Two Big Mistakes People Make With Social Media Marketing:

Two Big Mistakes People Make With Social Media Marketing:

Mistake #1: Avoid social media because you can’t ‘figure’ it out. I  often wonder why people get so confused with this platform. Is it because most of the communication is done in bite sized pieces? Or is it because most of what we can do on social media can be done for free? As I interview local small businesses in my area of Kansas City I constantly hear things like, “I can’t seem to figure out how to use it”. When I explain to them that the very same highly-effective marketing they are currently using in their store is what they should be doing on social media, some people will have an ah-ha moment and others will look at me like a deer in headlights.

Here’s the simplest way to explain this: If serving people in your local store by being available and answering questions has helped your small business to be very successful, than use your Facebook page as the key place where you make yourself available and answer questions. If showing examples of how to use your product or services has given you a slight edge in your local business, than use your Facebook page to show these same examples. If keeping up with trends and topics and educating your customers has made you successful locally, than use your social media connections to help your customers just as you always have. Whatever it is that you’re currently doing to be successful in your business, do THAT THING on your social media platforms and you will have success!  But do NOT avoid social media simply because you think it is this ‘giant’ you have to figure out. Be unique, be real, be the funnest place to connect with on social media, attracting new clients every single day, than mention your product or service 10-15% of the time and you will see your sales increase.

Mistake #2: Use only social media for your marketing.

Just because social media is where more people are active every single day online, it doesn’t mean you should be avoiding email marketing, creating great digital media, writing articles, doing videos, etc. Social media should be viewed as a powerful CONNECTOR. It connects your ideal clients to your other means of marketing. Use social media as a great lead gen tool. Drive traffic to your blog or your website from your social media pages. Do highly targeted ads on Facebook and drive people to an offer on your blog, that requires an opt in. Then continue marketing on social media AND through email. But whatever you do, don’t do everything on social media.

You can have greater results on social media than through many other forms of direct response marketing. I’ve been in this business for more than 20 years, and have done nearly every form of marketing there is. Social media is highly effective. You’ll get greater results for every dollar spent on social media than you will with traditional marketing, but don’t throw out your traditional marketing in the process. 

One of the greatest things about social media is this: There are no hard and fast rules. We can create our own space, our own culture and serve our customers however we want. So get creative! Brain storm with your team. But be careful to avoid these two big mistakes as you’re rolling out your next marketing campaign.

social media vancouver

Great Social Media Strategy

Recently I witnessed the textbook example of a social media strategy with a goal to increase brand awareness, and to increase sales at the same time.  Here it is.

First the business showed a beautiful picture of their product (it was one of their art pieces) . This was on facebook. Here is the picture

social media vancouver

Then they posted this below the picture:

Giving away FOUR Artist’s Proofs of the White Lion Mandala Edition. I have 4 of these put aside and want to give them away to those who got love for Lions.

4 Winners will be chosen at RANDOM on Weds morning April 8…
To enter this Giveaway please do the following:

1) SHARE this post to your friends

2) COMMENT on this post or tag someone

3) LIKE this post

don’t forget to like the page: https://www.facebook.com/artofchristos

To see more detailed photos of this piece, go here: http://www.chrissaundersart.com/product/white-lion-mandala

Wasn’t that great?  That is the textbook example of increasing conversions and expanding brand awareness.  Great work to their Social Media Team !!

Benefits of a Blog for Business ?

Blogs:

 Blogs are the original form of Social Media

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 Blogs represent a centralized hub for consumers to have deeper engagement with your brand

 Benefits of blogs from a marketing perspective:

o Constant link building – link building helps SEO, and blogs are strong links

o Viewed as resource – establish authority and credibility through in depth posts

o Soft sell – friendly way to sell your product in low-pressure environment

o Deep, topical links – links to individual pages with strong anchor text

o Highly sharable content – generates new exposure and credibility

o Engage with fans – invite users to your blog for deeper communication

 Blogs lead to more visitors – 55% more

 Sites with blogs are more likely to generate inbound links

o People are more likely to link to an in-depth blog post than a home page

 Sites with blogs have over 400% more indexed pages: good for SEO

 Four questions to ask about blogs:

o Who is your audience?

o What is your purpose?

o How will you measure success?

o Are your plans sustainable?

 80/20 rule for blogs: 80% are first time visitors; 20% are repeat visitors

o Plan to convert these 80% into repeat visitors

 Five things to know before blogging:

o How to write well

o How to engage an audience

o How to focus

o Basic SEO

o Basic public relations

 Build a content plan to manage your content creation and publication

 Editorial calendars are hugely helpful to ensure that content is published regularly.

 Use search keywords to gather ideas for blogs

 Use event listings to plan blogs posts around important company and holiday events

 Examine how to add call to actions onto blog posts to encourage conversions

Ready to talk about us helping you create a powerful blog to increase sales and your business traffic?  Contact us now for a free consultation

Twitter Benchmark Report Q4 2014

Simply Measured Twitter Benchmark Report Q4 2014

The world’s top brands are more active, are creating more effective content, and are reaching larger audiences on Twitter than ever before. This Q4 2014 benchmark report analyzed the results and tactics of the world’s top 100 brands on Twitter to provide insights into successful brand strategies and benchmarks to compare with your own brand performance.

Twitter Benchmark Report

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