Safety Practices for Small Business Social Media Use

No longer the “New Kid in Town.” Social Media and its marketing resources have gone from a compulsive form of recreation for many to a fundamental piece of any small business marketing plan, large or small.

What is still not readily known by many small business owners and managers is that use of social media by companies and their employees can seriously compromise a businesses’ security.  Very often, when it comes to maintaining safety and security via social media, employees can end up being the biggest issue.

Whether it’s from posting on their personal page about things happening at work, or clicking on things they shouldn’t while using an office computer, employees can accidentally leak information or download mal-ware into your network without even realise they are doing it.

To help avoid the issues that can result in these seemingly small actions, here are some tips to assist you in keeping your business and your employees safe from social-media troubles, both at work and at home.

Advise Employees to Avoid Posting Info About Where They Work

Are You Building Trust with Your Small Business Social Media?

One thing that stands out today in the social media world we live in is that it’s important to develop a sense of trust with your followers. This is especially true for small and medium sized businesses, since the amount of trust between business and follower will only serve to build customer loyalty.

Grab our free Social Media checklist and free training here 

Trust is essential to building your brand, and even the best marketers in the world won’t be able to sell a product without first establishing trust with their customer base. They must create stories that offer a connection with their consumers.

But how do you go about building that trust?

Use Your Content

Using content is the most reliable method you have for developing trust with followers. Create insightful, meaningful content that will provoke emotion and establish a connect with your consumers.

Next, convert the data into graphical form

Social Media Tips - Why you should use Images with your posts.

A Picture Is Worth A 1,000 Words, You Need Them In Your Posts

You've heard the saying "A picture is worth a thousand words". I'm sure there are quite a few pictures out there like that, but when it comes to a blog post, that isn't always the case. 

Even so, you want to make sure your posts are visually appealing and attention grabbing. And good pictures are a great way to accomplish that.

Grab our free Social Media checklist and free training here

A Picture Can Draw Readers In

A picture will draw readers in and make them read your blog posts. Don't believe me? Have a look at some of the major news sites, big blogs or even your Facebook feed. It's the pictures that grab your attention in combination with the post title.

Try to find an image that tells the story of your post. The image should tell at a glance (with the help of the post title) what the blog post is all about. Of course you're not limited to just one image. If it fits the topic, grab a few to illustrate what you're talking about or show step-by-step progress.

You Need Pictures For Social Media Shares 

Leverage the Organic Power of Facebook for your Online Marketing

I started out on Facebook just as almost everyone else did. I opened an account, started finding other friends on the site and start communicating with them mostly by - I guess you could call it - Blog posting as a lot of what Facebook is really about at its base is a social platform - a blog site.

I was starting an online business and my initial focus when getting going was to write some articles, publish them to get known and then build them into books and market them on Amazon-Kindle. I did not have much more of a strategy than that in the beginning - I had just always wanted to write and publish a book. A bucket list item.

Grab our free Social Media checklist and free training here

As I began to delve in further into the world of Facebook - and this spans time - over the last couple of years in fact - I became aware of just how powerful this platform really is from a business and product marketing perspective. And I have learned a lot about the platform to date - yet I am constantly learning more things I can do on it to further my brand awareness and even close sales right on the platform itself. With this in mind, I want to share with you some ideas for using Facebook that you may not have thought of. Here is an initial list of ideas to get you started.

5 Quick Tips to Boost Engagement on Your Social Media Pages

Before you plan your next post, start using these easy engagement tips to set your pages on fire!

Read on for our favourite social engagement ideas to boost everything from page likes, post likes, comments, shares, followers, to full-blown stark raving mad fans!

Grab our free Social Media checklist and free training here 

1. Instagram - Boost Engagement & Conversions

50% of Instagram users follow at least one business, the app has continued to grow in popularity since being purchased by Facebook in 2012. Making Insta ideal for communicating your brand's message using visual content - however posting pimped up images is only one part of the equation. If it's engagement you're after (and it is... ), it's important to pimp up the captions that go with those awesome pics!

I've curated the main tips below; if you're after the real nuts and bolts see Aaron's full article at Social Media Today.

Write With an Authentic Tone of Voice - Instagram users aren't expecting a serious tone of voice - they're generally using the app in their free time to look at cool visuals and be entertained.

Include a CTA (Call To Action) - 65% of top-performing brands post on Instagram feature products. Directly instructing people to check out your product or make a purchase can work well on this platform.

Tips On Branding Your Business YouTube Channel

YouTube is the best option if you are thinking about leveraging social media marketing in order to grow your business. With its 1.3 billion users, YouTube is hailed as the second most searching website on the internet. Offering you the opportunity to expand your audience significantly and drive organic traffic to your website.

YouTube was considered a wild west of content, it is a place where marketers fight shy of uploading their promotions and commercials, let alone building a branded channel.

There are a lot of brands and companies now that are jumping on the bandwagon. It seems like every corporation and small businesses are already creating a branded channel on YouTube, but there are still few marketers who stuck to what strategies they have been practising with and managed to harvest the full potential of the platform.

If your brand already has a YouTube channel but in need of a little bit of a surgery, or if you are planning to develop one from scratch, then continue reading this article as this one will provide some essential tips and valuable techniques to help you get started.

Grab our free Social Media checklist and free training here 

The Laser Focus

It should be noted that everything on your channel center around one theme if you are going to run a health and fitness channel, your channels and videos should focus on health and fitness, not some beauty tutorials and gadget reviews or travel videos. By focusing on one topic, you brand yourself as an expert in that field.

The Science on YouTube

Your Social Media Strategy Needs These Five Things For Success

So, you are a business with the hopes of making it big, right? Well, before you begin your ascent to the top, you need to really work on every facet of your business's image, and this is certainly the case when it comes to your social media strategy.

After all, social media is the hot thing right now that has everyone communicating, in an instant, about things they like & don't like, as well as what's 'in' or 'out'. If you want your business to be a success, you most definitely want to be 'in'.

But how do you make sure that your business is doing a good job? How do you know you're accomplishing all of your goals? Can you actually tell if you're reaching your target audience? It's these questions, and more, that need to be answered in order to keep from wasting time & money, two of your most precious resources.

Grab our free Social Media checklist and free training here 

So, as you decide it's time to ramp things up with your social media strategy, you'll need these five things to take you to the next level:

1. Defined Business Goals

Get Your Local Business Found Online With SoLoMo

I always enjoy the looks that I receive from clients when I mention "SoLoMo". I can only imagine what they are thinking ("has he finally lost his mind?" Comes to mind a lot). In fact, I've memorised the explanation and have learned to quickly throw it out as soon as I bring it up. Still, SoLoMo is my favorite marketing method for local businesses, mainly because of the success that it has brought our clients, so it's a conversation that must be had with each and every local business owner that comes through our doors.

So, what the heck is SoLoMo?

SoLoMo is an acronym that stands for Social, Local, Mobile, and it taps into the buying patterns of more that 80% of consumers in today's connected world. Here's how it works:

Social

How many times have you scrolled your Facebook or Twitter feed and saw one of your contacts (or maybe you've even done it as well?) asking others about the best "insert cuisine here" restaurants in the area? Or how many times have you checked online reviews on Facebook, Google, Yelp etc. before going to a local business? I'll bet you're just as guilty as the other 62% of all online shoppers who do the exact same thing. And of that 62%, 75% of them end up clicking through to the business's website in the process.

Having a social presence online is no longer a choice for local businesses. Nearly EVERYONE has a smartphone these days and has near-instant access to information on any business in their local area. If your business isn't in that mix, you're going to lose customers to the ones that are... lots of customers.

Local

Local Businesses: Don't Neglect Your Online Reputation

The one thing every business relies on the most to win over customers is their reputation. If your company image isn't a good one, then you're going to forever suffer with gaining the trust of your audience. And if that's the case, good luck with converting them into customers. Local businesses should definitely take heed, especially since a lot of mobile device users are using the Web to find local businesses to shop at. Your online reputation management strategy is key for increasing foot traffic, don't overlook this!

No Business is Perfect

Every company has its share of negative reviews circulating the Internet, but this shouldn't deter you from getting a hold of what people see about your brand on the Web. The idea here is to try and resolve issues that are within reason. It will help you to possibly win back a customer you would have otherwise lost and it shows others reviewing the conversation that your brand is willing to go over and beyond to rectify mistakes. It's a win-win-win situation - the customer gets what they want, you win back their trust and you possibly get the business of new prospects.

5 Marketing Tips That Will Help Every Small Business - grab your free report here ow.ly/aUvG30bklGj

6 Ways To Increase Your Social Media Engagement

Zero engagement is one of the most irritating aspects of social media marketing. Posting day in and day out gives you no results. It happens with many people. At times, you do see one or two likes, but you hear nothing most of the time. Given below are a few good ways of rising above the noise so you can raise the engagement level on your social media pages.

The attraction

First of all, you should find out what attracts your target audience on social media. Maybe, they love Facebook and use the site to read up on news stories. You should post newsworthy content if you know that they love news. On the other hand, if they use Instagram, you may want to post your business photos to attract them.

Struggling to manage your social media? Free 30 day trial with Hootsuite will save you time ow.ly/Eebl308BwId

7 Creative Ways To Inject New Life Into Your Marketing Plan

All companies will find themselves at odds with their marketing strategy. This isn't to say that they are not getting the results they want from the plan. It just seems as though the plan in, and of itself, grows a bit stale and worn. What's more, all successful companies find that in order to stay on the cutting edge and attract new customers, they need to tweak their marketing approach to appeal to new audiences.

It’s a risk that has tremendous rewards, and even more key is the idea that you don't have to go too crazy with new approaches. With these seven slight, creative tweaks, you can breathe new life into your marketing:

1. Use Social Media a Little Differently

Small Business Marketing: 4 Social Media Metrics Tools

One of the reasons businesses use social media is for lead generation. For this reason, marketing tools are available to measure the return on investment (ROI). There is a host of tools to help companies reach their prospect goals such as Google Analytics, Hootsuite and Bit.ly. Like all online marketing strategies, social media requires knowledge and time to implement successfully.

There are some tools that measure all online marketing activities including website, referral traffic, return or new visitors and gender of the visitors that mostly read a site's content. I will start with one of the most popular measuring tools - Google Analytics.

The Best Social Media Platforms to Use in Your Business

How does one establish the best social media platforms to use in business?

As a company owner, your action plan is potentially never ending, so adding social media administration to your ever growing list of priorities can appear to be somewhat daunting.

There are a number of very distinctive platforms that are available to you and it often seems close to impossible to find the time to be able to engage and start using them all.

But the crucial point to remember is that one does not need to be on them all!

With only a limited amount of time and resources, your first task is to find out the social media platforms that will be of direct benefit to your business. In order to see, which would be the most appropriate for you, here is a quick guide as to what you should look out for. But first do need to decide if you really need to be on Social Media in the first place? That question should be a no brainer!

Hootsuite Review: Save Valuable Time With Hootsuite!

As busy entrepreneurs our days often speed by and time trickles away before our very eyes. The struggle to keep up with the demands of business is a daily battle, and any "work-around" or time-saving tool that adds precious minutes to an already stretched thin day is not only welcome, but appreciated.

Social media, as necessary as it is for business growth and lead generation, is just one more task many business owners struggle to fit in their already busy schedules. When juggling multiple social media accounts, third party tools like Hootsuite can be a time and life saver. Designed as a dashboard, Hootsuite allows users to connect to Facebook (business page and personal profile) LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter, and schedule content to be seen on these channels.

"Hootsuite is a third party service that allows businesses, organisations, and individuals to monitor, manage, and schedule their social media marketing activity by scheduling tweets and updates into the future."- Hootsuite

Click here for a FREE 30 day trial with Hootsuite to help you manage social media for your business.

7 Tips To Grow Sales Using Social Media

Social media has become a selling force for the marketing world and marketers are taking a great advantage of it. Recent survey shows that about 75% of sales and purchase decisions are done through social media evaluations in one way or the other. Even the way we do business and maintain customer relationship has changed drastically within the last few years all because of social media. 

The traditional way of selling both offline and online has changed from email marketing, networking, phone calls and face to face discussions to almost complete social media selling. That been said doesn't mean our traditional ways of selling are no longer good or in use but, we rather make better use of them combining social media selling information and experiments to grow sales using social media.

Growing sales using social media

Tips to Help Improve Your Social Media Marketing

When social media first emerged on the scene, it was underestimated by many brands. It's not 'til now we're seeing more and more business owners creating a presence on these platforms. The ones who jumped aboard early on are reaping the benefits now, especially if they had the assistance from social media marketing companies.

If you're a new business or one that has yet to try out social media marketing, then you should consider hiring professional services. You can also use the following tips to guide you along your path to building a strong brand on social platforms that are right for you.

Try One Platform at a Time 

How To Grow Your Business Via Social Media

As a business owner, you should at least have a basic working knowledge of what social media marketing is all about. You should know how to connect with people, especially your target market, through it, to create excellent content that moves people to act, and to create relationships.

You develop your business and it should all starts with being active on the social networks that matter and never let the customers forget about you. One way to continue reminding them that you're still around is to make some noise on your social pages.

The marketing is about communicating with your target audience, informing them about your business, and eventually getting them involved. It could produce customer feedback, leads, and the opportunity to give them excellent customer service. But you will not get the response that you are hoping for unless you share your information the right way.

There are a few steps that you need to follow if you want to use it to help your business grow.

Why Social Media Is Important to Your Small Business

1: It finds your customers and builds clientele

Many of us use Social Media on a regular basis. We use it to stay on top of what's trending, follow our favourite businesses, post our personal beliefs and so much more. I'd like to think of Social Media as the new "office water cooler" --- People are out there talking and they are waiting for your business to show up so they can discuss what you have to offer.

Customers need to trust a business, service or product before purchasing. People tend to trust their friends and loved ones more than anyone else. So, if your customers hear from someone trustworthy, about your product or service, it is reasonable to believe that they are more likely to purchase what you are selling. You could very reasonably market your products and services using, mostly, word of mouth.

Want to manage your social media better? Click here.

How to Increase and Manage Social Media Presence

30 Free Trial on Hootsuite! Click here.

Building a social media presence is crucial for businesses that want to become successful online. A good Internet marketing strategy needs to create good content and share it across the social web. The likelihood of customers following the social media marketing strategy of your business increases significantly if you make the content appealing and compelling.

Irrespective of whether you have a small or big business, you need to have a social presence. Social media management is one of the easiest ways to connect with clients and customers and most businesses have started utilising it to reach the targeted audience.

Create great content

When you create irresistible content, users may feel that they may have to share this content with the rest of the world. Use humour and provide insight so that readers can make the connection that compels them to share it with others. The content needs to be visually appealing as this can make a big impact.

Social Media - Do You Have a Strategy?

Social media has the same principles as face to face networking and is the most important part of your marketing. It not only enhances your relationship building but reinforces the outcomes you want from your business. We need to have strategies for our social media to help us achieve what we have created by making sure it is in both our business and marketing plans.

Most small businesses are not aware of how important it is to have both a business and marketing plans so that they are moving in the right direction. If we do not know what we want our business to be in the future, we can't create it, so the clarity of our VISION for our business is very important. Social media gives us the opportunity to market ourselves to a wider group of people and businesses whom we would never have the opportunity to connect.