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Social Media Marketing – Connect and Get Discovered

Marketing is a somewhat broad term. There are subsets and even subsets of the subsets.

Social Media Marketing is a form of internet marketing. Its approach is to obtain branding and marketing communication goals through the participation in various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube as well as anywhere else content can be shared.

The goal of each social media marketing campaign can vary from business to business. But usually it includes brand awareness, increasing visibility and subsequently selling products.

Social Media Marketing As A Tool

Social Media Marketing has become a foundational tool for connecting with customers and optimizing an online presence for most businesses. Social media meaning is often contextual but it generally refers to the tools, websites, and platforms, folks use to publish, converse and share content online.

In order to use social media effectively, you first need to understand your target market. This knowledge is the basis of your overall marketing strategy.  For example, if your target customers are professionals who commute, then a podcast that can be downloaded may be the type of content you choose to deliver.

Connect

Videos, podcasts, blogs, discussion boards and social networking sites are all tools that solopreneurs can use to build relationships with their customers and keep them on websites longer.

One of the most important things you can do with social media is to use it to help you build relationships with your target customers and existing customers. This is important and something you’ll want to do on an ongoing basis.

Social media help you to add personality to your brand. This can especially be done by your blog since you generally have the most control there out of all the sites and platforms. Your blog posts give insight into who you are as a person and not just information about the products and services you offer. This helps folks to connect to you.

Social media encourages visits to your site. So keep adding content to encourage customers to come back to see what is new and ideally comment and share with others.

Get Discovered

Social media provides a variety of opportunities for folks to present optimized content. And better yet, this content is indexed by search engines which can ultimately improve your site rating.

Video is increasingly becoming more and more popular. If you choose to use video, there are few things to know about video. Some advantages that might even make those who haven’t tried it yet to possibly reconsider.

– Posting video content on YouTube is a great way to improve your position in Google’s universal search results.

– YouTube viewers can view your video and easily share to their own websites and social networking profiles.

– YouTube is a great way to reach more folks and if done properly you can generate buzz around your new products. This is especially true if your product is visual.

Social media platforms are often the first thing that comes to mind when folks think of social media marketing.  But it’s more than than. Your blog posts are also shareable and you decide if you want to allow commenting.

Using social media can help you build interest and loyalty among customers and, at the same time, if you decide, can also improve your search engine optimization rankings. There are various mini goals social media can help you with…it’s a great tool.

So how do you use social media?

Put the Social Back in Your Social Media Marketing Plan

Do you want to save time during your day? Do you wish you had an extra 18 hours to accomplish everything on your to do list?

Most folks would answer, “Yes, most definitely.” to those questions becauseContinue Reading

How Is Your Social Media Plan Working For You?

Social media. It’s one of my favorite ways to interact. This is also true for a lot of folks. They use it to interact with others around the world and to market their products and services.

Some people get great interaction on social media platforms while others are posting day in and day out with very little engagement.

What’s the difference between the super star and the person who struggles? Continue Reading

Creating Social Media Content

I love social media. Maybe because I’m an introvert. Maybe because I don’t watch TV very often. Maybe a little bit of both. I also love creating social media content.

social mediaSocial media content is any content that you’ll use for purposes of promoting on social media platforms. It might be a blurb that goes with a link to a video or blog post, or it might be an infographic or meme to help you get a point across. Creating social media content is an important part of your marketing strategy.Continue Reading

Social Media Marketing Mistakes

Social media marketing is a great way to increase your following online and also increase your subscriber list. And naturally there are some common mistakes that folks make when engaging in social media marketing.

If you are doing of these, make the change and look for improvement in your social media marketing.Continue Reading

Writing Social Media Posts That Folks Respond To

One of the tasks related to using social media for your business is writing posts. Posts help keep your social media active on various platforms. It also helps to engage your audience. And having a strategy to get the most out of your social media marketing is important, maybe even critical for those us who have limited time.

For most of you, the primary goal of your social media marketingContinue Reading

Creating Social Media Content

One of the types of content that you need to create is social media content. Social media content is any content that you will use to share on social media.

It might be a blurb that goes with a link to a video or blog post, or it might be an infographic or meme. Creating content for social media is an important part of every business’s marketing strategy.

Plan

A lot of folks forget toContinue Reading

Why Social Media Matters to Your Small Business

I believe social media will be around for quite a long time. It gives individuals and business entities a great way to connect and share their offerings.

I would say most of our target audiences use social media of some sort. And since we often use our phones or mobile devices, connecting is just moments away.Continue Reading

Feel like you’re wasting valuable time? Write with purpose

content writingContent is quite often considered an online entrepreneur’s primary asset. And content writing on of her key tasks.

It drives traffic and therefore helps make your sales. When done right, provides authority, credibility and gets your target audience to like you and your brand. All of which are buying triggers.

And don’t forget, it also helps you to market your business.

But unfortunately, many new solopreneurs write their content without a purpose.

They may write some great and useful content. But if it doesn’t have a clear objective, it’s missing out on an opportunity.

So ask yourself: what do you want your content to accomplish for you and your business?

It doesn’t matter if your content is short like a blog post or an article. Or a larger content piece like a report or e-book. It really needs a specific purpose.

Possible Content Purposes

  • drive traffic to your website
  • increase SEO rankingcontent writing
  • drive traffic to a sales page for your offering
  • generate affiliate income
  • boost your authority and credibility
  • encourage reader response and comments
  • capture leads

Occasionally, you may find that your content has more than one purpose.

For example, a report may be designed to collect opt-ins and generate affiliate revenue. Or you may add a link to your sales page on your website.

But if you don’t have an objective for your content, then you’re missing out on a valuable opportunity.

Decision-Making

I have found the best time to decide on the content’s purpose is when you create your content plan. But folks take different approaches so experiment to find what works best for you.

You may plan your content for the coming week, month, quarter, or year. If you aren’t planning your content yet, please start. Content planning will help make the best use of your time.

When you plan your content you’ll choose the keywords and the topic. You’ll also decide when you’ll publish it and where.

It makes sense to integrate your content into your overall marketing strategy. This includes traffic generation, SEO, and other marketing components. This also means that you will give your content a purpose.

Here’s an example:

content writingYou plan on launching a new product in three months. Your content during that month leading up to your product launch will ideally support the launch.

You’ll want it to generate interest and excitement about your new product. The purpose of the content is to drive traffic to your opt-in page.

Folks can sign up and receive notification when you launch. They may also receive early bird pricing.

Your content can also raise awareness for the need of your new product. And it can send traffic to your sales page once you launch.

Including your purpose in your content

All of your content needs to have a call to action. If you want to get comments and feedback at the end of a blog post, ask for it. That’s your call to action.

If you want folks to click to your sales page, you need some sort of “I want to learn more” link. Your purpose will be part of your call to action.

Take a look at the content you have planned. Does each piece have a specific purpose?

Do you give a call to action? Is your content part of your overall marketing strategy? If not, make the updates so you can start seeing the benefits.

Which call to action do you find yourself using the most?

Want to be more successful with content?

content planningIf you’re an online business owner, you know that content is one of the best tools you have. It can drive a tremendous amount of traffic to your website.

When done correctly, it provides your audience with the value and information they are looking for. It also helps you market your business, products or services.

Nowadays, content is essential for online marketing success. And you can achieve even greater success if you take the time to plan your content.

Content Planning

We all do some sort of planning in our lives. Content planning is the process of deciding what to write and where to publish it.

Questions you ask yourself while planning include:

  • When & where will you publish the content?
  • What topics will you write about?
  • What’s the main objective of the content?
  • What are the keywords you’ll be using?
  • How can you repurpose the content in the future?

You’ll also want to decide how far ahead you want to plan your content. Many online business owners take a tiered approach.

They plan large content projects for the entire year. For example, they may publish an ebook every couple of months for a series. They also take a look at their content on a quarterly or monthly level.

If you haven’t started to plan your content yet or are struggling to plan it effectively, try:

  • Using a calendar that gives you a view of the big picture and you can also write on. A paper desk calendar is a great planning tool. You can write your content ideas in pencil for easy modifications later. Then, if you prefer electronic organization, you can transfer the paper plan to Outlook or e-calendar.
  • Setting aside time to map out how you’ll integrate your content into your overall marketing strategy. For example, you could decide that in a particular month you’re going to publish five blog posts. You may want to make sure this content ties into any launches or promotions you’re doing in the same time period.
  • Leaving room for change. The best content plans leave room for inspiration. The greatest ideas often come out of the blue…when you’re brushing your teeth for example.

If you don’t allow room to update your content based on newly found inspiration, you risk missing out on a potentially great idea.

content planning

  • Don’t forget to take a look at how you can repurpose your content strategically. It’s not only a great way to get the most return on your time and energy investment, it can help fill content gaps.

When you take the time to plan your content, make sure you’re looking at the big picture and the more detailed picture.

Look ahead and take the entire year into consideration. At the same time, plan your content down to the keywords and topics.

I know you may be thinking about the time commitment. It may take a day or two to plan the year but it’ll save you tons of time later.

Instead of wondering what you’re going to write on each week, you’ll have the answers all worked out and hopefully documented in your content plan.

Best of all, your content will fit with your overall marketing strategy and be an integral part of your business growth plan.

Which do  you use: a paper or electronic calendar for content planning?