Is your business fanpage working for or against you? Facebook is a wonderful tool to attract new customers and to maintain the interest of current customers. At times, it seems like Facebook is making changes every time we turn around. While it may be difficult to keep up with all of the changes, especially with the latest change to Timeline, it is worth your time and energy to make sure that your business fanpage is working for you and not against you. Here are three ways to improve your business fanpage.

Cover Image

Your cover image must be 851 px wide x 315 px height. While Timeline does have some restrictions for your cover image (you cannot display a direct call to action or list your website), your cover image is still the most compelling element of your Facebook fanpage. Your cover image is where most of your business branding will come in to play. This image is the first thing that visitors will see; therefore it is important to make a great impression. Don’t just slap any picture in the cover image position; it is well worth the money to have a graphic designer make a custom image that fits the dimensions perfect. You do not want your image to appear blurry or distorted. Take the time to make a great first impression.

Great Content

We all know that content is king, and this is even more important on Facebook. If your audience feels that you are just posting arbitrary content for the sake of getting content out there, they will quickly unlike your page and tell their friends that your business fanpage is a waste of time. Create great content. One way to make sure your best posts are seen is by ‘pinning’ them to the top of your Facebook Timeline business page.  Take advantage of this ‘Pin To Top’ feature.

Twitter Integration

Do your Twitter account and your Facebook account talk to each other? A great way to kill two birds with one stone is by integrating your Twitter account into your Facebook account. The benefit of this integration is that every time you post on Facebook, your post will be sent out via your Twitter account. By creating a constant stream of relevant and useful content, you will be able to engage with both your Twitter audience and your Facebook audience at the same time. This is a great time saver for busy individuals.

There are many different strategies that can be used to improve your business fanpage. The key is to keep up with the changes that Facebook makes and the rules that they have. By having a compelling cover image, great content and twitter integration you will find yourself pleased with the results.

Thanks!

Sean

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Have you made a huge effort in having a social media presence? You are on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+, but is your audience listening? How can we, as marketers, make sure that our content is heard and not just glossed over? There is nothing more frustrating than delivering great consistent content and having it just stay dormant on your social media marketing platforms. Here are three tips to get your audience’s attention.

Show Your Personality

The key to any form of social media marketing is the word ‘social’. Consumers aren’t spending time on Facebook or Twitter just to read about you and your company. They are tired of being told to ‘buy this’ and ‘click here’. The majority of their experiences with businesses may have been poor. Perhaps they were spammed to death or have received one too many email newsletters full of nonsense. Show them who you are via these platforms. If you have a quirky sense of humor, show that to your audience with the type of content you broadcast. You will attract more customers by being ‘you’ and not like every other business out there.

Give Them A Reason To Share

Individuals who frequent social networking platforms love to share with their personal network. If they see an inspirational image, watch a video that motivates them or read something that gives them useful information, they will share this. You need to understand your audience, know what they enjoy and deliver the goods. You can accomplish the task of grabbing your audience’s attention by listening to them. Get to know them as people and soon they will be sharing your content left and right.

Engage

Are you only broadcasting your content but not actually talking with your audience? This is a mistake that many marketers make. They assume that if they just broadcast information, the result will be that their audience is grateful for the posts. This is not the case. Talk with your fans. Join the tweetchats and most of all have fun. This is one of the best ways to gain your audiences attention and to maintain that attention.  When your audiences asks questions on Facebook or comments on your blog posts, make sure you take the time to address them. If they take the time to make a comment or ask a question, it is your job to make sure that they are heard.

Creating great content is only part of what needs to be done to capture the attention of your audience via social media networks. After you create and post content, you must engage and develop a relationship with these individuals. Taking 30 minutes a day to check on comments, questions and concerns raised by consumers will result in potential business and increased sales.

Happy Marketing!

Sean

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If you aren’t using Twitter for your business, you should be. Out of all of the different social networking sites, Twitter is the one that is the most fast moving. Each ‘tweet’ is comprised of 140 characters. The key is to make the most out of each word that you choose. How can Twitter be used for your business?

Keeps You Connected

Twitter is extremely fast-paced. Once you get your streams going, you will see hundreds of tweets throughout the course of a day. Twitter helps you stay connected with a large population of consumers all at one time. While this may seem confusing at first, this is the best channel to see what everyone is talking about. You will quickly see what’s buzzing and what consumers want. Try doing a simple Twitter search on words that describe your business. You will see what your potential consumers are asking for.

Creates Traffic

Twitter makes it extremely simple to drive traffic to the destination of your choice. With your tweets you can drive people to your blog and to your website. One of the easiest ways to do this is by sending a tweet out when you make an update on your blog. Remember that everyone who is following you sees tweets. It is also important to note that if you use the right keywords, individuals that are searching for those specific terms will see your tweet as well.

Increase Your Reach

One of the best things about Twitter is that you can reach millions of people that you don’t directly know. This is a great way to build your brand and your business. Your tweets will be read by many individuals who, given traditional methods, would never have heard of you and your business.

Quick & Easy

Twitter takes very little time and energy. Once you get in the habit of sending out a handful of tweets a day, you can easily accomplish this task in about a half an hour per workday. In truth, sending a tweet takes less time than sending a text. You can communicate with your peers, your potential customers and your existing customers with ease. You won’t have to spend the time writing emails or making as many phone calls. Twitter can make your life a lot easier.

While Twitter may seem confusing and too fast-paced for many business individuals, it is an important marketing tool. Along with gaining new business and driving traffic to your blog or website, Twitter is fantastic at seeing what people are saying about you and your brand. Twitter empowers you to be very pro-active about your business. If you haven’t entered the Twitter-verse yet, I suggest you try so today!

Happy Marketing!

Sean

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Are you a thought leader in your industry? Does your social media identity clearly show that you are a thought leader? We all strive to be considered thought leaders in our industry, but simply making the declaration that you are doesn’t necessarily make it so. You need to take massive action to position yourself as a true thought leader. This process does involve spending a little time and energy but once you are positioned as the go-to person in your industry, you will see that this is time and energy well invested. Here are a few proven tips that you can utilize to position yourself as a thought leader in your industry.

Define Your Niche

Being a jack-of-all-trades may appear to be a good strategy, but if you are pulled in too many directions you will never become a master of any one specific thing. Stay focused on the areas where you excel and hire individuals to assist you in areas where you don’t. If you are great at creating content but are unable to find the time to send this content out on your social networking platforms, consider hiring a virtual assistant. They can easily handle the small time consuming tasks that quickly weigh you down.

Create Sound Content

Creating content simply for the sake of creating content is a waste of your time. You need to create dense content that has valuable information. Thought leaders have longevity, therefore creating sound, well-researched and relevant content is critical. It is better to create one solid piece of content once a week rather than create fluff content five times a week.

Social Media Presence

We all know that consumers are going to the web to find the answers to their questions and the products and services that will solve their problems. Make your brand very visible by interacting on the social networking platforms where your demographic spends time. If they are on Facebook, create a business page. If they are on Twitter, start a tweet chat. If they are on LinkedIn, create a group. Engage with your consumers and once they see that you offer value and are consistent, business will start to come your way.

Remember Your Roots

When you first entered your industry, you had a solid purpose in doing so. What was your mission? Is this still your mission? Do you have your goals clearly defined? You must have faith in your abilities and your expertise in order for others to have faith in you. Take the time to re-visit your “why”.

Thought leaders are sought after for their expertise and their ability to offer value. They are known for solving problems and being at the top of their game. Take the time to position yourself as a thought leader today.

Thanks!

Sean

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Email marketing campaigns are still a great way to give your audience great content on a regular basis. When your audience has given you their email address, they have given you permission to contact them. They want to hear from you, but they don’t want to be constantly bombarded with emails telling them to buy something or click here or go do this. Many email marketing campaigns fail because the list of contacts has been abused. Your contacts want to hear from you; therefore it is important to provide them with value. In order to decrease the number of unsubscribes per email marketing campaign, you need to nurture your list. Here are three ways to keep your list of contacts happy.

Give Give Give

One of the key components of successful email marketing is to come from a place of giving. You are building a relationship with your audience, not just telling them what they should buy. Each and every email that you send to your list must contain some element that is useful. You don’t have to give away everything, but giving your audience tips, advice or links to resources that can help them will let your readers know that you care about them.

Keep It Short

Time is the one resource where we all get the same amount of minutes each and every day. It is not uncommon for people to receive over 50 emails a day, if not a great deal more. When they open up the email from you, they should be able to read it quickly and conveniently. Design your email marketing strategy to include how your email will appear on a smart phone. The majority of individuals on your list will not be at their computer, they will be checking their email on their phone. Keep your emails short, sweet and to the point. You will have a higher conversion of people that click the links you share and that respond to your call to action.

Call To Action

What outcome do you wish to achieve with your email marketing campaign? All to often our audience will be flooded with emails from various lists that they have subscribed to. You need to give them a reason to open your email and you need to provide direction for a desired outcome. If your end goal is only to have them purchase your product of the moment, you will be disappointed. If your goal is to have them share your content, mention you on social networking platforms and vouch for you as an expert in your field, you will have success.

Email marketing is a form of marketing that has not been used properly by many businesses. For this reason alone, people are less apt to enter their email address. You must nurture this relationship and show your subscribers that you value them and you will value their business.

Happy Marketing!

Sean

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All business that have ventured having a presence on Facebook ask themselves the same questions. How do I gain a large following? How can I turn my Facebook marking efforts into actual money? How much time will it take to see a return on my investment? These questions are all valid and online marketing is something that is not a fad. Having a presence on Facebook is important and when done correctly, can yield some amazing results. What are a few ways that you can make your business soar on Facebook?

Create An Experience

Make your business page on Facebook as visually appealing as possible. With the advent of Timeline, this is easy to accomplish. Timeline makes it possible to show off your business with style. Make sure you incorporate your logo and change up your posts. Give your fans a reason to share your content. Use of videos, images and valuable information works well. Also offer your fans great incentives for liking your page. Coupons and special offers are a great way of saying thank you.

Create Community

Facebook opens the door and provides the optimal platform for creating community.  Your fans are customers and potential customers but above all they are individuals looking to have an experience. As a sales professional, it is your job to provide them with an experience that makes them feel that they are special. Engagement is a great way to accomplish this. Respond to any and all complaints and acknowledge the raving compliments. Your fans are taking time out of their day to connect with you, it is just good manners to return the favor.

Sponsored Stories & Facebook Ads

Facebook makes it very easy to become visible to consumers that are in your target demographic but that may not know about your brand. Facebook aggregates data from their user base so that you can choose exactly which demographic you want to target with your ad campaign. Sponsored Stories allow your posts to have extreme exposure with fans. Your Sponsored Stories can be new posts or older posts, which allows you to recycle great content. This is extremely time efficient.

Give Them Something To Talk About

Content is always king. Make sure your posts are engaging. Ask questions, ask for feedback and use the Facebook Poll option when you are looking for specific fan feedback for your brand. Photo tagging is another way to get your fan base talking. Take pictures of your products or your business and tag them with your business fanpage profile.

Facebook has opened a whole new world for marketing. Brands now have direct access to their customers and potential customers on a 24/7 basis with an audience that is around 900 million. It is well worth your time to take massive action and build your brands visibility.

Thanks!

Sean

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Do you know your Klout score? Are you even aware of how your Klout score is generating buzz about your brand, even if you aren’t actively engaging? Klout is a system of ranking your online influence. Klout uses a system of analytics to measure who and how you influence others. Your Klout score doesn’t just reflect your influence on one social networking platform, such as Facebook. It tracks your influence over social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Klout has been around since 2009 and the gist of how they determine your influence by analyzing data that measures not only the size of your network but the content you create and how your network interact with the content you create. The range of a Klout score goes from zero to one hundred. There are not many scores of one hundred out there, but if you haven’t checked your Klout score, you should.

Klout can be logged into via Twitter or Facebook. Once you see what your current Klout score is, you can take massive action to increase your score. Here are three ways that you can increase your Klout score and enjoy the benefits of being a super influencer.

Create Great Content

The common theme that is always prevalent when it comes to increasing your audience, gaining new customers and having great influence revolves around creating consistent great content. For Klout to register your content creation stream, utilize Facebook and Twitter and start sending out great information!

Network

In the world of Klout, kudos are given to people that you consider valuable by giving them a +K. This is a great way to give a shout out to individuals that are in your direct circle of influence. This is also a great way to reach out and connect with individuals that you otherwise may not have a direct connection to. The key is to be honest with your +K “gifts”. You can use this as a great way to start building a relationship. This is not an optimal way to just jump into a conversation.

Don’t Give Up

Don’t be discouraged if you are starting out with a rather low Klout score. Even if your score is a 10 or 11 (where the majority of accounts begin), you still have the same ability to increase your Klout score. It may take some time but Klout is an even playground for all members. The score is based on influence and content, which every individual can attain.

If you haven’t taken the time to log on to Klout and check out your score, you need to do so right away. Potential customers and your network of peers check Klout scores to determine if you and your brand are worth their weight. Log on, create content and don’t give up!

Thanks!

Sean

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We are constantly reading blogs and reports on how to maximize Facebook and Twitter for your marketing efforts. While many of us thought that LinkedIn was simply a platform for business professionals, most of whom were seeking work, in the last few months LinkedIn has changed their game dramatically. For many marketers, having a LinkedIn presence can be extremely helpful for their business. How do you maximize your LinkedIn efforts, in a short amount of time, to see these benefits? Here are three quick tips to set you on your course.

Complete User Profile

We all know that individuals do business with people they know, like and trust. If your profile doesn’t properly reflect who you are and what your business represents, the people viewing your profile will quickly skip over yours and go on to the next. Take the time to fill out your profile and choose your copy carefully. In many cases you are making a first impression. You want that impression to be a good one.

Start and promote a group

If you are unable to find a group that reflects your business or your philosophy, simply create one. Creating a group will establish you as an expert in your field. You must keep your group active. Invite people you admire to your group and invite people you know to your group. Add discussions and offer relevant information that can be used by others. This is a great way to start the ball rolling on potential customers and creating joint ventures with businesses that mesh with your company.

Connect Your Accounts

LinkedIn offers the ability to link many of your accounts to your LinkedIn profile. This feature is often overlooked and it is a great way to drive traffic. If you want people to go to your website, add that link. If you want people to go to your blog, attach a blog rss feed. Another great tip is to link your twitter account to your LinkedIn profile. This allows a constant stream of new content to flow to your account. People will quickly learn that you are a valuable source of useful information and they will continue to visit your profile. They will also be more apt to visit your website or your blog if they feel that you are trustworthy.

LinkedIn is one of the most underutilized social media platforms of today.  By taking the time to use LinkedIn effectively, you will find potential customers that you otherwise may not have reached. LinkedIn is also extremely valuable for staying on top of what is happening in your industry. You have the opportunity to connect with other experts while establishing yourself as the expert in your field.

Thanks!

Sean

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One of the easiest ways to continually stay on top of the Google search engine is by creating new content. All marketers know that they must consistently create new content for their web platform. Regardless if this content is created via Facebook. Twitter, Blogs or on the website itself, it must be created. A business can have the best looking website and highest quality created web marketing platform, but without a constant infusion of content, it will never be seen. This brings up the question that almost all marketers and business owners ask, “How can I create great new content on a consistent basis?” Here are three easy ways to keep the creative juices flowing and generate new and interesting content.

Be Unique

How are you or your business different than your competitors? Perhaps you have a business that has been in your family for generations? Maybe your business does house calls when your competitors do not? Be sure to accent the unique qualities that make your business stand out. Outside of broadcasting these unique elements, integrate them into your entire web platform. Every business needs to solve problems for their customers. Simply ask yourself, “What makes my business stand out?” When you determine what makes your business unique, this needs to be a focal point that can be used in your Facebook posts, your Twitter Tweets and as subject matter for your blog.

Proper Links

Your site should be the “go-to” for your area of expertise. By offering quality, informative and truthful information, you will gain the trust of potential customers. A great way to achieve this is through the use of links. Pay attention to where your links are sending your visitors. For example, when you are tweeting or posting on Facebook, it does not benefit you to simply grab great headlines that send your potential customers directly to your competitions website. Keep your potential clients on your site by offering links within your blog to the pages on your site that will answer their questions. The same strategy applies for your outbound messaging plans.

Fix The Problem

What solution does your business offer to solve your customer’s problems? Your business should be as transparent as possible and the content you create needs to reflect this. For example, if your business provides SEO optimisation services, explain to your customers why they need this service. Demonstrate how proper SEO will benefit them and explain why. Being secretive or evasive only creates frustration on the part of the customer. Creating transparent content will show the customer that you care enough to assist them before they write that first check.

Creating new and relevant content on a regular basis will allow Google to consistently highly rate your site. The key is to provide value.

Happy Marketing!

Thanks!

Sean

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It seems that every time I turn around someone is starting a new business. The days of individuals wanting to work in a corporate environment, the typical 9-5 jobs in an office setting are quickly dwindling. More individuals are striving to be their own boss and in charge of their own financial destiny. While this is a great thing and it is possible to become successful as an entrepreneur, the world of business and marketing has shifted to living online. How can you get your startup on the right path towards success in this ever-changing world of marketing?

Start Out Social

Before you even purchase a business card, get your business online. Create a Facebook business page and a Twitter account. You can begin to market your business before you have product on your shelves. By generating customer interest at the beginning stages, you are almost guaranteed sales once you open your door for business.

Choose Your Platforms Carefully

Your business does not have to be on every single social networking platform that exists. Do a little research and see which of the most popular platforms is a perfect match for your business or service. It would be counterproductive to spend all of your time marketing on every platform that exists. You would find yourself spending too many hours online and not enough hours making sure you have product to sell.

Engage With Your Target Demographic

The art of sales is the art of engaging with your customer base. Find out where your niche target demographic hangs out and join them. The key is to join them as one of them, not as a business trying to sell them something. Strike up conversations, offer helpful tips and advice (when it is requested) and most of all have fun! The online forums and communities will support you once they know you are one of “them”.

Have A Strategy

All to often business startups begin investing time and effort into online networking without a strategy. A strategy is the very first thing that you need to develop before going online. Design your strategy and pay attention to your results. See what is working for you and make adjustments when necessary. Don’t be afraid to change your strategy if you are not seeing optimal results.

There is no doubt that a startup company can become very successful within a short period of time. The advent of social networking platforms has only made this easier. The truth is, you can start marketing your business online before you have invested a great deal of cash. This is a great way to test your market and see if your products are needed and wanted. The key is to have a strategy, dive in and most of all have fun.

Thanks!

Sean

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