What Your Profile Really Says About You

/0 Comments/in , /by

What does your profile say about you?

If you’re not giving enough thought to your online profiles, you may be sending mixed messages to potential employers. Consider what your profile may be saying:

  • No picture — Not having a photo says, “I am not confident enough to show my face.” If you don’t have a photo you’re proud of, find a friend with a camera and start shooting. Look straight at the camera and smile for the best impression.
  • Logo or something else as picture — Again, I worry about the person’s confidence when there’s a logo or avatar instead of a picture; or I worry that they have no personality.
  • No recommendations — A profile with no recommendations screams, “No-one else believes I am as good as I say.” Reach out to a few friends or colleagues for recommendations to remedy this ASAP, and be sure the skills you’ve listed mirror your real-life skills.
  • Incomplete profile — To me, this just smacks of laziness. It says, “I have nothing to say or am too lazy to put it here.” Whenever you have the opportunity to include more information to make a good impression, you should do so.
  • Not up to date — If you haven’t updated your profile since 2009 but are actively looking for a job, that’s a disconnect. I would wonder if perhaps your heart wasn’t in it or if you truly had a keen eye for detail.
  • No contact details — This is like saying, “Call me!” but not giving out your number. If you are overly concerned about privacy, create a new email address and Google Voice phone number specifically for job hunting, but make certain whatever you do that your potential interviewers don’t have to work to contact you.

Putting your profile to work

Once you’ve put your best foot forward, so to speak, and filled out your profile completely and correctly, you can take it to the next level. Some other tips to consider:

  • Ask for an introduction. Instead of a totally blind date, it helps to have an introduction. Work your contacts and discover who in your network might be able to make an introduction or recommendation at your dream job.
  • Cultivate connections. Connections who work within a company to which you’re applying can also give excellent insights into the company culture and tidbits that can come in handy during the interview phase.
  • Appeal to your ideal match. Use the descriptions of your previous positions to tell the story job recruiters are interested in hearing. If you know that your ideal position is with a company that values independence and self-direction, for example, highlight your past accomplishments in those areas.
  • Get specific. Just like potential mates get tired of reading about “long walks on the beach” and people “looking for someone with a good sense of humor,” recruiters start to glaze over clichés as well. Be as specific as possible with your profile to make yourself stand out in the crowd.
  • But don’t be tempted to exaggerate. In this Internet age, your resume can be double checked in the fraction of a second it takes Google to return a result, and any exaggeration can be seen as outright dishonesty.
  • Follow up (but don’t come across as desperate). It’s always appropriate to follow up after a first meeting, but don’t be a pest, and don’t come across as desperate; it’s a turn off.

Photo: Shutterstock

Posted by:
About : Bernard Marr is a globally recognized expert in strategy, performance management, analytics, KPIs and big data. He helps companies manage, measure and improve performance.

 

Managing Your Social Media Presence

/in , /by

If you have set up accounts with sites like; Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn AND Google Plus, etc… you alreayd know how hard it is to keep up with them. Companies also quickly realize that Social Media is a hands on time consuming job that can take up large chunks of time. Whether as a business owner you decide to manage your Social Media accounts on your own or you hire a Social Media manager it is a big job.

Do not worry though, there is a solution! The key is to break things down into small steps and work on them daily rather than letting them build up.

For Managing Your Social Media Accounts and expanding your Social Media presence follow the tips below:

  • 1. Sign in

    First things first, in order to do anything you need to take the first step and log into your accounts.

  • 2. Check messages, comments & replies

    People are putting in the effort to reach out to you so you need to return the favor. Timely responses to questions & comments can make the difference between retaining a customer and losing one.

  • 3. Damage control if necessary

    Bad review on Yelp? Seeing complaints on Twitter or Facebook? Actively search out for people who have had a bad experience with your company or service. Conduct damage control in trying to rectify the situation. Potential customers will see these reviews and if they see you put in effort to resolve the situation they will be more likely to appreciate you and your business.

  • 4. Post fresh content

    Make a habit of posting something new on all networks at least once a day. Share an interesting article, a picture, video, quote or ask your followers a question. Use a Social Media management tool such as HootSuite to post on all your networks at once or schedule your posts for a specific time.

  • 5. Reach out to at least 3 of your followers

    Maintaining and developing relationships is important. By reaching out to your followers it shows you are interested and will keep you on top of their mind.

  • 6. Reach out to at least 3 new people

    By reaching out to people who are not following you is a good way to introduce yourself and you company and to expand your network. Often times when you put in the effort to re-tweet or reply to someone’s post they will start following you back as well.

  • 7. Monitor competitor and industry mentions

    See what people are saying about relevant mentions of your industry and competitors. Get involved in online discussions going on. It is a good way to connect with potential followers and become a thought leader in your industry.

  • 8. Brainstorm future posts

    Take some time each day and find or create interesting things to share so you can create a bank of shareable material. This way each day you don’t have to search or create something new and you can use material that you have already saved or created previously.

  • 9. Check your stats

    It’s important to keep up with how much your effort is paying off. Management tools such as Hootsuite as mentioned above can provide you analytics on all your social media accounts rather than signing in one by one to each site. Are you gaining new followers? Is your content being shared? Checking on your stats will help you see which types of posts are most and least popular so that you spend more time sharing things your followers will enjoy.

  • 10. Bonus points

    Check your Facebook home page for birthdays, endorse or recommend someone on LinkedIn or Re-Tweet someone on Twitter. Special gestures like these show your willingness to go above and beyond and help cultivate long lasting relationships with your followers.

 

Mobile Age

Social Media Design Tips

/in /by

14 Social Media Design Tips for 2014 by Emily Taing.

Are you ready to start maximizing your social media design efforts? With these 14 social media design tips for 2014, you can create images that accomplish your goal and attract your audience.

In the ever-changing world of social media, visual elements are one of the most powerful ways to grab a viewer’s attention. According to Trend Reports, between 65 and 85 percent of people describe themselves as visual learners.

1. DISTINGUISH PRINT VS. SOCIAL
When posting on social media, don’t post what’s meant for print directly to your networks. It’s very likely that the printed piece is very copy-heavy and the resolution is too high for web. Instead, repurpose parts of the printed piece and only share the most important elements.

2. WRITE LESS COPY
When creating visuals on social, the less detail- the better. Copy should be creative and short to grab the viewer’s attention. A link can be added for more information.

3. SEARCH TEMPLATES
One important factor for Social is making sure everything is created at the correct size. There are a lot of dimensions to know, but fortunately you don’t have memorize them! There are many cheatsheets out there with sizing for each of the different platforms.

4. KNOW THE GUIDELINES
Be sure you’re up-to-date on each network’s image guidelines. Currently, for Facebook Ads, http://www.likeable.com/blog/2013/11/facebook-images-20-percent-rule-fre…)” target=”_blank”>only 20% of an image can be occupied by copy.

5. DETERMINE HIERARCHY
Visual hierarchy is extremely important in design. With content, your words and images need to be organized in a way that helps the viewer prioritize the message. The more important the message, the more contrast it should have.

6. PRIORITIZE TYPOGRAPHY
Typography is a huge factor in visual design. With good typography, there is potential to go beyond just words- it elicits feelings and character about your brand. For headlines, make sure they are bold and easy to read. For body copy, maximize legibility by using the correct amount of leading and tracking. Lines should be large enough to read – the shorter the lines, the better.

7. SELECT GOOD IMAGERY
Image selection is key. When choosing an image, put yourself in the shoes of the viewer: Is this something you would engage and/or share with your friends? Go with something that will evoke a reaction.

8. USE CREATIVE COMMONS
When you are adding images and other content that you did not create to your social sites, it is important to make sure that you are not violating anyone’s copyright. Use Creative Commons and Public Domain images to be safe –compfight.com, search.creativecommons.org, sxc.hu

9. DON’T FORGET ATTRIBUTION
Images from creative commons are okay to use but make sure you attribute the image with the author. Don’t use images that you don’t own or that you don’t have permission to use. Just because the image is a result from a Google search doesn’t mean you can use it!

10. CONSIDER A LOGO
When creating your own imagery, you have the option of branding your visuals. While some prefer to have their logo prominent on every piece of creative, others prefer to ditch the logo. It’s your choice, so consider both options based on the the audience.

11. USE EASIER TOOLS
While Adobe Photoshop is the best tool for designers, it can be overwhelming if you aren’t a professional. Pixlr and Gimp are free photoshop-like free online tools you can use. There are also many mobile applications that can help with design/layout including: Pic Stich, Overgram, Studio.

12. USE CORRECT PRESETS
The proper color mode for online images is RGB. RGB images display better on screens, as opposed to CMYK, which is meant for ink printing. Basically, monitors emit light and paper absorbs light. When creating an image, set your image to 72 dpi (dots per inch). This will help for faster load time, and is the standard as opposed to print’s 300 dpi requirement.

13. SAVE FOR WEB
When saving files out of Photoshop, use Photoshop’s “Save for Web” feature to create smaller images that are perfect for web and mobile.

14. BE CREATIVE
Social media is a hub of design inspiration. Be creative and think outside of the box.

Are you ready to take your course online follow our free step by step advise on this site, and for those interested to design their course on Moodle platform we offer a free online course.

Free Advice

Authored by: Emily Taing, Senior Art Director at Likeable Media | New York, New York | Marketing and Advertising | http://bit.ly/17yGu4v

via 14 Social Media Design Tips for 2014 | Social Media Today.

 

Social-Media-Marketing

Social Media Marketing

/0 Comments/in /by

The 80/20 Rule in Social Media Marketing.

Theres no secret formula to successfully engaging with your audience on social media, but applying The 80/20 Rule should always be a big part of your social media strategy.

Why Just 20% of Your Social Media Content Should be About Your BrandLike it?

It simply comes down to this: use just 20% of your content to promote your brand, and dedicate 80% to content that really interests your audience and engages them in conversations.

Social media should be a major part of your marketing mix. But because people use social media to be social, they dont want to be subjected to your online sales pitch. Always make it about building relationships, rather than annoying your audience with irrelevant content and boosting your own image.

Because people use social media to be social, they don’t want to be subjected to your online sales pitch.

The year 2013 is already marked as a big year for content, therefore, content marketing is a really important component of any social media marketing strategy. Heres how you should apply The 80/20 Rule to your social media content:

20% of Your Brands Content:

Include Persuasive Call-to-Actions. When working on the 20% of content that deals with your brand, also include information that benefits your audience. Include a discount, add a special offer, provide useful statistics, etc. Make sure you integrate a persuasive call-to-action that inspires your audience to learn more about your company so it possibly leads to conversion in the future.

80% of Other Interesting Content:

Dedicating 80% to interesting content that really caters to the interests and needs of your audience means compiling content from influencers with whose ideas and insights you agree. It supports your thinking, the way you do business, or what you believe is going on in your industry.

Make it Shareable. Think about retweets, inspirational quotes, links to news, questions, etc.You simply look for content that appeals to your audience and share it on your social channels.

Are you ready to take your course online follow our free step by step advise on this site, and for those interested to design their course on Moodle platform we offer a free online course.

Free Advice

Compare it to sifting through your own personal RSS reader to pick up on interesting new items. These three simple steps will make the sharing process a lot easier:

  1. Follow influencers, and learn from what they find interesting.
  2. Share interesting content with your own followers, and try to connect to them.
  3. Engage with your influencers so it motivates them to want to share your own content.

In short, if a brand focuses too much on itself within social media as a means for boosting sales, its audience will immediately see through it and tune it out. Only by discovering what your audience is really interested in and responding to those needs, will your brand be able to maintain a consistent, sustainable, and engaging online social media presence.

Article by: Sofie De Beule

Read the complete article here: Social Media and Content Amounts | Social Media Today.

 

Hootlet: A free App. to manage your social media
Considering how popular social media has become, it’s still a headache in a lot of ways. To post to social networks or view the latest Tweets or updates, you generally have to stop whatever you’re doing on the net and go to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

Hootlet ends all that. (Disclaimer: This is not an endorsement for this product by us.) You have to install it on your Chrome browser, and you can share any webpage with just a click, across any (or all) of your social networks (and even schedule when the updates go out). Then there’s the really cool stuff. Do a Google search and you’ll automatically see the latest relevant Tweets. Search for a restaurant on Yelp, and the most recent Tweets on the venue pop up. Put in any location on Google Maps and see Tweets sent from nearby.

Instead of having to make an effort to go to social media sites, Hootlet brings relevant social media to you-integrating Twitter and other networks into your browsing in all kinds of time-saving (and long overdue) ways.

The Content Marketing Mix

/in , , /by

So now that youve been inspired to try your hand at social content marketing, and you understand your audience and what kind of content may appeal, its time to plan out your content mix. Understanding the content mix that works for your audience is incredibly important and many companies get this very wrong. I break content down to four very general categories:

PRODUCT

Product type content is the stuff that most people understand as self-promotional.

  • These are posts about your product itself: the features, the benefits, the comparisons and the contrasts.
  • Its the who, what, when, where and how of what you are selling.
If you are doing content for a cosmetic company, its the scientific study that shows a 25% reduction in crows feet.
If you are doing content for a rockband, its posting the concert dates and new singles.
If you are doing content for a dental office, its posting the specials on cleaning and whitening.
If you are doing content for your consulting business, its posting where you are featured as an expert in the Washington Post.

Product posts are the “me, me, me” posts. They are the ones that most resemble the traditional marketing one-way message, though many companies are trying to create interaction with these by adding a sharing, liking or commenting incentive share to enter a contest, like to get a coupon, comment to let us know how you would wear this, etc.

These types of posts are essential for communicating what it is you are selling, where people can buy it, how they enjoy/use your product, when it is available or goes on special, who is behind the product slightly crosses over to brand, which explain why people should buy your product.

However, a content schedule made up of too many of these posts will not be interesting to anyone other than already devoted fans - and even they will be less and less interested as time goes on.

BRAND

Brand type posts still relate to your product, but focus more on the “why” by empathizing with your audience and connecting with them on a more emotional level.

Brand posts answer the question, “Why would YOU give a damn about my product?“

But they dont list the features and benefits, they talk more about the customer and how they serve the customers needs. This is where the content gets social. It listens and learns and evolves with the needs of the audience. Brand type posts are answering how you are making your customers’ lives simpler, less confusing, less alienating, more efficient, more meaningful and just plain better.

If you are doing content for a fashion retailer, this is where you focus on the outcomes of looking and feeling great wearing the clothes quite often done visually and in a fantasy setting.
If you are doing content for a public figure, this is where you showcase the issues and ideologies that people can connect with in order to support that person.
If you are doing content for a sports team, this is where you can connect with the audiences competitive instincts, providing tools to help them show their team colors.
Brand type posts speak of how the customer connects to the product rather than the awesomeness of the product itself. These posts evolve over time as you interact with the audience. They can even help you improve your product. This will give your audience a feeling of personal investment in the product, which will lead to a deeper relationship and long-term loyalty.

LIFESTYLE

Lifestyle type posts don’t directly relate to your product, but they do speak to your audience. They are posts that recognize memes, holidays, current events and pop culture. These posts connect to your audience by recognizing what else is going on in their minds and show that your company gets the audience.

When Oreo posted the gay pride cookie, the image went viral because of many factors, but the biggest was that they took a risk. Oreo took a risk with a holiday that divides many (as gay rights is widely contested), leading to a wide number of supporters and detractors discussing and sharing the ad. The image itself was fairly innocuous with the rainbow colored filling between the iconic chocolate wafers and the word ‘PRIDE’. It didn’t say, “support gay rights” or stand up for anything in particular, but a family focused company giving any recognition to the gay community was enough to set the right wing audience off, which led to setting the left wing audience off to counteract the ire. The next thing you know, a cute, sleeper campaign turned into national news and Oreo cookies were top of mind for people again.

Lifestyle type posts are simple to fall back on. There are several sites online that list all sorts of fun holidays (i.e. Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19, or Best Friends Day on June 8) that could tie back to your product easily or creatively or speak to your particular audiences.

However, don’t overdo these as they could start to look like desperate attempts at content ideas and pandering.

Memes can be a clever way to connect with your audience, but make sure the memes are known enough and current. A ‘yesterdays’ meme will make you look out of date (posting a Harlem Shake video today, for example) and a too obscure meme may go over the heads of your audience and may offend. Many brands do well aligning to pop culture, but be careful with the rights to images.

Unless you can be creative about it like Oreo (without looking like a copy cat), it’s probably best you keep these posts a small percentage of your content. Occasional Lifestyle type content posts will pack a good amount of punch if you post them sparingly. They tend to get shared quite widely.

COMMUNITY

Community type posts focus on your customers and audience. These content posts highlight customer stories, ideas, feedback and lifestyles. An example of a community post for a fashion retailer would be street style photographs where their customers talk about what they bought and what they are wearing.

Many cosmetic brands will hold contests for their audience to do makeup tutorials. Mac did a wonderful ‘Face Off’ campaign for Halloween in 2012 where they posted some amazing Halloween makeup tutorials and invited budding makeup artists to submit their own. The results were incredible.

Community type posts are very good at involving your customers in the future of your brand, but don’t get too complex. Community type posts most likely won’t be your most shared or liked post, but they empower your customers to be involved with your brand, which is important for relationship building.

 

THE CONTENT MIX

These four classifications aren’t black and white. A product post can have lifestyle and brand type elements. Community posts can also be brand. The mix also varies depending on your audience and your own goals.

And remember, these four classifications outlined are very top level and only to be used as a guideline for your initial content planning. As your content evolves, you will break down types of posts even more finitely. When assessing content, we look at the type of post and the type of content of each post to determine how to adjust and balance going forward.

Starting with these four types of content will be a good exercise to get you started. From there, you should let your audience and their engagement and feedback determine how it evolves. Your content planning will move from a daunting, laborious task to a fun and learning experience.

The overall purpose of content marketing is to build and connect with your audience, get feedback to improve your product, grow loyalty though involving your customers in your evolution and then help your loyal, loving audience spread the word for you, bringing in a larger audience. Ultimately, this leads to you being top of mind and increasing your sales or supporters.

Socmed_-_Flickr_-_USDAgov

How To Build a Powerful Online Presence

/in , /by

The Big Picture

The key is to focus on the areas that matter the most and ignore the lower-priority areas. Make some smart decisions about which Internet marketing tools you’re going to use and which you can afford to ignore.

 

How To Build a Powerful Online Presence: The key is to be consistent. Your online presence is based on small, consistent, high-quality contributions rather than a few sporadic marketing campaigns.

 

You can group these tools into four broad categories based on how you use them to deliver high-quality content:

Web presenceCreate

This will typically be your website itself. You create it once and then adjust it as required. You do need to be able to update it yourself, but most of the updates are promotional (for example: adding testimonials, promoting new events, adding new products and services).

When you start doing specific marketing campaigns, you’ll be updating this much more regularly – for example, fine-tuning the keywords on pages, creating landing pages for search engine marketing campaigns and so on. However, you don’t need to do this immediately, and you can first focus on the other activities below.

Generate

These are the tools you use for generating and distributing your content regularly. The two main tools are your blog and email newsletter, and these are supplemented by other regular content distribution tools such as YouTube videos, SlideShare presentations, a podcast (an audio newsletter) and article directories.

You don’t have to create brand-new content for each platform. Later in this report, you’ll see how easy it is to adapt one piece of material into different formats.

Automate

If you don’t have the time to get fully involved in social media, at least get a simple presence by automating the process. Every time you publish a blog post, let your followers know on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. (The free TwitterFeed.com service will do this for you.) You can also manually post links to Google+ and Pinterest.

This gives you a minimal – but useful – social media presence. Like anything else, social media will work better when you put some serious time, effort and focus into it. However, you still need to earn the right to use it as a marketing platform, and this is a way of creating a presence slowly until you’re ready to do more with it.

Participate

Finally, you can participate in online conversations. This can happen on the big social media platforms like Twitter, Google+, Facebook and LinkedIn; or they can be niche on-line communities of your customers, clients and colleagues.

This is important, and eventually it will probably give you the greatest return. It’s also what many social media consultants will advise you to do. However, it does take time, so make sure you choose the right communities and engage in the right conversations.

Summary

Here’s a summary of the four stages, written as a marketing plan:

  • Website

    Build a high-quality website that promotes you.

  • Publish Articles Regularly

    Publish them to your newsletter and blog; and optionally leverage them in other forms.

  • Update Your Social Media

    Automatically notify your social media followers of new blog posts.

  • Participate in Discussions

    Take part in conversations and discussions with peers and clients.

This report focus on the middle two layers of the plan above: generating high-quality content and automating your exposure on social media.

I highly recommend you to read the full report.

Get The Full Article

More Articles:

Using LinkedIn Effectively

Effective social media strategy

Tips And Advice For Great Article Marketing

How To Use Google+ For Content Marketing

This post is based on the extracts from an article by Gihan Perera, he is a consultant, speaker and author, who helps thought leaders and business professionals leverage their expertise. He is the author of the book Webinar Smarts and Fast, Flat and Free, among others.

Sales Process

/in , /by

Three key stages in the sales process:

1- Prospecting

One of the first key performance indicators and critical success factors in selling is prospecting. This is defined as your ability to get face-to-face or ear to ear with qualified prospects who can and will buy your product or service within a reasonable amount of time.

It’s a reminder that unless your prospect has a need to solve a problem they are not going to buy a product. Customers sometimes buy things spontaneously without thinking through what their actual need is. But often there is an underlying reason for a purchase even if the buyer doesn’t bring it to the surface.

2- Establish Rapport, Trust and Credibility

The second key result area of selling is establishing rapport, trust and credibility. People will not buy from you until they like you, trust you and are convinced that you are their friend and acting in their best interests.

3- Identifying Needs Accurately

The third key result area of selling is identifying needs accurately. The biggest mistake that you can make when you meet or talk to a new prospect is to assume that you already know what this prospect needs or wants and is willing to pay for. Each prospect is unique, special and different from all other prospects. He or she has special wants, needs, hopes, fears and desires. In the initial stage of your conversation with the prospect, your single focus is to ask questions and listen carefully to ascertain whether or not a genuine need for what you sell exists in the mind and heart of the person you are talking to.

Too many sales reps walk into customer meetings with their pre-canned sales decks and proudly squawk through 30 of their favorite slides without engaging the customer in a discussion.(small ears and a big mouth)

The goal is to get the customer speaking about their organisation. And the best kind of questions to ask are open-ended questions. I recommend starting with a brief overview of you, your company and your solution. And by brief I mean BRIEF! Next, I recommend putting up some example clients you’ve worked with. These references make for great discussions with customers. Remember people prefer to hear themselves speak rather than to listen to you. It’s just human nature. Write down the customer points/issues so you’ll have them for later. Ask questions the whole time. The best form of sales is “active listening” where you’re engaged in what the customer is telling you.

And please resist the temptation to cut off the customer with a story of your own.

A Typical Sales Cycle:

The Sales Cycle displays the individual’s preferences using factors that are important in a typical sales cycle. It indicates the likely effectiveness of an individual in eight critical stages of the sales process and helps to determine where in a typical sales cycle this person will be most effective.

  1. Developing a Game Plan: Analysing the market in depth, putting effort into positioning products and effective sales activities.
  2. Making Contact: Contacting prospects, ‘breaking the ice’ and making people feel comfortable, taking the initiative to establish new relationships.
  3. Building Desire: Engaging the customer emotionally, creating a preference to buy and a feeling of fondness about the product or service.
  4. Creating Options: Understanding the customer’s needs and producing innovative solutions.
  5. Presenting: Presenting products and/or solutions engagingly and confidently to individuals and customer groups; feeling free of stress and worries.
  6. Closing the Sale: Bringing the business home, managing the customer for timely decisions, dealing with objections, negotiating final price and conditions of sale.
  7. Satisfying the Customer: Delivering post sales care persistently, relating to the customer and taking all steps necessary to satisfy the customer.
  8. Managing and Growing: Maintaining the customer relationship after the sale is completed, continuously looking to identify new needs and business opportunities.

From Click To Conversion

/in , , /by

From click to conversion, where not all clicks are created equal.

The world loves free — especially free — data, insight, helpful tips, etc. Thus, when you’re creating and sharing helpful content, people click on it.

Many content marketers mistake this click for need when often, it’s simply an indicator of interest.

For example, let’s say you post a lot of content around B2B digital sales & marketing strategy and consistently see good click-thru numbers on those links. Specifically, you may see a lot of clicks from inside certain LinkedIn Groups that focus on B2B sales & marketing.

Because of this, you assume those groups want and need advice about developing B2B sales & marketing strategies — something you do. So you devote more time to those groups beyond just posting your content.

You monitor the Daily Update emails, you participate in various discussions and begin to connect with other members.

Meanwhile, you’re not seeing as many clicks from another platform — let’s say Facebook — so you dial down the time you spend there to focus more attention to those click happy LinkedIn Groups that seem to love your content.

But you have a big problem.

You don’t really know if the social media activity is converting to new leads, downloads or subscriptions, or if you’re just helping to educate a lot of people that will never do business with you.

Turning links into leads: The missing link here is conversion tracking.

It’s not enough to use Google Analytics to determine that your social and content efforts are driving traffic to your website, you need to define the high quality from low quality traffic. The only way to do that is to initiate an action and tracking it.

For every social media post you make, you need to understand how many clicks and conversions (downloading a white paper, subscribing to a newsletter, or buying a product) were generated.

To create and share content that turns invisible prospects into visible leads, you can start by:

  • Ask your visitors to take an specific action (you can give them a reward for their action, eg: ask them to give their email to receive the full article)
  • Directing your visitor to the next stage (eventually leading them to the purchasing page)
  • Ask them to leave a comment.

When someone clicks on your content, they’re indicating an interest or curiosity. They’re window-shopping. And in the world of business prospecting, they’re invisible.

But when they take that next step … when they trade you a piece of personally identifiable information, such as an email address to subscribe to a blog, they become a visible prospect.

I suggest you start with the google free conversation tracking facilities and you can then consider number of softwares available in the market.

Click here For The Educators Open Invitation

to take your course online on a commercial or non-commercial basis.

Click Here

Import Google Analytics Goals into Conversion Tracking

When it comes to analysing customer activity on your website, Google offers two features to help you: Google Analytics Goals and Transactions, and AdWords Conversion Tracking. You can use both at the same time, or just one.

Compare Google Analytics Goals and AdWords Conversion Tracking

Google Analytics Goals

  • Ideal if you’re interested in the entire flow of customers through your site, not just conversions.
  • Can include conversions from non-AdWords sources, so it’s good for tracking all customer traffic on your website.

AdWords Conversion Tracking

  • Ideal if you’re interested only in conversions.
  • Tracks conversions only from AdWords sources.

Benefits of importing Google Analytics goals

Importing your Google Analytics goals into AdWords Conversion Tracking offers a few benefits. They include:

  • Access your Google Analytics conversions and data related to your AdWords clicks.
  • See Google Analytics conversion data in AdWords.
  • Give Conversion Optimizer access to data that helps optimize bids, potentially increasing conversions and lowering costs.

Keep in mind

You might not need to import Google Analytics transactions if you already use AdWords Conversion Tracking on a particular page. (Enabling both could cause conversions to be double-counted.)

[aio_button align=”none” animation=”none” color=”green” size=”medium” icon=”none” text=”Go to Google for more info.” target=”_blank” relationship=”dofollow” url=”https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2520139″]

This article is based on extract from the article by: the Tom Martin, he is the founder of Converse Digital , author of The Invisible Sale. Get more from Tom on Google+, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

Effective social media strategy

/in , /by

How to build an effective social media strategy

Based on the article by: Tom Martin

The folly of click data

The world loves free — especially free — data, insight, helpful tips, etc. Thus, when you’re creating and sharing helpful content, people click on it.

Many content marketers mistake this click for need when often, it’s simply an indicator of interest.

For example, let’s say you post a lot of content around B2B digital sales & marketing strategy and consistently see good click-thru numbers on those links. Specifically, you may see a lot of clicks from inside certain LinkedIn Groups that focus on B2B sales & marketing.

Because of this, you assume those groups want and need advice about developing B2B sales & marketing strategies — something you do. So you devote more time to those groups beyond just posting your content.

You monitor the Daily Update emails, you participate in various discussions and begin to connect with other members.

Meanwhile, you’re not seeing as many clicks from another platform — let’s say Facebook — so you dial down the time you spend there to focus more attention to those click happy LinkedIn Groups that seem to love your content.

But you have a big problem.

You don’t really know if the social media activity is converting to new leads, downloads or subscriptions, or if you’re just helping educate a lot of people that will never do business with you.

Click here For The Educators Open Invitation

to take your course online on a commercial or non-commercial basis.

Click Here

Turning links into leads

The missing link here is conversion tracking.

It’s not enough to use Google Analytics to determine that your social and content efforts are driving traffic to your website, you need to define the high quality from low quality traffic. The only way to do that is by tracking conversions.

For every social media post you make, you need to understand how many clicks and conversions (downloading a white paper, subscribing to a newsletter, or buying a product) were generated.

To do this, I suggest you invest in a social media management and tracking platform that will produce customized short links for each social post you create … and track traffic from those links all the way through conversion.

There are a number of enterprise level solutions that will do this but for now, let me show you a simple real-world example of how I use this conversion data to better target my social media marketing efforts.

How conversions inform your strategy

The single most valuable benefit to comparing performance by click and conversion is time and effort management.

The insightful reports can be quite eye opening and really help you focus your limited time and attention to drive the best results for your business.

For instance, look at this campaign snapshot for my new book, The Invisible Sale.

Because most people are not going to purchase a book that is still nine months from publishing (this campaign was in April) we designed the campaign to drive awareness of the book and newsletter subscriber sign-ups. The figure below is showing the click and conversion (people who clicked through and then signed up for my Painless Prospecting newsletter).

If I was only looking at click data, I might feel that I need to place more effort on Twitter and less on Facebook and LinkedIn as Twitter drove significantly more clicks. But take a look at the conversion column.

It tells a very different story. Each of those platforms drove four conversions. However, LinkedIn drove those conversions at a much higher rate. Thus, if I’m looking for the most profitable platform to place my limited resources (time and effort) than LinkedIn would seem a better option.

Think of it this way …

When someone clicks on your content, they’re indicating an interest or curiosity. They’re window-shopping. And in the world of business prospecting, they’re invisible.

But when they take that next step … when they trade you a piece of personally identifiable information, such as an email address to subscribe to a blog, they become a visible prospect.

And that should be the goal of your social media efforts: To create and share content that turns invisible prospects into visible leads.

The benefits of conversion tracking

Conversion tracking isn’t just a better, more accurate way of reporting social media ROI. It’s a better way of developing a social media plan of attack. The single biggest challenge marketers have today is regarding time … or maybe better stated, thelack of time.

If you’re merely tracking clicks, you very well may be spending a lot of time producing and sharing content with window shoppers instead of developing truly valuable relationships with true prospects.

About the Author: Tom Martin is a 20+ year veteran of the marketing and advertising industry with a penchant for stiff drinks, good debates and digital gadgets. He is the founder of Converse Digital , author of The Invisible Sale.

Developing an Influencer Plan

/in , /by

Developing an Influencer Plan

In today’s marketplace, the biggest challenge you have is standing out in the crowd, becoming recognized as an authority, and obtaining your dream job. Tested, proven marketing strategies can help you solve these challenges, whether you think you of yourself as a marketer or not.

Build Your Digital Footprint

Getting started

First you have to identify your target audience (those how may be interested in your product or service). Next study the competitive landscape and your target audience needs, those who may be interested to receive your instructional posts or blogs.

To keep the cost down you need to your own writing, proofreading, uploading into WordPress, and finding copyright free images for individual posts.

Start Building your LinkedIn network, Facebook Fan page (not a personal page), Google+ and get your Twitter going (subject to your audience you may use other social networks)

The influencer list

Influencer can be defined as a blogger, competitor, or media organization that is creating content of interest to our target audience. Initially, can develop this list by tracking keywords (like “content marketing”) in Google Alerts, authors in industry trade publications, those who were talking about the topic on Twitter, LinkedIn and other bloggers that you just find interesting.

  • LinkedIn- Join the relevant groups and discussion.
  • Article Submission Sites - Join the relevant article posting sites.
  • FaceBook Fan page - Start building your face books fan page.

Getting the attention of influencers

As influencers, these people are fairly important. They generally have real jobs, and are extremely active on social networks, spending their time sharing content and blogging. Getting on their radar is not easy. So, to get their attention, you can give away content gifts.

Ways to achieve this:

Social media 4-1-1

Originally coined by Andrew Davis, author of Brandscaping, Social Media 4-1-1 is a sharing system that enables a company to get greater visibility with social influencers.

Here’s how it works.

For every six pieces of content shared via social media (think Twitter for example):

  • Four are pieces of content from your influencer target that are also relevant to your audience. This means that 67% of the time you are sharing content that is not yours, and calling attention to content from your influencer group.
  • One piece can be your original, educational piece of content.
  • One piece can be your sales piece, like a coupon, product notice, press release or some other piece of content that no one will pay attention to.

While the numbers don’t have to be exact, it’s the philosophy that makes this work. When you share influencer content, they notice. And you share, without asking for anything in return … so that when you do need something someday, the influencers are more likely to say yes.

Big content gifts

From your “top content marketing blogs” list, you can decide which one can get a better visibility with influencers by actually ranking the influencers and sharing it out with the masses.

You can rank the top bloggers, websites, books, etc…looking at areas like consistency, style, helpfulness, originality, and social sharing. Then each quarter, you can publicise the list, showcase the top 10, send out a press release, and try to make a big deal out of it. You will find that most of this influencer group share the list with their audiences, and may place your widget (with their personal rank) on their home page, linking back to our site. So not only are we building long-term relationships with these influencers, you are getting credible links and traffic as well.

The importance of a community blog

As you may not have the resources (time and money) to develop large body of content you can find others to join you. To attract these social influencers you should put a compelling case forward (you can be promoting their blogs or book, etc). Most of these influencers (if approached properly) will be more than happy to help you out.

Click here For The Educators Open Invitation

to take your course online on a commercial or non-commercial basis.

Click Here

Influencer program results

You will see positive traffic patterns almost immediately simply because of the amount of social sharing from the network.

That, in turn, leads to more social sharing and some amazing SEO results.

While you may or may not launch a blog that has outside contribution, committing to maintaining a social influencer list is a critical component to your social sharing program.

Next step is to add webinars and video marketing to your content.

This report was written based on an Article by: Joe Pulizzi is founder of Content Marketing Institute

How To Use Google+ For Content Marketing

/in , , /by

Google+

Whether we are looking for a lawyer, mechanic, or a great restaurant, we look to our friends for recommendations. In other words, we look to people we trust.

The same principle applies online.

We look to social signals when evaluating any piece of content. A blog post or YouTube video with with thousands of shares or views is an indication that it is relevant. In other words, social proof is the new marketing.

With Google Search Plus Your World (S+YW), a search feature that enhances your results, it’s yet another intriguing wrinkle in the ever-unfolding story of authorship and how it may affect search rankings.

Try this little experiment

Head over to Google and type in “hide personal results.”

Depending on who’s in your Google+ circles and contacts, you’re going to receive both personal and private results — relevant tips, photos and articles from your friends — right beside other relevant content from the web.

Here are the top two results I received for the phrase “hide your personal results”:

Image of Google Search Results

 

The number one listing is from a gal who has implemented Google’s authorship markup. It helps that she posted on a site with high authority — Lifehacker is a blog brand just about everyone recognizes.

The second result is from a guy I kind of know. In fact, the grey head-and-shoulders icon says this guy is in my Google+ network (he obviously has authorship markup implemented, too).

So, whose article do you think I clicked on? That’s right, Brian Gardner’s. And this, my friends, is how social recommendation in search is now working, thanks to S+YW.

How To Use Google+ For Content Marketing

S+YW drastically changed the SEO game

Here’s the deal: because of S+YW you and I will not receive the same results in Google for a given phrase — even if we’re connected on Google+.

We simply don’t have the same search history profile.

What that means is when it comes to measuring our success with the classic SEO metric — page ranking — you need to rethink your strategy because the game has changed.

It’s changed so much that Danny Sullivan said that S+YW was the most radical transformation of Google search results ever.

What this means in the long run is that ranking has become an even more complex equation. Who you know has become an incredibly important factor for most searches. (As always, it’s debatable whether this is a good thing or not.)

Another reason to grow your Google+ network

For example, if you want to land in your network’s search results for the phrase “hide personal results,” you would need to do at least four things:

  • Create an epic post on “how to hide personal search results on Google.”
  • Publish that post on an authoritative site.
  • Get people to link to and share that post.
  • Grow your Google+ network.

While you have control over the four above steps in varying degrees, it’s that last point that you probably have the most control over. Let’s say you are in more than 1,000 Circles, but you have another 1,000 Gmail contacts. That means your total net reach in search is more than 2,000 people. Not too bad, since you can extend that reach simply by growing your presence and audience on Google+ (I’ll show you how below — don’t worry, it’s pretty easy).

Why Google+ is the better social network

See, your network impact on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Pinterest doesn’t extend beyond those social media domains. Your content is sheltered (which is another reason not to be a digital sharecropper).

  • On Google+ your network impact extends beyond the social media domain. It follows you across all of Google’s products: Reviews, Maps, Chrome, Ads, Hangouts, YouTube, Drive, Calendar, Wallet.
  • It follows you across every Google product.
  • This is what people mean when they say that Google+ is a social layer.
  • Search has been upgraded by social.

In addition, where a tweet or a Facebook post has a shelf life of 30 minutes at the most, a Google+ post can be found during a search by someone in your network …no matter how old it is.

How to build your personal impact in S+YW

Fortunately, the process for increasing your S+YW influence is pretty straightforward:

And keep in mind that the growth of your Google+ network is actually exponential.

… if one person who has 10,000 Google+ followers (and/or other Google contacts, such as people in her Gmail contacts) follows you, you’ve gained the ability to potentially influence the search of not just one, but 10,000 other people, most of whom don’t even know you exist!

This kind of reach is only available through S+YW, which is just one more reason why you should make Google+ an essential component of your content marketing strategy.

About the Author: Demian Farnworth is Chief Copywriter for Copyblogger Media. You can his blog to read his Education of a Writer series.

How To Identify Your Market

/0 Comments/in , /by

How To Identify Your Market is based on extracts from article by: Beth Hayden

As a content marketer, you can get the secret scoop on your competitors by doing a little high-tech spying.

By using slick online snooping techniques, we can all find out what our competitors are doing, what they could be doing better, and how we can adapt their best techniques to improve our own businesses. Read more →