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

The 10 Most Destructive Lies Business Owners Tell Themselves

We talk to ourselves constantly. Okay, maybe not literally, but the psychological phenomenon of self-talk is real and it can have a major bearing on your life, moods and even your professional performance. Self-talk can manifest as reactions to certain events and situations. For example, you might think “that was a dumb mistake” or “this is going to be awesome,” and these thoughts generally have an effect on how you perceive the event in question. They can also manifest as assumptions, in the short-term or long-term, about different aspects of your life and business.

There’s no question that business owners lie to themselves, often knowingly, but some lies are innocuous. Others, like these 10, are destructive and should be avoided at all costs.

Lies Business Owners Tell

My Customers are Going to Love This

This lie stems from your own personal biases. You came up with the idea for your business (or product), so, of course, you’re going to love it! That doesn’t mean everyone else in your target audience is going to, and assuming that’s the case may set you up for failure. If you don’t have any objective data backing this statement, you’re lying to yourself.

Everything Will Work Out

It won’t. Not if you allow things to continue as they are. There’s this persistent myth that businesses succeed because they had a good idea and a good system. Then they just waited for everything else to fall in place. This isn’t true. Successful businesses have to experiment, tinker, and evolve constantly. You have to put in the effort if you want to succeed.

I Can Always Change This Later

This can be true, depending on the context, but it’s not a line of thinking you want to apply to many areas of your business. Assuming you’ll be able to change something later gives you a lower threshold for quality, meaning you’ll start off with a weaker strategy. And thanks to procrastination, you’ll probably end up never changing it anyway. Start strong if you want to finish strong.

I Don’t Have to Worry About This Yet

There are many reasons for procrastination, and some of them are actually pretty good. However, when you delay a task, the indefiniteness of “I’ll worry about that later” can set you up for a perpetual cycle of delay. Instead, if you don’t have time to do something, either schedule a concrete time to do it in the future or delegate it to someone else.

I Have to Do This Myself

Entrepreneurs love to get their hands dirty, and many take it as a point of pride. You might convince yourself that you’re the only one with the skill set or experience to handle a certain task, or that if you don’t do this yourself, you’ll lose control of your business. However, it’s unlikely that these things are true. Learn to let go, and trust your teammates to help you out.

I Don’t Have Time

Entrepreneurship is demanding. It takes a heavy investment of time and effort to see any progress, so many business owners end up putting off or ignoring other aspects of their life — like family, friends and leisure time. Trust me, you need to make time for these things, or you’ll regret it later.

I Just Have to Work Harder

Working harder isn’t always the best approach, just like hitting your head against a brick wall with more force isn’t going to help you tear it down. Instead, opt for smarter, more innovative solutions to your problems. Putting in more hours with a “brute force” style will leave you burned out and frustrated.

This Could Never Work

This lie often stems from preconceived notions about different strategies. You might hear an idea for the first time and immediately write it off as impractical or useless, or you might be presented with a strategy that didn’t work out well for you in the past and assume it could never work out. It’s important to be open to new ideas, especially since many strategies can be feasible as long as you use the right approach.

All I Need Is . . . . . 

Businesses are ridiculously complicated, and even to the most seasoned, successful entrepreneurs in the world, they’re somewhat unpredictable. There are too many variables for you to definitively boil down any problem to a single factor. If you give yourself this problem-solving tunnel vision, you could wind up ignoring the factors that are actually responsible for your predicament. Know that every problem is complex, and no one fix will solve everything.

No One Understands

Entrepreneurship can be painfully lonely. Because you’re working long hours, you’re in an isolated position, and you have to put on a “brave” face for your employees and clients, you might find yourself thinking that nobody understands the stresses you’re dealing with. This weighs heavily on the mind. But don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re alone. Connect with other entrepreneurs and open up about your experiences.

Don’t feel ashamed if you lie to yourself. In fact, if you don’t, you’re in the minority. Some lies are important to reframe your expectations, help you think more positively and direct your line of thought to something more productive. However, don’t let yourself get caught in a trap of unproductive self-deception. Keep your thoughts and assumptions in check by remaining as objective as possible in your business.

  Source: http://bit.ly/1XY9dVM

More about me. Be curious.

7 Eye Opening Video Marketing Stats

When it comes to video marketing, we know that it’s the coolest kid on the block. Sure blog posts like this one are super useful, but countless studies show that people prefer to view videos than read text because it’s visually engaging and really easy to consume.

But as with everything else in content marketing, the world of video is changing. 

#1. 77% of consumers have been convinced to buy a product after watching a video

Product videos are the very best way to educate your customers on what your product can do for them, which will ultimately increase your ROI.

And the great thing about a product video is that you can create any kind that you like.

For example, you could hold a webinar and educate people about your product in-depth, create an animated video to show the benefits of a service in a fun and engaging way, or produce a screen-recorded walk through instructing a user on how to use your product. The choices are endless!

#2. 70% of consumers say that they have shared a brand’s video

So the good news is, those videos that you create for social don’t go to waste! You’ve probably already noticed more and more videos popping up on your social feeds, and most of them are from brands.

But the key to a shareable video somewhat differs to that of a product video. You should aim to see this as a brand awareness goal, rather than trying to hit your conversion goals. That’s not to say that you won’t increase your conversions, but it’s important to understand that videos on social should be more focused towards the initial attraction stage of the buyer’s journey.

So what does it take to get a person to share your video on social…?

#3. 76% of consumers would share a brand’s video if it was entertaining

When it comes to social media, the aim of the game is to get people to hit that share button. But if you’re struggling to see many shares then it could be to do with the type of content you’re trying to promote.

Does it keep your audience entertained? Getting weighed down in trying to push your product onto your viewers is why most people will switch off. Think about what you can do to make it fun, interesting and entertaining.

#4. 61% of consumers were put off buying a product after watching a bad explainer video

Yikes! This is an important statistic to take note of. If you’re going to create a video to explain what your product or service does then you need to make sure that it’s done right. And by right, we mean quality scriptwriting, illustrations and animation — the whole package.

Interestingly many respondents told us that they were put off buying a product because the messaging was so unclear. Rather than trying to squeeze in every single feature that your product does, think about using the video as the hook rather than the manual.

The very best explainer videos follow a very similar formula in that they connect with the problems of the viewer, they then go on to show how that business solves those problems by highlighting the product benefits, and they close with a killer CTA.

#5. 72% of businesses say video has improved their conversion rate

Do you have a video on your website? If you don’t then you could be losing out on a huge opportunity to increase your conversion rates.

The Crazy Egg video is the perfect example of this. The reason they wanted to create an explainer video was because they discovered that their customers found it difficult to justify paying so much for their service. By creating an animated explainer video and featuring it on their homepage, they grew their conversions by 363%.

The reason it worked so well is because not only does it use a fun character to keep it super engaging, it drills right down to the core and shows viewers the benefits of how they can actually use their product to increase their own web conversions.

#6. 53% of businesses struggle to promote their video content

Promoting any content can be tricky, let alone a video. But if you want it to be a success then you need to ensure that you have a promotion strategy in place.

So where do you start?

Once you’ve created your video and sourced a hosting platform, first step is to put it on your website — so that could be your blog, your product pages, or your homepage. Next, share it on social and pay to promote it so that you can attract your target audience. Once you’ve got that covered, email your database, leverage influencers and set up an ad campaign so that you can drive plenty of viewers to your video.

#7. 91% of businesses say they plan to increase or maintain their spending on video in 2016

If there’s one thing we can say for certain it’s that video isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. We learnt that in 2015 on average, marketers intended to spend up to $5,000 on video, and this looks set to increase for 2016.

After looking at the stats it’s clear to see that the future is bright for video marketing. With more and more businesses using it to educate their audience, raise their brand awareness, and increase their ROI, isn’t it about time you jumped on the video bandwagon?

  Source : http://bit.ly/1Ym64je

10 Ways to Kickstart Your Business Idea in 2016

It’s never been a better time to start a business. Access to online environments and innovations such as smart devices and cloud technology mean that many entrepreneurs can set up on a shoestring and get things going without needing excessive start-up budgets. Add into the mix the wide availability of cloud-funding platforms and cheap marketing through social media and it’s easy to see the many opportunities that people don’t want to miss out on.

Here are just some ways to get your business idea off the ground if you have the entrepreneurial spirit this year.

1. Find the Right Support

You may have all the personal and physical tools in place, but you’re nowhere without friends. There’s no better time to start networking, building business associate relationships, and getting sound advice from people in your local area and online. The great news for startups is there’s plenty of guidance from other entrepreneurs who are happy to help out for free.

Take the opportunity to make solid, long-term contacts and research all areas of running a business. A good place to start is the Government’s own business portal.

2. Organize Your Funds

While it can be cheap to set up a business nowadays, especially if you have the right idea, it’s a good thing to check what you can currently bring to the table. This should include any debts you have, which may need to be addressed first, and the amount of collateral you can use, if needed, to apply for a loan. If you are finding it difficult to make ends meet, you may well have more problems down the line when you start your business.

3. Come Up with the Right Idea

What may seem like a good idea over a couple of drinks in the local bar might not seem so bright in the cold light of day. Coming up with a good idea is imperative if you want to have any chance of success.

This includes researching how others are running businesses in a similar industry or niche. It also means being honest with yourself.

For a very successful business, the question of scalability is always an issue. In other words, when you come to grow, how easy and cheap is it going to be to carry that out? If you run a restaurant business, that might involve giving out franchises or spending money on new premises.

4. Plan the Business

This is the crucial stage of any startup and the step that many entrepreneurs get wrong. It involves setting out clear stages and strategies, from getting financed, setting up websites, marketing, brand development, and deciding whether you need to have staff employed and where you are going to find them. As far as staff are concerned, there are plenty of options to hire freelancers who can do the initial jobs for you, though you may have to do some hard searching to find the right ones.

You also need to plan for a long-term future and not just look at the immediate setup of your business. There may be a lot to do but it’s important that you have your direction set for some time to come. Your plan should include how you are going to build capital and secure your business future.

You’ll need a strong business plan, especially if you are going to be heading to the bank for a loan or looking at crowdfunding. Check out this article from Start Up Donut for some sound advice.

5. Check Yourself Online

If you have been working for a number of years, no doubt you have a persona online and you need to have a quick search to make sure it doesn’t have any negatives associated with it. Another thing to check, if you don’t want egg on your face, is the name of your new company and whether someone else has got there before you.

6. Register Your Business

One thing you are going to need to do is register your business. This used to be a complicated process, but with online sites such as www.companyformations247.co.uk, everything is reduced to simplicity and you can register everything within 3 hours. You need to do this in the UK if you have a limited company, and it includes registering with Companies House as well as designating directorial roles within your business.

7. Raise Money

Getting the finances together for a business idea is much more viable nowadays. You can use your home or other properties as collateral for a bank loan or choose to sell property and self-fund. Increasingly, many entrepreneurs are turning to crowdfunding to get their business ideas off the ground. If you have good presentation skills and a solid business plan, and can communicate how strong your idea is, then this a great way to get capital. You generally pitch your idea online and people from all over the world can help fund it in exchange for something you offer, for instance a free product or share of the company.

8. Develop Your Brand Online

If you are going to run a business nowadays, you need to develop your online brand and that means marketing. You should have looked into this in detail in the planning stage of your business idea, as it’s the key to success or failure.

You need to build brand awareness, find a following, engage with customers, and use all the free and paid resources out there that help make your business thrive. This may include doing a lot of it yourself at first, but you can also engage with online marketing companies to help you choose the right options.

9. Test, Evaluate, Tweak, Test

While you had strong ideas for how your business would begin to develop, the chances are that things will not go completely according to plan. Even the most experienced entrepreneurs encounter hitches along the way. This is where you need to put in more hard yards. It’s a question of testing everything, evaluating it, tweaking, and then testing again to guide you in the right direction.

10. Plan for Growth

Once your business is up and running and you are satisfied with its progress, it’s time to take a look at that plan again and check whether you under or overestimated growth in the future. Now that you have a bit more experience in the real world, there will no doubt be new ideas that have to be incorporated to guarantee more success. You might need to think about getting other experts on board, or you could be looking to expand into profitable new markets.

There’s no doubt that running a new business requires a lot of good thought, strong planning, and putting in the effort, not to mention often working long hours. With some 50% of startups failing within the first five years, it may seem that you are swimming against the tide in the effort to succeed. If you have done the planning, come up with a great plan, and have the enthusiasm and energy to carry it forward, you stand a better chance of success than other ventures.

 Source : http://bit.ly/24EgCyv

20 People Who Only Achieved Success After Age 40

As we look at actors, businessmen, and other geniuses who found success at a young age, we sometimes cannot help but wonder what we have been doing with our life. But not everyone hits their peak in their 20s to 30s. Here are 20 famous people who achieved success after the age of 40, and what they did to get where they became.

1. Samuel Jackson

The famous movie star was 46 when he played his role as Jules Winnfield inPulp Fiction. Before then, Jackson had struggled with drug addiction for two years until he got his first major role in Jungle Fever in 1991.

2. Martha Stewart

Stewart worked in catering for years, but her role as “America’s housewife” did not materialize until she started writing cookbooks and other pieces on domestic living in her 40s.

3. Ronald Reagan

Reagan obviously had a successful acting career, but he first came onto the political stage when he delivered his famous “A Time for Choosing” speech during the 1964 election at the age of 53. He leveraged his past acting talents to become one of the most respected presidents of the 20th century.

4. Henry Ford

In his youth, Ford worked as an engineer under Thomas Edison, where he worked on ways to improve the then new automobile. It was not until he was 40 that he founded the Ford Motor company, where he introduced the Model T five years later.

5. Abraham Lincoln

At the age of 40, Lincoln left the House of Representatives and went back to practicing law, his young political career seemingly over. He jumped onto the just-founded Republican Party seven years later, and then was elected President of the United States four years after that.

6. Reid Hoffman

Not every social media website was founded by some young tech genius. Reid Hoffman founded SocialNet.com in 1997, a precursor of sorts to Facebook. But he founded LinkedIn in 2002 at age 35, and then worked for years to make it the professional social networking site. When Hoffman took LinkedIn public 8 years later, he became a billionaire.

7. Lee Ermey

Ermey’s infamous performance as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket was his first major acting role at the age of 43. Ermey was originally supposed to be an advisor, but was cast as Hartman by impressing Stanley Kubrick with his knowledge of life as a Marine.

8. Ray Kroc

Kroc worked various jobs including a pianist and a traveling salesman for a milkshake maker. Then at the age of 52, he met the McDonalds brothers and proposed that their restaurant could expand across the United States. By the time he died in 1984, McDonald’s had become well, McDonald’s.

9. Richard Adams

While he worked as a British civil servant, Adams told his two daughters a story about a rabbit, who insisted that he write it down. After writing it down two years later, he published Watership Down, which instantly became a children’s literary classic.

10. Jack Cover

Cover worked for NASA and IBM, and eventually used his scientific knowledge to create a weapon which could stop individuals without killing them. Today, police agencies across the world use his Taser to subdue criminals nonviolently.

11. Momofuku Ando

As Japan recovered from the end of World War II, Ando sought a way to provide quick and cheap noodles to his impoverished countrymen. At the age of 48, Ando developed the instant ramen which sustains college students everywhere.

12. Alan Rickman

Rickman quit a successful graphic design business in his mid-20s to go into acting, but spent years working in theater until he was asked to play the role of Hans Gruber in Die Hard.

13. Sam Walton

Walton ran several stores, and failed many times in the process. But he learned from those failures and used the lessons to open the first Wal-Mart at 44 and become one of the richest men in the world. The store’s philosophy was simple, buy in bulk and sell them cheap. Today his stores sell everything from groceries to electric skateboards, and everything in between.

14. Miguel de Cervantes

Widely credited as the first Western novelist for his work Don Quioxte,Cervantes did not publish his first book until 38 and his most famous work at 58. Before then, he served in the Spanish Navy and struggled for years to find work which could support him as he wrote.

15. Julia Child

The woman who brought French cuisine to American televisions did not eat French food until she was 36, working for the OSS in post-war France. But after being absolutely stunned by French food, she studied the cuisine fanatically until she had enough knowledge to host The French Chef at 51.

16. “Colonel” Harland Sanders

Sanders worked a variety of odd jobs throughout his life, and watched his first attempt at a fried chicken restaurant fail at the ripe old age of 65. But Sanders used his Social Security checks to begin franchising Kentucky Fried Chicken, which became the success it is today.

17. Tim and Nina Zagat

These two certainly enjoyed success throughout their life as a pair of corporate lawyers. But after making a list of local restaurants they liked or did not like, they expanded the list into a full-time business. Today, the Zagat list covers over 70 cities.

18. Charles Darwin

Darwin went on his famous voyage on the HMS Beagle at just 21, but his work as a naturalist was held back by health issues. It was not until he was 50 that he finally published On the Origin of Species.

19. Peter Mark Roget

Peter Mark Roget had an interest in lists and orderly language throughout his life. When he retired from his scientific and mechanical work in 1840 at the age of 61, he began preparing to work on a book which would organize words by their definitions. The first thesaurus was published in 1852.

20. “Grandma” Moses

Anna Moses loved to embroider, but when her fingers started to fail at the age of 78, she took up painting. Today, she is remembered as one of America’s great folk artists, who painted scene after scene of American rural life.

  Source : http://bit.ly/1RsdFYf

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

What Is the Best Social Media Platform for Driving Traffic?

There almost too many social media accounts to count at this point.  Everyone that has taken at least a vague interest in putting their business out to the public has jumped onto Facebook.

Whether you do Facebook ads or just use Web or foot traffic to drive visitors to your Facebook Page, being on FB is almost a prerequisite. 

So this article is not about Facebook per say, it is really about knowing your demographic and the platforms at which are most valuable and can send targeted viral traffic to your website.

Tumblr

My choice for creating shareable GIFs and funny memes that can send a large amount of reblogs, likes etc to your post.  The traffic that you get from Tumblr may not be the highest quality as with the type of viral shares that happen, not everyone that shares your post (hopefully you linked back to your website) will visit your site, and those that do may not be your target market.  Here is an example of a tumblr post that generated 535 notes and sent 53 viewers to the website that put that post out. Now, these funny gifs have little to do with “web design” but the title of the post “can’t touch my web design” was followed up with MC Hammer doing the Can’t touch me dance. And dancing dogs etc.  So that is rather funny.  Tumblr is a great platform for driving traffic.  If you create shareable, viral content like this, you can gain lots of visits and notes and shares that will help with strengthening the power of that Do Follow Link from Tumblr.

Reddit

A very difficult platform to master.  Shares or posts are voted up or down with Karma points.  If you are deliberately trying to make self-promotional shares for the aim of driving traffic to your sight without providing value first, well then you will most likely get harassed by other Redditors or booted completely.  Here is a great getting started guide for reddit. If your post is helpful and gets upvoted a bunch, you can get loads of traffic from Reddit.  This traffic can be very niche specific and targeted if your post was in a very niche part of Reddit.

Facebook

Yeah I know boring right?  Well Facebook Ads are still one of the best ways to really drill down and get in front of those targeted potential customers.  You think all that data that you put up about yourself in college was just so your friends could know that you love Tommy Boy and that you love wakeboarding?  Well maybe back in 2004 it was, but now that data is harvested for the (almost) sole intent of marketing things to you.  I do not market via Facebook ads currently but have dabbled with the interface and it is extremely targeted and for that I think, this is the king for paid social traffic.

Source : http://bit.ly/1XsLs8G

4 Marketing Mistakes That Cost Your Startup Money

Sartups often live and die by their marketing strategies.  While no marketing game is the same for two companies, there’s a number of common patterns that lead to success and a number of missteps that can cost your venture serious budgets.

Below are the four common mistakes startups make when it comes to marketing.

Not Tracking Your Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) Rate

When you are just starting out it’s hard to determine your best method for acquiring customers or growing your user-base. Be a smart marketer and don’t put all the eggs in one basket by investing all the budgets in one channel that was told to nail great result for company X.

Instead, create separate budgets to test different acquisition strategies – content marketing, email marketing, strategic PR and outreach, SEO, social media, growth hacking and so on.  The scale should be large enough to have an accurate sample number.

Ditch what didn’t work and focus on the tactics brining highest CPAs.

Not Trying at Least One Growth Hack

Growth hacking has been the winning strategy for a number of brands including Basecamp, Dropbox, Pinterest and Airbnb.  A smart growth hack can easily leverage your business onto the new level.  However, a lot of marketers prefer not to even try it.

Why? Growth hacking requires time, creativity and investments. You might be to busy looking into your analytics, analyzing previous marketing campaigns and counting the leads through affiliates, that you just don’t have the time to sit back, relax and dream how you can use technology to create a new creative way to market your product.

Good ideas are not necessary brand new ideas. So here are three strategies that worked great for other companies and may bring massive results for your venture too.

Worried about the financial aspect of the controversial strategy that may or may not work? Create a backup financial cushion with the help of a robo advisor or your CFO that will get your ends covered in case anything goes unplanned.

Ignoring Bad Numbers

Some great ideas simply don’t work. Sometimes what seemed like a winning marketing campaign just doesn’t pan out. And it’s not always your fault.

When it comes to analytics, leave your bias behind the door. If the numbers say that your marketing does not work, then you should pull the plug on it, even if it’s your pet project. Sure, if the CPC and CPV numbers don’t look attractive enough after a month of running the ad campaign, don’t wait for another month in hope that “things get better somehow” and cut down the project at the root. Reallocate your resources, so that in the long run you still receive the benefits.

Underestimating the Value of Long-Term Advertising

With marketing channels like display advertising or social media advertising things are simple: you pay X dollars and get Y impressions/clicks etc. You can precisely track the conversions you receive.

However, other marketing tactics are not so easy to scale e.g. influencer marketing or content marketing.  Both of them are long-term advertisements and you can’t try to price them the same as short-term advertising (display ads).

Long-term advertising take time to bring measurable results, however unlike display ads they don’t stop bringing value on the moment you stop investing into it.

Content marketing can continue to bring you results over a prolonged time span (and in fact it should!).  SEO takes time to start working; influencers will keep promoting your branded piece of content to their readers even after the campaign is over. Your brand recognition will continue to grow with time as reading has a much higher level of investment that an ad, which may or may not been viewed.

When you are creating budgets for a long-term advertising strategy you can’t simply rely on impressions.  Calculating the total media value is a better approach to use.  For this, put a price tag on each piece of content or action, for instance, $5 per Facebook share or $10 per one organic site visit with the help of SEO.

 Source : http://bit.ly/23Wzh8C