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Human interaction is the most important aspect of any business venture. It heavily influences everything from productivity to sales revenue. As such, mastering both internal and external communications is vital. This is true no matter where the workforce resides.  43% of U.S. employees work remotely at least some of the time, according to a Gallup study. […] The post Making Communication the Heartbeat of Your Business Operation appeared first on Marketing...

Human interaction is the most important aspect of any business venture. It heavily influences everything from productivity to sales revenue. As such, mastering both internal and external communications is vital. This is true no matter where the workforce resides. 

43% of U.S. employees work remotely at least some of the time, according to a Gallup study. The number is higher with the rise of more independent contractors who work as part of the gig economy. With the rise of remote work arrangements, organizations need to consider how to communicate important messages to these staff members. When developing your internal communications strategy, make sure all employees receive the information they need, not just the employees who come in to the office each day.     

Making Communication the Heartbeat of Your Business Operation

When communication is under control, managing the business becomes a far simpler task. Here’s how to get it right in just five easy steps. 

1) Become A Leader 

Employees provide the engine to drive your business to success. Nonetheless, it’s your job to steer them in the right direction. Acquiring the mindset of a team leader will result in far greater employer-employee bonds. In turn, you’ll be able to mold your team into what you want them to be, which will boost performance levels. Moreover, it’ll give you a better chance to identify any issues from workplace bullying to individual dissatisfaction. This establishes a far stronger platform for success.  

Leadership is an essential part of business communication. Are you steering your team in the right direction?
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2) Focus On Collaboration 

Teamwork makes the dream work. However, it’s very difficult to achieve this when the team is disjointed. Team away days are a great way to bring colleagues together. Meanwhile, initiatives such as cycle to work schemes can enhance the camaraderie. This can be supported by a positive break room environment, as well as supporting charitable causes that the team care about. As a result, you should find that productivity also improves. This can also extend to the customer experiences, not least in terms of consistency across the team. 

According to America’s Charities Snapshot Employee Donor Research, 71% of surveyed employees say it is imperative or very important to work where culture is supportive of giving and volunteering.

3) Utilize Digital Communications 

Digital connections can replace a host of different interactions to provide greater speed and clarity. Staying in touch with employees, suppliers, and clients is easy with an icloud.com email account. This is especially true when setting up email notifications. Video conferencing is another hugely beneficial tool that can replace long journeys and expenses. When your website and social media pages utilize automated chat bots and online customer care links too, efficiency will soar. The benefits are felt by all. 

Use chat bots and online customer care links on your website and social media pages to improve efficiency.
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4) Streamline Team Meetings 

Even when the business is powered by digital communications, you will inevitably hold team meetings in person. This is one area where a lot of companies are guilty of wasting time and money while also drifting away from the key topics. Learning to keep meetings to 20 minutes, which is what the big guns like Google do, can change everything. Still unsure? Then add up the 40 minutes saved each day and multiply it by the number of employees in the meeting. If that doesn’t underline the potential impacts, nothing will.  

Save time and boost productivity with team meetings by focusing on key topics and limiting meetings to 20 minutes.
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5) Be Transparent With Everyone 

Clear communication links between businesses and customers are crucial. You can use a surveymonkey.com form to gain insight into what clients truly think. When this info is used in the right way, it can help improve your levels of service as well as the products. Similar ideas can be used to learn more about the employees and what they want from you as a boss. Above all else, you need to encourage people to use their initiative and make suggestions about how the business can improve. It can only support your bid for success. 

Ciao,
Miss Kemya

The post Making Communication the Heartbeat of Your Business Operation appeared first on Marketing Sparkler.

Pinterest is just a place where women collect pics for their weddings, right? And it’s a place for mommy bloggers to find stuff to do with their kids, right?  This is still a common misconception about what Pinterest is and what it’s used for. If you think this is the case, you’re likely missing out […] The post Easy Ways to Use Pinterest to Promote Your Business appeared first on Marketing...

Pinterest is just a place where women collect pics for their weddings, right? And it’s a place for mommy bloggers to find stuff to do with their kids, right?  This is still a common misconception about what Pinterest is and what it’s used for. If you think this is the case, you’re likely missing out on a huge opportunity to use Pinterest as a marketing tool for your business.

Pinterest may have started out as a place for women to share product images, but its epic rise as a social network makes it a great place for businesses, too. Think of it as a place to share ideas in a visual way and be creative about how you can profit from that.

Users on Pinterest love to share and repin images from a whole range of categories. As with any social network you just need to find a balance between self-promotion, social networking, and making money.

How You Can Use Pinterest to Promote Your Business

Have you ever noticed how Pinterest images show up in organic search? The next time you perform a Google search, notice the images that appear at the top of the search. They are likely to be pins from Pinterest, and here’s why: Pinterest is less of a truly “social” platform, and more of a robust search engine. If for no other reason than this, it is my recommendation for most businesses to use Pinterest as part of their social efforts.

But “what to pin” is often the question. Here are just a few ways you can use Pinterest both for profit and promotion.

Promote Your Blog with Pinnable Images

If you have an image on your blog, it’s pinnable. For that reason alone, you should always add an image to each of your blog posts. If you’re feeling ambitious. you can even add a “Pin it” button under the image you want readers to pin. Aside from that, readers are drawn to images and an interesting one encourages them to go on and read your article.

When you or a reader pins your image to Pinterest from your blog, it creates a direct link back to your blog. This not only adds to your link-building efforts, it can bring a whole new type of traffic to your site. Create themed boards on Pinterest that are based on the categories on your website, and make sure that you always pin your own blog post images to those boards.

Tip: When uploading images to your blog, be sure to add a descriptive alt text description to the image. This is the description that Pinterest will automatically pull in with your pin. Consider how would you like your pin described. I’ll bet you’d like the title of the post, maybe a specific tip, or perhaps a keyword rich description of the post. A full pre-written description is a great way to let your readers promote it for you!

Engage Your Customers

Having Pinterest boards is yet another way to engage your customers online. Not only can they pin their favorite images to your boards, but they can comment on them and share them with their friends and followers. When people enjoy interacting with your website, they’ll come back more often. This not only builds your relationship with website visitors, but it gives you far greater opportunities to showcase your products and services.

Tip: Pay attention to who’s pinning from your website. Here’s how: When you want to check who’s pinning from your domain, enter this into your search bar: http://pinterest.com/source/yourdomainnameincludingtheextension

So, if I wanted to check all pins coming from my domain here at marketingsparkler.com, I would enter http://pinterest.com/source/marketingsparkler.com into my search bar. This pulls up all of the pins from my domain here at marketingsparkler.com. Then I can click on each pin and see who’s pinning it. Pretty neat, huh?

Bonus: Simply add this URL to your bookmarks so you don’t have to type it in every time. Because you regularly check your analytics and social media mentions, right? Of course you do:-)

Do you pay attention to your Pinterest mentions from your blog? Here’s how you can track who’s pinning from your website.
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Inspire Your Customers with Examples

Oftentimes, people can only see your products in one way and for one purpose. This is why imagery is so important. Images can essentially make or break your product sales. This is where Pinterest can help you to leverage the usability of your products to increase sales and expand your audience.

Pinterest boards give you the chance to demonstrate different ways to use your products, all through visual references. For example, if you sell wedding favors, you can show pictures of them in use, perhaps at the table settings of your customers’ weddings. Imagine having pins that shows how a specific wedding favor can be used for a rustic chic decor AND traditional wedding decor. That would be far more inspiring than a simple product image in your store. And it’s likely to attract different sets of customers who may have thought your wedding favor was not their style. Show them otherwise!

Use Pinterest to demonstrate the functionality of your products. Show customers how many ways they can use your products!
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Show That You’re a Real Person

It’s always difficult to make a personal connection with people online vs. face-to-face. By including both business boards and personal boards in your Pinterest account, prospects and customers get to see some of your own interests. They start to see the real person behind the business persona. Even if you are representing a large company, remember that customers are eager to know the real people behind the corporate face. If you’re a small business or entrepreneur, this is even more critical.

Now, I know there are schools of thought that say your Pinterest boards should focus on your business. This is ok if you’re a big, recognizable brand. But humor me for a sec, ok? Which business looks more interesting:

Pinterest User A: Business coaching brand that has boards that reference each pillar of the coaching business, with tips on each board. The avatar is a company logo.

OR

Pinterest User B: A Business Coach who has boards that reference each pillar of her coaching business, with tips on each board. And the coach also has boards that showcase her favorite tools, books she likes to read, her favorite blogs, and events she likes to attend.

Which Pinterest profile probably looks more interesting, and showcases the brand in a more authentic, human way? Which Business Coach would you find more interesting? After all, when you’re hiring a business coach, you’re hiring a person, not a brand. This is why I mention that school of thought around keeping your pins so business-specific. That sounds logical, but depending on your business model, it may not be as profitable as you’d like.

Should your Pinterest profile be all-business, or show some of your personal interests as well? Here’s why your personal interests can help you shine on Pinterest.
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Related Article: Mastering Pinterest for Small Business Owners

Add Affiliate Links to Your Pins

You may not realize it, but you can also insert your own affiliate links on your pins. Yeah,baby! It’s a whole new way of doing affiliate marketing using Pinterest. You can create boards (or pins) that are product-oriented and earn cash when people click those links and buy something. Just go into the “edit” button for a specific pin and replace the direct link to the product with your affiliate link.

Are you using Pinterest as a tool for affiliate marketing?
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Bottom Line

Pinterest isn’t going anywhere any time soon and it is incredibly active. And it’s such a fun! Make the most of it as a place to engage your customers and prospects. At the same time, it presents a new opportunity to earn income and fans from a completely different source.

Ciao,
Miss Kemya

The post Easy Ways to Use Pinterest to Promote Your Business appeared first on Marketing Sparkler.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then imagine how much a video can convey!  In fact, video content has become one of the hottest trends in business marketing strategies over the last few years.  According to the latest Hubspot video marketing research, 81% of businesses use video as a marketing tool — up […] The post Top 7 Ways of Using Video For Business appeared first on Marketing...

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then imagine how much a video can convey!  In fact, video content has become one of the hottest trends in business marketing strategies over the last few years.  According to the latest Hubspot video marketing research, 81% of businesses use video as a marketing tool — up from 63% over the last year.

Video is being utilized by marketers to build trust, boost sales and conversations, encourage shares, and engage even the laziest of buyers!  It has been shown to provide great returns on the investment when used properly, can be very appealing to mobile users, and is well loved by Google search engine algorithms too.

Top 7 Ways Of Using Video For Business

With so many advantages to using video content for business, the obvious question becomes, how can I use it? Here are the top 7 types of video to incorporate into your marketing mix.

1. Introduction Videos

When a consumer navigates to a businesses web page or social media account, often the purpose is to better understand who that company is and what they sell.  While a traditional “About Us” page is great, a short introduction video to go alongside is awesome.

Introduction videos give the business a brief moment to connect with the person browsing and grab their attention fast.  Often, introductory videos are more personal than text, because they can connect a face and a voice to a company.

They are especially helpful in sales industries, where a consumer is trying to choose a person to work with, such as a real estate agent, insurance rep, or even account executive.

If the consumer can feel connected to the company via video, they will be more likely to pursue that relationship and take a next step.

Introduction videos are helpful in sales industries, where a consumer is trying to choose a person to work with. #contentmarketing
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2. Testimonial Videos

Everyone loves a good happy ending story. Testimonial videos of real clients sharing about their successes can really build trust for a company or brand.  These types of videos are often highly shared on social media, especially if there is a humanitarian or social aspect involved.  They can give a business the element of community, and create a feeling of connection with potential customers.

Those who watch may identify with the subject of the video, and relate to their problems and frustrations.  As the video progresses to the success portion, the viewer begins to see hope in their own story because of the win that someone else experienced.

Testimonial videos are one of the most popular ways to include video marketing into your marketing mix.
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3. Tutorial Videos

Many people are visual learners, and they are drawn to video content that teaches or explains how to accomplish a task, use a product, or utilize a service.

The length of a tutorial will depend on the scope and complexities of your business. This could either be a very short and simple video or a series of longer, in depth videos.

Tutorial videos often show how to use a product or service. However, they also can provide you with knowledge on how to use complementary products or ideas as well.

Now Reading: Top 7 Ways Of Using Video For Business
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4. Commercial Videos

Most people are familiar with commercial video content that offers a product for sale or highlights the benefits of a service for hire.  Commercial videos often show up in places like Youtube, Facebook, and Instagram TV.  They can also be utilized for television as well, in some cases.

Commercial videos are usually fairly short, and attempt to quickly focus the viewer on the theme of the advertisement. They also typically include some sort of call to action that motivates the viewer to click, call, or purchase.

5. Demonstration Videos

People love details, especially when it comes to shopping for products or subscribing to services.  They want to understand how something works, feels, acts, and responds.  Images can help paint the initial picture. However, a video that shows the product being used or demonstrates the service in action can be just the thing to convince a skeptical customer.

When demonstration videos are created using real people, they also bring in an element of personal connection, and can be emotionally stimulating.  These types of videos are widely used on product pages or as part of a purchase funnel.

When demonstration videos are created using real people, they also bring in an element of personal connection. #contentmarketing
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6. Retention Outreach Videos

Once a customer has been secured, a business wants to keep them! Customer retention can often be accomplished by simply staying in touch with them in meaningful ways.

Retention outreach videos are great to incorporate into email marketing campaigns for things like

• announcing new product launches,
• sending birthday or holiday greetings,
• providing quick tips or tricks for a product or service that the customer has purchased, and
• announcing sales or special promotions.

The idea is to keep your brand in front of the customer regularly, in a way that adds value to their lives.

Are you using video marketing as part of your customer retention efforts?
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7. Branding Videos

Last on the list, though certainly not least, is the branding video.  This type of video is less about selling a particular product or service, and more about connecting a brand with the viewer.

It can often be more editorial in nature, sharing the value of a company or giving insights into the businesses core mission.

This type of video content is designed to build awareness, and hopefully, respect for your brand. The goals is to make people want to learn more.  It is generally short and sweet, and makes a great video content option for both social media pages and websites.

Bottom Line

This list is not inclusive of all the ways that video can be used for business. Yet it does include some very popular options.  If you feel that jumping into video content, even for something small like an introductory video, is intimidating, it is important to note that there are a variety of resources available to help make the task simple and easy.

Renderforest, for example, is a professional video maker that provides useful tools and stunning templates to make video creation simple and affordable.  There are also many great beginner’s guides to video marketing that can help you get comfortable and confident in using video for business.  So, what are you waiting for?  Start creating video content for your business today.

Ciao,
Miss Kemya

This is a guest post by Roman Daneghyan, Chief Marketing Officer at Renderforest, a professional video maker. Roman is a Content Marketing Specialist and an Expert in SEO, Social Media Marketing, and Link Building who enjoys sharing the experiences gained along working as a marketer and helping other entrepreneurs succeed. His works have been published on different blogs and mediums like Crazy Egg, Forbes, Upwork, ShareThis, etc. . He can be found on Twitter @roman_daneghyan.

The post Top 7 Ways of Using Video For Business appeared first on Marketing Sparkler.

Whether you are creating a social strategy in-house, or working with an online marketing agency to develop an effective social media strategy, a substantial part of the strategy will revolve around content marketing. When sharing your content across social media channels, the goal is to get the right eyeballs on your content, get them to […] The post Hashtags Guide: How to Create and Use Effective Hashtags appeared first on Marketing...

Whether you are creating a social strategy in-house, or working with an online marketing agency to develop an effective social media strategy, a substantial part of the strategy will revolve around content marketing. When sharing your content across social media channels, the goal is to get the right eyeballs on your content, get them to engage with you content, and lead those interested eyes to your own digital real estate.

One way to narrow down the 2.77 billion users on social media, to reach a subset of this population interested in what you offer, is with the use of hashtags.

Social media marketing cannot do without hashtags. When it comes to using hashtags to increase visibility for your social media posts, there is still a sizeable number of Internet users who do not understand how to use them effectively.

How to Create Effective Hashtags: The Non-Marketer’s Guide to Making Hashtags Work For You

Hashtags keep evolving, calling for individuals to know the current and trending hashtags. Digital marketing experts advise that you use hashtags sparingly and only when they will add value to your posts. Using them too often can be annoying, confusing, and irritating to your target audience. I couldn’t agree more!

Therefore, we need to develop a strategy for using hashtags. This includes creating your own branded hashtags, using popular and current event hashtags, and measuring their effectiveness.

Let’s get started, shall we?

Part I. Work hashtags into your social media posts.

One of the easiest ways to use effective hashtags that generate real traffic is to stop thinking of them as separate elements of the social media that you are posting and instead integrated elements of the content that you share.

Instead of adding hashtag phrases to the end of your content as a “tag,” use these hashtags in the context of the content.

This means in the middle of your sentences, in the middle of your content, or even as the headline of your social media post to draw attention instantly and get your point across ASAP.

This serves a dual purpose:

• You’ll be able to break up the flow of your social media post into “bite-sized chunks” – something that’s incredibly important for today’s attention span challenged market.
• You will also be able to get away with using more original and organic looking hashtags that kind of go with the flow, rather than cliché hashtags that are just kind of tacked onto the end of whatever it is you were going to publish anyway.

Avoid using cliché hashtags that are tacked onto the end of whatever it is you were going to publish anyway.
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Part II. How to create hashtags that actually work.

By creating your own hashtags you can drive organic traffic to your website and target your audience.

The most important thing you have to remember when you are creating hashtags designed to help you drive traffic is that you treat them the same way that you would treat headlines on your advertising.

So, what does this mean?

• • Keep them relatively short.
  • Keep them incredibly interesting.
  • Make sure they are relevant.
  • Use them to do the one thing they are intended to do – drive traffic to your content.

A lot of people make the mistake of trying to get too much out of hashtags or social media marketing in general. Then, they are surprised when they aren’t getting anywhere near the kinds of results they were hoping for.

You have to remember that these key parts of social media are exactly that – key parts and not the “whole shebang”.

You have to work hashtags into an overall smart and savvy marketing strategy designed to turn cold traffic and complete strangers into hot prospects and paying customers.

Here are some tips and tricks to help you create better hashtags right away!
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Creating Your Own Hashtags

First things first, do some research. Which hashtags are relevant? Which hashtags are popular? There are many tools that will search across social media sites and show you posts with the hashtag in.

The ultimate goal for you is to create original, relevant hashtags that resonate with your audience.

Take the hashtag #testyourhashtags as an example. I used a site called Hashatit and searched for this hashtag. Surprisingly there were no results. That’s not automatically a bad thing. Consider that if there are no current posts attached to the tag, this blog will be the only one. SO if I use it,  I will have the readers full attention.

Take another example: #createhashtags. This will be widely used as people will be researching on how to create hashtags. The originator of the articles will use that tag when talking about how to create them. Sort of like supply and demand.

Tips for creating effective hashtags for your brand:

1. 1. Keep them short. Period.
   2. Use them in the content of your social media posts instead of at the bottom or at the end.
   3. Keep your links close to your hashtags, this will help increase the engagement you receive.
   4. Make sure they not only targeted, but interesting to the audience you are working to attract. For example, #furniture is not as targeted (or interesting) as #shabbychicfurniture
   5. They must be relevant. How many times do you see people randomly putting tags in a post just to get clicks? Sure they might come up in a search but if their post isn’t about the topic, they won’t get the engagement. I wouldn’t write a blog about dogs and then share it using #motorbikes #classiccars as chances are I will just make myself unpopular.

Part III. Once you have made your hashtags – do you test them?

Sitting on a social media post and randomly putting in tags that spring to mind is one thing. However, if you don’t know their impact or if anyone else is using them, how do you know if they are going to work for you? Or worse, you could use a hashtag that you think means one thing, but actually it means something completely different. Can you say #awkward?!

For example, you don’t want to be paying respects to someones funeral and then add a hashtag that is linked to mass amounts of party gear.

Take a hashtag like #walkitoff. This could mean things to do with dieting, exercise. sports, charity walks. But it could also reference someone getting fired from a job. Just #walkitoff. This is why you need to know what the conversation is surrounding your hashtag before you start using it.

Hashtag tip: you need to know what the conversation is surrounding your hashtag BEFORE you start using it.
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It is really important to test your hashtags and while you are at it, make sure you look into software that can track the analytics of them. In this way, you know what gets the clicks and what drives the consumers to your website. If you find a hashtag relevant to your site that isn’t widely used, it is possible to start a trend and be the center of it. This is why testing and tracking are so important.

There’s definitely something to be said about creating your own hashtags that allow you to kind of control the narrative and own “real estate” in the social media game. However, at the same time, there is absolutely zero reason whatsoever to ignore leverage already available. Especially when it has already proven to be tremendously popular with the people that you are trying to reach.

Researching your hashtags

There are quite a few different tools available (many free of charge) that really let you research different hashtags on different social media networks. You can find out which ones are incredibly popular right now (usually differentiated by the “Trending” tag), in addition to which ones are getting the most engagement with that particular social media network.

Engagement is the name of the game. This can be challenging to generate right out of thin air when you are building up your social media profile from scratch. But, it is a core tenet of hashtag traffic generation.

You need to create hashtags that are immediately interesting, relevant, and easy to share. These are the core tenants of viral content and viral marketing on all of social media today.

Create hashtags that are immediately interesting, relevant, and easy to share.
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Review popular hashtags for the last six months

Look back six months, and review the most popular hashtags over that stretch of time. Then, find ways to either co-opt those tags, or create a new spin that will be interesting and relevant to your content. This will give you a tremendously “unfair” advantage over the rest of your competition.

This kind of research can take a little bit of time to drum up on your own (of course you could always outsource most of it), but the return on investment for doing this digging is definitely worthwhile.

All marketing efforts should be tested and measured. Hashtags use is no different.
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Part IV. Tie analytics to your hashtags.

More than a couple of very valuable tools today can be utilized to track the interaction and engagement of the hashtags that you are using, and you need to make the most of these analytics tools ASAP if you aren’t already leveraging them right now.

The real core differentiator that has helped to separate online marketing from the rest of the pack is the ease of tracking and testing available.

Yes, it used to be possible to test and track more traditional forms of advertising – usually with coupon codes and mailing lists – but we’ve never had access to this much instant data like we do right now. It would be a shame to waste any of that data, especially when that data can better inform the hashtag marketing that you decide to move forward with from here on out.

Different marketing tools will allow you to analyze the data in different ways, and some of them will compare engagement from the hashtags you are using to other similar hashtags being used at the same time.

These kinds of tools will really help to sharpen your marketing abilities in your focus, and there’s definitely nothing wrong with that!

Part V. Use popular and current event hashtags.

It s hard to resist using popular and trending current event hashtags to maximize your visibility. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing so, make sure you understand how to use popular and current event hashtags in your favor.

Make sure you understand how to use popular and current event hashtags in your favor.
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Make sure your hashtag is specific

To make hashtags work in your favor, you need to know your ideal audience, and then doing all you can to rouse a specific interest. Targeted audiences translate to better engagement for your posts, and using specific and popular niche hashtags earns you more site visits than general hashtags ever will.

Do not make the mistake of getting too sophisticated with your hashtags, make them easy to remember and memorable.

Be early and quick about it

With popular and current hashtags, it is easy for a post to get fewer engagements than they deserve. Use hashtags monitoring sites often to see the trending hashtags that relate to your niche in business, and ensure you are quick and among the first to use them.

This way, you will be more discoverable, and your posts will help you to connect, build, and cement relationships with your audience.

Use restraint – less is more

There is the overwhelming desire to use current and popular hashtags to drive traffic to your posts. It may come off as a waste by using a few, but less is more with hashtags. Do not have more hashtags than words on your post to avoid diluting engagement from actual humans.

With popular hashtags, there is the possibility of attracting spam bots, which might lead you to think you have a bigger following than you might do.

Post and use trending hashtags on multiple networks

The average social media user is on at least three networks, and they look at the same topics that interest them. Make a habit of using hashtags on multiple social media networks to allow your brand more exposure to a wider audience. This makes your brand more memorable, especially when using a popular hashtag before a keyword.

Search the hashtag before using it to ensure it resonates with your content and audience to ensure they work in your favor.

It’s not just enough to plug your content into these hashtag traffic streams without any real context, either. You have to be sure that your content is relevant to the hashtags that you are using, not only because using the wrong hashtags could cause you to miss out on a lot of traffic, but it could actually actively push people away at the same time.

That would be a major mistake, especially if you are a brand-new or relatively new social media account just looking to create traction today.

Effective Hashtags: Bottom Line

To the internet, hashtags are without a doubt what red blood cells are to the human body. They have their origins on Twitter, and they have found their way to almost all aspects of digital marketing and lead generation. They can help you keep up with current trends, and they can provide a source of visibility and referral traffic when used correctly. Use the tips in this post to develop an effective hashtag strategy for your marketing campaigns.

Ciao,
Miss Kemya

The post Hashtags Guide: How to Create and Use Effective Hashtags appeared first on Marketing Sparkler.

We’ve all heard it a million times – social media is the next best digital marketing tool and we should all be using it. With over 27% of purchases originating from social media across all generations, business owners have an opportunity to take advantage of more than just making timely posts. Utilizing social media helps […] The post How to Leverage Social Media to Ensure Customer Growth appeared first on Marketing...

We’ve all heard it a million times – social media is the next best digital marketing tool and we should all be using it. With over 27% of purchases originating from social media across all generations, business owners have an opportunity to take advantage of more than just making timely posts.

Utilizing social media helps create brand recognition and widens the audience that your business has the opportunity to reach. It’s an affordable option for marketing and offers maximum control for creating and branding your message.

But how can social media help you gain more customers?

How to Leverage Social Media to Ensure Customer Growth

It’s important to see social media as more than just an avenue to broadcast a few pictures of your products. Considering there are over 3.4 billion social media users, getting the highest ROI with your social accounts is a game changer.

Use these tactics to ensure that your social media efforts will continue to yield new customers.

Create a Connection

It’s easy to get in the habit of making posts that simply draw your customers to buy something. The problem is–everyone is already doing that. Instead, use social media to give your brand a personality that people can relate to. Business accounts on social media commonly overlook the advantage of Instagram stories and Facebook Live. These are a great opportunity to entertain and connect with your target audience.

Try showing off your office space, answering common questions, or sharing a new product in these videos. You can even use Facebook or Instagram stories to hold a Q&A session or ask your customer’s opinions (free feedback is always a win!). Doing so makes your customers feel like they are included in the process of your brand and allows them to gain an understanding of your company values.

Captions and hashtags can also help you create a persona and relate to your customers. Be funny, witty, and catchy to entice people to stop scrolling and see what you’ve said each time that you post. Hashtags in particular can help people find and track your posts! The more recognition you get here, the more that people are going to want to take part in your brand and have the potential to become a customer.

You don’t just want people to just stumble across your posts, you want them to look forward to hearing from you. Showcase how active and thriving your business is–people want to be a part of that!

Create a connection with your audience. You don’t just want people to just stumble across your posts, you want them to look forward to hearing from you.
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Provide Immediate Customer Service

We all avoid calling a customer service line to have our questions or concerns addressed. And waiting for an email back from a service desk is purely inefficient. Instead of making customers endure this pain, invite your customers to use the comment section on your social media accounts as a place to ask questions and gain more information directly from the brand.

Not only will this provide timely service to your customers, but anyone who visits your social media accounts will see that your business takes their customer satisfaction seriously. This tactic lends to building trust and credibility amongst past and potential customers.

Providing support on an easy platform that everyone is willing to use feels like a no-brainer. The best part is that your customer can ask you a question and your whole audience will be able to see how it is answered. With social media continuing to rapidly grow, it’s important to address how this digital marketing tactics can help you provide a rich customer experience to ensure that customers old and new receive timely help.

Your Bio is Your Friend

We’ve all seen an interesting social media post and consequently visited their account. What is the first thing that we look at? Their bio.

Just like a website, most people are going to spend their time looking at the top of the page – or above the fold. Customers want to land on your account page and find all of the information they need within a few seconds. It’s important that you don’t just describe what you are, but that you answer all of the most common questions directly in the bio. You don’t want people to have to scroll through various past posts in order to get the information that they need.

But what do they need? Include contact information, what you offer, and most importantly a link to your website. Utilizing your bio to easily link to your website is a great tactic for converting visitors from your account into paying customers.

However, this link needs to be informational and tell your customers where they are going to land. Make sure that your domain name and url line up with why your customers would be at your site (domain names are cheap and help build credibility). Just launched a new line? Put that in your link!

Pro Tip: Make sure your website is built with a mobile first mentality. If customers are arriving to your site via social media, they are most likely on a mobile device. Don’t lose them with an inefficient site.

If customers are arriving to your site via social media, they are most likely on a mobile device. Don’t lose them with an inefficient website.
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Publish Motivated Content

Using social media to market your brand isn’t just about what you post. You can’t forget that everyone is using social media to reach their customers.

Make sure to do your own research of what people within your own vertical are talking about. What do they want? Do they feel like they are missing something? What are the conversations and trends happening within your market? This will give you good insight to what content you can produce that would address the gaps that potential customers have.

You can try this by using Facebook analytics to see which content gets the most attention so that you maximize your shares and awareness through creating useful and successful content. Posting authoritative content will ensure that you are asserting your brand as an expert in the industry.

Takeaways

Expanding your social media marketing plan is inherent to the continued growth of your business. Too often, business accounts only focus on how often or at what time of the day they make these posts. With so many variables and valuable content to share, it’s important to stay sharp and take advantage of how social media can bring the customers to you and help you keep them!

Build relationships with your customers and allow your brand to be relatable to your target audience. Optimize your bio with helpful information that tells your customer exactly what to expect. You don’t want them leaving your brand’s page just because you didn’t share enough information.

Make customer service easy and quick by monitoring your comments and consistently providing a positive customer experience. Create content that answers the uncertainties related to your brand or exposes something new.

How are YOU ensuring a high ROI with the use of social media? Share any tips or tricks you have for making your social media go to work for YOU!

Ciao,
Miss Kemya

This is a guest post by Madison Crader. Madison specializes in content related to small business digital marketing and building brand awareness. She has a passion for helping entrepreneurs grow their business and set long-term goals.

The post How to Leverage Social Media to Ensure Customer Growth appeared first on Marketing Sparkler.

Yes. So let’s get the argument out of the way right now. The answer to the question is YES. Project management is very important to remember, no matter how small the project. Even when you are doing a project alone, there are many aspects that need to be organized to keep on track of the […] The post Do You Really Have to Manage a Project When You’re the Only One Involved? appeared first on Marketing...

Yes. So let’s get the argument out of the way right now. The answer to the question is YES.

Project management is very important to remember, no matter how small the project. Even when you are doing a project alone, there are many aspects that need to be organized to keep on track of the project.

This is particularly important when you work as a solopreneur. Here’s why.

Common Project Requirements that Need to Be Managed

Every project, even when it’s one that you’re doing alone, has very similar requirements – some more and some less, but they all have things that need to be organized.

The very definition of project management includes organizing as an important part. Even when you are running a project alone you’ll need to manage the project in a way that keeps you on course to meet your deadline, and that requires organizing.

No time to read the blog? Listen on the podcast:

When it comes to project management, the goal is efficiency and productivity. Get yourself organized to better achieve your goals. Here are some common project requirements, no matter the size of the project, that need to be managed:

Expected Deliverables

Even a solo project has or should have a due date with a list of expected deliverables. The deliverables might be products such as reports, eBooks, information products, Kindle books, apps or something else entirely.

Resources and tool requirements

You’ll need to figure out what resources you have at your disposal to create a good end product. This includes what your budget is, what applications you need and more.

Time Sensitive Order of Operations

When you know what the end product is to look like, you can work from the due date backwards to figure out what order things need to be done by in order to meet your deadlines.

Research

Every aspect or the project needs to be worked out, including the research that needs to be done. You may need to research the topic, check facts, and other things to ensure that you meet your expectations.

Time Tracking

Even when you are doing a project for yourself or by yourself, keeping track of your time is an important component of ensuring that you create a profitable deliverable. If you spend too much time and aren’t organized about your time, it’ll take more time for the project to be profitable.

Communication Needs

Even when you’re conducting a solo project, there will still be communication needs with vendors or people that you need information from so that you can complete your project.

File Management

Keeping a project organized requires managing a lot of files in a manner that you can get to them easily as well as creating a naming convention and other organization for fast access.

Launching the Product

Every product end, whether it’s a freebie or a paid product, requires a product launch which also requires management and tasks to be done to create success.

Promotion Requirements

Eventually you may need to promote your product to others which requires a lot more planning and organizing.

Following Up

Even after a product is done, launched and sold, you’ll need to be sure to follow up to ensure future sales and customer satisfaction.

Bottom Line

Managing even solo projects requires planning, organizing, and even motivating yourself to get things done on schedule. Sometimes it can be even more difficult to go it alone than to be in charge of an entire group of different personalities. And regardless of the number of people involved, all projects require understanding what it takes to get to the final deliverable on time, on budget, and in the process creating an awesome deliverable.

Try using a project management system like Teamwork.com to manage all your solo projects for the highest quality results.

Ciao,
Miss Kemya

How do you manage a project when you’re the only one involved?

The post Do You Really Have to Manage a Project When You’re the Only One Involved? appeared first on Marketing Sparkler.

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