Our blog recently won an award for being one of the top 25 Women’s Marketing Blog. If you look to your right, you will see the award badge. Click on it to view the other 24 recipients. Our blog was noted for providing useful marketing tips and in depth information to our readers. So, this week we decided to provide our tips in the form of two videos.
The first video is a demonstration of how to convert your Word document into plain text when copy pasting a Word document into WordPress. The second video shows you how to insert a YouTube video into your LinkedIn Company Page. We hope that these videos will provide you with valuable tips. Let us know by leaving your comments below. Enjoy!
Last week we wrapped up a series on Internet marketing for start-ups. We explained that social media marketing is an Internet marketing strategy. This week we will discuss how to use social media marketing to build relationships.
Building Relationships
According to an article, “How to Build Better Business Relationships” on the website Inc.com, relationships are the fuel that feeds the success of your business. “Without strong relationships, it is impossible to have success as a business owner,” says the founder and CEO of Denisoff Consulting Group Michael Denisoff. Go here to read the entire article, “How to Build Better Business Relationships.”
What is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing is simply using social networks to convince your target audience that your products and/or services are valuable. Although you want to sell your products and/or services, you can’t be blatant about it. It is a “soft sell” while building relationships.
The major three social networks are Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. After you have identified your target audience and determined what their needs are, as well as how your products or services can fulfill that need, then find out which social networks your target audience hangs out at. From there you can start building relationships with your prospective clients.
Following are some statistics to help you learn where your target audience does their social networking.
Age
According to an article, “A Portrait of Who Uses Social Networks in The US,” written on June 16, 2011 by Gregg Finn over at Search Engine Land, the average age user of Facebook is 38 years old, LinkedIn is 40 years old, and the average age user of Twitter is 33 years old.
Gender
The same article states that 43% of Facebook total users are men and 58% are women. LinkedIn is the only network with more men users than women. Sixty-three percent of Linked users are men and 37% are women. On Twitter 64% of the total users are women and 36% are men.
Race & Ethnicity
The article also cites the White race as being the vast majority users of social networks in the US. On Facebook, there are 78% White users, 9% Black, 9% Hispanics, and 12% Other Race. Over at LinkedIn, there are 85% White, 2% Black, 4% Hispanic, and 13% Other Race users. Twitter has 71% White users, 9% Black, 12% Hispanic, and 21% Other Race.
Overall, 92% of social networking users are on Facebook, 18% uses LinkedIn, and 13% social networkers use Twitter. More importantly, based on whom you are targeting, the above-mentioned statistics will help you determine which network(s) you will exert your energy and time based on age, gender and/or ethnicity.
In order to build relationships with your potential clients at the various social networks, get involved with their discussions, reply to their comments, offer pertinent information that will provide solutions. This is not really something you can outsource. Only you can be you. However, virtual assistants can help you set up your profiles and company pages.
Which social network sites have you been able to successfully build relationships? Leave us a comment below.
Last week we discussed the different components of Internet marketing, while at the same time explaining why Internet marketing and social media marketing are not interchangeable terms.
Website Development
We are continuing our topic on the various elements of Internet marketing or online marketing, and this week we are discussing website development. Your website is your online business card. It establishes your identity, and gives your company credibility. Besides, your competition has a website.
Online Shoppers
Would you do business or consider doing business with a company who doesn’t have a website? If you are an offline or online business, having a website is a necessary element of your marketing plan. The U.S. Commerce Department says online shoppers spent $165.4 billion in 2010. Without a website, you cannot capture any of this market.
Benefits of Having a Website
A website is used for informing your potential clients that you exist, as well as tell them about your company’s product and services, including the benefits of using them.
Using Website to Generate a List
You can also use your website to generate a list of leads to keep in touch with using e-mail marketing. Your goal is to convert these contacts into clients. We covered e-mail marketing a few weeks ago, Email Marketing – Part I and Email Marketing – Part II.
Which Internet marketing component have you had success with? We would love to hear from you. Come back next week to see which Internet marketing element we will cover. We will also share more Internet marketing tips. See you next week.
People tend to use these two terms interchangeably; however, they are not the same. If you are not an Online marketing degree alum or have some type of Internet marketing background you might not know that they are not the same. Social media marketing is a component of Internet Marketing.
Components of Internet Marketing
The other areas of Internet marketing, also known as online marketing, include website development, blog marketing, email marketing, and article marketing. Banner ads are also a component, which originally was what Internet marketing was.
Internet marketing is increasingly becoming a part of entrepreneurs, small business owners, and corporations marketing mix.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is marketing through social networks; for example, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. The key to social media marketing is interacting with other members of these social networks fostering business relationships.
Social Bookmarking
Social media marketing also includes adding bookmarking services bookmark and share widgets to your articles, blog posts, and web pages. (See our bookmark and share widget below) If your site visitors “Digg it,” “Tweet it,” or “Stumble it,” etc., your articles, posts, and web pages will be submitted into social news sites such as Digg or Internet search engine searching the best websites site like StumbleUpon or search engine searching for the best blogs site; for example, Technorati.
Once submitted, your writings are shared with other members of the bookmarking networks, and they are able to vote for them also.
Video Marketing
YouTube is popular for video marketing, which is also considered as part of social media marketing since it is becoming a social networking site. YouTube is an excellent tool to market your products and services to your target audience.
So, as you can see there is a difference between Internet marketing and social media marketing and can’t really be used interchangeably.
Is Internet marketing part of your marketing mix? If so, which components do you use? We would love to hear from you. Stop by next week for more Internet marketing tips.
Article marketing is another tool or marketing strategy you can use to drive traffic to your website, as well as demonstrate your expertise in your field.
Target Audience
When composing your articles, share with your target audience information that will help them move their business forward and increase their knowledge and skill set. This is why it’s important to know whom you are speaking to, what keeps them up at night, what kind of information can you provide them, which will alleviate their business concerns.
Keywords and Search Terms
Include search terms, also known as keywords, your potential clients use to find you. Be sure to include these keywords when submitting your articles to article banks. This is a SEO (search engine optimization) strategy, which could help your ranking on the more popular search engines.
Articles Banks
So, you ask, “What are article banks?” Marnie Pehrson of IdealMarketers.com gives an excellent description, “An article bank is a web site where people can post articles for webmasters, ezine publishers, newsletter editors and offline publications to find and reprint.” She also lists the top 10 article banks where you can submit your articles. Go here to learn which banks they are: http://www.ideamarketers.com/?Top_10_Article_Banks&articleid=180399.
Article Content
You may be wondering what topic you could write about. If you have written a series of blog posts on a particular subject, arrange them into an article. This is known as repurposing your content.
Keep in mind if you have included links in your posts, some article banks limit the amount of links that can be included in the body of the article. Be sure to review the editorial guidelines if this is the case.
Article marketing is an excellent free publicity tool. However, it is time-consuming and can be one of those mundane tasks that can be outsourced to your Virtual Assistant.
Which Internet marketing strategies do you use? We would love to hear from you. Come back next week for more Internet marketing tips.
Last week we began discussing the basics of email marketing and how it can drive traffic to your website. This week we continue our discussion focusing on autoresponders, as well as some of the more popular email marketing software companies.
Autoresponder:
Autoresponders can be designed to send out information to your list at specific intervals. For example, if you are sending out a series on a specific subject; for example, How to Use Facebook Part I, How to Use Facebook Part II, How to Use Facebook Part III, etc., you can schedule each part of the series to go out consecutively on a weekly basis.
Another function of autoresponders is, it will send out the series based on when your site visitor opt-in to your list. For example, Sally submits her email information on Monday adding her name to your list. You can configure the autoresponder to send her Part 1 as soon as she opts in to your list. Part II will be emailed to Sally seven days later, Part III 14 days after that until she receives all parts of your series.
It doesn’t matter when someone signs up to receive information from you, the autoresponder will keep track based on when your visitors opt-in. It is all automated!
You can also offer your site visitors a free gift for opting in to your list. You can configure the autoresponder to automatically send them the gift as soon as they opt-in.
Contact Management Companies:
Some well known contact management/email marketing software companies are AWeber, iContact, VerticalResponse,Constant Contact, IShoppingCart and MailChimp. They provide the software you will need to execute your campaigns, as well as implement autoresponders. The contact management companies also provide you with the codes you need to add the signup form or box to your website and/or blog.
Email marketing can convert your mailing list to clients. Which email marketing software are you using or would recommend? Come back next week for more Internet marketing tips!
A mailing list is the engine that drives email marketing. Without a mailing list, you can’t implement email marketing campaigns.
Mailing List:
A mailing list is generated when website or blog visitors opt-in to your mailing list giving you permission to send them information. How this is done is to add a signup form or box to your website or blog inviting visitors to fill in their names and/or email addresses. Email marketing campaigns are possible without a visitor’s name, but an email address is required. Without email addresses, you cannot send out email campaigns.
Purpose:
The purpose of email campaigns is to keep your name and business name in front of your potential clients attempting to convert them from potential clients to paying clients. When they opt-in to receive your information, they have gone from a “cold call” to a “warm call.”
Campaigns:
The type of information you electronically send to your mailing list can be an e-newsletter, a major announcement about your business or services, a series on specific topics (more on this in the autoresponder section), or to inform them of company news.
Frequency:
Your email broadcast can be sent out weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. It depends on what type of information you are sending to your list. E-newsletters are generally emailed monthly and a series on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.
Email marketing is another Internet marketing strategy you can use to drive traffic to your website. Are you currently using email marketing to promote your services? Come back next week as we continue discussing email marketing, including autoresponders.
Video marketing is another Internet marketing tool and strategy that will drive traffic to your website.
Target Audience
Your videos should include valuable information for your target audience, as well as being relevant to the subject matter. For SEO (search engine optimization), choose your title, description, and keywords carefully. You want your target audience to be able to find your videos when they are searching using the keywords you select.
Description
Make sure your website URL (or wherever you want to direct your visitors to) is in the first line of the description leaving a space between the URL and the actual description.
Branding
Don’t forget to brand your videos with your logo and website address. You can also create a YouTube Channel customizing it to promote your brand. The Channel also has a bulletin feature, which allows you to create messages, similar to Facebook and Twitter posts. These posts will show up on your subscribers’ and friends’ homepage.
Social Media Networking
Submit your videos to your favorite social networks and allow comments and ratings. Make sure you respond to comments. With YouTube share feature, you can easily share your videos to various social networks with a click of a button.
Embedding
Allow your videos to be embedded. You can also embed your videos into your WordPress blog. Make sure you insert the embed codes into the HTML mode tab of the post editor when creating your blog post.
We would love to hear how video marketing has worked for you in your Internet marketing plan. Let us know by leaving your comment. Come back next week for more Internet marketing tips!
When you have a business website and are trying new ways to increase your Internet website traffic, blogging is a great way to get noticed.
Blogging is a good way to express your personal thoughts about various subjects that pertain to your business. You can write about how to market your business or how to increase the number of customers. You can also blog about why you started your business. Your readers’ comments are a good tactic to get ideas about what to change and/or what to write next. Show your readers that you are listening to what they have to say by responding to their comments.
It is vitally important to have a well-written blog. Always use proper grammar, and spell check your blog post before you post it. Using the proper SEO (search engine optimization) keywords will increase your ranking on the search engines and that will increase the amount of readers to your blog site. SEO keywords pop out at your readers in your blog, and it is always helpful to have hyperlinks, links and/or pictures to drive your readers to your website. These are good steps to take to boost website traffic.
When you promote your blogs with catchy titles on various social media networks, it will attract readers to your blog site. If your blog site is part of your website, your readers will be more inclined to visit the rest of your site.
Another way to boost website traffic is providing Internet marketing services offering to write blog posts for other businesses. It’s a terrific marketing tool for businesses that want to have blogs on their site but do not have the time to write. With blogging there are endless ways to boost your website traffic one blog post at a time.
This is a video that I included in my newsletter for my subscribers. I give an overview of the content in the November edition, which focuses on social media marketing. Following is a transcript that I included with the video on YouTube.
Introduction
Hi Rita Cartwright here, with another month edition of our newsletter.
Social Media Marketing Facts
We begin this newsletter with some interesting facts on social media marketing.
Critical to Your Internet Marketing Strategy is Keyword Research
And following that is a video on the importance of keyword research to search engine optimization and to your internet marketing strategy.
Women Empowering Women – Is Networking Alive And Well In Internet Marketing For Women?
Following that is an article on women empowering women in the internet world. And this is done through joint ventures with each other and also through networking.
Social Media Marketing in 3 minutes
Next is a video on how critical social media is to your business. And also in this same video, you will learn the secret formula of how to become success online.
Using Social Media Boosts Website Promotion
Next is an article on how you can add your website links to social media sites in order to promote your website. These links are also known as backlinks or inbound links. They are simply links from somewhere else back to your website.
RJ’s Internet Marketing Services Video Trailer
Last but not least is a video trailer on our services and how our services can help you with your internet marketing. More information can be found at http://rjsinternetmarketing.com.
Instructions for Non-Subscribers on how to Subscribe to Newsletter
By the way, if you happen to be watching this video, and you are not a subscriber of our newsletters, scoot on over today to our website and sign up today. The sign up box is on the right-hand side of the screen. When you do sign up, you will receive a free copy of our e-book, “Online Marketing Tools for Today’s Small Business.” You will also receive a 5-part report on working with a virtual assistant.
Conclusion
As usual, thank you for your continued subscription. I hope that this information will be beneficial and useful for you in your social media marketing. Thank you.
Click here to schedule a fr^ee Social Media Marketing Solutions session.
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