Absolutely Necessary-SEO Strategy for 2016

If you want your business visible online this year. Search engine optimization is the best for you but first you need to hire a company or agency to work for you. This strategy will help your business visible online in organic search results. Check and read below the essential tactics we need for SEO success.

Here are 6 Important SEO tactics for 2016

1.Create an influencer who is a subject-matter expert. Influencer marketing has been the big solution for this year. Most Marketers believe the power of connecting influential people online especially in social media users. This will increased their budgets this year, a report from http://www.augure.com/blog/state-influencer-engagement-20150618

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2.Develop a content –marketing strategy. Content is the most valuable asset. This is where you delves deeper into the creation, publication, and governance of useful and usable content for your target audience.

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3.Generate powerful backlinks to your site and pages. Links is still important factor to consider together with consistent content creation to your website or blog at least twice a month. Links are easy to get, if you don’t care where they come from or whether they’ll actually help you. An authority site is just like a person that can be trusted to give you what you’re looking for.

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4.Make your website mobile friendly. Web Development company converts your website to a professional looking mobile responsive user friendly website. This is very important because a lot of people in this generation used mobile phones especially in business online that need exposure to the SERP’s results.

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5.Move your website to HTTPs. You can find the full explanation here what and why it is necessary to implement to our website https://moz.com/blog/seo-tips-https-ssl

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6.Add schema.org markup to your website. Schema.org is the centralized home on the web for the Schema project, a collaboration between Google, Bing, Yahoo! and Russian search engine Yandex (the one trying out search without links) to standardize structured markup. Here the sample set-up implementing to the site.

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Content Strategy Versus Content Marketing

Understanding these two is very important when creating a content to your audience. Before we dig in, let us know the meaning of Content Strategy from wikipedia, It says here "Content strategy refers to the planning, development, and management of content—written or in other media." While Content Marketing is "Content marketing is any marketing that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire and retain customers."

Content strategy and content marketing are two very different practices.

 Here are the basic practices of content marketing (from http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/)

If you are an agency: Whether you are an SEO agency transitioning into content marketing, or a full service agency adding a content marketing practice to your suite of services, please recognize that there is a distinction. I’ve seen too many agencies that are simply throwing the title “Content Strategist” at someone whose responsibilities would be much better served by the title “Content Marketing Strategist.” They are not the same thing — and your business will be better served by respecting their differences and/or offering both categories of service.

If you are a brand: If you are putting together teams and processes to create facile management of content as a core marketing strategy — employ both! Don’t assume that a marketing team that knows how to tell compelling, engaging stories understands all the intricacies of content strategy (they might, but it’s exceedingly rare). And, don’t assume that the content strategist that you’ve got managing the consistency and hierarchy of your technical documentation knows everything about content marketing.

If you are a practitioner: Know what you are passionate about, and pursue that practice with all your heart. Most of the best content strategists I know really don’t want to be content marketers — and vice versa. As a content marketer, I couldn’t admire content strategists more. What they do, quite frankly, mystifies me most of the time. On every marketing team I have the pleasure of working with, I adore having a content strategist there who will help make sure we don’t blow the place up.

Other Important Key Aspects in doing content marketing. 

1.  Content marketing is strategic — it requires a plan: As our research shows, having a documented content marketing strategy is one of the key things that distinguishes effective content marketers from their less-effective peers.
2. Content marketing involves both the creation and the distribution of content: Your job is not done when your content has been created. 
3. You need marketing for your content marketing. At the very minimum, the content you create must be relevant and valuable: Not “just any” content will do (and there’s absolutely no room for spammy, farm-generated content). Think of genuinely useful content that does not pitch but, rather, informs. 
4.  Content marketing is consistently delivered: One-off pieces of content don’t count; nor do campaigns that have a finite duration. 
5. Content marketing needs to be executed on an ongoing basis. Honestly, this isn’t always easy to accomplish, and success won’t necessarily come overnight. But the results you are able to achieve can be staggering in terms of audience engagement and value. 
6.  Your content needs to attract and retain an audience, with the ultimate goal of driving profitable customer action: Said another way, don’t create content just for the sake of having content.
7.  It needs to do something that will help you reach your key business goal(s). You must have a clearly defined audience in mind for everything you create. Even if you think anyone and everyone can benefit from your product or service, it’s always better to focus your content on reaching a particular audience target or niche.

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How to Make Internet Marketing an Effective Tool For Lead Generation

Internet marketing, also known as online or inbound marketing, is how many businesses reach new prospects and stay connected with their current customers. By using the Internet (and its ancillary branches, such as email and social media) to market their business, they are able to get their message out to people across the globe in a fraction of the time it would take using more "traditional" methods. Because people are increasingly spending a lot of their time online, it's important to know how to use Internet marketing methods in the most effective way possible. Here are some tips and techniques you can use to take full advantage of this type of marketing.

TIPS AND TECHNIQUES FOR INTERNET MARKETING SUCCESS

Social Media Marketing

One thing people have always had in common is the desire to stay connected. Today, tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn allow people to connect immediately with friends and family as well as the world at large. Social media marketing is very important for businesses because it helps them nurture their current customer base while also giving them the opportunity to make contact with new customers.

Whether you want to leverage your online presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any of the many social media platforms out there, the aim is the same: giving your customers the chance to connect with your business on a more personalized level via a two-way interaction. You may utilize your social media accounts to promote your business,; however, your primary goal should be to establish a conversation with customers and prospects to find out how you can better solve their problems and deliver what they are looking for. Professional internet marketers agree that selling on these platforms should be minimized; the focus is on engagement, creating interest and curiosity. Continual and overused sales pitches will likely have the reverse effect, and posts will be ignored.

Mobile Marketing

Similar to social media marketing is mobile marketing. More often than not, your customers and prospects will be connecting with your business through their smartphones or tablets instead of their computers. It is much easier to check websites or social media on the go rather than to sit down at a computer, so it is essential your marketing approach is mobile-friendly. This means having your website transferrable from desktop to mobile without glitches, as well as utilizing apps or creating your own. Internet advertising also includes banner ads on relevant websites and SMS (short message service),or text message marketing. In the case of text messaging, the protocol requirement is for customers to opt in to an automated system by texting a reply or shortcode. Once the customer has opted in, text message specials or important product and service updates are welcomed.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Marketing - Visibility Marketing

When a person is looking online for something similar to fit their needs, they enter search terms in a search engine, such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing. If your website or page isn't optimized for search engines, your page ranking may be so low that no one will find you - or you may not even show up at all! In order to be "found", your website needs to be visible to all of the major search engines. The way you make this happen is by SEO marketing, which utilizes specific tools (such as keywords, link building, and relevant content, to name just a few) to increase visibility and elevate page ranking. At 1st Straw, we refer to SEO as "visibility marketing", because every technique used is designed to make your website more visible to search engines. Improving your SEO marketing strategies will help get your business at the top of the search list instead of lost in all the other website links. Do this by thinking about what customers will search for instead of using typical words and phrases. The key to great SEO marketing is to think like a customer, and to create your keywords, build your links, and craft your content accordingly.

E-Mail Marketing

For many of us, our first thought at the words "email marketing" brings to mind the annoying "junk" or "spam" messages that land in our inbox each day. This is a prime example of email marketing done wrong. The purpose of email marketing is to maintain contact with your customers and prospects. Effectively done, it can be a powerful tool to generate more leads for your business.

You'll want to design your email content to be compelling and relevant to your recipients. You can craft an online newsletter that's distributed on a regular basis (e.g., monthly or semi-monthly). A successful email campaign has a clear objective, includes an "opt in" technique, and gets through the junk/spam filters so that it can actually be read. Be sure to use an email marketing provider that allows you to track your results so that you know who is opening your email and clicking through to your website or other links.

Internet marketing is a significant marketing channel that can reap measurable results. Use these strategies to step up your inbound marketing game and improve your online presence. The end result is more leads to convert into sales! Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9229068

How to Hire a Digital Marketing Agency

The online image of a company is becoming more and more important with the increasing popularity of the internet and the social media. The whole world is transforming into a big online community where every piece of information is available at the click of a button. So in such a scenario the role of a Digital marketing Agency is extremely important. And also more important is to select the right agency for your business. When you sign a digital marketing agency for your company you are not only giving them your business, you are actually giving them the power to build or destroy your brand reputation.

Experience

You need to understand what experience the company who would be handling your online reputation has. You need not give the handling of your online branding to a company who is just starting up and knows nothing about the business. What we primarily mean is that a company might be having years of experience in other domains but what is relevant to you is how much experience they have in your domain and your industry.

Response time

You also need to ask them what would be the average response time in case you have a situation or a query. You need not be waiting for hours or days to get your query handled. So ask them about the average response time for an email or a phone call. There might be situations when you would require them to act on an urgent basis. So keep that in mind as well.

It is important to hire a company which has its office locally as well. For example, if you are running your business from Sydney then you must hire the Best Digital marketing Agency in Sydney. You can’t hire an agency that is situated somewhere in Europe for example. This is because they would know the local market well enough. So when some situation or panic occurs local company would be able to handle it in a better manner. So always give value to the local advantage that will bring with it. And instead of hiring a global digital marketing company which doesn’t even have an office in your city; it’s better to hire the local Digital marketing Agency.

Ethical

Ethics in a company are very important for a long term relation. So you need to make sure that the company that you hire is ethical and follows only the legitimate and fair practices of digital marketing. This is because the search engines these days have become extremely strict on wrong and unethical SEO practices. The penalty that was just for the content has now gone on to increase to domain penalties as well. This means your entire domain would get penalized. The sites providing poor content and following Black Hat SEO tactics have been severely affected in the recent times because of penalties from search engines. So it is extremely important that digital marketing agency follows only fair marketing practices.

Diversity

One thing that might be important for you to know is about what is the diversity of the clients that they are handling. The company that you are going to hire must be catering to a diverse set of clients from all domains and from all levels. It needs not be handling just a handful of clients from the local area. Yes, we said that the local advantage is useful, but then a company must not be just having the experience of handling some small clients based out in the local city. Also the Local Company must also be doing digital marketing for its clients globally as well. It must be having clients of all levels i.e. from small to medium to large sector. This will make sure that it is well versed with the intricacies of the small as well as large businesses. So just hire local Agency so that you get that local advantage, but also make sure that it has diverse set of clients.

References

Yes, it is important to ask for references of their current clients. This way you can get an idea of how the company is doing by looking at what is the online image of their existing clients. You can even see if you reach out to some of them to know if they are satisfied with the company services or not and if you are making the right choice by hiring them or not. So please do ask for the references of existing clients.

Price

The last but not the least thing to note is that how the company charges its clients. You obviously don’t want to be paying too much to them for their services. There might be companies that charge on per hour basis and there are companies that offer fixed packages, and there are many more types of pricing mechanisms being followed. So this is up to you to decide which pricing type suits you the best. And after knowing the pricing also make sure to do a comparison for what is the existing range of rates being offered by other players in the market.

So now you are all set to go for hiring a good Digital marketing company for your business. And while you do that just keep in mind, you are not just choosing a service provider; you are actually choosing a partner. This partner will now be responsible for the reputation of your business.

Source

Reasons You Need SEO

The Top 10 Reasons You Need SEO

By now, most marketers and business owners know that SEO is a critical factor for driving website traffic. If your site and content aren’t properly optimized, both for desktop and mobile users, you’ll have an incredibly difficult time attracting traffic from organic search your site.

However, there are many benefits of SEO aside from increased traffic. This post will outline 10 other important benefits that stem from having a properly SEO-optimized website.

1. Proper optimization not only means better rankings, it means a better user experience

There’s no question that user experience is now a significant ranking factor. The search engines want to see a mobile-friendly design, good user signals (high time on site, low bounce rates, etc.) and good integration of relevant photos and videos. These elements are all important for providing a great experience for your visitors as well; in other words, by optimizing your site for SEO, you’re automatically also improving your user experience. And a great user experience means higher conversion rates, more trust, and increased brand loyalty.

2. Organic search may account for as much of 64% of all website visits

A study by Conductor of over 310 million visits to 30 different websites showed that organic search accounted for 64% of all referral traffic. While other research seems to indicate that social media has now overtaken search slightly in terms of referrals, there’s no question that search remains a critical source of traffic for most businesses.

3. SEO leads tend to have higher close rates than outbound leads

According to this article at Search Engine Journal, SEO leads result in an average close rate of 14.6%, compared to close rates of 1.7% for outbound leads. While I can’t verify the original source of this statistic, it wouldn’t surprise me if this were true; it makes sense that searchers who are looking for specific products or services are more likely to make a purchase from businesses who they seek out through search, rather than those who attempt to attract them using outbound marketing strategies (i.e. cold leads).

4. Inbound marketing methods (including SEO) result in more leads than outbound, paid media or self-sourced leads

According to the 2014-2015 State of Inbound Marketing report, B2B, B2C and non-profit companies all report inbound practices as being their primary source of leads. This same report found that among marketing professionals, SEO had become the #1 source of leads over the previous 6 month period. One question to ask yourself is: if you’re not generating leads through search, who is capturing these valuable leads?

5. Ranking in local search directly leads to increased visits and sales

If you run a local business, optimizing your site for local search is absolutely critical. More and more consumers are using local search queries to identify local businesses and to find locations, hours and directions.

According to Google, 50% of consumers who performed a local search on a mobile device visited a store on that same day. These searches also led to higher sales: 18% of local mobile searches led to a sale within one day. For more local mobile marketing stats, see my article 6 Local Mobile SEO Stats Every Online Marketer Needs To Know.

6. Marketers rank SEO as one of their most effective digital marketing strategies

To see how effective something is, sometimes it’s best to go directly to the source. According to the 2015 State of Marketing report, of the marketers who are using SEO and SEM as part of their marketing strategy, 66% find it “very effective or effective”. Only 7% stated that their SEO efforts were “not very effective or not at all effective”.  These seem like reasonable odds to me!

7. SEO leads to increased credibility for your brand

Ranking highly in the search results signals to searchers that you’re a key player in your industry. Conversely, ranking on the 2^nd or 3^rd page may lead to unwanted assumptions: that you’re a new business, that you’re not as well known or that you don’t have the budget (and thus sales) to afford to boost your rankings.

8. SEO can be a less hands-on strategy than other inbound techniques

Social media and email marketing are both highly effective channels for generating leads, but both require some degree of continual effort. To remain top of mind for your customers and prospects, you have to be continually pushing out new content to your list and social media followers. However, once a page is SEO-optimized, you can often sit back, relax, and let it climb the rankings on its own merit. This, of course, largely depends on certain factors such as the competitiveness of the keyword(s) you’re targeting, and the quality of the content on the page, among others. But in general, once you lay the foundation of proper SEO-optimization for any given page, most of the hard work is already done.

9. Being on the 2^nd or 3^rd page of the search results means virtually no search visibility

Some business owners forgo any formal SEO efforts because they believe that being in the search results (anywhere in the results) is “good enough”. However, research by Moz shows that 71.33% of clicks happen on page oneof the search results. Properly optimizing your site and content are key to achieving top rankings; and therefore any degree of search visibility.

10.   The vast majority of consumers research products online before going to a store

Research from GE Capital Retail Bank shows that 81% of shoppers research and compare products online before making a local purchase. Other research puts this number as high as 94% for B2B buyers. Achieving first page rankings for your business and products is critical if you want consumers who are actively searching out your products to be able to find you.

Choosing the Right Digital Marketing Company for Your Business

Owning a digital marketing company, many people have come to me in regards to growing their business. Often, they are confused about not only what services they need but also how to choose the right agency. Digital marketing can sometimes be at the core of whether a startup has a higher chance of surviving, so it’s important that you bring on the right digital marketing company that stays on top of trends. This is a guide to help you choose the right digital marketing company for your business.

1. Understand: All Digital Marketing Companies Are Different

Digital marketing companies come in all different shapes and sizes. It’s important to find one that fits well with your business goals and, just as important, your budget. What makes digital marketing companies different? First, many have certain specialty services that they excel at. For example, a website design agency might say they offer marketing services in addition. Or a traditional marketing agency will tell you that they have a digital marketing branch. While you shouldn’t immediately dismiss these agencies, you may not want to pull the trigger and go with them. Digital marketing is an incredibly complex, ever-changing industry. You want the agency that handles your business to be up to date on the latest trends and unfortunately, if digital is only a side-service, they might not be.

2. Do Your Homework

The digital marketing industry is full of charlatans – businesses looking to sell you “snake oil”. They’ll promise you the world and when you see no results they’ll try to get you to pay more money. While they don’t represent the vast majority of marketing companies out there, they are still there. To make sure you go with a reputable agency, that has your best interest in mind (instead of just lining their pockets) you’ll want to do the following…

Check potential marketing agencies out on the Better Business Bureau. Be wary of going with marketing agencies overseas. Remember that you get what you pay for – less money usually means lower quality work.

3. Understand Their Pricing

“What do you charge?” seems to be the biggest question people ask when choosing a digital marketing agency. And this is for good reason – most businesses are on a budget. While I like a good deal as much as the next guy, you shouldn’t be bargain hunting when it comes to choosing an agency. Marketing not only takes experience and creativity, it also takes a lot of hard work and dedication. Trying to find someone, let alone a team, to take over your marketing initiatives for only a few hundred to a thousand dollars per month is impossible. If you don’t have the budget to hire a digital marketing company yet, check out Tech.co’s articles on marketing. They have tons of great resources for businesses of all sizes.

4. Ask for Case Studies

One of the best ways to determine if an agency is credible is to check their work. Case studies are the best way to do it. You want to go with a marketing company that is meticulous about tracking and improving their results. So ask for a few different case studies. You’ll especially want to read ones on companies in your industry. If the agency you’re talking to refuses to give them out, this can raise a big red flag.

5. Learn How They Measure/Report Success.

As mentioned above, measuring and reporting success is important so that both parties understand what’s needed to improve even further. Some agencies will purposely keep clients in the dark so they don’t need to prove their results. You’ll want to stay away from these types of agencies. Be sure to ask any marketing company you’re looking at going with how they measure and track their results. Reputable agencies will gladly keep you in the loop with monthly or even weekly reports/check-ins.

The Complete Comprehensive Local Marketing Tactics 2015

Here are the lists of local marketing tactics that will help your local businesses visible in local search results.

Website Marketing Tips for 2015

1. Compelling Layout Design
Your website is your “digital first impression” to the world; and the first thing people take notice of is the design and layout. A professional design coupled with the effective use of colors, bullets, spacing, and typography are key to keeping visitors around.
2. Have Great Content
Content is king in the world of online marketing; without it, every online strategy will fail –including your website. Make sure your content is focused around topics that your audience WANTS to read, as opposed to being all about your company.
3. Keep Your Content Concise and Easy to Read
Your website visitors are not usually looking to read a book. Use shorter pieces of content to help them consume the information faster and easier. Cut out any unnecessary information and get to the point by using bullets and ample whitespace.
4. Use Keyword-Rich Headings
Using keywords in your content is great for helping it get picked up by search engines. However, this is also a great way to break up longer pieces of content by sending viewers directly to the information they may be looking for.
5. Use Visual Content
Pictures are worth a thousand words, so you can relay a lot of information in an image, graph, infographic, video, or photo. Visual content is becoming extremely popular today as a way to support textual content because they can grab and hold attention.
6. Make Navigation Effortless
The last thing a visitor wants to do is get lost when landing on your website. If this happens, most will leave right away. Make sure your navigation is smooth, simple, and easy to follow in order to boost conversions.
7. Capture Leads
Once a visitor leaves your website, there is a big chance that they will never return. Therefore, you should have a way to establish a connection with them, such as an email capture form and social media “join us” calls to actions.
8. Make Sure Everything Works
Nothing can turn a visitor off more than broken links, slow loading times, or forms that don’t work. Check periodically to make sure that all aspects of your site are working as they should to avoid losing visitors.
9. Mobilize Your Website
Traditional websites are not built for viewing on mobile devices. Millions of people today are using their smartphones to surf the web. So you should have a mobile-friendly website to avoid losing potential leads and customers.
10. Don’t Forget Your Calls to Action
Every page of your website should include a call to action that tells visitors what you want them to do. Your call to action should be short, clear, and to-the-point. Want them to call you, visit you, or email you? Boost conversions by telling them to do it.

Email Marketing Tips for 2015

1. Develop an Email Marketing Plan First
Before you start an email marketing campaign, create a plan that details your goals, what type of emails you will send, and who your target audience is. Otherwise, you could get started on the wrong foot.
2. Build a Targeted List of Subscribers
Email marketing is only as effective as the quality of your list. When building your list, target people who are already doing business with your brand –or at least those who have shown interest in what you have to offer.
3. Use Accurate Subject Lines
One big mistake is to hook people into opening your email with a subject line that is totally irrelevant to your email content. This is a big turn-off to most subscribers and can cause many of them to opt-out of your list.
4. Keep Your Content Relevant
Avoid going “off-topic” when it comes to your email content. Only talk about things your subscribers would be interested in hearing. If there are times when you want to talk about unrelated topics, keep it to a minimum and keep it professional.
5. Write Your Messages to ONE Person
Personalizing email messages can boost conversions. One way to do so is to address subscribers by their first names. Another way is to use terms such as “you” instead of “you all” or “you guys.” Make them feel like you’re only talking to them.
6. Make Sure Your Emails are Mobile-Friendly
As more and more people read email on their mobile devices, it is crucial that your emails can be read on them comfortably. Otherwise, you will miss out on potential buyers who may have taken you up on your offer.
7. Keep Your Emails Short & Sweet
Due to low attention spans, most people are not up for reading really long and drawn out emails. Instead, only include the important points in your email. If you have more content to share on the topic, direct them to a website or blog post.
8. Mix Up Your Messages
The main goal of email marketing is to boost revenue. However, this does not mean that every message you send out should be promotional. Mix it up by giving your audience great tips, how-to, or other types of information that they would appreciate.
9. Test Your Campaigns
Your goal is to consistently improve your email performance. The only way to do so is to test how well it’s working for you. Based on this information, you will be able to improve going forward.
10. Make it Easy for Them to Unsubscribe
This may seem like it defeats the purpose, but the fact is… you really do not want anyone on your list who doesn’t want to be there. So make sure there’s a link to unsubscribe in all of your emails.

Reputation Management Tips for 2015

1. Develop a Crisis Plan
A company’s worst nightmare is to discover that there are negative mentions about them floating around on the web. Be proactive by setting up a plan that details critical information about how you will deal with this situation if it should occur.
2. Put Customer Service FIRST
The basis for a positive reputation is to have a great business with excellent customer service. If not, you are giving people a reason to post negative content about you on the internet.
3. Find Out What People Are Saying
The internet is a huge field for people to discuss products, services, and businesses. Therefore, be sure to consistently monitor social media, blogs, and customer review sites for comments about your business.
4. Face the Negative Issues
Many of your unsatisfied customers may go to social media, review sites, or blogs to air their feelings about your brand. Whenever you see this, respond to them promptly and try to remedy the situation to show that customer service is a top-priority.
5. Develop and Distribute Great Content Consistently
Publishing relevant, useful keyword optimized content on a consistent basis will help your business get more “positive” search engine exposure. This leaves less room for negative mentions to show up, which are usually out of your control.
6. Build Loyalty and Trust
Building a social media community can go a long way in helping your online image. Social followers tend to be loyal and post “positive” feelings about businesses they enjoy. Leverage this fact by engaging with your social audience regularly.
7. Ask Happy Customers for Reviews
Simply asking your satisfied customers for reviews –without bribing or giving incentives –is a great way to build a positive online reputation. In most cases, if you don’t ask, you won’t receive.
8. Post Positive Reviews on Your Website
Your website is your internet “home.” This is where many consumers go to learn more about your company. So having positive reviews posted on your website is a great way to put potential customers at ease when it comes to doing business with you.
9. Be Careful with Your Online Comments
One way to damage your reputation is by commenting on controversial issues, trash talking, or talking about unprofessional details of your private life. There is a lot you can say online that is related to your industry and will help your target audience –so stick to these types of posts and comments.
10. Work to Repair Any Damage
If your company is suffering due to damaging online information, whether it’s true or not, take immediate steps to address it. This may involve the services of a professional, but if you do not handle it, it is definitely hurting your ability to generate new customers.

Social Media Marketing Tips for 2015

1. Develop a Plan First
Before jumping into social media marketing, it is important to decide who you want to target, what type of content you want to provide, and which social networks you will use to get the job done.
2. Listen to Your Audience
A crucial part of social media success is being able to listen to what your audience is saying. So pay attention to posts made on your pages and be sure to respond quickly and appropriately.
3. Don’t Over-Share
While it is important to communicate with your fans and followers, posting too often can be a turn-off. Create a posting schedule that is consistent, but not too over-bearing.
4. Provide Valuable Tips & Information
When speaking to your social media network, go further than just promotions. Share information that they will appreciate in regards to your industry; this will build trust and credibility for your business.
5. Keep it Short
It’s tempting to make long posts on topics, but when it comes to social media, short posts receive higher engagement. People today have short attention spans; so break your content up and dish it out in small, easy-to-digest pieces.
6. Encourage Sharing
Social media content can reach a massive number of people without any additional effort on your part. Ask your audience to share it with their networks and make it easy for them to do so.
7. Share Other People’s Content
While your audience wants to hear what you have to say, they would also appreciate when you share relevant content from others. This is a win-win situation because it also cuts down on the amount of content that you have to personally create.
8. Test the Best
Getting the most out of your content can be tricky; as far as when to publish, what to publish, types of content, and good calls to action. The best way to figure this out is to test, measure, and track different strategies.
9. Follow Your Competitors
In any form of marketing, it’s important to see what your competition is doing; the same applies for social media. While you don’t want to copy exactly what they do, it is in your best interest to study how they interact with their fans and followers.
10. Choose Your Social Media Platforms Carefully
It may be tempting to join a bunch of different social media sites. But start with just a few –the ones where your target audience likely has a strong presence –and master those before moving to others.

Video Marketing Tips for 2015

1. Balance Your Video Content
Don’t make the mistake of “only” making videos that promote your products and services. Create videos that are related to the needs and interests of your audience for the best results.
2. Think Evergreen
Focus on creating videos that contain useful, engaging content that your audience will always find useful. This way, they will help you generate new leads in the long-term.
3. Use YouTube
YouTube is the 2ndlargest search engine online. So create a channel and upload your videos there so they can be found when people search for information related to your industry.
4. Localize & Optimize
Optimize your YouTube videos and channels with local keyword terms and search phrases that your target market would use. Also include your local address, local phone number, and website address in the description box.
5. Create Video Content Often
Keep your viewers coming back by consistently creating videos that they will want to watch. Video marketing is not a one-off thing; creating fresh video content should be a part of your overall marketing strategy.
6. Capture Emotions
Up-Front. You only have a few seconds to capture the attention of your audience, so be sure to give them a reason to keep watching. Tap into their pain points, needs, or wants right away.
7. Don’t Go Overboard
Online videos do not require over-the-top production; nor do they need to be long and drawn out. In fact, short, simple videos are proven to work best when it comes to online video marketing.
8. Brand All of Your Videos
Branding is important in all of your online marketing methods; including your videos. It can be as simple as including your company logo at the beginning to help boost brand awareness.
9. Encourage Social Media Sharing
Videos are often shared on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Be sure to encourage your fans and followers to share your videos with their networks for ultimate exposure.
10. Use a Strong, Compelling Call-to-Action
At the end of every video, tell viewers what you want them to do; otherwise, most will simply close out and move to the next video. Want them to call you, visit your establishment, or email you? Tell them to do it.