I just came back from Social Marketing World 2016, the largest social media conference in the world. It was a tremendous event with great speakers, tons of new information, networking and the sunshine of San Diego! This is my 4th year attending, and I've met tremendous people from all over the world! Business owners […]
Commun.it is a free Twitter and Facebook community manager that help's users and businesses grow their followers with tools that streamline social media management. Here is a review of the app and some of its features. Relationship Management The Commun.it app's dashboard give you quite a bit of information. We'll start by looking at one […]
Are you using Google Analytics on your website? Do you know the Google Analytics basics? Are you overwhelmed by all it's features and options? Still hopeful that you can actually use it for ROI Tracking of your online marketing efforts? There's hope! Google Analytics is a powerful and often overwhelming tool with loads of options. However, […]
Promotion and social media drive sales, making networks like Facebook and Twitter an invaluable part of any marketing plan. Of course, working with Twitter has a distinct downside—time. Sending out regular, relevant tweets takes a lot of time. You've automated your email marketing. You schedule your blog posts. Have you thought about how you can […]
Have you ever thought you needed more display real estate than just your laptop? Traveling with just a laptop can make your work harder if you are used to having a larger or multiple displays. If you have tried to extend your display to a mobile device over WiFi you know that there's a frustrating […]
Keeping your work team all going in the same direction can feel like herding cats at times. How do you keep everyone up-to-date efficiently and keep digital information flowing to all who “need-to-know” without flooding everyone’s email inbox and have files floating around in various emails but not centralized and easy to find. To solve […]
One of the biggest problems with work projects today is finding the right way to communicate effectively online. Every team has dreamed of finding a way to work on the same presentations, documents, and spreadsheets without thousands of emails going back and forth. Enter Google Apps: A powerful online suite of business software tools from […]
Customer experience is more valuable than operations often realizes. Depending on the industry and the business challenge at hand, the focus can often get shifted away from the end-user to something happening within the organization. The time spent "putting out fires" in your organization might seem like time well spent, but that inward-focused attention is […]
Instagram continues to grow in users and business uses. It’s a great visual platform and many businesses are seeing the power of connecting with their ideal customer audiences on the social network. Running Instagram Ads is a great way to harness the power of this social media powerhouse to reach more of your ideal audience. […]
LinkedIn Publishing gives LinkedIn users more opportunity to build influence and reach a target audience. With LinkedIn Publisher, users can share (and prove) their knowledge and expertise and give advice while gaining an important source of professional connections. It’s basically a blogging platform within LinkedIn allowing users to reach their connections and beyond. With LinkedIn […]
Today, there are many web-based apps on the market to help companies and individuals with social media management. While each caters to a specific aspect of social marketing, a rising star with top features for social media management is AgoraPulse. AgoraPulse covers basically everything you could possibly need for social media marketing, monitoring, and management. […]
Wondering what to tweet about? Here's some ideas for businesses to get started: Tweet out some advice Share a quote that reflects the business's values. Post a behind-the-scenes photo of work. Tweet info on a charity that needs support. Lighten things up with a joke! Remind followers of an interesting event or date coming up. […]
Strong images are an important part of any marketing strategy. The old adage, "show, don't tell", rings doubly true in the realm of marketing strategies that are tailored towards social media platforms. Most people are visual, and images can project a feeling or message instantly. So use images to increase engagement: Optimize your images for […]
At some point it happens in all businesses. In order to grow, you need to hire and you want the best people for your roles. The hiring process often lands upon managers and small business owners who already have many tasks on their plate. In the past job postings were handled mostly by newspapers. Over time, […]
Are you responsible for interviewing and hiring your team members? Including hiring digital workers? Are you using VA's (Virtual Assistants) or long-term contractors? How do you interview when you can't physically "meet" someone? It's all about digital techniques to vet potential hires in this digital age! This is Part II of Hiring Digital Workers.....the Interview Process. In the […]
Since its conception, the online digital landscape has gone through many changes. Businesses need to keep up with theses changes by developing an integrated marketing strategy, improving website design, and utilizing social media tools. I'll outline 5 keys I believe every business owner should be investing in for success on the web: Responsive Website A […]
Building the perfect backlink to your website is a powerful way to achieve higher page rankings and web traffic. Use these tips below to get higher traffic to your site: Use high authority links: These links are from .edu, .gov or top publisher sites. Google looks for high-authority links when it crawls the web, and […]
Increasing productivity can be overwhelming for small and medium-sized businesses. Customer Relationship Management tools may be feature-rich, but also overkill for a 3-10 person team. But what if a tool a team is already using could be transformed into a workflow and customer support system? Introducing Hiver for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses. It’s a web […]
Is part of your team virtual and not resident in the same physical office? Are you using VA's (Virtual Assistants) or long-term contractors? How do you hire when you can't physically "meet" and interview someone? It's all about digital techniques to vet potential hires in this digital age! In this episode of the Halftime Mike podcast, […]
WaveApps is a fast, simple and incredibly capable way of managing your small business accounting online. It's similar to Quickbooks Online, yet totally free! To sign up, a business name, email and street address are all that’s needed. WaveApps takes care of: Accounting Invoices Payroll Additionally, WaveApps connects with many banks and credit unions nationally, […]