Using Visual Content for Your Small Business Marketing

When tackling a content marketing campaign, you need to know what will rouse online growth and engagement for your small business. Text-based content will always be important, but in this digital era, visual content is integral to the success of content marketing.

Websites that are mobile-optimised should focus on visual content as the internet has made attention spans shorter than ever. The popularity of content presented in big blocks of text is long gone.

It makes sense to use visual content when over 50 percent of people are visual learners. Content that resonates psychologically is said to be at least 43 percent more persuasive. To reach your audience on a deeper level, here are 3 types of visual content to incorporate in your next campaign:

Compelling Images

Images are the first thing people think of when it comes to visual content. Knowing to add images to your content marketing campaign isn’t the hard part, it’s choosing the right type of images to get your point across.

Just like relevant keywords are important in text-based content, high quality and relevant images are vital to visual marketing. When deciding on how to choose images for your campaign follow these tips:

• Aim for original images over stock photos
• Candid photos over posed
• Capture a feeling

Will GDPR Affect My Small Business?

There is a general sense of panic and impending doom for small business owners as the May 25th deadline draws closer for the new General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR)!

It's not a topic that I would generally get excited about BUT this time we don't have a choice, it pretty much impacts everyone who has a business, whether you are a sole trader, solopreneur, small business, online business or home business, you need to be prepared!

Knowing the answers to basic questions like these is important if not critical.

- What is it?

- Does it affect me and my business?

- What if I run a very small business?

- Can I ignore it?

- What do I need to do to be compliant?

The new regulations cover the whole of Europe and will be current even after Brexit and with a deadline of May 25^th 2018 you need to act now.

How To Be More Effective With Your Small Business Social Media Posts

It never fails, you received a free eBook and get excited to read about the latest, and best, way to utilised Social Media posting for your small business.  You hungrily tear through the information and then re-write your marketing plan to implement this new strategy only to receive entirely different information the next day, week, month, and so on.

Fortunately, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, thanks to CoSchedule.  In their great wisdom, they have put together information from a variety of reports to provide you with the last word in Social Media Post schedules.

We learned in school that there are many different time zones across the world with 4 time zones just in the U.S.A.  So, with clients spread from sea to shining sea, what are the best times to post on the various social media platforms?

No cost social media and online marketing training here

To decide this, we need to take into consideration where most of these clients are living.  According to Census records, 80% of those people living in the United States are found in the Eastern and Central time zones.  It would make sense, then, to focus our schedules on time as it is followed in those locations. If all your clients are in the UK, then posting for the GMT time zone would make more sense.

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Top Tips for Small Business Content Marketing

You probably read a great deal about how important the right content is for your small business in addition to continually striving to create the perfect content for your business every time. The fact is that your content marketing materials are so much more than merely top-quality, compelling, educational content. They need to earn you a good living.

Getting your marketing materials to produce the right results

If your marketing materials don't produce the type (and level) of results that you need them to produce, the chances are really great that you will not continue to use those content materials. Of course, the concept is extremely simple; however, achieving the goals that you have set up to achieve are not necessarily as easily obtainable.

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A content marketing approach that works

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

7 Tips To Use Instagram in Your Small Business Marketing

Instagram, once the red-headed stepchild of the social media world, has now turned into a runaway beer truck, exceeding 700 million users in early 2017. Small businesses are now adopting the social media platform as a primary method of generating revenue. Today, Instagram boasts over 1 million advertisers.

So if everyone else is on Instagram, why isn’t your business? Not leveraging Instagram for your small business is a lost opportunity, and should be remedied immediately! The potential Instagram provides from a marketing perspective is enormous! So let’s get started.

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Here are a few tips on marketing and gaining a following:

Use Those #hashtags

Are Lack of Reviews Effecting Your Small Business?

Reviews are a great way for your small business customers to get an idea of what your business is like. Through reviews they know what services you offer, how well you offer them, and the quality of your products without even leaving their home.

Reviews are also a valuable tool for a small business to know what their customers think about them. It’s a convenient way to get honest feedback of your services and find out what you need to fix to keep your customers satisfied.

What your customers say about you is just as much advertising for your business as any marketing strategy you could employ. It’s unfiltered, honest, and sometimes a bit dramatic.

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While reviews can be loud and sometimes deceiving, no reviews at all can garner the same effect. Are no reviews better than bad reviews? Read ahead to find out.

Is your business good or bad? No one knows…