Archives for October 2016
Tips to Help Your Business Engage in Better Real Time Marketing
If you are going to commit yourself to taking digital marketing seriously with your small business, you need to be able to adapt and shift your campaigns quickly. After all, things move fast on the internet, and it’s important that you’re able to stay ahead of the game. The farther you fall behind with digital marketing trends and information related to your market, the more out of touch it will make your company look.
With this in mind, here are a few tips to help your business engage in better real-time marketing:
- Be prepared: If you’re going to successfully run a real-time marketing campaign, you must stay up-to-date with the latest news in your market and in the world and pop culture in general. When a marketing opportunity arises, you must be prepared to act quickly. Therefore, have a plan in place that outlines how you will create real-time ads as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
- Produce more bite sized content: While there is definitely always a place for in-depth, long-form articles in your content marketing, the success of real-time marketing hinges primarily on your ability to create numerous bursts of short content and advertisements. Producing a lot of simple, timely content ensures you aren’t spending too much energy and time on ads that don’t perform well. This isn’t to say you should spam your online audience, just that you should have some variance in the size and style of your content marketing.
- Know what separates trending topics: Social media networks like Twitter and Facebook have made it easier than ever for marketers to identify which topics are trending on a local, national and global scale. Trending topics are just beginning to grab the public attention, and are more likely to generate more buzz and searches than topics that are already popular and already have an established base of followers. Understand what makes a “trending” topic different than a “popular” topic, and try to capitalize on these trending topics whenever appropriate.
- Have content prepared ahead of time: If you have reason to believe a topic is going to be trending in the near future, prepare content to capitalize on that topic ahead of time. For example, the Super Bowl is going to be a trending topic in the weak leading up to the first Sunday of February every single year. You can create Super Bowl-related content long before the event actually occurs so you’re ready once it begins trending.
- Think twice before you press “submit:” Make sure you understand why a topic is trending before you decide to jump aboard the trend. There have been too many incidents to count of brands committing social media snafus because they did not entirely understand a hashtag or trending topic. The last thing you want is to damage your brand image because you did not do your research.
Follow these tips, and you’ll be on your way to significantly improving your real-time digital marketing!
Queen of the Machine for Viral Solutions LLC
“If a brand genuinely wants to make a social contribution, it should start with who they are, not what they do. For only when a brand has defined itself and its core values can it identify causes or social responsibility initiatives that are in alignment with its authentic brand story.” ~ Simon Mainwaring
Why it is Important to be Consistent with Your Content Creation
By now, most business owners understand that content creation is an essential part of any digital marketing campaign. But it is always important to stress just how important it is to be consistent with creating this content.
More than any other type of online marketing, content creation is built for long-term results and a failure to keep up with developing and publishing new content could damage the long-term success of your digital marketing campaign.
Here are a few of the biggest reasons why it is important to be consistent with your content creation:
- It keeps your audience engaged: If you publish content rather infrequently, it’s easy for your audience to tune out. This is especially important if you are still working on building your audience in the first place. You can’t expect people to stick around and wait for new content if you don’t already have an established reputation of regularly developing high-quality content. Getting into a routine of developing new videos and blog posts.  Try sharing them around the same time every week or day.  You'll be able to condition your audience to expect new content and keep them coming back to your website and social media channels.
- It keeps people thinking about your brand: Regular content creation works as a nice little nudge to help keep your brand at the front of their mind. As a result, they will be more likely to remember your company while they are making purchase decisions.
- It establishes credibility: If you are regularly releasing high-quality, informative content, you will quickly become seen as a thought leader and build influence within your industry. You cannot underestimate the importance of this kind of respect from readers.
- It boosts your SEO: One of those aforementioned long-term benefits of consistent content marketing is better Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Search engines place a tremendous amount of value on the frequency with which you publish new, high-quality content. This makes a blog a particularly pivotal SEO tool. The higher your site climbs in search rankings, the more visibility you have and the more new business you are likely to get.
Looking to kickstart your company’s content marketing campaign? Viral Solutions is happy to be of assistance. Contact us today for more information about how to get started.
Copyright 2016 Viral Solutions LLC
Prior to joining Viral Solutions, Christine held executive leadership roles at some of the largest small business consulting firms in the USA. Her experience includes leading direct reports of over 130 remote sales agents who generated $38mm in annual revenue. She obtained her Marketing degree from British Columbia Institute of Technology. Bring her C-Suite experience to your small business. Although our company is virtual, and we can work with you wherever you are located, she is located in Denver, Colorado and owns a second home in Vancouver, BC Canada.
Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner and an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant.
We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves, so business can be fun again.
Marketing = Communication on a schedule
This is a special guest post from our friend Michael Angelo Caruso. To learn more about Michael, make sure to check out his website at MichaelAngeloCaruso.com.
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One popular version of the American Dream is that every US citizen should be able to own a profitable business.
Of course, most dreams are not based in reality. It turns out that running a company is a lot more difficult than opening the restaurant doors and turning on the ice machine.
A business owner must be well-versed in business law and know, for example, that it’s illegal to ask certain questions when interviewing prospective employees.
Some tasks can be hired out, but business owners should have a working knowledge of bookkeeping, presenting, accounting, time management, taxation, human resources, inventory control, and other essential management skills.
Even communication, a business function that doesn't require a lot of specialized training, has been made more complicated by the speed of life and the development of technology tools. Thirty years ago the average person didn’t need to know much about font sizes and pixels, right?
Indeed, technology is changing how businesses communicate. The process is becoming less of an art and more like a science.
It can be said, for example, that marketing is “communication on a schedule.” And schedules are critical if you're dealing with budgets, payroll, and loan payments.
Ideally, revenue also occurs on a schedule. That restaurant owner I referenced earlier must be successful in getting a high percentage of first-time visitors to return again within the first 100 days of opening…or else.
So, we business owners also need to understand the brave new world of marketing.
Marketing as a science
Online marketing has certainly become more scientific.
In the early days of the Internet, people opened every email they received because the concept was new and exciting. But these days, a business is lucky to get even a 10% open rate from a bulk email blast. Email fatigue is just one of the communication hazards we must navigate.
That's why it's important to work with a marketing company that understands selling systems. It's critical that your business marketing strategy be methodical and organized. And your system for monitoring analytics must be rigorous–even meticulous.
After all, your competition has access to the same systems, yes?
I’ve learned a lot from Thomas Von Ahn and his talented crew at Viral Solutions. I love their scientific approach to marketing.
My busy speaking schedule often distracts me from marketing issues, so I can’t dedicate the time necessary to create and monitor marketing campaigns. It’s a lot easier to spend money on Facebook advertising than to monitor the results, right?
When marketing a business, you want a distribution list that features both quantity and quality. You need to reach more people in order to earn more revenue. But they must be the right people, folks who are qualified buyers.
And truth be told, you need several such lists: one list on Facebook, one on Linkedin, one primary “dist list,” etc.
That's where a marketing company such as Viral Solutions can be very helpful.  They use technology to create marketing synergy between lists. Powerful things can happen when your personal Facebook following becomes aware of your business newsletter.
The Viral Solutions team has found ways to get my email campaigns to work with social media, and have even arranged Audience Response Systems that allow audience members to interact with me during my presentations.
This is especially helpful when I speak overseas. It’s challenging to ship my physical products to England, for example, so Viral showed that audience members can send a text to register for my events and order products on the spot.
Of course, anyone who sends a text is instantly added to my Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) and I explain to the audience that they will be receiving more tips from me via email.
Viral Solutions then tags all interested parties as living in “England” so that I can market to them upon my return to the United Kingdom. Pretty cool!
A wise man once said, “If you can measure it, you can manage it.” We routinely run reports on all fields in the CRM, slicing and dicing the information to decide what we should keep doing, stop doing, and start doing.
All of which improves our overall marketing results.
Repurposed content, sustainable campaigns
We've moved from being a disposable society, where we throw everything away, to a sustainable society, where we repurpose and recycle. This is called going “green” because these initiatives are good for our environment.
The marketing industry has followed suit. Websites are now more important than printed brochures. In many situations, texting has become more important than sending emails. When your marketing goes “green,” you’ll make more money.
Viral Solutions has clever ways of repurposing and recycling content.
They taught me to use a “lexiconic avatar” that’s all tricked out with my most important keywords such as keynote, speaker, consultant, sales, motivation, author, and so on.
All of my blog articles and email subject lines use these keywords to deploy Viral’s “lead magnets” and “triggers” to attract attention, help people, and of course, create revenue.
We also automate messaging on Twitter, schedule Facebook posts, and repurpose the infographics that test the best.
When you approach business marketing as a science, you’ll benefit from a system that works almost all the time.
Carl Sagan said that science is not just a body of knowledge, it’s a way of thinking.
Indeed, a way of working.
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Written by Michael Angelo Caruso — a veteran keynote speaker with 20 years of experience, Michael is an exciting addition to nearly any conference, annual event or industry trade show. Michael has a relaxed, conversational style of speaking that is both entertaining and educational. He often involves members of the audience, an exciting way to hold the attention of attendees and make your event more effective, as well as more fun.
Getting Better at Managing Your Business’s Reputation Online
With today's technology, it's now easier than ever to assess what customers and the general public think of your business. In just a few minutes, you can access ratings, reviews, or social media chatter to see what people are saying about your company. Why they either love it or hate it and what their overall experience has been like while working with you.
This is, of course, a double-edged sword. Customers are now able to make more informed purchase decisions than ever before and can much more easily get an idea of the quality of services or products offered by a specific company.
However, business owners need to take greater efforts to handle their reputation online and make sure they’re putting a positive image out there for their customers.
If people are talking about you and your business online, you want to know about it. As a small business, it’s important to monitor your online reputation. Gaining the trust of consumers will make or break your company. Positive reviews and word of mouth marketing equate to trust and most people flock to online sites to review a business or get the opinion of friends and acquaintances. It’s essential to your business that you monitor what customers are saying so that you can promote the positive reviews and make amends with the negative. “6 Tools for Monitoring Your Online Reputation” by Alexa Matia at Entrepreneur.com
Monitoring versus management
To truly get a handle on your online reputation, you need to understand the major differences between monitoring and managing your reputation. While both of these tasks are done to ensure you are maintaining a good reputation, they are performed in different ways.
Reputation monitoring is essentially staying vigilant as to what others are saying. This is, of course, important—you can’t manage or change your reputation without first understanding what people are saying about you. Management, however, involves the decisions you make and the actions you take to begin influencing people’s opinions about your brand.
Simple tips for better online reputation management
If at all possible, you should have someone on staff who is there specifically to handle your online reputation. Of course, not all small business owners have the resources at their current stage to hire someone specifically designated to public relations, so you as the business owner might need to temporarily take on that task.
You need to be able to find solutions for any issues that arise in your reputation monitoring, such as common consumer complaints or suggestions. Time is of the essence. The longer you delay, the more potential harm your reputation could incur. Additionally, you must be able to plan for the future so that your company can avoid these issues popping up again.
Here are a few basic principles of good online reputation management:
- Using the right tools: There are a number of tools that help with monitoring and managing your reputation online. One of the best free tools is Social Mention, which is fantastic for combing through the internet for mentions of your brand on social media, whether it’s by customers or competitors. The tool shows you exactly where mentions are coming from, so you can see them in context and interact with the person who mentioned you, if so desired. BrandsEye is another tool that helps you track what people are saying on social media. It's a more sophisticated option, but a bit more expensive. Finally, the simple-to-use Google Alerts tool directs you toward mentions of your company in press releases, blog posts, and various news articles.
- Be as transparent as possible: The more “real” and transparent your business is, the more people will like and respect it. It will make you more relatable and trustworthy in the eyes of your customers.
- Monitor review sites: Keep an eye on the major review sites on which your business might be listed, such as Yelp, Google Reviews, Angie’s List and more. You can respond directly to customers who leave both positive and negative reviews on their site. If the reviews are negative, you can take steps to address the problem and invite the customer back to get a better experience the second time around.
- React appropriately: Whether or not you believe your customers to have legitimate complaints about the way you do business or about your products or services, you should be polite at all times and respond as promptly as possible. Of course, if someone is attempting to perpetuate falsehoods about your company, this is against the law and you could potentially take legal action if you believe it is worth it.
These are just a few of the most basic guidelines for better online reputation management for brands of all types. For more in-depth tips for your specific business and more information about the various types of tools available to make reputation management even easier, contact us today at Viral Solutions and we will be pleased to be of assistance.
Queen of the Machine for Viral Solutions LLC
“If a brand genuinely wants to make a social contribution, it should start with who they are, not what they do. For only when a brand has defined itself and its core values can it identify causes or social responsibility initiatives that are in alignment with its authentic brand story.” ~ Simon Mainwaring
Analyzing How Social Media Influencers Use Hashtags on Twitter
One of the best strategies to help build a social media presence within your industry is to follow the example of influencers in your industry. These are people who have a significant following on social media, who tweet a lot and have shown a willingness to share content from others or respond to their followers. If you are able to build a rapport with these influencers and follow their lead in terms of how they use their social media channels, you will be able to build up your online audience more quickly.
Ever since Twitter started to be considered a viable marketing channel, people have been pushing the use of hashtags as a marketing tool. However, as more and more users have flooded Twitter and ultimately introduced bots, it’s not at all uncommon for hashtags to be taken over by spam.
Does this mean hashtags are becoming irrelevant? Or does it simply mean we need to evolve in terms of how we use them?
To answer this, let’s consider how influencers are using hashtags. Here is a quick overview:
Many influencers don’t use hashtags regularly
Before we analyze exactly how hashtags are being used, it’s important to note that there are many influencers who simply don’t use hashtags, or at least not regularly. One study took a look at 15,000 tweets sent by 30 of the most influential tweeters in the world of technology, innovation and marketing. Out of those tweets, only about 1,900 used any hashtags, accounting for about 13 percent of all the tweets analyzed. Approximately 25 percent of those hashtags came from a single user of those 30, twice as many as the next closest user.
Of course, this doesn’t necessarily help small business owners who are attempting to build a digital following. Influencers might not need to rely on hashtags as much, because they’ve already built a solid audience. So let’s take a look at how hashtags are being used.
Generic hashtags are the most popular
Contrary to what some people believe, you don’t necessarily need a branded hashtag to build an audience. While branded hashtags can provide more opportunities for unique consumer interaction, generic hashtags expose you to a wider range of people. The five most-used hashtags in the aforementioned study were (from first to fifth) #ContentMarketing, #SocialMedia, #Marketing, #Blogging and #SMM. Clearly, there is at least some level of power in using generic hashtags.
They only use one per tweet
When you analyze the tweets by savvy social media influencers that do contain hashtags, the ones that do contain hashtags will most likely only have a single hashtag. Any more than that and the message begins to look spammy and unprofessional. This will more likely hurt than help your brand.
The general idea is that less is more when it comes to how you use hashtags. Even though using more hashtags might get you more visibility, the damage it does to your professional image online simply isn’t worth it.
They call out specific niche markets
If you have tweets that are geared toward one specific niche or audience, you can use hashtags to call them out. That’s a strategy straight out of the book of many savvy social influencers. While you might not get as many people noticing your tweets by using a hashtag for a specific niche, you are more likely to find people who are interested in that particular message. Not every tweet needs to be written with the whole world in mind. Sometimes tailoring your message for smaller audiences actually helps you find better success.
They’re used at events
Many of the biggest influencers in the marketing/tech sphere are regularly attending conferences, trade shows and expos relating to their field. These events almost always have their own specific hashtag, so people can easily follow along with the developments at the event that day. Not only do these hashtags serve to keep people at the actual event connected and talking with each other, but they also help update followers about what they’re learning and experiencing at these events.
This is a general overview of the ways in which today’s biggest influencers in technology and marketing on Twitter use hashtags. We encourage you to follow influencers in your field, study their methods and engage with them in a way that creates a digital relationship and could potentially lead to you gaining followers of your own.
For more information about digital marketing and social media strategies to take with your small business, contact us today at Viral Solutions.
Copyright 2016 Viral Solutions LLC
Prior to joining Viral Solutions, Christine held executive leadership roles at some of the largest small business consulting firms in the USA. Her experience includes leading direct reports of over 130 remote sales agents who generated $38mm in annual revenue. She obtained her Marketing degree from British Columbia Institute of Technology. Bring her C-Suite experience to your small business. Although our company is virtual, and we can work with you wherever you are located, she is located in Denver, Colorado and owns a second home in Vancouver, BC Canada.
Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner and an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant.
We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves, so business can be fun again.