Popular Articles on Business 2 Community

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• Top 3 Marketing Mistakes in Social Media Right Now
• 4 Social Media Predictions For 2014: The Future Of Content Marketing
• 6 Small Business Marketing Trends For 2014
• 6 SEO Mistakes That Are Killing Your Google Rankings
• Social Media and the Travel Industry
• How to Deal with Unhappy Customers
• Social Smackdown: Hootsuite vs Sprout Social
• Why Content Marketing Is Essential For Your Business
• 11 Small Business Social Media Ideas Inspired By Festivus
• 4 Ways to Improve Shopping Cart Conversions with Social Infrastructure
• Why Depending Solely On PPC Is A Very Big Marketing Fail
• 27 Extraordinarily Powerful Conversion Tips from Thought Leaders

Top 3 Marketing Mistakes in Social Media Right Now Posted: 09 Dec 2013 06:36 AM PST Ever since social media took off, businesses have jumped on the bandwagon to tap the online market. Social media marketing is now a fixture in any online marketing strategy. Originally, it was all about SEO, now it's about content. Many businesses have learned the value of social media, but not all of them are using it the right way. Here are the top three marketing mistakes in social media right now: Selling instead of building relationships. Social media is not a marketing tool. People go to social media networks to share experiences, swap stories, and get in touch with their peers and loved ones, not to look at ads.  More importantly, getting Likes does not translate to sales. Businesses should focus on building relationships with their customers in social media. It’s a great platform to tell customers who they are and what their business stands for. Direct selling won’t make their brand stand out. They’ll get drowned out by the noise of other ads and inconsequential posts. Targeting "eyeballs" instead of results. Using social media for brand exposure is understandable. But it's not about the quantity of posts or getting all the social media platforms covered. One of the most common tactic is to entice people into sharing a link of an ad by offering a prize. This sounds like a good idea to generate buzz. But in hindsight, this is similar to email sharing schemes (forward to ten friends and get a chance to win an iPad!). It won’t make a lasting impression. Did it generate actual sales or get passed around until people got tired of it? Every social media network is a community within itself and has a different audience. Businesses can still launch targeted social media campaigns while building a relationship with their customers. Instead of direct selling, they can either entertain or provide a solution to a problem. This creates content that people would share and remember. As a result, it becomes an organic marketing campaign that fosters customer interest and loyalty. Incessant advertising instead of engaging stories. Combining the two mistakes above – selling and peddling to every social media website – can turn into ineffective advertising. Engaging story arcs such as the "Dove Inner Beauty" campaign is good for social media marketing because it's relatable, shareable and ignites discussion. If you want your brand to stand out, give your audience something to take away and share online and offline. Social media can be a powerful tool, but businesses shouldn’t forget what it stands for. It’s about sharing and interacting in a virtual environment. You don’t like being bothered by telemarketers and door-to-door salesmen, so why have them in a social space?

4 Social Media Predictions For 2014: The Future Of Content Marketing Posted: 09 Dec 2013 06:23 AM PST There were plenty of trends that emerged in 2013 few of us predicted. Facebook offered a reported $3 Billion for Snapchat, more than triple its $1 Billion deal with Instagram. HINT: Keep on eye on Snapchat. Because of the rising importance of Google Plus as a ranking factor, most of us in the blogging profession have added Google authorship code to our blogs and focused on populating our Google Plus pages. Pinterest continued to rise in popularity, unveiled a new look and added analytics, making it a useful tool for marketers. And despite what you think of Miley Cyrus, if my own mother is using the word "twerk" then we can safely say Miley was a dominant force in 2013. Even this Worst Twerk Fail EVER video (which turned out to be a hoax) made the rounds over 9 million times at last count before it was revealed as a big joke. Let no one say this girl and her friends aren't smart. So what's in store for us in 2014? I can't possibly predict what Miley Cyrus will do, but I can tell you what I think we'll see in social media and content marketing. Here are a few of my predictions. Hashtags will become the dominant call to action Since almost all of the major players in social media are using hashtags to aggregate content, with Facebook adding the functionality in June of 2013, I'm predicting more campaigns based around them rather than individual platforms. As recent as a year ago it was typical for marketers to add their web address and social buttons for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc to most of their advertising collateral. Increasingly it makes more sense to develop a unique hashtag for a campaign or brand conversations and use the tag instead of social connections, scooping up conversations wherever they take place. Twitter will provide better analytics If you don't have an enterprise social media analytics tool it's difficult to measure the impact of your efforts. That doesn't mean there is no way to measure social media ROI, it just means it's been a convoluted process. With Twitter going public in 2013, it makes sense for them to offer a tool for marketers to prove ROI, even for those not using their advertising platform. Pinterest Place Pins bring even more attention to location data With Pinterest's addition of place pins with Foursquare mapping, I'm predicting more brands will claim their Foursquare page and keep the data updated. Even though Foursquare had been predicted to fail in 2013, instead its location data has been popping in applications like Instagram and Pinterest. Rather than fail, I'm predicting platforms will begin integrating Foursquare's location data and the ability to push notifications to users based on their location. "How was your visit to Fairport?" Foursquare asked me immediately after I returned to Ohio from a trip to New York recently. That's powerful stuff. Social Media and Content Marketing budgets increase Just as it used to be a luxury to have a website (think early to mid nineties) social media and content marketing budgets will continue to increase in 2014. Putting paid resources behind content will be a necessity as companies realize the value of managing their online reputations and providing useful content to users that have been trained to expect it. Consumers now do most of their purchasing research on their own BEFORE contacting sales. Saavy companies will provide that information at the top of the funnel if they want to stay competitive. Google's continual changes to its algorithm to focus on useful content from a trusted author and its elimination of keyword data in Google analytics will steer marketers toward creating content that is helpful and useful. What do you predict is in store for us in 2014? Leave me your thoughts in the comments.

6 Small Business Marketing Trends For 2014 Posted: 09 Dec 2013 06:11 AM PST As the world of marketing evolves and becomes more complex, one has to wonder how small business owners can stay abreast of what marketing trends are emerging, never mind figure out which are worth investing in for their particular situation. Let me offer some help. First, as you update (or create) your marketing plan for 2014 (get your template here), ask yourself: Will the marketing activities that have been effective continue to work for my business? Will I need to add new marketing tactics or simply make adjustments to those in which we currently invest? What should I be adding to my marketing activities that are worth my time and effort? 6 small business marketing trends that are important for your upcoming marketing efforts. 1. The integrated marketing plan becomes popular again Integrated marketing plan becomes popular Although I'm not a huge fan of complex marketing plans, I do believe having a plan is more important for small businesses than they realize. A marketing plan focuses your efforts and helps you avoid wasting time and money doing things that aren't moving your business towards your goals. And now, with all the varying online activities – email marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, mobile marketing, search marketing – you need one place where you define what you will be doing and in what time frame. 2. Content marketing dominates small business marketing strategies Content marketing dominates small business marketing Today's buyers are smart – we no longer want to be sold and we are sure going to know a lot about the possible solutions to our problems before we make a purchase decision. In fact, according to the Corporate Executive Board (CEB) almost 60% of the purchase decision is made before prospects reach out to vendors. This means the buyer is finding content from expert sources to help them determine the best solution to their problem. Almost 80% of marketers with company blog report ROI To position your business as an expert resource, you need to create content that speaks to your audience, helping them determine the best route to take. What this means for small businesses is that you need to have a blog if you don't already have one and you must keep adding new, fresh content regularly. Blogs convert readers into buyers. 42% of consumers look to blogs for information about potential purchases; 52% say blogs have impacted their purchase decisions. According to Hubspot's 2013 State of Inbound Marketing, almost 80% of marketers with a company blog have acquired new customers. 3. Case studies get reinvented into content marketing stories It's hard to continually produce content that is relevant to your audience. Most small businesses have plenty of satisfied customers but few use these experiences as a source of rich content that will help others understand how you solve a problem better than anyone else. But did you know that for B2B marketers customer testimonials (89%) and case studies (88%) have the highest effectiveness rating for influencing potential buyers? And 85% of consumers say that they read online reviews for local businesses and 73% of consumers say positive customer reviews make them trust a business more. Most of us underestimate the value of what we do really well because what we do for our clients may seem so simple to us. We are taught that things of value must be difficult, therefore what we do which is easy for us has no value. Just remember that your ideal clients are willing to pay you to do what you do best because it solves a problem or fulfills a need, regardless of how simple it may seem to you. Your existing clients and customers can often provide inspiration for your most powerful and engaging content spoken in the language your customer understands. 4. Marketing activities evolve from mobile enabled to mobile optimized Mobile enabled evolves to mobile optimized A year ago in my post on small business marketing trends for 2013, I said that mobile support was mission critical and that mobile responsive design would be the most popular small business solution. Today, responsive design is just the first step. If you are like me, you read email, participate in social media and research information regularly via your mobile device. According to Pew Internet research, 63% of adult cell owners now use their phones to go online and 34% of these cell internet users say that they mostly go online using their cell phone. With this growth, if the first impression a buyer has of your brand on their smartphone or tablet is not the experience they expect, you can potentially lose a customer before you even know they are interested. Review your marketing tools and determine if mobile access provides a user experience that doesn't detract from the message you are trying to convey: Can your email newsletters be easily read? Is your website content consumable? Can the visitor fill in your contact forms? Can they use the shopping cart easily from their mobile device? Going forward, mobile needs to be at least an equal partner with the web browser if not the primary platform for all marketing, taking the lead in design and usability. 5. Getting and staying visible is no longer an option If I can't find your business online, do you really exist? If I can't find your business online, do you really exist? I ask this question every time I am speaking with a small business owner who is wondering if they should create a solid web presence for their business. 93% of online research starts with a search engine, and 68% of consumers check out companies on social networking sites before buying. Online visibility is a must, so every small business needs a strategy that increases their visibility when someone is in need of their products or services. Although your web presence begins with a well-designed, mobile responsive website and integrated blog, it is much more. Start with a web presence analysis to find out how visible your business is today. Once you have your baseline visibility, then add marketing activities that help increase and optimize your presence on social media and online directories. 6. Simplicity in marketing will become the norm Simplicity in marketing will become the norm Many marketers feel that today's buyers are web-savvy, mobile-enabled researchers capable of sifting through the complex information about a product or service in order to make a purchase decision. In reality, buyers are looking for trustworthy information that helps them easily and efficiently weigh their purchase options. Too many options and messages can paralyze decision making, encouraging the buyer to look at your competitors. Keep your marketing simple. It will help both you and your prospective customer. Make your value clear, your purchase process simple and customer service awesome. Focus on creating websites and marketing materials whose design is clean and message is clear to attract more people to your business. What small business marketing trends will effect you? Evaluate where you are with these areas for your business and add to your plan where necessary. Get ready for 2014 and have the best year in your business yet. What small business marketing trends do you think are critical to your success?

6 SEO Mistakes That Are Killing Your Google Rankings Posted: 09 Dec 2013 06:04 AM PST SEO Tactics for Quick Wins SEO mistakes are easy to make, difficult to fix, and can be extremely costly for your business. Search engine optimization is not just about keywords anymore.  There is much more to it than these aspects which we will cover in this article. Our goal is to provide some quick wins for your website that don't require you to be an SEO expert to get your optimization back on track. Losing just a couple of spots in the SERPs (search engine result pages) can cost your business more than you think as 62% of traffic is generated from the Top 2 organic search results. That's right, just making it to the first page of Google or any other search engine isn't enough to capture the majority of the traffic your desire.  Being ranked in the Top 2 results should be your goal. Having a sound (white hat) SEO strategy doesn't leave a lot of room for error, so without further delay here are the 6 mistakes that are killing your Google rankings. 1. Duplicate Content Creating duplicate content is one of the most common oversights made by website designers and beginner SEO's.   Duplicating content will not only dilute the value of your links contained within each web page and your site, but can also lead to a penalization by Google. There are many ways to create duplicate content within your website without even knowing so be sure you review the following: The first spot to check are your blog Tags. Every Tag you create will duplicate the original blog article and list within the Tag.  Example: If I post this article onto my blog and then Tag it under "SEO" then the article will be duplicated, so be careful of not using too many tags with each article. Do you have printer-friendly pages on your website? We have seen many companies set these pages up with the exact same copy of the standard page creating duplicate content. Your homepage.  That's right, we have seen a few companies that had multiple homepages and they didn't even know it. Tip: Check the internal links on your pages as well. If you are linking to www.abc123.com then be sure you are not also linking to www.abc123.com/index.html.  This will dilute your link value. 2. Page Loading Speed A one to two second difference in page load time can make a big difference for Google and the user experience.  Since SEO has a lot to do with the user experience think about how long you will actually wait on a new site for a page to load.   Having your pages load in 4 seconds or less should be the goal, but if you can achieve a faster result that is even better. A couple of technical aspects to consider is the backend of the website infrastructure.  The back end includes database servers, CDN's, and any back-end applications attached to your site that could be slowing it down. Tip: Try and keep your images smaller than 400×200 pixels for most of your images, excluding larger images above the fold on your homepage. Here is an in depth article on How Website Speed Actually Impacts Search Ranking posted on the Moz.com blog. 3. Not Updating Old Content Performing good SEO on your website is like having a pet.  You need to feed it regularly, nurture it, and you definitely don't want to forget about it and neglect it. Your website and blog content is in the same boat as your pet. Google loves fresh content, so be sure to go back and check on your older content from time to time and update it with new links and even content.  There is nothing wrong with adding content to a blog post that is 6 months old and has fallen in rank a few spots. Tip:  Don't forget about updating your meta description and the ALT text behind your images as well especially if your keyword strategy has changed or need to be updated as well. 4. Writing for Search Engines Your customers or in this case your website visitors should always come first. Never write your content for the search engines and always focus on providing value for the customer. Well-optimized content may attract more visitors to your website, but if they don't translate into sales they have no value to you. Optimize the volume or length of your text based on customer feedback.  All to often we see sites that think Google wants between 800-1000 words per page so they create every page to this same spec and even stuff keywords in as filler. A great example is Seth Godin's blog.  The majority of his posts are less than 200 – 300 words, but they are chalk-full of extremely valuable content so both visitors and Google love him. 5. Bad or No Meta Descriptions and Title Tags There isn't much visual separation for search results aside from the text that is used in the meta description and your Title Tags. Here are two results for the search term – inbound marketing. You will see in the first result that the primary keyword phrase in the Title Tag is Content Marketing Agency. The second result uses Inbound Marketing Agency as the primary in the Title Tag. Keep in mind that people read from left to right on web pages just like reading a book so having your keyword phrase at the beginning of your Title Tag (far left) will benefit the reader. The component is in the meta description. You can see that we have clearly used the exact match keyword phrase of inbound marketing where the first result uses inbound and content marketing.  Both of these are good examples for SEO.  The question becomes which one is better optimized for the search query inbound marketing from the searchers perspective?  We believe the second result wins out here. 6. Hiring a Bad SEO Hiring an SEO is a tricky process that business owners tend to navigate without being educated.  The lack of education about SEO makes it easy for praying SEO's to manipulate the sales process and the business owner. First and foremost you must understand some of the basics of good SEO and what we call Black hat SEO. You will want to stay as far away from the Black Hat guys as you can. Making a bad decision on who you hire can lead to diminishing results and even penalization or being sandboxed by Google.   Being sandboxed means that your website basic falls out of Google ranking altogether, so if you rely on your website to drive revenue which most businesses do nowadays then choose wisely. Here are 6 ways to make sure your hire a good SEO: Don't purchase based on price alone.  If it sounds too good to be true, than it probably is. Give a lot of credit to the SEO that is trying to manage your expectations and doesn't promise immediate results.  There are NO guarantees with SEO. Check references and case studies prior to signing an agreement. Make sure they have experience in your industry.  This is critical, as the SEO must know your buyer personas. Deliverables are clearly articulated. This can be a tough one because good SEO requires a lot of research and id ever changing, but sure to get a documented scope of work. Learn about SEO.  Do as much research as you can about SEO and how to hire an SEO before you embark on your quest for Google's Glory. Search engine marketing is just that. Marketing. SEO is not just about stuffing as many keywords as you can fit onto your homepage anymore.  Creating valuable content and optimizing for the user experience should always be the top priority. As a business owner you need to arm yourself with as much knowledge about SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing) as you can so you can diligently evaluate vendors and make the right choice for your business. To gets started with your SEO education here a couple of great articles for your first homework assignment: SEO Tips Even Your Grandmother Can Understand 4 Basic Tips to Boost Your SEO Results

Social Media and the Travel Industry Posted: 08 Dec 2013 05:34 PM PST Everyone travels as some point in their life. Some travel of for work and some is for pleasure. No matter what your reason for traveling, there is no question that social media will make it easier and more convenient no matter what your destination and how you get there. If you look around you on your trip, you will see that most people are using some sort of electronic device for a variety of things. Social media is still all the rage and that situation is not going to change anytime soon. Most airports and other travel destinations offer free Wi-Fi and people take advantage of that whenever they can. You can find whatever information you are seeking and it is really valuable. That never would have been the case before the technological advances emerged and became so readily available. In addition to all the other social media tools, Skype works all over the world for free and many people love to use Skype to connect with other people and to see them while they are speaking with them. The positives of social media and travel Social media has really made it a reality that staying in touch will never be impossible again. No matter where you are and which social media tool you choose to use, you have the capability of staying in touch at will. You can speak with someone in different geographic areas and in different time zones. Absolutely nothing is impossible. The idea and implementation of being able to use social media to connect around the world means that the quality of your life and life/work balance has improved tremendously. All of your online connections are only a click of a button away from you. When it comes to getting your hands on information, the sky is the limit on that also. Anything that you could possibly want to know is at your fingertips. If you want to go somewhere, do something, or just simply learn a fact about something, it is all there at your fingertips (literally). Applying social media to traveling Interestingly, there is so much information on traveling available through social media that it is difficult, at times, to figure out which informati0n is the most valuable for you at the time. You may be asking yourself how in the world you will ever find the time to absorb all of the information in one lifetime! If you have solid relationships with people online, you may want to consider asking them for advice in an effort to pare down the information to make it easier and more realistic for your purposes. If it becomes too much of an effort for you to wade through a huge amount of information, it may make you feel discouraged about trying to absorb any information at all. If a person doesn't have patience, he or she may figure that it is easier to take the chance of the trip being a success without any help at all from social media. That would be a shame because social media holds a great deal of value. On the other hand, if you can manage to get valuable travel advice from people you know and trust, it could be invaluable to you. There is no better feeling than collaborating with one of your valuable online connections to help you in your social media pursuits. Conclusion Social media is a part of almost every aspect of life in this day and age. Taking advantage of social media for travel and creating a synergy between the two is sensible and beneficial to you and your business. It is a really smart thing to do. You should rely on the advice of other people to help you with valauble, current information. Take advantage of all of the new and exciting technology tools that are available to you. You now have the capability to plan and execute any travel plan that you want using social media. You don't even have to leave the comfort of your own home. Until you actually have the opportunity to physically be in a particular place, there are online tools that can virtually make you feel as if you are in that place. We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. For a complimentary assessment of your online presence, let’s have coffee .

How to Deal with Unhappy Customers Posted: 08 Dec 2013 02:30 PM PST No one likes to receive a complaint, but it really is a matter of whether they arrive sooner or later. 96% of unhappy customers don't actually complain. However, 91% of them will simply leave and never come back. Knowing this, wouldn't you agree that a complaining customer is sometimes better than one that is silent but halfway out the door? Having unhappy customers might be a second chance in disguise. Here are some tips to help you deal with unhappy costumers. It's all About Brand Reputation In this era of social media, people frequently turn to social networks to complain, and they can be really rude about it sometimes. What you need is the skill not to respond unkindly, because your answer may well be read by anyone. Protect your brand by being kind – always. It's not Personal Always remember that complaints are not personal, and that the customer's anger is not directed to the employee, but towards the company in general. This fact will help you to remain calm and polite. If you listen with understanding & sympathy, even the angriest customer will calm down. Listen Carefully Find out what their problem is, so you can work towards alleviating it and not towards a solution that does not actually help them in any way. The point is to resolve the customer's issue. Before taking action, verify that what you're doing really helps the customer by asking the customer himself/herself. Once a resolution is agreed, act quickly to implement it. All the customer really wants is a listening ear that will respect their point of view, and work towards helping them. Don't make Excuses No matter what or who caused the problem, never blame your customers (even if they have caused the issue). Making excuses is simply a waste of time, and it makes customers even more annoyed. Instead, take full responsibility and do whatever you can in your power to solve the problem as quickly as possible. A Unique Opportunity to Improve your Service Think about customer complaints as opportunities to improve your service and to transform unhappy customers into fans. Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. Employees who handle customer service complaints quickly, efficiently and professionally take advantage of a unique opportunity: the chance to turn an unhappy customer into a satisfied customer. According to a report by White House Office of Consumer Affair , happy customers who get their issue resolved tell about 4-6 people about their experience. Not bad, right? Next time you have to deal with a disappointed customer, remember that it takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one unresolved negative experience, so believe me when I say that you do not want to miss even one chance to turn a negative experience into a positive one.

Social Smackdown: Hootsuite vs Sprout Social Posted: 08 Dec 2013 01:30 PM PST With the holiday season in full swing, social media automation is on the Christmas wish list of every social media marketer out there. The Post Office and your bank may be observing a few holidays, but social media never closes, nor sleeps. To combat social media's insomnia, never fear, social media management tools are the cure. The top two contenders of social management tools are Hootsuite and Sprout Social. Which one is better over the other? You can decide your preferred sleeping aid. Here is Hootsuite verses Sprout Social. User Interface Appearance and ease of use is the most important feature of any social media management tool. At first glance, Hootsuite's dashboard takes hold of the columned, all-your-info-at-once approach. To some, this layout method is messy and cluttered, but to others it showcases everything you need without having to click around. Organized with tabs by social account, then broken down into platforms, Hootsuite's look is customizable. With platform choices such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and foursquare, social media managers can decide which feeds are most important to them. Comparatively, Sprout Social's homepage looks polished and expensive, as if you stole it from the top social media firm in the country. Its organized approach by account, laced with real-time user data and analytics, Sprout Social has beautifully combined functionality and appeal. Analytics Perhaps the main distinguishing factor between Hootsuite and Sprout Social is the analytics features. Sprout Social blows Hootsuite out of the park on this aspect of management tools. Although Hootsuite does offer analytics based on posts and audience interaction, they are neither as vast nor sophisticated as Sprout Social's. Hootsuite's approach to analytics is through custom reporting, whereas Sprout Social provides in depth, infographic-like analytics, scattered even outside of its analytics tab. Sprout Social's advanced insights include audience demographics, to audience interaction rate. Although this is a differentiating factor between the two social media tools, some social media marketers prefer to get their analytics directly from the social media platform. Twitter Analytics, but especially Facebook Insights, offer some statistics that both Hootsuite and Sprout Social can't provide. Publishing Without publishing, we wouldn't have any analytics. Getting back to the basics, Hootsuite and Sprout Social excel in publishing abilities. Both allow users to manage multiple accounts, schedule posts, and also save draft posts. But a more advanced feature, in which both offer, is the ability to schedule content based on when the time when most followers are online. Simply type the content you wish to post, and the management tools will take care of scheduling it based on their analytics of each platform. In Hootsuite this feature is named AutoScheduling and in Sprout Social the same feature is called ViralPost. Sound appealing? Unfortunately this advanced optimized time feature isn't available on the free version of Sprout Social, whereas Hootsuite does offer it. Price The holiday season has many of us counting loose change, but are those pennies worth it when choosing between Sprout Social and Hootsuite? Hootsuite offers a tiered payment plan, including a free version for one user which allows management up to five social media accounts. Its Pro Level at $9 a month, for up to 9 team members, offers up to 50 integrated social media accounts, along with full access to their support desk. Reserved for larger firms, Hootsuite's third membership level is based on a negotiated price, comes with endless capabilities, and the ability to have up to 500,00 users. Sprout Social's payment plans are based on a three-month subscription term, with its basic plan at $39 a month per user, with management abilities up to 10 social profiles. At $59 a month per user, Sprout Social's Deluxe plan allows up to 20 social media profiles, as well as complete access to their help desk and Google Analytics integration capability. The ViralPost ability is only available at Sprout Social's Premium level, at $99 per user per month, with the ability to manage up to 50 social media profiles. Hootsuite versus Sprout Social; who do you declare the winner? Are analytics reports important to you? Sprout Social may be the way to go. What about price? Hootsuite probably takes the dollar sign cake. But it is all based on personal preference. You will sometimes find that some social media marketers actually use both, but for different clients. The choice is yours. Whichever social media management tool you choose, just be sure not to ignore it. Social media automation is supposed to make more time for a marketer to engage and interact with a brand's audience. Social media automation isn't a tool you can just schedule and leave. If you choose to take that path, look forward to some insomnia yourself. Just like social media, you too won't be sleeping, for your social media engagement will take a nosedive. Which social media management tool do you prefer? Comment below or tweet us @Rocket_Post.

Why Content Marketing Is Essential For Your Business Posted: 08 Dec 2013 10:37 AM PST When I consult with businesses and nonprofits, I often have to introduce them to the concept of content marketing: Creating and sharing content and using it to attract customers based on merit, expertise or interest, with more focus on communicating rather than selling. Content marketing isn't new; as far back as 1895, John Deere's The Furrow magazine provided valuable business information to farmers (it's still in circulation and reaches 1.5 million readers in 40 countries). On the other hand, we're in a position where content marketing is now going to be a key factor in deciding how profitable your business is. This often elicits a groan from SMBs and marketers, who (correctly) perceive this as needing to put in a lot of hard work rather than putting pre-made advertisements on appropriate media channels. The question I usually get asked when I talk about the importance of blogging, E-books, whitepapers, newsletters and social media marketing is "What's the point?" Traditional advertising methods have long relied on a captive audience that has no choice but to watch your advertising: Radio ads, TV commercials, and even more modern forms of advertising like video ads preceding YouTube videos. The marketing dance has been, for many years, to capture your target audience where you've got them, with the quality of the advertisement often being given less consideration. Here's the big problem: There's no such thing as a captive audience anymore. In an age of Smart TVs, smartphones, tablets, multiple computer screens, multiple browsers, and unprecedented consumer choice and control, you're literally never going have a a 'captive' audience again. Even in situations where people may voluntarily watch ads or don't have ad-filtering software installed on their browsers, the concept of a captive audience doesn't exist anymore. Consumers have more abilities than ever to circumvent and bypass what they perceive to just be white noise. We're in an age where consumers can pre-record and fast forward through TV commercials. They're listening to their pre-approved iTunes mix in the car, completely ad-free. They're reading news articles on their smartphones on the subway, and bypassing your print ads altogether. I'm not just taking aim at offline advertising, either. If anything, when you go online people have even more options to avoid looking at advertising they perceive as intrusive or boring. Much has already been said about the ineffective nature of banner ads, but when the average web user has five different tabs open in Google Chrome, they aren't going to watch your mandatory ad video or website intro. Adblock Plus has clocked 200 million downloads, which filters out everything from YouTube video ads to Google PPC campaigns. Consumers are getting better and better at seeking out the content they want – and tuning out the content they don't want. This brings me directly to why content marketing is important to you. Whether you're an individual, business, nonprofit, mom and pop, or Fortune 100, people need to want to look at your content now. Mike Masnick at Techdirt has pointed out that without a captive audience, the idea that advertising is distinct from content doesn't work anymore. Without the mandatory advertising that people sat through to access the content they wanted to see, it's all content. Depending on the quality of your content, people will interact with it or ignore it. Regardless of the channel you're using – Facebook, TV or PPC – if your content is reminiscent of traditional advertising, prospects are that much more likely to phase it out. This is the role of content marketing in your business. Without a distinction between content and advertising, content marketing is how you promote yourself. People are drawn to you based on how valuable, insightful or interesting they find your content, not based on any mandatory viewings of your content. Content marketing does require hard work, but it correlates directly with greater rewards. Instead of buying or begging your way in with prospective customers, earning your way with them can turn them into much more loyal customers who will happily share your product or your website on your behalf because they enjoy your content. Marketing based on content is an opportunity to captivate people, demonstrate your expert position, or showcase your unique value proposition that nobody else has. It makes those first time customers that much more likely to return and for them to share the message to their friends. This applies to paid content, too. When you're paying for higher news feed promotion in Facebook or first page rankings in Google, go out of your way to make your content more enjoyable. Put a creative message on your PPC ad. Do something innovative with your YouTube video ad that encourages people to watch it, or even go out of their way to find the ad itself on your own YouTube channel. However you set out to promote your business, think about this: Are you the entertainment, or are you what people sift through to get to the entertainment? You decide which of these two has the greater return on investment. Image Credit: Parachute Digital Marketing

11 Small Business Social Media Ideas Inspired By Festivus Posted: 08 Dec 2013 10:11 AM PST Is your small business social media plan up to the Festivus feats of strength? Your small business potential should be inspired by Frank Constanza's story from the 1997 Seinfeld episode. As Frank said, "Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way." How can your business experience that in-store traffic and demand? If you aren't getting the most muscle out of your social media for your business this holiday season, then you need to think about using the many social media strategies to generate awareness of your business and sales for the holidays! Do you know how to time your posts or word our Tweets to reveal attention-grabbing messaging? Do you even have time for this type of strategic thinking? How do you set yourself up for holiday success? Remember what Frank said about the Festivus pole, "No. Instead, there's a pole. Requires no decoration. I find tinsel distracting." Like Frank found tinsel distracting, focus on the activity that will drive your success! Here are 11 ways to use social media to help your small business gain sales over the holidays: 11 Holiday Social Media Strategies For Your Small Business Facebook Content Calendar. Outline your Facebook editorial calendar to make sure your posts include the best photos and video to reach your followers' news feeds. With only a small percentage of your posts making it through to your followers, you need to know the type of content that does get seen by your followers. Set a schedule for photos and messages to be released to fans to enables you to set some time aside and focus on the other demands of running your enterprise. Plan To Get Your Messaging Seen. Not everyone sees your tweets or posts, so it makes sense to promote them to increase their visibility! By planning the posts, to promote (i.e., Promoted Tweets, Facebook posts) and posts to be organically distributed, you can maximize your investment. Blog. Write a blog to present gift-giving and gift-picking guidance. It is a great way to pass on your expertise. Just like you are reading this blog looking for 11 things you can do to use social media, your shoppers and prospects are looking for great ideas for themselves! Blogging also sets up a great platform to communicate and converse with your customers. Own your Yelp site. Whether or not you, the "N of 1", believe in Yelp, many customers do use this social media platform. So, you need to embrace a Yelp review and response strategy. The quick 3-point plan is to: Own you site Ensure there are positive reviews (New York Times reports that 60% of Amazon reviews are paid for and an extension of a brand's marketing department Respond to questions and comments. Don't let let this real-time social media platform be a barrier to people visiting your site. Users want to see an engaged small business owner on social media! Tune up your customer service approach. "The business owners can react to what people are saying or talk to customers through their own page," said Dina Mayzlin, an associate professor of marketing at USC's Marshall School of Business. "Social media gives a restaurant a second chance to gain a customer who wrote that they were unimpressed or the chance to build a deeper relationship with their regular customers." Take advantage of this advice and figure out your approach and tone for your response! Own your Foursquare page starting this holiday season. Checking into a business through a social media site, such as Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter and Yelp, is the modern equivalent of talking about it with friends. But now the conversation needs to include feedback from the company itself. Own your Foursquare page and use its promotional mechanism to drive customers to your doorstep. Social connection plan. Develop a plan to connect your customers from your social media sites to your front door. A disjointed user experience is a bad user experience. You may surprise and delight your customers or prospects with a great social experience, but you likely make them wonder 'what next?' Your social media experience needs to inform and instruct what you want your customer to do. It's not as hard as you think. You just need to think about the user experience when crafting your social media plans. Develop Customer Referrals. Develop a social media plan, to get your customers to advocate your business. Customer referrals are the number one way to get your message amplified to an audience that you do not currently reach! Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest are primed to perform your referral heavy-lifting, but are likely under-used. In fact, I was in a long line at a famous Philadelphia ice cream store last night. However, there was no communication to get me to post to Facebook, check-in on Foursquare or tweet to my followers. Big missed advocacy opportunity by the Cadillac of ice cream stores! Listen and Learn. Use social media as part of your competitive response plan. Social media is THE big brand equalizer! Set up a listening plan on Google alerts, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest to get a jump on what your competition is doing so you can manage and even one-up your big-box buddies. Use Pinterest To Make An Impact. Make your business Pinteresting today! Use your digital camera or smart phone to take pictures of your store or product catalog and upload to your Pinterest page. Once you have your full holiday offering online, run a fun Pinterest contest. Tweet And Be Heard! I adore Twitter since you can reach and connect with so many people; followers, influencers and hashtag users. Create a 5-10 tweet a day plan to deliver content about your sales, about your store, related human interest stories and cool and interesting content. Your customers and followers will find interesting to help their holiday shopping! Festivus and the holidays are a make or break time for your business. With the social media world rapidly changing it's hard for the small business owner to stay on top of and leverage the key trends. "They might know how to run their business, but business owners might still need help in how to utilize social media to its full potential" with minimal time investment, said Katie Washington, director of social programming for American Express. "For them, time is money." And, mistakes and lost opportunities are expensive." Do you have another holiday idea for small business owners? If so, please share it below. Or, reach out to me directly at MarketingThink.com, on Twitter or on LinkedIn. Here are a few more ideas to help your small business marketing plans: Are You Running Your Small Business's Marketing The Old School Way? Why Small Businesses Should Not Count On Facebook For Their Marketing Success Small Businesses Are Getting Small Business Saturday All Wrong Executing the best social media strategy need not be a feat of strength. Harken back to the days of Seinfeld and Festivus for inspiration; where you might need a social media trainer to build up your social media strength and win the holiday sales contest! It's Festivus… for the rest of us!

4 Ways to Improve Shopping Cart Conversions with Social Infrastructure Posted: 08 Dec 2013 09:00 AM PST We've all done it: you fill our virtual shopping cart to the brim with goodies, only to come face to face with the payment details page and…poof! You're gone. To put it in perspective, major analyst studies conducted over the past 7 years have recorded an accumulative average shopping cart abandonment rate of over 67% (Baymard). In a time when consumers are bombarded with more distractions and options than ever before, marketers must go the extra mile to create a seamless and relevant user experience from first touch all the way through the conversion funnel. Here are four tips for leveraging social infrastructure to transform shopping cart abandons into conversions. Reduce barrier to entry. 11% of US adults admit to having abandoned an online purchase because they didn't want to register online or the site asked for too much information (Forrester). Allow visitors to register for your website with the click of a button using their existing social media identities via Social Login. This gives you permission-based access to users' social data, which can be used to conveniently pre-populate form fields during the checkout process. Personalize product recommendations. With access to users' social identities and on-site actions, brands can construct comprehensive profiles based on users' real-time likes, needs and interests. This level of insight enables marketers to provide personalized, relevant product recommendations, effectively moving them further down the purchase funnel faster, with 40% of consumers buying more from retailers who personalize the shopping experience across channels (Monetate). Consumer insights also inform customized follow-up messaging and content that foster return visits and increased purchases. Showcase consumer ratings and reviews. The connected consumer relies heavily on input from friends, family and other consumers throughout the purchase process, so much so that 90% of consumers say their purchase decisions are influenced by online reviews (MarketingLand). Giving consumers the ability to provide genuine feedback around your product or service increases the validity of your website to both new and returning customers, fostering increased consumer trust that results in shopping cart conversions. Incentivize brand loyalty. Repeat shoppers in the United States represent just 8% of all site visitors, but account for over 40% of total online sales (Source: PracticalEcommerce). Don't stop pushing for conversions after consumers' first purchases; turn them into brand advocates and loyal customers by offering them special rewards and exclusive VIP savings for both initial and follow-up buys. Case in point: while 80% of brand loyalists say they do not buy unknown brands just to save money, 69% are always looking for special offers (Experian). Shopping cart abandonment is a consistent battle for businesses. Today's brands must fight harder than ever to stand out against the crowd and provide users with the kind of personalized, seamless experiences that move them from connect to convert, time and again.

Why Depending Solely On PPC Is A Very Big Marketing Fail Posted: 08 Dec 2013 08:30 AM PST Google Analytics offers great opportunities for you to track your business's online conversions. Two heavy hitters are Pay Per Click (PPC)—paid advertisements like AdWords—and Organic, optimized through search engine optimization (SEO). However, one of these tactics appears to be falling by the wayside while one seems to thrive. At first glance, one might think that PPC is the best option, but only to the untrained eye. At its core, Google is an advertising network. It sells your data, it re-routes Internet visitors and gains a profit as a result. A large portion of this is accomplished through their PPC capabilities. Putting all of your eggs in to the proverbial PPC basket is like jumping into a shark tank. All of your other competitors are bidding and vying for the same small set of keywords, which most likely have the largest search volumes within your target audience's range. But is firing visitors to your site what you really want? Below are three examples of highly sought-after keywords. Their search volumes are high, their bids are high per ad, and the competition is very high. A large portion of online competitors are trying to get their hands on a small set of keywords to appear at the very top portion of the search engine results pages (SERPs). Now, I'm not saying that PPC is a bad route to take when trying to drive traffic to your website, but depending entirely on PPC and investing all of your time and resources into paid advertising has risks. In order to have a successful online campaign that drives your visitors to conversion, you need to establish multiple paths of micro conversions that lead to a macro conversion at the end of the process. Clicking on the PPC ad is considered a micro conversion. You have successfully convinced the Internet user to visit your site. Perfect! Now, what? The visitor comes to your site and wanders aimlessly through pages. She may not know where to go for pricing or product information and could eventually bounce. It's far too easy for online marketers and businesses to focus only on driving visitors to the site, but that's not a very efficient way to do online marketing if your site isn't optimized for the visitor. PPC ads accomplish one goal, and can only work with your website if you are already established when it comes to site layout, architecture and content. If it's not, your site's strategy may not succeed in the way that you want it to. So, let's say you're searching for warehouse logistics and operations expertise. You type "warehouse logistics" into your Google search bar to find out as much information as you can about what's out there, and this is what appears at the top of your screen. Here are some great options at the top of this SERP. They must be relevant to warehouse logistics and they must have the information you want, right? Clicking on the top link brings you to this website, seen below. This is a very small website, and a very limited page that contains a brief introduction to the company, and the proverbial CTA in the form of "Request Information." One problem: I'm on the Internet. I have all of the world's information at my fingertips. Why would anyone call or email a business when they can just click the back button and find what they're looking for? This is a classic mistake for websites: driving a visitor to a hollow site that provides little in the way of answers. What if you were looking for information on computerized warehouse logistics, or "what is warehouse logistics" or you wanted a pricing guide to see how much the services would cost? Without the sought-after answers, the visitor will likely bounce from the site and you still paid for the click. But when executed correctly, organic keywords and SEO can create a logical path for your site visitor. They can draw in potential customers through thousands of long-tail phrases with naturally relevant terms, as well as house a library of information and content in which the visitor can explore to find all of their answers. Within all of this can be a series of micro conversions that if completed, move the visitor to the next step in the conversion process, qualifying them step-by-step until they are ready to convert on your product or service. Overall, the underlying theme between the two types of online keywords is that PPC favors the company or service buying the keywords, while Organic favors the audience. With Google moving to secure search and effectively eliminating keyword data, the SEO world went up in a flurry of posts about how SEO is dead, but the truth is SEO can never die—Google is simply trying to level the playing field for its PPC product. Natural search will always be a part of online marketing because search engines are designed to find the most relevant content online for a search query. PPC, on the other hand, tries to game that by allowing people to buy their way into relevancy. Online marketers just can't view this keyword data anymore, but organic search is absolutely crucial because it puts the consumer's interests before the company's. PPC is a tactic that online marketers should consider utilizing, but only after they have optimized their site for content, architecture and SEO. Without doing so, the only online conversions a site will likely receive are from people who are absolutely ready to buy when searching for a specific term. Lucking out is a far more dangerous strategy than understanding the consumer and optimizing for their needs. Image credit: Jeremy Page

27 Extraordinarily Powerful Conversion Tips from Thought Leaders Posted: 07 Dec 2013 06:00 AM PST Explode Your Inbound Marketing Lead Generation If you needed any evidence that inbound marketing is every bit as much of a science as an art, consider conversion optimization. It's the process of continual improvement cyclcing – run experiments and tests, act on the results, and improve. A/B testing and conversion optimization shouldn't ever stop – unless you wouldn't like the 30+% higher lead generation that smart testing can produce. To inspire you to step up your game, we've curated a long list of the sharpest conversion tips we've found anywhere: 1. Color has Meaning – @NeilPatel Never underestimate the color of your backgrounds, text, and images. In fact, many conversion experts believe it's the most disruptive element, and should be tested first. 2. Pilot a 'Lite' Alternative – @Sherice For organizations who have the ability to quickly pivot and adjust their product or service offerings, consider testing conversion rates of your service in smaller, lower-priced quantities. 3. A/B Testing Doesn't Affect Your SEO – @NeilPatel This is one of the most pervasive and unfounded SEO myths online – unless you're A/B testing a page that doesn't adhere to Google's guidelines, you're probably in the clear. 4. Incentivize Your Colleagues – @mathauser Your coworkers could have some untapped, brilliant ideas on new and innovative experiments to run that have the potential to make your conversion rate skyrocket. 5. Think in Terms of "Get" – @ContentVerve If you're stumped on concepts for CTA copywriting, start you brainstorming process around headlines that begin with the word "get." It makes you analyze what your prospect is getting by converting. 6. No Unpleasant Surprises – @Sherice If your advertised "$99.99 special" doesn't include twenty dollars in shipping and handling and tax, don't advertise it. Higher lead generation is meaningless if you aren't closing deals. 7. Social Proof isn't Always the Best Proof – @NeilPatel While social proof is often a powerful factor in optimizing conversions, it doesn't always work that way. Never assume anything! 8. Be Cautious of Lift vs. Shift – @GPryzklenk If your sparkly new call-to-action is just causing lower conversion on other landing pages, that's an example of shift -conversion on your website has shifted. If your SEO-optimized landing page is drawing in a high volume of visitors from search, that's shift. Strive for shift. 9. Don't Say "Buy" – @ContentVerve Unless your brand has an especially short sales cycle, avoid asking people to "buy" in a call-to-action or banner ad. In Michael Aagaard's experience, it rarely works. 10. Be Careful with Hype – @GPryzklenk Well-meaning inclusion of social proof can have undesired consequences. Always get your customer's written permission to use their words, faces, and logos on your website before optimizing around them. 11. MacroConversions Matter – @NeilPatel What are you really measuring? A 10% higher conversion rate on a CTA doesn't have too much meaning if your lead-to-customer conversions are extraordinarily low. Patel recommends looking deeper into your inbound marketing analytics to determine your "macroconversions" – lead to customer close ratio, and we can't help but agree! 12. Button Copy Matters – @ContentVerve The color of your calls-to-action really matters, but Aagaard believes your words matter just as much. In fact, he's referred to content-optimization as "low hanging fruit!" 13. Know Where You Can Compete – @PaulRouke Maybe your brand isn't the cheapest in your space – and that's fine. However, your buttons and offers should emphasize the quality or convenience you offer instead. 14. Use Image Captions – @ChrisGowan Not every CMS easily supports the inclusion of image captions, but they're a prime place to put links to your landing pages when convenient. 15. Your Websites Should Be Your Best Sales Person – @ConversionFac Stephen Pavlovich recommends designing landing pages to be a digital version of your company's best sales rep – brilliant! 16. Long form copy isn't always the worst – @Sherice There's no law that says you can't test out longer landing pages or calls-to-action with more text. You should, however, ensure that your content is tightly-written, persuasive, and to-the-point. 17. Choose Responsive Design – @Mobify Did you know that no single screen size has more than 20% market share? Your optimization testing may be worthless if you're not using responsive or mobile-optimized design. 18. Survey Your Customers – @ConversionFac Great marketers get data and insights anywhere they can – including surveying and interviews of their current customer base! 19. Put Your Privacy Info in a Pop-Up -@ChrisGowan For the rare users who want to delve into your privacy policy before converting, keep them on the page by setting your privacy policy to open in a pop-up, not another page. 20. Test Factual versus Emotive – @ChrisGowan Do your prospects respond better to data-driven, or emotional value propositions? You'll never know unless you test. 21. Remove Promo Code Boxes – @PaulRouke Unless you're offering a widely-available promo code, eCommerce retailers should remove the box in between special promotions. Paul Rouke has found that it just encourages shoppers to leave the site in search of a promotion. 22. Consider Your CTA "Scent Trail" – @ChrisGowan One of the funniest ways we've ever heard anyone describe the process of matching your website's language to your call-to-action text is a "CTA scent trail." Keep it consistent. 23. Stretch the Limits of What's Normal – @Sherice Sometimes, the most powerful way to increase conversions is to offer something your competitors don't. Sherice Jacob advises offering 60 or 90 day guarantees if your competitors just offer 30 days. 24. Be Trustworthy – @GaryPryzklenk For small businesses or newer brands, establishing a trustworthy website should come before any complex testing. If your website doesn't have a well-written privacy policy, a clear "contact us" page and contact info on each page, establish those first. 25. Consider a "Big Orange Button" – @ChrisGowan Every marketer should have a few foolproof conversion tricks up their sleeve. For Gowan, it's big orange buttons – his site is sprinkled with them. In fact, he's even nicknamed his buttons "B.O.B." 26. Banish "I" – @Sherice There's few absolutes in the world of conversion optimization, but self-centered language may be one of them. Jacobs recommends banishing the terms "I" and "our" from your website, and focusing on customer-centric language like "you" and "your." 27. Be Cautious With Promotions – @GPryzklenk While special deals can cause your conversions and sales to quickly spike, these new buyers could have limited lifetime value. Gary Pryzklenk points out that many internet buyers are conditioned to get the most for the least. Don't give out rates that you can't afford unless you're converting customers for life. While this list is by no means a comprehensive snapshot of the conversion brilliance available to inbound marketers, it's a start. Apply conventional wisdom to your optimization practices, but never be afraid to see what results an unexpected idea will yield. Conversion can surprise you. What are your most-valued and brightest inbound marketing conversion tips? image credit: kromkrathog/freedigitalphotos.net

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