In today’s highly digitalized world, some may argue that face-to-face interactions and personal connections are no longer as important as they used to be. While technology has certainly changed the way businesses operate, personal connections still hold significant value in certain industries. For small business owners, fostering and maintaining such connections can make a marked difference in their overall success. Explore five industries where personal connections still matter and continue to play a vital role in general business practices.
The real estate industry is all about trust and credibility. Clients have faith that their agents will effectively guide them through what may be some of the most complex transactions of their lives. Having a personal connection with clients—both sellers and buyers—can establish trust and open the door for honest communication regarding their needs and expectations. This rapport can make all the difference as agents work to find the perfect property or negotiate the best deal on another’s behalf.
Establishing personal connections with clients is also crucial in the insurance industry. After all, personal connections allow agents to better understand each client’s individual needs and concerns. This helps them tailor coverage options accordingly, ensuring their clients receive the most comprehensive policies at the best possible prices. Moreover, clients are more likely to stay with their agents if they feel a sense of connection and trust, which is invaluable in a market flooded with competitors. Insurance professionals just need to know how to market themselves to ensure they can get their foot in the door and maintain client loyalty.
In the healthcare tech sector, personal connections are key for both patient care and professional collaboration among practitioners. A strong relationship between a patient and their healthcare provider can greatly impact the patient’s overall well-being and satisfaction with their care. In addition, collaboration between practitioners can result in improved patient outcomes through the sharing of knowledge, experience, and resources.
The hospitality industry thrives on exceeding guest expectations and providing memorable experiences. Customers who feel personally connected to a hotel, restaurant, or event space are more likely to return and recommend it to others. Staff who make an effort to genuinely engage with guests can not only improve individual encounters, but also contribute to the company’s overall reputation for outstanding service.
There are several other industries where personal connections still matter. From law to accounting, any role that requires custom problem-solving and an in-depth knowledge of a client’s situation should always have a relationship-first structure. After all, clients are entrusting their most significant and sensitive matters to their service providers. A secure personal connection establishes an atmosphere of trust, confidentiality, and sincere understanding of clients’ needs. It’s these personal connections that allow for personalized solutions and effective long-term relationships.
Solid professional relationships remain an essential component in various industries, despite the rapid growth of digital communication methods. As such, building and nurturing personal connections within your industry can lead to increased customer satisfaction, higher client retention, and meaningful networking that can drive your growth and success. Invest time and effort into fostering these connections and experience the rewards they provide for your business.
The benefits of Social Media Marketing (SMM) are many for businesses today. For one, over 4 billion people in the global population now use social media. Therefore, marketing without a social media presence is akin to leaving money on the table. You should optimize your content for social media. Moreover, social media provides unmatched exposure and can be the easiest way to break into a new market.
Unfortunately, many business leaders are not yet sold on the need for social media optimization yet. Although they’re keen to publish posts on Facebook and share blogs on Instagram, they rarely optimize the content.
That can be a big mistake. You could be getting a lot more traction and generating more leads by optimizing your content for social media. The following are just a few benefits of optimizing your marketing content for social sharing.
The first reason why you should optimize your marketing content for social media networks is the SEO benefits. According to the Social Media Examiner, 58% of marketers who optimize content for social media sharing for a year are guaranteed a boost in search engine ranking. The reason is that Google algorithms highly value social signals. They check social shares, upvotes, and engagement when ranking sites.
Marketing is about choosing your battles. Rather than attempting to please everyone, find your niche and create targeted content to appeal to the selected demographic. Optimization is the only way to achieve targeted marketing in social media marketing. SEO allows you to pick keywords and phrases popular among the selected demographic. Then, you can send targeted marketing messages that resonate with the audience.
Social media marketing primarily pursues engagement. Many organizations now attempt to close sales directly on their social profiles. However, the goal of social media marketing is to drive engagement (likes, shares, comments, etc.) to generate more leads and ultimately more sales. Optimization helps you reach the right people with the right messages, thus directly impacting clicks, likes, comments, shares, etc.
Brand visibility is one of the biggest factors in marketing. Indeed, some of the biggest brands use visibility to drive sales and profitability. Social media optimization is an excellent shortcut to increased brand visibility. Through optimization, you can break into new markets to showcase your brand name and products. As we’ve seen, optimization also increases engagement. Increasing your engagement often means better brand and product visibility.
You’re probably wondering how. Well, it’s straightforward. To enhance brand loyalty, you need to go above and beyond to show your customers that you truly care. That’s why brands often offer redeemable points and product discounts. These “goodies” send a message of care. Optimization can also help you show that your brand cares. How? By providing actual solutions. Don’t just publish content for the sake of it. Instead, create content that solves your audience’s real problems. They will love you.
Finally, you should consider search engine optimization because it reduces the cost of marketing. Imagine for a second how much effort it takes to reach a million people on Instagram. For a small business with only a handful of fans, you consider hiring an influencer. You pay them to like and repost your content to their audience. Yet, you may be struggling, even when paying, to reach people who don’t have an interest in your products. Optimization allows you to focus on a smaller target audience with an established interest in your brand and products.
Search engine marketing is important for your overall marketing campaign. However, it takes informed optimization to truly benefit from a social media marketing campaign.
Looking for help? Tired and believing there has got to be a better way?
Let's talk about your business. With over a decade of experience leading companies and transforming lives, and a Master's degree in Org. Development and Leadership, Mike can help you find the best way forward!
Subscribe to receive my latest business tips and tactics in your inbox.
Google recently released a new algorithm update that aims to promote high-quality product reviews. Dubbed the “product reviews update,” Google announced that the update will promote better-written product reviews with deeply researched content rather than thin content that summarizes products superficially. Generally, original research and insightful reviews will be higher ranked, especially those created by enthusiasts or experts with a deep understanding of the topic.
While these algorithm updates have a lot of implications for review blogs and articles that compare and review products online, they also come with guides and best practices for creating such content.
According to Google, these new updates aim to improve online product review content and ensure that only the best and most helpful results top the search results. By doing this, the platform will provide both accurate and high-quality content for users relying on reviews to make purchases and other eCommerce decisions.
That said, unlike other preceding Google updates, these changes focus on websites and content, not URLs. Therefore, they will most likely affect entire websites and not sections of the site. Since the changes are not core algorithm updates, they will only affect rankings of specific types of content in Google’s search index. Non-reviewing websites or platforms that don’t publish product reviews won’t see any effect from the updates.
Also worth noting is that the updates will affect SEO rankings of all types of reviews. From service review, round-ups, and single-product reviews, to other regular reviews.
As mentioned, Google provided a guideline that business owners, marketers, and content creators can leverage to get the most out of the update. While there is no clarity on the technicalities of the product review updates, SEO writing guidelines are at play. SEO ranking factors are used as signals, so businesses can use well-known strategies to optimize their content.
Proper keyword research, technical SEO, and meta-data optimization are certainly beneficial. That aside, you should approach these updates by ensuring that your product reviews are written for the user. This ensures your content will meet Google’s goal of insightful and expert content over a vague and “thin” review.
That said, Google provided some questions that marketers can use as a guide when creating their product reviews. Your content should;
Taking these questions into consideration will help boost your content on Google search engine results.
Like other algorithmic changes and fluctuations in search engine rankings, there is no specific solution to the negative impacts of these updates. However, it is best to ensure that you provide honest, accurate, and high-quality content. Therefore, besides counter-checking your reviews with the guide above, you should also read through Google’s Search Central documents. This will help you build high-quality content while avoiding penalties resulting from algorithmic updates.
For long-term success, ensure that you continue to produce detailed and unique product reviews that stand out from competing sites.
Looking for help? Tired and believing there has got to be a better way?
Let's talk about your business. With over a decade of experience leading companies and transforming lives, and a Master's degree in Org. Development and Leadership, Mike can help you find the best way forward!
Subscribe to receive my latest business tips and tactics in your inbox.
Facebook Rights Manager is a tool designed to help content creators better manage and control ownership of their videos and images. For years, Facebook and Instagram content creators have only been able to claim ownership of their videos, and it wasn't until September 2020 the platform launched Rights Manager for Images.
This powerful content ownership and management tool isn't readily available to everyone. According to Facebook, only page admins or editors can apply to access Rights Manager. This tool is also only accessible via Creator Studio, so is not available on mobile devices.
To get started with Rights Manager, you need to provide a copy of the videos or images you want to protect. Here you can choose as many videos and pictures to claim ownership on. You can also decide whether to apply ownership rights globally or only in specific geographical locations. Additionally, there’s an option to grant permission to specific pages to upload your copyrighted content.
For these content ownership controls to work, you don't need to post the videos or images on Facebook or Instagram. All you need to do is click "match" once you're done customizing the tool's settings. If matching content is found, you can choose to take action. The options available when taking action include:
Any business that uses Facebook and Instagram to market their products or services can tap into the power of this tool to ensure business integrity and enhanced protection of their Intellectual Property. Here is how Rights Manager is beneficial for businesses.
If you create content and monetize it, you can now be sure that nobody will benefit from your creation. Therefore, this tool also gives you the right to claim ad revenue through claim monetization rights.
In the past, people could use someone else's videos or images to drive traffic to their page and even gain fame. Rights Manager now easily detects this and alerts you.
For businesses that regularly suffer the cost of digital disinformation due to misleading images and videos, Rights Manager solves these issues with ease.
Rights Manager gives photographers, artists, and branded businesses the freedom to set their own rules. Additionally, businesses and brands can reach the right audience without online content spoilers. Photographers, for example, can now post their images and get the much-needed traffic from one source - such as their own Facebook or Instagram accounts without frustrating middlemen.
Rights Manager also gives content creators a third highly effective option that finds and matches images that have been used as embeds. Here, the content creators can choose to block, allow, or monitor the content. This is quite a breakthrough for creatives looking to take their IP to the next level.
While Facebook Rights Manager is quite robust and functional, it's not the only tool you can use to protect your content. Furthermore, if you're a content creator who occasionally faces issues with your videos or images, you can choose to use the Facebook IP reporting form. The latter allows you to report all matching content at one time.
By using Rights Manager, you can easily monitor your content and choose the best course of action for duplicate content. This way, you can avoid the shady marketers who would otherwise take credit for what is rightfully yours.
Looking for help? Tired and believing there has got to be a better way?
Let's talk about your business. With over a decade of experience leading companies and transforming lives, and a Master's degree in Org. Development and Leadership, Mike can help you find the best way forward!
Subscribe to receive my latest business tips and tactics in your inbox.
Maintaining a strong web presence has become a necessity for all businesses. It's not enough to just set up a webpage and sit back. A staggering 409 million people view more than 20 billion websites every month. Making your business stand out is a necessity.
Blogging is one of the most cost-effective ways of marketing. It could be exactly what your website has been missing. When you blog, you increase your footprint online and those searching for terms you blog about can find your site. Below are five key benefits a blog can bring to your business while increasing profit.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to the process of using a selection of keywords to make your website more attractive to search engines. In simpler terms, it makes your site more likely to appear in the first page results of a search.
Blogging allows your business to target those long-chain keywords, making your website visible online. Since blogs are periodic, the content on your website will constantly be fresh and updated. The overall effect of SEO is increased organic traffic to your webpages. More visibility translates to potentially more business and ultimately this can increase profits.
Branding is one of the most powerful tools when it comes to marketing. A business blog is an opportunity to enhance your brand. The overall architecture of the blog should be in agreement with your brand. This includes the typeface, themes, blog name, and color palette.
All these visual cues give visitors to your website a more immersive experience. By incorporating these visuals and the brand values into your blog, your visitors will leave the site with a better understanding of the vision, mission, and the standards of your business. All of these combine to make your brand more memorable. Better brand recognition gives your business an advantage over the competition.
Blogging develops a personal connection between businesses and customers, like no other marketing methods. It will make the business seem less like a soulless corporation and more personable.
Ensure that your consumers have an opportunity to provide feedback at the end of each post. It is through the comments and responses that a business can correct past mistakes and learn from them. The connections forged through business blogs help retain current customers and also win over new ones. Ultimately, the more customers you have, the higher your sales and profit will be.
The content on your business blog should not only be interesting, but it should be accurate. Use the blog to show your readers that you are well versed in your niche and the related subjects. Your customers might enjoy an exciting read, but above all else, they want solutions to their problems.
Getting your viewership to trust the information you publish is half the battle. Customers will choose you over your competition because they trust you. In addition to the customers, you can contribute to your business niche by sharing the latest trends, discoveries, and technology in communities. The links can help with future business deals and may open the door for collaborations.
Most blogging platforms come with analytic tools and plugins integrated within. Standard tools like Google Analytics provide the business with a breakdown of their numbers. Not all the visitors that come to your site will buy goods or services; however, they are potential customers.
A lot of valuable information can be gathered from the traffic of your blog. The relevant data include age group, geographic location, return visits conversions, and bounce rates. You can use these metrics to refine your business strategy to generate more leads. Additionally, you can develop a marketing plan to retarget those visitors.
These are just some of the main benefits of setting up a business blog that is part of your main website. Nothing is stopping you from getting started right away. With a WordPress site, blogging is easy to do and the add-on plugins like Yoast SEO can help you optimize each post.
The key is sticking to a publishing calendar such as 1-2 posts per week of 600+ words so that you can begin to reap the benefits. In addition to the new content, all previous posts will continue to generate leads years later. The potential benefits far outweigh the risks. Still unsure how to get started? Check out this article on business blogging basics.
Start your business blog today to start seeing your profit and brand reputation increase.
Learn some new, valuable tips in this post?
If so, sign-up on this page to subscribe to get my latest business tips and tactics posts in your inbox! Subscribe today!
Maintaining an outstanding reputation is the key to success in today’s highly competitive atmosphere. This is because 74% of consumers rely on social media to make a purchasing decision. Facebook, with an active online community of over 2.4 billion users, is arguably the most powerful and attractive platform for building a brand. Most users on this social platform like brand pages with the sole aim of researching products and assessing a brand’s character. Therefore this means that every post, review, and comment redefines how the Facebook community views you. For this reason, every brand should ensure it is presented in the best light.
Here are four actionable tips that business can follow to increase their brand reputation on Facebook:
Brands should always provide updated business information on their Facebook page. This includes their business name, location, description, logo, contact details, email address, operational hours, and more. Additionally, share important business details such as upcoming events, special deals, and other news updates on your Facebook business page. Making this information public shows that your brand is legitimate and earns you more trust.
It is also vital to verify your Facebook business page. This ensures that fake accounts claiming to be affiliated with your brand are not used to damage your online reputation. It also helps your business to be able to get fake accounts removed.
Brands must create high-quality and authentic content to thrive in today’s competitive marketplace. The same applies when it comes to Facebook marketing. You cannot create a strong brand reputation without sharing informative and engaging content that adds value to your audience.
Here are some tips for improving your Facebook reputation through an effective content strategy:
Every brand should engage their customers by allowing public comments and reviews. Thus showing the audience that your brand values customer feedback. You should always respond to reviews, whether they’re positive or negative. If the review is positive, ask them to share their experience with their friends or the larger Facebook community.
In case a customer posts a negative review or comment, do not overreact by fighting back. This might damage or even ruin your brand reputation. Instead, find a way to fix the problem and make the customer happy. If the comment made had a significant impact that ruined your brand’s image, it is a good idea to assess the issue and make a detailed public statement.
When consumers are evaluating vendor products and services, they start by researching the company’s online profile. The first step is usually checking their website, followed by social media profiles such as Facebook. Sharing positive customer reviews and success stories from happy clients can improve your reputation significantly. Make it the norm to regularly share captivating, yet honest video testimonials from your clients. You can also publish case studies and client experiences that show your brand as an authority. All of these are effective ways of communicating the value of your products and services to your target audience and ultimately maintaining an outstanding brand reputation.
Finally, remember to defend and protect your brand proactively against fake news. It is a good idea to use social monitoring tools and put a rapid response team in place. This way, it will be easy to handle an online PR crisis before things get out of control.
Building a strong brand reputation on Facebook and other online platforms is a great way to make potential customers trust your brand. This goes a long way to grow your customer base, generate more leads, and ultimately, boost your business sales.
Looking for help? Tired and believing there has got to be a better way?
Let’s talk about your business. With over a decade of experience leading companies and transforming lives, and a Master’s degree in Org. Development and Leadership, Mike can help you find the best way forward!
Contact Mike today to start the breakthrough!
Gone are the days when uploading one blog post per month was enough for a business website. Posting photos randomly on your website for fun or just for the sake of it no longer works. Website content strategy is vital when it comes to content marketing, and advertising your products and services. Any content you publish should be based on a specific strategic plan.
A website content strategy will not only grow your audience but also increase your ROI (return on investment). It will help you to understand your target audience, the type of content you need, what channels you should be using, your goals, and who will manage the content.
A well-thought-out website content strategy plan can guide your marketing ideas and help you achieve your marketing goals.
Posting random photos, blogs, and any other form of content on different channels will confuse viewers. If you are using a different tone and uploading irrelevant information it can also scare away any potential customers. Being inconsistent makes your business look unreliable.
Readers expect you to add engaging content to your website regularly. They also expect nothing but quality content on a specific topic. With a well-planned strategy, you can quickly meet your audience's expectations by boosting consistency in web content creation and updating.
Are you wondering what type of web or blog content to create for your website? Do you have any great content ideas? Sometimes content creation can be a struggle. However, if you have a documented content strategy, everything begins to flow smoothly from production to distribution.
Formulating topics and ideas becomes natural when you understand why you want to create content. The strategy should, however, fit in with your marketing goals to improve the results.
Do you want to increase the conversion rate? Increase product or service awareness? Improve customer service? When your goals are clear and the reason for creating content, your efforts will bear fruits.
Every brand has its unique potential customers. Content marketing, unlike traditional marketing, enables you to target your ideal customers if you have a good strategy.
Content strategy can guide you in creating the content that suits the needs and preferences of your targeted audience. Relevant content also attracts more website visitors, and a good strategy ensures the content is distributed through the right channels. In any case, your content marketing should aim to offer great content to the ideal audience at the perfect time in the best consumable format.
Without a strategy, you will spend a lot of your time and energy on content marketing. Avoid trial and error methods. Understanding how to create content, and what your users want, will allow you to create efficient and streamlined procedures courtesy of website content strategy. This will then cut the amount of energy and time you are investing in content marketing
How people view and perceive your brand matters. A good strategy can guide you in defining and improving your brand for positive reviews. You can upload information that highlights your company’s vision, mission, and goals in a strategic way.
A company that updates its website with the right information at the right time will gain more users compared to competitors that use haphazard approaches. The modern-day generation does research online before making any purchases. Your brand will grow if you provide essential and informative content that is easy to read and accessible.
Now is the time to develop your website content strategy. Invest in a comprehensive content strategy to achieve all this and grow your business revenue and increase brand awareness.
Need help in creating a website content strategy? Contact us today!
Looking for help? Tired and believing there has got to be a better way?
Let’s talk about life, leadership, and business coaching. With over a decade of experience leading companies and transforming lives, and a Master’s degree in Org Development and Leadership, Mike can help you find the best way forward!
Contact Mike today to start the breakthrough!
Every digital business needs new web content on an ongoing basis. The question is, do you know how to create compelling, optimized website content that converts? Do you know the secrets for writing on the web? Can you write articles, blog posts, and industry reports that instantly grab attention and drive engagement? This is different than brochure copy and definitely different than product manuals.
Since the answer to these above questions is often “NO” for the majority of small and medium-sized businesses, I’ve rounded up the top 7 considerations to help you start creating website content that actually profits your business.
The Search Engine Journal has created a comprehensive guide on how to set goals for a content writing campaign. According to the guide, website content can help you achieve five things;
Before you do anything else, decide on your goals, keeping in mind that web content can have more than one purpose.
Now that you’ve addressed why you’re writing, it’s time to address who you’re writing for. Inc. has a great article that you can use for this. According to the article, to define your target audience, you need to;
Once you’ve defined your audiences, create reader personas that you can always refer to when creating new content. You will write specifically to an audience.
According to one study by eConsultancy, “On average five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy.” The writer says that as soon as you get the headline right, you’ve done 80% of the work.
To this end, website content marketers must give their all when researching and writing headlines. The following five tips should help;
Also, consider using headline analyzer tools such as CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer to evaluate the quality of your headlines.
Among other things;
It’s also recommended to stick to active voice rather than passive verbs as the active voice speaks more directly to the reader.
We recommend optimizing your content for two things; SEO and mobile devices. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) means creating content in such a way that search engines find your pieces easy to crawl. When content is easy to crawl, odds of ranking at the top of search engines dramatically increase.
Mobile optimization, meanwhile, means taking steps to ensure that people who access the content on mobile devices have the same enjoyable experience as those using PC.
What should readers do when they’re done reading? Do they call you? Do they take the conversation to social media? Can they give their opinion? This is something you must think about too because it’s these actions that eventually result in conversions.
Fortunately, there are endless ways to make your content actionable. From the top of the head, you can;
Finally, when the content is up and running, go back to your goals and ask yourself whether it’s is helping you achieve the objectives you set at the beginning of the campaign. Is it helping you earn links? Are you ranking favorably on search engine pages? Are you getting the desired engagement, leads, and sales?
Thankfully, several tools are now available to help you track all the content marketing metrics you need. We suggest focusing on; lead quality, traffic numbers, onsite engagement, and the number of sales.
Now that you know and understand the secrets for writing on the web, the next thing we didn’t discuss above is the need for aggressive content distribution. Always share content on multiple channels (LinkedIn and other social media sites) and, where possible, repurpose old content to reach new markets. If you can follow all these tips for writing on the web, rest assured of plenty of traffic, growing leads, and increased sales.
New fresh content is essential for your website. What’s the need for regular, new web content? Why not just trust the blog posts and videos you’ve already published on your website to sustain you in search ranking position and get you the leads and sales needed?
This is a question many marketers are asked at some point, especially when you have to account for the return on investment of the content marketing efforts. While the need for foundational website content is quickly understood, adding to the information on the site when you already have what is thought to be more than enough content pieces gathering dust on the internet may feel wasteful.
Yet, it’s not. There are six very important reasons to regularly create fresh website content for your company website and they include the following:
Why would you want search engines to frequently index your pages? Simple – the more times these engines stop to look at your website/blog, the greater the chances of achieving a higher ranking in a search engine.
Typically, whenever you create new content, you’re also likely going to be presenting fresh information – information that wasn’t previously available on your site. Fresh indexing is the only way search engines can discover this new information. If the new information is on a topic currently in demand, rest assured of improved ranking.
If you think that keywords are no longer useful in achieving higher SEO ranking, think twice. According to a 2018 article on SearchEngineLand, keywords are currently the second most important ranking factor, only after links. Indeed, even RankBrain, Google’s new AI-powered algorithm, was designed for the primary purpose of helping the search company better understand keywords. The more relevant search phrases you have on your website, the more likely you’re to rank favorably. Fresh content is the only way to boost your keyword numbers.
If upon a Google search a user finds new posts alongside posts they’ve come across before, they’re more likely to click on a new post. Why? Because our brains are naturally attracted to new things!
From various studies, it’s apparent that the brain treats novelty as a reward. In one experiment, psychologists used fMRI imaging to see how the brain reacts to novelty. Findings showed that the SN/VTA area (novelty center of the brain) is most stimulated by novel things. This same habit causes search engine users to click on new content pieces.
In addition to getting more clicks, new content pieces also help keep users engaged. From emails to blog posts and social media posts, fresh new content is essential. Whenever you provide something new, shares, replies, comments, likes, etc go up. This doesn’t mean that old content pieces are not engaging. It only means that if you want to keep excitement levels up, then posting something new from time to time is paramount. And, no, it doesn’t have to be a 50-page industry report. If it’s something they haven’t seen before, your fans will be excited to read, share, tweet, and re-tweet it. Any spike in engagement levels is good for SEO.
Fresh content is essential to keep your audience up to date which can translate in better SEO performance. Let’s say that you’re adding a new security feature to your site to better protect consumer information. This is information all your customers will want to know.
If you were to publish a blog post on the same, the majority of your audience will eagerly click through to learn about the changes. The same applies when launching a new product or upgrading your services.
We live in an information age. Whether you market to end consumers or other businesses, information rules! If you have vital information first, you’re guaranteed attention. Just look at the competition in the tech market, for instance. What do the market leaders have that others don’t? Is it not new technology? What about the automotive industry? What makes the likes of Tesla and Volkswagen industry heavyweights? Fresh ideas, right? This same principle applies in content marketing; constantly providing something new gives you authority.
Aside from the above points, providing fresh new content is essential every few days to boost loyalty and create new link building opportunities. These too can help boost SEO performance. Content marketing is a good idea for any business that wants to rank well on Google and stay in top positions.
Mike Gingerich is President of Digital Hill Multimedia (www.DigitalHill.com), a Goshen web design and marketing agency. He is also a co-founder of TabSite.com and Waftio.com, leading software tools for contests and lead capture, and author of the book Game Plan for Social Media Lead Generation. Find out more at www.MikeGingerich.com/book.
UPDATE: 09/20/2018 - Amazon is merging CreateSpace into the Amazon owned Kindle Direct Publishing platform (KDP). KDP will be the new way to self-publish. I'm testing out the service myself now and will report on it later.
Using Amazon to self-publish is a newer and quality way to get your book to the public. With both digital and traditional book formatting, it’s a useful approach for getting your authored work published.
CreateSpace is Amazon’s own in-house book publishing company which will print your book and make it available worldwide via Amazon.com. Up until recently, self-publishing had a less than stellar reputation, however, in the modern market self-publishing is used by legitimate, writers, some of which have had best sellers.
If you want to get your book officially published, the CreateSpace online book publishing system is definitely a platform to consider. Here's a brief walkthrough of their publishing process.
It goes without saying you’ll need a finished project for publishing. But you’ll need to do a bit more than provide a document file. It also needs to be correctly formatted.
Setting your margins, headers, page numbers, and the like can be challenging if you've never done it before. Luckily CreateSpace offers pre-formatted templates to use to write your work. This completely removes the post writing formatting work.
Next, you’ll have to upload your work to CreateSpace. The process is relatively easy, and you fill out expected information such as the book’s title, credits, a description, and select some formatting choices such as page color and the size of the book.
In addition to your manuscript, you’ll need to upload a cover. CreateSpace has a tool to create a cover if you don’t have one. You can also select a custom ISBN, but that’s only needed if you plan to publish the work through a traditional publisher later on; in most cases, the provided auto-generated ISBN works perfectly fine.
Once your book has been submitted, CreateSpace reviews the project for any errors. Generally, within 24 hours, you’ll be informed of any mistakes that need to be corrected before you submit the final manuscript.
Mistakes are commonly formatting issues that don't translate well to print. For example, when posting on the internet, multicolored text is easy to read, but that doesn't translate well to paper.
After your work has been approved, you set up the distribution channels and pricing. An important part of pricing is the royalties you'll earn when a book sells. Factors such as the length of the book and format can directly affect your royalty payments.
Be sure to review your figures before publishing. For example, increasing the size of your font makes the book longer, which in turn makes it more expensive to print, and then leads to lower royalties.
CreateSpace also offers several selling channels. Their store and an Amazon listing are included for free. For a fee, you can have your work listed in the expanded channel which makes it available to other stores.
Note that just because your book is available doesn't mean these stores will start selling it. However, it will be on their list as an option if the demand is there.
Once your work has been published and is available for purchase, the last step is the promotion of the book itself. CreateSpace offers traditional tools such as press releases.
But using social media is a good idea and goes a long way towards informing interested readers. Amazon also lets you track how well your book is selling.
If you have a book in you that’s eager to come out check out CreateSpace as a self-publishing option. CreateSpace makes book publishing easy and quick. Now, if only writing was as easy and quick.
A podcast is much like a radio show. It can be audio, and can also include video and presentation materials. You get to listen and learn about any subject including news, business, science, marketing, etc. In fact, if you're in business, a podcast is a huge opportunity to learn strategy and tactics.
But Podcasts aren't just for business development. Relax and listen to Oprah's Super Soul Conversations, Ted Talks Daily or even a serialized audiobook. There are history podcasts, humor podcasts, true crime podcasts … and even Stuff You Should Know by How Stuff Works, which is on the list of top podcasts in the Apple app, and, you guessed it, is all about how stuff works.
Podcasts allow business people to tap into many perspectives from experts making it easy and convenient to offer consumers what they are looking for. Listen to the podcasts while in traffic, taking a walk, during exercise or at the office. These programs are free, and all you need is internet access. Listen immediately when you come across a topic you love, or download them, and create a "playlist" on the topics of your interest.
Don't think you have enough time to listen, or you're just impatient? Listen to the podcast at 1.5 or 2x speed. This will speed up the narration. At 1.5 speed you will hardly detect any difference in speech patterns than at normal speed. And you'll be able to get through more content faster.
Get your podcasts on the native Podcast app if you're an Apple user. On Android, download Pocket Cast to listen to Podcasts. You could also download a free app such as Stitcher, TuneIn or SoundCloud for podcasts on those various networks.
Subscribing ensures new published episodes are automatically delivered to your device. This way you don't have to visit the podcast website to see what’s new. Be sure to stretch your genres to get as much helpful information as possible. If you encounter a gem, don’t give up keep searching.
Some podcasters have weekly posts and other daily, with messages related to business directed to business owners looking for ideas. Normally, the podcasts focus on real business problems and how to solve them. Following the forums gives you access to ideas of how to balance your work life, reach potential investors, among other topics. Some professional podcasters invite thought leaders and well-known business people for interviews as guests. Some of them also allow their audiences to send their questions for podcast guests and choose the most popular ones to be asked during the interview.
The next generation of global business leaders will be learning from Podcasts as a result of how accessible and easy to digest they are. And Podcast producers are increasingly the recognized experts in their fields. Consider taking advantage of the free platform in your business development process. There are also many ways to monetize podcasts, and SoundCloud promotion website services can also help you boost podcast views.
Please enable pop-ups to receive the download.
Putting your company's identity onto a social media platform inherently involves more direct communication with: customers, associates, rivals, the potential trolls, and so on. While the Instagram interface is good for interacting with people, it's not spectacular at analyzing their behaviors and measuring marketing impact.
That's why I love the world of Cloud services. I always get excited when I see software that helps small to medium businesses compete with the big dogs. I recently took a look at an Instagram-focused service named Tack, using both their free area report tool and their Instagram curation service on a Pro-level account trial.
Tack comes swinging out of the gate with free access to their area report tool whether or not you sign up for their service. Either 500 posts or up to 12 months of activity are combed through and picked apart. Then you get a rundown of important data points like what the most popular posts were or which hashtags saw the most activity.
It would be nice to get the updated reports in real-time, but the emailed reports are easy to share with your team. You can run up to 4 locations per hour per account, which is plenty enough to look at a city with a couple neighborhoods and landmarks.
Let's move to the account-based Instagram curation tool. It comes in 3 levels (Starter, Pro, and Enterprise) with the major difference being the number of Instagram user profiles and the maximum number of followers managed.
Once you've connected a profile to an Instagram account, you can look through user activity using a hashtag or a location. Input a hashtag or location into the large boxes, and you'll be treated to posts that match your request. From there, you can quickly like, comment, or request permission to use the media yourself. All of these increase your Instagram visibility in the targeted field. It gives you the opportunity to use user-generated content in your own account.
On the main menu, you can perform several functions. Review activity on your posts, comments, requests, and manage your media library just below the curation fields. The last two fields let you customize your request message and response hashtag to whatever you'd like them to be.
Yes, if you intend to take your social media presence seriously. Also if your audience has a heavy focus on Instagram use or image-based media. Tack is useful for any company looking to run a social media blitz on a specific city or neighborhood. Especially due to the information you get in the free area report and the curation tools. Are you a new restaurant trying to break into a packed downtown scene? Are you an app creator selling a new game that wants you to walk around hunting for monsters? Tack is a useful tool.
Try a two-week trial of the starter and pro versions to see if the curation tool works for you. It doesn't come with training wheels. However, it has a straightforward interface that should be easy for anyone with an understanding of social media. The staff is very responsive. They were more than willing to help walk me through the ropes of using the tools effectively.
Please enable pop-ups to receive the download.
Writing blog posts can be fun. But reading the reactions from your readers when a post gets them excited is the best. But the challenge lies in scheduling and sharing on social media. How will you remind people to check out your cool post after a couple of days, weeks or months?
Some programs like Tweet Deck allow you to write Tweets in advance and schedule them. But Missinglettr takes this idea and goes even further. It allows you to not only plan your social media posts over the next year, but it even writes the social media posts for the keywords you're using. With these duties taken care of, you’re free to pursue other tasks – like creating more quality blog content that gets people talking.
Overall, Missinglettr can make planning your social media a breeze.
Please enable pop-ups to receive the download.
Facebook may attract criticism for everything from constantly changing rules for marketers to questionable privacy settings to possible political biases in its news headlines. But even with the occasional grumbling, massive amounts of people are still there regularly each day!
Its worldwide user's number over 3 billion, making it the world's most dominant social network. If you want to build loyalty with your existing Facebook fans and build new customers, you don’t need to contact every single Facebook user, since many users in other parts of the world aren’t likely going to be interested in your products or services at all.
So the goal is to reach people who are more likely to be your customers: they could live in the community you serve or are at least are interested in what you bring to the market.
Lucky for you, Facebook is excellent at segmenting audiences and keeping track of how many people view and interact with your posts. Facebook Page Insights doesn’t let you drill as deep or go as far back in time as Google Analytics but does provide some key high points for review.
While anyone should be able to see your company’s posts in their newsfeed or when they search for your page, only admins can see the behind-the-scenes details like your traffic and engagement. Delegate this to others in your company who might be posting on or maintaining your page. Don’t be too liberal with giving admin privileges – only allow trusted individuals to have these privileges. Once your admins are authorized, click on “View Insights” on the left menu.
If a Facebook user saw your page or recent posts, what did they do?
Facebook keeps track of all of this activity. Did they ‘like’ it? Likes are a base level. They show someone cared enough about your post to react. Likes and reaction can be a minimal barometer since they are terms that even those barely familiar with Facebook understand. However, they don’t weigh as heavily in your overall stats as shares or comments. Shares extend your reach and comments signal enough interest to engage.
You should always have a message on your online and offline marketing to “like us on Facebook.” That means people who click “like” on your page, not individual posts, will sometimes be able to see your posts in their news feed. However, Facebook is notorious for their algorithm which makes it a competitive journey to try and get posts seen.
Tip to the wise: I just saw a van for a DJ Service that had “Like us on Facebook” on the side….Problem was they didn’t list the Facebook URL! Make it EASY for people.
This number refers to how many people saw or reacted to a post by deliberately visiting your page. Facebook breaks this number down between fans or non-fans. You can get higher traffic by boosting individual posts or your entire page, which means you pay extra to have it sent to a larger population or higher percentage of fans. This may be useful to spread the word further for a specific promotion but won’t count as organic.
This measures how much people not just react to a post but actually click on it. This is where you get page activity and website traffic.
< < Please enable pop-ups to receive the download. > >
Social media is the buzzword tossed about by consumers and business professionals. It seems like every time someone tells you the best way to promote your business the first thing out of their mouth concerns social media as the leading new method.
One reason for this is because of the low barriers to entry. Social networking giants Facebook and Twitter have made a huge impression on the public, and marketers can reach their audience on those platforms. Time spent on those two networks per month is quite amazing.
Despite this fanfare, as a business owner you have to regard social media as only one aspect of an online marketing campaign. Because no matter how many likes your Facebook posts receive if these posts don't drive customers to your website or your phone – then what’s the point? To this end, it's imperative that you concentrate your online marketing with the aim of getting lead conversions.
One of the most discouraging aspects of marketing is running a promotion for a couple of months without seeing results. However; those who continue to build momentum with consistent efforts can see results eventually. Just like anything else, online marketing is a process. Use analytics to review progress and make small changes to your original plan and you'll gain more control over the process.
Don’t hesitate to track your stats; after all, if you don’t track it how will you know how to make improvements? Solid analytics will improve your email marketing campaign, your social media posts and ultimately your website traffic.
Google mandates a website have good, quality content as part of its search engine algorithm. The last thing you want to say in online marketing is “Buy me!” and that’s it. It doesn’t work. Relationship building and management is the key. You have to give them something of value. In return, you get a customer when they trust you and have had their questions answered. Provide your readers with how to guides, useful downloads, content (via blogging), etc. If you don’t know where to start, just answer questions that seem to pop up consistently about your product or service. This, all by itself, would drive traffic.
Relationship building and management is the key. You have to give them something of value. In return, you get a customer when they trust you and have had their questions answered. Provide your readers with how to guides, useful downloads, content (via blogging), etc. If you don’t know where to start, just answer questions that seem to pop up consistently about your product or service. This, all by itself, would drive traffic.
Provide your readers with how to guides, useful downloads, content (via blogging), etc. If you don’t know where to start, just answer questions that seem to pop up consistently about your product or service. This, all by itself, would drive traffic.
The name of the game here is the “soft lead capture”. When someone leaves your website the stats show the majority don’t come back. Most websites have a 25% return rate.
Therefore it’s important to have a simple “soft” offer while they are on your site. Something of value like a resource guide or discount coupon, something that fits your industry. To gain access they must give you their name and email address. With tools like Waftio.com on your site you can easily create this and the value is that you ensure you have a way to stay in contact with that visitor via email regardless if they return to your website soon or not.
Once they sign-up, you can add them to a email marketing list. A “drip campaign” lets you build trust, nurture the lead, and then even separate your traffic by the actions they take in the emails. Develop a more in-depth nurturing program for traffic that’s willing to go deeper and become qualified leads. In fact, this is another place where analytics can give you great returns. By seeing which landing pages are converting sales, you can learn how to deliver similar content. Building relationships through integrated marketing is the key to success in online marketing.
Develop a more in-depth nurturing program for traffic that’s willing to go deeper and become qualified leads. In fact, this is another place where analytics can give you great returns. By seeing which landing pages are converting sales, you can learn how to deliver similar content. Building relationships through integrated marketing is the key to success in online marketing.
You thrive on creating excellent content for your customers. And you know that video and imagery are key online. However, your video and graphics have been a little weak. So what can you do? Adobe Express (formerly Adobe Spark) is the newest thing that fits the bill – it’s just been released by the makers of Photoshop. It is the definition of user-friendly; particularly when it comes to helping with video.
Adobe Photoshop is capable of just about anything. However, it can be a bit challenging to use. As well, it’s a cost investment that many small businesses are not ready to make. With the cost and learning curve, many marketers are looking for an alternative and now they have one.
Adobe Express brings graphic and video design back to the average consumer – particularly for social media graphics and blog post images.
Adobe Express is a web browser-based interface and in-built content management system with big, bright buttons noting the actions you want to take. Choose the template for your image from the landing page and easily work on any of the following:
If you’ve ever been a content manager for your website and dealt with the headache of trying to manually create images for a website, Adobe Express is for you. Once inside Adobe Express friendly user interface, at the bottom of the screen, the platform lets you choose how you want the content you create to look. The Pages for Web Stories option is quite useful for stand alone pages like a wedding photographer service, wedding ring seller or event announcement page.
There are social media benefits to Adobe Express as well. There are Pinterest, Facebook advertisements, Facebook Cover photo, LinkedIn, and Twitter templates within the system and ready to use. Basically, all of the social networks, as well as your blog platform, have quick-start templates. It cuts time and effort and keeps your branding consistent by allowing you to use the same template for your next project.
With all the options neatly laid out, Express allows you to create a “video slideshow” that renders into animation. You can tell a story by choosing your onscreen template in the video section. It even suggests images once you lay out your parameters. Sets up your mic to capture the story you're telling. You just add your photos to each slide.
If you’ve ever used or seen a tutorial on Photoshop, then you’ll recognize the slides format at the bottom of the Adobe Express video animation screen. The slides list loads some suggested images, or you can upload your own. At the end, just play the slideshow to see how the video turns out.
With the ready-made templates and easy video creation abilities, Adobe Express is a benefit to social media marketers and website content managers. It saves time and effort and creates a high-quality end result. Since images are so important in communicating well online today, it’s critical to find “go-to” tools to help you get the job done efficiently and effectively. This is a tool that can help!
PS The featured image was created with Adobe Express!
There's no denying that the phrase "content is king" is as true today as it was back in the early days of the internet. The best content wins online. However, when it comes to today's content, both from the perspective of web users and search engines, it’s important for businesses to know that quality is as important as quantity. Here's how to write for the web for readability.
Your written content is no longer simply a vehicle for your keywords to help you rise in Google search rankings. Google is smarter than sites that try to “stuff in” keywords. These days, readability is even more important. Here's how you can achieve the perfect balance between great content, great grammar, and great readability.
These days, there's definitely a place online for long form content. Search engines, in particular, love articles that contain a couple of thousand words. However, the average internet user may not have the time or inclination to read a longer post like that.
Keep the majority of your written content short and easier to digest, and link to longer pieces for those who want to know more. The optimal length for written articles is between about 600 and 800 words.
Another important factor in website and blog writing usability is the language you use. Stay away from jargon and also highly technical language (unless your audience is highly technical!)
Research consistently shows that the average internet users read at a high school level. So make sure your content is at a 9th-grade reading level. Not because your readers lack intelligence, but because it's easy and quick to scan and read.
Make sure that you also use the active voice, and write directly to the reader. Your readers are always “you”, and your own organization is always “we.” If you mix that up, you might confuse your readers or sound cold and aloof.
Another way to make your content accessible to time-strapped internet users is to make it easy to scan. Avoid big blocks of unbroken text, and use the following methods to make it easier for readers:
It's important to space out your content so that there are clear breaks between lines and paragraphs, and just to give your readers' eyes a place to rest. Remember that it's harder to read on screens than on the paper page, and lay your articles out accordingly.
If you're reading all of this, and it's sounding like a lot of work to write great content for your site or blog, that's because it is.
The good news is that there are plenty of freelancers and ghostwriters out there who specialize in writing for the web, and who will create your content for reasonable a fee. This is usually an affordable and easy method to ensure you get great articles that your readers love.
Scredible.com is the next step in content marketing research and editing. It's artificial intelligence (AI) that frees up time and works for you so that you can focus on your message. If you know that content marketing for your website and social media posting of resource-rich information is important but you don’t have the time, Scredible is a key resource! With this app, you’re no longer searching for information online; it’s brought directly to you, and drafts for you to edit/approve are created for you based on your writing style. Think of it as a virtual content-gathering and writing assistant.
If your business isn't using social media; your company may be falling behind your competitors and losing brand recognition. Websites, Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts are all needed to get in front of and capture an audience share, and that can take significant time.
An incredible amount of information is available online; written, videos, graphics. Weeding through the huge piles of content to find info relevant to your readers is frustrating. Not to mention the fact that carving out time to do your own blog post writing can be tiring. The Scredible AI selects tidbits of the info you want from oceans of data you don’t.
When you set up a business or personal page, Scredible is the tool that searches for relevant content and creates an environment for your brand to grow.
The Scredible team analyzes your ROI and social media skills, and a strategy is created. Whether you’re in need of recruiting folks for your sales department or training them to engage with your clients, Scredible helps you while saving money along the way.
The Scredible team will design a unique AI system that is matched to your business and its social media needs. It fills content gaps. You’ll maintain an Internet presence that reflects your style and message.
After that, the AI searches for content and provides a synopsis of it. At this point, you may edit the content. With each revision, the AI learns your interests and style of presentation. The AI creates synopsis the way you would, letting you spend less time editing and more time engaging with customers.
Scredible has several pricing levels. Whether you prefer to handle everything in-house or outsource, Scredible adapts to your ways. In the end, your sales team will have the knowledge to engage to bring in more leads, schedule more appointments and convert them into a viable income.
Scredible helps with anything from recruitment to training your staff; Scredible gives you the tools to make a truly unique and healthy brand.
No problem. Your AI will tailor each of your profiles to express your message in the style you want to relate to the world. It learns what you want and builds upon it.
To use this AI, you'll receive individual coaching, webinar presentations, and workshops. Like the content Scredible finds, the training is presented in the method you prefer. Scredible builds its success on your success and helps you every step of the way.
So, this is “high-tech” at its leading edge! Artificial intelligence to help you curate great content, write social media posts, and help you write blog posts, all from an intelligent system that learns your style and goals!
Are you engaging your web visitors and social media community?
Do you have an "engagement" action plan"? Engagement in Your Digital Marketing Strategy is all about what you need to do at the TOP of your digital funnel to CONNECT.
You NEED to be engaging your web and social community to build rapport. I talk about how to do this...
In this episode of the halftime Mike podcast I dive into the "Engagement" area of the digital marketing funnel. What it is, what you need to do, and how it works!
[powerpress]
Subscribe: Halftime Mike on iTunes | Android users via RSS
Here's a window into the total digital marketing funnel outline and note "Engage" second to the top of the funnel. This is our focus today!
Engaging is the art and science of responding and being social with your community. It can happen on your website and it definitely happens with social media. It's about responding, acknowledging, answering questions and offering support.
My big three ideas are that to be "Engaging" a brand must
You need to show attentiveness, care, and warmth. In other words...your brand must be human!
Because in this day and age, it can be a competitive advantage and differentiator!
As well, many businesses are not ready to buy from a company right away. They need to have multiple points of contact to better know, like, and trust the business.
That's right, the majority of people you engage with will not be seeking to buy right way. However, since we know that it takes 7 points of contact before people have enough information to Know, Like, and Trust us enough to buy from us, engagement is key because it can be points 2-6 in the "connection" process towards making a purchase from you.
The major issue today is that businesses are simply overlooking and skipping engagement. They continue to be "old-school." Old-school marketing was all "push". From billboards to magazine ads and more, but today, being social is at the forefront. People need to like you before they will want to do business with your company and buy your product!
The way they will build that "like" mentality is through interaction.
To market on social media is to need to be ready to and committed to engagement. Answer comments, reply to @ mentions, follow then on Twitter/Instagram/Pinterest back, etc. Engagement is about making the valuable effort to respond.
Engagement Example:
It started with a simple question.... We love San Diego craft beer. Do you?
The question begged for engagement and the fans did not disappoint!
The KEY here is that the Facebook Page responded and followed up with more engagement, a question!
You gotta engage! Social is a two-way street and it's a way for you to build rapport and make those connection points that build the know-like-trust relationship!
So what’s your key takeaway from this?
What do you need to do in the next 24 hours based on listening?
Share below!
Resources outlined in this episode. Click each to explore!
Help Spread the Word!
Please let your Twitter followers know about this podcast. Simply click here now to post a tweet >>.
If you enjoyed this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast, please “go over to iTunes, leave a rating, write a review and subscribe!
Thank you so much for your support!
I’m an Indiana Hoosier native where basketball is the top sport. Every team heads to the locker room at halftime to evaluate the first half and create an updated plan for the second half. That plan includes adjustments based on reviewing what worked and what didn't. The “halftime” is a key review point where the game stops, the team pulls away to huddle in the locker room away from the fans, and they come out prepared and ready to succeed in the second half.
That’s what this podcast is all about, taking the time to pull away for a bit to evaluate, learn, and set some strategies for your business to succeed in the second half. Join me by subscribing and let me be your “business halftime” to help you find great success going forward!
Subscribe: Halftime Mike on iTunes | Android users via RSS | Listen on Stitcher.
Knowing your audience is one of the fundamentals of marketing, and an important step for getting better conversions.
In today's world, simple web traffic knowledge is not enough. You need to have an understanding of deeper data points such as your social and mobile audiences as well. These audiences are having more and more of an impact on the web for one, and, second, mobile and social audiences are massively growing, and projected to continue scaling as shown in these stats:
You cannot ignore the huge mobile and social audience if you want more conversions on your website. Your site needs to work well for these audiences and you need to know what is working. The good news is that Google Analytics makes it easy to learn more about your mobile and social audiences.
After you login to Google Analytics, click add segment on the dashboard.
A drop-down menu with many options will appear. Click the checkbox next to mobile traffic and any other segments you want to view and then click apply.
This will bring up a graph that compares all users with mobile traffic so you can see how much mobile traffic your site has received. The pie charts below the line graph break down the segments by percentage, so you can see the percentage of mobile visitors you've had.
Now that you have added the mobile viewing segment, you have a wealth of information available to you about your mobile visitors. You can find out about the age, gender, and interests of your visitors and how those interests break down according to the device used. You can also discover referral sources by device. All of this information can be used to learn more about your target audiences and how you can improve your marketing toward them.
To learn more about your social traffic, scroll down on the sidebar to the left to the button labeled "acquisitions." When you click that, a drop down menu will appear with more options. Click the one labeled "social," and below that, "overview." You will then see an overview of how your social networks are working with your website. You can see how much of your traffic comes from social networks, and which social networks are giving you the most traffic.
Below "Overview" is "Network Referrals," which will show you where people are engaging with your content. You can identify the content that is working the best for each social media network. With that information, you can adjust your social media marketing plan to create the type of content that has worked well in the past or discover new ways of getting engagement.
Moving down, the Social Users Flow chart will show you where your social traffic originated, where they went on your site, and how they interacted with your site.
You can also track conversions through mobile traffic on Google Analytics. You can view your conversion goals through various segments, such as all users, mobile traffic, and tablet traffic to see which devices are getting you conversions.
A huge amount of information is available through Google Analytics. Make sure to use the tools available for social and mobile analytics to guide your marketing efforts!
What’s your next step you need to take today for your business in Google Analytics?
