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Marketing Needs to Start BEFORE…

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“Before what?” you ask. Before you actually launch something. Before you sell. Before you are even ready.

If you are going to start something new – the minute you decide that you are going to do it, is the right time to start marketing – do not make the mistake of waiting with your marketing until everything else is finished and ready for launch.

Sometimes it starts even earlier – I know people who start their marketing before they ever decide to do something. Just in case.

I recently talked to a couple of young founders. They are in the middle of building a new app which I think I am going to love. I asked them what they plan for market entry and they told me they are not ready for marketing. They would still need a few weeks to finish the product.

Really?Blackboard with text

… I told them they are wrong

These founders are not alone with their take on marketing and postponing the beginning of marketing for far too long. We have had clients calling and saying, we are launching something next week and we want you to send some tweets to push it.

Launching unprepared and without a headstart in today’s world is not just a mistake – it’s careless.

Well, I can send a couple of tweets for anything, but that won’t get you far if you do not have a strategy and a concept behind it. If you did not start your marketing and started building a brand a while before your launch, most likely the tweets will not sell the way this client expects them to.

There is not only a lot to plan, there is also a lot to build before you actually launch something – especially if you are new to the market and have no “brand” and fame to build on.

Marketing is not about an ad campaign or sending some press information to journalists

Social Media marketing is much more than a couple of tweets or a handful of Facebook updates.
Marketing is not about selling something for a few days. If you want to do that – hire a sales person and pay him by the hour.

Why Social Media is Important for Small Businesses

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If you’re one of the few small businesses that are not yet plugged into social media, you may be wondering what all the fuss is about. Do you really need to use it, or can you just get by with an optimized website and an e-newsletter? The short answer is yes, you need social media – at least you do if you want to reach customers and stay competitive. Here are just a few reasons why social media is so important for small businesses.

Your customers are already using it.

According to a 2011 report published by Nielson, Americans spend nearly a quarter of their online time on social networks and blogs. This means that chances are much of your target market is already using social media. If you want to reach clients and prospects, you need to be where they are – by using social media you’ll increase the odds that your marketing message will get through to a significant number of them. [Read more…]

Benefits of Facebook Advertising

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It is no secret that Facebook is the most popular social media platform in the world with over 1 billion users. Can you imagine just being able to reach out to a fraction of those 1 billion users to tell them about your business? 3 Benefits of Facebook Ads What would that do for your business? If utilized properly the benefits Facebook Ads provide to businesses are endless and will drive the right type of potential customers to your website’s door.

Here are 3 amazing benefits Facebook Ads provide for small and large businesses alike.

Retargeting
What is retargeting? Also known as “remarketing,” retargeting is when online advertising uses information from a previous web search to influence ads on future websites visited. How does this work? When a user visits other websites, a cookie is created on their computer with that website’s data. Later on, that same user visits Facebook like they do several times a day. Facebook is able to read those cookies and use that information to place ads from the websites the user was previously on that day or days before. Keeping product engagement after the consumer has left your website is a huge benefit Facebook Ads offer your business. It’s the very reason you see ads for the products you recently searched for. And, this benefit is available to all businesses using Facebook’s advertising platform.  [Read more…]

5 Ways to Improve Your Instagram Marketing

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By Jenn Herman

Is there a place for Instagram in your marketing plan?

Do you want to use Instagram effectively for your business?

Instagram is more than a fun, photo-based social network. It can help you promote your products or services, get more leads and generate conversions.

In this article I’ll explain how to use Instagram to drive big results for your business.

#1: Add a Link to Your Instagram Profile

The only place where you can put a clickable link on Instagram is in your profile, below your bio description.

If you’re going to see any success with Instagram, you must use this link effectively. The good news is that you can change this URL as often as you like.  Read More

3 Ways to Optimize Facebook Ads For Better Results

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By Jason How

Are you running Facebook ads?

Do you want to get more out of your ads?

The right optimization can make or break your ad campaign. Target audiences, timing and ad creative are all important considerations.

In this article I’ll share three tips for making the most of your Facebook ad campaigns.

#1: Reach the Right Audience
Many marketers optimize their Facebook ads based on the soulless numbers they see on that platform, which often leads to reaching the wrong audience.

For example, when you run a campaign to increase your page likes, you only care whether your ads are increasing the number of likes. But consider that the number of likes says nothing about your fans’ relevance to your business. For all you know, a substantial portion of fans could be fake—that’s definitely not the audience you’re going for.   Read More

How to Improve Your Facebook News Feed Visibility

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By Laura Roeder

Are you tired of your Facebook posts getting buried in the news feed?

Want to get your Facebook posts seen?

Facebook algorithms dictate how many people see your updates. Two recent changes should help you get more organic reach and lower your frustration level.

In this article, I’ll share how you can adjust your Facebook tactics to make the most of news feed visibility today.  Read More

14 Tools to Streamline Your Social Media Marketing

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By Stephanie Shkolnik

Do you want to manage social media more efficiently?

Do you have the right tools?

To streamline your approach, you’ll need resources that work well with your business.

In this article I’ll share the best tools to manage and optimize your social media marketing.

#1: Find Your Audience

Once you define your target audience(s), find the social media platforms they frequent online.

Here are tools you can use to find your audience across the web.

Followerwonk

My favorite (and free) hidden gem is Followerwonk. Specific to Twitter, this tool allows users to search Twitter bios (or Twitter profiles) by keywords. It helps build influencer lists for engagement at a later time. So if you search “technology editor,” the tool will pick up any profiles mentioning this phrase in an easy-to-consume list for simple identification.

Traackr

An influencer marketing platform, Traackr creates specific lists of influencers and their qualifications, based on the criterion put into the system—whether it’s a region (New York) or topic (chocolate-lover).  Read More

10 Fundamentals of Social Media Marketing

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There are many guides, best practices and tips for social media marketing out there. This is a different list. These are 10 principles that are fundamental for organizations that are building a social media plan. The goal is to help you establish a mindset that will help you come up with a strategy. I learned these principles after more than a decade of working on social media and community strategies for start-ups to Fortune 50 organizations..

To start on a light note, let me share an extended version of an entertaining way to explain social media 101

The 10 fundamental principles for social media marketing

1. Social Media is not a strategy. Social media is interaction, it’s a channel, a tool that can be used for many things – like email, or video conferencing technology or a CRM system or in-person meetings. Social is most effective when integrated with other parts of the business to support a business strategy. Read more.

2. Social strategists are coaches. A mature social team crafts the strategy, provides a technology foundation, guidelines and coaching to enable multiple groups in the organization to be active in social media. If the social media is the only one participating in the conversation, you are doing something wrong. Read more.

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How to Drive More Facebook Traffic to Your Website in 5 Easy Steps

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By Andrea Vahl

Would you like to drive more Facebook traffic to your website?

Is quality Facebook traffic important to your business?

Getting Facebook fans to your website (and then hopefully onto your email list) is even more critical with Facebook’s recent announcement of decreased organic reach for pages.

Use these five steps to help you get more traffic Facebook to your website.

#1: Make Sure You Have a Steady Stream of Shareable Content on Your Website

If you have a website that never changes, you’re going to struggle to get much traffic to it. Posting links to the same page on your site over and over is as futile as Sisyphus rolling the boulder up the hill.

These days, the name of the game is content marketing and you had better figure out how your business can participate.

The fresh, new content you post on your site is important—not only for social media marketing, but also for search engine optimization. Google rewards sites featuring fresh content with higher ranking. But you don’t have to post epic blog articles three times a week to win at the content marketing game. Posting something new and helpful once a week or even once a month can benefit your website traffic.

Here are some ideas that can help you brainstorm how you can add new content to your website:

  • Post a weekly tip about your niche. It doesn’t have to be long; a paragraph or two with a nice photo will do just fine. Start with the frequently asked questions that come in from your customers.
  • Post a weekly news bite with a photo about what is happening in your business. This works well for businesses that have events.
  • Curate a list of top 10 helpful articles from around the web that you found that week. Add a short sentence about why you liked them. Read More

Branding

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“A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers” (American Marketing Association).

You can consider a brand as the idea or image people have in mind when thinking about specific products, services and activities of a company, both in a practical (e.g. “the shoe is light-weight”) and emotional way (e.g. “the shoe makes me feel powerful”). It is therefore not just the physical features that create a brand but also the feelings that consumers develop towards the company or its product. This combination of physical and emotional cues is triggered when exposed to the name, the logo, the visual identity, or even the message communicated.

Social Media Marketing

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