The Power Of Using Social Media Marketing To Grow Your Business

May 2, 2013 by

Using Social Media Marketing to Grow Your Business and boost your visibility

Growing your business will always be one of the most important aspects of being an independent business professional. Because the dynamics of business and the economy in general are constantly changing, it is more important than ever for you to take advantage of every opportunity you have to make individuals aware of the products and services that you offer through your business. The ability to grow your business effectively, even in difficult economic times, may be the only thing that separates the successful business owner from those who have tried and failed. Therefore, learning to use social media marketing to your advantage is one of the most effective ways available of ensuring that your business will continue to grow.

There are a variety of social media marketing websites that you can use to successfully increase consumer traffic for your business. These include Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, and You Tube. All of these social networking sites are relatively easy to use, especially after you spend a little bit of time working with them. You can also effectively utilize all of the sites without spending any money or by spending a very small amount of money, and you can reap huge financial benefits. If you have an exceptionally small budget that can be used for advertising, using these social media marketing websites to promote your business is one of the most cost-effective ways to drive new customers in your direction.

Google Plus helps you to build a community

First and foremost Google Plus is a must-use social network, and since Google owns it, this is a great way to make your content glow. Google Plus enables you to create Google Plus groups, start Google Hangouts, and create business or personal pages. All of these are opportunities for you to gain more exposure and build a community around your brand. The biggest benefit of using Google Plus is the ability to publish content under your own name and take advantage of their authorship functionality to grow your audience and gain authority.

Facebook helps you gain exposure fast

Facebook is one of the largest and most trusted social networking sites. It is extremely effective in helping individuals to grow a business, in large part due to its ease of use and to the exceptional amount of exposure that is available when you advertise your business on the site. Facebook has an enormous following and simply having the opportunity to get exposure on the website is likely to drive a high number of customers to your business. Due to the large number of people that spend a lot of time on Facebook, it has become one of the most effective marketing tools available on the Internet.

Twitter keeps your business fresh

Twitter is another social networking site that is extremely popular and can be successfully used to grow your business. Gaining exposure on Twitter keeps everything about your business fresh, and because individuals use Twitter only to talk about what is going on in the here and now, maintaining a presence by associating your business with a Twitter account keeps it on people’s minds and continuously drives traffic toward your business.

LinkedIn connects you to other business people

Another popular website that individuals can use to grow their business is Linkedin. Some of the best benefits of using this website involve the ability to develop close business to business contacts and to join different groups that allow you to gain unique exposure in circles that otherwise may not be aware of the products or services offered by your business. This is a great way to expand your clientele and bring your business to individuals who otherwise may not spend money with your company. Using this website helps you to constantly evolve your business, which is one of the keys to building and maintaining a successful business.

Pinterest helps you gain that visual appeal

One of the newer social media networking websites that has gained a great deal of popularity is Pinterest. The visual appeal that exists on this website has caused it to gain much popularity as a means of growing a business. It is very simple to use, as you merely have to take pictures of the products that you sell and post them to the website. Once this is done individuals from all over the world have a chance to see what your business has to offer. This website is especially effective for attracting sales from affluent women. Therefore, if you are marketing products directly to that group of clientele this is a website that may be of particular interest to you.

You Tube helps you deliver powerful and memorable stories

Last but certainly not least, You Tube is one of the most effective ways to grow your business regardless of the products or services that you are offering. You Tube offers a unique way to share powerful and memorable messages with the general public. With the technology that is available today it costs little or no money to produce a video that is of good quality which can be posted to You Tube as a means of increasing business. It is truly as simple as shooting a video with your smart phone and then posting it to the website. The more people that see what your business has to offer, the greater the chances are that you will receive additional business traffic as a direct result.

Growing a business is always a challenging and rewarding experience. However, methods of advertising have changed a great deal in recent years. Individuals who operate small startup businesses who could not afford expensive advertising in the past can now get the word out about their business to an extremely large and diverse group of people in a matter of minutes. Maintaining a powerful presence on these social media marketing websites is one of the most effective ways of ensuring that your business will be profitable for years to come.

Filed Under: Social Media

Learn how using a CDN can help your WordPress Website Load Faster

April 17, 2013 by

Cloudflare is a free CDN network that can help super power your WordPress website

CDN stands for a content delivery network, and is basically a network of servers that are strategically placed at geographic locations around the globe. The CDN makes a duplicate copy of your website, caches it, and then re-routes a request for that content through the server that is geographically closest to your website visitor who requested the page. For example if your website is not using a CDN and it is hosted in California, there is a server delay between the time when a visitor from New York makes a request for your site, and the time that it loads on their computer.

When using a CDN, there are web servers all across the USA and actually across the globe, that help deliver your website at much faster speeds. When using a CDN the person who visited your website from New York, will actually get a version of your website that is hosted on a server that is in New York. The delay is much less noticeable and your page will load faster, even if you have video and other media. The main reason that this is so effective is that your website is loaded from the closest server to your visitor, so no matter where they are in the world, they will have a good user experience. Another functionality of a CDN is that even if your web server is down, it often serves a cached copy of your website, so more than likely nobody will notice if your website goes down.

If your website is build using WordPress and is hosted on a shared hosting account, then you should make your page load time a top priority. Having a WordPress website load faster can significantly help the user experience on yoru site. Study after study has confirmed that slow loading pages directly correlate to lower traffic numbers. Web searchers are impatient creatures and will not wait long to see your awesome web design, provocative article or compelling video. Also if Google is sending you traffic, and they notice that visitors continuously leave your website without staying for a while, they will assume that your content is not good and your information is not valuable . Google has officially stated that they take page load speed into consideration with their search ranking algorithms, so you can lose your position in search engine rankings due to poor loading time.

You are already aware how long it can take for large video and photo files to load. A situation where CDN can be used to speed up the loading time of your website is if you have a video gallery, or other heavy media. There are many other CDN’s that larger websites depend on for speedy delivery of their articles and posts. A popular blog post on a site that receives a lot of traffic would load much slower during peak reading times without the aid of a WordPress CDN.  Another advantage to using a CDN is increased storage capacity and data back-up along with enhanced security features.

In the simplest of terms, the closer your web page is to your visitor, the faster the page will load for them, and that is what a CDN network can do for you. If your website is hosted on a shared server like HostGator, Godaddy, and any other service that costs $15 a month or less it would benefit from using a CDN. Not sure if you are on a shared server? Visit wholinks2me.com and type in your url and you will get the name of both of your name servers.

Filed Under: Internet Marketing, Webhosting, WordPress, WordPress Hosting Tagged With: , , ,

Dallas Internet Marketing Link Volume 2 April 2013

April 5, 2013 by


Enjoy the second volume of the Dallas Internet Marketing Link digital magazine.  This edition is jam packed with local events, meet-ups and local resources. The featured people, events and companies are our partners, or friends, so please help us support them.  You don’t want to miss some of these upcoming events, like WordCamp 2013 and Social Media Day 2013. Visit our guest post tab to submit a guest post that could be featured on the next edition. Please share and also give us your feedback! This is a short summary of what is inside:

  • Upcoming Events for DFWSEM ( If you’re not a member you should be! )
  • Local SEO, Social Media, and Content Marketing Meet- Ups
  • Recommended Resources of locals who can help you get started on WordPress
  • The Announcement of Social Media Day coming  June  29th and 30th.
  • The Announcement of  Austin WordCamp 2013, (closest one to Dallas  we could find )
  • Tips on quick fixes that you can perform on your site to improve it
  • And much more. View the full edition above or Click here to download it now.

 

 

Filed Under: Internet Marketing Link Tagged With: , , , , ,

How Google Plus Author Rank Will Change Search Engine Marketing

March 15, 2013 by

In the last few years, Google has put an increased emphasis, on the importance of having a great user experience when using their search engine. They want their users to find what they’re looking for on their first try, and not be directed to one of the many spam sites that pollute their search results. Websites used to rank well depending on the number and value of their back links. This created the perfect storm for spammers to take over the search results, with the aid of their automated SEO (search engine optimization) tools and endless content networks linking to each other just because they could. Google tried to fix this problem with their Panda and Penguin updates and though they were somewhat successful, there is still a lot of spam sites ranking well. Now Google is taking a new approach that looks to weigh the quality of content from certain authoritative figures and placing it more prominently on the page than unknown writers who are not making a commitment to write often. So Author Rank is a big part of SEO, and it is a determining factor that will place you on the first or second page of search results.

What exactly is Google Plus Author Rank, and how does it work?

The simple answer is, it’s a new scoring system that grades you and allows you to link your grade to the web content that you release. There are several important factors in calculating your grade. Content quality is obviously one of the most important factors in grading. However, how frequently you release fresh content is also very important. Then you’re graded on how often you interact with your audience and how much feedback you get from them. Participation on Google Plus and keeping an active account is an essential part of building your brand and growing your audience. For example if you have 800 people following you on Google Plus and you frequently write about parenting tips, your website should rank above someone who has 200 people and doesn’t write as frequently. A lot of new changes are rolling out and there is a lot of speculation as to what may or may not contribute to your ranking, so it will be interesting to keep your eye open and see how it unfolds.

How you get credit for the content that you publish.

Well, that brings up one of the more controversial aspects of the Author Rank system. You can no longer remain anonymous, without hurting your search rankings. It is highly recommended that you link all released content to your verified Google+ Author Rank account, or choose to be lost in the faceless crowd of search results. After creating your account , all content you release will be displayed in search engines with your name and picture next to it, so make sure that you are really adding value or people will see through the clutter fast. Many people dislike revealing their identities online, but they shouldn’t worry about it, the system is designed to reward you if you are playing nice.

The many benefits GooglePlus Author Rank

One of the main goals of the system is to give you the tools that are needed to build authority. This goal is accomplished in a few different ways. Now since all your content will be linked through your Google+ account, people who enjoyed your content, now have easy access to more of it. Then there’s your picture being displayed in the rankings, this increases the trust value of your content, and entices more people to visit your site. Plus, if you release high quality content, people will now have a face to associate with it. Google + Author Rank will reward you for being transparent and distributing frequent high quality content. A good thing to keep in mind is to keep your content related, for example don’t write about personal finance tips and also about spending time hiking outdoors. If your content is not somewhat consistent and stays on a particular topic, when people try to find your related content, they may be disappointed.

Start taking a part of the Google+ Community

Google+ Author Rank sounds like a good solution that is here to stay. Having peace of mind knowing that your content and personal reputation is what matters, and not shady back links should be a relief. What this really means to you is that you need to be very active in the Google Plus community and grow your circles, as well as try to join the new Google Plus Groups that can help you expand your reach easier. It would be a smart choice to also do guest posting on other blogs, as you can get the credit for your work, and thus grow your traffic and audience. Taking a proactive approach and making an effort to begin nurturing your audience may have highly rewarding results in the long run.  My best advice is to start a Google Plus account if you already haven’t and track your growth over time using these 2 handy tools:

plusclout.com

circlecount.com

Filed Under: Content Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Internet Marketing, Personal Branding, SEO Tagged With: , , ,

If content is king wouldn’t Wikipedia be more popular than Facebook?

February 24, 2013 by

 Why content is NOT king and why community is

Being in digital marketing you may have heard that “content is king” at least a thousand times. And this is mostly true, because search engines like to see fresh and relevant content in order to send visitors to your website. But if you step back and look at the forest and stop focusing on the trees, you will see that content is simply a means to an end. The fruit (profit)  from this (content) tree come from the forest (or community) that you nurture and strengthen over time. When creating content it  is a good practice  to treat each of your topics as branches of this content tree that will allow for more fruit to grow and help you start your own community. Content is merely a piece of the building blocks that it takes to create a  community and a positive environment that encourages growth and strengthens connections.

 Why you need content to build a community

Content is key to building a community, because it is an outlet for people to share, be heard, and feel like they belong to something bigger. The main reason that Facebook is so popular is because it has created a huge online community who all share content and interact with each other on a daily basis. Each Facebook user has hundreds of friends who log on and consistently post pictures, videos and other content. Facebook has been successful in creating a  friendly ecosystem that nurtures people’s creativity and has social rewards for their feedback / interaction. Facebook has a giant user base, but if you are trying to market yourself there it will  feel crowded and be extremely difficult to break through the clutter. And since not everyone there is your target market, why not take your content and use it to nurture your own “friendly ecosystem” to grow your own community?
- 3 ways that content can help you create a community

Your content is the sugar that attracts people to you, and the goal is to use it to  keep people coming back to your website as frequently as possible. In the long run this practice will create a community that encourages user generated content, discussions, and sharing. When you create a community, you are slowly taking Google out of the equation, and building trust for your company at the same time. These are the 3 main ways that you can use content to build a community of people who trust your brand and are constantly coming back to your website.

1.) Website Content- You need value-driven content to give people a reason to go to your website and  stay on it long enough to create an impact. This is the most important part of your content strategy that you need to focus on, and if you do this wrong, the next two components will not work as effectively. The design, content, and information on your website tells people ” I know what I am talking about.”  It gives people a reason to stop what they are doing and  listen to what you have to say . This is a low commitment step that you are asking them to take, once they read your content, they make the choice to stay or leave. Make sure that you create your content around  trends, news, user feedback. Listen to what your audience is saying, and give them the information that they are already talking about, or provide assistance and guidance in some way. This is also where SEO comes in and allows you to laser target your audience by choosing the right keywords, tags, and other metadata. Content in this particular instance will serve to feed Google content and make your website “sticky.”

2.) Social Media - Once a visitor reads the content on your site and they find value in your content, they will seek to view more of your content through other channels. That is why it is important that you participate in social media and have links to and from your social media channels on your website. Social media gives you social proof and tells people ” these people believe me and like me.” It also lets your audience know that they can interact with you since they get to get a glimpse of what other people are already saying about your brand. Posting links to your new content on social channels “invites” people to your website and once they are there you want them to interact and participate in some way. While social media is important in helping you build a community, keep in mind that it is not a good idea to build your community solely on a social media platform. Starting a Facebook group or a Google+ community is a great idea, but your purpose should always be to point users to your main website. Social media networks come and go, and you don’t have any control over that, so relying on them to build your community can be a waste of time in the end.

3.) Newsletter Content – After reading the content on your website, and seeing that you are active on social networks, the next level of commitment would be to ask your visitors  to sign up for your newsletter / updates . They already believe that they know what you are talking about ,and they have seen that you have helped others, so they will be much more likely to give you their name and email. At this point they are telling you ” alright I’ll give you a shot.” This gives you permission to contact them, keep them informed, and build a relationship. This opens the door for you to walk in, show them what you’ve got and maybe convince them that you are trustworthy and that you value them as individuals. The golden rule  here is to always provide value, and to not to start sending emails with a sales and offers right away. Just as easy as it was to subscribe, it takes users only one click for them to unsubscribe. Having  people’s contact information is a privilege, and if you abuse it you will more than likely take longer to grow your community.  Keeping in touch with your subscribers and following up with them is important in staying top of mind and building rapport. Let them know that you are there to listen to them and show them how you can help them solve their problems.

 

The ultimate goal = user generated content that creates an emotional connection

As a long term approach, once you start seeing that your community is starting to take shape, if you give them a comfortable place where they can talk more about the topics that interest them, the are very likely to go there. Creating a user forum or a smaller social media community of your own niche should be the ultimate goal of your content creation efforts. When you have your own community, the users will start new discussions and there will be a constant flow of ideas and fresh content without any effort from your part. Users will have an emotional connection with other users and this will make them frequent your site often to see what others have posted or shared. By starting  your own community you create social proof, authority, trust without relying  as much on external sources. Also as Facebook and other mainstream social media networks get more crowded and create more clutter, people will be looking for more quiet places to congregate and talk about topics of their interest .

How Copyblogger Media is already being successful at this

Copyblogger Media is a great example of this principle at work. They have created a community of followers, and their StudioPress forum is a living proof that people will engage and be more involved when they have a vested interest in other people and have emotional connections with other users. Copyblogger  participates in social media, is always encouraging you to sign up for updates,  and they have an active podcast, all which help strengthen their community. At this point if Google for some reason quit indexing them, they don’t care! Copyblogger has taken  time and effort  to create content and nurture their own community,so external sources are not a factor anymore. Ask StudioPress if they are afraid of DIY Themes ( Thesis) taking over (Genesis ) , the answer is no! Thesis does not stand a chance, they don’t have a thriving community, and more and more Thesis users are making announcements that they are switching to Genesis.

More advantages of having your own community

While having your own community may not completely eliminate competition, it does make your solution much more attractive if thousands of other people are using it and talking about it while you sleep. People will be more likely to try your product if they are hearing good things about it from other users, than if you were to recommend it to them yourself.  Also  the life time value of a customer dramatically goes up when you uncover more of their  needs through listening and provide them with more solutions. Copyblogger has a range of products that all cater to the same audience, due to the fact that they have listened and uncovered new needs over time. You can use your community to leverage people, knowledge, and resources and encourages people to return and provide you with constant feedback. Building a community takes time and effort, but the long-term rewards will be tenfold. Over time as the main social networks create more noise and clutter, people will be looking for alternatives, so being in the right place at the right time will pay off. Your goal should be for your community to be the forest, and for each of the individual in it to be like a tree that can bring you more and more  fruits for  many years to come.

Do you think that your brand would benefit from building a community, why or why not?

Filed Under: Uncategorized
«Older Posts