Popular Articles on Business 2 Community |
- Social Media Marketing: Generating Leads and Measuring ROI
- How To Use Images To Increase Your SEO Performance
- 10 Favorite Tools For Small Businesses To Rock
- 5 Google Plus Tools You Should Not Ignore For Your Business
- 5 Gamification Tools Your Competition Might Have Missed
- 17 Signs You’re In The Sochi Olympic Village
- Social Selling Best Practices
- New Data Shows Top Talent Cares More About Remote Work Options Than Free Coffee
| Social Media Marketing: Generating Leads and Measuring ROI Posted: 07 Feb 2014 09:04 AM PST
Among B2B companies marketing via social media, LinkedIn was judged most effective in generating sales leads, followed by company blogs, Facebook, and Twitter. The average cost of generating a lead via inbound marketing is estimated to be about half the average for outbound marketing. B2B marketing via social media is therefore definitely effective and often produces a handsome return on investment. The question, however, is how can we measure it? Calculating ROI via traditional B2B marketing methods is fairly simple. Just divide returns by initial investment and calculate a percentage. For example, a $250,000 net profit divided by a $1,000,000 investment = 25% ROI. With social media, however, the means of dispersal and marketing mix is simply too complex for such easy calculations. It's no wonder that more than half of online businesses that use social media don't even bother trying to measure ROI. Many even claim measuring it can't be done. Of those that do measure social ROI, most use the simplest statistics – measuring number of fans, likes, released-tweets, traffic and mentions. More than half say that the biggest problem in measuring social ROI is the inability to monetize and connect it to real business results. Businesses are mostly concerned with website visits, newsletter subscribers, calls and sales. Most social media platforms know companies need to measure performance, so they provide users with metrics for tracking engagement. For example, there are Facebook Insights, LinkedIn Company Page Insights, and Pinterest Web Analytics. These tools are very good for measuring performance within the particular platform, but they don't help much in determining how much traffic is being driven to your own website, conversions and, most importantly, lead generation. One way to generate and measure leads from social media is to create gated content that can only be accessed by providing contact details. White papers, case studies and webinars are all examples of the type of valuable content you can provide, that in turn will entice a potential lead to fill out their information. Leads generated from gated content are "soft-leads" – meaning they require a good deal of nurturing, and will most likely not generate a sale immediately. Hard leads can be generated as well, but the ability to measure these leads is even more difficult. You could post content on your social networks that are overtly promotional, and link directly to a sign-up page for your product or service. However, this goes against the entire philosophy behind Content Marketing – that is, providing valuable, non-promotional content. In order to generate and measure hard leads, you need to have a robust system in place. Put plainly, the goal of every B2B marketing strategy is to generate leads. Soft leads, hard leads – any sort of leads. These leads can then be turned into to sales, either by nurturing, or a simple phone call from a competent sales person. But how does one measure the ROI of social media? Unfortunately, neither Facebook, nor Twitter, nor any other social network for that matter, provides you with the hard metrics you need to establish ROI for your social media marketing. Having a system in place to be able to measure the leads you have generated, as well as rich data on how, and from where, they were generated, is a monumental task. Doing this on your own requires more time and man-power than most companies can afford. Utilizing a system like Oktopost, which incorporates "Lead Capture Technology" gives companies the ability to see the actual ROI of their social media, and powerful granular level metrics. Whenever a lead is generated from an Oktopost link, the platform will be able to show you exactly which post, social profile and LinkedIn discussion group they came from. Being able to have a list of leads generated from social media is one of the greatest tools in a social media marketers arsenal to be able to prove that social media has real business value. Even more so, when a marketer can show the exact details of where a lead was generated from, this kind of information will leave no doubt that social media marketing is a worthwhile investment for any business.  |
| How To Use Images To Increase Your SEO Performance Posted: 07 Feb 2014 03:39 AM PST You’ve taken the time to make your website as user-friendly as possible. You’ve written great content, and you’ve found just the right image to back up that content (see above). But, are you getting credit from the search engines for those images? When humans look at a web page, they see everything; words, images, videos. Search engines, however, just see code. Lines and lines of text, like a scene from "The Matrix." The search engines can see that there's an image on the page, but they don't know if the image is adding any value to the page. They don't know if they should be giving your site extra credit for the extra work you did to find the perfect image. To get this credit, you need to optimize your images for SEO. You need to make it very clear to the search engines that your images are adding value for your readers. And it's easy to do. Here are four ways to increase your SEO by optimizing your images: 1. Start with the Save The SEO value of the images on your site starts before you even upload the image. You can begin building SEO value the minute you save an image to your computer. This means not saving your images with names like "image24vshrio.jpg." To boost your image's SEO value, chose keyword rich descriptions when you save images like "mens_baseball_cap." Don't go overboard with the words you chose, just shoot for something descriptive and accurate. (*Note: there's great debate over whether you should separate words with an underscore or a hyphen, or even spaces. Don't sweat this; any format will work. But it's worth noting that Google uses underscores.) 2. Name the Alternate Alt Text, or alternative text, are the words someone would see if they can't see your image. Have you ever received a newsletter or email that required you to click to see the images? Before you clicked to view the image, there may (or may not) have been words inside the image box. These words are the Alt Text. Alt text is simply another way to identify what the image is about. And it's another way you prove to search engines that the image is worthwhile and worth ranking. Most blogging platforms allow you to write the Alt Text when you upload the image to your media file. Get in the habit of filling out that line. 3. Size Matters Size matters when it comes to your images and how they help your rankings with search engines. In this case, too big is bad. If your images are oversized, they will slow the load time of page. Slow load times means low rankings. The average person will wait only a few seconds for a page to load before they simply move on to the next page. (This raises your bounce rate…also bad.) Search engines are just as impatient as readers. You can check the speed of your site here: http://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/ If your page is slow to load, your images are probably to blame. Resize and upload again, pronto! 4. Find the Format Lastly, be sure you’ve chosen the best format for the type of image you're uploading. The format you chose (.jpg .png .tiff. .gif) will affect how cleanly the image appears online. Here are Google's suggestions for formats: - GIF: Best for very small graphics such as small icons (10 x 10 pixel max) - PNG: Best for all type-based images such as logos - JPG: Best for photographs - TIFF: Google suggests not using TIFFs at all Don't worry if your site has been around for a while, and you haven't been optimizing your images properly. Start making each of these tips a habit with each new image you upload.  |
| 10 Favorite Tools For Small Businesses To Rock Posted: 06 Feb 2014 06:22 AM PST
1. Google Apps for BusinessWe've run our corporate email through the Google Apps for Business platform for years now and I cannot say enough great things about it. Not only is my email not tied to the same server that hosts my website (muy importante), I can access it from anywhere and love the UX of the gmail interface. Even when it changes. Beyond that, the tools and integration of the Google Apps platform is spectacular. Google's suite of apps works seamlessly together and is a collaboration lover's dream come true. Get a meeting invite on Gmail and in one click, it's on Calendar. Put work files in Google Drive and share and collaborate in real time with team members or clients. Google Apps for Business comes with shared cloud storage of 30Gb and an option to buy more if you need it. And one of the very best things? Because Google apps have become so ubiquitous, there's practically no learning curve. Employees are able to pick it up easily and your team is good to go. 2. FreshbooksFreshbooks is another tool we've been using forever and it literally changed everything about invoicing and time tracking for us. I'm an unabashed fangirl, but of all the invoice and expense tracking software out there, I really believe that Freshbooks is the easiest to navigate. You can create invoices, record expenses, and track your time all in one place. You can bill your clients and get paid directly from the interface as well. It's a money management godsend. Another nifty thing—Freshbooks has a partnership with PayPal so you can invoice through Freshbooks and opt for payment through PayPal with only a .50 cent service fee. Seriously, this is all kinds of awesome. 3. Google AnalyticsShocked that we included Google Analytics here? Well, you'd be amazed at how many business owners either don't have Google Analytic enabled on their websites and/or who don't look at their GA data, either of which makes me want to stab my eyes out with rusty forks. Your data is your business roadmap, so if looking at it, you're literally operating in the dark. Google Analytics data will you how your website is performing, how much traffic your website has, where visitors to your site are coming from, what pages of your site they visit, how long they stay on site … and a host of other things. it and aren't looking at it (preferably weekly, at a minimum), I beg you to start. Immediately. 4. WordPressWordPress is another platform we love and it's the most popular blogging platform out there for a reason. WordPress is a game-changer for business owners and makes the days of being reliant on a web developer or an agency for even the smallest changes to your corporate website obsolete. Thank goodness. WordPress is truly "idiot proof" (which is what I need!) and easily customizable, with a host of plug-ins for every need, not to mention a ton of readily available support. We recommend business owners use the paid WordPress interface, which is available at http://wordpress.org, which allows for customization, custom themes, e-commerce and all other kinds of sophisticated tools and applications that will make your business and your online image rock. There's also a free version of WordPress which you can find at http://wordpress.com, but there's really great value in owning your site and domain and paying to host it somewhere. Free comes with a downside that's not for everyone. 5. DivvyHQIt's not just because the founders are from my city of Kansas City, Mo. that we're fans of DivvyHQ. It's because it's a really great solution to a problem that a lot of business owners have—management of an editorial calendar for their corporate blogging efforts. We use DivvyHQ to manage content and production workflow for not only our own corporate blogs, but for the blogs of all our clients, whose content we are responsible for ideating, developing and publishing. Divvy HQ has a clean, intuitive interface with features that really shows how well the creators understand what goes into this kind of work. It keeps everything organized and allows the team to see what's going on with their assignments at a glance. If it's time to move your content marketing efforts from just playing around to serious, and if you'd like to move away from Excel spreadsheets (or worse, no tracking system), check out DivvyHQ. It's easy-to-use, ridiculously effective and affordable. 6. YouTubeReady to start integrating rich media into your online marketing efforts? Great! You should be! YouTube makes it easy for just about anyone to create a channel and start uploading videos and sharing content with the millions of YouTube users on a regular basis. But there are a few things to keep in mind before you get started. First, integrate YouTube with your corporate Google + page (and if you don't have one, you'll need to create one. Trust us on this one, you need one!). Secondly, be sure to optimize your videos (and video titles), don't just upload them and leave them there. Include written content that describes the videos and make sure that content is SEO optimized. Lastly, don't forget to use your video content as part of your overall integrated marketing efforts. Include video in your email newsletters, in your corporate blog posts and also share it on your social media channels where applicable. Google+ in particular is a social media channel where rich media content is very effective, so don't just shoot video, use that video as part of your content marketing efforts. 7. Free Conference CallWe've been using Free Conference Call for so long and I still think it's one of the greatest tools ever. Free Conference Call gives you free teleconferencing for up to 96 callers, which you can access via phone or through your computer. If you're handling a large team that's in various locations or hold a lot of webinars, this one is perfect for you. 8. AsanaAfter evaluating lots and lots of project management tools, and getting feedback from a myriad of fellow business owners, our team selected Asana earlier this year. And we love it. Asana is one of the best project management tools out there and our experience has been fantastic. Asana allows us to set up projects, assign team members, keep track of every single thing that's going on via a visual timeline. It keeps everything in its place too for easy access— discussions, schedules, to-do lists, even files. We've all used Basecamp before, and it's fine, but Asana is the project management platform that we really fell in love with. If your business requires a lot of collaboration or project management work for clients, Asana is definitely a tool that should be on your short list.. 9. SkypeSkype is great for small teams that need to meet often and on the fly. You can chat, make voice calls and send large-ish files, screenshare and video conference. But beyond those basics, Skype can play a role in your content marketing efforts (do you like how I can always toss that in, to just about any conversation?). I love using Skype and the Call Recorder app to do interviews and record them. You can then fairly easily edit your interviews as needed and upload your files to YouTube. Sweet, isn't it? After that, it's a no-brainer to take those interviews and use them in your email marketing campaigns, your corporate blog and/or for sharing in the social media space. You'll need a pro account to do some of this, but it's a great value for an investment of something like $25 a month. 10. HootsuiteThere are a lot of social media dashboard tools out there and they pretty much come in all shapes and sizes and with all kinds of price tags. For the small business owner, Hootsuite is a no-brainer. You can think of Hootsuite like a kind of like a command center for your online presence. It's a dashboard that's super easy to use and allows you to manage all your social networks in one place. If you have a team working on social media, it also allows for super easy collaboration, communication, scheduling and sharing, as well as permission management as needed. But beyond the interface itself, one of the reasons we like Hootsuite so much is the data that the platform provides. If you're not measuring the impact of your social media efforts, you're missing out on the most important part of the equation, and Hootsuite's reporting capabilities are awesome. There you have it. Some of our very favorite tools, most of which we use every single day, in some fashion or another. What about you? What are your favorite tools? We'd love to hear about them. photo credit: internetsense via photopin cc  |
| 5 Google Plus Tools You Should Not Ignore For Your Business Posted: 06 Feb 2014 05:38 AM PST Are you using Google plus for your business? Check out these Google Plus tools to help you become more productive and efficient on Google Plus. Omkar already discussed some key points for Google+ strategies for brands, let's have a look at how you can leverage Google+ more with these tools. Google+ is an emerging platform and it is going to take the social network by a storm, it is time now to make the most of your presence there with the help of third party applications. The below mentioned tools are great way to save time, measure your effectiveness as well monitor your competitors. Sharing below the list of 5 Google Plus tools you should not ignore for your Business. 1. CircleCountCircleCount is a tool which helps you explore Google+ and find circles, communities and popular pages for your brand. There is a website and chrome extension. It counts the number of circles in which you are included and uses this metric to represent the number of people following your posts. The site analyzes your activity and engagement around your updates to help you determine your best posting times on Google+. The page also displays information – the average response per post, your follower growth history, the list of publicly shared Circles where your name appears, and you're most engaging content. This tool is perfect to measure the effectiveness of your content and the ripples it creates on your followers. 2. CircloscopeCircloscope as the name suggest is a circle management tool. Circloscope helps by allowing you to remove inactive users, un-circle people who do not circle you back and a host of other management functions. It gives you complete information and analysis of your circles, followers, people who you engage with. Thus it helps you monitor of the people in your circle if they are active, if not you can remove them from your circles etc. It gives a detailed description and shows the efficiency and relevancy of your followers. This tool only supports chrome extension and has 2 plans- Free and Paid. 3. Steady DemandSteady Demand is a Google+ audit and analytics tool. The audit is free; the analytics tool is paid. To get a complete understanding of your Google+ presence and its success you need a pro account as it provides a complete analytics report, which even includes monitoring your competitors. This is a perfect tool to analyse how your marketing efforts are working for you and breaks down the results to the specifics so you know what is working for your brand or not. And even lets you benchmark with your competitors with its analytics, great overall understanding for your brand. 4. IFTTTIf you have't heard about this before – IFTTT stands for 'If This, Then That'. The idea of this tool is basic and brilliant; it circles around the concept of chain reaction. IFTTT calls the main action "Recipe", followed by another action taken which is "trigger" and the result action is called the "Action" Ok let us explain with an example so it gets easier to understand. If you post a status update to Google+ (If this), you can trigger many other actions based on this (then that) like posting to Facebook Page, profile, Twitter, Buffer, Evernote and so on. Similarly there are plenty of recipes you can create. Here are some 525 recipes for Google+ already there on IFTTT 5. AllmyplusAllMyPlus is a straight-forward breakdown of your Google Plus activity. Simply log in with your Google+ sign-in or plug in the URL of your Google+ ID. This tool is extremely easy to use, but the best part of this tool is that it analyzes a profile, a page or a community as per your needs. After you feed in the ID or URL it gives you in detail analysis of that particular page/profile which you can analyze easily. This tool is great as it only requires a "URL" so you can get first hand information about your competitors and view their entire activity log. Brilliant right! It can be a great way to see how your competitors post are doing in comparison to your. Google+ tycoon +MichaelQTodd
Your turnHave you used any of these Google+ tools for your business? What do you think? Share with us below.  |
| 5 Gamification Tools Your Competition Might Have Missed Posted: 05 Feb 2014 04:19 PM PST
Insticator offers brands an opportunity to get their products and services in front of television viewing audiences by offering a gamification platform for tv shows. From sports broadcasts and award shows to reality shows and singing competitions, Insticator allows viewers to earn rewards (from companies like yours) in exchange for increased engagement with the television show and via social media interaction. From product showcasing to branded content advertising, Insticator's API makes networking with engaged communities of television viewers easy. Powzy combines customer acquisition, mobile app interaction, and gamification in one easy-to-use platform. Brands can use Powzy to reward customers for visiting their store, checking out their latest product release, or watching their newest video. Powzy also offers interaction analytics so brands can visualize the ROI of their campaigns. LiveRe is a commenting system/social analytics tool/gamification platform all rolled into one. Users can leave comments on your site using their social network of choice, can share their comments across multiple social media platforms, and can be rewarded for their social interactions. LiveRe helps you to reward and engage your brand's loyal ambassadors by interacting with them on the platforms they're already using. Whether you are attending a conference relevant to your business, hosting a corporate meeting/training session, or appearing at a tradeshow, discovering LiveCube could help take the event from mediocre to mesmerizing. LiveCube combines social media, check-ins, gamification, and social analytics in one enchanting platform. Even if you are only attending events this year and not hosting, introducing event organizers to LiveCube could help earn you some serious social media street cred. From badges and check-ins to custom prizes and polls, LiveCube has plenty of powerful perks to offer. If native advertising and gamification had a baby, its name would likely be ADikteev. Part monetization platform and part rewards system, ADikteev offers a way for website owners to increase revenues with user-requested advertising interactions (currently only French advertisers) while offering brands an opportunity to engage with niche-specific consumers. Site owners choose actions and rewards based upon what is best for their end purposes and for their audience's engagement. Site visitors can be rewarded for social media shares, time on page, or even for visiting an advertiser's site. Will you be integrating one of these gamification tools into your brand building efforts this year?  |
| 17 Signs You’re In The Sochi Olympic Village Posted: 05 Feb 2014 03:51 PM PST 1. Apparently, there's a medal ceremony in your hotel bathroom. #PleaseRemainStanding
2. There's a whole new way of doing things. #CultureShock
3. The local water brings a new meaning to gold medal. #Powerade
4. Lawn care tricks have reached another level…
5. …or maybe they just know something we don't. #ExtremeLawnCare
6. Toilet fish are a delicacy. #CrapFish
7. Apparently, space is at a premium. #TeamBonding
8. It's pretty dangerous. #DontLetYourGuardDown
9. Apparently, finding a place to 'go' might be a sport in itself. #BathroomBreak
10. The Olympic Torch may or may not work. #Pollution
11. The food is a little different…
12. …or is this normal? #NewDietCraze
13. Okay, this is just weird.
14. You have to bargain for hotel room basics… #WhatDidIGetMyselfInto
15. …or you get a really fancy room… #BidetIncluded
16. …and fine curtains.
17. Well, at least there's a water park nearby to escape to
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| Posted: 05 Feb 2014 12:26 PM PST Many traditional sales professionals still employ a traditional approach focusing on a large quantity of leads, who they relentlessly pitch to. Yet this can be frustrating and inaccurate, leading to a fractional return for all the time spent pitching, not to mention a plethora of folks turned off by non-applicable (and from their point of view, invasive) cold calling. However, if you specifically target quality leads with passions aligned with your own, who participate in groups and read blogs related to services you provide…..won't you be more likely to make a sale? What if you go even further, building a trusting relationship by providing free content that’s relevant to your field and nurturing connections? This is the principle that’s critical to social selling, wherein transforming a potential lead into a solid connection is an accomplishment that leads to continuous referrals and an expanded network. How can you use social selling to improve your outbound sales performance? 5 Ways to Improve Outbound Sales Performance demonstrates five ways to do so: 1. Locate every decision makerYou may be in contact with a single key decision maker in an organization, but an entire committee may be involved in a decision. Dig deep when researching, and try to connect with all influential decision makers to ensure you obtain a green light. 2. Reach out while prospects are looking around"57% of a typical purchase decision is made before a customer contacts the supplier," so it's highly advantageous to be the one influencing their decision. How? Try providing the customer with free content so they have the information they need to make the choice. They'll trust the advice of reviews and their peers via social media when researching you, so ‘dress sharp’ and cultivate a strong professional presence. 3. Strengthen relationships through networkingAs mentioned before, consumers place huge trust in their peers. A recent statistic says 90% of them trust their peers over an unknown source. So if you want referrals, then not only do you need to relentlessly network, but you also need to cement the links between you and clients — stronger connections, stronger chain, stronger trust. 4. Demonstrate validity and trustworthinessSocial media plays a critical role in gaining credibility; everyone uses it, and if you aren't using it, you're missing out on a huge chunk of social data. According to an infographic by LinkedIn, "72% of sales professionals achieved team quota”. So stay professional, use tact and remember to let connections happen organically. 5. Continuously nurture the relationshipDon't give up if the lead doesn't buy right away. Keep cultivating a strong relationship, and it will pay off in the future with referrals or a purchase.  |
| New Data Shows Top Talent Cares More About Remote Work Options Than Free Coffee Posted: 05 Feb 2014 09:11 AM PST As a small business owner one of the greatest challenges is finding and keeping great employees. A Cornell University study found that companies that give employees a choice in how they work grew 4x faster with one-third the turnover rate of traditional firms. As technology connects people more quickly and efficiently, the workers with flexible/remote working options are proving to be the happiest and hardest working. In a survey of 270 small business owners on Workplace Flexibility, Plantronics had some interesting findings which they report in the infographic below. Sixty-four percent of small-business owners said that allowing flexible, mobile, and remote work options has helped them retain their top employees. A 3-pronged approach with a variety of spaces in the office that balance quiet space for focus and shared space for collaboration, tools to work anywhere, and an updated company policy to optimize productivity is proving most effective. Staying up-to-date with the latest communication technology will help your business run smoothly and keep your employees satisfied.  |
According to a recent 
One of the biggest challenges for small business owners is knowing which tools or platforms to use that can help them be more effective, more efficient and more profitable. I've owned a small business for 19 years now and am kind of a tool freak (shocker), so my team and I thought that sharing some of our favorites with you might be not only fun, but helpful as well. Here are some of our favorites:
Haven't met Michael yet? He is the author of @7PillarsBook. A rockstar on Twitter. Tycoon on Google+. More than anything he has always been a treat to engage and interact on Social Media and various tools. When I asked him about his favourite Google+ tool, here is what he said-
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