You Won’t Be Successful Online Without Mastering These 7 Skills

I get that most people don’t want to spend all day every day learning how to be a web developer but these 7 skills are absolutely necessary if you want to earn good money on the internet.

1. SEO

I’m a huge advocate of SEO. SEO is amazing because if you can get to the top of Google, you can get free targeted traffic to your website all day.

And because those people are searching for what you offer, that traffic will convert.

But how do you master the art of SEO? There are many resources out there that will teach you SEO. I’ve personally been doing SEO professionally for 14 years and the person I trust the most to give you the most up to date information that is working right now is Brian Dean at Backlinko.

He gives no-nonsense training and backs it up with data. In other words, he’s not guessing.

One strategy that I invented myself and have been seeing a lot of success with is what I call building link maps. This, in essence, is the art of doing link building and then building links to those links (link stacking) in a strategic way so they become more powerful.

2. Email Marketing

It has been proven over and over again that nurturing leads through email will dramatically increase your conversions. People like Ryan Deiss teach very specific methods on how to do this.

There are a few good email marketing platforms that will make your job a lot easier. Here are the tools I actually use:

Aweber – I use them to collect email addresses and send out follow up emails automatically.

Mailchimp – these guys have pretty much the same features as Aweber.

Lead Pages – these guys have pop-up windows to collect emails that have been tested and proven to increase subscribers.

SumoMe – similar features to Lead Pages but they do have other tools as well.

In my own businesses, I have seen email follow up increase conversions over and over again and in many different niches. This is something that will mean more to your bottom line than anything else.

3. Evaluating Potential

If you’ve ever spent any time over at my Prosperity blog, you know that I love buying undervalued websites. I am only able to do this if I can evaluate the potential of a website and understand that it is actually undervalued.

Even if I’m not buying a website, if I’m starting an online business from scratch it is the same principle. I always look at what the market looks like, and then I look at what the competition is doing online. Are they proficient in SEO? Do they understand basic internet marketing principles?

When those key indicators match up, I know the potential is there and I feel confident moving forward. If the competition is extremely knowledgeable and deeply embedded in the industry, I will typically move on.

On the other hand, when I find a website that is trying to sell donkey socks, I am able to filter that out quickly because

4. Backend Website Administration

I hesitated including this one in this article because let’s be honest, you started falling asleep as soon as you read the heading for this section.

The reality is, if you really want to be successful online you must get a sound base in html. You must learn how FTP works. At the very least you need to become a WordPress master.

You also need to become proficient in working with images. I use a program called Fireworks from Adobe, but many people use Photoshop as well.

If earning a living online is something you are really serious about then you need to learn how to be a webmaster. Youtube tutorials need to become your new best friend.

5. Increasing Conversions

The only thing better than getting more targeted traffic is taking the traffic you already have and getting more of those people to give you money.

The reason this is so great is because it is completely in your control. If your website converts at a typical 1%, all you would have to do to double your revenue is to increase conversions to 2%. Easy.

How do you do it?

Split test, split test, split test. Also known as A/B testing, this means you show one version of a page to half of your visitors and show another different version to the other half. Then you see which version generated more sales.

I bought a website with traffic one time and just made a few (but significant tweaks) to the site and in less than 30 days the monthly revenue jumped by 968%.

Google Analytics offers a free AB tool in their software. There are other paid options but I will typically just use Google’s AB tool.

6. Pricing

If you don’t price a product or service correctly, this can quickly put you out of business either because you’ve overpriced your product and don’t get any sales or because you’ve underpriced and can’t cover expenses.

You must learn how to arrive at the perfect price so that you maximize revenue and customers. After all, it is so much easier to sell to a previous customer than to a new one. Maximizing number of sales along with revenue is extremely important for the long-term growth of your business.

This goes back to the testing part of this article. You need to test different prices to see which one performs better. This is not something you should guess on. There is too much at stake.

Get the price right.

7. Monetization

When I am looking to buy an undervalued website, one of the first things I look at is whether or not I can monetize the website in a way that will either greatly increase revenue or at least give me a good return on my investment of time and money.

Any site can be monetized by putting Google ads on it, but to me that is short sighted thinking. It has been my experience that Google Ads have generated the lowest amount of income on websites that I have owned.

So you need to learn what people want and what they will pay for or how to find good affiliate programs that are worth promoting.

For example, I used to run a website that was a directory of lawn care companies in the US. I sold advertising on the site and didn’t make very much money ($30-$100 a month). I had awesome traffic from SEO and knew I should be making a lot more money than I was.

I created a “how to start your own lawn care business kit” packaged with everything a person would need to know to start their own lawn care business. I priced it $97 and people bought like crazy.

Once I started selling the kit, the website made me from $30k-$50k every year.

It was a powerful lesson on monetization. I learned that I should always be trying to come up with new and better ways to monetize websites that I owned.

So those are the 7 traits I think are most important to master if you want to be successful online. Am I missing something that has been critical to your success? Leave it in the comments below.

Source: http://bit.ly/1S3W90E

Quote of the day

Quote of the day.

Five Things You Should Know About Marketing to Millennials

Here are five things you need to know about marketing to millennials:

We Are Confident

As the children of Baby Boomers and Gen X-ers, we millennials spent our formative years being patted on the back and praised for just about everything we did. You colored inside the lines? That’s great. You want to play all the sports? Awesome. You burped? Bravo!

This is because our parents were the products of darker times, and hyper aware of all the ways in which our childhoods could go wrong. In our school and home environments, the adults in our lives made sure we were set up for success.

In this way, millennials respond well to getting our ego stroked. Remember that our self-worth is high, so we don’t necessarily need brands or brand messages to feed us that extra boost. We also like to hear messages that add value to our lives. Help us, and we will help you by supporting your business.

It’s like Demi Lovato, international pop star and fellow millennial says, “What’s wrong with being confident?”

We Are Optimistic

Doom and gloom is not the M.O. of the average millennial. And September 11^th, one of the darkest events of the last half century, is ironically what cemented our sense of optimism.

Losing our sense of security not just as a nation but as a generation created a juxtaposition between the new world order and how it had been before. Or, as optimistic millennials decided, how it could be again. Millennials have largely been fighting to regain that sense of security ever since and believe that in fact we can get there.

As marketers, there’s an opportunity to feed this optimism. In keeping with the “help me help you” sense of confidence I mentioned earlier, help millennials make the world better, and your messages will not only resonate, but become action.

We Are Creative

Jamie’s creativity point—which also stems from a strong confidence base—really stuck with me. Our parents told us that if we did well in school and went to college, we would get jobs, and everything would be champagne wishes and caviar dreams (ok, small exaggeration, but you get the idea).

But then the economy tanked, and millennials collectively had a quarter life crisis: Why don’t I have a job? Why am I not happy? Why hasn’t anyone given me my own reality show? The transition to adulthood was rough—and no one gave us a heads up!

Luckily, we’re a resilient bunch. When I was 23, I looked around at my group of close friends from college and realized that all but one of us had changed career paths within two years of graduating. We were nimble, we were creative, and while none of my friends were the founders of Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, or any other new-age service company, it was our millennial peers who created the sharing economy. How’s that for creativity? “Oh, the classic economy isn’t giving us what we need? Let’s shake it up.”

It’s the millennial generation that has helped to reshape the American Dream into something that involves a creative idea, some seed funding, and an IPO. While this paradigm is likely to shift again soon (i.e. if and when the startup bubble bursts—and history tells us it will burst), marketing messages that speak to this creativity, this one-size-does-not-fit-all approach, is crucial in reaching this audience.

The key is about keeping the message personal, and with today’s technology, you have the capability to tailor messages in a way that speaks to this generation.

We Are More Than Our Devices

And speaking of technology, something I love about my generation is that while we are technology experts, we are not technology dependents. We can still remember a time when there was no wifi, not everyone owned a cellphone, when computers were slow, and when the whole world didn’t speak in hashtags. I like to refer to this time as B.E.–Before Emoji.

Perhaps the best way to illustrate what sets us apart is to delve a little deeper into our Gen Z successors. These kids were essentially born with an iPad in their hand. They have PayPal accounts instead of credit cards. They make purchases via their phones. They know their credit score at age 17.

This is the stuff my nightmares are made of.

Taking this point of reference into account, there’s a nuance in the way we should be spoken to. We see value in “unplugging” and in the balance between online and offline interaction. There needs to be a full, omni-channel approach to how we’re marketed to, because we move between our online and offline worlds seamlessly.

 This incriminating photo (of me) shows that while millennials may not have been born with iPads in their hands, some were given access to 80s-era desktop computers at a very early age.

We Are Going to Have Babies

To close, I’m going to share my own personal theory with you, marketer to marketer. As more and more millennials start families, I predict that there will be a shift in the way in which our Gen Z (or whatever generation comes after Gen Z…do we start at A again?) kids approach technology. This is because millennials remember what it’s like to play outside—without technology. We remember what it’s like to read a book—without technology. And we remember what it’s like to be bored—without technology.

The adage of our grandparents may have been that they had to walk to school eight miles in three-feet of snow and it was uphill both ways. We will tell our kids—and our kids’ kids—how our parents sent us out in the yard with nothing to play with but a flat tennis ball and our imagination.

The ability to take something—anything—and transform it into something incredible—isn’t that what marketing is all about?

Source : http://bit.ly/20r2nu3

Top Trends in Marketing for This Year

At the start of every year, many inbound marketers like to take a glimpse into what the future holds. It’s exciting to see what new software, hardware, and strategies are at the forefront, and make predictions about what will become the next best thing … and what will fizzle out.

The marketing trends for this year will not disappoint, so here’s a look at what to expect and how to plan for what’s ahead.

Video and images are essential.

Much like the last two years, imagery will continue to drive traffic, generate leads, and convert sales. However, some marketers are still getting on board to use video and images, so you’ll be competing with many more companies for customer attention. Plus, Google is now incorporating in-SERP video ads, giving your content much more exposure.

Virtual reality and 3D are the next major shift.

Video and images will continue to be essential–even more so as developers launch products enabling virtual reality and 3D technology for marketing. While the market will generally focus on gaming, there are opportunities marketers must seize. Integration with social media and video channels will lead to more direct messaging for users.

Make sure you’re optimized for mobile.

Users of portable devices will become even more reliant on mobile usage as compared to desktops, so your pages must be developed accordingly. Use responsive design techniques or create a separate app for users to ensure smooth, glitch-free navigation.

Marketers must embrace the omnichannel approach.

Marketing has always been about reaching your potential customers in the places they’re hanging out. In 2016, they’ll be all over and expect you to be there with them. An integrated approach to the customer experience is important–one that blends interactions for a seamless encounter, instead of a series of connections through your website, social media, and app separately.

This is especially important for businesses with a brick-and-mortar location in addition to online marketplace. If there’s a disconnect between the two experiences, there will be a disruption in your messaging.

Social media is a channel, not a strategy.

For years, marketers have used social media as a strategy for reaching customers. However, these platforms aren’t an approach on their own; rather, your social media profile is a part of your comprehensive marketing strategy–it’s a channel for messaging, not a separate tactic. Think of it as a microphone that supplements and amplifies your content.

Wearables and the Internet of Things (IoT) will dominate.

Wearable technology means your customers are never without their smart device; the IoT is turning everyday objects into network connections. These solutions gained some traction in 2015 and you can expect them to boom in the coming months. The landscape of local marketing will see the most impact as the lines between online and traditional marketing become blurred.

The 2016 Outlook

If there’s one common theme tying together all of these sales and marketing trends, it’s that marketers must focus on the customer experience in their efforts. Your content must meet the desires of demanding customers, delivering relevance and context through the channels they want. They have high expectations and limited patience, so your strategies must meet their needs and expectations to get a leg up over the competition.

Source : http://bit.ly/1PIPq7o

Ten entrepreneurs share the advice that made them successful

REGARDLESS OF HOW we define it, success can feel like a fleeting and often elusive target. It takes confidence, passion and drive to accomplish your goals and to recognise success when you’ve achieved it.

Here’s how ten influential executives and entrepreneurs describe the key to their success.

Bill Gates

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.

Bill GatesSource: PA

Steve Jobs

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.

Barbara Corcoran

People want to do business with someone they like. If people like you, they’re going to want to do business with you.

Marissa Mayer

I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of ‘Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this’, and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough.

Marissa MeyerSource: PA

Jeff Bezos

If you’re competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being consumer-focused allows you to be more pioneering.

Jack Dorsey

Make every detail perfect and limit the number of details to perfect.

Angela Ahrendts

Remember, the universal language is not texted, emailed or spoken. It is felt.

Richard BransonSource: PA

Richard Branson

My mother always taught me never to look back in regret but to move on to the next thing. The amount of time people waste dwelling on failures, rather than putting that energy into another project, always amazes me.

Warren Buffet

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently

Mark Zuckerberg 

The biggest risk is not taking any risk … In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.

Source : http://bit.ly/1R7sdkX 

Web Design Trends of 2016.

Web design is constantly changing. Even the hottest trends of 2015 may not survive in 2016 – a saddening fact that we will call the circle of life.

But the good news is that the internet is still evolving and developing. Fresh and new ideas are always popping around us. If you would like to know the web design trends of 2016 then just continue reading.

1- Motion Animation

Did that photo just moved now? No need to check your eyes. Those subtle animations that make you to look again are called cinemagraphs and they are the new trend in web design. Cinemagraphs are a series of videos or images edited into a continuous loop.

Cinemagraphs in other words, can be said as a mix of photographs and video- which gives us the benefits of motion storytelling, all without buffering. When you look at how Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck, the two photographers who invented the term “cinemagraph,” use this trend in their website design, you can see that they have a background picture of Paris on constant loop and that the entire cinemagraph is less than 3 megabytes only. This even shows that you can load cinemagraphs on your mobile device.

If you want to know how to do cinemagraphs through Photoshop then here’s an awesome tutorial.

2- Background Video

Although cinemagraphs are great, don’t overlook the beauty of background video, which got into this list before.

While I love cinemagraphs, they are quite difficult to produce – it takes some sweat, tears and blood to produce those three seconds of beauty. However with background video there is minimal effort or error. Watch The Go Go Boys:

Notice how the background video changes between multiple mini-scenes. These background videos help brands to share their unique stories in a way that go beyond still photos.

3- Friendly Micro-Experiences

Internet in the early years was so impersonal. Words and phrases like “fatal error,” “submit,” and “invalid input” didn’t help things. Everything was functional and not very good … or human.

But fortunately nowadays the trend is moving towards human and user friendly experiences. It’s completely okay to add some humor and flair into your website. Creating “micro experiences” or playful little moments on your site will delight your visitor and encourage them to engage more.

Sprinkling personality throughout your website is what will make you stand apart from your competitors. Don’t be reluctant to use everyday language to humanize your brand.

4- Parallax Scrolling

If you have played an old school Nintendo game, then probably you are familiar with parallax. Parallax is the visual effect that you see when the background image moves slowly than the foreground image. It creates a sense of depth, which is really great because you are looking at a 2D screen. For example, check out this game of pet prince Borisz Kutya:

5- Smoother Opt-Ins

Opt-ins of the pop-up variety is really annoying right? Yes and no. If you are researching all day like I do then it can be annoying, but if you are a casual surfer like most, then it can serve as an effective way to get information freely. An opt-in that pops up when you are reading something may be unsolicited, but that doesn’t mean that it is not welcome.

Pop-ups are not the only type of opt-ins trending these days but applications like Welcome Mat helps you to customize it with images or video to make your visitors feel special.

6- Illustrations

One of the more pleasant design trends is illustration. Instead of photos and videos there is also a move towards including hand-drawn doodles, even if they are done in Photoshop. This type of illustration is unpretentious and folksy. It is an alternate to the digitizing of the web.

7- Mobile-Friendly Design

In April this year Google made a decree that all websites should be mobile-friendly if they want to rank higher in search engines. And that brought about the death of Pinch to zoom.

This is actually a good thing because 50% of the people use mobile to access the internet as against desktop computer. Chances are, a large portion of your users are visiting your website through their tablets and smartphones. Are you making them to double tap and struggle? So if you don’t want to lose your users to your mobile-friendly competitors, then make your site mobile-friendly.

Get Ready for 2016

Web design is fluid. One year something is hot and the next year it is a cold leftover but you don’t have to keep up with all the trends instead follow what is best for you. In this way you will both feel comfortable as well as satisfied.

Source : http://bit.ly/1mZFyPA

The Secret to Predicting Startup Success in 2016

When it comes to investing in startups, one thing is clear ... nobody knows the outcome. This can change that.

What's the best way to measure a startup?

Profit is non-existent for most startups. Even revenue can be elusive at the early stages. And what's the magic number for users or customers? 100? 10,000? 100,000?

In the book Startup Wealth: How the Best Angel Investors Make Money in Startups, Josh Maher interviews many legendary investors including Brad Feld, Mark Suster, Catherine Mott, Christopher Mirabile, Allan May, Joanne Wilson, and more. What heuristics did they use to know whether or not to invest in a startup?

Right now the answer is all over the board. There are no standards. Some people invest purely based on their relationship with the founders and do little to no due diligence. Others spend months or even years tracking a startup before taking the plunge.

I'd argue that Net Promoter Score (NPS) should be a required foundational metric behind measuring startups of every size. If you are a startup founder, it should be used as a KPI. If you are an angel investor, you should request it for due diligence. And if you are a venture capitalist, you should be requesting your entire portfolio to be reporting NPS figures to you.

Here's why:

Universal Applicability

Whether you are running a consulting company or a high tech mobile app... whether you have just one customer or tens of thousands ... whether you have no revenue or millions in profit ... you can still run NPS campaigns.

That's because fundamentally all businesses have customers. Even if you don't have revenue yet (maybe you are still building out your user base) you still have users. And with users you can have an NPS score.

With NPS, you ask just one question: How likely (from 0 to 10) are you to recommend my product or service to a friend or colleague? As long as you have some kind of product or service, you can measure NPS.

This makes NPS an ideal key performance indicator if you are trying to evaluate a startup.

TIP #1: Don't fret about the exact score.

If your potential investment is running an NPS campaign for the first time, the chances are that their score is not going to be that great. Many products find that their first score is not what they expect. That's what makes NPS such a powerful survey technique. It gives you an honest assessment of how well you are turning users into fans.

You might be hoping that they are in the high +70's like Apple. But as long as they are positive (and not net-negative), it should not be raising any big red flags at this point.

(After all, the real power of NPS is in the follow-up process)

The score is just a starting point on a journey.

So if you aren't overly concerned with the NPS score, how do you use NPS as a metric for evaluating a startup? Good question! That brings us to our second point.

Honest Customer Feedback

Most investors ask for customer references as part of the diligence process before investing. But this has always confused me. Whenever you ask for a reference, the people given as references are intrinsically likely to tell you good things, since they are often friends with the person in the first place.

But ideally, you would want a way to get a more critical eye for some honest customer feedback rather than just talking to the one or two best references that a startup can provide you.

If you have an NPS campaign as part of due diligence, spend most of your time evaluating the individual responses rather than obsessing about the overall score. And if you are not given all the individual responses, insist on seeing them.

The second question in a NPS survey is: What was the biggest reason for having given that score?

This open-ended question lets customers praise and vent about what they care about most. Reading through these responses will give you the most independent and honest feedback you can get when evaluating a startup.

Often, these responses will include the best and worst of a startup. People who love the service will tell you why they love it. People who are having trouble with the service will tell you why they are having trouble. Those problem areas can then be used as starting points for further diligence.

Many people underestimate how powerful NPS is, especially because it is so simple to implement with just two quick questions. But done correctly, these two questions really are the only two questions that need to be asked.

Implicit Accountability

Although I've already said that the first NPS score doesn't matter, I don't want you to come away with the impression that none of the NPS scores matter.

In fact, tracking NPS scores over time is a fantastic way to audit that progress is being made to improve the product or service.

After the first NPS campaign, you will know the top three biggest problem areas. The next time an NPS campaign is sent, if the same problems come up again in the same frequency (or worse), then it is a sign that something is deeply wrong.

Ideally, as an investor in startups, you should be able to keep track of all your portfolio's NPS scores over time. Comparing them to each other is a possible way to keep an eye on the investments that might need more of your attention. However, a better indicator is to make sure that all of your portfolio's NPS scores are steadily improving over time.

No other score that I know of can provide this kind of warning system no matter the underlying business model or source of revenue. NPS gives you a tool that uniquely can predict breakout success or imminent failure for venture capitalists.

 

Implementing NPS as a key performance indicator can easily be done whether you are a startup founder, an angel investor or a venture capitalist. And done properly, the results can be amazing. For example, after we implemented just one sales technique into our NPS process at Promoter.io, we were able to increase MRR by 32%. You can even use NPS to drive a marketing campaign. So add this tool to your diligence worksheet and ensure that all the startups you work with start tracking it today.

Source : http://bit.ly/1OCrAt6

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9 Social Media Marketing Mistakes Startups Should Avoid

Beginnings are difficult for startups, more so for startups trying to make their presence felt on social media platforms. While it is a fact that social media marketing can help accelerate the growth of your startup, damaging your online reputation is easy if you don’t do it right.

This shouldn’t put you off the idea of taking your startup online though: you only need to make the right efforts to see your brand gain followers on social media. If you’re planning to use social media to take your startup to new heights, here are 9 mistakes that you should avoid at all costs.

Not Having a Plan

Social media marketing is not about getting online and posting all you can about yourself and your startup. Before you make your presence felt online, it is imperative for you to have a social media strategic plan in place. Your social media efforts need to have a solid foundation and a strategic plan that outlines your goals and details your resources will be just that.

Get in touch with your lead sales and marketing members and identify your target audience. Also discuss how you plan to engage with them and how you’ll measure your success. List down your social media marketing objectives and be clear about how your social media campaign will augment your traditional marketing plans. Lastly, appoint specific people to put your social media marketing plan into action.

Not Being Committed to the Plan

If you’re not committed to your social media marketing plan, your social media accounts will end up being inactive, which will in turn, create a bad impression. Keep in mind that not having a Twitter account or handle is a lot better than having your last tweet date back to a year.

Your social media marketing plan is not a sprint; think of it as a marathon. If the results are making you impatient, tweak performance by analyzing metrics, adapting to audience behaviors, and tracking competition. Don’t let your enthusiasm fade; if you focus on your strategy and put in required efforts, your social media marketing plan is sure to work.

Selecting Random Platforms

Given the rise in the number of social media platforms, you might think it necessary to market your brand everywhere. However, all social media platforms have a different purpose and a different set of users. Subsequently, you’ll have to have a different social media marketing plan in place for each platform.

The key to marketing effectively on social media platforms is defining your target customers. Once you know who your customers are, selecting the right platform for your social media marketing plan will be easy.

Advertising on the wrong platforms will only be a waste of time and money. For example, you know that LinkedIn is primarily used by employers and job seekers, so advertising something that isn’t even remotely connected to recruitment or job vacancies on this platform will obviously not show positive results.

Consider using LinkedIn if you are a B2B company or if you want to establish yourself as a thought leader. Twitter can help you connect with like-minded thought leaders, join on-going conversations, and broadcast messages to followers. A social media marketing strategy based on SEO tactics will do great on Google+, while Facebook and Pinterest are great for sharing highly visual content.

Being All over the Place

As mentioned, all social media platforms have a different purpose, and as such, require different marketing plans. Being a startup, you might not have the time and energy to come up with engaging content for several platforms. Moreover, you don’t need to post on platforms that won’t get you desired results. So stick to picking a couple of social media platforms and trying your best to make your presence felt there.

Posting at Inappropriate Times

Simply knowing who your target customers are isn’t enough; you also need to know what time zones they live in and at what time they are most active on the social media platform of your choice for your posts to be noticed.

Take Facebook for example: a post shared on this platform has an average lifetime of about 23 hours in the Newsfeed section. If you share something when your target consumers are asleep or away at work, you lose out on those precious hours. Needless to say, sharing content during the peak hours will definitely get your brand noticed. So determine your sweet spot before you post and gain the upper hand easily.

Posting Too Often

While not posting consistently can be bad for your business, posting too frequently can also be a deal-breaker. Think about how annoying it is to see posts shared by a particular person all day- you certainly don’t want to annoy your target audience, do you?

Get the balance right: posting something once or twice in a month can cause your brand to become invisible, and sharing a dozen posts a day is way too much. Find out what works for your brand and stick to it.

Boring Your Audience

It is possible to bore your target audience without even knowing it, so be wary of what you’re posting at all times. Talk with your audience and get them engaged in a conversation, attract eyeballs, use humor, and ask genuine questions and give intelligent answers.

In addition to this, don’t be robotic; showcase your personality and you’re sure to engage more users. Aim to sell your brand without actually selling- you want to be on people’s minds, not forgotten the minute they log off.

Self-Promoting

If you only talk about yourself and your company, people are bound to unfollow you. Instead of putting your company in the limelight, focus on your target audience. Talk about things that interest your end users and you’ll end up engaging them in interesting conversations.

Furthermore, don’t be too aggressive in your approach. Build your brand’s reputation by empowering and educating your target audience instead of being a salesman.

Giving Users a Reason to Laugh

The worst thing you can do for your brand is to give your target audience a reason to laugh at you. Avoid gaffes by thinking about your posts and taking the time to analyze probable outcomes.

Most importantly, proofread all your posts and ensure there are no spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. If you happen to make a mistake, accept it and try to resolve it instead of hiding from it. Note that deleting an erroneous post won’t help- someone out there is sure to take a screenshot.

Additionally, refrain from giving canned responses to negative comments. Acknowledge issues and be genuine when engaging with users.

Conclusion

Social media mistakes have the potential to put a company out of business. As a startup owner, you can only be too cautious about what you post online. So put adequate thought into your social media marketing plans and ensure you don’t end up making the mistakes mentioned in this post.

Source : http://bit.ly/1OhqEKP