Amplifying Your Content

You could build (or have built) the best, most amazing piece of content – but if no one reads or views it, does it even really exist? Recognizing the right avenue for sharing your content and then finding the best way to amplify the message through social influencers and employee advocacy will ensure that you get your message out to your target audience and hopefully fulfill your purpose.

Best Social Media Avenues

• Twitter – Posts are limited to just 140 characters. This can be a good thing as it forces the message to be succinct, containing only the most important aspects. It also becomes the avenue from which to launch most campaigns. Your post, which is a form of writing in and of itself (thus content), is focused to your audience and the sharing begins with those in you and your employees’ networks – that is those following you on Twitter. Then they share, then others share and so forth, snowballing the message throughout the virtual community. Be careful not to lose your focus, though, which is easy with Twitter where all posts are viewed by anyone.

• LinkedIn – Designed for business relationships and thus is easy to maintain a highly professional tone. Businesses should have a page on LinkedIn, especially if they want to reach other businesses. The reach here is to business-focused individuals, so if not presenting a product aimed more at enhancing business, then it isn’t likely the best approach. This does allow a tighter niche for business focus purposes, with employees showing their personal business connection to a company.

• Slideshare – This network is becoming increasingly popular for SEO and image-based content. Recently, it was acquired by LinkedIn and is becoming one of the one of the most popular search engines for content. When your employees are on LinkedIn and connected to your company, they can easily share a Slideshare, making it a more viable option than Instagram for enterprise social media amplification.

• Instagram – An outlet for images and often links with either Facebook or Twitter for greater ease of sharing. If a visual is an important aspect of your content – this is a must for you to use. If the image isn’t a must, this may not be the approach to take. 

• Facebook – Without question, a business should have a Facebook page that they regularly update. If it just sits there, it isn’t helping you at all. From Facebook, you can share links to any style or form of content, but the image ends up being a driving force. Include a picture, then the link, and you will get more traffic from Facebook. That said, it may not be the best arena to share more technical jargon that is geared toward a specific and highly technological business audience. Another avenue may work better.

There are many other approaches than the above listed social media outlets. And new sites pop up every day. Again, weigh the needs of your purpose against the reach of your target audience to determine the best approach for your current campaign. Most important, don’t go stagnant with your contribution of content. Keep it constant, lest your audience will lose interest and move on to the next big thing.

Advanced Amplification Techniques

• Employee Advocacy – Employees are always the best starting point for sharing the content you have put so much time into creating. Not only do they know your company and products, but offering them the opportunity to share their thoughts, ideas, and opinions in the creation of the content inspire them to want to share it with their circle. Employee advocacy is an essential element for successful engagement with your customers. Your employees should be the one talking with customers and offering support for questions. But this shouldn’t be limited to just the marketing or customer service staff. Everyone in the company should play a role, from executives to sales to maintenance. They all have a stake in the company’s outcome, so encouragement to participate in advocacy efforts is a must. When employees feel like they are part of the process, they are excited to become engaged in the process.

• Customer Advocacy – Customers are the whole point of business, right? Businesses know this. Or they should. Without customers buying products, businesses would go out of business. And they are the best marketing voice you have when it comes to sharing the benefits your company has to offer. Word of mouth marketing will never go away – as people like recommendations from their friends, colleagues, and even admired strangers. The place where people share has been moved from the watercooler to the Internet, but the impact is still the same – people telling people they know what they should or should not buy. Customer advocacy cannot be overlooked. Rather, incorporate them into your amplification efforts, ask them to share your content. They already buy your product, so becoming an ambassador for it shouldn’t be a stretch.

Amplification comes down to how the message gets shared, no matter the content. If you have followed the steps above, created a purpose with clear goals, determined your target audience, selected style and form, chosen a writer, wrote quality content that includes a good title and SEO consideration, and decided who to share the message, then the next step is to find a way to reach the most people with the lowest amount of effort – you need to amplify your message.

Content marketing is getting more saturated by the day. Getting your content out there and in front of your target audience is arguably the hardest aspect of content marketing. Social media promotion and leveraging employees and customers are easy ways to ensure your content is reaching your target audience.

 Source:http://bit.ly/1NpyYIV

Top 7 Startup Marketing Mistakes

When starting your own business, especially the first one, there’s definitely a learning curve. As an entrepreneur, you have so many things on your plate you have to deal with for the first time, that it is inevitable that you will make mistakes.

Also, marketing is usually not a founder’s specialty, and that’s why we tend to see many startups making the same avoidable mistakes.

Here are the top 7 startups marketing mistakes and how to avoid them:

1. Not identifying your target audience  – Some startups fear of “missing opportunities” and decide to cast a wide marketing net. But, one of the staples of marketing is targeting, and if your message is vague and unclear, it will not be effective. Before launching any marketing campaign, stop and strategize. Who is your target audience? For example, if you have a solution for enterprises in the financial sector, you need to understand WHO in those enterprises you are selling to. Is your product a solution for IT executives, CMOs or CFOs? Each role has a complete different set of priorities and responsibilities, and the success of your product is very much dependant on identifying your exact target audience.
2. Failing to check marketing results –  Marketing is a continuous process and is not a set and forget one. In order to understand if your marketing efforts bear fruit, you need to setup the necessary analytics tools and check your results on an on-going basis. Tracking everything, including the amounts you spend on each channel and how much traction you receive, is crucial for understanding marketing results. Without tracking, you will not be able to calculate your ROI and will not have the sufficient information needed to make improvements in your activities.
3. Spending too much money too soon – This is actually a common mistake that startups make on all fronts. According to CB Insights, among the 20 primary reasons causing startups to fail, the #2 is running out of cash (the #1 result for failing is that there’s no market for the product). Unlike the option of hiring a programmer for a low salary but a large chunk of options, you can’t pay Google for AdWords in shares. But, there are ways to launch and grow your startup with no or minimal budget. Before jumping to marketing tactics and spending a lot of money on buying media, spend time in analyzing and figuring out what is important to do now for your marketing, and how much – if at all – will it cost.
4. Failing to check on competition – Few are the companies that don’t have any competitors. Even if you think that’s the case, map the closest ones to you as your company cannot operate in a closed-off bubble. Follow your competitors’ social media accounts, create alerts on their brand name so you are always on top of things. We all know that users are comparing when shopping, especially in the early stages of the purchase cycle. The purchase will probably not happen once they first visit your site and chances are they will look at competitors to compare. Don’t mimic what your competitors do but rather, add reviews and posts to your website that compare you and the competitors. Adding such a comparison page has also side benefits, including increased SEO for your site.
5. Expecting immediate results – Marketing takes time, and it is very much dependant on the market (if it’s educated or not), type of product (quick online purchase or a slower buying process) and clients (individuals vs. SMBs vs. enterprises). If you have a B2C product and run a Facebook campaign, it’s OK to expect fast results. If you, however, have a B2B product and run a LinkedIn campaign – you have to chill. The campaign can provide you valuable leads, even in the form of a comment from a potential client to a promoted post. But don’t expect immediate results as the buying process itself takes time. In addition, most marketing budgets, especially ones that involve building online presence and SEO, require months of efforts before you can see results. SEO is not exact science but estimation is that it can take a brand name up to a month to rank on top 3 results and a niche keyword up to a year to rank.
6. You keep recycling – One aspect of marketing is content and for it to be effective, it has to be good quality one. Recycling content is OK, to a point. Even if you don’t have any news or product launches, you need to be innovative and come up with new angles and stories to existing ones. If you published a press release about new data your company found, you cannot re-publish the same data as ‘new findings’ 6 months from the date of the original release. You can follow up with new information, mention the initial release, but to showcase the data as new or even – gasp – copy and paste from the first release, is not effective at all and can also paint your company as untrustworthy.  
7. Lastly – not investing at all in marketing – This can be one of your biggest marketing mistakes. Investing in your marketing does not necessarily mean putting aside a hefty marketing budget, but rather investingthought into it. Running forward with your company’s roadmap while leaving marketing activities behind can be a crucial mistake as marketing defines the positioning of your company in its market, your brand and the packaging of the product you are selling. As budgets are often tight in startups, marketing can be viewed as a frivolous expense. But, it can be done for a minimal budget and if you keep an eye on results and make sure to shift efforts towards the positive ROI channels, any funds you invest will come back, with an interest.

Source : http://bit.ly/1PTZmL4

13 Social Media Resolutions to Try in 2016

  





1) Refresh your friends and followings. Give your newsfeeds a fresh start by letting go of your unnecessary or unhealthy online connections, and only follow the people you really care to get updates from.

2) Limit your Snapchat stories to 1 minute or less. Just because they removed the numbers in the timer, doesn't mean we won't realize your story is ridiculously long. Unless you're DJ Khaled.

3) Slow down with your posts during Fashion Week. Front row snapshots, show invitations, celebrity spottings—keeping up with your social media during Fashion Week is a job in itself. Post less, we all have enough blurry runway pics to scroll through on our Instagram feed.

4) Show some love to your LinkedIn. LinkedIn—the poor neglected child of your social media sites. Update your profile, accept those invitations that have been sitting in your inbox for months and add your latest work to your page—take advantage of the resource, you never know what kind of career connections you can make.

5) Try taking advantage of the "see less" Facebook feature if you're going through a breakup. Not ready to see your ex on social media? Hide their activity from your feed if it'll help heal those wounds. (Or better yet, just delete them).

6) If you're still in a relationship, keep it on the DL. We know you treasure the special moments you have with your significant other, but don't rub it in everyone's faces. Which, similarly, leads us to #7...

7) Your child is cute. We get it.

8) Take a break from the Facetune and other face-editing apps. Often when you use them, you get so sucked in that you forget what looks natural. Unless you've mastered a way to flawlessly cover your blemishes and add a light tan without it looking completely obvious—as it usually does—you're better off with #nofilter.

9) Think before you comment and argue. As we enter upon an election year, opinions will fire up more often and conversations will be all the more volatile. This doesn't mean you should stop sharing your beliefs, but just be wary of (and prepared for) what reactions the articles or statements you post will incite. Not everything has to be a political rant or a comment showdown—as entertaining as it is for your followers.

10) Chill with the online tests. Do you really need to know who secretly wants to marry you, or which characters from the cast of "Friends" you and your buddies are? (You're Rachel anyways, duh.) These are funny once or twice, but it's not something your followers want to see every day. In fact, each time you sign up for one of these tests, you give that website access to your friends list and personal info. That might not be something you want going around.

11) Put the "act" in activism. Changing your profile picture or cover photo is a great way to spread awareness about a cause. But this year, try challenging yourself to offer more than post. Maybe make a small donation to an associated charity or sign a related petition. That'll give a lot more meaning to the causes on your page.

12) Live in the moment. The new year has a lot in store for you—you won't want to miss out by being too glued to your screen.

13) If you're still using a selfie stick: it will only go downhill from here.

Source : http://bit.ly/1TznvKv

3 Actionable Marketing Tips for a Startup with no Money

With so many big and well established brands competing for market share online, it can be a daunting task for the small business to find a marketing strategy or SEO tactic that is going to give them any edge on the web.

This is true for standard marketing and media buys as well as for organic search engine ranking.

Not to despair, there are always opportunities to build a stable business online. Small business, especially local business can be very nimble compared to the larger business.

As a result, they can often get closer to their target market a lot easier than the big brands can. They can also negotiate and partner a lot quicker than big brands.

Here are three marketing tactics that won’t break the bank, but might just help you brainstorm a way to break free of the, “little man mold”.

Low Cost Tactic 1:

"Friends with Benefits"

This tactic requires you to think laterally about your industry. Rather than look at your customer or competition, look around at those industries and services that somehow compliment or contribute to your own.

How can you engage their services to promote your own and increase your own brand exposure?

Example: A new hair salon targeting 18-35 year old females

Combine your hair salon service with a service that every girl in this demographic is looking for when they get married: A Hire car service. Find a local, perhaps reasonably, new hire car service that would like a bit of exposure themselves.

Offer to advertise their service in your salon in exchange for a free limo ride once a week to a lucky group booking in your salon.

The offer is a free Limousine ride to and from the salon, won by draw, when you you book yourself and three other friends for a salon treatment.

Submit a local press release to promote the idea within your community and at the same time increase the exposure of both business. Run the campaign on the Social Media Platforms of both businesses as well.

Who are the friends and neighbours in your niche? How can you collaborate with them?

Low Cost Tactic 2: 

"Industry Press Release Services - with a Twist"

OK, so it's hardly groundbreaking, but it is still powerful and still free. The trick, in my opinion, is not to write the release yourself but to find someone in a related niche who will write about it for you. Let the marketing become their problem.

Example: Utilise an Industry News Columnist or Blogger

I once came across a retail industry news site that seemed to publish a lot of articles on online retail start ups that were offering something unique. I was running an online ecommerce store at the time that sold traditional board games, many hand made, from all over the world.

The unique concept was that we went back to the countries in which the games originated and asked those artists to make their game, their own, authentic way.

I approached the retail news site about our products and offered to do an interview. The editor liked our unique angle, wrote up the interview and published our store as "retailer of the week".

We got huge traffic and from the article which is still on their site 5 years later. All I did was find a unique angle for our product and answer the questions.

What makes your product or service stand out? Find a new angle and exploit it.

Low Cost Marketing Tactic 3: 

"Talk, Talk Talk... to Influencers"

Every industry has it's influencers, and they are all hanging out online... influencing. You should know who they are if they are in your industry. Having the courage to reach out and talk to them can have surprisingly good results if you are genuine, humble and honest.

Example: "Infographic and Rich Media Sharing"

Infographics don't cost anything except your time. I use Canva. It's free and gives great results.

I am no designer, but not long ago I put together a cheeky article, "First Page of Google, and How I get my Clients there", and then created a fairly simple infographic to go with it.

Luckily, the article went to the first page of Google and is still there - otherwise this would have been a monumental flop! I then managed to put that infographic under the noses of some big names in my industry - the web marketing industry.

Two of them took it up and published it on the front page of their SEO website.

The results of such a high profile marketer taking up my humble infographic had almost immediate results. The link back to my site also meant that my cheeky article remained on Google's first page.

To this day, that article, along with the organic traffic and the referral traffic from that influencer is the number one source of new clients for my business.

What content do you have that you could re-purpose? Do you have a video you could turn into an article? An article you could turn into an e-book?

Whatever your niche, there are always fresh ways to market your brand online. From the personal and contactable nature of your customer service, to the partnerships you form with other small business, there are ample opportunities to create new marketing channels for your business.

Startup marketing requires brainstorming. it requires getting together with friends and business neighbours and collaborating. it requires patience, testing and a commitment to the task.

Big brands are investing big money into their online reputation and marketing and the cost of doing business online has gone up considerably the last five years.

But it doesn’t have to cost a bomb. Grab a pencil and paper and see how your new start up can put these marketing tactics to work for you online.

Source : http://bit.ly/1T7XiCB

5 Ways Twitter Can Help Boost Your Personal Brand

You’re trying to grow your personal brand on social media.  The challenge is which social network should you focus on?

It’s not very easy for me to answer this question but I can assure you that the more social networks you engage in, the more chances you have to get discovered online.

Twitter    is indeed a great choice for helping you build your personal brand.   

Here are 5 ways you can benefit from Twitter:

1. Drive Traffic to Your Personal Website from the Twitter Profile Bio

One thing I love most about Twitter is if you want to have a positive first impression, it’s very important to use a good quality headshot with your full name.  Your bio should include a descriptive summary of who you are and what you do.   Keep it simple as people skim through text.  Make sure to include some keywords within your industry so that if someone searches on Twitter by profession, your profile will show up in results.

Finally, make sure to include a link to your website or to whatever landing page you want people to visit when they want o learn more about you and what it is that you offer. Use the following tools to create a personal website   if you don’t have one.

2. Follow 5 People Within Your Industry Every Day

Most people simply create a Twitter profile, post a couple of tweets and complain they’re not getting good results from this social network.  Keep in mind that you need to put some effort on a daily basis if you really want it to pay off.

Remember how it’s important to be patient and consistent when developing your personal brand.  It’s not easy but it’s not difficult.

I great tactic that I’ve seen work for me is to follow at least 5 people every day who share similar content as me or experts within my industry.

Following 5 people a day adds up to 150 a month.  Now that’s a lot of people to follow but if you see they’re not posting valuable content worth sharing within your network, simply unfollow them.  Focus on quality vs quantity.  Following too many people makes it hard for you to keep track of what people are tweeting about.

In my situation, I followed people within the eCommerce industry, companies that provide software solutions for online retailers as well as eCommerce and online marketing blogs.

For example, I follow Scot Wingo, co-founder of Channel Advisor, a company who offers a powerful software for online retailers.

3. Retweet 5-10 Times a Day Industry Related Posts

Just like how I recommended you follow 5 people a day, you should also consider retweeting content posted by them throughout the day by retweeting their posts.  People will appreciate this gesture since you’re helping them spread their thoughts.  This will help you get noticed even more than simply following them.

When you start retweeting their content, they will hopefully do the same with your tweets.  This is a perfect example of the art of reciprocity.

For example,  Luiz Centenaro tweeted about a topic I enjoy a lot which is conversion rate optimization for eCommerce.  His blog post was insightful that I decided to retweet  

4. Favorite 10 Tweets Within Your Industry a Day

If you don’t have time to follow or retweet people’s content on Twitter (which is hard to believe if you’re serious about building your personal brand), you can simply favorite their tweets.  When doing so, it simply means that you’ve acknowledged or valued their tweet as well as it’s a great way to bookmark it for future reading.

I usually launch my Twitter app, browse through my feed and whenever I see something interesting or worth reading later, I simply tap on the favorite (star) icon below the tweet.  This will send a notification to the person who Tweeted it and creates curiosity to visit your profile.

For example,  Johnny Russo, eCommerce Director at Bentley Bags shared a blog post about free shipping.  I didn’t have time to read it at that time so I tapped the favorite feature.

5. Use Twitter Search Once A Week to Engage With New People

In order for you to discover new people to follow as well as new content within your industry, you will have to make use of Twitter search.  I recommend you do that once a week so you don’t get overwhelmed with too many tasks on Twitter.

The best way to search something is to start with the main keyword that you’ve been targeting and from there, you can simply use different variations of it in order to dig deeper within the Twitter network.

For example, I love everything eCommerce.  I can search the keyword “eCommerce” as a first step.  But if I am looking to connect with eCommerce consultants, I can simply search “eCommerce consultant”.

Conclusion

Twitter may sound confusion at first, but trust me, as you learn how to use it, you will realize how powerful it is when it comes to building your personal brand.

In order to succeed, make sure to optimize your profile, follow individuals within your industry, favorite as well as retweet their content and always look to expand your network using the powerful Twitter search.

Source : http://bit.ly/1VzPaA6

Why Facebook is investing so much money in Indian startups

Deb Liu, Facebook's head of commerce

Facebook launched FBStart in May 2014 to give early-stage mobile developers all over the world access to free tools and services that could help them grow their companies.

In the last year and a half, one region has emerged as a bright spot: India.

Of the $50 million in benefits the company distributed to to Asia Pacific startups, $20 million went to mobile apps in India.

"It's been really exciting to seen how [the program] has grown since we launched it" Deb Liu, Facebook's head of commerce, tells Business Insider. "Especially in APAC, but in India in particular."

Today - when more than 70% of developers who integrate their apps with Facebook live outside the US - India has the largest Facebook international developer community of any other region in the world. More than 75 percent of top-grossing apps in India are integrated with Facebook.

Liu gushed about one FBStart-assisted app in particular: a payments recommendation startup called CardBack. The app helps you decide which credit card you should use in any given situation based on which rewards each offers.

Cardback deomonstrates the perfect Facebook trifecta.

The app has baked-in Facebook Login, meaning that users can sign-up using their Facebook account, it drives its growth through Facebook mobile app install ads, and it monetizes via the Facebook Audience Network.

Liu says that using mobile app install ads (for free, thanks to a chunk of Facebook ad credits given to FBStart companies), Cardback increased their installs by 5x in six months.

Cardback's model of relying so heavily on the Facebook ecosystem for growth and monetization is exactly what the company wants to see from as many developers in that region as possible.

Why India is so important for Facebook

Right now, only a sliver of India's population is online, but it still has thethird greatest number of internet users in the world, after China and the United States, and is similarly ranked in smartphone penetration.

In 2010, Facebook had only 8 million users in India. Now it has a whopping 132 million Indian users.

That makes it Facebook's second largest geography, not far behind the 193 million people using the social network in the United States.

But the company hasn't quite figured out how to make money in India yet.

Analysts for Counterpoint Research recently told Reuters that they estimated Facebook earns $15 million from India a quarter, while Google earns $350 million.

Facebook only earns $0.15 per user in India every quarter versus the $7 to $8 it makes on each US user, other analysts add.

So, as more Indians get online for the first time via smartphone, Facebook wants there to be a thriving app ecosystem waiting to greet them - where all the apps rely on it for growth and making money, for course.

And FBStart gives it the perfect way to get in early.

Source : http://bit.ly/1EK9NSa