So, you’ve finally decided to join the social media stream and now you’re looking for more creative ways to market your business. So far, you’ve built your Facebook page, a LinkedIn group, and your newly launched corporate blog is receiving a lot of positive feedback from readers. There is one more thing that can boost productivity: social media applications. These apps can boost your marketing efforts and make the process even more efficient. Here is a breakdown of the five most popular social media apps that you can use to accelerate your marketing success: Networked Blogs Join an online family of over 500,000 blogs and build an active community around your own blog. With the Networked Blogs Facebook app, you can: Import the blog feed to your Facebook profile Share your posts with a huge community of bloggers Gain massive visibility Promote your blog on Facebook The first step is to add your blog to the Networked Blogs via Facebook. Once you – Read the full article
Facebook is all about building relationships – and so is your blog. So are they a match made in heaven? Should you shell out some of your hard-earned cash to buy advertising for your blog on Facebook? It could be a smart move. Statistics show that Facebook advertising is more effective at relationship marketing than it is at direct selling. Besides, compared to many other forms of advertising, Facebook is low-cost, but any money you spend needs to be cost-effective. That means creating ads that stand out from the crowd, that reaches your target audience, and that drives traffic to your blog. Sound like a big order? When you’re creating your Facebook ad, remember these 3 tips and you’ll increase your chances of success. Know Who You Want to Reach One key to successful online marketing is getting your message to the right people and Facebook lets you choose your target audience. Even before creating your Facebook ad, decide who – Read the full article
Blogging doesn’t involve just writing: it involves promoting your content and making it rank for relevant search terms, too. Don’t worry if you’re not a technical expert or SEO rock star: like in most areas of Internet marketing, there are tons of ways to improve your performance in SEO-focused blogging, and it sounds a lot easier than it actually is. If you’re not quite convinced that you should have anything to do with SEO when blogging, just remember that getting people to your site who are already interested is much easier than the kind of cold, hard sell tactic used by most traditional outbound marketers. So drive those visitors to your site. Here are 4 tips to improve your inbound Internet marketing tactics with a blog: Write Creative Headlines Write blog headlines that will drive clicks on Twitter. Think from a user perspective; there are 60 million tweets sent out each day. Getting people to click on your URL from – Read the full article
The following are some simple web marketing integration ideas that can accelerate your campaign efforts – and business. Share messages on several channels The first step in integrating all your Internet marketing efforts is to tell a message repeatedly across various channels. Let’s say you have a new product to announce. Make sure the news is on your website’s news page as a link to media coverage or as a press release. Re-communicate the message in your blog (in a conversational tone) and have it posted on your Facebook page, tweeted on Twitter, and E-mailed to the opt-in e-mail / subscriber list. In addition, you might want to showcase the news in your website’s home page, as a form of attention-catching headline or ticker. The truth is that customers will not get access to your information in the same way. They all have their own preferences, after all. By amplifying your message on several online marketing channels, it makes it – Read the full article
Before Facebook, before Twitter, there was something called blogging. Remember that? Well, blogging hasn’t exactly gone out of fashion; only, this form of online content publishing has evolved since the time of LiveJournal and Open Diary. (That was so 1998!) And it’s certainly attracted the attention of more and more business owners who have recognized that the interactivity and SEO benefits of blogging go a long way in establishing – and enhancing – their visibility online. Now, any SEO expert will tell you that incoming links are a great way of boosting the popularity of your company or business blog – that they increase your PageRank (PR). But few ever counsel linking out to other sites or blogs, which should actually be just as integral a part of your linking strategy as generating incoming links. Why? Well, here are only some of the reasons: It’s good practice. Bloggers tend to get obsessed about getting as many incoming links as possible. – Read the full article
Watch out, WordPress and Tumblr. Blogger is about to undergo a major makeover this year. At this year’s SXSW in Austin, Texas, search engine giant Google provided a glimpse of the new and improved Blogger, its very own blogging and publishing platform and sixth largest website in the world (according to Alexa). To be included in the series of updates to Blogger are: a brand new interface, a revamped post editor, a more customizable template designer, and a new content discovery feature. These and more are going to be rolled out throughout the year. “2010 was a big year for Blogger,” wrote Chang Kim, Blogger Product Manager, in a blog post covering the announcement. “We introduced template designer, real-time stats, comment spam filtering, mobile templates, web fonts and more. 2011 promises to be another exciting year. We’re kicking things off at SXSW by giving folks a sneak peek at our next-generation user interface. The new design is not only cleaner and more modern, but it also – Read the full article
According to a study by Forrester Research, 71 percent of online shoppers read customer reviews before making a purchase decision. That’s close to three out of every four! Enough for us to have to seriously take this insight, one that serves as yet another proof that, when it comes to winning new customers (and bringing in new business) a satisfied customer or a loyal fan just might be your most potent sales rep. Oh, and it’s also probably a good idea to start soliciting customer reviews and testimonials. Why? More than techniques to manage your online reputation, reviews and testimonials can act as the worms that bait the fish. (Worms: a funny word to describe that which persuades shoppers to buy and mere visitors to become customers.) Need advice on soliciting – and maximizing the potency of – customer reviews and testimonials? Here’s a quick guide: Soliciting Reviews Ask for it. Your customers may never know that you want their – Read the full article
Now that you are convinced that blogging can be useful for your business, you will sooner or later face a dilemma: How often should I blog? Indeed, blogging is not a one-off thing and you will certainly have to update your blog regularly. Should you perform this form of content creation daily, weekly, or monthly? In fairness, there isn’t a simple answer to this question. Ask 10 different bloggers and you will end up with 10 different answers. I do not pretend to own the answer to this question, but what I can do is provide you with some things that you need to consider when determining your blogging frequency, and I hope that you will find these useful when it comes to making your own decision. Search engines The search engines spiders do like fresh content and posting content frequently on your blog should allow your site to get indexed better. Best SEO practices include making sure that your – Read the full article
