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Facebook Fan Pages – Key to Social Media Marketing

The phrase “Social Media” is everywhere these days, and if you are like me, you may be a bit unclear about what it actually is… the infamous phrase “I’ll know it when I see it” comes immediately to my mind!

I went looking online for a short, easy to understand definition and found this analogy:

Think of regular media as a one-way street where you can read a newspaper or listen to a report on television, however, you have very a limited ability to share your thoughts on the matter.

Social media, on the other hand, is an active two-way street that gives you the ability to communicate and respond.

As the internet develops and evolves, the various Social Media websites are also growing and changing. Several years ago, MySpace was the place to be but it is now, generally, considered to be on the wane. Likewise, on MySpace, 33% of its users are aged 17 or less.

Ravalry is a relatively new, large community based around knitting with over 1,200,000 registered users. As you would expect, its membership is primarily female and the average member age is not available.

Facebook provides this information about its users:

More than 500 million active users (I recently saw the number 600 million, but it hasn’t been changed yet, on the Facebook site)
50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
Average user has 130 friends
People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook

As you can see, each Social Media site appeals to and has a different user base than any other site.

One of the powerful considerations about using a Social Media web site is the fact that most of them provide a level playing field when it comes to small business owners vs the big boys. For instance, you can build a Facebook Fan page for your offline business and so can a major automobile manufacturer. Within those Facebook Fan pages, both you and the multi billion dollar car maker have the same tools and resources. On Twitter, as another example, both you and the big companies are limited to 140 characters per tweet. They can’t buy more characters and blast you out of the competition.

When considering which Social Media site to use with Social Media Marketing, you should consider the site’s membership but you should also evaluate its culture and how the members interact. It is important that any Social Media site have a population whose interests are in line with your goals and, also, that it have a structure and pattern of interaction that is compatible with your objectives.

In addition, you must keep in mind that things change on the Internet, sometimes at breakneck speed. As an example, between March 2011 and May 2011, Facebook implemented some major changes which changed the whole landscape of using it for business. Suddenly, controlling the content on a business Fan Page and using product images to build a brand became game changers… for those who knew how to do it!

While a particular Social Media site may be a good fit now, be aware that it may not always be a successful marketing vehicle for you! Monitor the efficacy of any Social Media site you are using AND also keep an eye out for the next big thing!

With all of that in mind, at the current time, I consider Facebook and Twitter to be the Social Media sites most likely to be compatible with the majority of offline businesses and their needs.

In this article I am going to briefly cover Facebook, its structure as it pertains to Social Media Marketing, discuss some of the pitfalls, and propose some strategies appropriate to it.

Facebook Marketing for Small Business

Facebook’s membership has exploded and is currently greater than 500 million, according to its own website.

It originally began as a way for college students to keep in touch with fellow students. As a result of that, the basic Facebook community seems to start from an academic basis, joining students and former students with friendship circles widening out from there. If you are like me, you will be shocked at how many members from your high school class seem to appear out of nowhere!

As part of the Facebook mechanism, possible Friends are suggested to you, based on Friends that you and the other person have in common. While you can do searches, it is hard to find and befriend a person that Facebook doesn’t think you should know. On the other hand, Facebook makes suggestions that will extend your network, based simply on friends you may have in common with someone.

Another important mechanism is the Facebook Like option, which has now been extended beyond Facebook Profile pages and Facebook Fan Pages and out into the web at large.

A third and exceedingly important Facebook mechanism is the ability to link between websites, Facebook Fan Pages, and Twitter accounts. This can be done with a variety of website creation software options. At the moment, I am encouraging my clients to use the blogging software, WordPress, for non blog websites.

With WordPress as your website management system, once you have signed up for the Networked Blogs Facebook App(lication), you can set your website to show any changes on your Facebook Fan Page and your Twitter account. Your Twitter Account can be set to show Facebook Fan Page Comments along with Posts from your WordPress website. In addition, your Tweets will be displayed on your Facebook Fan Page and your website.

Now, I know that the previous paragraph was confusing so let me give you the abridged edition! In my example, you have three web presences for your business – A Facebook Fan Page, a website built with WordPress, and a Twitter account. Any Post made on one of those three sites will automatically appear on the other two sites.

This is VERY powerful and is a REAL time and energy saver IF you take the time to plan your web marketing strategies with this capacity in mind!

With the potential of getting a three to one benefit from any of your Social Networking posts, as described above, let me go a bit deeper into the opportunities afforded to an offline business by having a Facebook Fan Page.

NOTE – It is important to understand that while a Facebook Fan Page can be considered a potential web site substitute, it offers long term hazards that, in my opinion, are not worth the risk.

Building your business’s primary web presence on a third party web site is taking the time, effort, and money to build a nice new house on land that you DO NOT OWN! You might be OK in the short term, but later down the road, you may lose you house, simply because you do not own the land.

While you may decide that it is efficient to start with a Facebook Fan Page, you should also plan to build your own website ASAP! As a business owner, you should be careful to own and control as many of your business assets as possible.

With that warning out of the way, before utilizing any Social Media site for your Social Media Marketing, take the time to read the site’s ToS or Terms of Service. Do NOT assume that you know what is allowed and what is not.

As an example, you may have multiple Twitter accounts, but each account must be tied to a different email address. Any email address can have only ONE Twitter account.

With Facebook, any human is allowed ONLY ONE ACCOUNT! This means that any Facebook Fan Pages built for any businesses will be offshoots of your primary, personal Facebook account.

If for some reason, you do not want a Facebook Fan Page to be obviously tied to your personal account, you can set the Privacy setting to obscure the connection. In the case of most offline businesses, this would not be a concern. However, I have a number of online businesses, some of which I am open about and others that I have chosen to run from behind the scenes. There is nothing questionable about doing this, I just prefer to keep the connection quiet to minimize others copying my business model. However, ALL of my business Facebook Fan Pages are offshoots of my SINGLE personal Facebook account.

Part of the evolution of the Facebook Culture is that, in most instances, it is considered appropriate to ask other members to share with their Friends about your Facebook Fan Page or your new post or any of a number of other Facebook interactions. This is markedly different from other websites and their culture, and as a business owner, it is a powerful tool.

It is perfectly OK to ask others to LIKE your Facebook Fan Page. In fact, this can be an important traffic builder for your Facebook Fan Page!

Google AdWords vs Facebook Ads

Another online marketing benefit offered by Facebook is the option to use their Pay Per Click advertising. In the Facebook universe these are known as Facebook Ads – which seems obvious, but online, things are not always obvious!

Last night, I was on a call with one of my consulting clients and she mentioned that she had just gotten a $100 voucher for Google AdWords. She wanted to know if this would be worthwhile. I said that I thought that using Facebook, creating a Facebook Fan Page for her business, and spending her limited budget on Facebook ads would be a better use of her resources, even considering her $100 AdWords voucher.

I explained it to her this way:

Google AdWords and Facebooks Ads are Pay Per Click… each ad is shown (this is called an impression) and you pay when someone actually click on the ad.

While the mechanism for figuring ad payments is the same (PPC or Pay Per Click) the basis for showing an ad differs drastically between Google AdWords and Facebook.

On the surface, the ads themselves are similar. While they may or may not have a picture included, the text or content of the ad is short and presented in plain and simple text. Ads are displayed off the side in vertical stacks or within the body of the page’s content. For the most part, these ads are subtle and unobtrusive.

However, the Ad Display Criteria is where the biggest differences lie.

In Google, AdWords are shown on the pages generated with Search Results as well as on website pages related to the Ad’s specified search term. This means that Google AdWords are displayed using a mechanism of which terms are being used in online searches. As AdWords have developed, in some instances they are also displayed according to the geographical location of the person doing the Search.

Facebook actually takes an entirely different approach – Facebook Ads are displayed in front of PEOPLE who meet the demographic requirements that you have chosen.

To simplify further, Google AdWords are displayed based on the content of the page where they are shown and Facebook Ads are shown based on the interests, and even the physical location, of the person doing the looking!

As you can see, there is a radical difference between Google AdWords and Facebook Ads.

This is one of the reasons that I feel that Facebook Ads may be far more beneficial for offline businesses.

It is also important to note that when creating a Facebook Ad, you have the choice of sending people who click either to an offsite web page or to a specific Facebook Fan Page.

All in all, I consider Facebook a strong option for offline businesses, since you have the ability to target both demographically and geographically. The potentially viral effect that is inherent in the Facebook culture is another good reason for adding Facebook in to your online advertising mix.

WordPress works well for integrating Social Media options

Finally, if you are using WordPress to build your website to blog, it is relatively easy to integrate WordPress Posts, Facebook Fan Page Posts, Twitter Tweets, and possibly even, your Autoresponder Service messages, so that each one appears on the others… AUTOMATICALLY!

Between the timesaving automation available and the three for one currently available combining WordPress, Facebook, and Twitter, spreading your company’s message across the internet has gotten MUCH easier!

How To Succeed In Any Network Marketing Business – Tips For Network Marketers

Before you start investing your time and energy in your newly created MLM Home Based Business you need to know the things that are required to help you succeed. Most net workers give up after a few months in the business simply because they were unable to create a full time income from their opportunity. Situations like this do not have to happen.

Network marketing is a business of style that gives you the Freedom to make whatever choices you want and create what ever level of income you desire. Why not take the time to learn what it takes to succeed in a MLM Business with any company and apply them to your business.

Successful Network Marketers have made it to the top of every company they are involved with irrespective of what products or compensation plan. Reason for their success is based on the following techniques.

1- Effective Positioning

Are you practicing Effective Positioning? How do you position yourself to your prospects? Effective positioning is placing or showing yourself and your business to prospects in a way they will see you as a REAL LEADER that can help them succeed. In order to start practicing effective positioning, learn every thing about your business, pay plan, products etc and be armed to answer your prospects questions yourself. With this they will start seeing you as a leader. People want to associates themselves with leaders and leaders have followers. How do your prospects find you online and off line? Look for a convenient way that puts you as an expert in the field. Have you ever done a 3way call? Picture this scenario: You call John (prospect) to tell him about you business, and he has two simple questions about the pay plan. You dial Mark (your sponsor) to answer John’s questions. Who does John see as the leader and expert? You or Mark? Mark obviously. You see the positioning stuff. When you start practicing effective positioning in your business, you will have prospects calling you and asking you for more information.

2- Leading with your Product

Are you leading with your product or your opportunity? Most Net workers make the mistake of leading with the opportunity. If prospects do not see the benefits of your product or service, how do you think they will join your business? Selling the benefits of your product and increasing consumption should provide you with enough retail profit to keep you going. Once consumption of your product increases so does the opportunity for new distributors. At this point you can comfortably sell your opportunity without fear. The difference with leading with the product or the opportunity is this. If people join your business because they think they can make money fast, then it is obvious that they will leave as soon as the next big opportunity comes knocking and your will business collapses. If they join your business because they fell in love with you product and are passionate about it then your business has a 99.9% chance of succeeding. The benefits of your product should lead the prospect to join your business not the opportunity.

3- Leads

What is the life line of your MLM Business? Leads. Most net workers do not take this seriously. To succeed in any Network Marketing business you need a steady flood of hungry prospects reaching out to you on a daily basis asking you for more information. You can never have too may leads….But how to get them is the question. There are tons of ways to make this happen ranging from home gathering, meetings, newspaper adverts, internet etc. I recommend the use of the internet for this as it is the path of least resistance. Create yourself a lead capture page that is dealing with the benefits provided by your product or service. Once set drive traffic to your site using social networks like Stubleupon, myspace, facebook, YouTube etc to get free leads. Other forms of getting leads include purchasing leads from lead dealers. Also Pay per Click advertising can put literally hundreds of even thousands of prospects in front of you everyday. Note that without leads your business will not succeed.

To succeed in any MLM Home Based business the above factors are very essential for anyone who is serious about their business. Positioning yourself effectively makes your prospects see you as a leader and expert and will want to partner with you in your business. Leading with your product is a key thing you must do. If people fall in love with your product then your business has 99.9% chance of success. A steady stream of hungry prospect is the final key that will propel you to the top. Choose a strategy to generate your leads and be good at it and then move to the more advanced methods.

By putting this fact into action, you can guarantee your success in any MLM Home Based Business.

Best Home Based Business

Knowledge is king, but applying it is what makes a business a business. Elisha A.

8 Lessons in Strategic Marketing A La ‘Daddy Daycare’

I bet you thought the movie “Daddy Daycare” was a kiddie comedy, right? Wrong…It’s a marketing strategy film! When Charlie and his friend Phil are fired as Product Development/Brand Managers for a cereal company, they decide to fill a need in their community.

Along the way to success they demonstrate several solid marketing strategies — equally applicable to online, offline, and integrated companies. Take these lessons to heart when developing plans for your business.

Lesson 1: Research the competition

The future entrepreneurs visited each daycare in the area. While doing so, they got a feel for their daycare competitors. By knowing your own competitors you will be better able to effectively find a way to compete.

Competitor research does not have to be thought of as “guerrilla warfare.” In many industries, competitors work together by partnering, cross promoting, sending business to each other, or even manufacturing each other’s products.

Lesson 2: Know your customers’ values

Charlie and Phil understood that price is not the only important factor for their target market. Based on their own experience and customer research (talking to other parents), they recognized that other concerns besides price played a part when parents choose a daycare provider.

While price is almost certainly a consideration for your customers, don’t get caught in the mentality that customers will buy from you only if you have the lowest cost. If you think of your own service/product as a bundle of attributes having a unique value for your customers, you will be more successful.

Lesson 3: Identify opportunities

Charlie and Phil uncovered an unmet need in the market by combining their competitor research and knowledge of customer values. You can do the same when looking to develop new products/services or improve existing ones.

Lesson 4: Develop a positioning based on opportunity

Using knowledge from the first three lessons, they positioned themselves as the quality alternative and focused on providing different benefits than their nearest competitor. In the movie, Daddy Daycare stole all the competitor’s customers and drove her out of business.

In real life, customers choose a product/service that best fits their needs. Consequently, competitors can co-exist when each are valuable in different ways to industry customers.

Lesson 5: Create a catchy tag line

The tag line “Who’s your Daddy?” helped advertise the new business. Often, a concise, catchy tag line can go a long way in building brand equity, communicating benefits and features, and/or conveying a feeling/mentality your target customers can relate to.

Some examples:

“Just do it.” (Nike)

“Life Unscripted” (TLC)

“Naturally sweetened whole grain oat cereal with real berries.” (Berry Burst Cheerios)

“Makes anything possible.” (Craftsman)

Lesson 6: Spread the Word

Phil and Charlie put their tag line on t-shirts along with their business name. They also printed and distributed flyers that explained their new company’s positioning.

A few more ideas you can use to spread the word about your business:

Word of mouth — give customers an incentive to tell people about your business.

Advertising — use both online and offline methods. Online options include pay-per-click search engines and ezine advertisements. Offline methods include radio spots and newspaper advertisements.

Philanthropy — donate money, services, and/or time to non-profit organizations or conduct your own event.

Lesson 7: Be ethical and above-board

The new business owners cooperated fully with the daycare inspector. They treated him as a source of information rather than “Big Brother”. This resulted in not only a better business, but also a valuable ally. In the long run, your own company will be more likely to thrive if you concentrate on improving the business rather than dodging regulations.

Lesson 7A: Subterfuge is a poor long-term strategy

Besides being unethical, subterfuge soils your reputation. In the movie, the competing daycare crashed and ruined a fundraiser event…spilling bugs, freeing animals, and drenching visitors. Short-term, it worked. Phil and Charlie were broke, seemingly with no way to continue with their venture.

In the long run, Ms. Subterfuge had such a poor reputation (from this and other business tactics), her business failed.

Lesson 8: Implement until you’re blue in the face

In the beginning, the new Daddy Daycare was a complete disaster. Charlie and Phil did their “homework” and knew they had a good idea. When reality hit theory, however, a few not-so-minor details got in the way. Like all successful marketers, they worked out the kinks (okay…disasters) and kept trying (and trying, and trying) until they got it right.

Keep the Daddy Daycare lessons in mind when developing and implementing your own marketing plan. Don’t give up, strive to continually improve, and you’re business is sure to be a success.

Is Social Media Marketing Helping Your Offline Business – Or Killing It?

Offline businesses the world over are embracing social media marketing as an important part of marketing offline businesses online. Done right, social media and social networking can create a huge jump in foot-falls and bottom-line profits – but mishandled, social media can be the death of your offline business as well.

No longer something businesses can simply choose to ignore, sites like Google+, Twitter, Facebook and the myriad of industry-specific forums and directories now represent ever-increasing market share influence. And unlike earlier methods of advertising your offline businesses, social media sites offer free ways for small businesses and home-based businesses to compete with global corporations on an almost-level playing field.

But it also represents pitfalls that most businesses haven’t had to face before too – pitfalls that can irreparably impact your business and, in extreme cases, ruin your brand, product or even the business itself. Reputation management has become a vital part of both local businesses and global corporations now that the Internet has so heavily affected the business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) marketplaces.

How Effective Social Media Marketing Helps Offline Businesses

Well over a billion people use social media these days – many of them using multiple platforms daily or at least weekly. This presents a quickly- and easily-accessed global market comprised of a great number of subsets representing both local markets and niche-specific markets. Never before have businesses had instant access to such large numbers of targeted prospects, nor to free ways to access those prospects.

This scenario offers a number of advantages to businesses using social media effectively: announcing new product rollouts, ease of customer service, brand management, reputation management, customer involvement and interaction, notifications of sales and other events, building goodwill and announcing charitable affiliations, real-time competitor marketing analysis, community-building within your target market and positioning your business to be found by those looking for your products or services. This last point is especially important when promoting local businesses online, as more and more consumers are using the Internet to find local services and stores, especially when on mobile devices.

How Ineffective Social Media Marketing Hurts Offline Businesses

The biggest potential disaster for offline businesses vis-a-vis social media marketing is not having a presence on at least the big sites like Google+, Twitter, Facebook, etc – even more specialized sites like YouTube and Pinterest. Your competition will be keeping their name and brands front-and-center in your target market’s minds, while you’ll be out of sight and out of mind.

Second most harmful is not paying attention to your online reputation. Not responding to customer enquiries or complaints, not dealing with negative concerns regarding your company, brands or even your industry in general can erode your customers’ and prospects’ trust – and trust is a huge factor in today’s commerce and business worlds.

Publicly discussing contentious issues on your business pages will also alienate portions of your audience. Leave topics like religion and politics for the dinner parties and focus your online activities around your company, brands, industry and related organizations important to your audience. Mentioning that you made a donation to a local charity can be beneficial, but discussing the conditions in your community that led to the need for that charity is best left to the local newspaper and television editors and columnists.

Social media marketing is just one aspect of promoting local businesses online, albeit a very important one. Get familiar with both the huge popular sites and those specific to your niche or your local area and start building your presence and reputation on each of those. If you feel you lack the necessary skills or the time to handle your online presence effectively then hire social media marketing specialists to handle it for you – and if you’re a local business, be sure they have recent relevant experience in marketing local businesses online as well.

Driving Customers to You – Your Car as a Marketing Vehicle

You can turn your vehicle into a rolling advertisement. Costs start at just a few dollars, and you can put your business name, slogan, phone number and web site URL in front of thousands of potential customers while you are driving along the freeway, stuck in traffic or even while you are parked. Here are some of the best ways to use your vehicle as a marketing tool.

Bumper stickers are so inexpensive that you may want to print enough for employees, friends, family members, customers and others. Publisher Susan Sabo of Small Dogs Press made bumper stickers saying, “I do bad things for love,” along with the Small Dogs web site URL. The line is from one of their books, and everyone who sees the bumper sticker wants one. Sabo sells them at her web site, and gives them away at book fairs. Of course, she has one on her car, and says she has given them to all of her friends, too.

License plate frames are a favorite of car dealers and auto repair shops, but they can work for any business. You can have them custom made with your business name or slogan, along with a phone number or URL.

Magnetic signs are an easy and low-cost way to put a lot of information on your car. Put them on both sides of the car, and make sure the lettering is large enough to read, even from a distance and when the vehicle is in motion. Personal chef Sue Gaughenbaugh added an effective twist to this idea. She bought a supply of magnetic business cards and placed them around the sign on her truck. When customers see her truck in a parking lot, they can pick up a card to take with them. Gaughenbaugh started getting calls from new customers within days of putting the take-away magnetic cards on her truck.

Vinyl decals and window stickers are a highly visible way to promote your web site. Put the URL in large letters across the width of your rear windshield. After all, you never know who might be behind you in traffic. This is most effective if you have a catchy and descriptive domain name. Custom stickers are available at prices starting under $20.

You can order many of these items from local printers and sign shops. Or, do an online search for companies that can create bumper stickers, magnetic signs, decals and other promotional items.

And when you are ready to go all-out, consider a vehicle wrap. These vinyl decals look like a custom paint job and cover your entire vehicle with bright, high-quality graphics. This is not a do-it-yourself project, but you can hire companies such as http://www.coloredink.com to design and install the graphics. At an estimated cost of $3,500, this option is much more expensive than the others described here, but it will certainly make an impression on the other drivers you encounter.

When your car is a traveling billboard, the time you spend in traffic will become more productive.

Inbound Vs Outbound Marketing for Your Business

Perhaps the single most important step you can take as an entrepreneur is to effectively market your goods and services. You can have the best products in the world, but if no one knows about them, your business will fail! When it comes to successfully promoting your business, you can choose from a variety of inbound and outbound marketing techniques.

Outbound marketing is the proactive process of finding potential customers and motivating them to buy your products and services. It is a traditional form of marketing that involves the promotion of your goods to people who are not actively seeking them. Common outbound marketing techniques include television and radio advertising, newspaper and magazine advertising, telemarketing, trade shows, direct mail (both electronic and paper), e-mail blasts and public relations activities.

Outbound marketing has a long history of success and it typically provides quicker results than inbound marketing. Unfortunately, it has its weaknesses as well. Advertising, trade shows, telemarketing and the like can be prohibitively expensive. In addition, outbound marketing is intrusive. In many cases, you are trying to sell your goods and services to people who have no interest in them. This has led to many attempts to block outbound marketing efforts such as caller ID, call blocking, spam filters and pop-up blockers, which makes it harder to get through to your market niche.

Conversely, inbound marketing consists of promotional efforts that focus on getting found by customers. The idea is to take proactive steps to bring potential customers to you, and motivate them to buy your goods and services because of the quality content you provide in various formats. Inbound marketing techniques include blogging, articles, white papers, search engine optimization, video, and social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Inbound marketing has the advantage of being far less expensive to implement than outbound marketing. In fact, you can facilitate a successful inbound marketing campaign without spending a dime. You are also able to provide valuable content for potential customers and to distribute information about your business in a non-intrusive fashion. This is one of the great benefits of inbound marketing. It tends to be a more welcome form of promotion on part of consumers because you are providing valuable content as opposed to offering a sales pitch.

Of course, inbound marketing has its weaknesses as well. While there is little monetary cost, there is a tremendous cost when it comes to time. Developing and maintaining a blog, writing articles, creating video and maintaining a consistent presence through social media requires a significant amount of your time, especially when compared to the time required for most outbound marketing campaigns. Another weakness of inbound marketing is that it can take a long time to achieve success.

So, what’s the bottom-line when it comes to inbound vs. outbound marketing? My recommendation is to incorporate elements of each. Both marketing approaches can be successful when used properly and each offers unique benefits. Think about how you can incorporate both approaches in a marketing strategy that will provide you with the greatest possible return. For example, an experienced business coach might decide to use e-mail marketing (outbound) because she has a long client list she can use for the distribution of her product information. She could also use blogging (inbound) as a way of disseminating useful business information and demonstrating her expertise to potential clients.

Likewise, an engineering consultant can effectively use print advertising as an outbound marketing technique while simultaneously using social media to position himself as an expert, network with a diverse array of individuals, and become a respected member of social communities devoted to engineering. The key is to be clear about what you want to accomplish with your marketing strategy and to select techniques that allow you to achieve your goals.

Tips for Sustaining in The World of Online Marketing

Online marketing is the latest tool for leaving a mark in the market. It is the new-age way of advertising that is closest to our transformed behavioral pattern, which makes the entry into market a lot easier. Here are some tips for the beginners as they enter the world of online marketing.

1. Blogging is as fruitful as any other social media platform.

We maybe too eager about making our presence on Facebook, but one other medium which may prove to be equally fruitful is blogging. A well written blog has the ability to draw attention which is majorly dependent on the quality of content. It will enhance your SEO rating and also help in building up the desired image.

2. Content is the king and its design, the Commander in Chief.

As much as we rely on content, designing also forms one of the most prominent aspect of a brand’s social media presence. It’s one of the most influential feature of Online Marketing which has the ability to draw someone’s attention instantly. The internet is filled with new ideas and concepts which make it challenging and fun at the same time.

3. Go crazy with your ideas, the unique ones always leave a mark!

With its constantly changing dynamics and the ever-increasing presence people in the online world, the rules keep on changing. Thus, making it very necessary for people to adapt with the changes. The more unique your idea, the better chance it has of hitting it off with the target audience.

4. E-mail marketing will never become obsolete.

That’s right! If you are on the internet, you are sure to have an e-mail id. It is that one tool which keeps our online activities unified. This makes it easier to create an interpersonal bond with a huge number of people at the same time.

5. Tweet it, beat it!

If you want to form your online marketing strategy purely based on organic reach, then Twitter is just the tool for you. It allows you to reach a large number of people based entirely on hashtags and content. Twitter is that bird which sings the tune your way, but alters the lyrics according to your target audience.

6. Online Marketing? Start with Facebook!

Facebook undoubtedly is the best biggest pool of potential customers that you can acquire through online marketing for your business. Whether it is paid promotions or simply attracting customers through your content, Facebook is an open field for everybody which lets you drive your marketing to the right channels and at the right time.

7. Reviews and testimonials are a boon!

People often rely largely on reviews and testimonials given by others. It has become a major online marketing tool which allows you to set a brand image and at the same time uplift morale.

Online Marketing is sure to give your business the boost that it deserves. These tips will come handy when you actually enter the market. So go ahead and carve a niche for yourself!

Major Activities Performed By a Digital Marketing Company

The traditional word “marketing” is defined as a process of communication between the audience and the prospective company that is selling the products. This method was incorporated to aware customers about the product or services and to enrich their knowledge towards a particular brand in a positive demeanour.

The role of marketing agencies is to make customers realise the importance of the products and services and to make customer realise what is the best fit for their use. Nowadays, the term marketing can be replaced easily with digital marketing because everything nowadays can be accessed via network or internet.

A digital marketing company work with the same aim that of old and traditional marketers where their focus and way of doing an activity has changed a lot. They have to mind the online or web-based customers and have to prepare strategies that are helpful for them. Following are the few activities that are performed by these digital marketing services.

Analytics Data

All the efforts of positioning and planning the activities for the market are a waste if there is no study of tracking the right and wrong activities. There are various analytics studies available to ascertain how a particular website is performing online. This way, the SEO specialists and the webmasters can study the metrics carefully to devise a better way to rank a website. These professionals duly have the idea or knowledge of analytics.

SEO (Search engine Optimisation)

For a website to rank in top SERP’s, it is important to have the website or online business to be fully optimised. These professionals have the possible knowledge of the suitable SEO strategy or practices to be performed. They can help to rank a website in top results and can easily drive more and influential traffic to the website. They know how search engines like Google behave and can help businesses meet their shortcomings.

Strategy for Social Media

There are many people out there who are available on the internet and prefers internet as a tool to hire the best service or product from the market. These strategists have the profound knowledge about the various social handles like Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter to help businesses easily understand what ways or tactics are right for the particular audience online.

Advertising

The product or service is a waste if it is not reaching the vast audience across the globe. A digital marketing company will not only restrict to SEO or SMO but will also run the right online campaigns, will prepare the promotional banners and advertisements, will search for the right keywords or phrases often looked by the audiences and much more than that.

Adding to the above points, the digital marketing services are the trendsetters of today’s virtual world and have the thorough study of how customers behave and respond to in the world of digitalization.

How Is Social Media Marketing Useful?

Experimentation with social media marketing has for long given great results. To some entrepreneurs, however, it is the “next big thing,” a temporary yet powerful fad that must be taken advantage of while it’s still in the spotlight. Social media marketing has become one of most beneficial ways in which B2B or B2C companies can make the most out of advertising all over the world. The companies who take care of the needs of their community or targeted audience are the ones who rule the digital world.

Online services should know about the needs of their targeted audience and cater to them. Starting from customer discovery to their conversion a good online agency fulfils its responsibility. The service providers should emphasize on the quality of the item rather than quantity to attract customers and transform them. A successful social media marketing aims at reaching out to different prospects with the business goals that are already set and they also have a great platform for that where people belonging to diverse communities are connected.

A company specialising in online services provide customers with many marketing strategies which are as follows:

· MEDIA STRATEGY: It is a milestone in creating awareness on social networking sites. The agency might customize the approach making some necessary implementation on the existing profiles after a comprehensive study of the existent aims, goals and objectives and target audience.

· LISTENING SERVICES WITH REAL-TIME MONITORING: Listening is always a great way to understand and getting to know better about the customers and target audience. By talking and exchange of ideas you can come to know which change of approach is clicking for betterment and which strategy is not.

· MANAGING COMMUNITY SERVICES: The success of your website does not only depend on the number of visits in your profile. Getting to know more about your customers and the challenges that they pose are the ways in which one can achieve success. Agencies should understand this and make amends to grow closer to your audience.

· DEVELOPMENT THROUGH SOCIAL CONTENT: Social media marketing wants participation of audiences for the betterment of the products or services. It is a great way to generate user driven products which makes the company profitable.

· CAMPAIGN SERVICES: It is the most commonly overlooked feature and the most important. There is a need for campaigning online. It ensures that the brand and the targeted audience go hand in hand for better results.

· DEVELOPMENT OF CONTENT AND ONLINE MEDIA MEASURES: The first and the most important thing is the development of the content of the website because that is what makes it catchy and attractive. These are some important measures because it is only through this that contingency plans can be applied to keep all the workings in check.

SMO services are the most important part of media marketing because it helps highlighting a company’s website online.

Ecommerce Marketing Ideas

As more and more businesses take the ecommerce route to attract customers, it’s becoming increasingly necessary to build effective ecommerce marketing ideas. In fact, there are several online marketing strategies that cost almost nothing. The key behind marketing your ecommerce business online is to remain engaged. Once you begin online marketing, you’ll need to add updates to drive traffic as well as increase revenue.

Following are some of the ecommerce marketing ideas.

SEO content

Proper implementation of search engine optimization (SEO) content on your website would help in increasing your rank on the search engine result pages. Conduct research about the type of keywords web surfers are using to locate sites that are related to yours. Incorporate these keywords into your web content. SEO analysts often advise never to overuse the keywords but to use them according to the flow of the content. Keywords should never be forced into the content. Search engines usually reject websites that overuse keywords sans offering content that comprises useful information or grammatical structure.

Social networking

There are several social networking websites all across the internet that would help you to reach the millions of potential customers out there every day. Try to develop a presence on the web in the big social networking sites and make sure that you update your profile there every day. Add fresh information with regard to your company and you can reach out to the people with whom you are networked, by offering some pricing specials or some other promotions. Continue adding friends to your network and also remember to link the social networking sites to the main website of your company.

Article writing

A good way to drive traffic to your ecommerce website is by making people aware that you are an expert in your chosen field and that the website is a valuable and dependable source of information. There are numerous website on the internet that would allow you to publish your articles on your chosen field. These websites, often known as article directories, allow the writer to place a link of his website. Visitors to these directories can click on the link and visit your website. You can also consider starting a blog where you can write about your company as well as the industry you represent.

Remember that ecommerce marketing is a continuous process and it is not something done only once. Ecommerce marketing is pertinent to the success of your online business.