Top Eight Benefits of Social Media Marketing

Photo by opportplanet on Flickr

Most business men today have already realized that social media marketing, although considered a fad, is one powerful tool that they should utilize while still in trend. 

According to a survey conducted by Hubspot this year, 92% of entrepreneurs responded that that they considered social media marketing to be essential, with 80% reporting that their efforts did increase website traffic. As per Social Media Examiner, 97% are participants of social media; however, 85% of them are unsure of which tools of social media they should use. 

Hence, we can conclude that social media has good ability to boost sales, but entrepreneurs as to attaining this, some entrepreneurs still lack the knowledge and comprehension. With this in mind, this article was made to help you know a few benefits of how social media marketing could help reach your company’s goals.

1. Increase of Brand Recognition

Each chance you have of syndicating your content and increasing your online presence is of much importance. That’s because your social media platforms are now your brand’s new channels for voice and content. Hence, your brand is more familiar or recognizable to old customers while reachable to new ones at the same time. 

2. Improvement of Brand Loyalty

The Texas Tech University published a report stating that social media platforms have more loyalty from customers. Hence, the report concluded that companies should make use of the the social media tools in terms of audience connection. Having an open and strategic social media scheme can be effective in establishing consumer loyalty to your brand. 

3. Increase of Conversion Opportunities

For each post you do on your social media account, you are increasing your opportunities of customer conversion. When you have many users following you, you have instant simultaneous access to old, recent and new customers. This means you now have the chance to establish connection with them through every status, picture, video or blog you post. There is every chance for this interaction to prompt a website visit and finally, a consequent conversion. 

5. Increase of Inbound Traffic 

Thanks to social media marketing, your inbound traffic won’t be limited to customers who already know your brand. Keep in mind that with each social media profile added, more paths that lead back to your website are added. At the same, every content syndication of such profiles is also another favorable chance for a new visitor. 

6. Decrease of Marketing Expenses

Spending even just an hour of everyday to improve your strategy for content and syndication would surely reap favorable results. Depending on your business goals, paid advertising via Twitter and Facebook start out relatively cheap. It’s wise to start small though and once you already get the hang of how it works, you can raise your budget and conversions accordingly.

7. Improvement of SEO Rankings 

Google does calculation of rankings employing social media presence as one key factor due to established brands always using it. With that, your activeness in social media is an indication to search engines that you have a legitimate, trustworthy and credible brand. Hence, in the objective of ranking with your chosen keywords, it would seem that having a strong social media presence is necessary. 

8. Improvement of Customer Relationship

With each interaction you have with your customer, you are given the opportunity to demonstrate the quality of your service publicly and enhance relationship. If you receive a compliment of your offered product or service, be sure to thank them. For complaints, it would be prudent to respond through a public apology and addressing the concern immediately. More importantly, all these comments and complaints give you an insight to your customer’s needs and behavior, which you can act upon to retain their satisfaction and patronage. 

Get access to great articles like these! Follow me on:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JasonBettinger

LinkedIn: http://au.linkedin.com/in/bettingerjason

Six Simple Social SEO Tips for Small and Medium Businesses

Before launching into these tips, it would be prudent to first define some terms that you are sure to encounter when in this kind of online marketing strategy.

SEO. This acronym actually stands for Search Engine Optimization. It means being able to maximize the number of visitors to your website by ensuring that it appears on the first page of results given by a search engine, particularly Google.

SERP. This stands for Search Engine’s Results Page.

Social SEO. This term indicates the concept that links and interaction of social media play a key role in the search rankings of a website.

SEO is a complicated process but it’s basically about optimization of content, either your website or social media account, for the purpose of appearing higher or in page 1 of Google when searched by users.

And so, here are the six simple tips of Social SEO that will give you a good head start:

1. Optimization of your social media profiles.

To make your social media profile friendly, you need to make it as descriptive as you can. Make it a point to write content on informative sections like “About” or “Information” employing keywords that don’t just best describe your offered business, but also regular terms people would use when searching for services offered by your business.

An example would be while in the process of optimizing your Facebook Page for local searches,  it’s essential that you key in your complete address. Moreover, it’s ideal that you include links of your social media channels to your business website and vice versa.

Useful Tip: Although mostly overlooked, the field, “Category” is vital for Facebook searches done on mobile. Make sure you have your business checked or listed under the right category while filling out or editing fundamental information.

2. Optimization of your social media updates and content.

To do this, ensure that you make use of relevant keywords in your posts, updates and descriptions in Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and other social media accounts. It’s equally essential that you share content from your blog or website as well to increase your SEO. Twitter content sharing is particularly ideal as it aids Google in indexing faster. For the record, indexing refers to having Google add your business URL to their database.

Useful Tip: To help Google build an association of your business name to the keywords you used to describe your business, always mention it in your social media posts.

3. Link building through sharing of content.

SEO would not succeed without link building. Sounds complicated but it basically means establishing a good relationship of your website to other websites through links. The more quality sites your website is linking with (outbound) and the more quality sites there are linking to yours as well (inbound), the more authoritative your website would be to Google. More authority would result into a higher rank in SERP.

Getting people to like, share, retweet, repin, +1s and comment on your content contribute to such an objective. Writing content that entices people to share leads to more inbound links. The important thing to remember through engaging social posts, your SEO value is increased.

Useful Tip: Adding social share buttons to each content on your blog or website can contribute to increasing your number of shares.

4. Making use of Pinterest.

Apart from making it very easy to create content that is shareable, Pinterest offers an effective way of  link building and keyword strategy improvement. It’s a given fact that Google is fond of indexing heavy-traffic website pages faster and higher. That said, you can give the visibility of your content in SERPs a boost by making keywords part of your title and description of a Pinterest post. Note that since you have a maximum of 500 characters in the latter, it’s good to put keywords there too.

Added to that, you can have the pin link customized so that it would redirect people to your blog or website. This is another great way of increasing your chances of getting your content to have a higher SERP ranking. Technically, Pinterest enables you to do certain things that don’t come with other social sites, so word to the wise: Make good use of this advantage.

Useful Tip: Images with high resolution are preferred by Google so when you’re on Pinterest, try your best to make use of images with .high quality.

5. Have a Google+ account and spend 10 minutes on it everyday.

Google+ is well-loved by, of course, Google. So, make a Google+ page for your business, making sure to fill out most, or all, fields under the “About” section and using relevant keywords that would give the best description for your business.

As Google permits addition of a number of customized links in your profile, make use of this advantage by linking it back to your blog, website or other social media accounts. Just ten minutes of content sharing to your Google+ page daily would already increase your chances of appearing in the most coveted SERP of Google.

6. Creation of a Google+ Local Listing.

Google says 97% of potential clients do an online search of local businesses. To do well in results of local searches, optimization of your Google+ Local Listing is of vital importance. Note that a Local Google+ page differs from a business page as it focuses on allowing customers to connect with the physical location of a business.  So keep your business contact and operational details up to date.

Here are more important points to remember:

Make your business's social media accounts public.
Make a Facebook Page for your business, not a Facebook Profile.
Remember to customize the URL of your Facebook..
Use your business name on your Facebook Page and Twitter account.
Upload images on your social media accounts with filenames that are meaningful to give you a better rank.
Do not ever duplicate the content from another website.
Resist the temptation to try seemingly easy and fast way of SEO improvement. Such techniques more often illegal and you are a candidate for a Google penalty if you do so.

Get access to great articles like this one! Follow me on:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JasonBettinger
LinkedIn: http://au.linkedin.com/in/bettingerjason

Four Ways of How Blogging Can Help Your Business

Whether your business is small, multinational or in between, it doesn’t make any difference. The main point is blogging plays an integral role to your overall content marketing strategy. So, how exactly does it help your business? Let us give you four ways.

Photo by jmoneyyyyyyy on Flickr

1. Drives Traffic Back to Your Website.

Blogging offers you the chance to make content that is both interesting and relevant for your target customers. Recognize that this opportunity makes an effective marketing scheme to drive traffic to your website.

To give your blog more exposure, post its link on all your social media accounts, whether in Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn and the like. Of course, you need to make sure that your blog comes with an attractive image before promoting it. This gives your followers reason to go to your website. It is also wise to post inbound links in your blogs as this drives traffic to specific landing pages.

2. Gives Your SEO or SERP a Boost.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization while SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page. It’s no secret that blogging contribute much to increasing your SEO. The old and trusted way of creating fresh and original content is still the best way to getting ahead of your competitors in the SERP.

Make use of keywords in writing your articles. Likewise, list the topics and categories that can be associated with your business and use these, together with your keywords, in writing your posts. Note that all these are significant ways wherein Google, as well as other search engines, locate your site.

Regular blogging about your products, services, business, industry and consumer lifestyles increases your search keywords. Being actively intent about them are sure to boost results.

3. Positions your brand as a leader of your industry.

If your articles are written well, it only goes to show that your company is an industry leader. Posting topics that relate to your target customers and show your expertise or knowledge would also give a glimpse of the skills you for the products and services you are offering.

If, for instance, you are a retailer, writing blogs about your products would have your customers look up to you as their knowledge source of the particular products they wish to buy. If you have a B2B business, posting well-researched blogs about your services would make you an industry hub. All these contribute to building trust and credibility among your customers.

4. Develops better relationships with your customers.

Blogging gives a chance for you to connect with your customers better. Your articles give them insights to your products and services as well as informing and educating them of things that associated with what you have to offer.

For example, your product may be about baby strollers. Your blogs can touch on the kinds of double strollers there are and what benefits they can offer to parents in terms of features and the lifestyle they lead. You could also be offering marketing services so you can write about articles that teach them the latest marketing trends with today’s digital technology. You are giving your blogs value because your customers are learning a lot from them.

Likewise, be sure to have direct interaction with your customers. Respond to comments posted in your websites and social media accounts. Don’t be stingy with your answers as you can post longer ones compared to that of Twitter. This builds trust and credibility because your customers will feel that you are there, ready to address their queries and help them with any concerns.

Get access to more great articles like these! Follow me on:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/JasonBettinger
LinkedIn: http://au.linkedin.com/in/bettingerjason