internet marketing consultant Archives

The social media presence seems to be a prerequisite step in the evolution of a powerful brand. Every major business is investing large amounts of resources in these channels while there are still many skeptics that question the effect of this online marketing.

However, the numbers are speaking volumes of the fact that social media platforms are here to stay. There are 2 billion active social media accounts. Imagine that each of them is a consumer in the search for information and products to improve their lifestyle. Moreover, if we think of the fact that there are around 8 billion people on our planet, we can see social media as the door that leads directly to the global market.

We will focus more in this article on the power of social media for the business mediums and shape them in 7 awesome benefits.

1. Brand recognition

While the purpose of the official website of a brand is to deliver information about the products, the social media platforms are the main channels to spread the word about your brand. When people access their social profiles, they primarily seek the connection with their friends and family. However, personal interests cannot be switched off, especially when the use of such platforms is not for work. Thus, the users are always in search for the next interesting bits that may improve the quality of their life.

This is where your brand comes in. The sharing of information stands at the basis of any social platform, and your brand can be among these topics. If the company brings value to the community, the word of mouth will be activated in this online environment. Happy customers can be encouraged to talk about the brand, and their posts can be in return seen by their friends and followers. And this is how the brand recognition is getting stronger and stronger. You can help this phenomenon by using social media amplification on your website. Plus, there is not needed a high budget to make your brand popular throughout these platforms.

2. Brand loyalty

The frequent social posts are not only meant to bring new leads for the sales departments but also maintain and increase the loyalty of old customers. Studies show that 53% of Americans are developing a loyal behavior towards the brands they follow on social media.

The official social profile of a company holds more than just the opportunity to deliver quality content. It also nourishes the connection between brand and customers. The ability to directly reply to the posts of your favorite brand and play a role in its community keeps the interest in the brand alive.

3. Cost effective targeted ads

The social media is not only an access point to 2 billion consumers, but it can also be used to send your campaigns to the exact target audience. The social ads are the most inexpensive promotional methods and yet one of the most effective strategies for high ROI. Social media is vital to the business success when it comes to online advertising. Facebook Ads, for example, offer audience segmentation that fits the profile of your marketing persona. If your present campaign is suited for the California motorcycle riders than Facebook knows exactly where to deliver your sponsored posts.

4. Customer persona

The social media platforms are ultimately a valuable source of information about your target audience. Just by simply analyzing the profiles of the brand followers opens up a tap of insights. You can get to know what the preferences, hobbies, working fields or demographics of your ideal consumers are. These details will enable you to create more targeted marketing campaigns.

Moreover, the followers can provide constructive feedback for the business. They may prefer writing on social media about their issues with the brand activity rather than contacting customer service. While the feedback shouldn’t be hidden or altered, its negative connotation can be turned into proactive improvements of the brand itself.

5. Higher conversion rates

One main reason that the consumers choose to interact more with the brand on social platforms is the humanizing effect. Behind any purchasing decision stands the reason of brand trust. Often times, the website of a company provides a lot of bodies of information to the detriment of originality or entertainment. However, a social profile can be used as the voice of a brand, which has originality and authenticity.

This voice of the brand tackles only issues that correspond to a set of values that are shared by the entire community. Once the consumers identify their own values with the ones from the company, a relationship of trust is created. From here to the purchase decision is just a matter of time.

6. A bridge between social followers and website

Once the consumers identify their needs with a brand, they usually start some research about the company. And what better way there is to do so, but the official website of the brand? So, between the social interaction and website activity is just one small step.

The website can be easily tracked down in the social profiles if made visible and the traffic gathered on social channels can get redirected to the website itself.

7. Upgraded Customer Service

Even though they can be used for a lot of different personal and business reasons, social media platforms are a communication channel. But unlike the more traditional ways of online communication, like e-mail or chats, this type of platform is transparent. This means that everybody can see the public series of replies between the customer and the brand.

This can be used to the advantage of the brand if it is wisely handled. The complaints can be dealt with proactive measures, like publicly assuring the unsatisfied customers that they will receive a brand new product without extra costs. Or the brand can over deliver and repay all the comments of a popular post with personalized gifts.

These 7 awesome benefits created by the social platforms can be enough to improve the performance of any business. After all, the social media is a way to connect the brand with the clients. Remember that a company without loyal customers has few chances of success.

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:

The reality is that there is a lot of competition for traffic and a massive amount of content out on the web. Your competitors have the same goal as you do. So how can you rise above?

Here’s a hit-list of 7 Strategies to Increase Organic Traffic to Your Website:

1. Do Keyword Research

Make sure that you're clear about the topics that you want to rank for. It’s not about ranking for your company name but about key phrases, often of your products and services. Make a list of keywords that describe the content of your products and services, and use them to generate your keyword phrases.

You can use Hubspot’s Keyword Tool to help you create optimal keywords based on specific criteria. Optimally you want keywords with high search volume and low competition. Think in terms of 1-3 word phrases and terms that users search for.

2. Optimize Your Website

Once you have ranked your keyword in terms of importance, optimize your website for them! First, make sure your primary keyword phrase is central to your website home page copy and title tags.

It would also be of value to have a separate inner page focused on that keyword phrase where the phrase is included in the copy, title, meta-description and the page URL. Your language must be simple and easily readable by your audience.

Make sure that the site's usability (ability to explore and navigate from any device) is excellent and your pages contain high-quality, resource-rich content.

3. Use Long Tail Keywords

Long tail keyword phrases are just that….longer. They help you rank for terms that people might search for. Users are inputting longer search phrases in search engines, so having those longer phrases on your site can make a difference!

If you have a pet shop in South Bend, you might be tempted to make your keyword phrase "pet shop". Think about how broad your search results will be and who all you compete against for that term!

If you narrow it down to “South Bend area pet shop” by making it a longer term, the list of competitors will be much, MUCH shorter and if you have that phrase on your site you can ultimately rank for it and lead more people to your site.

Plus, it would be a common search for someone regionally looking for a pet shop in the South Bend area to type that exact term.

4. Remember to Blog

The more frequently your site is updated, the more favored it will be by search engines. Stay on a schedule and post regularly to make your site more visible.

Users appreciate that you have taken the time to consistently provide high-quality content and will return for more. We recommend publishing new content on your website at least weekly if not 2x per week.

5. Create Viral Content

According to Buzzsumo, the most shared posts are longer and range from 3,000 to 10,000 words. For people to read that post in the first place, you have to have great headlines. If it’s good enough, 8 out of 10 people will click on it.

Use Buzzsumo to create content ideas and headline title ideas. Titles are critically important to capturing the attention of viewers.

When writing longer content articles on your website, use sub-titles and bulleted lists to make the article easy to follow, and easy to skim. People online are often skimmers! Check out more tips on how to create awesome, readable content for your blog

6. Create Evergreen Content

Evergreen content retains its relevancy years after its original post, it “stays green” a long time! 60 Second Marketer sums up the do’s and don’ts of creating evergreen content:

7. Create Elite Email Traffic

Most mass marketing emails go straight to the trash without being read. By creating an elite list, what your email offers becomes relevant to the recipient and they are more likely to open it and act on it.

When you send a newsletter like this where someone feels they are part of a insider select group, the open rates will be higher. Your leads will be targeted and will create word of mouth referrals.

When done this way, even with less than 1000 subscribers, you can create a profitable business where email turns into real leads that convert to sales.

So that’s a wrap! What’s the 3 keys you should get started on right away to sharpen your website and boost the traffic flow coming in?

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.

Additionally, WaveApps connects with many banks and credit unions nationally, making it easy to sync transactions and balance your books.

Set Up Accounting

WaveApps makes it easy and safe to link a bank account or Paypal accounts to the service for real-time accounting information. View transactions, pay a vendor or receive payments from clients.

Create an Invoice

The app allows users to accept credit cards as well as physical payments. Wave Payments is automatically built into invoices, so the user is paid quickly.

Credit card processing is one way WaveApps makes money. It's free to sign up to receive payments via credit card, but the app takes 30 cents per incoming payment and an additional 2.9%. The same fee that PayPal and Stripe charge for incoming payments.

WaveApps also generates income via sidebar product ads and paid customer support. It is a totally web based software so you can login from any Internet connected device.

If you travel or are on the go often outside the office, this accounting tool is for you! Login from any Internet ready device.

Payroll

Overall, the usability of the app is great. It has a convenient WordPress-style dashboard on the left side of the screen. The dashboard has large, easily clickable buttons that are simple (and not frustrating) to use from any type of device.

In addition to this great platform, WaveApp offers live help with a direct line to the headquarters (no robots!) and live online chat support. They're working hard to give users access to “power in numbers” business savings deals such as tax services and other necessities.

Overall, WaveApps offers a seamless approach to managing small business finances. The free version is robust, and the service also offers accounting management for your personal finance and bank accounts. Wave is one of the best QuickBooks alternatives.

Another great alternative to QuickBooks and WaveApps is Bonsai: an all-in-one business management and financial suite for freelancers and small businesses. Along with other features, they have integrated accounting, invoicing, and tax features seamlessly allowing users to fully automate their workflow.

If you've grown weary of Quickbooks software and want a less costly solution, then WaveApps is something to consider but if you are still worried about managing the tool you can hire an Accountant. It’s much easier today to search in Google. Simply type in Accountants plus your area. if you’re near Coventry, Goggle “Accountants Coventry” and you’ll find companies that can help you.

The only way you can make progress with your online business is to keep track and measure your activities.

For most small business owners, measuring sales is at the top of the monthly and quarterly agendas. However, sales are a result of the marketing strategies and processes implemented in the business, so it makes sense to measure these marketing activities.

Metrics provide insight into the health of your online business marketing tactics. You want to do more of what is working and adjust items to help achieve optimum value. However, not all metrics matter! For instance, would you rather measure the number of mentions your brand gets on social media or the number of new leads that result from the mentions? Clearly, measuring the latter is important since it impacts your sales.

Here are a number of metrics that can help your business measure and gauge the effectiveness of your website marketing:

1. Total Website Visits (Sessions)

The total visitors (sessions) to your website will help you get the “big picture” of how well your marketing campaigns are driving traffic. While you may be driving traffic to your website, you should also measure the number of visits to your social media accounts and landing pages as well.
If your online marketing is working, your web traffic will be growing. There may be small dips at times based on seasonal fluctuations or other items but you want your traffic to be ever growing as you reach more of your ideal audience online. If you notice a drop in the number of visits in consecutive months, investigate those channels and optimize them for better performance. A healthy business should see the number of visitors growing steadily over time.

2. Channel-Specific Website Visitors

If you're using different avenues to drive traffic to your website, find out how many visitors come from each of those sites. For instance, if you are using a Facebook Page and perhaps Facebook Ads to drive traffic to your website, then you want to review at least monthly the traffic coming from Facebook to your website. Google Analytics (free web analytics tool you can add to your website) makes this easy to see. Measuring channel-specific visitors is especially important if you want to segment the traffic based on their point of origin. This metric can help you identify the properties that bring the highest number of referrals so that you can concentrate your efforts in future marketing.

So, if you are using Facebook and measuring traffic from it, then if you notice Facebook is driving more visitors to your website in subsequent months, scale your promotions in the channel. For instance, post more often, use PPC ads, experiment with Promoted Posts, etc.

3. Website Bounce Rate

The bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors that leave your website quickly without reading your content. If they land on a page and quickly leave, they have "bounced."

You want to try and keep the bounce rate as low as possible by creating high-quality content that will make visitors want to spend more time on the website. So, if you see the bounce rate increasing per month, that's an indication to put more emphasis and changes into your site content. One item important to this is a mobile-friendly website! You may have quality content on your site but if the site is being visited by mobile users and the site is not mobile-friendly (easy to use and view on mobile) then that can be the reason for your bounce and it needs addressed! To research this, Google Analytics lets you see the percentage of users to your site that are on mobile devices. If you have a high bounce rate and a mobile visitor percentage above 40%, that can be a key item you need to address!

4. Time on Website

Related to the bounce rate is the time spent by visitors on your site. Ideally, you'd love to have visitors spent 5-8 minutes on your site per visit. That means they are digging in, reading your website content and going to multiple pages.

By watching this metric, a business can tell what content is working and how well you are providing useful value to your visitors. The more they spend time, the more trust can be built, and the more they can be comfortable making a purchase from you!

5. New Leads

Definitely track the number of leads that your online properties are generating. Leads are the lifeline of any small business. Here is an overview of the leads you can track:

This may mean the people that answer your phones need to be trained to inquire how the caller first got acquainted with you. If it was via your website, document that in a spreadsheet so you know how your online is translating to your offline. When leads enter your sales funnel, it’s important to then segment them based on their interests. This way, you can engage them with relevant content, likely via email marketing, to build their trust and break the ice. Consistent lead engagement helps to reduce the friction to buying.

Measuring these five metrics above are simple methods that will help you understand the effectiveness of your website marketing strategies! Want a simple way to get a report each month helping you to measure these items? Check out Quill Engage and how it generates a report from your Google Analytics.

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, a leader in Facebook page apps for businesses that offers brands the power to boost online marketing with contests and promotions.

Houzz is a newer online platform that offers design and construction professionals a unique and targeted marketing opportunity. The site can appeal to any business that wants to showcase their projects, share information, gain leads, and find new ideas. In this article I'll dive into this design and construction online site and the ways a business can use it.

What is Houzz?

Houzz is a steadily growing online website. It’s a community dedicated to architecture, creative construction, interior and exterior design. That alone points to the all the possibilities with Houzz. The community consists of millions of homeowners and hundreds of thousands of professionals who showcase their projects.

The platform

In addition, there’s a database of professionals available for users. This all promotes interaction between professionals, homeowners, and people who need professional design and construction services. Top building supply companies such as Build Store swear by the Houzz online platform.

Why Houzz is Important for Contractors

People are more in tune with what they want and are on the platform because of their needs and interest.

Millions of those people are on Houzz looking for ideas, pictures, and professionals. They want to ask questions, hire contractors, and get to work. It's an opportunity for contractors and interior designers to intersect directly with interested persons. A place to be found and to potentially get new business.

How to Leverage Houzz for Marketing

There are several ways to use Houzz for marketing. In fact, Houzz makes it easy. Here are a few marketing ideas.

Add photos

By adding photos for members of the community to find, and bookmark gives businesses a subtle presence on the site. Each picture can have a caption, a URL, category, keywords, and location. It’s even possible to add branding. Once the photo is up, users can add it to their ideabooks, email it, print it, comment on it and ask questions about it.

Ideabooks

Ideabooks are like digital scrapbooks. Users can take pictures from anywhere and put them into their idea books. Professionals can create idea books as well. Creating a themed idea book showing off what a business can do is one way to generate interest in that business’ s services.

Create a professional profile

Professionals can create profiles with "projects." Projects are like idea books, but they outline a complete project. Professionals can show off their projects in detail with pictures of the project.

Users can view projects much as they can view idea books. They can save the pictures from the project and share them. Professionals can include their contact information in the project, which in turn can generate interest and clients.

Join the conversation

One of the easiest ways to a construction or design professional to generate interest on Houzz is to join the conversations. Many of the users and homeowners seek professional opinions and ideas.

Professionals do themselves a great favor by offering their expert opinion and answering discussion questions. Professionals can solve problems and prove they know what they’re talking about. These conversations will remain, and other users can become potential clients when they read what a professional has to say.

Keep everything updated

Contractors should keep their information up-to-date. It will help the occasional client find the contractor they’re looking for. It will also make sure the right information shows up in a search on the site or from a search engine.

Houzz isn’t difficult to use, and it’s not hard to navigate. Any designer, construction business, or other type of contractor should have no trouble getting started with it. It’s worth it to be a part of the professional database and actively engage with the people who are literally looking for professionals to help them. There are even options to list call-to-actions on your listing such as a "Free Consultation" or coupon, plus ability to pay for sponsored listing in order to get more visibility faster.

Other Construction Resources:

A reader will scan the image, subheadings, and bullet points to see if reading the post is a good use of the reader’s limited and valuable time. An image will draw the reader in, by giving the reader a "feel" for the post.

Here's a Checklist for optimizing images for SEO.

Use the Right Image

Use an image, which has the same message as the article. It should reflect the points discussed in the post, as well as illustrate the content.

If the outcome of the article is positive and upbeat, use a pleasant image. If you want the reader to feel the pain or challenge of the post topic, use an image showing the feelings that the reader would have if they had the same challenges or pain. Ie. You want to convey frustration at the beginning of the article, use an image illustrating frustration. Please keep in mind that positive images are more inviting. So you may want to use more positive images than negative.

Readers like to see real people in the images. A photo of you, your business or team goes much further than an iStock canned photo of a smiling business man giving a thumbs up. If the image is too staged, your reader might overlook it entirely.

Optimize your Images Using Keywords

Correct Use of Titles and Alt-Text Tags

Rename the image with your keyword and/or title of the post before you insert it into the post!

[Tweet ""Rename the image with your keyword and/or title of the post before you insert it into the post! You don't want the image name to be iStock4732854611." via @Mike_Gingerich"]

You don't want the image name to be iStock4732854611. Instead, you want it to be "7 Way to Optimize Your Images for Search". (The title of the post should have your keyword in it.) This will have your images, as well as your post, show up in the search engine results. Viola! 2 search engine entries instead of just one, twice the chance that someone will find your post.

If you're using WordPress, you also have an Alt-text area in the image editor. Google "sees" this alt-text and uses it for the search engine.

Titles and alt-text tags can be used in Twitter Cards and OpenGraph tags. This makes your content more searchable on social media and gives you an additional search engine entry for your post.

Image Captions

Captions on images are highly read. When a reader is scanning a post, the image will capture his eye, if there is a caption under the image the reader will read it and become more engaged in the image and the post.

Google gives more weight to keywords in captions, titles, subheadings, bold, italics and underneath images.

Optimize the Image Size

Website load time is critical. If a reader waits too long for a site to load, there is a very good possibility that they will just leave the site entirely.

If your site uses lots of images, it can bog down your load time. There is a sweet spot between having images large enough that they render nicely on social media networks, your website page and don't take too long to load.

My suggestion for the largest image you should load on your site is 800px wide by 800px high, or a variation of that. Anything larger isn't needed. So don't just download your camera images directly into your website. For one, they won't be named correctly, and they usually come out 2000px x 2500px, way too big for a site. Have enough of these size images and your site will be slow to load.

You'll need to scale your image and compress it. A great tool for compressing images is Yahoo's Smush.it or PunyPNG (PunyPNG will compress png, gif, and jpeg.) Now you can add the optimized image to your article without slowing down your site.

But what if you already have a ton of images that you've never compressed? If you use WordPress, there is a Smush.it plugin you can add to your site. It will go through and compress all your existing images. It will take some time for the plugin to go through your whole site.

Optimize Your Image Placement

Optimizing image placement is especially important with mobile responsive websites. The traditional wrap text around the image has made way for large images, which look more like a header image, inserted on a single line. On a mobile device, images are resized to fit the screen they are being viewed on. If there is an image with a text wrap, the resized image may only allow a 5 character space beside it. This will make it difficult for a mobile viewer to read your post easily, so text and images on the same line are discouraged for mobile websites.

Are you looking at Facebook Reach as one of your primary measurements of Facebook success?

If so, it's time to move on! The reality is that Facebook has changed and your marketing needs to change to be effective. It's time to change your Facebook marketing to what works today.

In this article you’ll discover what has changed and what every business needs to know to change your Facebook marketing to what works today!

What has Changed on Facebook:

Reach is the amount of Facebook users that see a post a Page publishes. This started with Facebook making changes to their algorithm in early 2014, and has continued with further updates.

More than 70 percent of all companies across 104 industry designations had a decline in organic reach of 30 percent or more in the past year! Most businesses that are new to Facebook marketing assume that the majority of fans see their posts, and it comes as a great shock to learn this is not the case.

In April 2014, Facebook announced a change to try and provide better quality content in the Newsfeed by cracking down on what they called "Like-Baiting" posts by Pages. This was aimed at stopping Pages from trying to "game" engagement by getting fans to comment in a way that wasn't natural or authentic. See the example below of the type of image post Facebook wanted to eliminate.

Finally, one of the most significant changes in the last half of 2014 was the announcement and November 5 implementation of a ban on the use of "Like Gates". Facebook's developer blog outlined the following:

This impacted the common practice by many businesses of "gating" content and special offers so that visitors needed to "Like" the page to gain access. Since "Likes" were a primary measure that many businesses used to evaluate the "success" of their marketing on Facebook, this removed one main method that those marketers could use.

All of these changes impacted the core of what many Facebook marketers focused on: measuring success on Facebook by tracking reach and fan growth. My position is that the focus on these items needs to end so I'm fine with the changes that Facebook has made! Not sold on my opinion? Facebook Ad's expert Jon Loomer adds his voice to this cause of ending focus on superficial metrics of reach and Like as well in, "It May Be Time for You to Quit Marketing on Facebook."

[Tweet "Marketers need to stop focusing solely on "Facebook marketing" & shift focus to an overall integrated online plan! via @mike_gingerich]

Moving from Facebook Marketing to Integrated Marketing:

The answer is that they must adjust and focus on a complete marketing plan! Marketers should not focus on Facebook alone in their marketing. Gone are the days of "How can I develop a great Facebook strategy?" and they must be replaced by "What role can Facebook play in my overall online marketing strategy?"

Facebook experts like Alex Houg and Dennis Yu of Portage outline this type of strategy as "omni-channel" marketing, where a three campaign system includes Facebook but also includes so much more. At the core of this type of strategy is content. Quality, helpful content is the driver from which all other aspects can then flow.

3 Campaign System Outlined by Alex Houg

Content as Foundation:

Content is what you create on your blog and in your resource center. It is primarily articles and posts that answer questions and offer resources. While text based contest is the core, it can and should also include videos and visuals like infographics as well. In integrated online marketing, your website content is your foundation!

Today's Facebook marketers need to be producing content of value on their sites that they can share. Quality content is much more important than whether post reach is down by 15%. More on why that is the case later on in this article!

With regular, quality content being created, the sharing of this to social media networks, including Facebook, then becomes a key means of outreach. This helps a business build their audience and engage their audience around the content they have created, and, it helps drive traffic back to the website!

An integrated online strategy that includes Facebook will utilize Facebook to drive traffic to the businesses' website. The website should be the "home base" and the core focus of one's online strategy, and Facebook becomes an area to increase the exposure of your website content, as well as a way to interact with fans around your content topic. When that content is high quality and of value as resource, without being overly sales focused, it provides the foundation for the next step in new Facebook marketing: amplification.

Facebook provides a tremendous opportunity for any business to reach their idea customer audience. The targeting provided in the Facebook Ads Manager and Power Editor enable any business to overcome organic reach limits, and reach with laser accuracy the demographics desired. From location to job titles, income levels to interests, it is amazing the precision that is possible!

Many marketers on Facebook in the past have been reluctant to use Ads, thinking that Facebook is a free platform and they should not have to use ads. However, those same marketers are willing to spend for other types of marketing such as Google Adwords and social media management tools. It's time that those marketers realize that there is tremendous value and opportunity in being able to reach your ideal customer audience with your best content!

Facebook Ads can and should be used as part of today's integrated online marketing strategy. Even with a modest budget of $30 per month, ads are valuable because of the precision targeting available.

I recommend using ads for two types of posts on Facebook. The first type is specific content that is tied to your overall online marketing strategies. When sharing a quality post that can help your audience move to your website, this is valuable and worthy of using ads for. The Ad type to select from for this purpose is the "Send people to your website" type. (For more help on setup of Facebook Ads, go here.)

The second type of post to use Facebook Ads for is a post that has sparked quality engagement. By example, look at the image below. This small business was sharing photos from a recently completed project and the post received some initial comments and likes. Based on this positive momentum on the post, the company decided to then amplify the ad to their ideal audience. This resulted in further comments, engagement, and tremendous reach. It's a matter of piggybacking on what is already working to extend it even further!

Facebook Video for Amplification:

A more recent change on Facebook is the value Facebook is placing on native Facebook video. By this I mean videos that are uploaded directly to Facebook and shared. These types of videos have been found by Facebook to be of interest to users, who are more actively engaging with them.

With new video ad tools and video features for Pages having been rolled out in the past few months, Facebook is placing a priority on videos and Page managers can use that to their advantage now to increase the means and methods to reach their fans. I've conducted a number of informal tests on Facebook Pages I run and Facebook native video has performed better, in terms of reach and engagement, than the same video on YouTube shared to Facebook, and in comparison to all other post types (text, link, and photo). Generally, I've gotten 30% to 200% more reach on videos loaded to Facebook, as well as more clicks, comments and, of course, views!

The reason I love Facebook video uploads now is that it offers a "Call to Action" tool so that I can connect a web page URL directly to a button call-out at the end of the video and use the power of the extended reach of the video to drive viewers to the web page of my choice!

Here's how it works:

On your Facebook Page simply click to add a "Photo/Video", and when prompted load the video. Note the optional "Add a Call to Action" link that appears.

Click on the link and this then give you multiple options for the button wording that will appear at the end of your video. Select the one that is most appropriate. I selected, "Learn More". I then entered in the destination URL I wanted visitors to go to when they clicked the button. Facebook then pulls in the URL data like any link post.

Then the video can be posted to Facebook and after a viewer watches the video, the Call to Action will appear and when clicked it takes the viewer to the web page that was designated.

Basically, video is catching on with Facebook and Facebook users, and so savvy marketers will make the adjustments necessary to integrate and test this feature for their Pages to see if it merits further use. I am using it more to announce new blog post and podcast episodes, directly linking to the URL after I give it a introduction in my short video.

Conversion Integration:

The third part of the integrated marketing funnel is the conversion funnel. After building and reaching your ideal audience with quality content and bringing them to your web properties, then using lead capture methods to move fans and visitors to your email list is the next step. When this occurs, marketing automation with automated email nurture campaigns can help solidify the relationship with the potential customer, build further trust, and ultimately allow for the sales offer.

Lead capture methods can vary by industry as to what will work best. It can be coupons or ebooks, webinars, or other resources. Read more on Lead Capture options >>

The key is twofold, first, offering an incentive of enough value that the user is willing to enter their name and email. Then, secondly, ensuring that a well thought through email nurture and marketing automation plan is in place to provide additional resources that move the relationship to one of trust where the visitor is ultimately confident in doing business with one's company.

In this example below, the blog serves as a resource center for outdoor living design. While the products they offer are lattice to use with fencing, decks, railings, pergola's and more, the content is of value to many, it is then shared on Facebook, and when visitors come to the site they have opportunity to receive a free download that adds them to a email nurture campaign.

Conclusion:

This model shows the steps of an integrated Facebook marketing approach that includes a thorough strategy connecting content on the website with Facebook posts, lead capture, and email nurture. In combination, this provides a powerful online means to reach and connect with potential customers. I recommend that businesses using Facebook also use two of the best tools that are available now, Facebook Ads and Facebook video, to help increase their post visibility and getting in front of their exact ideal audience.

Are you moving on from targeting only fan growth and watching reach, and integrating your online marketing where tracking leads capture and website traffic from Facebook become more powerful measures of success?

Have you ever had a friend snap some embarrassing photos and then tag you in the image on Facebook?

Not only is it humiliating to be embarrassed in front of friends and followers online, but it can also cause larger problems for you with your employer or brand.

While there are no fool-proof ways to ensure images are 100% removed, there are actions you can take.

How to Remove Embarrassing Photos from Social Media

Thoughts on this? Please feel free to share with friends to make them aware of these tips!

What do you see as emerging trends in Social and Digital marketing for the coming year?

Check out my post at Business2Community.com/social-business/ where I outline 5 Trends that I believe are set to become mainstream in 2013 and which savvy marketers should review and evaluate so they can prepare their business to take advantage of the trends.

GOSHEN, IN, - Mike Gingerich, a Web Technology and Internet Marketing Consultant for Digital Hill Multimedia, Inc., along with Troy Rumfelt, President of Digital Hill presented, "Web Marketing for Business" to business owners and Dealers of Borkholder Buildings in Nappanee, IN (Elkhart County) today.

The presentation was done at the invitation of Borkholder CEO, Dwayne Borkholder, and was designed to inform the Borkholder Dealer Network on the social, technological and business changes necessary to stay competitive today, with a focus on effective websites, Internet Marketing, and Social Media. The event was a follow-up to the successful launch of a new Borkholder website, New Energy Homes, a new division of Borkholder, which focuses on building Net Zero Green homes and buildings. New Energy recently opened a model Net Zero home in Nappanee, Elkhart County. Digital Hill built and launched the new website for this Elkhart County Manufacturer.

[slideshare id=3554020&doc=borkholderdealermeetingwebslides-100325134323-phpapp01]

The one unique aspect of the presentation is that I was struggling mightily with laryngitis! I had lost my voice 2 days earlier and was struggling to be able to speak. I tried to save my voice for that moment and then let loose. I sounded like a raspy Rod Stewart! I had to pass the baton halfway through to our company President, Troy Rumfelt, who capably carried the second half of the presentation! What a day!

For over 12 years, Digital Hill Multimedia, Inc. has specialized in Web Design, E-Commerce, SEO, Web Hosting, Social Media, Flash, 3-D Animation, Web Application Development, and Internet Marketing and Promotion Strategies in Goshen, Elkhart County, Northern Indiana and throughout the country. They can be contacted at 1-888-537-0703 or www.digitalhill.com.

PR Log (Press Release) – Dec 30, 2009 – Digital Hill Multimedia will be presenting a FREE lunch hour seminar Wednesday, January 27, 11:45 a.m. 1:00 p.m. for the Middlebury Chamber of Commerce. The seminar entitled, “Social Media for Business: Cost Effective Marketing Using Social Media on the Web”, will be an informative and interactive seminar. Attendees can expect to have these questions and more answered:
• I thought Social Media was just for my kids or to connect with friends; can it really help my business?
• Can Social Media Marketing work for my type of business?
• I don’t know much about Facebook or other Social Media; so is this something I’d have to learn and would require lots of time and money?

You will learn about new, cost effective and measureable marketing techniques including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogging, and YouTube, and how these social media platforms can be used by many diverse businesses and organizations in a cost effective way to market their business and products / services.

Plan now to attend this event and learn:
• How to create a presence for your business on Facebook
• Why YouTube is important to your business
• Why you should consider “tweeting” on Twitter

This is an overview seminar that will introduce various types of social media options and how they can be used for business. There will be a question and answer time at the end. Feel free to bring your lunch and eat while the seminar is being presented. This is not a “how to” seminar that goes into all the details of setup of each social media platform but is an idea –generating broad introduction to each social media option and ways you can use them for marketing. Presenters will include Internet Marketing Consultant Mike Gingerich, Digital Hill President Troy Rumfelt, and Internet Marketing Expert Chad Pollitt

No Cost to Attend!

For over 12 years, Digital Hill Multimedia, Inc. has specialized in Web Design, E-Commerce, SEO, Web Hosting, Flash, 3-D Animation, and Internet Marketing and Promotion Strategies throughout the Country. Contact us at 888-537-0703 or http://digitalhill.com.

At this time of year it is often a time to look back and take stock of the year. As I do that with my work I'm amazed at the explosion of Social Media. I've been using various forms of social media for a few years but I am amazed from a internet marketing perspective as I look back on the growth of platforms like Facebook in the past year.

A year ago, our business didn't have a Fan Page, and some team members weren't even on Facebook. Now, we have multiple Fan Pages for various aspects of our business; we've been rolling out Fan Pages and social media strategies for clients for over 6 months; and we're about to launch our first Facebook App! My how times have changed!

My thought is that Facebook is going to continue to grow and become a even stronger "world" within the world wide web. I expect that Facebook users will login and sometimes never leave that day! Everything they need will be within Facebook; their friends, search, shopping, information, e-mail, etc. Stats direct from Facebook say users are spending nearly 55 minutes a day on Facebook, and I expect that to increase.

So is your business ready? Do you have a Social Media strategy and within that a strategic Facebook strategy? No longer is having only your website a real option. Now you must be represented on a number of these other strong platforms with Facebook being a primary place of representation. Look for more apps and tools that allow you to expand what Facebook does for you and prepare to engage in the new world of marketing: Social Media.

It was time for a fresh face. As an Internet Marketing Consultant it is imperative to keep up with the latest tools and trends as a means of testing them and troubleshooting so one can apply them strategically for clients.

I've recently launched a Facebook Fan Page for myself as well to enable clients and others to keep up-to-date with the latest and greatest in Internet Marketing. Search and find me on Facebook by searching "Mike Gingerich - Internet Marketing Consultant", then become a fan to stay up to date!