Tag Archives: SMO

07.06.16
by

How to Increase Traffic to Your Website Using Pinterest

Increase Traffic to Your Website Using PinterestRegardless of your industry, Pinterest can increase traffic to your website. Obviously Pinterest works better for more visual businesses like those in the wedding, fashion, food and travel industries than what it does for accountants. But even with accountants, you can still pin helpful content that’ll engage with your target audience. For example, pins which relate to money saving and business tips will provide helpful content to business owners which may/may not be in need of a new accountant.

The way to make Pinterest work for your business is by helping and inspiring your prospective reader/client in order to direct them to your website. It’s not about building followers on Pinterest – it’s about using content to attract readers who will get your brand, love what you do & build loyalty to buy from you. Here’s how to get started:

Create a Pinterest Business Account

With a business account you get access to analytics, rich pins (we’ll discuss these in point 3), and the ability to promote your pins. If you’ve not already got a Pinterest account, click to create a business account. If you have a personal account already, click the following link to switch your personal account to a business one.

Verify Your Business Account

Once you have a business account on the go, you can now verify your Pinterest account. By verifying, you’ll be able to monitor the web traffic coming from your pins. Here’s how to verify using the metatag Pinterest generates:

  1. Go to your profile and click Account Settings.
  2. On profile, in the Website field, enter your website URL and click Confirm Website.
  3. Go on to the next page and see the metatag to put in the <head> of your website.
  4. If you’re using WordPress, login to your website and go to Appearances,then Editor and in the right hand sidebar click “header.php”
  5. Within the header.php file, copy and paste the metatag Pinterest gave you. Insert this code in between the <head> and </head> tags in the file. Click to update file and it’s all go!

Apply for Rich Pins

Qualifying for Rich Pins is another advantage to owning a business account. As well as making your business look more credible, Rich Pins enables you to provide more information with your pin. Currently, Pinterest offer 6 formats of rich pins; articles, recipes, places, products, apps and places.

In this tutorial, we’ll use rich pins for articles to explain how to enable rich pins for your account.

The easiest way to set up rich pins is by using Yoast SEO Plugin for WordPress. As opposed to manually adding Pinterest’s metatags to certain places on your site, Yoast SEO does it for you!

To install Yoast SEO click Plugins, Add New and then Upload Plugin. Upload the .zip file for Yoast SEO and click Install Now.  Activate the Yoast SEO plugin by clicking Activate in the Installed Plugins section on WordPress.

Next, go to the new SEO section of your left sidebar. Click SEO and then click Social. Go to the Facebook section and tick the Add Open Graph Meta Data and press Save Changes. Once completed, click the following link to enable Rich Pins by copying a link to one of your blog posts by scrolling to the bottom of Pinterest’s rich pins validating tool.

NOTE: It can take up to 7 days for Pinterest to approve your rich pin application.

Organize Your Boards

In order to engage and gain a following on Pinterest – you need a flawless profile with boards that will attract your prospective reader/client.

Your first 8 boards are most visible. The first 4 are the most important. They show off your brand, show what you’re interested in and show what you do. From this, they’ll get an understanding of what you’re about.

One great way to create an eye-catching Pinterest profile is by coordinating the board covers and name titles. In the world of Pinterest, jumbled up images and mismatched colors won’t do. Your profile needs uniformity. Do this by implementing your brand colors on the board covers and having a style for your board titles. Each board also needs a relevant description that includes keywords your target audience will be using in their search for inspirational content.  

When organizing your boards think:

  1. Who is my target audience?
  2. What content is my target audience looking for?
  3. What do they love?
  4. What content will help them?

Here is an example of a Pinterest profile which engages with its ideal audience:

 

Pinterest Print Screen

Melyssa helps bloggers and creative entrepreneurs build their businesses using their blogs, social media and email marketing. Her board is simple, matches her brand colors and most importantly – her boards are relevant to what her target audience will be searching. For example: entrepreneur tips, social media tips, blogging tips + email marketing tips.

Create ‘Pinworthy’ Images for Your Blog Posts + Other Web Content

Photography

If you shoot your own photography then great, you’re onto a winner! Your photography will be unique & help form your brand. But, don’t worry, if you don’t take your own photographs, there are heaps of websites that provide beautiful stock photography that is blog and pin-worthy (some are free, too!). Here are a few we recommend: Unsplash, Death to the Stock Photo and Pexels. Take note that tall thin images work best on Pinterest.

The Graphics & Text

You have the photography – now you need the graphics. You can use design software like Photoshop and Illustrator, but if you don’t have the budget, Canva is amazing for creating your own eyecatching pinworthy images for your content (like the feature image for this post. You can add your headline, change text size, add icons, adjust brightness and play with color. For inspiration for the most pinned images on Pinterest, check out this link to find out more.

When it comes to adding your text, your headline needs to grab people’s attention at one glance – so the text needs to be clear and simple.  

Join Group Boards

Joining Group Boards is a great way to build your following, show off your content, interact with industry leaders and prospective clients in attempt to increase the traffic to your website. Pingroupie is an amazing website which allows you to find Pinterest group boards which are relevant to your brand.

Filter your boards by ‘Collaborators’ – ones with higher members are more likely to accept.

You NEED to follow the owner of the group board in order to be accepted.
You may need to email the group board owner in order to be accepted.

Once accepted, try to pin 1-4 images to your group board in a day. Anymore than that then you might appear spammy. Build a good reputation by repinning other members content from the group board.

Curate Great Content for Your Pinterest Boards

In addition to pinning your own content, repinning content helps attract your target audience too.

Curate great content for your boards by following people in your industry, liking, commenting and re-pinning their content onto your boards.

The most likely content to go viral on Pinterest are how to posts, top resources, recipes, guides and checklists. Ensure your pinning seasonal and on-trend content too.

TIP: Pinterest is more likely to recommend your board if it contains lots of popular pins. Once a week go through your boards and delete the pins with low re-pins. This’ll make sure your boards appear to only show amazing content people love!

Schedule Your Pins

Scheduling pins helps save you time + allows you to schedule lots of images to be pinned to your board. Unlike most social media platforms, there are no popular times on Pinterest, Pinterest just likes to see lots of fresh popular content being pinned to your board daily. We recommend using ViralTag and BoardBooster to schedule your pins in advance. 

If you have any questions or suggestions, then feel free to comment below or tweet us @purelysocialtip.

03.16.16
by

Online Marketing 101: Identity Economics

ONLINE MARKETING 101-

The marketing industry comes with a myth attached to it. You’re told to focus on your customer as an individual. You are told to know the individual as well as your favorite shoes, profile them, study their thoughts, find out their wants, and match your advertising accordingly. Except – as the latest idea in economics goes – there may be no individual. There is only group. Or to put it in another way: The individual buys according to what the group says. Knowing more about this idea can give you another handle on how to market your wares. And maybe sell them more effectively.

Identity Economics: It’s The Group That Buys Your Products

Our marketing principles come from traditional economics. Reasoning goes that people have their wants and needs. You’ll sell your product if you find out what those wants and needs are and show your targeted client how you can help him better than anyone else.  This way of thinking assumes that the targeted client knows his needs and chooses independently.

Marketing is based on this traditional economic view. Almost every single marketing modality from customer-centric to relationship marketing pivots the customer as an individual.  Personalized marketing says draw up a thorough profile of your desired customer – clothes, breakfast, schools, and so forth – so you know exactly whom you’re reaching.  Social media marketing tries to forge cozy interactions with the client. That’s what surveys are for! They ask the desired client, “Pray pretty please. What do you want and how can I help you achieve it?” Metrics measure whether or not your customer has bought. If so, supply more. If not, repeat the process.

Only the decision-maker may not be the individual. It may be the group. In which case, your marketing may flounder unless you consider that angle.

Identity Affects Your Health, Wealth, And Success

Sixteen years ago, economist and Nobel Prize winner George Akerlof and professor of economics in Duke University Rachel Kranton, launched their theory of identity economics. The model says that our identity affects our health, wealth, and success – and everything in between.

Identity refers to the different groups that we belong to, such as religious, gender, national, class and so on. People identify with different groups at different times.

How can we relate identity economics to marketing?

People buy according to their group because they want to conform. This makes them feel good and gives them some sort of social status. So they eat what their group does, dress as their group does, send their children to the same schools as the group does, ad infinitum. Kranton and Akerlof concluded: If you want to motivate someone don’t look into every nitty-gritty about the person. Scrutinize the norms of the group.

For instance, I run a site that offers hidden jobs to freelancers. Recently, a person tweeted: “Thanks but doesn’t look secure … this site is flooded w/shady gigs…The site isn’t safe for any legit freelancer.” The visitor explained: “Indians don’t pay well/on time.” (Note: 5% of the ads are from companies that carry Indian names).

Ordinarily, I would have have rejected this visitor’s feedback as prejudiced. The theory of Identity Economics made me look beyond her as being an individual and made me consider her opinion as Group. I looked into whether or not she was my typical client. If so, I would have to reluctantly use her feedback as cue to restructure my marketing because I wanted to sell.

This case also made me wary of using my bounce rate as a metric of site success. Marketing analytics urge you to monitor your site’s statistics. But maybe visitors leave because aspects of your site conflict with their social beliefs. Maybe you retain only two or three people but these are the people you want.

Looking at the prospective client as reflecting the opinions of a group rather than the opinions of him or herself give you a different handle on your marketing.

On The Other Hand…

Identity economics has its limitations. Marketing research recently found that advertising backfires when it scrunches the person into a group. Cases include Jif peanut butter that targets mothers by noting that “Choosy moms choose Jif.” or DirecTV that advertises, “If you call yourself a sports fan, you gotta have DirecTV!” or Gamefly.com that urges video gamers, “You call yourself a gamer? You have to have it!” or when Chevrolet asserts that real Americans drive Chevys.

In each of these cases, those who were surveyed protested that they have a mind of their own. They disliked being lumped into a group!

So, social context is an answer, but not the whole. Our self-concept is made up of both a personal identity and a social one and, when marketing, we can profit by considering both.

How Can You Use Identity Economics To Improve Your Marketing?

  1. Target marketing to the group – I work for a solar company that markets itself on price and environmental concerns. Research, however, shows that people put solar panels on their homes when other solar-powered homes are nearby. I adjust my marketing accordingly.
  2. Boost the signal strength – Customers tend to tend to select products that most clearly broadcast membership in their specific group. Subtly highlight those signals or omit them. For instance, blood donation levels go down when blood donors are paid to give blood. The social identity of giving is core to the motivation and this is the aspect that needs to be highlighted.
  3. Ignore bounce rates – Rather focus on how you can improve your product so that it helps your customers. People are always going to be influenced by their cultures and there’s nothing you can do about that. Focus on the product and keep on marketing. Your clientele will grow.

In short, people buy according to a variety of reasons. Social context is one of them. Knowing how group comes into the buying can open up cost-effective ways of improving your marketing. It is individual as well as group that decides.

Look into both to sell.

 

02.24.16
by

30 Engaging Ideas for Blog Posts

30 ENGAGING IDEAS FOR BLOG POSTS

Welcome to the world of blogging. A place where you publish problem-solving content and build an online community that engages with your target audience.  And – by doing it consistently and strategically, you can establish a trustworthy brand that revolutionizes your business.

As you begin blogging for business, you can use this list of ideas for blog posts to create a content plan for your business to attract your target readership and help determine what content works best for your readers.  Just remember, you don’t need lots of traffic to build your business online; you just need an audience who can easily engage with your brand.

  1. How-To Post

Blog posts that show your readers how to do something are always incredibly popular. ‘How To’ offer invaluable advice that provides problem solving information that your readers are searching for answers on for example, if you’re a business that sells unique tea blends, this could be as obvious as “How to Brew Tea” or like our blog post on How to Get Steady Customers Fast and Free.

  1. Tools That Make Things Easy

Humans are lazy and more often than not – incredibly busy. We’re constantly looking for apps, new processes, websites and plugins that shorten the time it takes to do something and make our lives easier. For instance, we shared our most useful plugins that help schedule social media updates and blog posts.

  1. Review a Product Related to Your Niche

Prospective and current readers might be interested in finding out whether a certain product is worth the investment – sharing your insight into the benefits or criticisms of a product will give your readers answers.

  1. Inspiring Books

Whether its books that has motivated us along our journey or given us helpful business tips – your readers will find this information useful.

  1. A Series of Q&A Posts

Not only will Q&A posts help you interact with your target audience, they will provide answers to your readers’ questions and create extremely helpful content for your website.

  1. Tutorials

Create “Top 10” or “8 Tips for” advice posts, product demonstrations or videos about topics related to your niche. We’ve helped our readers by sharing our Top Five Tips for Blogging Success, 5 Best Tips on Sharing Content and Top 7 Mistakes Businesses Made with their Digital Marketing in 2015 & What Can be Done to Fix It in 2016.

  1. Promote a Free Downloadable Guide

One of the best ways to build your mailing list is by offering a free downloadable worksheet or guide to help your readers. You can promote your free download by explaining its benefits in a blog post.

  1. Inspirational Famous Quotes

Whether you’re a nutritionist, business coach, personal trainer or cosmetic surgeon there are quotes related to your industry. And – people love reading them!

  1. Host a Giveaway

One great way of getting your audience to share your content is by giving away free products. You could offer your services, products, prizes or treatments…everybody loves free stuff!

  1. A List of Useful Online Resources

Read any blog posts, taken a course or watched videos that have helped you? Share them with your audience!

  1. Interview Someone in Your Industry

As well as giving your audience advice, your interviewee will share it on their social media platforms and/or website which will put your brand in front of a relevant audience.

  1. Behind The Scenes of Your Business

Post images and short videos showing how your business is run – this will add a bit of personality to your brand!

  1. A Link Up of Helpful Blog Posts

A great way for getting yourself known in your industry is by connecting with similar, bigger businesses. Make yourself known by linking their content in a blog post and tagging them into your social media posts.

  1. Share a Project You Have Recently Completed

Prove yourself to your audience by showing off your skills by sharing images of a recently completed project.quote 30 engaging blog post ideas

  1. Business Goals for the Year

Between Christmas and the start of a New Year, business goals or New Year’s Resolutions get a lot of traction. Share yours!

  1. Write ‘Benefits Of’ Posts Related to Your Niche

Similar to tutorials, people are looking for reasons why they should buy into something. Show you’re an expert by writing about the benefits of something related to your industry.

  1. Share Your Opinion on a Film or TV Series Relevant to Your Business

Marketing has Mad Men and Steve Jobs to talk about. Write a blog post about based on your views about a TV show or film that has mentioned a topic related to your business.

  1. Round-Up of Your Most Popular Posts

Once you’ve been blogging for a while, you’ll be able to see which posts have performed best. Put them all together in a post.

  1. Things You’ve Learnt from Recent Training, eCourse or Book

We’re always learning. Writing about things you’ve learnt will show transparency on how you’re always willing to improve.

  1. Write About Something New in Your Industry

Last year, Twitter released the forever growing live streaming app that is Periscope so we written A Beginner’s Guide to Periscope to advise people who don’t know anything about the app.

  1. Beginner’s Guide

Similar to ‘How To’ posts, ‘Beginner’s Guides’ will give your target audience the information they’re looking for. We’ve written A Beginner’s Guide to Snapchat and A Beginner’s Guide to SEO.

  1. Motivational Mottos

We all love things that motivate us. Share motivational mantras and mottos that have helped you get to the position you’re in now.

  1. A List of Dos & Don’ts Related to Your Niche

During your time in business, you may have learnt something that’ll prevent your readers from making mistakes for example, when it comes to social media, refrain from publishing your problems or controversial beliefs on your business profiles as it may damage your reputation.

  1. Write a Follow Up Post to a Post You’ve Already Published

Written a post you could provide more information on? Write a ‘Part 2’ blog post.

  1. Blog About Hot Topics & Trending Events

A great way to publish content on talked about and most-searched topics is by writing a blog post on how your services and products relate to them like this post on Taylor Swift Vs Katy Perry: Which Star Rules Social Media? Or if you’re in the beauty related industry – a post on a trending out of the ordinary thing a celebrity is doing like, Kim Kardashian’s Vampire Facial would engage with your readership.

  1. Share Your Business Processes

Nubby Twiglet, a graphic designer has recently shared her knowledge on how to can streamline your business processes by sharing how she communicates with prospective clients, signing on a client, gathering design briefs, putting together project checklists, presenting your work and invoicing.

  1. Update Your Audience with What’s New in Your Business

Hired someone new? Releasing a new product or service? Blog about it!

  1. Your Predictions

Got an idea what’s going to be on trend in a year or season in your industry? Share them in a blog post.

  1. Publish Your Testimonials & Case Studies

Demonstrate you’re worth investing in by showing what your clients say in a blog posts. If you can show how you’ve helped a client by sharing your results in a blog post.

  1. FAQs

As your business grows and gets older – you may find you get asked a lot of the same questions. Write answers to your FAQs and publish them into an easy-to-find blog post to help your readers.

10.29.14
by

K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple & Sweet)

Keep it simple stupid graphic created by Purely Social Media with Canva

created by Purely Social Media with Canva

So recently while working on a project a colleague of ours kept referring to this acronym K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple & sweet) and it struck a cord. We thought it wise to write a blog article on this acronym and how we believe it relates to social media.

First and foremost, time and time again we see businesses over-think and over-complicate their social media efforts. Keep in mind that social media is intended to be fun and a virtual space to engage with others, that’s it! If you make a sale or gain a new customer through social media that’s fantastic, but if that is the primary focus of your social efforts you’re going to seriously struggle. People are tired of being marketed to and they certainly don’t want you doing it on their social accounts, so when it comes to marketing your business on social media it’s best to get  creative but keep it simple!

Before you even jump into the social media space you need to ask yourself a few questions. (The following questions were presented by Mark Schaefer at Social Media Success Summit 2014):

  1. What makes your business unique? Why do your customer’s choose to do business with you? It’s worth it to take some time to survey your current customer base and ask they what it is about your business that gets them to continue to do business with you. The value that you think you bring to your customers and they value they perceive you bring are most likely quite different.
  2. What is your overall company culture and can it support a social media presence? Is your business flexible enough to make the necessary and timely changes that social media often calls for?
  3. Are you open to listening to others, building relationships and engaging with your potential customers? To be successful on social media you need to remove your brand’s ego and be open to and genuinely interested in learning about others. Observe what is happening in your space and then dive right into the conversation. If you plan to have multiple people within your organization participate in your social media, take the time to create some guideline and rules of conduct to avoid avoidable hiccups.
  4. What platforms are right for you? We’ve said it before and we will say it again you do not need to be on every platform at all times. It is best to take each platform one at a time and build a strong presence. Keep in mind that not everyone is on every platform so do your homework. Where are your customers and where is your competition?
  5. What will be your source of rich content? This question will be simple to answer if you’ve taken the time to really answer the previous questions. Blogs, podcasts and videos are all great sources of rich content. Determine how you can enrich and enhance old and existing content. Update older blogs, convert a blog into an infographic or short video. There are lots of inexpensive and free tools available to help business owners create unique and interesting content.
  6. The final and most important question is “What does success on social media look like for you and your business?” It’s best to get a few of the key individuals in your organization to contribute their thoughts on this topic as well. It’s best to set goals and define success so you can know when you’ve achieved it and set new ones. Just remember that social media success takes time and patients, trial and error, so be consistent and clear with your efforts.

Action Plan

Once you’ve taken the time to answer these questions now it’s time to create a plan. This is actually the first step we take with all of our clients. Create a plan of action. The number one issue with social media is that business can begin to feel overwhelmed with content creation and posting when there is no plan in place. Once you’ve done a little investigation into your competition and have determined what your source of unique rich content will be map out your week. For example, Facebook is not a platform that requires you to post everyday multiple times a day, but Twitter, on the other hand, requires multiple posts throughout the day and a higher level of engagement.

Map out your week and be sure to include weekend posts. Even though you’re on these platforms for business purposes most of your followers and customers are there for entertainment and interactions. People are consuming content on their commutes to and from work, on their lunch breaks, in the evenings and on the weekends during their down times. Post your content to be visible when the most amount of eyes are available. If you choose to post on LinkedIn consider posting between 6:30am and 7:30am or after 6pm. Writing a blog? Research shows that Monday’s at 11am is the best time to post; however, we have found that Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11am are best for us.

Originally from J Campbell Social Marketing

Originally from J Campbell Social Marketing

Determine what type of content you will share on which days and to which platforms. Here is just a framework to help you understand and guide you in developing your own plan:

  • Monday: Answer frequently asked questions
    • LinkedIn 7am & Facebook 11:30am
  • Tuesday: Post blog
    • Google+ 12pm & Twitter 11am,12:15pm, 1pm, 4:30pm, 5:45pm, 6:30pm
  • Wednesday: Share an infographic or video
    • Google+ 8am & Facebook 12:30pm
  • Thursday: Share a DIY or tips
    • LinkedIn 6pm
  • Friday: Share an aspect of your company culture or highlight the achievements of an employee
    • Facebook 9am & Google+ 11:45am

Keep in mind that you do not want to post the exact same content on the same day to multiple platforms so consider having 2 categories per day or re purposing old content. Another thing you can try is creating two images and two versions on copy for the same piece on content. But no one wants to see the exact same thing you posted on Facebook on Google+ 15 minutes later. The most important thing is to have fun with it. Think of social media as your bridge between Public Relations and Marketing in real time. It allows you the opportunity to engage and communicate your brand in real time. Keep it simple, make it fun and be authentic and you’ll soon find your social media success!

If you find yourself struggling, shoot us an email. We’d be more than happy to give you a few pointers to put you in the right direction. In the meantime, share this article with fellow professionals and small business owners who you think may be interested and let us know what you think! We love chatting on Twitter or in the comments below!

08.19.14
by

Google+ for Business

G+ (1)

Google Plus is quickly rising to the top of the social media platforms. With the SEO benefits that it offers along with the community building aspect, it’s really a smart choice when it comes to leveraging your brand’s social presence.

If you’re not quite familiar with G+, as yet, Google+ is a social network created by Google that offers blogging capabilities, community building, and virtual meetings (hangouts) all in one package. As a result of this social media platform being hosted by the number one search engine, any business that uses Google+ becomes more searchable i.e, more present online. See, Google knows what they’re doing: they started off slow with the search engine then, like the Blob, oozed out to explore different aspects of the internet it could master, as well. We’re not mad at them for that. Anyway, lets look at the bigger question:

Why should you use Google+ ?

Google+ offers a little bit of the best aspects from a variety of the different platforms, and then some! Take a look at these:

Blogging Capabilities

It enables you to blog, like WordPress, giving you another outlet to share your expertise. Not to mention the fact that most of us have Gmail accounts. Google+ enables you to pull the connections that you have on Gmail and reconnect with them here. So, that business partner you were emailing before, or your old colleague from a previous job can all reconnect with you on Google+ and be privy to your blogs. What does that mean for you? Well, a larger reach for one. Instead of being limited to the people who subscribe to your blog, you can share your blog with people with whom you’ve already built a rapport, as well. In addition to that, there are communities on Google+ dedicated to certain topics, and Google+ allows you to share the articles you write specifically within the communities of your choice. If you were writing something targeted to small business owners, for example, you can join a few communities dedicated to small business owners and share your article within those communities. This way, you know that your work is hitting people who are actually interested in the topic you’re writing about. What better way to build a following than that?!

On top of all that, are the hashtags. When you post an article, Google+ does a quick scan of your article and includes relevant hashtags for you to help sort the article into relevant categories. You also have the capability to include your own hashtags to your articles. If you include hashtags that you know are popular and relevant, your article gets even more reach enabling you to build an even larger following.

Networking

Let’s discuss these communities in greater detail. Google+ communities allow you to gain access to groups of members interested in the same topic(s) that you’re interested in. There are 21 categories to choose from initially ranging from Beauty and fitness to sports to auto and tech. Within those categories are specific communities created by members that you are able to join in on and network. This feature is unique to Google+ and a goldmine for business professionals like yourself. If you are an interior designer, for example, and would like to connect with other interior designers, there’s a community that lends to that. If you own a business catered towards animal rescue and would like to connect with other people who are interested in animal rescue, BAM! There’s a community for that. If you share your blogs within these communities and engage with the people within these communities, the options to build your network are endless.

Visual Appeal

If you’ve been listening to us, you’ve heard us say more than once that the visual aspect of marketing is just as important as the text: sometimes, even more so. A picture is worth a thousand words, and in marketing, images are an important aspect of getting people to pay attention to you. Google Plus embraces that by giving the images that you upload prime real estate on your page, and in a lot of cases, more real estate than the text. Sharing a link that includes images will generate a square thumbnail measuring 150×150 pixels, but sharing an image by itself will result in a much larger display of 497×373 pixels. Here’s a Google+ Cheat Sheet for Image Size Dimensions that might prove helpful.

Hangouts

Google Hangouts are a feature unique to Google+ that enable you to connect with people in a way that no other social media platform does. Google hangouts enable you to video chat with a group of people or one on one. This opens the door for a much more personable connection with your target market or within your industry. Google Hangouts are a great avenue to humanize your brand and let your followers know that you’re not a robot. It enables you to engage in a way unseen by other social media platforms. If you are a lawyer, for example, who specializes in tax law, maybe around March/April, you do a hangout to field questions from laymen who are missing out on refunds they could be capitalizing on. Or maybe you’re a nail technician with your own store. A Google Hangout could be used to run a quick tutorial on a popular nail design or nail painting technique. The possibilities are endless, and if leveraged the right way, can enable your business to grow immensely.

Moral of the story: Don’t sleep on Google Plus. Just get out there, create an account and explore the possibilities. If you need help, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We love to chat! Feel free to leave comments below or mention us on Twitter!

 

08.13.14
by

Top 3 Reasons to Hire a Social Media Professional

1

Social media marketing is a not a difficult concept. It’s pretty logical and straightforward once you understand the basics, but a lot of times, you simply don’t have the time to break it apart and figure it out. Social media management requires consistency, constant effort. It requires strategic planning and research, and can turn into a full-time job if you’re really trying to make your social media presence work for you. The problem is that you didn’t go into business to spend 4-8 hours a day on your social media marketing. As a small business owner or an independent business professional, that time can be spent doing other things for your business and focusing on your core values.

Most professionals understand the importance and value of social media management. Even so, social media management is usually the first thing to fall to the wayside due to the fact there is simply not enough time to execute an effective social media plan. That is where social media professionals come in. As social media professionals, we’ve dedicated our time and energy to focus on mastering the art of social media management. Due the fact that social media marketing is what we focus on, we’ve taken the time to learn how to make social media work for you.

Here are 3 major reasons to hire a social media professional.

1We know all things social media, just like you know all things pertaining to your industry. You wouldn’t let your local plumbing expert build you a car because your local plumbing expert is neither a mechanical engineer, nor an auto mechanic. If you want it done right, it just makes sense to hire an expert to do expert work. We always say not to overthink social media, but you really shouldn’t underestimate it either. If you want your social media platforms to be effective in helping to grow your online presence and increase revenue, this isn’t something you want to half-ass. Consulting a professional will help to point you in the right direction and enable you to understand where your focus should be pertaining to your social media account. Often times, we try to absorb too much at once, and when you’re trying to start, operate, and market your business, it’s hard to figure out what aspect to focus on. A good social media professional can help you assess everything and put it into easy, bite-sized pieces that can better fit into your schedule.

2You want to get to the next level in your business. We’ve encountered several clients who’ve done an awesome job in marketing themselves via their social media accounts along with other methods, and seem to be experiencing great success from their organic growth, but have gotten to a point where they don’t seem to be growing anymore and the strategies they’ve previously implemented have become less effective or completely ineffective. At this point, it makes sense to contact a social media professional to help you get from behind that brick wall. As professionals, we can assess your current strategy and pinpoint where the issue is and how to improve upon it. If you seem to have done a great job on your own, imagine what can be done if you bring us in to help out!

3You simply don’t have the time to figure it out BUT you know it’s important and want it done right. There’s no shame in admitting that you don’t have the time to do social media, the shame is when you completely ignore it and act as if it’s not important. (Shame on you!) Several social media professionals, including ourselves, offer the option of full implementation, where you essentially outsource your social media platforms to us and allow us to manage the whole kit and caboodle. This is where you absolutely MUST MUST MUST hire a professional. Social media professionals, the good ones anyway, can help you create an online identity for your business; not just a presence. An online identity is essentially your brand i.e., the culture of your business, its voice, stylistic aspects, appearance… all of those factors that are usually afterthoughts or non-thoughts to a non-professional are primary points of focus to true social media professionals. It’s the little things that set you apart from the competitor that a social media professional can contribute to your business when you don’t have the time. We take the time to understand and dissect your target market and mold your social media marketing platforms to fit that demographic.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy…Basically it makes your life easier by hiring a social media professional. Those 4-8 hours it takes to make your social media what it needs to be to differentiate yourself could easily be spent focusing on the core values of your business/ personal brand. Even if you only seek consultation and don’t go for the kit and caboodle route, you can save time. If you can save an hour a day, 5-7 a week, 20-30ish a month, where would you invest that time? A nap would be nice, meditation, lunch, a new project, a craft, perhaps? As entrepreneurs, we struggle with time and often try to be too many places at once, with a social media professional, you can streamline all of that and be more efficient with the mere 24 hours a day that we are all allotted. It’s really a no brainer =D

As always, share your ideas with us. We’d love to hear what you have to say. We hope you found this post useful and informative. Please leave your comments below and feel free to connect with us on Twitter!

08.11.14
by

5 Reasons Why You Should Love Advertising On Facebook Again!

making the connecion - LinkedinSo we’re back after taking a month off to enjoy a little rest and relaxation!

And what better way to kick off our return then with a post discussing all the reasons why we love advertising on Facebook again! So, as many of you know, back at the end of 2013 Facebook decided that make some changes to their algorithm that left a bad taste in the mouth of most marketers and businesses. We all have watched as page posts’ organic reach fell from 16% in February of 2012 to around 6.51% in March 2014, according to Edgerank Checker.

Many felt that Facebook was double dipping, charging advertisers to have their posts viewed by the very individuals they just paid to like their page. A lot of people were ticked off and began deleting their Facebook pages as a form of protest. There was even a YouTube video, Facebook Fraud, that went viral and urged many not to wast their time advertising on the platform. Let’s just say people we’re angry and many began to pull back their presence on the platform.

Truth of the matter is that from Facebook’s standpoint, their primary focus is on the general user not the business pages. We can only assume that they believed that by changing the algorithm they would maintain the integrity of the site from the user’s standpoint. However, now Facebook is a publicly traded company, which means it is now accountable to shareholders too. And shareholders want to see profits, which are only generated on Facebook through the ads that businesses run.

So we can only speculate that all of the Facebook Fraud backlash has led Facebook to make changes to the algorithm yet again as well as completely overhaul the process for advertising on Facebook to make it a lot easier on advertisers. So here are our top 5 reasons why you should love advertising on Facebook again:

1 6 ads for the price of 1. Now when you create an ad to drive traffic  to you website Facebook allows you to select up to 6 images that can be used to service your ad over the length of your campaign. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they will all be approved by Facebook but if you adhere to the ad guidelines a majority should be approved. We love this because it’s a great way to see which ads make the most impact on your target audience. Facebook has now made it very simple to do some A,B,C,D,E,F testing on your advertising which means they next time you run an ad you can make the necessary tweaks for even better results.

2Watered Down. Previously when you ran an ad on Facebook you probably spent a good majority of your time trying to figure out what the heck they were talking about. The different steps to running an ad were not very well defined and left most newbies to the process scratching their heads or giving up on running an ad all together. Now once you’ve selected the appropriate objective for your ads, all you need to proceed is clearly stated for you on one easy to read page.

3Conversion Pixels. This small line of code allows you to track the actions being taken on your website by the traffic you drive there with your Facebook ads. Now the downside of this is: if you know nothing about code or even how to access the back end of your website; you’re going to need to have your web developer place the code for you which can be a pain. However Facebook has even simplified this by allowing you to email the person right from the ad set up with the pixel code and instructions on how to proceed. The good news is that once it’s done, that’s it! You can continue to utilize the pixel over multiple ads. Just keep in mind that there is a pixel for each type of conversion that can happen on your site, such as checkouts, registrations, leads, web page views, adds to carts and more. So if you need some help, make sure you simply add all of the conversion pixels that pertain to your site all at once. Once a pixel has been added, you’re ready to start tracking the actions of your audience and can begin to determine how to best convert those individuals into paying customers.

4 Hello, Power Editor! So Power Editor is still a fairly new addition to Facebook ads, and many business owners still don’t know it even exists. This may explain why Facebook made it more accessible in the new ad setup under audiences. If you’re not using this feature when running your ad, you’re wasting your money. What we love about this feature is that it allows you to specify who your target audience is, providing you with more control over who sees your ad. In working with different clients we’ve seen a number of clients run ads that were shown to “everyone”, not realizing that they could target their ads to an audience within 25 miles of the physical location. If you choose, you can be very specific in your ad audience, but we would advice you find a balance between broad and specific. You don’t want to be too specific and miss the opportunity to attract new followers. Nor do you want to run the risk of being too broad that your ad isn’t seen by enough of your target audience.

5Campaign pricing just got simpler.  Simply tell Facebook how much you’re willing to spend over the duration of your campaign and let Facebook do all the math. We personally suggest selecting the lifetime budget option unless your plan is to have an ad that continuously runs, in which we would suggest selecting the daily budget. Understand that while Facebook may approve your ad and run it, your ad is competing for that space and therefore can get bumped by ads of advertisers willing to pay more per click or impression. Our advice is: if you select the manually set, price per click option, we advise increasing your bid to slightly higher then the price the system generates. Understand that when bidding, if you choose the pay per impression options your paying the every 1000 individuals who see your page. Paying per clicks ensures that you only pay for the people who appear genuinely interested in your page, because they clicked on your link.

As a side note, we want to stress that if you’re going to spend your hard earned money on Facebook ads make sure it’s worth it for you. To date, paying for page post engagements and page likes has proven to be quite ineffective from an ROI standpoint. Website clicks and conversions still remain the best option for measure the effectiveness of your ads against the money you spent.

As always we hope that you found this post useful and informative! We encourage you to leave your comments below and connect with us on Twitter!

06.10.14
by

Data Sourcing & Analysis

 

Creating AContent CalendarWe hope that after last week’s intro into this series, you had some time to do some serious thinking about what success looks like for your business.

In the previous post, we discussed what you should be measuring from a beginner stand point, your inputs, outputs and outcomes. But you will need to look at much more if you want the complete picture, what you’ll need to look at is your business metrics. Business metrics looks at things like Market Share, Revenue, Profit, Average Order Size, and ROI. It is these metrics that allow you to access the overall health of your business and evaluate the impact of your social media efforts. But in order to do so effectively you will need to analyze one action’s impact at a time.

In Part 1, we were just beginning to touch upon data sources, the various software suites and platforms that store all of the information regarding your business. Let’s break down what these common data sources are:

  • Corporate Finance Systems: for many these systems bridge the gap between Accounting and Management. For these systems its all about the numbers, they look at everything from profits and losses to employee productivity to provide you with valuable insights to improve your business. Very often these robust systems are able to provide you with industry benchmarks and forecasts. Developers of these types of systems include but are not limited to  Intuit, Sage, Adobe and Oracle.
  • Media & Marketing Plans: maybe you did one before you went into business, maybe you didn’t. But typically if you take the time to do these thoroughly they can be a treasure trove of data and a great jumping off point when it comes to developing and implementing any marketing or sales strategy.
  • Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRM): these systems typically hold tons of data on your direct interactions with your existing customer base. Examples of commonly used CRM are Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, HelloWorld, Infusionsoft and Salesforce.
  • Market Research: which has never been easier in this digital age, are the surveys and polls you conduct with your existing customers. You’ll be surprised by what you will learn about your business if you only take the time to ask? Online services such as SurveyMonkey, make it fairly simple to get started.
  • Web Analytics: such as Google Analytics, provide you with insights on your website traffic, as well as your overall online presence.
  • Social Network Data: these are the insights provided to you by the social platforms you use.
  • Digital Ad Serving Platforms: online ads and banner management has never been more convenient and measurable then they are with Google Adwords. Your able to gain insights into the types of actions your ads invoke.
  • Online Videos: one can not deny that video is  becoming even more of an integral part of online marketing and social media. YouTube, by far the largest video platform, provides you with additional insights into the impact of your visual and media efforts

Once you’ve had an opportunity to compile data from all of your appropriate data sources, its time to analyze. Analysis is the ability to break down material into its component parts.  It is a process that serves to make improvements and streamline efforts. So it’s wise to regularly analyze your efforts. In Sexy Little Numbers, the process discussed is the A2A – Analysis to Action – framework.

Adopted from Sexy Little Numbers by Dimitri Maex

Adopted from Sexy Little Numbers by Dimitri Maex

It all begins with the data phase. This is going to require you to import all of your data into an Excel spreadsheet.  To simplify things you can utilize the Analysis ToolPak in Excel. During the analysis phase you want to figure out what worked and what didn’t work by asking the right questions. For Example:

  • Does one ad work better than another?
  • Does time of day and day of the week factor into a campaigns success?
  • Does length of campaign play a part?
  • Which products or services did well during a particle campaign?

From here you need to begin testing. What’s working, and what would the impact be on your business if you saw a small percentage increase or decrease? Knowing what doesn’t work allows you to re-work content, redistribute it, and analyze the new data. You have to be willing to do a little experimentation, going beyond A/B Testing and begin running A/B/C/D/E/F Testing.

Moving in the process from testing to share and execute, is the point at which action is required. In terms of the A2A framework the share step refers to sharing the insights of all the analysis you’ve done with your company’s team. Together you can begin to develop more engaging content and plan execution strategies based on the information your organization has.

Next week we’ll look at a hypothetical case in order to illustrate the process in action. As always we hope you have found this post to be informative. We want to hear from you so be sure to leave a comment below!

06.03.14
by

Intro to Measuring Your Social Media Efforts

Measuring Success

This series is based on the wonderful teachings found in Sexy Little Numbers by Dimitri Maex

This week we wanted to dive deeper into analyzing and measuring your efforts when it comes to utilizing Social Media Marketing for your business. After the Content Calendar Series post on Metrics one of our fellow Social Media Marketers asked if we could give some insight on the analysis side of things. So we took the time and did some homework, looking for the best insights on the subject.

***Side Comment: There is a lot of information on the internet, but very rarely do we feel that it provides real insights. So as great as the internet is, we believe some of the best insight and advice you will ever get can come from a book. Take the time to visit your local library, many Social Media Marketing books are quick and easy reads that are just chock full of great advice!

In our Content Calendar Series, Part 2 we discussed setting up metrics to measure your success. At this point, you know that you need to be calculated with your efforts while remaining flexible in what may come. But when faced with all the data you’re able to collect, things can start the get fuzzy. For many business owners it can feel like numbers overload. Fact of the matter is the answers to the questions you have are there but you have to know which ones  to focus on to avoid the overwhelm. And as we write this post we too begin to realize this will have to be another series. For, in order for us to give you the insight you need in an easily digestible manner, we will need to break it up for you in order to go in depth.

What’s your KPI? How do you measure your business’ success outside of social media?

Do not overlook the significance of identifying what indicates success for your business. Many make the mistake of not taking the time to sit with themselves or their staff to define what the key indicators are. Only from there can you start to set clear objectives that you would like to achieve with a campaign or your overall social media presence. Be sure to prioritize these objectives; success requires a level of planning and effort…. Don’t skimp on the planning! Big brands can spend up to weeks with an entire team planning just one social media post. Don’t just assume you’re going to wing it and then knock one out of the ball park! It could take you months to harvest the fruits of your social media labor.

Skip this part and you’ll soon learn that everyone has a their own definition of success for the company. Which, for you, will only equated to wasted time, effort, and money! Once you’ve agreed upon the objectives, review each one to insure it has a metric (a standard of measurement), a benchmark (rates your performance among the competition), and a time frame. Those that don’t, rework to fit the criteria. Without these three elements your objectives are merely desires.

You want your objectives to be SMART:

Smart Objectives

SMART objectives are your Key Performance Indicators. Establishing and implementing these measures, requires you to take things a step further with Action Learning Indicators. These indicators tell the story behind what drives certain KPI’s. See, it’s not enough to just measure your KPI, you also have to understand what factors will cause a metric to go up or down. For example, say you’re currently running a marketing campaign to drive ticket sales for an event. You may say we’re going to run a 4 week campaign with the objective of selling 100 tickets, and based on past event ticket sales you may begin the campaign confident that you’ll achieve this objective quickly or driven to hit a new target. Either way there are a ton of action learning indicators that you could associate with this objective such as from what platform or ad did the sale come from, what time of day was the purchase made, where is the customer from… Which ties back to your understanding of your audiences’ online intended actions.

Untitled design

Adopted from Kolb, D.A (1984) Experimental Learning

Now you have what you need to begin getting down to the good stuff… Tracking how well you’re actually doing!

This is where the data comes into play. Like many small businesses, chances are that the data is spread out all over the place, but you can export reports from the various platform ad managers and your Google Analytics into Excel. Sourcing the data is only half the battle, we also have to create a plan to measure the performance of our efforts.

Back to metrics, there are three basic types that you need to be looking at:

  1. Input: The investment, typically money, you make in obtaining a specific outcome. Look at how the money is being spent, it’s not enough to set a budget and allocate funds. You have to take it a step further, it’s not always easy to account for every penny’s effectiveness but you can look at the results yielded and determine where to focus your attentions. Wouldn’t it help to know what ads work best on which platforms or discover where to divert funds from.
  2. Output: In terms of social media, it’s all about the engagement. What is your audience’s immediate response to your campaign? Understanding how people interact with your content gives you the ability to tailor it and improve your audience’s overall experience with it!
  3. Outcome: Did you or did you not achieve your goal? When accessing the effectiveness of a campaign there are a few questions to consider:
    • How many people know about your services, products or brand?
    • How many people like your services, products or brand?
    • How many people would think about buy from you?
    • How many new customers have you attracted?
    • How many are loyal to your brand? Loyalty should be based on your own definition, specific to your brand.

Do the work now and you will begin to find what works best for your brand. To be continued…

As always we love hearing from you so please be sure to leave your comments below or email us at PurelySocialinfo@gmail.com

05.20.14
by

Why are you on Social Media?

Why Are You on Social Media-

Last week we completed our Content Calendar series and it really got us thinking about a few things… Things about your business, how you use social media and why?

Over the past few weeks we’ve been in the process of discussing our services with some new potential clients and we’re starting to notice a few things… For one, many business owners know that they should establish a Social Media presence, at least that’s what everyone keeps telling them, but they aren’t really sure what to do once they are there. So begin by asking yourself: how should my business be represented on Social Media, and how should we position ourselves to stand out from the rest?  These can be tough questions to answer but are necessary to the development and execution of your strategy.

It is our opinion that the role Social Media plays in your business’ online presence can fall into one of two categories:

Your Social Media drives traffic to your website, playing a key role in lead generation and sales conversion.
or
Your Social Media simply supports and beefs up your online presence.

For example, there are some industries that are just ideal for social media. Fashion, beauty, physical fitness and photography work well because they are rich in visual content. Followers and fans of these industries get the behind the scenes tour for their favorite brands and personalities. Social Media is an opportunity for these brands to have fun and engage with their followers in a way that would not be possible through their websites. Unfortunately, this utilization of Social Media does not lend itself to every industry. For example what are the chances that you will be compelled to  follow an accountant on Facebook, an exterminator on Instagram or the local dry cleaner on Pinterest? Pretty slim to none, right?

Well truth is you just might depending on your interaction with that particular business. This is where category 2 comes into play. As we previously mentioned we have been in talks with two potential clients regarding how we can assist them in developing and sustaining a presence on Social Media, one client operates a young dental practice and the other sells various insurance packages to local businesses. Neither of these businesses would be considered glamorous in the world of Social Media Marketing and neither are rich in a steady flow on exciting visual content. Does this mean they shouldn’t be on Social Media?

Of course is doesn’t! It just means we’ll need to be calculated… We explained to these clients that they will need to shift their view of the role Social Media will be playing in their businesses from category 1 to category 2. For these types of businesses we’re not looking to drive traffic from a platform to a website, but rather we are looking to create a Social Media presences that allows visitors from their websites to get a good sense of what that particular business is about. There are tons of dentist out there, so how will a patient decide between them? Well for one they’re going to ask around, read reviews and visit the offices’ website. But what will be that determining factor that helps seal the deal…. It very well might be their Social Media presence.

We explained to these clients that Social Media is an opportunity for them to share with the world what makes them special and unique. Social Media is a great place to highlight their company culture, explain various policies and  showcase their knowledge in a particular area. It’s also a great way for them to interact with their customers in a more relaxed setting. Everyone likes getting a birthday card in the mail, but imagine receiving a birthday wish from your Dog Groomer via twitter. You’d feel pretty special and a bit tickled for the unique interaction!

There is an opportunity for every industry to utilize social media effectively , it just takes some creativity and a little trial and error. Defining what your intentions are when it comes to creating a Social Media presence will not only save you time but confusion as well. Don’t set out with the intention of  doing what everyone else is doing, take the time to study the social accounts of other businesses in your industry. What are they doing well and what do you feel they could lose? Figure out what works best for you and be prepared to try many different things before settling on the strategies and tactics that are ideal for you!

As always we are most interested in hearing from you! Have a comment you’d like to share, or maybe you have a question you would like answered. Leave us a message below or email us at purelysocialinfo@gmail.com. We can wait to give you the advice or help you desire!