Whose Facebook Page Do You Follow?

                                     

Facebook to date is the world’s biggest social networking site with an estimated 819,000,000 unique monthly visitors according to newsroomfb.com as of June 30, 2013. I supposed you are one of these visitors. So am I. In this aspect, Facebook has indeed succeeded with its purpose as a social networking site.

Without a doubt, we have different reasons for joining Facebook. For me, I have an account just to experience how it feels to have one and somehow I liked it because of its unique and entertaining features. Some people joined this to meet new friends from other parts of the world. Other people opened an account as a cheaper mode of communication with their family and friends abroad. Still others entered in this online craze to make business through it. How about you?

Whatever the reasons may be, one thing is sure; there are times that we are following some Facebook pages. With so many members in this famous social networking site, the questions now are: Who are you following? Why are you following them? Maybe you are hooked on following one or all of the names mentioned below with the most likes to date.

Celebrities
Certainly, people are going gaga over the famous celebrities – actors, musicians, and all other personalities in the entertainment field. This is not surprising as each of us simply wants to be entertained, thus we tend to look after these entertainers about their schedules so that we will not be left behind with their latest undertakings. It came to a point that many people are already emulating them; the way they act, sing, dance, talk and almost everything about these celebrities.

To my surprise, the celebrity having the most followers on Facebook with approximately 74 million likes at present is Eminem.

I thought the biggest Hollywood stars occupied the top spot but it was Slim Shady who topped them all followed by Rihanna who got at an accumulated 61.6 million likes. Rounding off the top five with the most page likes are Shakira with 68 million, The Simpsons with 65 million and Lady Gaga with 58 million.

World’s Most Famous Brands
Apart from these celebrities, Facebook members are also following the world’s most famous brands. Probably the reason behind following these brands is to be updated with the latest product lines offered and of course the advertising campaigns for these new product lines or even the repackaged existing products.

This only shows that these famous brands have effectively used social media to their advantage in strengthening their position in the industry.

The top spot is being occupied by Coca Cola garnering a whopping 71 million likes. There’s no question about it since they have a really vibrant events page that is regularly moderated by their very competent social media manager.

Furthermore, their page is very interactive; it allows users to post their moments with Coca as well as comments on their experience with it. Other brands that belong to the top five with the most likes are Disney with 44 million, MTV with 46 million, Converse with 37 million and Starbucks Coffee with 35 million.    

With the continued patronage from its members by supporting each other through clicking the like button, it is safe to make a bold declaration that Facebook is truly phenomenal. It has certainly lived up to its name of being a social networking site with a purpose. Thanks to Facebook, I’ve learned to appreciate social media now more than ever and I super-duper LIKED it alot.  

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The 2012 Link Building Strategies That Still Works in 2013

                                           

There are a lot of things that have changed when it comes to link building today and since the new updates have been passed on by Google to the websites. The search engine giant has already given up on the importance for blog networks and this includes the Internet directories that have been removed from the Google index. Link building ethically has been doing a lot of wonders today in its place which is why people should focus more on providing brand promotion and keeping away from spam link building methods.

Below are some of the link building techniques that are going to be effective with the algorithmic changes that have been applied this year by Google. Take a look at these:

Competitor Links to be Studied
One of the first things that you should do is to study the links of your competitors and start creating a list of the trusted websites wherein they are obtaining these links. You may utilize Open Site Explorer which will help you find the backlink information for the websites of your competitors.

After you have acquired the list of resources from your current competition, you will have to analyze them and see if they are able to get links out from these websites. For starters, you may want to follow the same kind of processes that these established competitors are using for their sites.

Partially Matching Anchor Texts Usage for Linking
Exactly matching anchor texts are gone nowadays as Google has penalized websites that do this. That is why people should start using partially matching anchor texts instead while they are creating backlinks to their websites or pages in their blogs.

Let us assume that you want to develop backlinks for pages that you are targeting a keyword such as banana pies in Philadelphia. You should make use of several keyword combinations for these such as Philadelphia banana pies or banana pie companies in Philadelphia as the anchor texts that you will be using in your backlinks. This will make it look natural for the Google bots to see.

Start Guest Blogging
One of the best ways that you can do in order to build your trusted backlinks for a website is through guest blogging. There are great positive impacts generated by the links that are acquired through blogging as a guest in other websites, as it will go around and push your targeted keywords around the search engines. Make sure that while you are guest blogging, you should work on blogs that are based on the same niche you are in right now.

Start Publishing Articles
One of the best ways to get targeted and contextual backlinks for the websites that you are promoting today is through article publishing. Start writing articles that are based on targeted keywords and have them submitted to websites that publish them. Make sure that you do not submit the articles that you have already published to other article directories as this will be seen as plagiarism by Google and you will be penalized instead.

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Email Marketing Trends Marketers Should Capitalize On

                           

Even today, email marketing is still a thriving strategy that many sales and marketing personnel use. This is especially true for businesses that can easily adapt to the fast-paced world today. This article will discuss about the latest email marketing trends available for marketers nowadays and how they can capitalize on them.

Social Media

As the influence of social media continues to increase throughout the years, more and more businesses will start to integrate email marketing with the social networking sites in order to keep up. Ignoring platforms such as Facebook is a mistake for marketers and businesses because it is the future. There is nothing that anyone can really do about it.

That is why in emails, marketers should start adding social media icons and footers. Branch out of the traditional newsletter strategy by allowing people to start “liking” the content that the company has in Facebook, publish or tweet them online or forward information to friends. 

You can use platforms such as Facebook by adding emails of existing clients and customers where people have the opportunity to opt-in as well. You would want to use this strategy in order to reach out to as many people as possible.

Mobile

Think back on the last time that you were waiting for someone or something. There is a high chance that you took out your mobile device and started checking your email while you are waiting. Emailing using mobile devices is by far one of the most popular activities that users spend their time on. This is because emailing has been made especially for mobile devices nowadays.

In order to capitalize on this trend, email marketers can start designing their content which will be applicable for multiple devices and mobile and touch screens. The idea in this means that you should be aware of the snippets of text or links that can be touched, including scalable images and fonts. 

Do not just visualize that people will only be reading your emails in their offices. Think about them waiting in line just like you or grabbing a spare moment to check on their email while they are on the move. In simpler words, picture them wherever they go and start applying your email marketing strategy accordingly.

Smarter Inboxes

Email communications will always have to fight with spam content in order to grab the attention of the inbox of a subscriber in the Internet world. The main battle for email marketing nowadays is against the changing content within the inbox. This is due to the fact that the filters being used in these email servers are evolving, and consumers will start to avoid spam altogether as well. 

Users will more likely prioritize their mails according to the reading habits that they have. And with the more unified inboxes today, users will just check one inbox for all of the messages that they receive online.

For marketers, you will also be competing with the content coming from other channels to these subscribers. This can be in the form of RSS feeds, chats, SMS, social messages or videos. That is why email marketers should start focusing on producing content that is engaging and relevant as these are two of the main requirements for emails.

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How to Become a Responsible Blogger

                                             

Information technology has tremendously affected almost everybody who knows how to use the computer and the internet. In fact, the evolution of the so-called social media has created public awareness faster than the conventional media we know. In effect, it makes our work easier more than we used to. Gone are the days when we have a lot of paper works to facilitate every transaction. With just a click on the keyboard, you will go places.    

Blogging is definitely one of the best by-products of the advancement in information technology. This innovative social media platform seems to be part of every netizen, almost! It is very influential especially if the one who blogs is a public figure. It feels great when you will be able to interact with other people in cyberspace, giving your thoughts, point of views and ideas on everything. You have the opportunity to share, to impart knowledge, to learn from others, to grow as a person, and even earn from your blog. Isn’t it amazing?

However, it’s sad to note that not all bloggers are responsible enough with their blogs. They simply write blogs without even thinking of the possible impact it would have to potential readers. Knowing the power of social media nowadays, it can be beneficial or detrimental to other people. As a concerned blogger, you should take it as a responsibility. Therefore, in doing so, you must do the following tips.

1.  Post only verified information, otherwise you will be spreading false information

2.  Be smart enough to post only relevant information and drop those useless items

3.  Bear in mind that you’re accountable for your blog so see to it everything’s fine

4.  Show respect to other’s point of view and take it as a constructive criticism instead

5.  Monitor reader’s comments for you to determine which areas need improvement  

6.  Give credit to the source of your information and do not claim it solely

7.  Always include a disclaimer to avoid any unnecessary outcome along the way

8.  Be transparent with sponsored posts and affiliate links for you to gain their trust

9.  Know the basic copyright laws to avoid problems along the way

10.  Try the products first before promoting an affiliate to maintain your credibility

Once you will be able to do all of these and establish yourself as a blogger, make sure to

1.  Keep doing these all the time and maintain the quality of your posts

2.  Do not seek advantages at the expense of other people

3.  Be updated with the latest news, events, trends so that you will not be left behind

4.  Keep on learning and improving to keep abreast with the stiff competition  

5.  Keep the passion alive for you to keep going no matter what

With the way things are going in the Internet, more and more people are hooked on blogging. If you only know how to play the game, you will win more friends, learn more new things, and on top it all, you will earn a lot. Just be fair enough and be responsible a blogger.

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Simple But Effective Steps in Improving Overall Blog Design

                                     

                  

Blogs today are large places where multiple topics can be stored, including its own display, which is also known as the blog’s particular design. There are a lot of things that have changed in the world of blogging over the past years that has made the activity easier to do. Good examples such as Blogspot and WordPress are excellent platforms where the themes already make designing blogs faster, but if you want a more personalized approach, there are some things that you should consider and keep in mind. A good way in order to start honing that perfect design is to take a series of steps, slowly but surely.

That is why if you are looking to edit the design of your website, there are some things that you will need to keep in mind in order to do so. Here are some techniques that you can use in improving overall blog design.

Select a More Appropriate Theme - Once you are using a blogging platform such as WordPress or Blogspot, then you can start using the hundreds of pre-made templates for blogs available. But instead of going for an old theme that has been used by other people many times, start investing a small amount of time on one that will be the best for your niche and will appear professional and organized.

Have a Banner Image Included - Zest up your blog by designing your own banner image which can be found on top of the page. Since it will be one of the first things that people will be seeing on your page, you would want to take advantage of giving them a good first impression which will be beneficial to your blog if you do. This will make them stay longer and will have a higher chance of being able to read your blog more clearly.

Customizing Themes - If you have chosen a pre-made theme within your blogging platform, it is possible to customize this easily and make it work better for you. In blogs such as WordPress and Blogspot, users can have the templates customized from the admin panel. This could include having things changed such as redesigning the sidebar or including widgets or gadgets which will monitor the progress of your blog. There are other changes that you can do as well such as limiting the amount of posts that will be shown in the home page or change if you want the public to see comments in your blog or not.

Be Sociable - One of the significant steps that you can take is to start integrating social media into your own personal or commercial blog. If you allow people to easily acquire content that is useful in your blog, then they will know that you are a useful resource and that they can refer your blog to others as well. Start placing your social media icons within your blogs whether you use it for your for own or money-making purpose as this will improve its performance as a whole.

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Ways to Increase Blog Comments

                                           

Comments are very significant to a blog for these are also indicator of a blog’s success. If a blog has many comments, be it positive or negative, it only means that in one way or another it has an impact to your readers. In addition to that, you generate more traffic to your blog since a certain comment may ignite different reactions from other readers and this may lead to a series of conversation or argument for that matter on your blog itself. 
  
Blog comments may reveal the level of engagement between the blog author and the avid readers. From these comments, you will get more ideas and learn from the experiences of other members in the online community resulting to an accumulated wealth of knowledge generated because of your blog. To experience how it feels having a lot of blog comments from readers, the following tips may help you how.       
 
1. Encourage readers to give comments. You may do this by including in the last part of your post an invitation to the readers for them to share their thoughts, reactions or experiences related to your post. Certainly it is a good avenue to learn something new from your readers and vice versa.

2. Give feedbacks too. As we all know, the Golden Rule states that you should do unto others what you want others do unto you. If you wish to receive feedbacks, then you should give comments to other’s post. Even a single comment can make a difference.   

3. Interact with your readers. How would you feel if you ask someone a question and you were just ignored? That’s precisely the feeling of one of your readers when there’s a question raised but you don’t give a reply. To ensure that your blog will continuously receive feedbacks, then you need to interact with your readers.

4. Acknowledge all the comments. As a courtesy, give thanks to those who spent their time reading your blog post and commenting on it afterwards. Perhaps you may send a thank you email to your readers for giving their valuable comments and invite them to connect with you at your personal email address. With this, they will feel a sense of belonging and the freedom to connect with you. For your part, you win their trust and loyalty.

5. Make things simple as to the commenting process. If you want comments to keep coming, then simplify the procedures and let your blog open to any comment. Sometimes readers get irritated when they try to comment but they need to fill up a captcha form. It also annoys them if they are asked to login first before they can post a comment.

6.  Give incentives to your commenters. Doing so will help increase blog comments. Maybe a page rank will do, promotion of their recent blogs or even their social media accounts. In this way, they may reciprocate your action.

7.  Display the top commenters. Use a widget that features the names of those who exerted efforts to give comments for all your posts. As a way of appreciating their involvement in your blog, you can display the names of the top commenters. This is the best way to puff up their pride and they will most likely continue supporting your blog.        
    
8.  Think outside the box. Be unique in every way you can. Try to do something that will incite readers to give their views regarding your blogs. You may hold a contest for the best comment and offer an exciting prize. 

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Improving Your Social Media Efforts in As Little As 30 Minutes

                                  

 Have you been utilizing inbound marketing strategies today? Are you in need of a fast way on how you can improve your social media marketing efforts? It is possible to improve your social media marketing in 30 minutes if you are able follow some important strategies. Below is a list of the important steps that you should take to improve social media success.

Identifying the Audience Being Targeted

An important part with regards to marketing inbound is that the process involves operating marketing strategies that are based on targeting specific people. This is why the success of your social media marketing efforts will be solely dependent on the targets and how the business is going to operate. If your business is found locally with full dependence on the local customers and consumers, then you may have to target people locally as well within your social media networks.

A lot of social media markets fail in their efforts because they try to cover the social media platforms as much as they do without strategics first. Instead of creating multiple social media accounts on different networks, simply target your audience where you think your brand will have the most number of followers that will be interested n your service or goods.

Encouraging Interactions

The aspect of social media marketing is very demanding for users as it will encourage the need for both brand and product to interact more with each other. This is beneficial as well for the company in many ways. That is why if you are making use of your social media accounts, be as interactive as you can. This gives the prospect customers a better view on your product or service which will lead to improved sales.

Those who are interested in doing business with your company will want to learn all they can from your website. If the website fails to do so, a lot of them will try to learn about the company through social media websites instead. This is why you should just allow your followers to ask questions through the platform and try your best to answer all of them.

Provide As Much Details As Possible

Do you have a small business that caters to just a few customers? Or are you large company that generates thousands of sales in an hourly basis? Whichever type of business you are now, potential customers would want to know about the information on your company. That is why it is important to be as detailed as possible when it comes to your products and services, as this will improve your sales as well.

Your social media platforms can be used for display of what you are offering in your company and you can update the information that you have posted as much as you want. You can declare new products and services that are now available in your business in order to keep your customers and leads up to date. This is also where you can use the interest of your followers as your strategy for business.

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3 Common Mistakes When Business Blogging

 

The rules of success for business blogging are not known by many people because of its relatively new role as a marketing strategy. This however does not mean that there are no rules for success when it comes to this. As a matter of fact, the components of business blogging to be successful are simple and straightforward. There are some business bloggers today that are having much success by developing their brand, improving their customer loyalty, creating leads and capturing the attention of their audience.

These are the ideal aspects that you should look out for. Yet there are many business bloggers that are not able to achieve this because of committing simple mistakes. The following are the three common mistakes that business bloggers do. The good thing here is that they can be easily corrected.

1. Wrong Content Posting. People that go to the Internet love to read web content that gives value to them and their needs. These needs can include finding entertainment, searching for data or learning how something can be done. Since there are a lot of content on their end to deal with, these individuals do not have the patience to check each of those that are not helpful to them.

That is why you should not make the mistake of writing the first things that come into your mind. If the audience that you are targeting is composed of elementary teachers, you won’t think that you will be able to attract their attention by providing them a play-by-play account of your latest football game.

2. Rapid Posting. You would want to be known in the Internet as a dependable source of information for your consumers and that is why you should post regularly. It is not a requirement to post something on a daily basis, but you have to be consistent with your content. Posting on an irregular basis will not leave a good impression with people. In order to stay on track, you have to develop your own editorial calendar which is going to tell you what to post and when to have it published.

These editorial calendars are going to be very helpful for you especially if you have different writers providing content for your blog. This is because you can keep your assignment delegation more organized without having to worry about duplication and oversight.

3. Addressing the Wrong Target Audience. If you are thinking of utilizing your business blog for your marketing purposes, you should ensure that you are addressing the right audience beforehand. This is because you may be accidentally developing a blog that is improving the ranking of your competitors instead of for your clients.

Let us say that you are a company that outsources its services and that you spend most of your time providing content on how the business is being managed. Many of your competitors are going to find your tips useful but will not attract a lot of attention for your blog. Instead of doing this, write about the benefits that your business has to offer people including tips.

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How Startup Businesses Can Take Advantage of Twitter

Startup, local and small businesses alike are all embracing marketing on social networks with zest. For the past couple of years, signups on Twitter and Facebook has been increasing. This is because business owners look at these platforms as a way to market their products and services freely. Although the method in doing so may be tricky and not easy to do, it is well worth the shot once you start reaping the benefits of your hard work.

The attraction on social media is strong because of its user-friendliness, low entry barriers and low cost. And although Facebook is a very popular platform, Twitter has also seen a huge growth in local business owners that are signing up in order to develop the awareness for their products and services, including their brands.

If you are thinking about giving Twitter a try, here are some important tips that you should know:

1. Select a good name handle. This could be the name of your business, yourself or an abbreviation of your company or even a combination. Make people recognize you easily and start connecting your products or services to your business. Have your Twitter handle placed on your website, business cards, and letterheads and email signatures. Avoid using names that are made up or just plain random without having anything to do with your business.

2. Set a realistic goal in Twitter. A good example is aiding you in your position towards your customers; improve communication with prospects, direct articles, event announcements or other content within your website.

3. Give it your best shot. Having a Twitter account will let you create profile that has high visibility in the Internet, which is why you should not blow it up. There are many profiles today that have useless information included or have no profile at all, while others are looking like a pack of keywords. Do not follow the mistakes of these people. Put information on your account such as your company, interests and what you are able to offer to your customers.

4. Avoid tweeting pointlessly. You should focus in providing informational tweets that are useful to your followers. Have your products or services in your website promoted instead or direct someone’s content as useful source of information. Focus on providing your followers with specialized knowledge that is related to your industry.

5. Browse the platform. One of the best ways in order to get ideas for your tweets and find followers that are potential customers is to do a Twitter Search. This is a very effective feature in Twitter that is helpful and free. You may also search for tweets that have your company name mentioned in it. Remember, it is possible to be choosy in Twitter but always make sure that you follow back people who follow your business.

6. Utilizing the platform for networking. The idea of handing out business cards to customers or clients is almost over. What marketers are doing these days is handing out their Twitter handles and collecting those from important people. A lot of people are already displaying them in their signage and name badges.

Online Marketing Strategies to Your Success

To ensure business success, different marketing strategies should be utilized from time to time especially now more than ever the competition is getting tougher. In a split of a second, you will lose your current position in the industry without you knowing it if you will take for granted the actions taken by other players.

In line with the developments in information technology, media platforms raised the level of competition as far as marketing strategies are concerned. For you to gain and maintain a fair market share, you must exert more efforts to beat your opponents in the business arena. What actions should be planned? What specific marketing strategies should be taken? Since almost always we rely on the internet, we will focus on the online marketing strategies that work to achieve business goals.

1. Always update your website. Otherwise, you will be left behind. Maybe you should hire a person to update web design, a freelance online writer to provide good content for your web page, or a website developer for a holistic website makeover. A beautiful web design can easily catch attention so make it a point that important details should not be missed.

2. Take part in social media. Twitter and Facebook are very popular social networking sites that can really make a difference to your business. If you know how to fully utilize these to your advantage, you will reap great rewards in the end. These social media are very influential and may serve as great platforms for your business endeavors.

3. Make a unique video for marketing purposes. This is indeed a powerful and an effective way of online advertising campaign. With this, you will generate more visitors to your website. Why not capitalize on one of the most popular websites which is YouTube, a video sharing website? Using this, your video will be within reach of your potential clients.

4. Organize a new webinar. The purpose of this is to gather response from a selected group of individuals on a specific topic related to your business. To ensure an uninterrupted webinar, be sure to have a good internet connection. From there, you will determine what must be done to further improve your business.   

5. Launch a new product line or program online to the delight of the customers. As always, buyers don’t have complete satisfaction, so try to offer something new or re-launch your current products with a new look but this time make it more appealing to your target market to increase your sales. You may also add more incentives to entice more customers.

6. Offer something that’s simply irresistible. Perhaps offer discounts on your products or give freebies for every purchase that’s far better from that of the competitors. This may be sort of a conventional strategy but the manner should be upgraded which means not necessarily the same with the usual offers but something new to make it more saleable.   

7. Invest in pay-per-click promotional campaign. This is also another online marketing strategy that will surely help create public awareness. Here you will determine specific groups of people who are searching for something just like your offer. You really need to spend but in the long run it’s worth it.

8. Create an affiliate program to widen your reach and generate more profit out of it. Through an affiliate program, you let somebody else do the promotion so that means less work for you but great returns along the way.

9. Produce more content. Times change so fast. Whatever content you have on your previous undertaking may not be that useful anymore today. Always update your content to attract more visitors and learn how to keep them. High quality content actually helps a lot.

10. Follow SEO rules. No matter how good the article is if it’s not SEO friendly, it’s useless. SEO is very important and is a key factor for online success. A comprehensive SEO strategy will positively improve your search engine rankings.

11. Regularly email your list. This is to make them feel that they are truly valued. Send an email to them more often and inform them of the latest advertising campaigns you have. Doing so will enable you to win their trust and patronage.

12. Have a new partner. Maybe it’s time for you to build partnership with someone else to establish a strong presence in the market. Tie up only with somebody who can help you boost your market standing and in return you will do the same to them. But be wise enough to choose the partner or else you will suffer the consequences

These are just some of the online marketing strategies that really work. You don’t need to incorporate all of these. Try only a few or only those that you can easily apply. Well even if you try all of these but if there’s no definite action plan, it’s pointless and there’s no assurance of success. Whatever the case may be you must lay out a clear marketing plan first before coming up with marketing strategies.    

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How to Build a Social Media Marketing Strategy that Really Works

Without a doubt, many businesses nowadays make good use of social media to their advantage. For instance, they have developed marketing strategies with the help of social media and it worked for them! Social media marketing is making waves in the business world as it propelled most of the businesses who embraced it on top.

However, not all who use it succeeded with their efforts. Perhaps the strategy they use was not suitable to their business. Or maybe they just joined the social media craze without even outlining their plans. Setting up Facebook and Twitter accounts for social media marketing purposes does not simply end there. In fact, it needs a lot of studies, strategic plans and impeccable execution to achieve the desired outcome for your business.

Here are some tips on how to come up with a social media marketing that really works.

1.      Notice how others do it and examine your current marketing strategy
 

Many businesses instantly jump into conclusion of joining social media just because they’ve seen others do it even if they are unprepared for it. They don’t even know they will execute it or why they should take part of it thus sometimes resulting to disappointment.

If you really want to adopt social media, you should study first how it will help you in the long run. You also need to observe how others utilize social media and learn from their tactics. Furthermore, analyze all your business needs and how you will be supported by social media with such needs.

 

2.      Develop your own social marketing strategy action plan

As soon as you have determined what you really want from social media, the next thing that you’ll consider is to learn how to get it. Action plan is a pre-requisite for all businesses but only those that are really feasible. Your business’ future depends on how well you manage your business presently. In any case, the best way for you to start is setting short-term goals perhaps having 3,000 Facebook friends in 3 months’ time or closing at least 5 deals with your Twitter followers next month.          

3.      Implement your marketing strategy

Once you already have a social marketing strategy, make sure to properly execute it as soon as possible. A marketing strategy is useless if not performed well. Some skeptics oftentimes hire social media experts to do the job for them. In this case, they are assured that their marketing strategy will be perfectly implemented.

4.      Assess your marketing strategy

Now that you are implementing your marketing strategy, make an assessment as to the radical changes brought about by social media. If there’s a positive effect, then it’s definitely worth the investment. But if you are still getting negative feedbacks, there’s a reason behind it for you to panic. It is really important to gauge the effects of social media for this is the deciding factor whether to continue or not anymore. The challenge here is that evaluating the impact of social media is not that easy because there is no definite criterion on this matter.   

5.      Upgrade your marketing strategy.

Social media changes from time to time. Therefore, you must be updated so that you will not be left behind. It is very important that you will go with the flow in social media which means you will upgrade your social media marketing strategy in line with the latest trends. That being said, continue what strategy is doing good while you may stop, postpone or refine which is stagnant.  

Social media is changing constantly; therefore, you need to be aware of the latest happenings in cyber world so that you will determine if you are still on the right track or not as far as social media marketing strategy is concerned.  

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Youtube: 5 Ways To Help Small Business Win At Video Marketing

Almost all of us know that YouTube is the second ranking search engine in the web today when it comes to query volume terms. This is an impressive number which is second to Google, yet what exactly does this mean for small businesses that are finding ways on how to reach their customers?
 

As it turns out and that many of the views in YouTube are for entertainment purposes, there are also a substantial amount of videos that people are watching in order to get information or seek advice. As a matter of fact, there are more than 35 million searches being made in YouTube each month with regards to “how to” videos. This is at least 35 million opportunities that businesses can take advantage of in order to reach their prospect clients which may be in need of their products and services.

 

Yet how exactly can local and small businesses make use of this trend for their benefits? Here are some ways on how YouTube video marketing can affect these businesses positively.

 

Produce Content That Meets the Needs

In order to reach the targets that are in need of your products and services, you should be able to create content that attracts these people to you. By simply uploading a walkthrough of your business is not going to grab the attention or create buzz on your shop. It is going to help of you keep the old marketing acronym in mind, which in this case is AIDA or Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. Grab the attention of your audience and start generating interest by meeting their needs when it comes to information.

 

Keep an Eye Out on Production Value

For your videos, you do not need to aim in producing one just like Spielberg, but they should be easy to watch and professional. Videos that have poor audio quality, shaky camera work, horrible lighting and lack of coherence in the story will all lead to the viewer’s shifting channels.

 
That is why you should pay attention to the lighting as much as you can. Utilize a tripod in order to provide a smoother viewing experience. Pay attention to the audio output and use microphones if you must. Tell a story that is easy to understand for viewers. If you are able to pay attention to the basics in video production, you will be able to stand out amongst the massive amounts of user-made videos that are of poor quality. This will lead to more interest being generated to your channel as well.

 

Enhance and Optimize for Search in YouTube

There are a lot of videos being uploaded every minute and every day in the website. For you to be found, you will need to optimize the video that you have uploaded in YouTube. Start including keywords that are important in the title and make sure that your tags will also include the keywords you are using as well. Select a thumbnail that is appealing and one that will clearly show viewers what the video is about.

 

Provide Follow-Up Action for Viewers

As you follow the AIDA model in marketing, you would want to generate desire for viewers for them to make follow up actions. If you have made an information video about your product or service, you would want to give your viewers a reason to follow up and a clear way in doing so. A good way to start doing this is by providing them with a special offer and a web address that they can go to in the video.

 

A good example for a call to action is “Follow the instructions given in the video and you will receive a 10% discount on the product by visiting our website”, and this will provide an actionable step for your viewers that have a clear value on it. The discount and the unique address that you have provided to your viewers are ways on how you can measure the successfulness of your YouTube video.

 

Let Your Viewers Know About You

Do not hesitate in letting your viewers know who you are and what you do in the business world. It is important that the people know who is providing them with valuable information. Encourage users in taking in steps in building a relationship with your company by letting them subscribe to its YouTube channel.
 

Building up the subscriber base that you have in YouTube, you will then be able to automatically reach into a steady audience that can be potential customers that have decided in seeing the videos that you will be uploading.

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Blogging On The Go With WordPress For Android And iOS

Blogging on the go is made possible by smart devices, apps, wireless internet, and mobile broadband providers. Gone are the days when you needed to be stuck at home just so you could publish a post. Today, you can do it anywhere granted that you have resources. WordPress for Android and iOS is a free app that allows Android as well as iOS users to blog from wherever, whenever. If you want to publish a post on your WordPress blog, you can use this free app.

It can’t be more obvious that you can use the WordPress app to create and publish posts on your WordPress blog. Apart from these basic features, the app offers even more functionality to perform the following tasks:

 

1. Create new pages. Assign a title and add text for the new page.
2. Edit/delete pages. Edit the content of existing pages or delete pages altogether.
3. Edit/delete posts. Edit existing posts, add/delete tags, and assign categories.
4. Change the status of new and existing pages and posts. Choose “Publish” to publish a post, “Draft” to turn existing posts into drafts or save new ones, “Private” for publishing posts away from public eye, “Local Draft” to save posts locally on your device, and “Pending Review” to submit posts for approval by other blog owners.
5. Use text formatting styles. Highlight words in bold, italics, and underline. You can also add links to posts and add anchor text.
6. Upload media on posts and pages. You can use the app to upload media such as music and videos to both new and existing posts and pages.
7. Take photos and videos for uploading. Caught in a blog-worthy moment? You can capture photos and record videos straight from the WordPress app. The application has shortcuts for these two.
8. Access all posts and pages. Whether posts or pages are published, saved as drafts, or pending for review, you can view all of them in a list with the app.
9. Manage comments. Approve, reject, and delete comments. You can also place comments on the Spam box.
10. Read published posts and pages in mobile view. The app has a built-in browser that enables users to view WordPress blog in mobile format.
11. Read blogs you follow. Stay in touch with fellow bloggers and leave comments on their most recent posts.
12. View statistics. Find out how many page views you received today, in the past 7 days, 30 days, three months, year, and for all-time. See how your blog is performing in a glance.
13. Add personal blogs from multiple accounts. This is most beneficial for users who own more than one blog under different accounts. You can easily switch between blogs by choosing from the drop-down menu on the upper left corner.
    

You can get WordPress by Automattic, Inc. at the Google Play Store and Apple App Store for free. The app will only take 1.51MB of your device’s memory. WordPress for Android is compatible for Android 2.1 and higher. Meanwhile, the iOS app works for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad running iOS 

4.0 and higher.

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Reasons To Socialize Your Business

 Small and medium-sized businesses don’t need social networks to survive but if you want your business to have an edge, socializing does help. I can think of different reasons why you should socialize your business. Each of them will grant your business a huge advantage over the rest.

Build brand awareness
 

Brand awareness goes beyond people’s knowledge of your business name and logo. It also entails how people associate your brand to the products you sell or the services you provide. Generally speaking, you want your brand to be known for providing high-quality products and services. Engaging in social networks can help spread brand awareness across people who encounter your business for the first time. Satisfied customers who interact with your social networks can also help in spreading word about your company, large or small. Their positive feedback is going to leave a good impression on possible customers.
 

Free advertising

Social networks like Facebook and Twitter are also means to advertise your business cost-free. Its viral, user-friendly and world wide.

 

Identify your market
 

Social media can help business owners determine which populations are actually interested in the products and services they provide. Even though businesses target particular niches and markets, social media can help them find out if they targeted the right people or if they need to make adjustments in the business strategies they use. Furthermore, social media may be used as research tools for coming up with new products and services. Conduct surveys among your existing database of followers and figure out what they need and want from your business.

 

Build the trust of your customers

Socializing can also help build the trust of customers in your business. However, it doesn’t always work this way. As a business owner, it is your responsibility to manage your social networking accounts by responding to customers who leave comments or send you messages. Not replying to them will actually cost you their trust. Apart from responding to complaints and disappointed customers, regularly interact with customers by starting conversations. Remember to keep your statements professional and be careful with what you say. One wrong message can damage the reputation of your business.
 

Drive traffic to your website
 

Businesses who own websites can use social media to drive traffic towards them. From there, customers can find out more about your business (brand awareness) and possibly avail your products and services online. Driving traffic to your business website can also increase your Google Page Rank and Alexa Rank, both of which are important in assessing the relevance of your website. Together, these ranks can help your company website appear in the first page of search engines.

 

Increase your profit

With the help of effective social media marketing, your business will get more customers. The more customers you have, the more profit you’ll gain.

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