Effective Social Media Marketing Tips that are Often Overlooked

social media marketing

Almost all people all people know what is being talked about when they hear the term social media. Most of them will associate it with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and others. But what is social media marketing or SMM all about? How do you optimize its advantages?

Social media marketing goes way beyond simply posting comments or copy-pasting information about a product or service. While the goal of this is to gain more exposure through social networks, there are still a lot of things that have to be considered. Just like in physical business, comparing types of signs is a norm.

Check out these fundamental but often overlooked things when it comes to marketing through social media:

Choose the Right Platform

There are a lot of social media platforms sprouting everywhere. But the no-brainer sites for reaching out to a wide audience remain to be the forerunners like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Aside from having a broad reach, these come with advertising tools specially-designed for promoting a customer’s products and services.

There are instances also that some locally-known networking sites could come in handy. That is if your product or service is only focused on attracting the people that belong in that certain place. However, the safe bets for attracting customers remain the mentioned top social networking sites.

Combine SMM with Content Marketing Program

Examples of content marketing programs are blogs and the ever-popular YouTube. The combination of these and SMM will not only offer more exposure to a product or service, it will also increase the chances of your potential customers of buying what you are offering, especially when the presentation of the information related to what you are selling is attractive to them.

Connect with Other Users

One way to maximize the advantages brought about by social media marketing is by taking an effort to connect to your potential customers or just about everyone in your friends or followers list. Answer questions or concerns centered into your product or service. React also to what others are posting in order to establish a relationship with your potential customers that stretches a little more than the standard buyer-seller connection. Let them feel that you care about them and you are interested with what they are talking about.

Encourage Others to Share Information About Your Business

Encouraging other people to share your posts is not just about telling or asking them to do it. By taking the initiative to follow them back or share their posts too, most of them will respond by doing the same. Thus, the saying, “Do unto others what you want others to do unto you,” applies here.

Observe Proper Netiquette

Don’t be arrogant, avoid offensive posts, and don’t spam. These just among the many don’ts  in the world of social media marketing. However, despite the simplicity of these rules, people still tend to forget and break them. Keep in mind that your conduct is a reflection of your business, so always be mindful of your actions and apply extra patience in dealing with people even the unruly ones.

Maintain Quality

Whatever it is you are advertising, make sure its quality is always at par with the expectations that have resulted from your promises to your target market. While it is always very tempting to apply terms that seem too good to be true, customers who will test or eventually buy your goods or services will inevitably find out what it is lacking or its flaws.

You don’t have to highlight the flaws of what you are promoting. Instead, just keep the tone of your marketing near realistic levels. Don’t get the people’s hopes up far higher than what you can offer.

Harnessing Your Internet Marketing Skills: What You Should Know

internet marketing skills

Internet marketing is a necessary strategy one should have in his/her arsenal in order to advance one’s business. Although you might not necessarily need the Internet to sell your products, you still should utilize it to lead potential customers to your website. When they reach your website, you can then market your products and services, which they can check out personally if you have an actual store or shop.

1. Learn About Internet Marketing

If you don’t know much about Internet marketing, you should surf the web and read about how it revolutionized modern advertising and marketing strategies. Get to know how you can utilize banner ads, web pages, online shopping and online marketplaces. Websites such as Craiglist, Amazon and eBay can help you get a better idea of what you should do with your own sites.

If there are websites that can teach you the right Internet marketing strategy, then there are also blog articles and resource pages that can boost what you currently know about marketing your products and services. Read as much as you can about Internet marketing, so that you can get a pretty good idea about what you need to do.

2. Sign Up For Online Marketing Classes

Since you will be too busy with your business to take up a regular marketing class, you can instead take an online class that will teach you the different strategies of Internet marketing. You can learn a lot from free online classes, resources and journals. Take one basic course at a time, so you can really focus on what strategy will work best for your business.

3. Check Out Which Social Media Will Work For Your Business

Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn or Google Plus, you won’t do wrong with trying to advertise or market your business through social networking sites. You have to pick the right social media for Internet marketing. Yes, there is such a thing as the right social media. You have to harness where to focus your resources exactly. It would be perfect if you can balance the number of people following all your social accounts. However, since that will take a lot of effort and energy, you should put extra attention on the social media where you have a large following.

4. Choose The Best Strategy

Based on what you have read on the Internet and what you read from blog articles, you can produce a strategy that will help your business in attracting customers through Internet marketing. Your products and services must speak for themselves. Look for similarities and differences with your competitors. Know what works for them and what did not, and always learn from the experiences of the other websites.

Before investing all your resources in one particular strategy for Internet marketing, make sure you have all the right material to market your products and resources. Don’t dive into something you are not sure of. Although risks are unavoidable in Internet marketing, you have to take all the possible precautions to protect your investment whether it’s a traditional ira or SEO.

How To Take Advantage of Pinterest in Internet Marketing

pinterest for internet marketing

Pinterest is not like Facebook and Twitter wherein interaction is the name of the game. Pinterest relies heavily on images, videos and descriptions, making it one of the most obvious methods you can market your products and services through the Internet. Established in 2009, Pinterest has over one million visitors daily who pins, re-pins, likes and shares the boards created on the site.

And thanks to iOS and Android applications, it has now become easier for business people to present their products and services in a more interesting way. Truly, Pinterest is now an Internet marketing tool that marketers can utilize in order to make sure their products and services reach the right audience.

1. Create Unique Boards

Don’t just create vague and general boards such as “things I like,” “fashion” or “Pearl Rings.” Create something that will surely be noticed by potential customers. If you are selling dresses, you may term it as “cute and fashionable dresses from the US.” If you are selling iPhone accessories, you should also create a name that pertains to those products.

2. Use High-Quality Images

Potential customers will naturally be more attracted to your boards if you use high-quality images that will show the beauty of your products. You can only imagine how uninteresting images with crappy resolution are. Use images that are 600 to 800 pixels wide and 1000 pixels deep. If the image is too small, your followers may not be able to re-pin it. And if they can find the same image with a better resolution on another website, they might use that image and you will lose traffic on your site.

3. Invite Followers

Doing Internet marketing on Pinterest relies heavily on how many followers you can attract. Since Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are still the most popular social networking sites out there, you must post links there to your Pinterest account. Also, you might be able to attract more customers if you give out prizes for your followers who can get the more likes for a board they re-pinned from your account.

4. Add Detailed Descriptions

It is not only important that you post high-quality images on your Pinterest account. It is also highly vital that you add detailed descriptions on your boards. Describe your products or your services and make sure to word the descriptions in such a way that can attract consumers. Give the details they need and answer questions as they were posted.

5. Link The Boards Back To Your Actual Site

A Pinterest account is not enough to make a successful Internet marketing bid. You have to link the boards to your website wherein they will find more information about your business. Pinterest is one of the top social networking sites that has a high referral rate, so you have to make use of this interesting tidbit.

People pin thousands of boards every day, and they follow people they don’t even know as long as their boards interested them. To have a successful Internet campaign on Pinterest, you have to make sure your boards are interesting enough for potential customers to re-pin them and follow you. Treat your Pinterest account as you would treat your actual business’ website. It is an avenue wherein your business can thrive.

Your partner in success,

Cesar Ramirez

Internet Marketing On A Budget

internet marketing

A lot of people don’t know they can actually be successful in Internet marketing without spending so much money. Having a successful business that uses a lot of Internet marketing does not always have to be expensive. There are certain methods you can find on the Internet that will allow you to conduct your business without shelling that much cash.

1. Free Hosting Websites

If you are a little cash-strapped to fund your own website, you can check out some of the free hosting sites out there. Although these sites would probably be chock-full of advertisements and pop-up banners, you can go around these things if you just know the basics of running a website. Also, most free hosting sites have ready-made templates that you can make use of in case you don’t know how to design your page.

2. Social Networking Sites

Usually, a great Internet marketing strategy would begin on a social networking site like Facebook and Twitter. As a businessman, you must understand how important social networking is now. With one click of a finger, you can basically let a hundred people know about your products and services. By simply sharing a link on your Facebook timeline, you will be able to reach potential customers.

3. Blogging

This might be a little tricky for people who don’t have the capacity to write their own blog posts. It would mean you have to hire a professional writer to place contents on your blog site or other free blog-posting sites. You have to make sure the content will be beneficial for your products and services, and that it will speak highly of your company. Blog posting is a great way to market your ideas, products and services. This is one of the most well-used Internet marketing strategy. Grab a high converting traffic blog here for only $25

4. Videos and Groups

You can create videos about your business and post them on video-sharing sites such as YouTube. Also, you can create a group on LinkedIn which will attract the attention of like-minded people. You can act as moderator in discussions and market your products and services to them. Just make sure not to hard sell anyone in a professional website such as LinkedIn.

5. Local celebrities

You can ask any local celebrity to endorse your products and services on their social networking accounts. Popular personalities are usually paid to endorse certain small businesses. If you don’t have a friend who is quite popular in your community, you can also send your products to well-known personalities and ask them to spread the word about your business.

6. Press release

Press releases are not just for newspapers and magazines anymore. There are PR websites that run such things. Most of these articles can be lifted from those sites and placed on various Internet marketing avenues (with attributions, of course). But before you start writing a press release, you must first be sure that something is worth writing about your business, your products or your services.

By simply making use of these few tips, you can begin the process of making a successful business run through Internet marketing.

 

Cesar Ramirez

P.S. Comment below, like and share the tips for your network to know you care.

 

Tips on Staying Positive In Internet Marketing

There is a certain fear one encounters when venturing into the unknown—such as Internet marketing. Not many people can say they are experts in this particular field. The industry is ever-changing. You don’t know what kind of website will crop up next that will be the next big thing in Internet advertising. The key to staying positive in this industry is simply to take everything as they come.

You can never really prepare for the challenges of marketing, much less in an avenue such as the Internet. The landscape is always changing, so unless you have a whole team to keep up with these changes, you will always find yourself in limbo about what to do next.

However, there are things one can do to remain positive despite the challenges of Internet marketing.

1. Expect The Worst

Some people will tell you to always be positive and optimistic. While that may be helpful in some aspects of your life, being optimistic doesn’t help a business grow. You have to be realistic. You have to expect the worst, especially in Internet marketing. One day, Facebook is the number one social networking site. The next day can be a completely different story.

Always expect the worst because it will allow you to prepare. Being too positive will only lead to complacency. And when it comes to marketing and advertising, you can never lose control of the situation.

It might be a little oxymoronic that expecting the worst will lead you to staying positive. But it does, and it will. When you’re expecting the worst, you will be more confident because of your backup plans and thus, it will allow you to stay positive in the end.

2. Take Charge

Do not be afraid to lead your business to success. Some people take cover even when they are looking at success straight on its eyes. This is because success means more responsibilities. And in the vast world of Internet marketing, that can range from updating websites to communicating with customers to blogging about your products and services.

3. Never Forget To Update

In staying positive, you need to always ensure that your website is delivering the right message to your customers. How do you do that? By updating. You need to always update your site, your products and your services. This way, your confidence level will shoot up, and it will allow you to plan more and boost your marketing skills.

4. Don’t Be Afraid To Mess Up

Making mistakes is part of everything. The same thing applies to Internet marketing. There are a lot of things that can go wrong when one is trying to make it big on the Internet. And if you are not making mistakes, then you are not doing something. The most important thing in Internet marketing, so you can remain positive, is to act on what needs to be done.

And when you take action, it is inevitable you will mess up at times. That’s okay. It will strengthen your resolve in staying positive that will eventually turn your business into a success.