3 Ways to Give Your Social Media Marketing an Extreme Makeover

You’ve probably heard people talking about how awesome social media marketing is, and how they’ve used it to do everything from growing their brand, to spike their traffic and bring in the conversions. All of that sounds nice, but what happens when you’re trying to find success in this field, and you’re coming up short?

If that scenario sounds like your experience thus far with social media, then it’s time for an extreme makeover. Clearly, something isn’t working, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed. Today I’ll show you three surefire methods to revamp your social media marketing strategy and start off on the right foot.

3 Ways to Revitalize Your Social Media Marketing

Let’s say you’re on the fence about changing up your strategy. You’re not entirely convinced your social media marketing needs an overhaul. Consider these four signs that it’s time for you to take drastic action:

• People are unfollowing you left and right
• You're not attracting followers from your audience
• Your posts aren’t generating engagement
• The competition is beating you senseless.

The fact of the matter is that sometimes when you’ve learned how to create a website, your social media marketing for it just isn’t working for one reason or another. That doesn’t mean you should give up, though. Here are three ways to turn that trend around:

1. Refocus on Your Brand’s Story

Storytelling is hardwired into our minds as something we enjoy. In past years, marketers have taken a new approach to their efforts by taking an approach that Fast Company cleverly calls “story selling.” This term they coined refers to the way that successful social media strategies are selling their brand’s story, not a product.

Take a look at your social media pages. Are you posting about things that humanize your brand and tell your story, or are you focusing on product features and selling your product/service? When delivering content online, a popular approach called the 80/20 rule is something I always like to recommend.

80% of the content you post on social media should be useful and interesting for your readers. Save the other 20% for promotional content. During the majority of your time, focus on posting content that tells more of your brand’s story.

Post pictures of the people who work with you. Tell their stories, and watch as you bring more people to your brand while also giving it a human touch.

2. Switch Your Platform Focus

The biggest mistake a company can make with their social media marketing is trying to create a presence on every platform imaginable. The simple truth is that you don’t have the resources to maintain all those accounts, no one does.

The companies that are most successful in this endeavor are the ones who find the right platforms and focus on them. For some, it’s just one platform and for others, it’s two or three. Take these things into consideration:

• How much time do I have to devote to social media right now?
• Where are my customers spending time?
• What platforms are my competitors using?

If you can answer these questions through careful research, you’ll find that that the pool of potential platforms narrows very quickly. Plan to spend at least five hours per week on each platform and only budget for the time you can afford.

Focusing on a single platform creates a snowball effect that increases engagement and brings new followers into the fold more than a slow or dead profile ever could. If you’re spread too thin, it’s time to bring things back into focus.

We should all take a page from the nerds who rock the digital marketing landscape. Great digital marketers use data to inform their decisions. That’s why you’re going to use facts to find out which platform you should be focusing on.

While you may tempted to jump on Facebook because it has the most active users, I would instead advise that you email the customers in your contact list and ask them which platforms they use the most and why they like them.

Take this data and use it to find out where your customers are spending their time. If they are all on Twitter instead of Facebook, then it’s time to leave FB behind. Consider also the potential for organic reach. If you don’t have a lot of capital to invest in ad campaigns, you should consider smaller, more niche platforms where you can have a better reach.

Looking at Facebook’s organic reach lately, it makes more sense to focus more heavily on platforms that don’t require paid advertising to get your content in front of your users.

3. Rethink Your Content Strategy

Are you providing content on social media that serves the needs of your audience, or the needs of your company? Understanding your audience is a great first step, but you should go beyond who they are and instead identify what they need.

Great social media content serves the needs of an audience. It makes them feel like you read their mind and provide them with an answer before they asked the question. It sounds like magic, but it’s not.

Start by creating personas that allow you to understand your atypical customer, but then go beyond this by engaging with users on your social media platforms. Interact with them in the comments and invite them to ask their questions on social media. Have someone ready to reply at a moment’s notice so they know you’re ready and willing to answer their questions.

Keep track of their answers and more importantly, the questions they ask. Use these to form a picture of their needs. Use this data to inform your content marketing strategy and start posting the kind of content on social media that they will want to read and share.

Final Thoughts

There’s no single secret to success on social media. It’s about dedicating the time needed to engage with your audience and ultimately understanding their needs so you can meet and exceed them at every turn. How do you turn a social media downturn around? Let us know in the comments!

 Source : http://bit.ly/2ckSmNf

5 Ways Small Business Brands Can Use Instagram Video

So it happened. Facebook owned Instagram released video functionality on their app to go head to head against Twitter’s Vine app. The battle lines are drawn and people and brands are already choosing sides. But what does this mean for your small business?

With Instagram already boasting more than 130 million users, there was already a case to be made that your company may want a presence on the photo sharing platform. That said, there are some stories that a still image just can’t capture. The addition of a video feature (even at a max of 15 sec.) provides even more flexibility to the message that your brand can share with your audience.

Still need more convincing? Instagram’s videos can be directly shared on your Facebook page. When posted to Facebook, they appear in a large, timeline filling thumbnail, there is no doubt that your fans will take notice.

If you are considering adding Instagram videos to your social media marketing mix, here are a few creative ideas you should try:

1. Before & Afters

Although not applicable to every business, before and after videos are a wonderful testament to the effectiveness of a product, or service. Showing a potential customer the end result of working with you may prove to be the final push that causes them to reach out. Unlike a before and after photo, video will allow you to show multiple angles, or focus points of the true difference you offer.

2. Previews

Are you about to launch a new product or service? A 15 second sneak peek behind the curtain may be the perfect way to build excitement and anticipation about its release. If you can show your existing and potential customers the value of your new release, you may be able to get a few pre-orders, or at least create a list of interested parties to eagerly anticipate your launch.

3. Comparisons

Is your product, or service really better than the competition? If so, it’s time to prove it! Show your solution toe to toe with the competition. If you can outperform them on video, it will be pretty hard for viewers to choose your rivals over you.

4. Mini Commercials

It’s time to get creative. Just because you are a small business doesn’t mean you can’t have commercials. Instagram’s video capabilities give you everything you need to produce short, free, and meaningful communications with your audience. Don’t be afraid to try something. If you don’t like what you’ve produced, simply delete it and start over. You never know, maybe you’re a regular Ron Howard.

5. Customer Testimonials

Customer testimonials may be the most powerful use of Instagram. Who has the budget to send a film crew out to every satisfied customer? Now you do. Anytime a customer brings up how your product, or service benefits them (saved time, saved money, increase production, improved sales, increase ROI, peace of mind, etc.), simply take out your phone and ask them for a 15 second testimonial on the spot. Not everyone will say yes, but the ones that do will be giving you pure video gold.

No matter if you decide to use Instagram and its video feature, or not, the addition to the app will make an impact on the way brands tell their stories. You have the chance to take advantage of this new feature and use it to tell your brand’s story. Will you accept the challenge?

How will your use Instagram videos to spread your message?

 Source : http://bit.ly/1RHWB6u

9 ways marketers can stick to their strategies

Editor’s note: In “The Marketing Plan Handbook,” author Robert W. Bly explains how you can develop big-picture marketing plans for pennies on the dollar with his 12-step marketing plan. In this edited excerpt, Bly explains the nine steps you can take to make sure you're getting the most out of your marketing plan.

Consistency is important when you’re trying to implement a long-term marketing plan, so resist the temptation to abandon a strategy if it doesn't work immediately.

Give it time to work. These nine steps can help you make the most of your well-crafted plan:

1. Every day, be renewed by your vision. Your mind can be your greatest asset or your most tiring obstacle.

Begin your day by renewing your mind with the clarifying power of your vision. When W. Clement Stone and Earl Nightingale both said, “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve,” they knew these were far more than simple words on a page. There simply is no substitute for the power of belief.

When you believe, obstacles that would throw your entire day into chaos suddenly become bleeps that you just intuitively know how to solve without expending valuable time or energy. Don’t laugh this off as touchy-feely. This is one of the most inexpensive and profitable investments you’ll ever make in yourself. Just do it.

2. Focus on your niche. Become the expert in all things involving your niche. Don’t limit your knowledge to the services you offer.

The more you know about your niche’s priorities and challenges, the more valuable a resource you can become to them. Become familiar with other professionals who can assist your niche with challenges outside your expertise.

When you’re tempted to work with clients outside your niche, make sure the time and payoff will be worth it and won’t draw you away from your commitment.

3. Stay close to your ideal client. Networking, surveys, online community forums, trade magazines and associations are all great ways to keep sharp about the things that matter to your ideal client.

Stay on top of the news and ask yourself how your client’s needs will be affected by changes in the business and world environment.

4. Keep your eyes on your competition. If your clients stop think­ing that you offer a competitive advantage in addressing their needs, you lose and the competition wins. Enough said. Don’t be the last to know what your competition is doing.

5. Make sure you’re positioned to win. If you’re doing the first four steps, you’ll know when it’s time to change your tune, tweak your message and speak a new language that’s more in tune with what your ideal client needs.

Ask yourself, “Is my unique selling proposition still unique? Does anyone do it better? What one thing can I do to serve my clients better?” That’s how you stay unique.

6. Take action every day. Stick close to your plan. Follow your schedule. Complete the actions you say you'll complete in your daily sched­ule.

At the end of the week, give yourself a grade for effort. Then give yourself another one for accomplishment. If you’re getting A’s for effort and C’s for accomplishment, trouble­shoot.

7. Focus on one marketing project at a time. One of the greatest mistakes people make in setting goals is trying to work on too many things at one time. There's tremendous power in giving focused attention to just one idea, one project, or one objective at a time.

8. Ask yourself good questions. As you think about your goals, instead of wishing for them to come true, ask yourself how and what you can do to make them come true.

The subconscious mind will respond to your questions far more effectively than just making statements or wishes.

9. Congratulate yourself. You’re halfway home. You’ve done something that less than 3 percent of the population has done—set goals and create a plan for achieving them.

Every study on the subject tells us you’re far more likely than most to succeed with your plans if you'll only do one thing: Take action.

Be that external force. Plan your work—then work your plan—and you’ll have an unstoppable moneymaking system that can grow your business beyond even your most amazing vision.

Source : http://bit.ly/1PTjFLG

5 Marketing and Branding Tips to Scale Your Online Business

Scaling an online business isn’t rocket science -- it’s actually much easier than many people believe. When you combine a winning product or service and a solid foundation to build on, the sky’s the limit. 

Use these five simple marketing and branding tips to help you scale your online business and experience increased growth.

1. Make it ridiculously easy for your customers to buy your product or service.

It’s amazing how many businesses make prospects jump through multiple hoops in order to make a purchase -- my own marketing agency was guilty of this as well, until recently. While our main offering is custom-tailored online-marketing consulting, we also offer several à la carte services.

The problem was that, previously, a prospect had to contact us via phone or our website to order one of these stand-alone services. When we did a little digging, we found that the majority of these inquiries didn’t require any selling -- people simply wanted to make a purchase.

So, we made a switch, making it easy for prospects to purchase these à la carte services directly from our website. And the results have been great so far: Sales are up since we eliminated that previous hoop that a prospect once had to jump through. 

Experiment with eliminating steps and making changes that create a ridiculously easy path to purchase. 

2. Track every conversion metric humanly possible. 

You have to know your numbers -- if you don’t know, down to the penny, how much it costs you to generate leads and sales, you will crash and burn.

Cost-per-lead (CPL): You need to know how much it costs to generate every form of lead, from email submits to phone calls. A blended CPL won’t work -- you need to be as specific as possible. If you are able to generate email leads for $1 each and phone leads are costing you $8 each, but converting at the same rate, wouldn’t it be wise to push all of your effort into producing more email leads? 

Cost-per-sale (CPS): All of your data works together. For example, your conversion rates and cost-per-lead are going to help you determine what each sale is costing you. Business 101 tells us that if the CPS, plus cost of goods sold, is lower than the sales price, it's profitable. But you need to dive a bit deeper. Where are you pulling the lowest CPS from? Can you open up the faucet to generate more sales from that avenue? 

You need to also know what your different landing pages are converting at and where your top-performing lead sources are. You are never going to find a winning combination that you can “set and forget” -- constant monitoring and optimizing are required.

3. Seek out media exposure to highlight your expertise.

Getting yourself and your brand out there is crucial if you want to scale. There are plenty of opportunities to score free media exposure if you are willing to put in a little work. 

If you aren’t already registered with Help a Reporter Out, or HARO for short, do that now. With more than 35,000 journalists seeking insights from experts, there is a very good chance you will come across several exposure opportunities if you put in the effort. Consistency is key if you want to find success using this strategy.

HARO sends out three emails daily, full of opportunities. Many people read through them for a few days and then give up if an opportunity doesn’t fall into their lap. Don't let this be you.

Instead, stick it out and put some effort into your responses -- journalists receive hundreds of replies to each request, so you are going to need to stand out. Make sure you avoid making these stupid press outreach mistakes.

4. Set up email automation sequences to nurture, promote and convert 24/7.

Every type of business can use email automation. Restaurants can build a list that automatically sends out ecoupons for specials and discounts on notoriously slow days to drive foot traffic. Ecommerce stores can create segmented lists and send special offers to customers based on their previous purchase habits.

Information products can capture an email address and automatically market to that prospect, sending enticing information and discounts, until that prospect pulls out his or her credit card and converts.

Just like every other form of online marketing, email automation requires extensive split testing and constant optimization, but when you fine-tune your efforts, email automation creates a system that promotes, nurtures and converts sales 24/7 -- even while you sleep.

5. Maintain consistent social media branding and cross promote.

Social media is such a powerful branding tool, and it’s important that you think about the big picture when establishing social accounts for your business. Using the same handle on every platform makes it easy for your customers to connect with you across all of the channels they are active on.

It will benefit you greatly if you use a handle that’s easy to remember and available on all of the networks you will be actively promoting on. For example, I use the same handle for my personal brand on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.

You should also be cross-promoting your social media accounts in an effort to get your audience connected on as many platforms as possible. Someone following your brand on Twitter might not be connected on Facebook, which could be his or her preferred social network. A simple “Make sure to connect with us on Facebook” tweet could get people to like your Facebook page and then engage with a future Facebook post, leading to that hoped-for conversion.

Source : http://entm.ag/1OKErKB

The 5 Most Damaging Marketing Mistakes New Entrepreneurs Make

The term “mistakes” has a negative connotation: You've made a decision or implemented something that didn’t go as planned; now you have to deal with the repercussions.

Yet most mistakes, even ones that in the moment seem massive, end up being only temporary setbacks. In fact, they usually end up as positive assets because they teach valuable lessons about how to improve your business or approach.

Unfortunately, not all mistakes are this innocuous. Some, in the marketing realm, actually do long-term harm to your campaign. And, as described below, most of these mistakes are especially damaging because they aren’t obvious. Fixing a blog post with a spelling or accuracy issue is one thing. But when you exhibit a fundamental misunderstanding of best marketing practices, it’s much harder to smooth over the effects.

So, if you’re a new entrepreneur, or unsure if your marketing campaign is going well, take a moment to make sure you aren’t making these five truly damaging mistakes:

1. Ignoring the brand

Trying to market your business without a brand is like throwing a house party without specifying the address. Your brand serves as a foundation of identity for new and old customers alike. It should underline and inform all messaging you put out, from the content of your website to the images on your Facebook banner.

When people see your brand, or notice your logo, or pick up on your style of speaking and area of expertise, they’ll form an opinion of certain traits of your business. Without that connection, your material is floating in space with no association. Plus, the more connections you build, the more familiar your customers will become with your brand, and the more likely they’ll be to buy from you. Without that presence or consistency, you won’t be able to build relationships -- and you might not even get credit for your work.

2. Marketing to everyone

You have to choose whom you want to market to, but too many entrepreneurs make the simple choice: market to everybody. After all, “everybody” is the largest possible audience, so it offers the largest possible return, right? Wrong. Even if you could somehow use one selection of platforms to get a specific message to everyone in the world, that message would be too generic for the entire population to value or remember.

Instead, to stand out, you have to be unique, and if you want to make an impression, you have to be relevant. Being both unique and relevant requires you to create specifically crafted messaging for one segment of the population at a time.

3. Making assumptions about an audience 

All that being said, there are some marketers who understand they must create messaging for specific audience segments but still don't do it effectively. In large part, this is because they’ve made broad assumptions about their target audience, rather than relying on data and research to support their ideas.

For example, they might assume that middle-aged men interested in their product would want a stoic, professional voice and bare-bones, straightforward information, when in reality, this audience would prefer a more casual tone, with humor. As a general rule, you should question every assumption you make. Are you making your marketing decisions because of the way you think things work, or because of the way thingsactually work? Data is your only path to the truth.

4. Investing too much (or not enough)

Successful investment in a marketing campaign demands a careful balance. Investing too much money at the start of your campaign, before you’ve gotten to know your target audience intimately, can create excess waste. You don’t know what platforms work best because you haven’t had the opportunity to test them, and you’re essentially gambling on what you think might work in your favor.

On the other hand, investing too little will leave you with few results, and barely enough data to form any meaningful conclusions.

5. Failing to experiment

Marketing isn’t a point-and-shoot game, no matter how much we sometimes want it to be. It’s a game of setting and resetting expectations, getting asymptotically closer to a “perfect” strategy, without ever quite getting there. The only way to get better is by experimenting -- trying new things and being bold with your strategies, to see which ones work and which ones fail.

If you aren’t actively experimenting, you can’t possibly improve, and that means you’ll remain stagnant in your long-term progress. Never rule out a strategy unless you have data proving it to be ineffective; and never turn down an opportunity to learn more about your brand and customers.

In sum, these mistakes aren’t just the most damaging for new entrepreneurs -- they’re also some of the most common. I’ve spoken and worked with dozens of entrepreneurs who have banked their entire strategies on some of these ideas. And, the good news is that if you catch these mistakes early enough,

If, at this moment, you can identify yourself making them, you’ve already won half the battle. 

Source : http://entm.ag/1Sh696u

One in five teenagers block their parents on Facebook to stop them prying or embarrassing them

Not cool: As the older generation get to grips with new media kids are one step ahead of them

Thousands of mums and dads are being blocked on social media - by their own children, according to new research.

One in five teenagers admitted they have blocked parents on Facebook - and one in 10 has rejected a 'friend request'.

One in six teens have 'de-tagged' themselves from family photos online and even asked a parent not to 'like' their posts.

The poll of 1,000 teenagers was conducted by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment to mark the release of Modern Family Season 6 on DVD.

It found that the average parent and child have had three arguments due to social media in the past six months.

A spokesman said: "Young people just like to have something to call their own, and give them a sense of independence.

"But we also know that times are changing and parents want to be involved with social media just as much as their children.

"During your teenage years, all you can think about is making a good impression on friends and getting to know new people.

"And when you're a parent, you just want to make sure your child is safe when they're online, so it's understandable if they want to be 'friends' on social media."

The survey also found some parents are being told not to let anyone know they are related to their offspring while on social media.

De-friend: Parents use Facebook to keep tabs on their kids

Twenty five per cent of teens admitted they have had to give their parents a lecture on what they can and can't do on social media.

The average teen currently has 148 friends on their Facebook page, nine of which are parents and other relatives.

Just last week, a social media guide was launched to help concerned parents understand what their kids are talking about online.

But the initiative drew ridicule with many teenagers claiming to not use most of the acronyms.

Source : http://bit.ly/1FE1Au5