Category: Marketing

Digital marketing can never be a successful unless one identifies their target audience. The core audience that purchases a company’s products or services forms the target audience, and predictably, it is a very diverse population. So how then, can one understand the quirks and eccentricities of a subpopulation in order to formulate marketing messages that are customized? Firstly, it is important to identify a target audience, and secondly, it is important to understand how that audience perceives digital media, digital advertisements and digital paid content. In this article, let us take a look at marketing digitally to a target audience that comprises of hipsters. Who Really are the Hipsters? Hipster subculture is defined by its refusal to be categorized, and to remain nonconformist. While doing so, this demographic may try to adopt cultural trends from different eras and cultures and create personal collages of lifestyle patterns, all of which remain subjectively inauthentic. In his article “Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization”, Douglas Haddow describes hipster culture to consist of recently settled urban middle class youngsters between the ages of 18 and 34. They may prefer independent music, organic foods, non mainstream tastes in art and culture and a tendency to strive for individualism and authenticity, while disregarding what is mainstream and what reflects of mass culture. This then, poses a significant risk and challenge to marketing managers who have always lived upon the idea of identifying influencers and influencing those influencers so that the rest of the population that admires these influencers can purchase those goods and services. The Challenge of Authenticity, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability If marketing to hipster audience is a challenge, it only means that marketing strategies need to be more creative. One must understand that this sub-group thrives on authenticity, ethics and a sense of responsibility towards environment, health and respect for one another. Thus, it becomes important for a brand or a company to be authentic, ethical and carve out a niche for itself. It is funny, but this is what all companies need to be doing anyway: remaining authentic, original, not doing what everyone else is doing and developing an individual personality that is far removed from what everyone currently professes. Luckily for marketers, when a company targets hipsters, they can also ensure their own ethics, authenticity and responsibility for environment and the world. Digital Marketing for Hipsters Commonly, hipsters tend to use either Twitter or Tumblr, when it comes to prominent social marketing tools. It might do well for a company to adopt a very authentic and individualistic twitter campaign and have a personal engagement strategy with their target audience. It especially works for small and medium businesses that need to develop a faithful and loyal consumer base. By remaining authentic and true to your product and service, and by conveying that message on Twitter, you would be able to win not only a hipster’s heart but also anyone’s heart. Apart from Twitter and Tumblr, you might want to identify social networks that are unique and that which lie on the fringes. That way, you will be able to choose a social network that reflects your own ideals and ethics. Online Ad Campaigns for Hipsters Another way to handle digital marketing for hipsters is to create online ad campaigns that are ethical and call for an action based in ethics and social responsibility. You might want to use your own corporate responsibility principles in your ad campaigns. For instance, you might want to communicate your company or business’ commitment towards ameliorating the conditions of feral cats or your commitment towards educating students in high schools about the ill effects of bullying. This again will improve your own corporate image while also boosting credibility and reliability of your social responsibility. While naysayers and old fashioned executives find it difficult to market to hipsters, if you remain authentic, ethical and socially responsible and show your customers and consumers that you do what you believe in, you will be able to send a very strong marketing communication. Why You Need to Be a Hipster Yourself in Order to Target Hipsters A hipster will never identify himself or herself as a hipster and will almost certainly deny it. By admitting or accepting that he or she is a hipster, they will negate the very philosophy they believe in: that one must not conform to a category and must remain authentic. In your digital marketing campaigns, you must make sure that you remain true to your company’s ideals and ethics. Basically, if you walk the talk, you will be able to achieve success in your digital marketing campaign targeted at the so-called hipsters.

Marketing on Twitter has turned into an important part of digital marketing. In fact, universities have begun to include Twitter marketing as a compulsory module in marketing courses. With that in mind, companies and individuals often ask us what they should be tweeting anyway. The answer that we always have believed in is that there is no straight answer. As we often like to say, “It all really depends”. The question that this article will address is that whether one must tweet one’s own content or tweet a healthy mix of one’s own content, competitors content and some useful information that would help your target audience. Predictably, both social media managers and consumers experience cognitive dissonance when it comes to marketing on Twitter. Cognitive Dissonance and Twitter Marketing Cognitive dissonance is a state of mind where a person experiences opposing cognitions. Cognitions constitute emotions, thoughts, memories, perception etc. When a psychologist says someone is going through cognitive dissonance, they mean that a person experiences a sort of love-hate relationship to something, if one were to put it in a layman’s term. If we take the example of Twitter marketing from a company’s perspective, cognitive dissonance occurs when marketing managers are tempted to tweet competitors content along with their own, but also dislike doing so because they fear harming their own business. A consumer on the other hand might experience cognitive dissonance when a company tweets great marketing content and within no time, the same company tweets information from a competitor. Naturally, a consumer would be confused and wonder if he should patronize the company in question or its competitor. The answer to this fundamental tweeting dilemma is rather simple. The solution begins with understanding how Twitter works, and what your marketing strategy is all about. Postmodernist Take on Twitter Marketing Postmodernists often say that we must avoid falling victims to existing binaries within us, which can roughly be translated as solving a cognitive dissonance by taking one of the sides exclusively. We must remember that no single strategy is the correct one, and there are uses and disadvantages in opposing strategies. Thus, we believe that tweeting one’s own content may work sometimes and at other times, it may be necessary to tweet stuff that is not yours, and sometimes can even belong to your competitor. Tweeting Your Content Only Tweeting your own content exclusively helps you to create a brand identity that is solely yours, with no room left for your competitors to take advantage of your position. Your consumers will not be confused and will know that they have only a few choice and if they like what you offer, they can certainly go ahead and buy it. This strategy may work when you offer a service or product that is very unique without any competition at all. It may also work if you are an established brand whose name is known widely. Tweeting and Mentioning Your Competitors Content However, this strategy may not work if you are a small or medium business, or if you have a lot of competition. One must understand that twitter users are identified by ‘Twitter handles’, which begin with @ and are followed by that user’s id. When a company tweets a competitor’s content, the company will have to include the competitor’s Twitter handle as well. By doing so, your tweet will appear in the Twitter search results of your competitors’ consumers. You may lose a few of your own consumers but you stand to gain or communicate with a number of consumers who are not following you on Twitter, but are following your competitors. This strategy can be a double edged sword and is considered to be a very controversial way to market on Twitter. This strategy works if you are a small company and need more attention from consumers who use your rivals’ products. Of course, any tweet that concerns your competitors must have their Twitter handles ‘mentioned’ in the body of your tweet. Twitter Cognitive Dissonance Takeaway To conclude, we believe it is always a better digital marketing strategy to keep an open mind and to give more than you take. After all, Twitter is a social network and the more you give and help others and even promote others who may compete with you, you actually will gain at the end of the day, because you will receive attention and a lot of good will from your consumers and your rivals’ consumers too. It is a good practice to tweet a major percentage of the time your tweets, an occasional tweet from your competitors and then engage with not only your consumers but also with your rivals’ consumers and followers. As long as you engage and make your own company’s name be seen and heard, your marketing strategy cannot go wrong. In fact, cognitive dissonance when it comes to twitter marketing can be beneficial.

Marketing has always been about persuading your target audience to purchase your product or service. It has almost always concentrated on driving your point across, without worrying much about how useful the communication actually is. With digital marketing, things are quite different. Digital marketing employs social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Tumblr. The keyword here is social, which means that in order to communicate with a certain target demographic, one needs to be social. On Twitter too, one needs to be social and give more to customers than expecting them to be faithful to you. This basic slogan will help companies to be successful when they use Twitter or any other social network to market digitally. Let us now take a closer look at why it is important to give more and expect less in twitter marketing. Marketing on Twitter is Fundamentally Different Twitter is a microbroadcasting network that allows one to send messages that are less than 140 characters. The short length helps Twitter users to stick to the point and include a link that provides more information. With that in mind, twitter is basically rooted in giving information to followers. However, with time, Twitter has become the single most powerful tool in the world of digital marketing. The immediacy, transparency and clarity of communication have helped companies and businesses to market their ideas and thoughts effectively to a large group of followers without spending any more. It must then be assumed that twitter is the right place to send persuasive messages that are short, with a link to the product that is being marketed. Unfortunately, there isn’t a bigger blunder than to try and sell a product on Twitter directly and coldly. That would automatically reduce a company’s image in the eyes of its customers and that would be the end of Twitter marketing for that company. Giving is Extremely Important on Twitter Any Twitter user will know that the more they help people online, the more number of people would follow them. By giving more information and sharing ideas thoughts and opinions, a Twitter user creates an identity. Twitter is unique in its character as its most prolific users are those who share and give. By giving a lot more than what is required, Twitter users create identities that remind one of benevolence, kindness, generosity and selflessness. Of course, these are not the qualities that businesses are usually known for but by being so, a company can ensure that goodwill spreads not only through word but also electronically. Even if a particular customer or client may not purchase your product or service, it is important to give something. What Can One Give On Twitter? Give Knowledge and Information Whatever your company does or offers, you can share knowledge that is related to your field. For instance, if a company provides SEO services, it can write effective blog posts and share that content on Twitter for everyone to read. By giving crucial information and knowledge for everyone who follows you on Twitter for free, you increase goodwill. A company must aim at becoming a ‘go-to-source’ so that when in doubt, people go to that company’s blog for information or download its eBooks and white papers. Give Discounts Companies and businesses can give discounts. Existing customers can be communicated through Twitter and one can announce that they are lucky winners of a discount. By doing this publicly, you are letting your customers know that you believe in generosity and that too without expecting anything in return. Once a person purchases something on discount, they usually come back for more, even if they have to pay full price. Give Gifts and Announce Lottery Prizes Twitter can be a great place to run and announce lotteries. The lottery prize can be a free subscription, an hour’s worth of work or just about anything that you offer. It does not have to be big and expensive. It just has to be a little gesture to show that you are generous enough to give without expecting. There isn’t a better way to get people to try your product or service than by offering something little for free as a mere gift. Give Love and Gratitude Companies and businesses must regularly give love and gratitude to their customers. Twitter can be an amazing place to do that, as prospective clients and customers can easily be contacted publicly. Likewise, previous customers can be thanked by retweeting something that they offer, recommending them to someone else publicly or just wishing them well. Companies and businesses must regularly give love and gratitude to their customers. Twitter can be an amazing place to do that, as prospective clients and customers can easily be contacted publicly. Likewise, previous customers can be thanked by retweeting something that they offer, recommending them to someone else publicly or just wishing them well. Companies tend to forget that they can also give humor. By offering occasional satirical remarks and tongue-in-cheek comments, companies and businesses can reveal their human side. That can result in a very powerful bonding between consumers and businesses. By being a company or business that is giving and generous, you stand to gain a lot of goodwill, respect and even loyalty. Twitter is the best place to do that because every act of kindness is displayed in public Twitter streams, leading to goodwill towards your business.

Offering customer service is certainly not the easiest job in the world. It means that one must face one’s own weaknesses, accept these weaknesses and mistakes and rectify them as soon as possible. Providing customer service also means a company has to ensure that they are available at all times and are not elusive. While it is a great way to build a company’s image by offering great customer service, making a customer wait, not resolving the problem immediately or showing that you may lack empathy lead to disastrous consequences. Twitter is increasingly being used to offer customer service, as an adjunct to telephonic service. Sometimes, companies offer customer service solely on Twitter. Here are the most important reasons why Twitter is such a great platform to offer customer service Twitter is Cost Effective and Requires no Installations Twitter costs no money and is free, and can be used by a lone customer service representative if you are a small company. In fact, one does not need to install any software or hardware. All that one needs is a freelance contractor who knows how to talk wittily and sympathetically. Twitter Reduces Friction Twitter helps companies to resolve problems without friction. This friction is usually caused when customers are put on hold when they call or when the customer service executive speaks in a foreign accent. If the problem that one is talking about is small, it can be resolved in just a tweet. If not, the customer can be prodded to call a certain number of continue to conversation through direct messaging. Spread of Goodwill Each time a customer is satisfied, he or she will thank you, and will use your official Twitter handle to express their gratitude for resolving their problem. This can be viewed by other customers and you can ensure that goodwill against your business or company will be built over a period of time. Easy Monitoring Twitter also ensures that a company can monitor its presence on social media. If somebody does not have a nice thing to say about your company or business, it provides you food for thought to improve on that area. In fact, using Twitter as a medium for customer service can result in some serious soul searching within an organization. Twitter Is Viral As discussed earlier, your presence will be noticed each time you tweet to disgruntled customers. When they end the conversation satisfied that their problem is resolved, other customers become aware of your company’s presence. Twitter customer service then has a viral effect on spreading the good word. Companies and businesses can utilize their Twitter customer service accounts to retweet comments made by satisfied customers and also to highlight your strengths and weaknesses. Removes Opacity and Barriers between Customers and Companies Twitter reduces any sort of opacity that might exist between a company and its customers. All that a customer needs to do is send a 140 character message to the company, and the message shall have reached. This increased transparency and availability leads to greater customer satisfaction and increased loyalty when it comes to using your products and services. Increasing Engagement Another important factor one must consider when talking about Twitter customer service is engagement. There is no better alternative to Twitter when it comes to engaging audiences and striking up conversations with potential customers. Twitter can be a very powerful tool in solving customers problems, recognizing your strengths and weaknesses, reducing costs, increasing efficiency and finally, increasing profits and revenue.Among these fundamental qualities of Twitter, here are the most important reasons why companies must take Twitter more seriously when it comes to offering customer service: It reduces time and increases the speed of problem resolution. Helps companies to personalize communication and offer a human face to the company. It can be used as an opportunity to show that instead of being a cold business, a company is actually warm, humane and understanding. Twitter offers confidentiality, in the form of direct messages. Sensitive information can be communicated through direct messages by asking your customer to follow you at least temporarily. Twitter can be a great hunting ground when it comes to looking for possible and new customers. Twitter is decentralized and democratic no matter which way one looks at it. Twitter is free, reduces HR-related expenses and boosts a company’s image. It is no wonder then that most companies have begun to offer customer service online via Twitter. This trend will only continue and is expected to increase dramatically in the next couple of months.

If you have noticed, infographics tend to go viral even if their content is not extremely important. This is because human mind is wired to visual information more than textual content. An infographic presents information in a fun, creative and easy-to-understand manner, which reams of text cannot possibly do. Thus, it is time to incorporate infographics in marketing campaigns, especially social media marketing. Why Are Infographics Popular? Infographics are very popular in the recent months, and companies have begun to hire designers to artfully represent statistical and ‘boring’ data. While companies may manage to create great infographics with the help of talented designers, they usually downplay the importance of marketing and promoting them over social media. Let us take a look at how infographics can be made to go viral: While creating Infographics, it is important to involve credible sources. These sources invariably promote your own graphic. Creating a blog post that describes the infographic and then sharing it across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social bookmarking sites will help it to go viral. Infographics can be segmented into smaller images and used in various posts, which are again directed to the main infographic. Infographics can be promoted with the help of news releases, and may be used in email promotion as well. The idea is to link the segmented infographic to the complete image. Infographics can be deconstructed into PowerPoint presentations and shared as slideshares as well. Infographics are not a Fad Before you dismiss infographics as a fad, you might want to try using them in your own social media marketing campaigns. Chances are, they will drive more traffic to your website than just sharing links and writing lengthy posts. Visual information is always processed more efficiently by human brains than textual information. Of course, a good social media marketing campaign would always be supported by high quality blog posts along with infographics. Social Media Marketing Every company that is worth its salt needs to have a social media marketing strategy. While employing social media marketing, companies usually get lost in the oblivion. Social media marketing employs various social networking sites to drive traffic to the landing page or blog posts, and also to create a brand presence. This social presence translates to increased sales, loyalty and brand identification. One of the ways to engage in social media marketing is to use appropriate infographics. Identifying the audience would help in not only creating an infographic in certain manner, but also help in sharing it across social platforms to niche audiences. Utilize Social Media Buttons The page that contains the infographic must have social buttons that are easily visible. The most important social networking sites that must be present on the page are Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn. It also helps to have buttons of Pinterest, Tumblr, Delicious, StumbleUpon and other social bookmarking tools. It is because of these tools that more number of people would be able to share your infographic. Apart from the usual social media and social bookmarking sites, infographics must also be submitted to aggregators and directories. Some of the popular ones are: Daily Infographic Cool Infographics Infographics Showcase Submit Infographics Infographics Archive Visual.Ly Infographic Journal Use Nostalgia and Emotions An infographic must tell a story. It must be told in an artful, informative manner that reduces the need for reading up on a particular company. You could have an infographic describing the market cycle of your popular products, or a nostalgic infographic that depict the story of your first web designing project. The idea is to use emotions and nostalgia, while tapping the creative aspect of information. These are the essential qualities of an infographic that would go viral and help you in your SMM initiative. Mixing Style with Substance An infographic no doubt has to be stylish. It has to appeal to those kinds of people who would never bother to read an entire article. It must have snippets of micro stories that need not be told in words, but instead can be experienced through graphics. With all this importance given to graphics, one must not forget the importance of the marketing campaign and factual accuracy. The idea of an infographic at the end of the day is to drive home a point, and also give information. Being informative, factual and entertaining will ensure an infographic’s success over social media sites. Visualize Your Marketing Campaign Infographics can also serve the purpose of communicating your success. The success of your brands, products and services may be attractively placed within an infographic and appropriate social media tools may be used to market it. This invariably drives traffic to your website or blog, and that is part of every marketing campaign.

Blogging is no doubt an important aspect to developing your business. However, we are often caught amidst various services that are available out there, which are all equally good. Tumblr has been described as the home to some of the most creative people on earth. If that rings a bell, Tumblr is very popular among designers and developers of every kind. Why Tumblr is Great for Creative Business Owners The simplicity and minimalism that Tumblr offers as a publishing platform make it extremely attractive to designers, artists and developers. It is almost like a blank canvas which can be used as glossy portfolios to showcase one’s work, or to collaborate with other designers and possibly even gain fame and money. The fame bit comes from the social aspect of Tumblr, whereas the money comes from traffic that is directed to your business site and the clients that you may win along the process. Tumblr’s simplicity means that you do not have to install software, worry about codes or downtimes. All that you need to do is concentrate on your work, share it with others and appreciate other people’s web designing skills. Tumblr makes it beautifully easy to blog and to share content, in an attractive and glossy platform. It is this gloss and glamour which sets Tumblr apart. These qualities are important to web designers and developers if they intend to grab clients who prefer visually attractive portfolios. How to Use Tumblr Tumblr comes with 8 different options in the dashboard, all of which are unbelievably simple to use. The dashboard comes with text, photo, quote, link, chat, audio, video and answered questions which can immediately be published with ease. What is different is that when you upload a video, the video becomes the central object and any caption or text you may add is secondary. Likewise, your graphic work, or design templates or 3D creations get more attention than the peripheral distractions. All the 8 features can be used to upload your examples of your work, instructional videos, quotes of famous web designers for inspiration, web designing tips that you may want to share with other Tumblr users, and also answer questions that other web designers and possible clients may have to ask. You can share links to your work published elsewhere, and on the minimalist Tumblr platform, it looks visually appealing. Publishing and Sharing your Content It is not necessary to use the dashboard to publish your content. There are several other ways to do so. The bookmarklet allows you to post directly from the web browser while mobile applications for iPhone, BlackBerry and Android allow you to do so while on the go. Tumblr also allows you to publish videos, MP3 files, text and photos just by sending an email from your mobile phone. There are also third party applications which help you to publish your content wherever you are. Customising Tumblr Blogs The themes can be customized or changed, pages can be added and Tumblr posts can automatically be shared over other social networking sites. Custom themes can be designed for other Tumblr users, which can be offered for a price. There are several tutorials out there which teach you how to design custom Tumblr themes. These tutorials of immense use, and eventually we shall publish a detailed Tumblr custom theme building blog post. Managing Projects on Tumblr The community feature is probably the most important aspect of Tumblr and possibly the most useful for managing art and design related projects. When visitors arrive at an image, video or text post that you have published, they have the option of ‘liking’ it or re-blogging it. It is important to start following blogs that are dedicated to web designing and web developing. Designers usually share tips, tricks and even announce gigs on Tumblr blogs, and following Tumblr blogs of web designing authorities can be extremely important. Tumblr can also serve as a great collaborative tool, where a number of artists and designers can upload templates, Flash images, PSD files and use them to brainstorm. An article on Net Magazine described why Tumblr is important for designers and provides certain coding instructions. Conclusion At the end of the day, Tumblr may seem a little too minimalist to web designers who are used to complex CMS platforms like Joomla, WordPress or Drupal. However, simplicity is not necessarily ineffective. In the case of Tumblr, it is a very effective platform to upload your portfolio, gain audience, drive traffic to company website, look for clients and build authority and influence.

Using Twitter 101 for Small Business Owners Twitter possibly is the most powerful tool today in the world of social media. Twitter is unique because it doesn’t depend on trusted connections but the importance of the content and text that is shared. 140 characters may seem astonishingly less, but perhaps this character limitation is Twitter’s strength. It is no more a secret that Twitter is one of the most important social media tools out there, and probably the most misunderstood as well. Let us take a look at how Twitter can be used to drive traffic to your website. What Does One Tweet and How? Though it sounds obvious, many people tend to forget that it is important to have the Twitter button visible on every page of the website. It is also equally important for people to be able to retweet or share your blog posts, each time they are published. Several plugins are available which help you to place a Twitter share button on every article that is published. Twitter allows only 140 characters to be tweeted, and this includes the shortened URL as well. This forces you to make sure that you use the choicest of words to describe what the link is all about, and what the twitter user can expect when he/she clicks on it. The idea is to be honest and descriptive, short and concise and attention grabbing. You must also make sure that your tweet contains relevant keywords pertaining to the content found in the link you share. Consistency, Timing and Scheduling While the same tweet can’t be tweeted again, you could probably change the text and the header, while keeping the URL same. However, you need to do this only 2 or 3 times a day, unless you don’t want to be seen as a spammer. It might also be a good idea to promote your older posts and content once in a while. The idea is to repeat your tweets, but not to the point of attracting criticism. You need to tweet consistently and not be erratic in sharing your links. It helps to use tools like Buffer and SocialBro in order to schedule your tweets. It does not make sense to tweet all your posts within a span of few second and forget about it for a week. It is important to remain consistent, and maintain a discipline. SocialBro and Buffer help users to analyse what could be the best times to tweet. It depends on your audience and your followers. It makes sense to tweet more often when most of your followers are online. Usually evenings and morning hours are good timings to tweet, but that depends on your location. The best way to engage in smart scheduling of tweets is to use Buffer app and SocialBro. Effective Networking Is important While it is tempting to gain more followers than the number of people you follow, it makes sense to follow people and companies who are related to your business. This helps you to identify your industry, groups, and interests. If you are being interesting enough, authoritative Twitter users shall follow you back as well. This increases your credibility, number of followers and the number of clicks on the links you share. All this leads to more traffic to your website or blog. This can only happen when you engage with authoritative Twitter users in your industry, in an honest manner. You would need to make sure that you constantly engage with their conversations and eventually they would retweet one of your links. A single retweet by an authoritative person with a large number of followers is enough to help you gain a lot of attention. Thus, gaining influence on Twitter is hard work, but pays off eventually. Be Social, Courteous, Helpful and Participative It is important to engage people in conversations, and not just share links. You need to answer questions, help people genuinely, send Direct Messages if information needs to remain private and follow basic etiquette. Courtesy attracts trust, and trust attracts more clicks on your links, leading to more traffic. Like any social network, Twitter can be used to collaborate with other web designers, SEO professionals and look for clients. It can in fact act like a free text messaging service, albeit very professional and powerful. It is very important to be yourself, and not pretend to be something that you are not. You must tweet stuff that matter to your industry, and that portray your own professional opinions and beliefs. These tactics ultimately lead to social trust, which pays off in the form of clicks and traffic.

How to Promote Small Businesses on LinkedIn LinkedIn has always had the image of being ‘too tough’, ‘very serious’, and ‘bulky’. In reality, LinkedIn has upgraded its desktop and mobile versions to make it really attractive while using. Thanks to its thousands of groups, discussion forums and some of the most powerful people in the world, LinkedIn is a marketer’s dream-come-true. Unfortunately, no one really utilizes LinkedIn the way it should be. It is largely ignored or degraded to an online resume service. Let us take a look at why LinkedIn is crucial to improving chances of small business success. Search Engine Optimization and Blog Promotion LinkedIn has a high rate of authority among search engines. When you type your name in Google and search, chances are, LinkedIn appears first in the search results, even before Twitter or Facebook. What this literally means is that having a company page on LinkedIn is a great way to boost your SEO. LinkedIn is a great way to optimize your content and your website for search engines and eventually it will lead to a higher traffic number. You can control how your business appears in search results and make sure that you look as attractive as possible on search engines. LinkedIn profiles allow you to add three websites along with your Twitter account. These 3 websites can be linked to your company’s website, your blog and if you have written a book or have something else to offer, you could link to that. SEO professionals have noted that there isn’t a better way to promote your blog feed than to use your LinkedIn profile. Though LinkedIn is not as optimized as it was for WordPress anymore, you can still steadily share your blog content on LinkedIn to ensure higher click rates. LinkedIn Ad Campaigns LinkedIn also offers its Direct Ads Campaign, which is a great way to promote your company on the social networking site. Being a professional social network, your business related advertisement would be more relevant on LinkedIn than on Facebook. There are greater chances of people being interested in what you offer than anywhere else on the web. You can either choose to pay by clicks or by impressions and start as low as $50. Promote Events It always helps to attract potential clients to carefully planned events. These events can consist of talks, an eBook release or just an informal gathering at a coffee shop. No matter what your event is, you can invite your LinkedIn contacts to attend your event by promoting it on LinkedIn. The social network also allows you to take a good look at all the upcoming events your network has to offer. This can be a great way to nurture relationships that are already made on LinkedIn. LinkedIn Groups One of the most important ways to promote your small business on LinkedIn is to create a relevant LinkedIn Group. Once you create a LinkedIn Group that is related to your industry, you can invite a number of people and actively begin to discuss issues and share your experience. By giving information and sharing, you will be able to develop and establish valuable relationships that can get converted into leads. Moreover, you must also join groups that are related to your small business. Once you join other groups, you will need to actively take part in discussions and leave links to your blogs occasionally. This is a great way to interact with people who are not your contacts. Recommendations Last but not the least, always remember your clients to leave a recommendation for you on LinkedIn. These recommendations are seen as a reflection of your reliability and credibility. They need to be taken very seriously from a small business point of view. Of course, you will need to write recommendations yourself before asking for one. Like any other social network, for your small business to grow on LinkedIn, you will need to give more than you expect from your contacts. LinkedIn may not have an attractive interface like Tumblr or Twitter. It may also not have the omnipresence that Facebook enjoys today. However, it remains one of the most trusted and respected professional networks today, and to achieve success in a small business, it is very crucial to have a presence on LinkedIn.

Facebook Pages 101 for Small Business Owners Almost every company invariably ends up with a Facebook page these days. Most companies worth their salt already have one. It is also estimated that 27.5% of all external referral traffic to Facebook pages come from Google. This only shows how important Facebook pages really are. SEO professionals must take these statistics into account and work towards optimizing Facebook pages to drive more traffic, and also help companies and individuals to engage their customers and audience. Importance of Facebook Page views Jeff Widman at PageLever analysed 1000 pages over a period of 6 months and concluded that Google not only sends 1/3 of external referrer traffic to Facebook pages, but also sends 10 times more traffic than Bing, and 5 times more than Yahoo to Facebook Pages. It is a proven fact that optimizing Facebook Pages would result in doubling of page views.  The importance of search engines in driving traffic to Facebook Pages highlights the importance of search engine optimization. SEO professionals should concentrate more on Google than Yahoo or Bing, as their contribution in driving traffic to Facebook Pages is much lesser. Admins must make sure that they have SEO friendly URLs and that they publish links often on their websites, which are posted on Facebook Pages as well. Encouraging visitors to ‘Like’ a company’s Facebook Page would also make it more search-friendly. Tips to Optimize Facebook Pages Getting a custom URL for your Facebook Page is very important. Facebook allows you to have a custom URL that can be search engine optimized. With the new Timeline feature, you may not be able to choose your landing page using custom tabs like before. However, that is not going to affect your Facebook Page’s traffic much. You can still customize your Timeline to present your company in the best light possible. Filling in all the information and making sure that there is enough information about your company and what you exactly do is important. The photo gallery can be used to include information about your site. Use your social and networking skills to get more people to like the page. If possible, try to advertise on Facebook as well and there are Social Ads which can be bought. Links must be posted regularly, and conversations must happen in order to keep the page active. There are several Facebook apps available which can be used for a number of purposes. These include widgets for other social networking sites, blogs and your own website. Monitoring and Analysing Facebook Pages Data There are several ways to monitor and analyse progress on Facebook Pages. Facebook Insights provides metrics and page tab analytics, which help you to track Facebook sharing, Likes, etc. Facebook Insights can be accessed by page administrators. It is also possible to monitor fan growth on a monthly basis, and the Fan Growth Graph does just that. Fan Demographics and Fan Geography tell you who your target audience are and where they are located. This helps you to hone your SEO strategies and marketing plans in a way that might drive more traffic. Level of Interactions helps you to monitor what type of interactions your fans prefer. This can be gauged through Likes, comments and unsubscribes. Apart from Facebook’s own insights, you could also use Google Analytics in order to get visitor statistics, traffic sources, keyword searches and map overlays. FBML application allows you to place your Google analytics custom code inside Facebook Pages. Google Analytics provides detailed usage statistics which help you to plan your SEO strategies. It can also help you to design marketing campaigns depending on the kind of traffic that is driven to your website. Third Party Tools There are also third party tools that can help in assessing metrics and provide valuable insight. One of them is the Webtrends tool. In fact, third party tools are built to compensate for the limitations of Facebook’s inbuilt measurement service. Whether you use third party tools, Google Analytics of Facebook’s own insights, what is important is to remain active on Facebook Pages, and to engage your audience. The more targeted your engagement is, the better shall be your results.

Sharing online is no more an afterthought but something we do instinctively. Whether we are business owners, consultants or just regular people, we all tend to share more than what we would bargain for. The consequences of oversharing online can be very messy. It is no secret that people who overshare may get fired by their bosses, lose scholarships, get divorced because their spouses find out they are not being faithful and the reasons can go on. Probably, the scariest reason why one mustn’t be oversharing online is to prevent identity thefts, security lapses and privacy breaches. If we must consider why small businesses and companies must not overshare online, it is pretty similar to why regular folks must not overshare. However, there are a few differences and let us take a look at them closely. Security Lapses Companies and small businesses may give out more information than necessary. This is very crucial when competitors are always trying to find out what a company is up to, and if there are any new products and services in the line. Employees and even business owners must be very careful to keep company secrets within the compound of a company and never reveal more than what’s revealed in those harmless blog posts. Competitors and malicious entities always wait for something to be revealed so that they can manipulate leaked information. Financial Condition If you are not a public company and if you are a small one, only your accountant and tax officer needs to know your financial details. Confidential information such as pay slips, profits made and debts need not be shared online even humorously. There are several instances when small business owners do not realize how important it is to not disclose financial information online. Credit Card and ID Card Information Credit cards, passports and other government issues ID cards must be guarded like gold. These identity cards should never be shared online no matter how important it is. This can affect not only your business but also your own personal safety and the consequences may not be pretty. Giving Away too much for Free It is often said that one must give away a lot to succeed in digital media. That is certainly true. When a company gives away a lot of free information and knowledge, it appears generous and sympathetic towards its followers. However, by giving away too much and not withholding some information that can be used as bait, a company stands to lose a lot of money. The red line needs to be drawn, in order to identify how much to give away for free. Everything should not be given away for free. Embarrassing Details are Not Funny There are many businesses that share pictures of employees having fun at a party or when employees do not look as professional as they should. The key is to share pictures at the beginning of a party when everyone looks sober, but not during or after the party. A human face to the company can make it endearing to customers. However, appearing goofy or ridiculous will encourage customers to move on to the next rival. Plans for Future There is always a limit to how much you can share about your company’s plans for future. There are things that need to be kept confidential. What is benign can be shared online but certain plans and strategies which must remain confidential must never be discussed on social networking sites. These can severely hinder a company’s progress and cause loss to revenue. Separating Work from Life It is always a good idea to encourage your employees to have a personal Twitter account along with a professional one. The personal one can be used at will with all the freedom a person deems necessary. The professional Twitter account needs to remain a little stiff upper lipped, and that includes not talking about what one purchased at the local brewery. The key is to maintain a balance. It is a social world on the Internet and it is impossible to remain cold and businesslike. However, by letting one’s guard down, one may risk overexposure and face subsequent consequences. Mitt Romney famously said that corporations are people too. Though it is a controversial statement, on the Internet and social network, companies and small businesses do pretend to be people. When people are advised not to overshare on social networking sites, the same rule holds good for companies and small businesses as well.