Six mobile marketing tips for businesses and brands

From chatbots to personalisation, here advertising and mobile experts share their tips on how to master mobile marketing.

We type tap and swipe our phones, on average, 2,617 times a day, according to new research by data company dscout. For heavy users that can rise to more than 5,000 “touches”. The figures are stark: mobile is where you find people’s eyes and hands. It means that brands can’t afford to ignore mobile as a marketing platform; it’s now an essential way to attract new customers and build brand awareness.

Telegraph Media & Tech Connect asked some of the top ad agencies and mobile experts to share their tips for marketing on the powerful, pocket-based platform. Here’s what they said:

1. Know your chatbots

“Chatbots provide a great opportunity for brands to engage in a personal and smart way with their audiences. We’re seeing a big shift in traffic from traditional social media platforms to messaging platforms such as Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp.

“With six out of the top 10 most used apps globally being messenger apps, it seems like a really interesting way for brands to exploit having a direct conversation with their customers. This worked well for KLM Royal Dutch airlines, when it launched a chatbot via Facebook Messenger to deliver flight information, itineraries, boarding passes and even delay information. That’s both useful and relevant.”

2. Think about how people travel across devices

“How you advertise across these devices depends on your product. Marketers need to understand how devices fit into the customer journey. There’s often a very complex path when people discover a new product or service: they jump between devices during the research and consideration process (this can be very varied across industries and product types).

“The size of the purchase makes a massive impact; a car purchase will involve a very different path across devices than buying replacement ink for a printer. It’s so easy to buy ink from Amazon on a handheld mobile device, you almost don’t even think about it. But if you are buying an insurance policy, it’s a lengthier process. Understanding how devices fit into your specific customer journey is important.”

3. Stop obsessing over tech and focus on users

“Businesses focus on what application or technology is coming next, but the people using it don’t care about technology – they care about what technology enables. The best technology is seamless, useful and invisible. Rather than focusing on technology or trend, shift your thinking to the user first: to their behaviours (the way the mobile user consumes content in a more snackable way); location (tailoring content depending on whether the user is at home in front of the TV or in a shop); and their need, which tends to be more immediate compared to a desktop user.”

4. Personalisation breeds quality

“Personalisation is the big trend in mobile. As datasets become richer, artificial intelligence becomes more powerful and shapes expectations, brands will be expected to offer more personalized content and better-curated experiences through mobile. Eventually ‘Recommended for you’ will reflect where you are, what you're doing and what your needs are, with no questions asked.

“In particular, it means that good content will find its way to the right people, creating a strong incentive for marketers to place an emphasis on quality rather than quantity when it comes to content.”

5. Sites need to work for mobile; being responsive isn’t enough

“Consumer behavior is different on mobile, which means that site builds must exploit the functionality mobile offers, with click-to-call buttons or GPS store locators to ensure the needs of consumers are met.

“If you have an app, it’s also really important to think about how it works with your site. 

“Having a single user journey – with actions performed on one touchpoint showing up in another – is critical to ensuring that the customer journey is seamless. The key here is they can continue whatever it is they started on the device or touchpoint, they choose.”

6. Ask yourself: where is the right place to advertise?

“Two important areas of mobile content consumption are the social ‘feed’ (Facebook, Twitter and so on) and editorial ‘read’ environments (for example, an article on the MailOnline mobile site). But consumers in the ‘feed’ are in a very different mindset than those in a ‘read’ environment.

“We asked a group of mobile users to spend 15 seconds interacting with a social feed and 15 seconds reading an editorial story. We found that users in the feed scrolled past about three ads, translating to a dwell time of only about 1.5 seconds per ad. In the editorial environment, users scrolled past an average of one ad, with five seconds dwell time – a much better exposure for a brand.

“But it’s not just about speed. Consumers in a feed are searching for something to engage with, but in read mode, they’ve already opted into an article they want to pay attention to – much better exposure for contextually relevant brand messaging.

“There’s one more thing to remember: grabbing an engaged consumer’s attention isn’t enough; if you don’t serve an ad that’s more creative and interactive than a standard static banner, for example, you can’t blame the audience for failing to interact with it.”

 Source : 

4 Modern Tools to Improve Marketing at Your Startup

Every day, new tools make marketing possible for entrepreneurs to get their brand in front of a massive audience. Whether it’s a new method to generate online traffic, or to approach analyzing industry relevant information, the power of marketing has reached an entirely new level of operations in the modern age.

Yet still, the brightest business-motivated minds are always looking for another approach to gain a marketing edge on competitors. In their wake, the number of marketing tools being introduced to the marketplace are virtually endless. While this might seem a bit like overkill to someone new to the marketing process, the truth is that the chance for uncharted marketing success for business owners willing to take the time to figure it out is enough to persuade an entrepreneur.

Big Data

Originally used to track trends in the spread of the flu virus by Google, which initially outperformed the CDC‘s own predictions, Big Data has evolved into one of the most useful modern tools for marketing success. If a company has the processing power to handle large repositories of information, leveraging Big Data analysis to determine when the next major market trend will strike has proven to be a profitable venture for a large number of digitally driven companies.

While data is always a critical part to any marketing campaign, Big Data provides businesses with a front row seat to a far reaching look into the fine details of how markets behave and what the numbers say. Savvy companies will be able to jump on early, rather than getting in too late.

CRM Software

CRM software (otherwise known as Customer Relations Management software) is a driving force behind many companies who seek to get more out of their customer base. While every business offering products and services needs contacts and leads, CRM software helps to maximize the potential of your customer contact and sales data to help improve the rate of closing leads and overall profitability.

Whether this is in helping a company stay on top of regularly contacting clients or determining what sales incentives need to be implemented to ramp up sales, CRM software becomes an easy and organized way to keep your entire sales department on task for ensuring higher rates of sales volume. Over time, CRM software developed to suit various needs, from a giant such as Salesforce that serves entire enterprises, to a highly specialized ones like LockedOn which is made for real estate agencies.

Picture Marketing

When building a social media marketing campaign, pictures with text will often say more than lengthy ads. People resonate with visually stimulating content, and if it is clever enough it will be shared through social networking avenues.

Some tools to help with this type of marketing approach are Canva, BeFunky and PicMonkey. It never hurts to make a big statement with a picture that says a thousand words simply by its visual appeal. Using easy to operate picture rendering software is key to getting this part of your marketing campaign right.

Email Campaigns

If you thought email was out, think again. A well-guarded secret in modern marketing is that email lists are still one of the best ways to interact with potential clients and customers. The reason for this is because the company hosting the list can set the pace with a consistent frequency of advertising. However, it is important to remember that successful email marketing campaigns must provide something of value to the consumer.

Beyond merely tossing ads in a potential buyer’s face, it helps to wet their whistle with information they will not likely be able to get anywhere else: that means the information must be genuinely valuable. As a company’s email campaign builds rapport and trust among its subscribers, the inevitable outcome will tend to be that these same subscribers will trust the products and services the company is pitching as well. This is, in turn, generally good for a company’s bottom line.

 Source: http://bit.ly/28VtWKZ

15 things that happen to every social media campaign

You might think to be a "social media manager" is a dream job, like a travel blogger minus the packing and jet lag.

It seems easy: You do nothing but publish blogs, humor followers with memes, post a quote, share a link and watch YouTube. Well, if you plan on joining a social media company, you've got it all wrong.

Nearly nine out of 10 companies {88 percent) use social media marketing. It’s a virtual slug-fest. Enjoy it but don’t take it lightly. Social media requires hard work. You don’t just fire ideas into thin air. Identify your brand, understand your audience, choose a platform and deliver relevantly, interesting content. There are many pain points to overcome, many things that you must understand before you get giddy over every like or share your post gets.

Though being a social media manager isn't a bed of roses, it's not a bed of nails, either. Manage your expectations by noting 15 things that can happen while you run a social media campaign:

1. Expect to build a name .

Online presence, visibility, and awareness are part of the strategy. Putting your brand on social media is a cheap way to get exposure. And you’ll get the buzz if you do it right. Social media reaches out to a broader audience to pave the way to solid branding.

2. Enjoy brand loyalty.

A Texas Tech University report found brands that engage in social media enjoy higher customer loyalty. A study by Convince and Convert reported that 53 percent of Americans who follow brands on social media are more loyal to those brands.

Social media offers more chances to convert and improve brand loyalty. Every marketer must take advantage of this.

3. You can lose focus.

A report by Hubspot showed that consumers expect brands to be active on three or four social media channels. Logic tells you to immediately create four accounts at once but doesn't do it.

You must assess your resources before you do this or you risk failing in all. Do you have the people, the time, the energy, and the content to keep all of them going? Be realistic—take it easy. Focus on the platforms you can manage and the ones that cater to your audience.

4. You will stare at the wall.

One study showed that creating content is one of the biggest difficulties for digital marketers. You will experience this too. You will stare at a blank wall. There will come a time when you feel like you have done everything. You haven’t. Continue exploring and inspire yourself by reading and observing trends. Open your mind.

5. Formats can change.

Content comes in many forms: blog, video, photo, infographics, SlideShare, DIY, tutorial, list, memes, etc. At some point, you will know which ones work.

This requires understanding your audience. If you have a young audience, you might want to go easy on data and graphics. If your market is old, go easy on memes. Draw up a strategic formats plan.

6. Followers will get angry.

Stop telling yourself that you can please everyone. No, you won’t; no, you can’t; no, you don’t have to. The things you put out will get good and bad feedback. Learn how to deal with feedback. Do not ignore it.

7. Outsourcing to find the right people.

One tip for winning social media marketing: Find the right people to do it.

For start-ups, this is a real difficulty. It’s best to outsource. Don’t force yourself and your small team to do things you have difficulty doing. If you lack a good writer, hire freelancers. If you have difficulty scheduling, hire a virtual assistant. Assemble a team with potential, talent and the right motivation.

8. The fight for time and consistency.

In drawing up a plan, decide at what hour you should publish a piece of content. You must make sure that deadlines are met and schedules followed. Most social media channels enable you to schedule posts—but consistency isn’t just timing. It’s publishing the right content at the right time.

9. Analytics that are lost in (data) translation.

Analyzing metrics and data will be pain points. But don’t be scared of numbers. According to Propeller, a digital marketing agency, data is important in any social media campaign. It converts buzz into revenue. Measure ROI against goals, know the competition and go deeper into every like, comment or share.

10. Dropping everything if your post just went viral.

You‘ll occasionally experience the bliss of going viral. Viral content spreads like a disease. You’ll be surprised at how fast everything happens.

Enjoy virality, because it’s pretty hard to come by. Never rest on your laurels. Keep the ideas coming and get ready for your next viral content.

11. Winning the game of hashtags.

The #GetCovered campaign of the Obama administration is a social media campaign success story. Obama’s healthcare plan was off to a bumpy start, but things changed as soon as they launched the hashtag, reaching out to 26-35 year-olds and older adults. Millennials helped boost the government’s healthcare website traffic by 40 percent.

Get creative with hashtags without losing focus on the people you target. Soon you’ll know the difference between a poorly-constructed and a spot-on hashtag.

12. Find time to repurpose content.

The blog you published several months ago has become relevant again but fight the urge to publish the same blog.

Repurpose it by turning it into a list article. Turn (for example) a step-by-step guide to putting up wall decals into a video. Learn how to recycle content. It saves time and energy.

13. Prove you are not robots.

Social media is tricky in the way it connects people but risks losing people at the same time. It seems very impersonal. Don’t fall into that trap. Let your followers know to whom they are talking.

HBO’s “Girls” promoted their show on Snapchat in a personal way, filming behind-the-scenes videos. Imitate the social media campaign to improve your audience engagement. When you feel your campaign has gotten too mechanical, get personal—it might help things flow again.

14. Revenues are climbing.

Companies launch social media campaigns to boost website traffic, followers, and revenue.

A Social Media Examiner study found that 50 percent of brands that used social media for at least three years reported a spike in sales and revenue, which is good news for companies who take social media seriously. If you do things right, expect increased sales.

15. Select trends to ride.

In the blink of an eye, Facebook introduces an update, Instagram announces a new policy and a new social networking site is born. Learn about these trends, but don’t ride all of them. See which serve your goals and your audiences’ interests.

Social media is a big marketing help, but it poses big risks if you use it without know-how or a good plan. When done right, social media marketing is dynamic and fun.

Source: http://bit.ly/28K7jiJ

Quote of the day.

8 Valuable Tips for Women Entrepreneurs

The feminist in me (which is pretty much all of me) bristles a bit when we talk about women entrepreneurs as a separate group that requires preferential advice. But unfortunately, we still live in a patriarchal society and as much as I wish I could deny it, women are still treated differently in many areas, including entrepreneurship.

There are also a lot of double-standards out there when it come to how female and male entrepreneurs are treated. Yet, starting in a lower position than our male counterparts, female entrepreneurs are forced to work harder and often outperform men.

All of that being said, I have to admit that it is still somewhat helpful to see advice out there that is specifically tailored towards women and how we interpret and are interpreted by, the world.

Here are some of the best pieces of advice I’ve seen for women entrepreneurs recently. I should add that, if we were to put this advice into a Venn Diagram, while all of it would be useful for women entrepreneurs, a lot of it would also be useful for all entrepreneurs whether male or female, and a lot of it would also be useful for women in general.

1. Find your passion. If you’re going to be spending most of your waking hours working towards something, try your damndest to make it something you’re truly passionate about.
2. Keep your home and work life separate. This can be a huge challenge for those who work from home, and if you’re diving into a startup venture full-time and can’t afford an office space, you’ll almost definitely be working from home. If you keep your schedule too flexible, customers and clients will take advantage of it, causing unnecessary stress.
3. Form real connections with other women. I’m not saying join a twelve step program for women entrepreneurs (does such a thing exist? That could be a genius startup idea in itself!) but get out there and meet other women who are in the same boat. Get yourself a kickass mentor, or create a group if one doesn’t already exist in your area.
4. Network your face off. Even if you’re far from a social butterfly, you can still network with the best of them. Being a successful networker is a learned skill. Knowing the right people, or even just knowing the people who know the right people can be incredibly beneficial when you’re trying to build and grow your business. It can also help you become part of a community of likeminded folk.
5. Don’t start a business just for the money. Sure there are a lot of serial entrepreneurs who jump from one venture to the next and chase trends and money rather than what really interests them. This works, but not often, and it can take a long time before you start actually making money, so it’s best to make sure you enjoy what you’re doing so you don’t burn out before the money even comes.
6. Be brutally honest with yourself. If you can’t be honest with yourself, how can you be expected to be honest with anyone else. It’s challenging at first, but you need to be able to see your own strengths and weaknesses with a critical eye, and assess shortcomings or needs for additional support with unbiased judgement.
7. Ask for help when you need it. This goes along with the previous tip. Don’t try to conquer the world single-handedly. The most successful entrepreneurs know when to ask for help. Be strategic about it and know that it’s not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of good judgement and awareness.
8. Take risks. Almost every aspect of entrepreneurship involves taking risks, and while some might end in failure, the ones that don’t can be very rewarding. Just remember to enter these risks with the confidence that you will succeed.

 Source: http://bit.ly/1pN1NJO

25 Quotes From Famous Entrepreneurs

Being an entrepreneur can be difficult but with

top quotes like these you can move forward

While entrepreneurs make their careers by doing things differently, the most successful ones have a handful of traits in common, including their drive, passion, and unwavering commitment to changing the world. Many of these traits are evident in the words of successful entrepreneurs in the limelight, which others can internalize to inspire their own quests for success. Here is a list of 25 such quotes from the most transformative minds on earth.

1. "I wake up every morning and think to myself, 'How far can I push the company forward in the next 24 hours?'" -Leah Busque, Founder of TaskRabbit
2. "If you had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse." -Henry Ford, Founder of Ford Motor Company
3. "Your people determine your product." -Taso Du Val, Co-Founder and CEO o fToptal
4. "The fastest way to change yourself is to hang out with people who are already the way you want to be." - Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder of LinkedIn
5. "The question I ask myself almost every day is, 'Am I doing the most important thing I could be doing?'" - Mark Zuckerberg, Founder of Facebook
6. "So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard." -Caterina Fake, Co-Founder of Flickr
7. "Don't compare yourself with anyone in this world...if you do so, you are insulting yourself." - Bill Gates, Founder and CEO of Microsoft
8. "Make every detail perfect and limit the number of details to perfect." -Jack Dorsey, Founder of Twitter
9. "Hire character. Train Skill." -Peter Schultz, Founder and former Director of theGenomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF)
10. "Aerodynamically, the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway." - Mary Kay Ash, Founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics.
11. "So go ahead. Fall down. The world looks different from the ground."  - Oprah Winfrey
12. "The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It's as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer not a dreamer." - Nolan Bushnell, Founder of Atari and Chuck-e-Cheese's
13. "If you're not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business." - Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald's
14. "I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance." - Steve Jobs, former Co-Founder and CEO of Apple
15. "Fail often so you can succeed sooner." -Tom Kelley, Founder of IDEO
16. "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." -Thomas Edison, inventor of the electric lightbulb
17. "Always deliver more than expected." -Larry Page, Co-Founder of Google
18. Success is most often achieved by those who don't know that failure is inevitable." - Coco Chanel
19. "We are really competing against ourselves, we have no control over how other people perform." - Pete Cashmore, Founder and CEO of Mashable
20. "Data beats emotions." - Sean Rad, Founder of Adly and Tinder
21. "One thing I see all the time with entrepreneurs is that they give too much of their company away way too soon." -Tory Burch, Founder of Tory Burch LLC
22. "When you're first thinking through an idea, it's important not to get bogged down in complexity. Thinking simply and clearly is hard to do." - Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group
23. "Don't be intimidated by what you don't know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure that you do things differently." - Sara Blakey, Founder of Spanx
24. "When I'm old and dying, I plan to look back on my life and say 'wow , that was an adventure,' not 'wow, I sure felt safe.'" - Tom Preson-Werner, Co-Founder of Github"
25. When we love something, emotion often drives our actions. This is the gift and the challenge entrepreneurs face every day. The companies we dream of and build from scratch are part of us and intensely personal. They are our families. Our lives. But the entrepreneurial journey is not for everyone. Yes, the highs are high and the rewards can be thrilling. But the lows can break your heart. Entrepreneurs must love what they do to such a degree that doing it is worth sacrifice and, at times, pain. But doing anything else, we think, would be unimaginable." - Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks
26. 
    

 Source: http://bit.ly/1ZAcqfw

More about me. Be curious.

What Is a Content Marketing Strategy?

According to Google Trends, interest in content marketing has been on the rise since January 2011.

But this should not surprise anyone. We all seem to be awash in content marketing.

What’s surprising is that many content marketers don’t have a documented strategy.

First we need to clear up a little confusion about content marketing strategy.

Content marketing strategy defined

Some people like to make a distinction between the terms content strategy and content marketing strategy. The distinction, they suggest, is best explained with a Russian doll: a smaller strategy is inside a larger one.

In this case, content marketing strategy is the smaller strategy inside the larger one,content strategy.

There is some truth to this.

Content strategy, according to Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach, involves the planning, creation, governance, and maintenance of content, whereas content marketing strategy focuses on the narrow discipline of marketing content.

Fair enough, but I think this distinction is confusing and needless because we can also talk about content marketing strategy as the planning, creation, governance, and maintenance of content … and not lose any sleep.

I’d like to proceed with a clear definition of a content marketing strategy.

So, if strategy means “a plan, method, or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result,” the specific goal or result for content marketing would be “building an audience that builds a business.”

For our purposes, then, let’s define content marketing strategy like this:

A content marketing strategy is a plan for building an audience by publishing, maintaining, and spreading frequent and consistent content that educates, entertains, or inspires to turn strangers into fans and fans into customers.

Which brings us to the next important question.

Do you need a content marketing strategy?

If you are a small business with a few employees or a one-man or one-woman shop, you may be thinking that your content marketing is so simple that you don’t need a plan.

Won’t a list of things that need to happen written on the back of an envelope get the job done?

Yes, that’s one way to begin, especially if you are typically a perfectionist and just need to start your content marketing rather than waiting until you have the perfect plan.

But at some point you will need to develop a more comprehensive plan — and then document it.

• Content marketers with a documented strategy feel more confident in their work.
• Content marketing challenges don’t seem as overwhelming when you have a strategy in place.
• A documented strategy makes it easier to get buy-in from stakeholders.
• It’s easier to chart your success when you have a documented strategy.

Crafting a simple content marketing strategy

Let’s be honest: Unless you are a content marketer for a big company, you don’t need much. Just a plan to help focus your time, money, and energy.

In fact, you can document your content marketing strategy in the time it takes you to answer the following 13 questions:

1. Who are your users?
2. Who are your competitors?
3. What do you bring to the table?
4. What do you hear?
5. What content do you already have?
6. What is the purpose of your content?
7. How often should you publish content?
8. How will you distribute your content?
9. Who is in charge of your content?
10. Who will produce your content?
11. Who is going to maintain the content?
12. Who is responsible for the results?
13. What’s your destination (core strategy)?

Your content marketing strategy begins with this person

The person I’m talking about is your customer.

Your customer is the focal point of your content marketing strategy. You need a substantial, deep, and comprehensive understanding of who she is.

When you do, the strategy will write itself. You won’t have to guess or wonder. But a weak, flimsy, or flat-out wrong understanding of who your customer is will sink your strategy every time.

Check out these five resources to help you understand who your customer is:

• Research checklist: Don’t Create Your Content Strategy Until You Research These 6 Things
• Empathy map: A Complete Guide to Crawling Inside Your Customer’s Head
• Worldview: Tap into This Psychological Driver to Create the Ultimate Message
• Customer experience map: How to Use Customer Experience Maps to Develop a Winning Content Marketing Strategy
• Personas: How Creating an Imaginary Friend Can Make You a Better Writer

Understanding your content

Once you thoroughly understand who your customer is, evaluate the content you already have.

This exercise will not only help you spot the gaps in your content that you need to fill, but it will also help you see that old content can become outdated and cost you top positions in search engines, cause user-experience failure, and more.

So, here are four resources to help you review your current content:

• A Brief Guide to Fixing Your Old, Neglected, and Broken Content
• How to Conduct a Content Audit for Quality and Audience Experience
• How to Plug the Holes in Your Content Funnel that Are Costing You Money
• The Single Best Way to Create Hit Content in Record Time

Measuring your content marketing efforts (conversion)

Ultimately, it comes down to this: how do you know if your content marketing strategy is working?

You’ll know if your content marketing strategy is working if you measure it.

This is why question 13 on the content marketing strategy worksheet (What’s your core strategy?) is so important.

That core strategy should:

• Give you room to stretch, fail, get back up, and grow
• Allow you to adjust as your environment changes around you, without having to make a drastic change
• Align with your values, so you’ll be able to sustain it and endure challenges over time

But how do you measure that? If you are like me and the words “analytics” and “measuring” make you uncomfortable, check out Mike King’s article:

• A Quick-Start Guide to Measuring Your Content Marketing Efforts

That should keep you busy for a while.

In this hour-long session, our Chief Operations Officer, Tony Clark, and Chief Content Officer, Sonia Simone, talk about:

• Why content creators should have a basic understanding of web analytics
• What tools you must use (forget about the rest and focus on these)
• The essential metrics you should measure to get the best performance out of your content
• What to do with the information once you have it

Source : http://bit.ly/1KPMXvO

4 Ways Startups Leverage Social Media to Generate Buzz

Building a company from scratch takes guts and perseverance. Understanding the difference between generating buzz / excitement versus just making noise is key to your company’s short-term growth. Anyone can post on social media, but is the information you’re posting exciting your target demographic? Are you gaining a foothold in your market, or are you simply gaining followers that are unlikely to convert through your sales channel?

Let’s look at 4 ways you can jumpstart your social media efforts from day one to create valuable buzz/excitement in your target demo.

1. Show an Initial Burst in Followers and Subscribers

To get people to “like”, “subscribe” and “share” your brand, you need to be popular, or at least appear to be popular. This is just like high school. Everyone gravitated towards the popular kids and did what they did. If your company has five likes on Facebook and only 20 Twitter followers, the likelihood that someone else will take your brand seriously is pretty low.

Initially, to generate brand trust, you’ll want to investigate purchasing followers and likes. If you’re considering how to launch your Twitter with maximum impact, check out this article that gives insights on how to use Twitter to propel your company forward.

To get people to feel confident about clicking “like” or “subscribe”, build an image of online confidence with purchased subscribers and followers. This gets you past the initial lurch of trying to generate a popular brand without any followers.

2. Look at Past Post Performance to Decide Future Posting

Now that you have your first thousand followers and likes, it’s time to get serious about what you’re posting on your social media channels. Look at what the competition is posting. Review your past posts. What’s getting the most likes and comments? If you’ve found a topic or product that your followers are passionate about, keep up the great work and post more information that they’ll engage with.

3. Social Media Contests and Prizes

If you really want to generate real buzz and excitement, start a social media contest. If your company sells a really hot product, offer to give one lucky social media user a free product or service via a Facebook or Twitter raffle. One “like” and “share” equals one entry into your contest. At the end of the contest period, draw a name using a random number generator and award the prize (posting about it of course!).

There are different variations on this method, but giving away free products on social media in return for like and shares is a great way to motivate your target audience to get the word out about your brand on social media.

4. “Leak” Product and Service Information

Official press releases are a great way to tell the world about your brand or service. However, if you want to leverage your social media muscle, let secret or behind-the-scenes information out via posts on social media. This way, you’ll reward your most passionate followers with information before the general public. Everyone likes being in on a good secret!

Source : http://bit.ly/241r2Iq