Archives for September 2016
Top 5 Social Media Advertising Mistakes
Everybody knows that social media is one of the biggest advertising platforms for companies these days. There is so much potential because more people than ever before are connected online. Â Whether they use a PC, laptop, smartphone, or tablet, there are always massive amounts of people signed on to one of the big social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, etc.
Companies would be foolish not to advertise their brands on these cyber billboards, but they must be careful how they go about it.
In this post, we will discuss the 5 things companies are doing wrong in social media advertising that are causing them to lose followers.
Retargeting, also commonly referred to as remarketing, allows advertisers to show ads to people who have already engaged with them, in some way online. Through retargeting, ads highlighting your business are placed throughout other websites a viewer browses after leaving your page. This method of positioning ads online has proven to be extremely effective and it represents a powerful tool for online advertisers and marketers.
Mistake # 1: Over Promoting
The biggest mistake companies are doing is over marketing their brands on social media. Social media users are being bombarded with ads for the same product over and over again, and studies show that this annoys them to the point of unfollowing that brand. A study done by Sprout Social shows that too many promotions can not only be annoying and 46% responded that it would cause them to actually unfollow the brand.
But there is a catch-22 here. Many consumers say that they need to see the product advertised numerous times before they will purchase it. So marketing teams need to walk a thin red line when it comes to social media ads.
Mistake # 2: Irrelevant Information
Nobody likes to spend time reading content that doesn't suit their interests or is completely unrelated to the product being promoted. The promotions need to focus on the product and the interests of the consumer. Don't annoy them with off-the-wall nonsense that doesn't relate to your brand. For example, remember that Super Bowl commercial for the Mountain Dew energy drink? The one with the monkey baby thing? It made no sense at all and was completely unrelated to their product. They are already an established brand, but imagine if Mountain Dew was just entering the marketplace, nobody would drink it. Everyone I know had no idea what the purpose of that commercial was. The point is – irrelevant information just confuses the consumer.
Mistake # 3: Tweeting Too Much
This is an easy one to understand. This situation is like that annoying friend that just has to text you with every detail of their day, constantly blowing up your phone with alerts. Imagine a marketing team doing the same thing with promotions. Enough already! We get the point.
Mistake # 4: Using too many social media platforms
Go where your avatar goes. If your primary demographic is women and your site relies heavily on images and graphics, you should allocate resources to Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. If you offer professional advice, services or products, LinkedIn and Twitter will likely yield the best results. The networks you dedicate time to should yield the highest ROI for your niche and target demographic. Otherwise, your time, money and resources would be better spent elsewhere. Research shows that marketers generally focus on three social networks. However, the three social networks you should focus on depending on your niche or industry.
Mistake # 5: Just posting, not listening
Social listening and having a real person respond to comments is the key to success. Think of it as the new customer service platform, replacing the phone and often even live chat on your website. One study of major airlines found that companies who use Twitter for customer service leads to consumers not only being more satisfied with their experience, they were also more willing to pay more money for a ticket in the future.
In many cases, companies used social media to update, but have little to no participation in the conversation. Lack of conversation with your clients and followers decreases the value of your social presence. Participating in the conversation is a valuable way to build customer relationships. You want followers with brand loyalty, not fake followers that don't love what you do. And the worst part, this is likely to reduce your engagement rate, which in turn negatively affects your ability to remarket. The end result is a higher cost of advertising because you now have to force your company on an audience that feels like you are spamming them.
To sum things up, there is a thin red line to walk when promoting brands on social media. You don't want a collage of advertisements on someone's Facebook page but you do need to make sure your promotions are being seen a few times per consumer. Make sure your ads are focused on the problem that your product or service solves, and last but not least… ease up on the Twitter accounts.
Copyright 2016 Viral Solutions LLC
We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be fun again.
Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner, an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant and a Google Partner – Certified in AdWords.
Why Small Business Marketers Should Place an Emphasis on Mobile Design
With the proliferation of smartphones, more people are browsing the internet via mobile devices than ever before. In fact, more people are now performing web searches from mobile devices than desktop devices, a relatively recent development that is truly a sign of the technological times. A third of the world’s population is expected to own a smartphone by 2017, marking more than 2.6 billion smartphone owners across the world.
Simply put, more people than ever before are using these devices. Ultimately, smartphone users want the convenience of being able to access websites from devices they carry with them all the time.
This means marketers that work with small businesses need to stay up to date with all of the latest features and design options available for mobile devices. As smartphones continue to evolve rapidly, so too do the web and app design capabilities associated with them.
None of this is any great secret in the world of marketing. Yet only about 6 percent of small business websites have shifted to using mobile-friendly designs.
At the beginning of August, Google announced it would be bringing Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) to all of its mobile search results in the near future, and even provided a demonstration tool to allow searchers to see how it would work. By giving webmasters a heads up about this upcoming change, Google has provided them with the time they need to begin optimizing for AMP as well. People with Google Webmaster Tools accounts have already received numerous messages through the Google Search Console message center about the importance of adopting AMP and its impending presence.
There are several potential reasons for this. The biggest of these, however, is that smaller businesses have significantly fewer resources than larger companies, which means they might not be able to hire dedicated web design or mobile design specialists. As a result, the owner of the company might attempt to wear multiple hats, but might lack the knowledge to develop a mobile-friendly site.
But mobile-friendly web design is more important than ever before. This isn’t just about creating a more convenient customer experience either, though that is one huge reason to place an emphasis on mobile in web design. Now Google is pushing mobile harder than ever by punishing websites in searches that do not have mobile-friendly pages. Its development of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) shows just how committed Google is to driving a better, faster, and sleeker mobile experience for web users across the globe. Marketers that aren’t able to jump onboard could find themselves left in the dust.
A faster, more convenient web browsing experience
Speed and convenience are the two primary concerns associated with mobile web use. People want to be able to take their phone out of their pocket, type in a quick search and be able to browse slimmed down pages designed for their smaller devices.
This means that designing a mobile-friendly page must focus on features that create an efficient and user-friendly experience. The time it takes to load data is absolutely crucial, even more so than desktop browsing.
Here are just a few benefits associated with creating a mobile design, in addition to creating a better customer experience and keeping them on your website:
- Purpose-driven, high-quality content:  As mentioned earlier, Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) are the new standards for mobile pages. Facebook has also introduced Instant Articles, which will help you to get more clicks and higher search rankings. Basically, the idea with AMP and Instant Articles is to create content that fits snugly within a mobile screen, removes the “fluff” that creates slow load times and generally creates a sleeker experience for web users.
- Accuracy: There is a significant market demand for mobile sites that are user-friendly, responsive, and accurate. Designers need to be able to pare down how much time users are actually spending online, much of which is wasted due to slow loading times on mobile devices. The more nimble and more accurate designers can make their sites, the more they can cut down on load time, which leads to higher search rankings and a more efficient browsing experience.
- Greater credibility: We’ve gotten to the point in the technological world where not having a mobile-friendly website could be damaging to your business’s credibility. This is especially true if you work in tech or marketing fields yourself. Who’s going to want to hire a tech company that doesn’t even have a mobile site?! Staying on the cutting edge of the latest technology and placing an emphasis on mobile design will add instant credibility to your business and your website.
- Better performance: As we’ve noted, there are many aspects of mobile sites that allow you to trim down and get better performance. One big example is images. Images for mobile sites can be compressed to fit on smaller screens and decrease their file size, so they load more quickly. While you shouldn’t feel like you have to remove images entirely, you can get much better performance out of a mobile site by compressing them.
If mobile marketing is not a major part of your company’s strategy already, it should be. Contact us today at Viral Solutions for more information about how to develop a mobile campaign.
Copyright 2016 Viral Solutions LLC
We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be fun again
Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner, an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant and a Google Partner – Certified in AdWords.
Small Business Leadership | You've got problems if you're the smartest in the room
Your small business success is directly tied to the talent you acquire and how your leadership molds a culture that enables talent to thrive. Running a small business requires more than just having ideas or giving direction. It requires leadership. This is where we must be honest with ourselves. Not all of us were born leaders. Matter of fact, in most small businesses, the leader started the company with a passion for a craft, trade or product solution. They never intended to have to manage a team and run a business.
People often think that business leaders should be “the smartest person in the room.” After all, they’ve made it to the top — shouldn’t they be the best of the best? Shouldn't everyone be required to do what they say?
But this couldn’t be further from the truth. What's worse is when leaders pretend to be the smartest person in the room, even though the team knows they’re not.
You might overhear the chatter in the break room about that morning’s meeting or maybe a brave employee will deliver the bad news directly to you. Either way, it’s not a good feeling to know that people have lost faith in your leadership.
No one can always be the smartest person in the room. Everyone has particular areas of expertise. But when you talk about something you don’t really understand, that’s an instant way to lose the respect of your employees. True leaders draw on the talents of those around them in order to succeed.
Leadership Equality is a term that has to do with, the responsibility of leading being evenly distributed among many, as opposed to being concentrated into a few. In organizations today, we are seeing more business models with organizational structures that are moving towards focusing heavier workloads, responsibility for dictating strategic direction, and management responsibility onto middle management. To this end, we have seen more and more middle management positions calling for leadership tasks in a variety of organizations in different industries.
Jack of All Trades
Leaders typically work other jobs before moving up the ladder. For example, you might have been in sales or customer service. You have expertise in those areas and you should use that expertise.
But leaders need to deal with every facet of their business—from finance to human resources to marketing. They can’t afford to be specialists anymore. The professionals who work in those fields will have to educate you on what works and doesn’t work. Great leaders will listen to their employees to find the best way forward.
Advertising legend David Ogilvy once said, “If you ever find a man who is better than you are, hire him.” As a business leader, it’s important that you build a well-rounded team. You should understand your own abilities—your strengths, your weaknesses—and surround yourself with talented individuals who possess the skills you lack.
Unlike software programmers or financial analysts, C-level executives aren’t specialists. They have to be generalists, who can combine each component of the business into a coherent vision. A leader who starts barking commands that the team knows aren’t feasible isn’t going to last long.
Kick Out Your Ego
You’ve made it this far—aren’t you supposed to act confident and brash? Don’t people expect that in a leader?
People do expect you to make final decisions. And they do expect you to help the organization function as a single force. But they don’t expect you to know everything. It’s time to kick out your ego and get down to the serious business of being a leader.
The two things you need to do are ask questions and listen. You can learn about every aspect of the business through the talented people you’ve hired. After all, every successful company is made up of a collection of experts in every department. They have a lot to teach you. By showing them that you’re invested in what they do for the company, you’ll increase employee engagement.
Forget the Politics
Steve Jobs once said, “Do you really want to spend your life selling sugared water, or do you want to change the world?”
Herein lies the difference between leaders and imitators. The imitator is always selling something. They’ve played the political game — shaken the right hands, smiled at the right people — to climb the ladder and now they’re at the top. But they don’t know what to do! They’ve spent so much time on acquiring power that they don’t know how to properly use it.
But leaders are less concerned about obtaining power and more concerned about empowering their team. They believe in their company’s product and purpose. They’re ready to hire the right people, give them the right tools, and then get out of their way. They’re not concerned about being on the right side of an internal squabble or pleasing specific people just to keep their job.
Be Behind the Scenes
Leaders aren’t people who go in front and lecture their team on how to become better. Instead, they’re quietly, steadily working toward making their organizations better.
These are the kinds of leaders who set an example by doing the little things right. When someone comes to them with a problem, they work on a solution. When the company changes a policy, they fall in line. These leaders act like the kind of employees they want on their teams—without being explicitly public about it.
They also spread around credit when a job is done well. These leaders are quick to praise a good job. They’re also quick to provide new, motivating challenges for employees. They have their finger on the company’s pulse and keep the workplace environment stimulating.
Boost Your Self-Awareness
The leader who thinks that they’re the smartest person in the room lacks self-awareness. They don’t truly understand the conditions of doing business in today’s rapidly changing economy.
A self-aware leader also recognizes when they’ve made a mistake. They’re quick to take responsibility and devise ways to prevent future errors. These leaders learn from their failures and are better for them.
They also seek honest input from their team. If you don’t have a way for employees to provide anonymous feedback, that’s a problem. Of course it will appear that you have complete buy-in if you just personally ask every employee what they think about a new policy. Employees will think they’re risking their jobs that if they say anything negative to the boss. Instead, you need to solicit regular employee feedback that allows them to say what they’re really thinking.
Political science expert Richard Neustadt spent his career studying the US presidency. He found that the most successful presidents were those who surrounded themselves with trusted advisors who could provide detailed information about their subject of expertise. Despite the many brilliant men who have served as president, none was an expert in all the various fields that a president needs to be knowledgeable about. These presidents sought counsel from a variety of places and once they had obtained all the information they could, they acted decisively.
A Great Listener
This is the best way to improve a business. Listen to customers and employees. That's where solutions are found and the next big improvement comes from. Your role as a leader is to take what you've heard and decided how you will implement that change in your small business. Just make sure you give credit and show the love with a big thank you.
Strategic Long-Term Success
Katherine Colarelli Beatty writes in Forbes that the role of a leader is to balance day-to-day success with a long-term vision for the organization. Unfortunately, this skill exists in less than 10% of companies. Colarelli writes, “Leaders throughout organizations face tremendous pressures to make short-term numbers and show immediate wins. Operational leadership rules the day. This can lead to a lack of focus–as one executive recently put it, ‘We’re running fast in many different directions.' Additionally, leaders who excel at meeting short-term targets and solving functional problems may feel paralyzed and unsure when the challenges in front of them are far reaching and complex–a situation we’ve seen consistently in these recession years. How do we lead in ways that position a business for the future while meeting current demands? It does require a different set of skills from operational leadership. Strategic leadership requires us to think, act and influence others in ways that promote the enduring success of the organization.”
If you think you’re the smartest person in the room, you either have a perception problem or you’ve hired the wrong people. In case you are wondering, yes I too struggle with letting go of my “baby” Viral Solutions, but my team consists of some of the brightest minds in digital marketing today. There are days that the challenges are not unlike herding cats. Balancing cash flow in hyper growth mode while your team has referred the next goddess of search engine marketing for hire – well, that is the role of a small business business consultant.
“Getting things done as a leader is different than getting things done as a doer. Rather than cranking through the to-do list in your Moleskine, you look for people to disciple. Then, you open the Moleskine together. It’s less about a task list and more about empowerment. It’s about defining what the ‘win' looks like for your team and accomplishing that ‘win' through other people. You see, your goal at the end of the day isn’t to say, ‘I accomplished this, this, and this.' Your goal is to say, ‘Look at these people who were disciples. Look what we accomplished together.' You don’t have to know everything. You don’t have to be an expert in all the areas you lead.” ~ David Santistevan
Thomas von Ahn
Chief Elephant Slayer for Viral Solutions LLC
“Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful
men and women keep moving. They make mistakes but they
don’t quit.” — Conrad Hilton
Let's Chat! Set up an appointment with me HERE.
Small Business Leadership | You’ve got problems if you’re the smartest in the room
Your small business success is directly tied to the talent you acquire and how your leadership molds a culture that enables talent to thrive. Running a small business requires more than just having ideas or giving direction. It requires leadership. This is where we must be honest with ourselves. Not all of us were born leaders. Matter of fact, in most small businesses, the leader started the company with a passion for a craft, trade or product solution. They never intended to have to manage a team and run a business.
People often think that business leaders should be “the smartest person in the room.” After all, they’ve made it to the top — shouldn’t they be the best of the best? Shouldn't everyone be required to do what they say?
But this couldn’t be further from the truth. What's worse is when leaders pretend to be the smartest person in the room, even though the team knows they’re not.
You might overhear the chatter in the break room about that morning’s meeting or maybe a brave employee will deliver the bad news directly to you. Either way, it’s not a good feeling to know that people have lost faith in your leadership.
No one can always be the smartest person in the room. Everyone has particular areas of expertise. But when you talk about something you don’t really understand, that’s an instant way to lose the respect of your employees. True leaders draw on the talents of those around them in order to succeed.
Leadership Equality is a term that has to do with, the responsibility of leading being evenly distributed among many, as opposed to being concentrated into a few. In organizations today, we are seeing more business models with organizational structures that are moving towards focusing heavier workloads, responsibility for dictating strategic direction, and management responsibility onto middle management. To this end, we have seen more and more middle management positions calling for leadership tasks in a variety of organizations in different industries.
Jack of All Trades
Leaders typically work other jobs before moving up the ladder. For example, you might have been in sales or customer service. You have expertise in those areas and you should use that expertise.
But leaders need to deal with every facet of their business—from finance to human resources to marketing. They can’t afford to be specialists anymore. The professionals who work in those fields will have to educate you on what works and doesn’t work. Great leaders will listen to their employees to find the best way forward.
Advertising legend David Ogilvy once said, “If you ever find a man who is better than you are, hire him.” As a business leader, it’s important that you build a well-rounded team. You should understand your own abilities—your strengths, your weaknesses—and surround yourself with talented individuals who possess the skills you lack.
Unlike software programmers or financial analysts, C-level executives aren’t specialists. They have to be generalists, who can combine each component of the business into a coherent vision. A leader who starts barking commands that the team knows aren’t feasible isn’t going to last long.
Kick Out Your Ego
You’ve made it this far—aren’t you supposed to act confident and brash? Don’t people expect that in a leader?
People do expect you to make final decisions. And they do expect you to help the organization function as a single force. But they don’t expect you to know everything. It’s time to kick out your ego and get down to the serious business of being a leader.
The two things you need to do are ask questions and listen. You can learn about every aspect of the business through the talented people you’ve hired. After all, every successful company is made up of a collection of experts in every department. They have a lot to teach you. By showing them that you’re invested in what they do for the company, you’ll increase employee engagement.
Forget the Politics
Steve Jobs once said, “Do you really want to spend your life selling sugared water, or do you want to change the world?”
Herein lies the difference between leaders and imitators. The imitator is always selling something. They’ve played the political game — shaken the right hands, smiled at the right people — to climb the ladder and now they’re at the top. But they don’t know what to do! They’ve spent so much time on acquiring power that they don’t know how to properly use it.
But leaders are less concerned about obtaining power and more concerned about empowering their team. They believe in their company’s product and purpose. They’re ready to hire the right people, give them the right tools, and then get out of their way. They’re not concerned about being on the right side of an internal squabble or pleasing specific people just to keep their job.
Be Behind the Scenes
Leaders aren’t people who go in front and lecture their team on how to become better. Instead, they’re quietly, steadily working toward making their organizations better.
These are the kinds of leaders who set an example by doing the little things right. When someone comes to them with a problem, they work on a solution. When the company changes a policy, they fall in line. These leaders act like the kind of employees they want on their teams—without being explicitly public about it.
They also spread around credit when a job is done well. These leaders are quick to praise a good job. They’re also quick to provide new, motivating challenges for employees. They have their finger on the company’s pulse and keep the workplace environment stimulating.
Boost Your Self-Awareness
The leader who thinks that they’re the smartest person in the room lacks self-awareness. They don’t truly understand the conditions of doing business in today’s rapidly changing economy.
A self-aware leader also recognizes when they’ve made a mistake. They’re quick to take responsibility and devise ways to prevent future errors. These leaders learn from their failures and are better for them.
They also seek honest input from their team. If you don’t have a way for employees to provide anonymous feedback, that’s a problem. Of course it will appear that you have complete buy-in if you just personally ask every employee what they think about a new policy. Employees will think they’re risking their jobs that if they say anything negative to the boss. Instead, you need to solicit regular employee feedback that allows them to say what they’re really thinking.
Political science expert Richard Neustadt spent his career studying the US presidency. He found that the most successful presidents were those who surrounded themselves with trusted advisors who could provide detailed information about their subject of expertise. Despite the many brilliant men who have served as president, none was an expert in all the various fields that a president needs to be knowledgeable about. These presidents sought counsel from a variety of places and once they had obtained all the information they could, they acted decisively.
A Great Listener
This is the best way to improve a business. Listen to customers and employees. That's where solutions are found and the next big improvement comes from. Your role as a leader is to take what you've heard and decided how you will implement that change in your small business. Just make sure you give credit and show the love with a big thank you.
Strategic Long-Term Success
Katherine Colarelli Beatty writes in Forbes that the role of a leader is to balance day-to-day success with a long-term vision for the organization. Unfortunately, this skill exists in less than 10% of companies. Colarelli writes, “Leaders throughout organizations face tremendous pressures to make short-term numbers and show immediate wins. Operational leadership rules the day. This can lead to a lack of focus–as one executive recently put it, ‘We’re running fast in many different directions.' Additionally, leaders who excel at meeting short-term targets and solving functional problems may feel paralyzed and unsure when the challenges in front of them are far reaching and complex–a situation we’ve seen consistently in these recession years. How do we lead in ways that position a business for the future while meeting current demands? It does require a different set of skills from operational leadership. Strategic leadership requires us to think, act and influence others in ways that promote the enduring success of the organization.”
If you think you’re the smartest person in the room, you either have a perception problem or you’ve hired the wrong people. In case you are wondering, yes I too struggle with letting go of my “baby” Viral Solutions, but my team consists of some of the brightest minds in digital marketing today. There are days that the challenges are not unlike herding cats. Balancing cash flow in hyper growth mode while your team has referred the next goddess of search engine marketing for hire – well, that is the role of a small business business consultant.
“Getting things done as a leader is different than getting things done as a doer. Rather than cranking through the to-do list in your Moleskine, you look for people to disciple. Then, you open the Moleskine together. It’s less about a task list and more about empowerment. It’s about defining what the ‘win' looks like for your team and accomplishing that ‘win' through other people. You see, your goal at the end of the day isn’t to say, ‘I accomplished this, this, and this.' Your goal is to say, ‘Look at these people who were disciples. Look what we accomplished together.' You don’t have to know everything. You don’t have to be an expert in all the areas you lead.” ~ David Santistevan
Thomas von Ahn
Chief Elephant Slayer for Viral Solutions LLC
“Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful
men and women keep moving. They make mistakes but they
don’t quit.” — Conrad Hilton
Let's Chat! Set up an appointment with me HERE.
11 Key Skills Needed for Digital Marketing Positions in Today’s Industry
Many companies don’t have the resources to hire people with specialties in individual areas of marketing. Therefore today’s digital marketers are expected to wear a lot of hats. The smaller the business is, the more multi-talented a digital marketer is expected to be.
We've compiled a list of just 11 of these key digital marketing skills. But we could create a list that includes dozens. That’s how in-depth the field of digital marketing has become over the last decade.
Here are our eleven key skills needed for digital marketing positions in today’s industry:
The commitment of time and resources that is necessary at the outset can leave many business owners frustrated or exhausted. We’ve experienced this ourselves in our own business operations. So we know just how unpleasant it is and how it can come close to crushing the motivation you had that led you to start the business in the first place. We aren’t your standard tech geeks. Rather than forcing technology to be a solution to every problem, we apply our knowledge and sales processes to the technology that’s available to us. This makes for much more effective and streamlined marketing campaigns. Today, Viral Solutions’ mission is to provide our clients with the assistance needed to experience bursts of growth in their operations, and a big part of that is through the use of technology. When business owners feel overwhelmed, burnt out or unmotivated, we step in to give them the tools they need to achieve new levels of success.
- Matching Your Business Plan to Your Marketing Strategy and Tactics. Most digital marketers start out as “techy coder geeks” and they are very valuable. They are the ones that custom code applications and design software or mobile applications from scratch. But what is often missing with that skill set is business sense such as sales and marketing.  It's more than developing the code, you've got be able to match a business model to the software. You and your team have to be able to do what makes money for your small business. The tools they use should not hinder that production. Rather they should compliment them and give stakeholders the reports and measurables that it takes to track success. Most small business owners know what their core offer is. But many have difficulty converting that into language that conveys a problem with a solution. This will help you to create a customer out of a defined avatar. Marketing strategy trumps tactics! A skilled digital marketer should be able to coach and train your staff and handle your print media, too.
- Analytical skills.  This involves more than just being able to open up Google Analytics and check out a few numbers. It's not only knowing which analytics are important. You also need to understand what they say about your marketing and how you can use them to improve your operations. An in-depth review of analytics helps to pinpoint inefficient areas of your marketing. It can also highlight a chance to improve the overall customer experience. Marketers should be able to manage large databases and use past analytic information to predict future events.
- Content marketing. Certainly, this could perhaps be considered a baseline skill needed for a digital marketer. The best content marketing campaigns work to engage the audience while supporting business goals. Great content marketers are extremely creative and understand how to create written and/or visual content that is unique to their brand. They also have excellent research skills, allowing them to back up any points they make with verifiable facts.
- Copywriting. A content marketer might be great with strategy, but that strategy must be into action through high-quality writing. Today’s digital marketers should have outstanding grammar and spelling. Copywriting requires an ability to craft compelling sentences and content. The best digital marketers have the ability to do all this through the client’s unique voice.
- Social media marketing. Digital marketers must be comfortable with engaging customers across a variety of social media platforms. This helps to drive brand loyalty. One must be able to create integrated social media strategies and understand how to tap into customer loyalty in a way that is consistent with the company’s brand. Good social media marketers should be strong communicators and empathetic to the needs of the customer.
- Web development. Many small businesses are forced to condense their operations in a small team. Digital marketers can make themselves more attractive by having a solid knowledge of development and coding in addition to marketing strategy. This means being proficient with HTML, CSS and other coding languages. Even just knowing the basics so you're able to tweak elements of a website when needed can be a big help.
- Graphic design. Along the same lines as web development, digital marketers can make themselves more attractive by having some graphic design ability. They should be proficient with Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. Working together with the client, you can use graphic design to create banners, infographics and digital images for advertising that match current digital assets, logs and the targeted buyer persona.
- Mobile marketing. A knowledge of mobile devices and how to get traffic from them is an absolute must in today’s technological environment. For the first time, search traffic is coming predominantly from mobile devices, and the percentage of mobile use is expected to continue to increase in the coming years. Businesses who do not have digital marketers with mobile knowledge risk falling behind the curve.
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM). This refers to what we used to call Paid Search, Pay-Per-Click (PPC), AdWords, Cost-PerClick (CPC). Many digital marketers classify SEM as including Search Engine Optimization.  SEO is the act of improving a website's rank in organic listings, purchasing paid listings or a combination of these. Whew! That's a lot of technical terms, but all are important to understand and appreciate. The bottom line is that the skill is all about search engine advertising, whether that be organic or paid.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is truly a science that any digital marketer should be familiar with. Marketers should stay up to date with changes to search engine algorithms, understand how to research keyword volumes, create detailed keyword strategies, have a thorough understanding of Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics, and understand practices such as link-building and onsite optimization.
- Public relations. Public relations is all about knowing the right people and being able to develop strategic relationships. Today’s digital marketers need to understand how to position the brand, as well as how to reach out to key influencers on networks like LinkedIn and Social Media. Therefore, digital marketers should be polite, persistent, charming and hard-working. They should be outstanding brand ambassadors.
These are just 11 of the most important skills a digital marketer should have in today’s world, but one could easily list many more. Which skill do you feel is most important?
Thomas von Ahn
Chief Elephant Slayer for Viral Solutions LLC
“Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful
men and women keep moving. They make mistakes but they
don’t quit.” — Conrad Hilton
Let's Chat! Set up an appointment with me HERE.