1. Who are your customers? Define your audience, which will help you decide how best to approach them.
2. Where are your customers? Once you know where they are, you can go to them.
3. Share with your customers. Find opportunities to share your products and services (e.g., fund-raisers such as a Tricky Tray; community events; sponsorships)
4. Connect with your customers using social media.
5. Become an expert. Present workshops, write articles, provided useful information.

Simply, a hashtag helps to organize on-line conversations by marking keywords or topics that people can then search for. For example, meetings are held on Twitter by participants using a specific hashtag for all of their posts. Although originally developed by Twitter users, hashtags are now widely used not only on Twitter but also on other social media channels including Instagram and Pinterest.

You can use hashtags in different ways. By creating your own hashtag, you can direct people to your specific information, website, etc. By using existing hashtags, you can participate in ongoing conversations, giving you the opportunity to showcase your services or products; have participants in the conversation retweet you (giving you additional exposure); and, because you’re being exposed to new people, perhaps get more followers. You can also target a specific audience either by using an existing hashtag or creating a new one that focuses on a need that your business can meet.

Before you develop a hashtag for your marketing materials, make sure it isn’t already being using. Try searching for it or try one of the on-line hashtag dictionaries, such as tagdef.com. You want your hashtag to be unique so that it will direct people to your Tweets or other posts. Also look at what hashtags are most searched for and what are the currently trending hashtags. This can help you either choose a conversation to join or give you an idea for a related hashtag to use.

Here are a few tips for video marketing:

1. Be yourself; allow your personality to come through. And don’t worry about being perfect.
2. Work from a script, but don’t “read” from it.
3. Keep the video short – two to three minutes is best.
4. End the video with a call to action.
5. Topics for the video can include: product or service demonstration; special offer (contest giveaway, special discount); upcoming event; answers to common questions (use separate videos for sets of questions); educational information about your products or services; video tour of your office or business location; introduce your staff.
6. Choose a good title, pick keywords to post in the description on YouTube, and include a link to your website in the YouTube description.

The key to a successful across the board campaign is complete incorporation. Simply put, make sure wherever you have a presence it reinforces the promotion or announcement you’re advertising.

Let’s say, for example, you do a direct mail and/or email campaign offering a discount on a product.  If you’re following the basics of marketing, you’re going to have your brick and mortar location listed as well as your website URL (or link to it on an email). For those who choose to visit your website, be sure there is a well marked and simple way for them to find more information or a link directed to the promotion right on the home page. If customers have to dig too far, they will lose interest and leave your site.

To get even more exposure for your promotion, utilize your social media platforms to broadcast to your customers and beyond.

• Twitter. Send a tweet about the promotion and include a link to your site. Check into how to get a promoted tweet that will show up at the top of a relevant search.
• Facebook. Make the promotion your status and of course include a link. With 500 or more likes for your page, you have the opportunity to do a sponsored story, which will allow friends of your followers to see your message, as well.
• LinkedIn. If you’re a B2B company, you may want to consider running an ad on LinkedIn. It can be targeted in a number of ways to reach your audience.
• Communities and forums. Since these are interest or industry specific, you are already tapping into an interested group. Be sure to read the policies for posting before adding your promotion to ensure it doesn’t get removed.

In addition to the social media sites, if you’re marketing budget allows it, you may also want to consider some paid advertising on the web. Whether on Google or Yahoo or a banner ad on another pay to advertise site, be sure your message is consistent with all your other efforts and that you have a call to action.

While you don’t need to touch all of these platforms for an across the board campaign, test and try different messages and mediums to see what brings the best results.

Let’s take a quick look at how you should be using LinkedIn in each of these three ways:

Brand

1. Your profile is the most important part of branding on LinkedIn.  Ensure your profile is complete with descriptions and links to your site, blog, and any other important places online. Boost your chances of someone find you by using keywords in your profile – remember this is the web it loves keywords.
2. Make connections with those you know personally and professionally.  They should be people you can actually answer questions about. And of course that can recommend or refer people to you.
3. Having your whole team with you on LinkedIn not only increases your visibility, but also affords you opportunities to get introductions to connections that may be beneficial to you or vice versa.

Industry Leader

1. Join groups to participate in conversations, learn about job leads and more. Offer valuable information and advice to position yourself as an industry leader. Contribute as often as possible to become a well-known “regular” that other participants will look to for answers.
2.  Regularly browse through the questions in LinkedIn Answers section. There is a good chance there is a question or two that you can answer. You can even include links that are helpful – and if it’s back to your site or blog then it’s beneficial to you, but more on that in the next section.

SEO

1. Valuable and educational information is great for your site and blog’s SEO. So it makes sense it is good for your LinkedIn activity, as well. Share news, blog posts and links back to your website within your LinkedIn Feed, LinkedIn Answers, as well as part of Group discussions. It not only gives you a positive presence on LinkedIn, but also can help your site and blog’s SEO with valuable external links and generate quality leads.

Remember, LinkedIn is not just a site to help find a new job. LinkedIn is a great resource for networking, attracting new clients or customers, and even your website and blog’s SEO. Explore all that it has to offer and take advantage of all the free resources it affords.

Just creating a website or setting up a blog or Facebook fan page isn’t enough. Like traditional marketing and advertising, you need to consistently tend to your online presence. Here are five effective ways to stand out from the crowd online – that you can do yourself.

Talk with your customers.  Don’t just post things and run or talk at your customers. Engage in a dialogue to keep visitors interested and form a relationship with them.  You will learn their needs and they will be building brand loyalty.

Entice with offers and extras. Make it worthwhile to become a fan or follow a blog. To increase the number of visitors, many companies offer a reward or offer once a predetermined number of fans is reached. Or create a coupon or offer code that can be downloaded only at a specific time or date. For your website, offer a newsletter to those who add to your email address database.

It is better to give than to receive. While the goal of any marketing effort is to increase your customer base and sales, you can’t expect people to just willingly give you their business. It must be a give and take. By offering more than your competition in customer service, information, and any other aspect important to your industry, new and existing customers will be more inclined to give to you in the form of repeat business, testimonials and referrals.

Maintain your online presence. Be vigilant and monitor your brand across the Internet. Google your business to track any comments left in review sections of maps, listings and more in addition to your Facebook page and blog. Respond and resolve any issues as soon as possible to show good faith.

Get interactive. Keep the lines of communication open in various ways. Engage readers of your blog by ending with questions or requests for comments. Add forms to your website to allow easy contact for questions, comments and testimonials. And keep your content fresh and exciting to entice followers to keep coming back.

In this digital age, while people want the convenience of using online venues, they still want to know that someone is listening. By going the extra mile to interact and engage customers more than the other businesses in the wide sea of online venues, you can strengthen your brand while enhancing the effectiveness of your marketing.

Check out the top four changes that can help your business get noticed:

1. Expanded listing information and functionality, including a social aspect that allows you to get interactive with visitors. You can now gain followers and message them, similar to the way Facebook and Twitter work.
2. New Local tab that allows users to immediately begin a search and even get recommendations of only local businesses. What’s more, the experience is personalized.  Using several variables customized to the user, the content on the local homepage is tailored to each person.
3. New rating system using Zagat has replaced the old star system. In addition, users leaving a review now complete a more structured form. The rating is based on specific categories rather than the old system, which was simply an overall rating with aspects like service, shipping, décor, etc. lumped into one. The form also includes space for additional comments so your customers can leave reviews in their own words.
4. And what is probably the most exciting and beneficial new feature for your business – Google + local pages are now indexed! This means a boost in SEO, so it’s in your best interest to make sure your information is correct and to even add to it with images and links.

If you haven’t already, check out your Google+ local listing; and if you haven’t “claimed” it yet, it is strongly recommended that you do. Simply click on the  “Manage this Page” link on the right-hand side of your page and follow the instructions. Add photos, information and get social with it!

The more you put into it, the more you will get out of it.

If you’ve chosen to use Twitter as part of your social media marketing, you may be missing some very helpful – and quite frankly pretty cool – apps that work with Twitter that can enhance your efforts.

By analyzing your tweets and the habits of your followers, Tweriod can tell you the best times to send tweets to make the most impact.  Honing in on when your followers are most active will increase your chances of getting noticed. Tweriod is also a great tool for assuring the effectiveness of your tweets, so you can repeat what works and scrap what doesn’t.

Once you know the best time each day to send your tweets, you can schedule them to be sent automatically using Buffer. This is especially helpful if your prime tweet time happens to be your busiest time of the day. Composing your tweets when you have time will likely make them better than if you’re rushing to get something out at a certain time. In addition to tweets, Buffer also has browser extensions that allow you to add web pages to your schedule so they will automatically post to Twitter as well.

Getting the most bang for your buck – or in this case tweets – is always a great incentive for small businesses. The Twylah app converts your tweets into a blog page or branding site.  This is a win for you since it’s an easy way to increase your online marketing without doing any more work. What’s more, you can include images and video previews too for easy browsing.

These are just a few of the great apps that can help you make the most of Twitter in your marketing efforts. Consider doing a quick search online or pick the brain of your marketing expert to find even more ways to increase your social media marketing responses using Twitter.

For more information or help with your social media needs, contact the team at WebSwagger.com.

Content should be SEO-friendly

• Just like your website copy, blog copy should be high-quality and informative
• Use keywords where possible but especially in your title and headline
• Useful information is more likely to be shared by your readers

Connect your blog to your profiles

• Add a link to your blog in your social media profiles (Facebook, Linkedin, etc.), in your online videos and in your email signature

Design can impact traffic and sharing

• Keep it simple but attractive and relevant to your business
• You don’t need to be a designer to have a visual appealing blog that readers will want to spend time reading and sharing

Offer an RSS Feed or email subscription

• Entice followers to come back and read new posts and information

Link to other posts

• If your subject touches upon a topic you’ve covered in another blog post include a link to it
• Link to other bloggers’ posts if they are relevant to yours. For example, this post is summarizing 21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic (Updated 2012). Read the full version at www.seomoz.org/blog/21-tactics-to-increase-blog-traffic-2012.

Share your posts via Social Networking

• Need an instant status update for your Facebook page? Link to your latest blog post
• Tweet your blog topic and a link

Add Google Analytics and use the results

• We encourage all our website clients to add Google analytics to their sites and a blog is essentially another website
• It’s free and offers a wealth of information about visits, keywords and more
• Check out our recent post about Taking advantage of Google Analytics here.
  

One of the best tips, listed: Don’t Give Up

• As with a website, it takes time and a little legwork to make it success
• Be patient and keep on trying

We’re always available to help you complete many of these recommendations for your blog or website. We can even help you design and maintain a blog.  Check out our website www.WebSwagger.com to find out more.

Monitor your posts and respond and join the conversation. Acknowledging your customer’s effort should be an automatic. A popular trend is to reward customers who blog about you in a positive way.  If by chance, there is negative feedback it is critical for you to use the moment as an opportunity to turn the unhappy customer back into a fan. There are several ways to monitor what is being said about your business. Try using TweetDeck by Twitter, an app that brings more flexibility and insight to users of Twitter and FaceBook. When responding, try using a genuine tone as if you were speaking to a close friend as opposed to sales approach. Include photographs whenever possible. Include related pop-culture photos that people will respond to. For example, if you are a landscaper, use photos of people in a field of flowers or tight shots of beautiful plants.

Make sure the information you provide on one platform is not duplicated on all of the other platforms you use.  If a customer does not see a variety of information from you, they will not participate with your company on more than one. For example, use different offers on FaceBook that you use on Pinterest.

Sharing meaningful content and being part of the conversation is one key to success that is low-cost and can build your audience.  Just like a plant needs constant water, sun and a bit of pruning in order to grow, so does your company. So plant the seeds and before long you will have something beautiful for your efforts!

Your team at WebSwagger.com can help you with your social media efforts. Call 888-772-6400 to get started!