Tim Priebe's Blog, page 25

Creating your MailChimp Campaign

When you first sign up for MailChimp, you set up your account, create your list, and create a template. Those are typically all one-time activities. So once those are done, it's time to start creating Campaigns.

In MailChimp's terminology, a Campaign is essentially an email blast. So each time you want to send an issue of an e-newsletter, or maybe a one-off promotional email, that's a Campaign.

Type of Campaign

When you log into MailChimp, there's a button at the top right to create a campaign....

Online marketing book and consultation giveaway

When talking to people about utilizing blogs and social media for their business or nonprofit, I frequently hear, “I know I should be doing it, but have no clue what I'd write about.”

If that sounds familiar, you're not alone! Earlier this year I published two books aimed at helping you overcome that issue. Now we're giving away a few copies of those online marketing books.

Blog a Week

We tend to work with clients who wear many hats, not just online marketing. When it comes to blogging for busi...

Online photo sharing platforms

It can be difficult to determine where you should display your photos online. A good first step is to review the different options that are out there.

While this is certainly not a complete list, here are some of the more popular places to display and share your photos online.

Facebook

If your photos include a lot of people in them who would be happy to share them with their friends, then you should share them through your organization's Facebook Page.

Either post them on your wall or upload them...

Determining the best online photo sharing location

Many organizations have a need to display photos online. It may be for products, services, events, staff, their location, or something else entirely. In years past, it was fairly obvious where those photos went: On their website. But now that social media is an option, including some websites that revolve around photo sharing, the water seems a bit muddied.

So how do you determine where your photos should go online? Should they be on your website, on social media, or on both?

The short answer i...

Blogging to demonstrate expertise

People do business with those they know, like, trust, and value. A huge part of that is trust. People trust you in part when you establish yourself as an expert before they even meet you. So how can a blog help you establish that expertise?

Blog In Your Own Voice

To trust you, your readers need to feel that you’re a real person. If your blog is cold and impersonal, they won’t have that feeling.

That’s not to say that your blog has to be extremely informal. It needs to match your company culture....

7 best practices to build your audience online

Social media management can be a challenge. You have to worry about setting up sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn the correct way. You have to share updates on a consistent basis. And you need to build your audience.

While all of those are important, ultimately marketing online is pointless without an audience. If you have no audience, you’re really just wasting your time on your website, social media and email newsletter. And it can be embarrassing on the platforms where peop...

4 tips for your web video strategy

YouTube has been the second most popular search engine since 2008, beating out all other search engines except Google. And Google actually owns YouTube, and incorporates videos into its main search results. Also, almost all adult Internet users have watched videos online.

So it’s obvious that video marketing online can be effective, especially in terms of SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Let’s look at four tips you can use to create your web video marketing strategy.

1. Set up a YouTube Channel...

The 3 best MailChimp features

If you're running an email newsletter, or considering starting one, there are a lot of options out there to choose from. The decision making process isn't always easy. But we at T&S have consistently recommended MailChimp for the last few years.

Here are a few features that may resonate with you. At the very least, they're features I've found useful.

Content Blocks

If you use one of MailChimp's built in basic templates, you'll have access to their Email Designer. Part of what that lets you do is...

Build your company’s LinkedIn followers, guaranteed

For many, it's a no-brainer to have a presence on LinkedIn. And many organizations go beyond making sure their staff have profiles, but actually create a Company Page as well.

But what good does that do if nobody's following your company? And how do you get followers?

Fortunately, you can use a method I've tested that has proven to increase LinkedIn followers.

Some Numbers

First, let's take a look at a few numbers. Without naming names, I looked up ten local competitors of T&S to see how many Lin...

Your social media strategy

You're probably not guilty of this, but many people hop on social media simply because they think they're supposed to. But if you don't have a social media strategy, you'll be wasting time, money, and resources.

So how do you determine that strategy?

Define Target Market

The first thing you need to know is who your target market is. Not for your social media, but for your organization in general. That may include some or all of the following:

Ideal client/customer
Referral partners
Local community

Y...