stand out by bringing something genuinely new into the picture.

Start a fantastic blog, for example, with an accent on ‘fantastic’ – it should contain free content that would interest potential visitors, make them recommend your website to their friends and come back themselves again and again.

4.      Submit Your URL to Search Engines

Search engines like Google are one of the primary sources of traffic, and you should make sure you use them correctly. The first step is to submit your URL to those of them that interest you – although search engine spiders index websites irrespectively of whether they were submitted or not, it may take a lot of time – some sites have been known to wait for a couple of years before they were indexed.

5.      Keep Your Visitors with the Help of E-Mail Marketing

Most webmasters are hellbent on getting new visitors and think it is their main goal. It is not so: marketing research shows that it is much, much easier to sell product or service (and isn’t it the ultimate goal of almost any site?) to somebody who already bought something from you than to a completely new customer.

Do everything that is in your power to keep those who already came to you. Give them a reason to leave their contact information and make staying in touch with you worth their time: include useful tips in your newsletter, offer products that may interest them, provide freebies – it’s up to you to decide what exactly it will be.

Attracting visitors and search engine optimization in particular are similar to a fine art – one cannot learn all its complexities in one go. One has, however, to start somewhere – and by following these simple tips you will be able to get a good start that will allow you to build upon itself in future.

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Tips for Business Networking in Social Media

Networking — the “it’s not what you know, but who you know” concept — is still one of the strongest factors for building a business. Given technology’s ever-expanding presence in the workplace, companies have a unique opportunity to reach their target market on a very personal level by using social media.

The big three

There are dozens of social media sites on the Internet, but you’ll probably want to home in on what is generally acknowledged as the “Big Three.” Don’t worry about all the small, niche sites and concentrate your time, effort, and resources on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

For certain firms, Pinterest will have value as well, but here we’ll focus on the main three.

Networking with Facebook

Facebook is widely regarded as the most useful social media networking tool for businesses due to a number of reasons. First, it boasts the largest member group: an estimated 1.23 billion active users.

Second, its structure is conducive for establishing a group and effectively disseminating content. Here are a few tips to get you started:

Customize your URL. When you sign up for a business page, Facebook will automatically generate a URL for it. It’ll typically be something like “facebook.com/dfij3847.” Instead of relying on that hard-to-search, difficult-to-remember URL, you should customize it to something closer to your preference (such as “facebook.com/mycompany”). Facebook readily allows this.

Complete contact information. One of the first things you need to do is complete your page’s contact information. Don’t leave anything blank and make sure everything’s accurate. People use Facebook all the time to find local businesses, and inaccurate contact information will cause you to lose out on potential customers.

Push quality content. Facebook is an extremely valuable tool for content distribution and sharing. Use that to your advantage by frequently posting links that are of interest and use to your followers.

Networking with Twitter

Twitter is quite different from Facebook, but it can better in many respects. As a sort of real-time newsfeed, it’s a great way to find out what’s going on and let people know about new developments in your business. For an example of a great profile, check out ParkViewLegal.com’s Twitter handle.

Here are a few tips:

Research your industry. You can use Twitter to find out what’s happening in your field and then contribute your own thoughts to the general conversation. When people begin to see you as a thought leader, they will want to follow you.

Balance Tweets. According to social media experts, you should follow the 80/20 rule, in which only 20 percent of your Tweets are brand-related calls to action. The other 80 percent should be interesting, valuable, and shareable content.

Interact, don’t bark. When you start to follow the 80/20 rule, you’ll also begin to understand the concept of interacting with followers rather than barking at them. Facilitate discussion, answer questions, pose questions; don’t just try to sell.

Networking with LinkedIn

LinkedIn was specifically designed for business networking, so it offers built-in capabilities that make it easy and comfortable to network. Here are some brief tips for effectively navigating LinkedIn:

Be proactive. The great thing about LinkedIn is that you don’t have to be shy about networking with people. Everyone is there for the same purpose. You basically have a free pass to reach out to people and discuss business.

Don’t stay online. Although LinkedIn is an online networking tool, the most successful users are the ones who link up online and then carry the relationship over to real life.

Be honest. Everyone knows that lying on your resume is a big no-no, but what about your LinkedIn profile? It’s a no-no here, too. Simply put: Don’t do it!

These tips should help you become better at networking on social media. Try to stay updated on new changes and developments, because these platforms have a tendency to alter their appearance and approach quickly and frequently.

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The Power of Visual Storytelling Within Social Media

Social media has revolutionized the way that companies communicate with their customers, making room for a two-way conversation instead of a one-way dialogue.  And one of the ways that the best companies are taking advantage of social media is through storytelling – visual storytelling, that is.

Done correctly, visual storytelling has the ability to enhance consumer engagement, increase interactions, and solidify customer retention.  Take National Geographic for example. In the 2014 Social Media Publisher Ranking report published by Shareablee, Nat Geo garnered a whopping 46.4 million engagements across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. How did they do this? By bridging the social and natural worlds through compelling visual storytelling. Your company can have the same impact.

Telling the Right Visual Story for Your Company

This generation has been dubbed the Information Age, but perhaps a more accurate depiction would be the Information Overload Age. The right visual storytelling can break through the clutter of constant messaging and blatant advertisements with impactful, eye-catching stories.

To make a powerful visceral experience, remember these three factors:

Your content needs to be authentic. Consumers want to see the human side of your brand – show them that. Give them real moments and real people, and deeper engagement will come.

Your story must possess character. The images that resonate with an audience and that get shared are images that have an emotive element, that reaches out to the viewer. No matter whether it’s an infographic, video, chart, or vine, add life to your brand.

Your message should be relevant. To avoid seeming outdated, your visual story should be both culturally relevant and applicable to your audience. If it’s not relevant, it’s not shareable; and if it’s not shareable, then you aren’t connecting with consumers; and if you’re not connecting with consumers, then what’s the point? There is none.

Effectively Measuring Your Social Media Campaign Success

Social media is your brand’s public face, so it’s important to understand what message you are communicating and how effectively you’re engaging your audience with your visual storytelling. Companies can do this by tracking and analyzing social media campaign data across all social, SEO, and relevant marketing medium.

Boiling it down, here are the top three things to track to analyze the effectiveness of your social media campaign:

Look at the power of your reach. This can help assess the impact of your message to see how attractive your content is to consumers. Examples of your reach include likes on your Instagram post or Facebook page, visitors to your blog, etc. Klout and Radian 6 are great tools to help determine your reach, get insights on what the online world is saying about your company or product, and even see how your competition is faring.

Check out the level of your engagements. This can provide feedback on how customers are interacting with your visual content. Low engagement means it may be time to rethink your social media strategy. Engagement can equate to shares of your content, retweets, comments on your blog posts, clicks on your social media posts, etc.

Analyze the number of successful customer and conversion rates. Conversion rates constitute actions that consumers took because of your content that bring anonymous users into actual leads in your sales process. Examples of conversions include online purchases, filled out contact forms, increased traffic, downloads, etc. Google Analytics is a reliable free application to monitor these purposes.

 

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Basic Guideline For Writing Terrific Comments On Social Media

Leaving comments on social media has several benefits. It keeps you actively engaged in the online community where sharing and commenting is an important part of adding value to a post. It’s a way to make contacts by sharing with others who are writing about similar subjects or selling similar products. It’s also a great way to promote your own brand or product. Sometimes a well-written and interesting comment can earn more likes and shares than the post they were written on.

That being said, it’s important to note that there’s a certain etiquette to follow when making comments. Off-topic comments, shameless self-promotion and name-calling are certain ways to turn you into a social media pariah. If you’re an active blogger, writing bad comments can really damage the reputation of your brand or product. Follow these guidelines to earn the positive attention of the poster and other commenters.

Comment early. Comments that show up early on the posts are read more often than those that are added later. Most readers won’t scroll to the end or click on the next page to see the rest of the post’s comments. The earlier you comment, the greater your visibility.

Show your expertise. If you’re commenting on a post that brings up topics on which you’re an expert, let people know. Write an insightful comment that shows your knowledge and experience of the subject. If you feel the blogger has missed an important point, mention it in your comment.

Agree to disagree. It’s okay to post a comment that disagrees with the poster’s point of view. Be polite and respectful in your comment while letting them know where your thoughts differ on the subject. Chances are, if the subject is polemical, readers will fall on one side or the other of the issue. Writing a respectful comment that disagrees with the author may make you the leader of the other side’s cause.

Ask a question. Asking a question is a great way to get people engaged in a conversation. Many commenters may feel the need to respond. Make sure your question is relevant to the subject and helps to carry the discussion forward.

Cite a relevant example. If you have an example that relates to the subject and adds value to the post, by all means, share it. Personal examples often lend credibility to a discussion.

Don’t stray. Your comments should always be relevant to the topic introduced in the post. Straying off topic is a sure way to annoy the author and other commenters.

Include links to your own blog or website. Some people shy away from this for fear of seeming “spammy” while others shamelessly self-promote, including links and tags that are totally irrelevant to the topic without bothering to write a comment. If you have something insightful to add, there’s nothing wrong with including your links along with your comment.

It’s a way to continue the conversation and bring traffic to yourself. The internet is a community and if someone is writing about things that are relevant to your own work, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with giving those readers access to your links. This way readers can continue to seek out information that interests them.

Always be respectful. No matter what type of comment you leave, make sure to always respect the writer and other commenters. Never resort to insults, name-calling or profanity when writing a comment. We all know what it feels like to read someone’s rant in the comment’s section. Don’t be that person.

Format matters. Don’t use bold, italics, caps or exclamation points in your comments. The words speak for themselves without all that extra noise. IT CAN MEAN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A TASTEFUL COMMENT AND A RANT!!!!!! See what I mean?

Length matters, too- Write a comment, not a book. This goes along the lines of being respectful. You’re writing a comment on someone else’s post. If your comment is longer than the post itself, well, that’s a problem. Those who know how to say what they have to say succinctly are the kings of the comments section. On the other hand, extra-short comments like “Great post” or “Well done” don’t really add any value to the post. Find the happy medium.

Now you’re ready to go out there and rock the comment’s section.

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Social Media Monitoring: Know Your Customers AND Competitors

We all know how influential social media marketing can be. But to truly be successful, you must add some sleuthing to your campaign.

Social media monitoring is one of the most often overlooked opportunities. Take the time to get to know your current customers, your prospective customers and your competitors.

Doing it DIY Style

I’ve been reading tons of articles lately that feature cool apps, tools and programs that can make your spying easier and more efficient.

Sure, those tools are great—but they aren’t free. I’d argue there is still some value in the old fashioned sleuthing—the DIY, free kind.

So, I got in there and did it myself. And let me tell you. It wasn’t always pretty. But it was insightful. Let me show you a few examples of what I found and how these techniques might help you better understand what’s out there for your brand.

What I Learned

One of our clients sells cornhole boards. I figured if I was going to start somewhere, checking out the “cornhole” buzz on social media was a good place to start.

Surely it would provide both high quality leads and a bit of whimsy.

Oh, boy…did it ever! Watch out.

1. Social Media Helps You Understand Just How Diverse Your Target Audience Is

Many companies use analytics, data, and all sorts of other indicators to help them identify their target audience. Sure, these things are helpful. Knowing that the average customer is male, between the ages of 24 and 30, lives in a large city and ate Wheaties for breakfast is helpful.

However, there is nothing–and I mean nothing–but social media that could tell you this person…

…and this person are in the same cornhole demographic.

2. Honesty is Always the Best Policy

Social media has turned customer service upside down. In the past, a disgruntled customer might call you up and yell obscenities at you.

That sure would be terrible for your customer service representative, but the unpleasantness would stop there. The angry customer might spout off to everyone he knows, but that limited contact wouldn’t do much damage to your brand.

Now, that unhappy person can go online and tear you a new one…and everyone will know.

You’ll never be able to please everyone, but your chances are increased greatly if you are always honest and forthcoming about your products, services and abilities.

3. Learn about Problem-Solving Opportunities

You can apply this tip to a big-picture outlook. What are your customers saying about your product? What features, services, or products are they looking for? How are your competitors solving problems?

However, you can also apply this to a smaller scale. You don’t always need to solve everyone’s problems. Just solve the problems that are within your purview.

This guy was hosting a family cornhole tournament. Perhaps he could use just a few more cornhole game sets.

What if my client reached out with a comment like, “Hey man! It looks like you need a few more cornhole boards! The next time the family is coming to town, give us a call. We’ll give you 10% off your next order.”

Problem solving doesn’t always have to be about making a sale. If you really offer a helpful solution, the sale will come naturally.

For example, maybe this guy…

…needed something like, “Cornhole is definitely an acquired skill! I just wrote a killer blog article about how to score a hole-in. Why don’t you check it out? Here’s the link…”

4. Shine the Spotlight on Someone Else

Sometimes the best way to draw attention to yourself isn’t to draw attention to yourself. Confused?

I found this cornhole competitor and was inspired by his tactics. Sure, he was showing off his mad craftsmanship skills, but he did it humbly.

“Pretty awesome logo right here.” Not, “Pretty awesome paint job.” This guy was complimenting his customer’s artwork, not his own.

5. Check Alternative Hashtags

Hashtags are valuable marketing tools. The first way you can use them is to check negative feedback. Yeah, I said negative.

See if there are any negative hashtags associated with your competitors. If so, swoop in and save the day. See if you can fix what your competitor couldn’t.

Next, consider alternate search terms. You might set out on your social media monitoring quest with one keyword in mind. After you get into it, you might get lead down a different path. If that happens, follow it.

Cornhole is sometimes known as corn toss or bags. When I came across this post, I was inspired to try a new direction.

Of course, it wasn’t always profitable, but now I know!

6. Get the Scoop on New Product Ideas

Obviously, you’ll want to check which products your competitor is selling (and selling well) that are missing from your own inventory.

However, the research isn’t always so cut and dry. Social media monitoring allows you to be creative—think outside the box.

For example, this family is apparently pretty intense when it comes to cornhole. They made a trophy for their family competition.

Not all families are that dedicated to the sport. But, there are plenty of cornhole tournaments that take place each and every day. Most of those tournaments offer prizes of some sort. What if a cornhole board supplier also offered trophies? Would that be a profitable venture? It might be worth a little testing!

7. Connect With Industry Influencers

Social media monitoring is a popular endeavor. But most people only focus on the customers and competitors. Don’t forget about the industry influencers too.

Get your products on their radar.

This post…

…needed a comment like, “Good luck with your upcoming tournament! Let us know if you need any supplies. We’ll make sure you get the best prices for your boards, bags—whatever you need!”

What do you think? Obviously, some of the obnoxiousness of cornhole came through with these examples, but I’m sure your brand’s products are just as entertaining!

Give social media monitoring a try. Then come tell us what you learned.

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How to Create Solid Marketing Content for Social Media

Content marketing has taken up a lot of the slack left by the decline of print advertising; it’s grown into one of the most-used tools for making an impression on customers, old and new.

In recent years, social media has expanded to become an incredibly powerful way to promote your brand online. In fact, it’s pretty much necessary to maintain a social media presence to get relevant content noticed, and that means devising a fully optimized content strategy.

Creating an effective social media strategy isn’t easy. It must work on multiple fronts to attract and convert customers, and grow in relevance as an Internet presence. Take a look at the following principles for designing your social media content strategy.

Social media and content marketing are similar

The key to approaching your social media strategy is not to get scared off by the apparent novelty of social media. If you have a content marketing strategy at all, you’re already well on your way.

Social media and content marketing are both designed to pique customer interest and boost search engine rankings. The main advantage of social media is the ease with which it can be shared.

Your social media strategy doesn’t have to be especially different from your content marketing strategy. The central difference when you’re devising content for social media is making its shareability a top priority.

Social media gives your business the potential to reach hundreds of thousands of people who would otherwise be unavailable to you. Create content your customers would be interested in sharing.

Target your messages

According to Betty Bennett, the Director of Content for Vorongo.com, “Writing quality content is easier when you know whom you’re writing for.”

When you launch your business, you likely have a certain set of customers in mind who are apt to be interested in your product or service. Many businesses find that, in practice, they attract customers they didn’t expect.

An excellent facet of social media is that it makes it very easy to learn who your followers are. You can target your content and messages to be more interesting to those people and encourage greater engagement.

Engage your followers with content that’s relevant to their interests. This will encourage them to share your content.

 

Timing is key

 

You can create an excellent post for your Twitter or Facebook page. But if you post it at the wrong time, it could die an instant death.

 

While there’s no particular “best” time to post on social networks, some windows are more likely to be the times when people are going to engage with your content. Engagement is what you’re after; if your fans see a post and don’t react in any way, that’s not going to help your business.

 

Different social networks offer different optimal times for posting. For Facebook, it’s better to post between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. For Google+, the window of 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. is preferable.

 

With Twitter, people tend to get the best results between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., and on Instagram, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Later in the evening, between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., is preferable for Pinterest followers.

 

Repurpose

 

Each social networking platform has another audience for you to reach. While there may be overlap among your fans, you shouldn’t underestimate how far a quality post can go if it’s posted in two places rather than one. When you create solid social media content, you definitely should post it in more than one place.

 

If a piece of content is doing well on one site, don’t hesitate to post it more than one time on that particular site. People turn to social media at different times throughout the day.

 

Though it’s certainly a good idea to post during each site’s optimal time, reposting at a different time gives you an opportunity to catch people who missed it the first time around.

What’s more, people who saw your post the first time and but were busy can more easily catch up if you post it again. Your content is valuable; don’t hesitate to re-post it.

Go visual

A social media post should be regarded as a kind of teaser for bigger content. People tend to scroll past text walls, even if they’d be interested in the content if in a different context.

One great way to capture attention and encourage people to read on is through visual content. That can drive traffic to your website, your services, and your products. It can also help you reach new audiences because it’s sharable.

On Twitter in particular, one way to get around the restrictive character limit is to post an image. This draws people in to read your brief statement, and can encourage them to find out more.

Improve your posts by looking at past content

Your first social media post probably isn’t going to be your best one. If you keep posting, however, you’ll eventually create content that engages people and inspires them to share it.

This will help you learn what kind of content your customer base responds to, so in the future you can create better material. Tools are available online to analyze the performance of your posts and the keywords they contain.

Creating an effective social media strategy takes time, commitment, and expertise. These tips should offer you a baseline for getting started.

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Social Media Marketing Pain Points for Small Businesses and How to Deal with Them

Small businesses are often apprehensive about social media and if it can really help in business growth. This anxiety usually comes from not knowing the ropes or being unaware of how social media can be used to an advantage. Managing a dozen social media accounts at a time can be intimidating, and it may not bring out the expected results. Most business owners, in this scenario, drop the idea of promoting their services on social networks thinking it probably isn’t their cup of tea. The good news however, is that it is possible to be completely comfortable with using social media accounts for promotion. Once the pain points related to social media marketing are addressed, you can easily start promoting your services and products on social networks with poise and confidence. Here are a few of those pain points:

Lack of knowledge about social media

Sole proprietors and small business owners are not always aware of the endless benefits of social media. They are also not in tune with what goes on in the social media sphere, and how their businesses can take advantage of it. In such cases, managing multiple social media accounts can be difficult, especially for those who are just starting out. If you are struggling with this problem, there are various how-to websites that offer tips and advice. You can learn to set up an account, post images, links and blog posts. There are also videos that can show you a step-by-step processes to help you get on the right track.

Content curation

Creating content on a daily basis can be difficult, especially if you are writing about the same subject day in and day out. At some point, you might feel like you have reached a dead end and can’t think of interesting content anymore. Know that your audience will be quick to pick up on any decrease in the quality of your posts. To ensure that your content is consistent in quality and is informative, you can try automating your content by signing up for content discovery tools such as:

Swayy – offers personalized content recommendations after observing your browsing patterns and behaviour on the Internet.

Buzzsumo – provides the most widely shared content that can be posted across all social media networks.

AutoSocial – discovers content that is engaging and relevant to your niche audience, and queues it for posting via Twitter or Facebook.

These tools can look for engaging articles, videos, blog posts, and news stories that are relevant to your business and can automatically post them to your social media accounts killing two birds with one stone. You can also refurbish older content and twist it so it relates to something more recent.

Compliance with rules and regulations

Many social networking websites have a set of terms and conditions laid out for users. Knowing these rules is important if you want to avoid getting into any kind of legal trouble. Social media platforms are where your consumers will be conversing about your business. Instead of running away from an opportunity like this, it might be a good idea to participate in the conversation without being worried about breaking rules. You don’t necessarily have to sell a product on social media. You can safely promote your business while abiding by the rules by sharing general tips and advice posts or posting notifications about any upcoming events that you might be hosting.

Measuring business profits from social media

Pitching the idea of using social media for business promotion to the C-Suite can be an obstacle. Things like number of comments, likes, followers, subscribers hardly mean anything when it comes to number of sales and revenue generation. You can use tools such as Google Analytics to convert social media efforts into actual numbers. But it is important to remember that sales numbers and social media efforts go hand in hand when it comes to boosting intangible benefits like brand reputation and customer loyalty.

About the author

Jessica Davis is a Content Strategy expert at Godot Media, a leading content services company. She works with other writers to create engaging and effective web content for businesses and individuals. She is also interested in technology, social media and fashion.

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Entertainment Companies Dialed in to Social Media

For companies that are in the entertainment business, social media is one of a number of great tools that can help dial-in consumers to a variety of viewing options.

From television to the Internet, more and more companies have discovered that being active on major social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest etc. is in essence a no-brainer.

So, how can businesses such as Direct TV and others cash-in on this with their social networking efforts?

Among the ways are:

Interaction – The first and biggest key for such companies is to continually interact with consumers. Whether they are a current or potential customer, regular interaction is a must. Ways to go about this include answering any and all inquiries that consumers have, providing links to relevant programming information and offers that are of interest to consumers, and guiding consumers to other sites that are of interest to them. One example of this is Sirius XM, which has more than 100,000 followers alone on Twitter. Look at the company’s Twitter page and you will see a bunch of relevant links to interesting company programming ;
Reliability – Nothing irks consumers more than when they have to wait around for answers to their questions. If a consumer sends you a message on your site’s Facebook fan page or Twitter, don’t let it sit there unanswered for hours and even days at a time. All you’re doing in this case is making it appear that you do not have time for them, basically saying to them that they are not that important. Most major companies have an individual or even teams dedicated strictly to social media efforts. If you do not already have this (whether you are an entertainment provider or not), get on it in 2015;
Professionalism – The last but certainly not the least of important social areas is being professional. Face it; some consumers are going to be a pain in the neck for lack of a better term. They will take the chance to complain about anything and everything. It is important for your business to always look professional on social media. If a consumer wants to take issue with you and/or your business, nip the problem in the bud sooner rather than later. Do NOT engage in banter back-and-forth on social media; this simply comes across to the layman as unprofessional.

As more and more businesses come to terms with the fact that being socially active is key to their success, look for an uptick in social media activity in 2015 and beyond.

From well-known entertainment companies to the little cable, radio or Internet provider in small towns across America, social media is and will continue to be a great tool with which to entertain consumers.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of Ambro at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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