Social Media Marketing

  • Best Practices After a Livestream Broadcast

    Livestreaming

    So you have decided to use live stream broadcating in your marketing mix. Wise decision since this form of connecting with your audience it SUPER HOT! But once it’s over what do you do next? Remember video is content too so be sure to use it.

    Giving away free information has always been a great way to attract customers into your sales funnel. People still do it because it works if you have the right formula. What is important when giving away information is to make sure it is over-the-top quality and delivers value. Otherwise, people are not going to watch it or read it and it will collect digital dust.

    Live stream broadcasts by contrast, present a higher level of interactivity. Of course, it needs to be said that if your broadcast is boring or does not offer great information, you will lessen the chance of achieving your intended results of getting eyes and ears on your broadcast. Your message will be lost.

    Memberships

    An effective idea on what to use your broadcasts for, is to set up a membership for the broadcasts. Facebook groups or a website membership site are good ways to share your streaming broadcasts. Keep in mind though Facebook terms of service will not allow you to charge members to join your group but your group can be a benefit to an online membership. So decide whether you want to charge members, or keep the membership free and monetize in other ways, like affiliate marketing or advertising.

    The broadcasts can be the foundation of the membership but you are certainly free to add more to it. In fact, you could set up a hybrid membership that allows free members to view the broadcasts but the premium members will get extra content. There are various WordPress plugins that can provide you with membership options like Woo Commerce, WP eMember or Easy Digital Downloads.

    Livestreaming

    YouTube

    Another possibility is to set up a YouTube channel where you will add each broadcast after they are complete. Then, it’s simply a matter of getting people to your broadcasts and asking them to subscribe to your channel. Again, it all must do with quality so if you keep your broadcasts at high quality, people will gladly subscribe. Keep in mind, that you can also livestream from YouTube. As a matter of fact, YouTube is working on enhancing their platform to work better on mobile, too.

    Mashups

    A third possibility is to network with other broadcasters and put together a mashup of related broadcasts. Mashups are fun and take the pressure off just one person providing all the content. This can be done via Joint Venture (JV) relationship. And it can be sold as a larger package and all the JV partners will send traffic to this mega-product but this is a more advanced process that is not for the newbie.

    These are several ways that you can reuse the broadcasts that you create. The one thing you should not do is let your broadcasts sit idle. Always find methods to put them to use so that they can keep working for you. Think outside the box!

    Be sure to connect with us on social media so you can see our live streaming broadcasts.

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  • How to Get the Most Out of Your Live Stream Broadcasting

    LivestreamsLive stream broadcasts are extremely popular. Smartphones have made it easy to broadcast to your followers. It’s a create way to promote your business. Here are some tips that top live stream broadcasters use to get the most out of their broadcasts.

    Relevancy

    Broadcasting your dog jumping to catch a Frisbee is fun for dog lovers. But if your followers are entrepreneurs who are looking to market their business, it’s a good bet that you’re going to lose them quickly with broadcasts like these. So needless to say, you want to have an idea of what your topic is going to be and stick to it. It’s okay occasionally to go off on a tangent just as long as it is somewhat related to your topic or it’s about building a more personal rapport with your audience.

    Be a Storyteller

    If you get nothing else out of this post, make sure you pay special attention to this one. Storytelling is going to be the secret sauce to your success as a live stream broadcaster. Since the beginning of time, people have been telling stories as a way of entertaining and educating. It takes some practice, but is well worth the effort.

    Trust

    Even if you never expect to collect a dime from your viewers, build up trust with them. You do this on camera by being yourself and being genuine. Don’t try to trick them or lie to them. Be straightforward and forthcoming.

    Enthusiastic

    There is nothing that will get viewers to hit the exit button for your broadcast quicker than a lack of enthusiasm. Broadcasts are very much like being on TV. If there is a show on TV that is boring, you are going to most likely switch it off. People want entertainment. This takes pratice, trust me, the more animated you are the better the broadcast.

    Engaging

    This word gets overused. But what it means in the context of broadcasting is to encourage viewers to give feedback. Likes and comments are currency in many of the live stream platforms like Facebook Live and Periscope. If someone signs on and says hello in the chat, acknowledge them by saying their name. If they have questions, try to answer them immediately or at least let them know you will hold a Q&A at the end of the broadcast.

    Captivate Your Audiencelive streaming

    You need to hold the attention of the people that are watching your broadcast. Simply reading a script, or from something that you memorized, just isn’t going to cut it in this type of medium. You want to elicit excitement so that they not only stay on the broadcast, but they can’t wait for the next one to start. You can do this by asking a lot of questions that lead to a yes answer. For example, you could ask, “who wants to use my method to make thousands of dollars?” Who wouldn’t answer yes to that? You see this all the time in webinars. The same technique should be employed in your broadcasts. Get their juices flowing, so to speak.

    Give Massive Value

    Whether you are solving a problem for your audience or you are simply giving a tutorial, make it great. When you broadcast, you are essentially stealing away a chunk of your viewers’ time which is something in short supply for most of us. That’s a big responsibility. Let it be worthwhile.

    I hope these tips are helpful and give you some great ideas as to how to make your broadcast more authentic, engaging and relevant so that your followers want more.

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  • 6 Ways Businesses Can Use Livestream Broadcasts

    live streaming

    There is a lot of buzz around live stream broadcasting. Have you tried it out yet? You may be unsure on how businesses can use this type of marketing. As time goes on we are likely to see some creative ways that other businesses dive into it but for now let’s look at the 6 more common uses.

    Interviews

    Most businesses can take advantage of interviewing experts in their field. Perhaps the business owner himself will want to be the one interviewed. It is simply a matter of finding someone to interview you and creating the broadcast. But even that isn’t completely necessary as you can run the interview on your own. You simply come up with questions that you want your viewers to know the answers to, then you start broadcasting those answers.

    Customer Q&A

    Why not invite several of your trusted customers to jump on a live stream broadcast and let them ask you questions about your products and services? They can also tell you what they like about your products and what areas could be improved. This is a golden opportunity to connect directly with them and get some great feedback.

    business tipsBusiness Tips 

    Any business can offer to give tips about the business to customers and potential customers. Plumbers could teach people how to identify leaks in pipes. Marketers can give tips about how to increase conversions in a sales funnel, etc. These are just two of many examples.

    Testimonials

    Testimonials help sell more products. Potential customers love to know that others had a great experience with products and there is no better way to provide this than to use testimonials. The challenge will be in convincing customers to do so via a live broadcast. The apps available from Facebook and Periscope have made it quite easy for anyone to create a broadcast with smartphones. A word of caution about testimonials: be sure to ask the customers to provide an honest testimonial. Governments are cracking down on false testimonials or ones that are given in exchange for cash or awards.

    Before and After Broadcasts

    Any company whose business model is to transform something into something better, can easily employ before and after broadcasts. This can help show potential customers just what kind of work the business is capable of doing.

    Crowdfunding

    You can use broadcasting to state your case when you want to raise funds for your business initiatives. You can give information on where the money is going to go. You can also let potential funders know what kinds of rewards are available (if any) at certain levels of funding. Also, you can get people that have pledged money to state why they chose to fund your initiatives.

    I hope you found this list helpful to get you started on ways to use live streaming apps. If you need help in developing a strong online marketing plan reach out to me. I offer coaching and consulting services to help businesses like yours grow their prescence online.

    Here’s to Your Business Success!

    Wanda

     

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  • Networking for Potential Clients

    Networking for Potential Clients
    Networking may be one of the oldest forms of advertising…

      
    Traditionally, with this approach business people  attend designated “networking meetings” where they  meet other people and exchange business cards in the hope that one of the people they talked to would send some clients their way.   Some people may look at it as an “Old School” method but networking done effectively can still work. It’s about building relationships and taking that initial introduction to the next level.

     

    Other business people have realized that networking can be done anywhere, not just at designated meetings.  These people often carry business cards with them at all times and may strike up a conversation with the person in front of them in line at the grocery store or sitting next to them at the Little League game.

    The Internet of course has taken networking to a whole different level…

     

    Now people are turning to social networking sites in order to meet new potential business partners and clients. Platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook and Google Plus are providing us with the means to connect with people from all over the World and not just in our backyard.

     

    It doesn’t matter which form it takes place in, networking is essentially a way of marketing your business through building relationships with other people.  Some of these people may turn into your clients, some may be a source of clients, and others may actually become future business partners.

    Networking for Potential Clients

    Networking has many benefits…

    Generally speaking, it is a free or low cost activity.  It can take up some of a person’s time, but other than that, there really isn’t a huge cost unless you’re traveling to a conference.  It is important to note that some networking groups do require a membership fee, but it is very easy to find many free networking opportunities if that is your goal.

     

    In many circumstances, a networking situation will lead to word of mouth advertising, which is extremely valuable.  For example, if a web designer meets someone through a networking group or through a social networking platform and establishes a connection, that person may recommend them to several people they know on a personal level.

    I’ve had great success in networking in person and online. I have found that joining groups in LinkedIn and Facebook has provided me with great strategic partners and allowed me to increase my bottom line by featuring my business knowledge thru posts. Being a giver and helping others goes a long way with getting future referrals. 

    Advertising…

     

    As you know, when someone sees an ad they take it with a grain of salt.  They know it is advertising.  But when someone receives a recommendation from a person they know and trust, they often follow that person’s recommendation and buy the services or products that have been recommended to them.

     

    Whether done face to face or over the Internet, it does take time to build relationships with other people.  Some easy ways to get things started may be to spark up a conversation about something you have in common with the other person, or to offer help or advice to them.

     

    The effects of networking may not be seen overnight, but over time a person will start to receive calls or emails from potential customers saying that they were referred by so-and-so.  This lets the person know that their networking has paid off.

    So I challenge you to go out and do some networking. If it’s in person and you don’t like to go by yourself go with a friend. If you are brave go solo. Create a plan before you go if possible on who you want to connect with. Ask for introductions.  

    If you’re braver on the Internet take that route. Step outside your comfort zone and meet new people.

    I love networking with my blog followers so please leave me your comments and connect with me on social media.  

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  • How to be a Social Media Influencer

    Many people think that building a huge following on social media is all it takes to become a successful influencer. There is actually a lot more to this than you may realize.

    how to be an influencer on social mediaWhile it may be easy for you to create a new Facebook fan page and build a following of thousands of fans, what you need is active followers. An active follower or fan is someone who takes the time to comment and share your content. It is this activity that the major sites like Klout and Kred take into consideration when measuring your influence.

    It is possible to get your fans and followers to engage with you by following some simple steps. First remember that social media is about sharing content. While your main goal may be to have others share your content, this will not happen unless you share theirs first.

    Another aspect that you want to master is the one of listening. Listen and read the comments that your fans post and then take action on them. By doing this you are actually showing them that you are interested in what they have to say. This will help you build trust and respect amongst your followers and in turn this will improve your power of influence.

    Always remember to be yourself when using social media and don’t try to come over as you think people want you to. You should know what your brandhow to be a social media influencer is and what message you are trying to convey to people.  This places you in an honest light and again helps to build trust with your customers. After all you want to be someone who your customers can happily do business with.

    When it comes to adding content to your social media sites then always aim for quality content first. When having any type of social media conversation it is best to have one great conversation with one person than to try and have a mediocre one with ten or twenty people at one time.

    Social media is meant to be fun so don’t forget to include this in your business. You don’t always have to be serious. Exposing a fun side will not hurt your business at all. Instead it will make you look more human and friendly to your followers and more approachable.

    So instead of worrying about how to become the next best social influencer, just get out there and inject your personality into your sites. You may be surprised by what happens. And remember to have fun!

    If you are your looking for assistance with your social media influence please feel free to reach out to me. I understand what it’s like to struggle with the constant changes that happen in our fast paced business world and I’d be glad to be your guide. 

    http://my.vcita.com/d802bba6/scheduler

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  • Top 10 Ways that You Can Engage Your Clients thru Social Media

    One of the best things about online marketing is the advent of social media. Social media lets you promote your content, expand awareness of your brand, and engage with your clients and potential customers. But you can’t just send blind updates without doing just a bit more to ensure that your audience wants to engage with you. Getting your audience to respond to your calls to action is all about engagement. After all, social media is supposed to be social, right?

    Top 10 Ways that You Can Engage Your Clients thru Social Media

    1. Update Your About Pages &  Social Media Profiles

    First things first – start updating your “About” pages on your websites, and all your social media profiles. You want there to be no mistake what your brand stands for, and who you are. In addition, every change you make is a chance to cross-promote on other social media. Your About pages, Contact pages and Social Media profiles are great places to cross promote.

    2. Provide a Blurb of What’s to Come When Promoting Content

    When you share any content, whether yours or someone else’s, always provide a little blurb to help pique interest and make your audience curious. For instance, if you’re sharing a Top 10 Ways that You Can Engage Your Clients thru Social Media article, you might say something like “Pay special attention to tip number 2” in your promotions. This will make your audience want to click through to read the blog post or article. In addition, ask them “What’s your favorite tip? Come back and share here in the comments.”

    Top 10 Ways that You Can Engage Your Clients thru Social Media

    3. Use Multiple Types & Forms of Content to Keep Your Audience’s Interest

    Don’t only share one type or form of content. There are so many forms of content to choose from, such as images, text, eBooks, articles, blog posts, infographics, memes, videos and so forth. There are also many types of content (such as evergreen content) that will be current for a long time, and then there is newsworthy timely content that you will want to share as soon as it occurs. Keep your audience interested by being exciting and different.

    4. Never Forget Your Call To Action (CTA)

    When you share anything on social media, always remember to put a CTA. It’s also important to vary the CTA. For instance, sometimes you might say, “share this with your friends” another time you might say “comment if you disagree, like if you agree” or you might say “buy now” as your CTA. Whatever you choose as your CTA, don’t overwhelm your audience with too many choices. But always include one, and make it different than the last time.

    Top 10 Ways that You Can Engage Your Clients thru Social Media

    5. Show Off Your Personality (Let Your Helpers Do So Too)

    Consumers want to feel as if they’re engaging with real people. Since you’re a real person that should be easy. But, we often get so tied up with automation (which is wonderful and useful) that we forget to engage with people. If you outsource to anyone who is handling your social media, they don’t need to act like robots. Let them show their personality too. Keep your business’s mission statement handy not only for yourself but for those who represent your brand. As long as you stay on message, it’s okay to let your personality show through.

    6. Use Your Metrics To Improve Your Efforts

    What posts, updates, and sorts of shares are your fans currently interacting with the most? By knowing what the numbers say, you can use that information to increase your efforts in a smart way so that you avoid doing what isn’t working, and do more of what is working. Not every audience will respond the same to every type of content that you share. But it’s impossible to know without looking at the analytics. When is your audience online? What types of content do they like, share, respond to the most? Never rely on guesses; rely on the facts and figures that you can obtain.

    Top 10 Ways that You Can Engage Your Clients thru Social Media

    7. Use Apps & Technology to Improve Your Connections

    There are so many apps that you can use to schedule, study, and interact with your audience. Did you know that there are custom apps that you can use for Facebook that will help you run contests, encourage email sign ups, add a storefront and more? Try Heyo to create mobile optimized campaigns for Facebook. Want to create useful Facebook Tabs, awesome cover photos, scheduled posts and more? Try Pagemodo.com. There are apps that can do so much, the best thing for you to do is ask your colleagues what they use, or simply do a Google search.

    8. Keep Conversing With Your Audience

    Speaking of apps, you can put apps on your smartphone that enable you to speak with your audience at all times. You want to talk to them at “off” times as much as “on” times. You might seem too robotic if you only post on Monday through Friday during business hours. It’s also great to post from different locations; it shows that you’re a busy person who nevertheless cares about your audience. Be sure to use some automation for this, such as using apps to schedule weekend updates.

    Top 10 Ways that You Can Engage Your Clients thru Social Media

    9. Add the Right Metadata to Your Websites & Pages

    Metadata is information that essentially summarizes data on your site, like the title, description, author, date and other things such as identifying images and more. The thing to remember is which metadata is important to include on your website so that when you share a link on social media the right information is presented in an attractive way. This will make your audience want to click through.

    a. Titles – This is the keyword rich title of your article or blog post. On Facebook, it will show up in bold above the link.

    b. Description – This shows up under the link and is usually the first words of your article or blog post that are NOT header text.

    c. Image – You can use the code of your page to specify the images that are allowed to show up in the thumbnail.

    d. Canonical URL – Within the code of the site you can ensure that everyone goes to the same home page when clicking through to your site.

    It’s important to consider these factors when creating your WebPages and blogs so that when you or others share articles or blog posts they find interesting on their social media sites, it looks good and gets the message across that you want.

    10. Ask Your Fans What They Want

    Finally, never forget to ask your current fans, connections, and followers what they want from you. You can send out a survey, answer questions, and more to find out what your connections what. The more you give them what they want, the more they’re likely to engage with you in social media.

    Use social media to communicate the story of your brand. As you use these top ten ways to engage your audience in social media, try to remember what your business core values are, what the benefits of your products and services are to your clients, and your point of being on social media.

    Top 10 Ways that You Can Engage Your Clients thru Social Media

    Let us help you brand your business. Visit our services area on our site to find out how we can make YOUR BUSINESS more visible and unique. If you don’t see a service that you need let us know how we can help you GROW your business.

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  • 10 Ways that Social Media Can Drive Traffic to Your Website

    When you realize that the entire point of social media is to drive traffic to your website, which should be the center of your online marketing world, you start to use social media correctly. Social media is not supposed to be the destination of your followers. No, social media should only be the beginning of a long relationship that involves sharing, interacting, learning, and engaging.

     

    Use social media to remind followers to visit your website for more information, products and services. Use social media as a way to listen to what your audience wants. Use social media as the method by which you become an important industry expert from whom your audience seeks information. The following tips are used by industry experts, large organizations and businesses alike to drive traffic from social media to their websites. No need to reinvent the wheel, these ten tips work.

     

    1) Become a Thought Leader

    It may seem strange that the more popular you can become off the Internet, the more popular you will be on the Internet and the more people will connect with you, follow you, and then go to your website. Spread yourself around, write for other popular blogs, magazines, and newsletters then cross promote. Accept speaking engagements outside of the Internet but record them, and put them on YouTube.com, embed the recordings or links on your site, and share via social media. Write a book, and use that as your calling card.

    2) Create an Interactive Community

    People love to talk to each other about issues that affect them. If you really want to offer a huge benefit to your customers and potential customers, form a community around them. Create a message board that is interactive and generates a lot of visitor activity and participation. Promote the board, which will promote your website – thus gathering not only more traffic the first time you promote the forum, but if it’s active people will also come back again and again.

    10 Ways that Social Media Can Drive Traffic to Your Website

    3) Don’t Forget SEO

    Search engine optimization is a very important component in any online marketing strategy. Optimize for social media by including the right keywords, the right metadata, and including information about images, content, and more, so that you can be found. Remember to focus on both on-page and off-page SEO for best results.

     

     

    4) Engage on Social Media

    You can’t just open a social media account, fill out a profile, start blasting updates and expect any results unless maybe you already have celebrity status. You need to start with a plan, understand your goals, choose your tactics, and then seek to engage with others on social media to ensure that your plans happen and your goals are met.

     

    5) Listen to the Buzz

    A really great way to use social media is to use it to listen to the buzz about your business. But don’t just listen. When you find something about your industry or product in general, or your business in particular you want to ensure that you respond with the right answers, links, and information so that you can get your message out to participants. If you don’t find any buzz, create it. Make your own groups, start your own discussions, and share, share, share.

    10 Ways that Social Media Can Drive Traffic to Your Website

    6) Track, Measure & Adjust

    Find out which types of content get more shares, more comments and more action. Know what your customers want to read. Ask them what they need to know. The more you can track the success of your campaigns the more you can improve. You can actually adjust and improve any campaign in progress if you have the right information.

     

    7) Use Strategic Paid Advertisements

    Paid advertisements can be very expensive if you aren’t sure why you’re doing it. When it comes to social media, run an advertisement to get more signups for your newsletter or more likes on your Facebook Page. Then market your products and services to them that way, rather than using the ads as a way to market your product directly. While at first you may not notice much of a change in traffic, you will over time because you’ll have them in your marketing funnel.

    8) Use Varied Content on Social Media

    Mix up what type of content you share and add to your social media updates. Use newsworthy content, evergreen content and content in different forms like video, infographics, and text. You want to write a blurb before each share in order to pique the reader’s attention and share high-quality, relevant content on a regular basis.

    10 Ways that Social Media Can Drive Traffic to Your Website

    9) Work with Influencers

    There are always going to be “rock stars” in every industry that are well known and who can highly influence your audience. Researches who these people are, connect with them, and find ways to engage with them in a way that helps you leverage their audience to spread your message. If you can get an influencer to recommend your products and/or services to others, your traffic will explode.

     

    10) Present Content with Strong “Call to Actions”

    Never send out any content on social media without a call to action (“CTA”). Your CTA must be varied, and to the point. Don’t beat around the bush. If you want your audience to share your infographic, ask them to. If you want your audience to “like” your post, ask them to. If you want your audience to click through to read the rest of something on a website, ask them to. Finally, if you want them to buy something, ask them to buy it. Tell them the benefits of doing so, and ask them to do it.

    It’s clear that social media can be an important avenue to gain more traffic to your website or blog. But, it’s not going to happen automatically. You are going to have to work a little bit more to get the ball rolling. Fortunately, these tried and true tips really do work. By using them you will drive more traffic to your website from social media. Not only that, if you’re clear on your message you’ll drive targeted traffic that is ready to answer your calls to action.

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  • Twitter: Still Going Strong

    Twitter: Still Going StrongThere are a handful of big players in the social networking world. Twitter appears to be one of the sites that continue to grow in popularity. In fact, according to research compiled by Brickfish, as of October 2013 there are 231.7 million active users on Twitter worldwide and 100 million of them log into Twitter daily. So what is Twitter and why is it still growing when many of the other social sites are facing challenges?

     

    What Is Twitter?

     

    Put simply, Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that lets you send and read “tweets.” Tweets are text messages limited to 140 characters. However, within the context of any tweet you can embed links which makes it a powerful marketing tool for anyone with a blog or a website. Being able to link to other URLs means you can share value and information. You can share links from your own site as well as promote your fellow business owners to build relationships with customers, prospects, and associates.

     

    You can also make your tweets sharable by using the hashtag. The hashtag is the symbol # and it identifies the keywords for your tweet or post. Here are a few examples:

     

    * What are your favorite St.Patrick’s Day traditions? LINK #stpatricksday #StPattys

    * 10 tips to help you with your tax return LINK #taxreturn #taxtime #taxes

     

    People can search for your keywords and be led to your Twitter profile where they may follow you and/or share your links with others.

     

    The Power of the Masses

     

    Twitter continues to grow in popularity for a number of reasons. The first is that it is incredibly easy to use. Messages take seconds to write, share, and read. We’re a rushed society with little time to peruse long content. If something can be said and shared in just a few characters, we’re thrilled.

     

    So in addition to Twitter being easy to use, it’s also simple to share messages. One click of a “retweet” button and you’ve spread the wealth. That means, as a business owner, if you’re able to provide a tweet with value and benefit, it stands a good chance of being shared. Each time it is shared by someone, you’re reaching a larger audience. One tweet can quickly be viewed by thousands of people. The website traffic possibilities are astounding.

    Twitter: Still Going Strong

    Finally, the folks over at Twitter are continually striving to add value to the site to make it more user friendly and to provide more features. Their partnership with Vine means that people can now easily make and share six-second videos on Twitter. It’s just one more way Twitter is providing value and allowing people around the world to communicate.

     

    Business owners looking into marketing with social media may want to take a look at the benefits of embracing Twitter. It’s one site that is used by people of all ages and demographics. It continues to grow and provide value.

    If you need help in strategically planning your online marketing please let us know. We are here to help. Visit our https://strategizeyoursuccess.com/staging2/coaching-consulting.

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