2011 November | Digital Gutter Space - Social Media and Digital Marketing Knowledgebase

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Archive for November 30, 2011

Creating Content That Sells

November 30, 2011

Viewers, Listeners, Readers, everyone needs to be entertained, amused, educated in one go. That’s the reason why they come to your website, switch on their TV or read a book. That’s the content they are looking for. The kind of content that you create can shape your business in a big way.

Be it a B2C or a B2B company, one needs to create the right kind of content that will be lapped up by the audience and shared on various social networks. But, what are the points that you need to focus on?

Defining Your Target Audience

When you are beginning off with your marketing, you need to sit down and make a note of the target market. This means you need to find out about the shape of the audience that your content will focus on. Always play the role of a problem solver and aim to provide an updated information in the industry.

For further reading, here’s a cool article from Jeff Bullas.

Tips to Getting the Best Out of Your Internet Marketing Strategies

November 29, 2011

An internet marketing strategy largely depends upon the kind of blog that you carry out, the kind of brand image that you have in the market, and the kind of publicity that the brand receives in the real world vis-a-vis the online world.

The importance of carrying out a successful Internet marketing campaign largely depends on certain key factors -

Driving Website Traffic
Dominating Social Networking Platforms
Viral Nature of your brand

One of the most important part of social media marketing is social media monitoring. Without the right kind of monitoring, your social media campaigns are similar to head-less chicken and can strip you off valuable capital.

How can you monitor your reach? How can you measure your brand’s shareability quickly from the various social networks. Thankfully, there are a number of tools that you can use. The best one in the lot is Klout. All you need to do is link your online profiles to the website and it will display your reach. The higher, the better.

The next important that we find very useful is Hootsuite. The tool lets you create personalized reports. From Google Analytics integration to Facebook Insights, Hootsuite is really the tool that you can actually make sense of.

If you want your brand to go viral, then you cannot exclude videos. Websites like YouTube, Vimeo can make your brand famous. Thanks to their analytics, you can really make a big difference to the quality of your video. There are a number of companies which are really benefiting from YouTube’s Hot Spot feature which shows advertisers on the part of the video that really stands out and the part which is boring!

On top of the three tools above, you need to really delve deep into your Google Analytics report and find out the reasons for the bounce-rate and the traffic jumps. This will definitely help you to make sense of your campaign.

When you are aware of your surroundings, you can really achieve success. For example, the companies which were quick to create Google+ Business Pages really made a fast buck than those which wasted too much time in deciding on the jump. It’s all about finding the right opportunity and working on it.

Must-Have Productivity Tools for Small Businesses

November 25, 2011

Small business owners are passionate about their job. They are eager to try out new stuffs but they are absolutely ill-equipped to track their productivity. When you are a small business owner, you need the right kind of tools to help your case. Thankfully, there are a number of tools out there in the market which let you do just that.

DropBox

If you are using multiple computers, then you need to have DropBox installed. This makes file-sharing, a breeze. Whenever you update the folder, it automatically syncs with all others. Setup is a hassle-free affair.

Evernote

Tired of finding that one business card from hundreds of them? Try Evernote. This let’s you prepare notes on the go (iPhone, iPad compatible) and let’s you forget all your worries with maintaining documents as it remembers, quite literally, everything you tell it.

For more cool tools, read this nice piece by that Canadian Girl.

Top 5 Avoidable Social Media Mistakes

November 22, 2011

Being on social media, carrying out online marketing means you need to be constantly on your toes and avoid committing mistakes. Most mistakes can be avoided with a little foresight. All you need to do is keep your eyes and ears open.

We often come across news stories of failed social media campaigns. Here are the top 5 avoidable social media mistakes!

Just Being on Social Media

This is the biggest mistake that companies often do when they are on social networking sites. There are a number of companies which have created their own social media profiles much deliberation. However, just by being there won’t help your case at all. You need to begin working on your account and get more followers over the due course of time.

Zero Link-Back

Any SEO-guru would tell you, with social media, you get a chance to carry out certain SEO-steps as well. Be it any social networking account – Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, they all allow you to place your website URL on the profile. This way, you not only get instant link-backs to your website but also bring hundreds and thousands of visitors to your website to check out your products and services.

Slow in Claiming Your Social Accounts

The least you can do to ruin your online image is by being sloppy in claiming your accounts. The recent Bank Of America fiasco should serve as a reminder for business managers to wake up and grab the accounts as quickly possible in the emerging social media platforms.

Linked Personal and Business Accounts

This is just wrong. When you are looking for a sure shot way to attract attention for your business, you need to de-link your personal and business accounts. This will help in not only creating a forward-facing social media presence but one that is identifiable.

No Call-To-Action

According to Momentus Media, asking someone to ‘Like’ increases interaction by 216%! So, if you tweet with no call-to-action, if you post updates with no action words, then your social media campaign will fall face first.

Try out these subtle changes and you will definitely see a marked change in your social media campaign

Tips to Make Your Blog Popular

November 21, 2011

Most Small business owners start blogging just like that. They don’t pay adequate attention to it. Unfortunately, most of them don’t have the requisite knowledge or expertise to sustain their blog. However, there are a number of companies which have successfully been able to blog and make it popular in the long run. How is that possible? Well, they create content that people love to share!

When you have a blog that often gets shared with others, you know you are hitting the right note. Here is how you can achieve success with your blog -

Interact

The first step towards a positive direction is by interacting with your audience. When you interact with your audience, you re-instill their faith in you and your business. Through the comments section, you can track the mood of your audience and track complains and queries. Effectively handling the problems faced by your customers will help you win them in the long run.

Give them Ideas that Work

When you are sharing something with your readers, be sure to back up the idea with ample stats. Readers would love to try out your ideas only when you are able to prove to them that these ideas work. It’s all about empowering your audience in the long run.

Precise

If you have something worthwhile to say to your readers, you need to prevent yourself from spamming their inbox. Be short and concise and connect with them through your posts. Although a lengthy blog is always welcome, it really isn’t a necessity. Short, informative and above-all humor-laced posts always win reader’s heart.

Help Readers share Your posts!

Use as many tools and widget to ignite sharing. There are hundreds of widget of various designs and shapes which let you make your post shareable. You will definitely see a dramatic increase in traffic hits.

Pay Attention to Headline and Closing

A blog headline and closing paragraph must be given utmost preference. When you are able to provide an attractive headline and end the post with a certain call-to-action function, you are bound to evoke readers and get their feedback regarding the post. A post that doesn’t get the right kind of feedback, or worse, no feedback at all, is harmful in the long run.

Make your blog popular by focusing on the content that you share. Always have something new for your readers and they will love getting back to you over and over again.