Coaching For Success
Posts tagged social media for business
Show The World Who You Are With Video Marketing
Aug 30th
Video marketing is now one of the quickest and fastest ways to let potential clients and customers know who you are and what your business is about. It is also very cheap to produce and easy to upload to the web and in most cases has virtually an immediate impact on your websites traffic.
Did you know that up to 75% of Internet users prefer watching videos online to reading articles? In other words, all they need to know about you and your business can be summed up in a video presentation that gives your internet business all the jump-start it needs to keep them coming back for more. People talk about video marketing as an effective means to conveying your marketing personality and brand.
Videos work better more often than text because more people tend to respond better to visual representations. If you think about ads on your TV even though you may go and make a cup of tea through them the fact is 65 – 80% of people have full recall of an ad. The reason for this is simple – people’s attention spans are short, so are the ads. Generally speaking a TV ad is 30 secs – thats all the time any advertiser has to make an impression and get people to recall their product or service, this is all the time they have to turn a potential customer into a paying customer.
You as an internet business owner should be thinking the same, your video marketing campaigns should be , short, sharp and to the point if you want it to be remembered. if you cannot say it in a minute then you need to rethink your ad. On the internet a video can make the difference between being good and being great, being visible and being invisible.
Some internet business owners have beautiful text based sites which bring in customers no problem, others have not so good looking web sites that have video which bring in even more customers this is because the video made the difference. Search engines love videos and generally videos show higher in search engine results and online, visibility is everything.
Statistics Clearly Show A Rise in Internet Video Viewing - Image Courtesy of eMarketer.com
If a picture can tell a thousand words! Imagine how much more a video marketing your product or service can do for you. You can have spoken content in your video conveying your product or service, there can be inviting music in the background to give listeners a mood lift, you can showing your expertise in your field to selling your brand and most importantly you can use footage of your clients’ experience savouring your products or services. All this with just a one minute video clip!
A site that is text based relies on visitor’s attention being caught by visual images or by reading the text, which is no problem if you can get them to stop long enough. Any good internet marketer or internet consultant will tell you you have approximately three to five seconds to make an impact on your site opening or people will leave.
Now most business owners believe that putting a video online is difficult or has to be some work of art but this is really not the case and should not hinder any small business from using video, I mean it’s no big deal to grab your camcorder and film scenes of your business’ day to day natural life. This creates a wonderful effect of being right there, where all the action is taking place, just by viewing a presentation video.
How do you publish the video? – Simple! – There are many huge sites like YouTube, Vimeo, Livestream and Google Video where your infomercial can really stand out. You can use theme to your advantage by publishing your videos on multiple platforms which is a common strategy, as it increases your exposure seven-fold so you become highly visible and not only that!
People are attracted to video it is natural for most people to be pulled by things that stimulate the senses, in the case of video marketing it is sight , sound, and mental perception. Video marketing can keep your customers informed and ensures potential customers see you in a better light.
Only you can make your internet business a marketing success, you need to add video marketing to your arsenal and get your company more visible to grab those clients. Are You Ready? Get set… GO and try it out!
Using Social Media to Help Obtain Organic Search Visitors
Aug 23rd
Social Media Has Many Faceats For Doing Business
Organic search results are a great economical tool for Internet business promotion, as in general it bears no financial cost if done by yourself alternatively you can invest in a good internet marketing service to do this for you. One of the most popular way of promoting your website online is through the use of Social Media to help give you an edge over your competitors. This article focuses on the social media platforms through which you can promote your website and help increase your rankings in organic search results.
Why social media should be used?
The biggest advantage of using social media networks is the presence of large number of users. These users interact with each other round the clock. Millions of topics are discussed and you are sure to find some topics relevant to your business website. These social networks are very useful in generating a viral effect and can increase the number of visitors on your webpage.
The traffic that can be generated through these networks consists of genuine users who are willing to discuss and give feedback about your business. All of these factors enhance your visibility on the web and can help your website to move up in search rank and help your Internet business reap the benefits of organic search.
Possible social media channels for website promotion
There are a vast range of social media channels out there with the video ones being the most popular, they are also a sure-fire way to get indexed quicker and possible can help your rankings and page position as well. Websites like ‘youtube.com’, and ‘metacafe.com’ are exclusively video based sites where you can add visuals to promote your own page.
Then there are websites like ‘scribd.com’ where you can publish internet business articles or presentations about your website. ‘scribd.com’ give you the option of highlighting your business websites through power-point slideshows and articles. These presentations are browsed by serious visitors and thus attract meaningful traffic on your website.
General websites, which allow all types of content like videos, images and articles tend to be sites, like ‘twitter.com’, ‘facebook.com’ and ‘orkut.com’. These networks get a high volume of Internet traffic consisting of regular visitors. In order to get the most from these sites you must post updated content regularly and direct the visitors to your webpage by posting links.
Shorter videos are more effective on these websites and images can take the form of print advertisements or some other type of creative message. You can also start a discussion topic to attract visitors to your web pages during the course of discussion. The key is to visit these sites regularly and interact with users as much as possible.
On top of these other possible social channels you can use in your arsenal to gain visitors, backlinks and help raise your search status organically are blogs and discussion forums. You can publish blogs about your business and link them to your website through blogging sites like ‘blogcatalog.com’, ‘technocrati.com’, ‘mybloglog.com’.
If you know a little about SEO you can link all of these things together to create a link wheel that promotes your business on micro-sites that can be feed content through RSS feeds from your main site and can incorporate your Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook profiles as well. If this is done properly it can gain your business tremendous momentum in organic search results.
A word of caution if you do not know how to do this properly, please do not do it at all, like all things SEO if done incorrectly it could negatively impact your site. Try to find an Internet marketing service to help you, if they do not know what a link wheel is or can not explain it in lay terms as I have here do not use them keep looking till you find a good one.
Using web feeds
Using ‘Web feeds’ can help you to increase visitors to your Internet business website. A web feed is data, which shows frequently updated content from a webpage and to which users can subscribe to by clicking the RSS icon. Through web feeds you can update your internet business readers about your content, it is a great way to get them to come back to your site which is a great way to increase traffic on your website which ultimately improves your search engine rankings.
Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically. They also benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favoured websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place. If you decide to use web feeds it is advisable to check your options to do this, as there are some great ways to improve your visibility, which an Internet marketing service can show you as RSS feeds can be read using software called an “RSS reader which can be web-based, desktop-based, or mobile-device-based.
Using Linkbaiting on blogs
‘Linkbaiting’ is a technique where you can post your website link on high profile blogs. These links help you to improve Search Engine rankings as search engine algorithms consider them significant while ranking your website. There are popular blogging sites, which you can paste your links on their content like ‘technocrati.com’, and ‘mybloglog.com’.
The most important part of this process is choosing the right blog and providing them the links through which their readers get some value added information. These blogs allow linkbaiting only if the content provided by your internet business website compliments or augments the information posted on the host blog. So it is advisable that you approach only those blogs which have content related to your website.
How to find a right media channel?
The key to finding the right type of website where you can post articles etc to is to keep a track of all the places on internet which has content that is related to your internet business and the content on your website. To do this you can use various methods such as setting ‘Google alerts’ on your keywords; by visiting related forums and posting on them; by regular blogging; by becoming an active member of online communities related to you and so on.
With a bit of research, you can find many effective ways to utilise the potential of social media to help you gain better organic search rankings as well as potential visitors. If you do not have the time or expertise in this area then find a good internet marketing service and discuss the promotion of your internet business website with them.
The 4 Stages of Social Media Development For Business
Jul 22nd
Making Social Media Work for Your Business
By now most people are tired of being told how wonderful Social Media is for their business. There are many people who try social media but cannot quite make it work for their business, they may get followers or linked into a network etc but it never seems to quite generate the business or the interest and demand for their product or service they had hoped for. Unfortunately for these people they have either not quite got the hang of it to do it properly or have underestimated so under utilized these social platforms in order to create demand.
The fact is, prospective customers are engaging with your business long before they interact with you directly. When used correctly social media can deliver two important success beacons the first is it can create an impact on your generated revunue and secondly is it can also help to greatly shorten the time it takes to generate a sale.
This process has four stages, base development, lead development, opportunity development and customer development. . This article will look at how best to use these processes in your everyday marketing mix in order to create demand for your product and service.
1. Base Development.
This is the creation and development of first contact relationships, using social interactions, like all interaction you must build trust, which means building good relationships with your prospect without asking for any contact details. This can be done through your social network or through your website using great content without requiring registration.
Now I know that this defies the standard logic of getting customers to fill in a form, but if the content is compelling they will come back and be more willing to sign up to something from you. It does not follow just because you cannot identify these people that they are not qualified leads.
Many people will fill in a form just to have a look or from curiousity that does not make them qualified and they filled in your form. Instead provide good content to help develop a relationship with them that is open-ended in the way you would if you possibly networked with them face to face, if you do not your competetors may well beat you to ttheir cutom.
2. Lead Development.
If you build a good base relationship with your prospect then this stage will be easy to implement as you will be building on that base by maintaining your relationship with that contact. Many internet business owners do this through newsletters that continue to educate a prospect to their products or services and content. This is not just newsletters it is email or telesales calls. In terms of Social media however you should attempt to use your interactions and conversations in the same way you would use your website to help increase and target your marketingand sales.
Do this in a very focused way that prequalifies a person, to do this listen to the conversations going on find one that is relevent to your field of expertise and join in do not offer your services just show your knowledge, then use what you have learnt or discussed to hone in to people who maybe interested in your services by making discussions with them more relevant.
Then you need to segment and start your marketing campaigns based on the knowledge you have gained through social interaction. Then as with all marketing track marketing, your social interactions and engagement activites such as downloads and click through rates and web site visits from your social media platforms.
3. Opportunity Development.
This is where you utilise social media to support your business’ sales cycle once someone goes from being a prospect to a buyer. For this to work properly you must establish the difference between a lead and a sales-ready lead and after the sales process has ended what time frame and how this customer now goes back into the marketing process again for further opportunity development.
Social media can help to provide a good insight into the sales readiness of a prospect and any buyer intent, this means that social media can be critical to keeping your leads moving along the lead life cycle path. Some key ways to make this work for you is to use conversations going on to your advantage by paying attention to what people are saying to each other, what needs may come up, what surges in interest and comments are being given.
All of these things can improve the way you market and generation demand and leads, remember to continually monitor these behaviours is the main key as if there is an upsurge in your area of expertise you want to market to it and generate demand and leads from it by re-establishing contact with that person, persons or group.
4. Customer Development.
This stage is used to improve on your relationships with your existing customers. This is the stage many people let lapse, Existing customers are a great source of new and continuing revenue, and must be continuously contacted and developed, I would probably say more than a new lead as you have history together.
Think about using social media to stay in touch or tell others how valued they are, be ultra nice, send addition information in the form of tips, trick or tutorials whether paper, email or video based or to reaffirm purchase after they are made.
Try to establish a methodology to keep your drip marketing campaigns highly targeted, timely and relevant to your audiences needs, listen for new needs and requirements constantly, be adaptible so that you can leverage these new needs or requirement so you do not lose out to your competitors.
By using these four development stages within the social media arena you will be able to generate a base for your lead generation process using simply your interactions and conversation with others to help you develop qualified prospects to contact as and when they show a need for your product or service.
