Content Marketing for Small Businesses. Expert Tips Just for You!

For the past few years, content marketing has been a definite leader in the field of digital promotion. People are constantly looking for the right information on social networks, watching videos, and reading blog posts. They focus only on useful and high-quality content, so the only way to gain their trust and, eventually, close a sale, is to be the first and only one who’ll provide such content. And this is exactly what content marketing is for.

What Is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services. It focuses on creating and distributing content for a targeted audience online. Social media is an integral part of content marketing

Content marketing thus is promoted through content. In other words, you do not just create any text but write something that will increase sales growth, recognition, or attracts potential users.
Before we dive into some tips and specifics of content marketing for your business, let’s identify the technique itself. It’s all kinds of content that talk about what you do: texts, videos, pictures, animated images, information graphics, podcasts, etc. Basically, they are various types of materials that are used by Internet users visiting your site or reading about you on the web.
The Primary Benefits of Using Content Marketing for Your Business
Here you can see how content marketing can be useful for you:

1. You’ll get highly targeted organic traffic from search engines through the publication of helpful content on visited sites (media, thematic resources);
2. It’ll ensure comprehensive coverage of the audience of social networks and increased brand/product recognition through the targeted distribution of exciting content and its further “sharing” by users;
3. You’ll be able to influence the user’s decision to purchase at each stage of the sales funnel and get the corresponding increase in engagement;
4. Your SEO will boost as a result of an increased number of links to your business site from third-party resources, which will also improve behavioral factors.
As you can see, content marketing allows not only to convey information to the target audience, but also to establish an open dialogue with it, to find out the current opinion of customers, and to build brand loyalty.
According to a recent study, 90% of companies are actively using content marketing; 50% of published messages evoke a lively response and interest from the audience. And yet, only 5% of the posts lead to real actions: transitions to the site, registration, or other targeted efforts.
So let us provide you with some actionable expert tips that can help gradually improve your business.

Content Marketing Professional Tips
Focus on publishing relevant content. The first tip is easy to follow. When creating content, follow the rule of conformity with the professional field and subject. Post relevant content that is consistent and aligns with the overall goals of your site. Let’s say you sell coffee machines online. In addition to providing all the technical information about the product (photos, reviews, videos), you’d want to post articles related to coffee on the blog (preparation, use, recipes, etc.) d.), in other words, relevant content. Studies show that more than 50% of consumers are happy to read such materials on company websites.

Double-check your content formatting before you post it. Good content requires original, well-developed, and unbiased information on a specific topic. But even if it is just that – useful, unique, and expert – it can easily get lost on the Internet, among other publications if users struggle with reading it and following your train of thought. Proper presentation of any text implies improvement through breaking it into paragraphs, as well as through the use of bold and italic styles, headings, a suitable font size, etc.
Caring for content formatting is also good for SEO because it is a direct sign that you’re trying to create a high-quality website. If you decide to combine different types of content (text, images, video), this will improve the user’s impression of reading the material, which will undoubtedly lead to certain advantages.

Your title can be the key to success. What we’re talking about is the basics of SEO, which don’t get any less important. So, an extensive and bright title performs several functions at once:
● It helps search engines understand the content of your text;
● Gives social networks an understanding of the semantic direction of your materials;
● It attracts the attention of users and stimulates an increase in click-through rates to a specific page.
Do not underestimate the importance of the first impression of the text, so think a hundred times before clicking the “Publish” button.

Try to keep tabs with your competitors. There’s a chance that the number of players on your market is massive. And if you want your content to work effectively for your business, it should be better than that of competitors.
Before you start creating any material, check out related publications on Google, Facebook, Twitter (or another social network that is more suitable for your audience) and find out what type of content they like in the first place. Pay attention to such things as volume, quality, and format, and try to create content that will surpass the others in all respects.
Content that doesn’t outperform competitors’ content can’t cause the hype you need in search engines or social networks, so it’s preferable to spend some more time and work on improving your texts.

Create a perfect schedule for your content. In addition to the desire for relevance and accuracy of content, you should remember the need for its regular publication. If possible, post materials not only on specific days but also at particular times of the day. Having such a “calendar” will help you organize your workflow and create a group of loyal users.

Your content should be helping with conversions. Remember that the primary goal of creating content is to increase conversions. In other words, a conversion can be considered anything from increasing the number of your email subscribers and clicks on banner advertising, to growth in sales of goods.

Good Content and Social Media
Content marketing for small businesses can be very powerful. You can even consider adding a blog to your business website, or post content on social media platforms like Twitter, Linkedin, Foursquare, or a short video to Youtube. Remember people want information. And good content can provide information that your prospective customer is looking for. brand

 

Has the Mobile Phone Killed the Art of Conversation?

Has technology hurt the art of conversation?

 

What do you think? Just look around you in any direction. What do you see? Strangers opening up a friendly dialogue with one another? Or do you see nothing but “zombies” literally hypnotized by that little device  in their hands called a cell phone? But what is wrong with this picture?

A Personal Observation

No one can argue how the invention of the iPhone, the Android, the Blackberry, or the Smartphone, has made life a little easier in recent times. But this is my observation: Just recently I was talking to a workmate who was having a disagreement with a close personal friend of hers. I asked her did she tell her how she felt? She said I did in a text. I said you need to talk to her face-to-face. The problem was, she never did confront her. The art of conversation-where has it gone? Because of the mobile phone, not only are people not conversing but not even willing to talk face-to-face as in this case!
On another occasion at a public location a woman told a gentleman sitting next to her how she liked his  mobile phone-a simple gesture that should have triggered at the least some dialogue. The gentleman glued to his iPhone 5, didn’t even looked up or said a simple “thank you.” Not that it really mattered that much to me, but perhaps you have experienced something similar yourself.  Which leads to the  question:  Are mobile phones killing the art of conversation? Are people slowly losing the natural way of speaking to one another, giving at least the appearance of people being rude or ill-mannered in the process?

The Declining Art of Conversation

There was a time when carrying a conversation was truly an art. It was something people looked forward to and most people knew how to start and engage someone in a friendly conversation. It was interesting to find out simple things like where are you from?  What are your likes or dislikes?  And what do you do? People took a genuine interest in other people. But that was then and this is now! According to the PEW Research Center, 13% of cell owners [have] pretended to be using their phone in order to avoid interacting with the people around them. It’s true that no one can argue the tremendous benefits that we receive from cell phones usage-but does it come at some cost?

The Emergence of Social Media 

Just as mobile phones has capture the world, at the same time so has social media. With the emergence of social media on the internet, and the fact that organizations are learning how to use it to reach people, we are forced to go back to reinstate this simple and valuable art- the art of engagement and conversation. Yes, social media in some ways is taking us back to “school.”

Now as for the individual on the outset of this article-did she ever engage in a real conversation with the person she was having the disagreement with? She had a difficult time doing so. She still wanted to communicate only by texting. So don’t be like this workmate- don’t be a zombie glued to a device in your hand ConversationDrop the text messaging and talk to one another-just talk! Remember it’s people that makes the world go around not technology! So make good use of your mobile device, but don’t let it kill the one of the greatest gift we have as humans-the art of conversation!

I hoped liked this post on mobile phone use and the art of conversation. What do you think? What is your observation? Please leave your comments below.

7 Social Media Platforms Effective for Business

Congratulations! You have successfully started your business or at least launched your business website online! How will you market it? Paid advertisement is essential but expensive! Using social media is what many businesses are doing now because of its reach online, and because that’s where the people are!
So the question is: What effective social media platform can be use for most businesses? Or let’s say my business? What an appropriate question!
Nowadays, there are tons of social media platforms at your disposal. These are all effective social media platforms where you can create an amazing following. However, you don’t have to sign up for all new and popular social media sites on the planet. Trust us when we say you would rather be excellent with one or two platforms rather than be mediocre with four five or six!
A number of accounts in different social media sites don’t matter. Instead, pick one or two channels and focus your target marketing there. If you need some guidance on what is the best social media site/s for you, tips and information are available for you to determine the most effective social media channels out there. But for now here are seven of the most effective social media platforms that you can use for your business.

1. Facebook
What can we say? Over 1.11 billion people are into this famous social media site. Besides catching up with loved ones from overseas, Facebook did a wonderful job for many aspiring entrepreneurs out there. If you’re a start-up entrepreneur, we suggest you try the waters of Facebook first before jumping on any other platforms.
Facebook has established itself quite well and you can use that to your advantage. You will be easier seen on this social media site with an option to send you a private message, browse your products and even share your goods to a wider network. We firmly believe your target marketing strategies will not be wasted on this site. Indeed Facebook is an effective social media platform for you business. On facebook, you will be able to launch a seperate business page or “Fan Page” to promte your business and to also leverage the use of group pages as well.

2. Twitter
Twitter is an astonishing social media platform that can promote your business in 140 characters or fewer. This is a site that garners over 215 million active users or potential customers. This great site is generally made for communication so you know that customers can reach you 24/7. What’s more special about Twitter is that you can incorporate your own hashtag brand so you’ll be easier searched or be on the most popular page.
Word of the wise, this effective social media platform can get you viral in no time! Proven and effective way to increase your business’ popularity.

3. Instagram
Instagram is a good platform if you like photos. Just open an account and build your audience to engage and post any pictures relevant to your business, add a cute or useful tagline and then link them to your website.
If used properly, your followers may skyrocket more than what you’re expecting.

4. LinkedIn
This effective social media platform is made for business people to interact with others. Sometimes it is used by job seekers to find potential employers but most of the time it is used to increase your audience. Business owners realized the value of this site and the opportunities to build relationships and sales leads. An estimated 2.7 million business pages are on LinkedIn, each interacting with each other for partnership, proposal, quotations etc.
Just a quick heads up LinkedIn has a humongous number of professionals so expect important business dealing. It is not similar to Facebook or Twitter where any start-ups can be casual. On LinkedIn, you need to look professional so people can take your business seriously. Nevertheless, don’t be intimidated though as the users on this social media channel are really friendly. You’ll never be out of place here.

5. YouTube
1 billion unique visitors every month – that’s how huge this video-oriented site is. Not to mention that it’s the second largest search engine after Google! How’s that for target marketing and popularity boost? YouTube can literally take you to places with increasing your customers every second someone clicks on your video.
You can even sponsor a commercial where they can stream over millions of videos. Oh, did we also mention that YouTube is owned by Google? You don’t have to worry about search engine rankings at all with this platform.

6. Pinterest
Pinterest is another effective social media platform made for business-especially if your business involves products to promote. All you need are good photos of your products and post or “PIN” them on a board representing a certain category and then build your following to interact. The people on Pinterest are friendly and sometimes helpful to promote even your own products. It is worth signing up just to get a little familiar and start getting your business or brand out there to be seen on the internet!

7. Foursquare
While most social media platforms will connect to people all accross the web, Foursquare is design to target local follower at the exact location of your business. Over 50 million people use Foursquare whether for online or offline businesses. So for storefront owners, you would want to learn how to leverage this effective social media tool. Just simply go to Foursquare, sign up, follow the guides, and engage as you would with other social media platforms, but keep in mind these will be local followers as potential customers to you business.

 

Social media is really simple to use and inexpensive! It’s all about one thing-engagement! Once you get a good feel at using social media-the more you will be effective in promoting your brand and they can become a powerful tool for your business. So whatever you choose from these effective social media channels, just remember to focus first on one or two at a time, so your marketing will be successful to a large degree.

Using Social Media to Find Local Customers for Your Small Business

Buy LocalHow would you like to target potential customers for your small business-but only in your local area? Targeting local traffic is an important website marketing strategy for small businesses. According to a variety of studies that have been done regarding website traffic, approximately 80% of people doing an online business search are searching for local businesses. But what if you want prospective customers to know that you are here locally? Here is where Social Media can help!
Promoting through social media sites is a new way that offers a lot to your business, mostly for free. Utilizing social networking sites is an effective way to draw local customers to your website. Here are a few social media tools to use:

FREE TOOLS

Twitter

In Twitter you can literally find tweets that mention your topic of expertise, from people who are geographically close to you. The way to do this is by using Twitter search. But instead of using the basic Twitter search box, you would want to use the Twitter Advanced Search page, which will allow you search locally.
To access the Twitter Advanced Search page type the keywords you want to search for in the usual Twitter search box and press Enter. You’ll see a results page that gives you a list of tweets that include those keywords. Click the down arrow next to the ‘cog’ in the corner of the page, then click Advanced Search. This reveals the Twitter Advanced Search page where you can really narrow your search. Type in your keywords then go to the Places box. Enter the geographical area you work in and then click Search. You’ll get a list of tweets that include your keywords, from people who are in the location you searched on. To save this search for future use click the drop down arrow on the search results page next to the ‘cog’ and click Save Search. The next time you want to look at this search click in the basic search box and a list of your saved searches will appear.
Using Twitter search in this way helps you find opportunities and people to add to your network.

Twellow

Twellow is a Twitter related tools that permit you to specifically target users who are among a certain area of interest and those who yield the most influence on the site. Once you’ve identified these people, you should follow them and hope that they return the favor.
You simply open up a Twellow account. At the top of the page you will see “Find Twellow users anywhere.” Just enter your city or location and start clicking on users you would like to target. Once they follow you back then start engaging with them.

Facebook

If you want to build brand awareness and connect with your customers, there is no beating Facebook. To claim and set up the Facebook Places page for your business. The first step is to create your Facebook Page by going to https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php. When you click on Local Business or Place, you will be taken to a page that will require you to fill in the required details of your business. After this you can use your admin panel to edit your page, build your audience, and fill your page with the requisite content. Once you have created your official local business page on Facebook, it’s time to claim your Facebook Places page.
Go to your Facebook Business Page and click on the arrow on the box next to “edit” and select ‘Is this your Business?’ When you click on it you will be taken through a series of steps that will ask for information about your business. You will now need to verify your connection to the business by either choosing an email verification process or by uploading the necessary documentation. Choose the email option only if you have an email address linked to your Facebook account and which also serves as your business email address. In terms of documentation, you will need to scan or click a picture of an official business document, like business license, tax file, phone bill, etc., and upload it.
Now you are done claiming and setting up a Facebook profile for your local business. All you need to do now is start managing it.

Foursquare

Foursquare is a location-based social networking site for mobile devices that gives your business a mobile footprint. With more people using mobile devices to search for businesses, a presence on Foursquare is one of the most popular social media tool for local businesses. Create a Foursquare Page and connect it with your Twitter account. When you create your page make sure you complete your Page Profile. Now you want to add your listing to Foursquare’s searchable database. If you don’t have a business listing, you can create it on https://foursquare.com/login?continue=%2Fadd_venue. The business listing will ask for your phone number, your website’s URL, links to your Twitter and Facebook profiles, hours of operation, and description of your business. Make sure you leave no information out.
Once your business listing has been added to Foursquare, claim it. When you claim your location, you are telling Foursquare you are the manager of that venue. You can claim multiple locations of Foursquare; all you need to do is to provide verifiable contact information. Once you are done listing and claiming your location on Foursquare, you can begin adding specials, checking your analytics, and a whole lot more. But the most important way to use Foursquare is to take the time to build up a network of just local followers and interact with them.

Google + Local

The local pages on Google+ Local closely resemble company Facebook Pages —they interact with Google Maps, Zagat reviews, and Google+. But the big thing is that your local pages will be indexed by search engines. Just click here to read my article on how to put your small business on the map!

PAID TOOLS

Yelp

This is another directory that is scaling the popularity charts, though for a small monthly fee. The 3-step process to be followed for claiming a Yelp listing for your business is similar to the processes on other sites. First go to https://biz.yelp.com/claiming. Type in the name of your business. If it shows up and is unlocked, somebody has already claimed it. If it turns up locked, click on the ‘Unlock’ button.
Another scenario is that your business listing doesn’t turn up in search. Don’t worry, just click on the ‘Add your business to Yelp’ link, which will take you to a page that will allow you to do just that. Once you click on ‘Add’, you are done. Now wait for the confirmation email from Yelp. You are done claiming your listing. Now you need to optimize the page by adding as much business information as you can. This could mean including more business information, photos, responding to reviews, and a whole lot more.

“The Bottom Line”

In using these social media tools, it’s very important that all your profiles contain complete and up to date information. Also, your contact addresses and phone numbers must be the same across all your profiles. Maintaining profile consistency across different online directories will boost your local SEO efforts and allow you to target market local customers for your business.

6 Social Media Tools to Simplify Your Social Media Marketing

Social Marketing Tools

How to simplify your social media marketing

 

6 Social Media Tools

 

We all know that having the right tools is essential to simplify or make any job easier-whether large, small, or just time consuming-would you not agree? The same is true with social media marketing! Are you using the right social media tools to simplify your marketing campaign?
It’s a demanding routine for a marketer or a business owner-not only that there is a lot of concerns to address such as the quality content to share with the prospect audience and right tool to use in sharing the content, but there is also the struggle against time. Nonetheless, the social media tools come into existence to shoulder the burden of these marketer just like you.

Presently, social media plays an important role for the effective online presence of businesses or websites. However, it cannot be denied that these social platforms are broad and powerful. On top of this, these networks are constantly expanding and becoming more complicated than usual. Thus, it consumes much time for a marketer or social media admin to manage the tasks on hand.
Although the social networks are upgrading with complexity, marketers can still get a hold of the advancement. In fact, there have been a number of social media tools that are created to cut down the time allotment and ease in the management of social activities. Here are just six!

1. Like Alyzer. Make sure you include in your marketing strategy a Facebook Fan page, then use Like Alyzer as a tool to provide assessment to your Facebook page. This tool will rate your page out of 100 for a free cost. Afterwards, recommendations are given for the improvement of your page.

2. Scoop.it. One of the popularly used social media tools to boost social media marketing is the Scoop it. When your social networks are connected with this app, you can publish wherever you are as you “scoop.” This only means that you are also posting on Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and tweeting on Twitter. On top of this, you can keep your audience inspired with a random of fresh interesting articles to use and post on your website, Facebook Fan page or both.

3. Post Planner. The Post Planner is one social media tool that you can install within your Facebook. It comes with a pack of features including automatic publishing of content per schedule, database of thousands update ideas, simple analytic s of people who have liked your post, add posts to your queue, and many more. With these features, Post Planner comes with a premium. However, there is a trial version available for you to determine its efficiency and usability.

4. Razor Social.  Get free juices on the social media innovations from Razor Social. It will provide you information relevant to social media tools available online to boost up your presence and reputation. Hence, cutting down the burden of managing social activity through knowledge application. Moreover, Razor Social is a community that continuously motivates its people to share significant and quality content.

5. Mention me. This is one excellent and efficient monitoring tool. The key to this application is the keyword at which will merit you to connect with other people or find potential businesses. Hence, the tool will alert you through your email or any other social media as it encounters particular keywords from various sites around the web. Nevertheless, Mention me comes in a free trial and paid versions.

6. Feedly. If you want to be updated on the news, Feedly serves the purpose. It will simply provide you with a myriad of posts at which you can subscribe to. Furthermore, Feedly can be integrated with Buffer that will allow you to share content with ease. This is because Buffer will be responsible for disseminating the posts. Furthermore, the articles that are featured in Feedly can be viewed with convenience using your very own computer or smart phone.

With the available social media tools online, workload is relatively lessened. Thus, it allows you and your website maintain credibility online. Furthermore, it maximizes your time for far more important tasks and duties.

I hope you can make use of these 6 social media tools to boost your social media marketing! Please leave a comment below.

How to Leverage Pinterest to Increase Business Sales

PinterestIt has become one of the fastest growing social media platform and one of the most popular in usage online to promote personal ideas or products to sale. Since E-commerce has been around for years and the number of online businesses is still growing rampantly, businesses or store owners tend to influence the social media idea as an avenue to grow their sales. Inclusion to these are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Among these social media platforms, it is Pinterest that raises virtual interest the most among online users, making it the “new kid on the block.”
Whether you want to increase your daily, special, or holiday sales, Pinterest can help you attain the upper hand. Depending on your marketing scheme, your sales can skyrocket from its baseline. This is made possible because Pinterest is inclined towards company’s products that combines both the ideas of vivid images of magazines and best deals of catalogs of some sort.
Before you promote your business or store, you need to probe a bit deeper on Pinterest. Nevertheless, there are ways that business owners need to undertake to jump-start their way to success.

Run a Test
One of the best things that you can do for your business is to invest time and resources in Pinterest. Simply open up an account and start building a following by following others-especially those similar to your niche. Then observe how others use Pinterest to promote. You will notice “Boards” and “Pins.” Boards are like your category and the pins are your post. Some have multiple categories, but you can be very effective with just one.
Here are some interesting facts about Pinterest.
• Pinterest users: 70 million

• Page views: with an average of 2.5 billion views per month

• Frequency of use: ranks 4th for most-used social media platform

• Average time spent by Pinterest users: 98 minutes/month

• Average amount per order: $140 and $180

The digits appear to be favorable, but letting the platform work in your favor is a formidable challenge. Just for a fact, you have to conceptualize your plans efficiently and competitively because your competitors are doing the same thing. Include in your strategy the identification of popular pins. You can do this by using a Pinterest analytic program like tailwindapp.com -a paid site that can help you track popular pins, followers, likes, and many more.

Work on Striking Visual Content
If you are geared towards marketing, you can make use of stunning images in Pinterest. Just for a fact, people love wonderful pictures as it can express a lot more than words can tell. When people get enthusiastic about your pin, users can re-pin it resulting to spread of your content.
You might be in an enigma of what kind of images can capture the hearts of the users. Of course, the bottom line here is that it should appear pleasing and worth the time. Earthy colors and reds can mesmerize your audience while a full background can give them a whole picture of what you want to portray.

Rich Product Pins
Pinterest Screen-shotDo not forget to change your pins into rich product pins. It comes in six types: app, article, movie, place, product, and recipe. It adds extra information and help the pin itself stands out from the others. With the rich product pins around, Pinterest had also came up with a rich pin validator. It is made for e-commerce sites to safeguard against fraudster. At this point, information is always updated because it is link to site.

Good Advertiser
Just like any other ads, Pinterest is also keen towards high standards. If you want your advertisement to get noticed and appreciated, you just have to follow the basic advertising principles. According to Pinterest, these include being authentic, promoting your best pins, and obeying applicable laws and regulations. When these are met and with some homework, everything else will fall as you want it to be.

Coupons
Take your daily sales an extra mile by giving coupons to your valuable consumers. Remember, people want to spend their hard-earned money wisely, so it is up to you to give them a hand by virtue of your promos and great deals. Your coupons pinned in Pinterest may contain discount, free product or service, or anything that will greatly benefit your customer.

Fiery Competition, New Approach!
Marketing scheme is not just all about the ideas. With the rise of Internet and other social networks like Pinterest, there now comes a need to employ a photographic approach to reach the desired sales of every company despite the heated competition.

Tips on Marketing Local Businesses With Social Media

Social Media for Business

 

social media for businessBusiness oftentimes is a local competition. Especially if it’s a brick and mortar storefront and you want to promote it locally online. To get into the game, you have to ride the craze in reaching out your prospect consumers. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of options to choose from— paid advertisement and social media.
In every marketing strategy, budget has always been the primary consideration. Paid advertising can be effective, but it can cost you an arm and a leg. Moreover, there is a loophole in this scheme. The impression that you will make on your prospect consumers will depend on how you formulate the plan and execute it. This goes the same with social media marketing, but on the contrary, it is not expensive as paid advertisement. Despite the difference in digits, it can also render you promising results.
Social Media in Action
No matter what your purpose is— brand awareness, online reputation management, website traffic, or communication with your audiences, social media always has a room to cater these needs. With your goal right before your eyes, your approach to social media will depend accordingly. Here are 6 tips to market local businesses with social media!
• Devise a social marketing plan. Given that you have analyzed your target audience and your competitors, it is about time to carefully think of a plan that will blow away your rivals. In this part, consider coming up with content ideas that will interest your audience such as tips on using your products and great deals.
• Go for quality instead of quantity. There is no use in posting many articles online if it is just fluffy. Always remember that people want to read something valuable and worth of their time. For example, if you are promoting food supplements, write articles that relate to your subject like its benefits to the user.
• Maintain an open communication. Technology paved way to what kind of communication the people have today. With this advancement, it is easier for businesses to get in touch with their audience. For instance, people can exchange or share thoughts on Facebook or Twitter. As this continuous, it creates a dynamic and lively environment for people to interact. Hence, it improves customer relationship.
• Social Media Platforms. Facebook and Twitter are just some of the popular social media platforms where people interact. Despite its orientation towards online interaction, you can also take advantage of advertising your products or company as its reach is multitude. Just make it a point that you will not solely use the platform for the sake of promotion, but also for interaction. Apart from these social media platforms, you can also use Foursquare for your business. According to Social Media Examiner, it is a location-based social network that has over 20 million users. In this platform, people use to check it for locations or shops that they have visited. As people checked where they have been, it can be shared with Facebook friends and Twitter followers. Eventually, your business is noticed.
• Offer promos and great deals. Customers love promos and great deals from a company. You can offer discounted products or services, buy one take one deal, and even a game of prizes. Doing these are a sure fire to delight your consumers.
• Dress your business professionally online. Reputation greatly matters for every business. It is one of the main ingredient for success. With this, keep your social business accounts in motion by sharing good content, promotions, and fabulous deals.
Mapping your business success with social media is indeed possible. You just have to cut out the appropriate moves to market your products and services locally. Hence, delve deeper on what every social media network can offer and gear it towards your goal.

Top Mobile Apps to Enhance Your Social Media Experience

Mobile AppIt seems that smart phones just keep getting smarter every day! The same thing goes with mobile applications. Nonetheless, these innovations make it easier to everyone come in contact with their friends or audience.
Progress in mobile technology made a lot of wonderful differences in people’s lives. From the plain manner of messaging, you can now have emoticons and stickers to relay what you want to say or feel effectively. Not only that, you have the option of sharing what you have in mind or what you want others to know about on something interesting. With this advancement on mobile technology, you can now twirl the social media with just a small device at your palm for personal or commercial use.
So what are the top mobile apps that is assure to enhance your social media experience? Here are eight!
WhatsApp
Messaging has never been more amazing and wonderful with WhatsApp. As a messaging platform, it allows its user to enjoy sending and receiving messages, images, location and contacts, and videos all around the world. In fact, around 600 million of monthly active users enjoy this mobile app.
Snapchat
Another popular mobile app is the Snapchat. It has around 100 million of monthly active users who enjoy the Snapchat features. With this app, you can record a brief video or  snap a photo and sendMobile phones  it to your friends. Whatever you have snapped, it will disappear after a few seconds; but it will depend of course to your reference.
Facebook

Social media will not be complete if Facebook Mobile is not included in your mobile apps. This lets you stay connected on the current updates and whereabouts of your friends or audience. With this app, you are always on the go to share your status, photos, and pages you like.
Flipboard
Scanning and reading on the news, photos, and updates is made more fun and convenient with Flipboard. Get every bit of what your friends and audience share in Instagram, Google Reader, Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter in a magazine layout of Flipboard.
Instagram
You know how compelling images attract attention? With Instagram, you can turn every photo into some sort magic work of art.
LinkedIn

LinkedIn lets you keep in touch with professionals. This platform connects over 100 million of professionals and businesses worldwide. Chances of getting employed is likely in this platform. Nonetheless, you can always get the latest updates and messages from your network.
Mobile Apps Dropbox
If your photos, videos, and documents greatly matter to you, then you can save them in Dropbox. Automatically, it will sync with your other devices such as smartphones, laptop, and in the Dropbox website itself. Whenever you want to share something in social media, getting those files would be just a piece of cake.
Buffer
With Buffer, you can sync up all your social media accounts— Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Not only that, this app can also help you find content that are worth sharing such as photos, videos, blog posts, and even news articles.
Social Media Gets Even Better

The evolvement of mobile phones and apps made it possible for everyone gain access to social media. No matter what purpose the engagement is, these mobile apps made people’s experiences meaningful.

5 Things Your Competitors Can Teach You About SEO

CompetitorsWhat your competitors can teach you about SEO

Search engine optimization or simply SEO is one complex mechanism that even professionals get a hard time in cracking out the shell. For a fact, the algorithm has been changing overtime as search engines always want to give the people justifiable and reliable results for their queries. If you are an SEO professional, how can you get your hands on the top page?
To keep the content in top rankings, your search engine optimization strategies should always be legit and updated. Any foul schemes can be detected and eventually will sink your ranking to a lower level. In light of this, here are some tactics that you can practice to catch up with any search engines’ changes in algorithm.

Lesson #1: Content is king

Over the years, the content has remained as one integral factor in search engine optimization success. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo have always known that people are up to valuable content and not something empty-worded article. If you want your content to live up with the results, then you better affix high quality attribute. Furthermore, avoid putting duplicate content into your website. Observe your competitors articles in relations with their SEO technique or strategy.

Lesson #2: Getting reliable links

One thing that will surefire the success of search engine optimization is the links. This still works until today, but it now has to do with “natural and earned” links. Even if you buy links, there is no absolute guarantee that these links will count.
So how are you going to earn these links that are acceptable to the search engines? It may take up a lot of hard work and luck, but you can earn these links through endorsements. If you influenced other bloggers or journalists to write something about your business and link it to your site, then the search engine will count it in. You can get a good idea on how your competitors are doing this.

Lesson #3: Not overdoing keywords optimization

A content enriched with keyword can be the downfall of search engine optimization. You should take note that search engines can read between the lines. Therefore, keep the specific keywords at bay and use other keywords instead. You will notice how a certain site have good use of keywords but never overdo it.

Lesson #4: Work on social media

Social media plays an integral role in uplifting your online ranking. It should be remembered that the stance of social media is wide and so is its capability to bring quality traffic. Therefore, be active in updating your social media accounts and do not forget to link your content back to your site as part of your search engine optimization strategy. Look at your competitors site and notice how well they do this-normally on the right side of their pages.

Lesson #5: Be patient and always be updated

One time search engine optimization will not instantly make your site recognizable by the search engines. It takes times as you implement several tasks to attain a long-lasting impact on your website’s traffic and rankings. Apart from being patient, you also have to keep yourself updated on the current happenings on the algorithm of search engines. It is through knowledge that you can tailor your strategies in optimizing a website.

If you don’t know who your competitor is simply “google” your keyword or phrase, and the first three sites are going to be the competition. But you’re not going to want to compete with the “big boys” as of yet, so look for websites close to your size for they will be your real competitors.
Indeed, working with search engine optimization is no easy task. In order to be successful, you should unify all the factors or techniques in SEO to reap out justifiable and good ranking.

9 Effective Practices for Social Media Success!

Social Media Success

Every businessman dreams out to be successful in his chosen industry. The fact that you will have a lot of competitors, it would not be easy to scratch the surface of success. For this very reason, you might be betting on establishing an online presence and one of these is through social media.

In today’s technological advancement, businesses make use of social media for many purposes. These include getting in touch with their clients, driving sales, or reducing the cost for marketing. No matter what the purpose it may serve, social media success is essential to fulfill any businesses’ objectives.

Speaking of social media success, “How to be successful?” is often the inquiry. The step to victory does not end in merely creating social media accounts, but rather on how you will tailor your strategy and put them into unwavering motion? In light of this, here are some practices that could be beneficial in your online endeavor.

·     Create simple social media references. When you create social media references, make it simple and short. The simplicity of these references will warrant your prospect target ease of remembering your brand and high chances of social media success. So whenever your consumers heard the advertisement on TV or radio, the references will ring easily in their heads.

·          Do your share in offline marketing. Do not simply rely on online campaign of your brand or company. To achieve social media success, employ as well the offline strategies to influence those within your target audience. Examples of which are incorporation of your social media references on business cards, invoices, product packaging, and even broadcast materials.

·     Be genuine. When you really want to gain the trust of your clients and truly achieve social media success, be true to yourself and to them. Therefore, use your real identity or the company’s name. You should take note that people can sense it whether you are being true or just fooling around.

·       Know your audience. Having a keen understanding on your target market can contribute to your social media success. Once you know how your audience interacts in social media platform, you can then tailor schemes on reaching out to them.

·       Listen to the public. To attain social media success, having all ears is one integral trait that all businesses should possess. You should acknowledge what your consumers’ concerns and what they think about your products or services. By being an active listener, you can address your consumers’ concerns more precisely.

·         Share awesome content. In social media, do not be self-centered. Instead of focusing on yourself, share content related to your industry that will interest your consumers. You should take note in social media success; interesting topics make people hooked into it. When you do so, people will talk about you through your content.

·        Communicate your mission and vision. Whatever social platform you are using, make it sure that you effectively convey your company’s mission and vision. In this aspect, you make your business appear in imbued professionalism and high credibility. In addition to this, you give your consumers a hint of what your company is all about and for what purpose it exists.

·         Do not annoy your followers. One thing that hinders social media success is being an annoyance. If you do not want your audience to draw back, then stop making requests that will do no good in their favor. Therefore, refrain from sending more than three messages or requests in a week.

·      Be consistent and remarkable. This would be easier said than done, but being consistent and living up for excellence will bring all your actions to social media success. Hence, do not falter in sharing valuable content, updating your account, and getting in touch with your audience. These actions will make you a remarkable company in the near future.

Discovering social media will not instantly bring you tangible results. However, keeping up with the best practices in social media will earn you success in the near future. As you attain social media success, there is the likelihood that it will do the same with your business!

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