What Is So CRITICAL About Having A Blog For Your Business?

Owning and operating a blog is arguably the most important online component to a successful branding and marketing strategy for your small business. This Social Media Training article fills in a critical piece of the puzzle to any online marketing strategy. Your blog is the one place that you can deliver anything you want to bring your brand’s promise to life exactly as you want it to be revealed.

Social media networks like Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, among others, are invaluable when it comes to building your brand. But each of these social networks are owned and operated by someone else; meaning that they can change and enforce rules on how you are allowed to represent your brand and distribute your content whenever they like, and you must adhere to these rules if you want to use these platforms!

With a blog (simply just another website with some unique posting features), you can have 100% ownership and control over all content. This means that you can arrange and distribute content exactly as you want, including using strategies to maximize search engine optimization to improve the placement of your blog in the search engine rankings.

Having complete control and ownership over your brand’s message isn’t the only major perk to having a blog. Your blog will also serve as a central hub for all of your other social media marketing activities.

Blogs integrate perfectly with other forms of social media. When you create new content on your blog, you can automatically share that content on your social networks, driving in traffic by creating valuable links back to your blog. No matter where people first come in contact with you online, they should always have the opportunity to click a link and land on your blog!

The more content you create and distribute, the better the chance you have to move up in search engine rankings, giving even more potential clients the opportunity to find you and get to know you and your brand! Making the most of your blog’s content by distributing it across the social networks and into the search rankings is an important part of building your online reputation. This strategy, if done well, will lead to more relationships and a higher closing rate with prospects!

Regardless of what target niche you are focusing on, you can’t afford not to have a blog! The benefits are enormous.

An active blog will serve as the #1 place to refer prospects and existing customers when you are talking about your business. It is the one place where all of your best content and answers to top questions reside. The blog will contain listings of important events, your social network links, calls-to-action, reviews, success stories and so much more, all expressed exactly how you want them to be! Unlike a static website or the limited opportunity to tell your full story on the social networks (within their rules), your blog will display your ongoing support of your target market and give you the chance to create and maintain relationships like no where else. No matter where people first come in contact with you online or off, they should always be given the opportunity to visit your blog!

If you want to convert more prospects, increase sales, and keep existing customers and distributors more loyal, then creating a blog for your business is a great place to start! Unlike a static website that just tells viewers a little bit about you, your blog will display your ongoing support of your target market and give you the chance to create and maintain relationships with this audience on an ongoing basis.

Need help in getting your blog up and running? Please check out our blogging service created especially for solo entrepreneurs today!

Target Marketing Is Essential For Business Success. Why Niches Are’t Limiting, But Liberating!

This Social Media Training article deals with the struggle that most entrepreneurs have with defining their target markets for their brands.

It is very difficult for many entrepreneurs to narrow their brand down to a very specific target market niche. It seems limiting, and who wants to lose out on any potential new business? While this may seem like a concern, in actuality, not missing out on new opportunities is exactly the point of narrowing your brand’s focus to a niche!

On a constant basis you are proactively marketing, promoting, and selling your business. It is essential to make sure that all of those efforts are maximizing your return. Remember the saying, “Are you working hard at your marketing, or is your marketing working hard for you?” If you are going to be putting in all of that effort, you need to make sure that it is addressing the core needs of your target niche. The more focused those needs are, the better of a job you can do addressing them with your brand’s promise! This will create a much stronger attraction to your brand and traction for your business!

HERE IS A GREAT ANALOGY: Would you use the same fishing pole and bait to fish anywhere in the world, for any kind of fish? Fly Fishing? Catching Marlin? Of course you wouldn’t! You need very specific gear, bait and experience for each situation! I wouldn’t want to be at a professional fishing derby with my son’s Spiderman pole asking the guy next to me what we’re trying to catch!

If you are going to attract and catch (greater conversion rates) high quality leads for your business, you need to set out to do just that; for the right kind of fish! This doesn’t mean that there won’t be others that you attract to your business! What it does mean is that you will have thought through the all-important question that people within your target market niche will ask themselves with every interaction they make with you and your brand; WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?

Give your business the best chance to succeed from the very beginning! Target your brand towards a very specific and well-defined niche. NICHES ONLINE ARE NOT TINY or limiting! In fact, brands that focus on niches also do a great job at appealing to the outer fringes around that niche as well! They will be the lifeblood for your business! Now go out there and win that business derby with your brand and target market niche.

I guess that is why they call it TARGET MARKETING!

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Branding Your Own Success! The Single Most Important Strategic Move You Can Make For Your Business

This Social Media Training article focuses on the single most important asset that your small business has, your brand and the promise it makes!

Business Week published A Practical Guide To Branding, and in it they say “if you’re spending money to market without being connected to a brand position, you might as well pile the money up and burn it.” Even if you aren’t spending money and are marketing your business with today’s free social media tools, you are still wasting valuable time and efforts without a brand!

As a solo entrepreneur, you are your brand, and your brand is everything! Brands are literally the rudder for every action and decision you make as a business when it comes to attracting, engaging, and converting targeted leads.

The process of finding high quality leads for your business starts with being able to identify the target market niche where your brand best matches their needs. Also, when it comes to niches, don’t worry about limiting yourself. Online, virtually any target market niche represents a significant volume opportunity.

Your brand serves as a promise to your niche market that YOU are the one that they can rely on to fulfill their needs with regularity and credibility! We want people to find your new business and say, “Oh, you really get it!” However, they won’t feel that way without a well-articulated brand.

Brands must directly meet the unique needs of a specific target market niche! The more defined your niche is, the easier it will be to tailor your marketing strategy and the value you create within that niche. If you have too broad a niche, you’ll be much less effective in meeting your target’s needs because you’ll be trying to be everything to everybody!

If you want to work more efficiently, waste less time, be more relevant and convert a higher percentage of leads, you need a brand that is focused on a specific niche.

Some people incorrectly believe that the only way to have success is to always go head first with a “sell, sell, sell” mentality. In the age of social media, times have changed! Your brand is a major avenue to initiate relationships with people in which you are simply there to help! With the focus on a single target niche, your help will be that much more meaningful, refreshing and fruitful for both your business and your prospects.

Some people wonder why their social media marketing strategies aren’t working, and it often boils down to the right starting point, your brand.

So what are you waiting for? You are an expert within your targeted niche, and they deserve to benefit from your help! If you think you have no expertise, think again. Everyone has a lifetime of personal experiences, problems overcome, interests, passions, life-stages, etc. that qualify them as an expert. Start building up your brand among your targeted niche today!

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How To Use Facebook’s Social Graph Search

Over the next couple of months, Facebook is going to be slowly rolling out a new feature called “Facebook Graph Search”. This search feature will add a dynamic new element to the social media giant’s repertoire and will change the way people and businesses use Facebook moving forward. In this Social Media Training tip we’ll go over Facebook Graph Searching and what its introduction will mean for you and your small business.

What is Facebook Graph Search?

Currently, most people use Facebook to connect with people they have already met and to like and interact with businesses that they already know. As a result, Facebook’s search engine has been pretty limited in functionality; while there are some advanced search options available, most searches are by name (of both people and businesses), giving users the opportunity to find people or businesses that they are looking for.

Facebook Graph Search intends to change that, and open up a whole new level of searching to its users. Using algorithms and mining through all of the hundreds of millions of accounts on Facebook, Facebook Graph Search will allow you to search virtually anything, as specific or broad as you’d like, and provide you with relevant results. How? Facebook uses all of your likes, comments, groups, places, friendships, etc. to collective an extensive database that you can search in limitless ways!

For example, you could search something like “Movies my friends like”, and this would display various movies your friends on Facebook have “liked”. Or you can search “Women in Phoenix who like yoga”, and the results will display women on Facebook who live in Phoenix that like the sport yoga, yoga business pages, groups, magazines, etc. 

Needless to say, the search possibilities are endless. You can also take the initial search results and then slice and dice any of the results by a number of factors to refine your search even further. Facebook says that it’s a way to, “Find more of what you’re looking for through your friends and connections.” You can even refine your search to people who are not your friends, thus meeting new prospects for your business!

Using Facebook Graph Search to Find Targeted Prospects

As you were reading about the customizable search options, you have probably already started to connect the dots as to how this new feature will be able to help your small business.

While Facebook has always been helpful in building and retaining customer relationships, networking and prospecting have had their limitations. Those limitations will be alleviated with this new search feature. If you own an Italian restaurant in Los Angeles, you will now be able to search something like “people in Los Angeles who like Italian food” and get the names of hundreds of potential new customers.

Make Sure Your Facebook Page is Ready for the Rollout

Small business owners will be excited at the prospect of making searches with Facebook Graph Search, but they should also be conscious of their own presence on these searches. If a Facebook user searches for businesses of your type in your area, you obviously want to be at the top of the list when their results pop up!

The size of your fan base and the activity of your page are likely to factor into your search result rankings, making keeping your Facebook page active and fresh more important than ever. But a more immediate preparation would be to make sure that all of your page’s information is correct and up to date. Double-check your “About” section to make sure that everything is filled out, including your business’s category and location. Keywords on your page, in the name, about section, posts, etc. will help you come up in future searches. Also, the right categories and sub-categories will help in your search results too!

Also, make sure that your page’s profile picture is eye-catching. A good, clear resolution picture of you or your company logo is ideal so that when search results are displayed, your picture stands out among the rest. Tell your story visually, without a direct sell! 

Not only will being more active on Facebook and making sure everything is up to date help you when Graph Search rolls out, but it will also help here in the present as well!

Look For Rollout and Updates

As of this publication, Facebook Graph Search is still in the beta testing stage. But this is such a ground-breaking new feature that we wanted to make sure you were ahead of the curve on it!

Just type into Google, “Introducing Facebook Graph Search,” you can join the waiting list to be added to those who can use Graph Search.

One of the reasons for the slow and gradual rollout is that Facebook wants to work out the kinks in regards to performance and user privacy. In the meantime, join the waiting list and keep building up your Facebook page in anticipation!

Scheduling Facebook Page Posts Can Be Good For Visitors And Business

Most of you are familiar with programs such as HootSuite and Tweetdeck that help you manage your social media presence online. But did you know that Facebook allows you to schedule future updates right on Facebook pages? In this Facebook Training tip, we’ll discuss how to use this new feature and how it may come in handy for you, your business and your visitors.

How to Schedule Page Updates

Facebook has made it simple to schedule future updates right from the status update area of your page! When you click on the status box that asks “What’s on your mind?”, there is a little clock icon on the bottom left under the text box. By clicking on that icon, you can schedule when you want the post you are typing to appear on your page, right down to the minute.

Practical Applications for This Feature

Perhaps the most useful and obvious application of this feature comes when you are going to be away on vacation and know you aren’t going to have access to a computer. Keeping your page up to date even if you aren’t there is important for keeping the interest of your fans.

One of the downfalls of programs like Tweetdeck and Hootsuite in this regard was that it was obvious to the reader that the updates were pre-scheduled based on a small logo that appears from that company. While a scheduled update can still be interesting or thought-provoking, when a reader knows that it was pre-meditated and isn’t in real-time, it loses a bit of its authenticity.

By using Facebook’s scheduler, that lack of authenticity is not an issue. Every update will look the same!

While you should stay in the habit of posting live and not getting too attached to automated systems, some people simply don’t have access to their computer during peak hours during the day. Whether they are at work or taking care of the family, a busy day can keep someone away from their Facebook page all day.

WARNING: There is a minor drawback for using the Facebook page scheduling tool. If you have connected Twitter to your Facebook page via facebook.com/twitter, where all your page updates also get tweeted, be aware that your scheduled posts won’t go out to Twitter.

Scheduled updates can be really great to make sure that there is always activity happening on your page, more often than you can realistically create manually in real time. Pages are places where the visitors expect something to be happening, interaction to be occurring and value to be dispensed on a regular basis. Scheduling is a great feature to make sure this is happening!

Get familiar with the scheduling feature and give it a try. It will likely come in handy sooner rather than later for you and your small business!

Please click through for a full view of our  Facebook Training curriculum!

Gaining Leads Through Password Protected Content

One of the most effective ways to entice people to give you their contact information in return for your opt-in offer is to give them a reward for doing so, and one of those potential rewards is exclusive content. In this social media training tip, we’ll go over how to set up password protected content on WordPress, and how you can use this to your advantage.

Creating a Password Protected Post or Page on WordPress

From your WordPress dashboard, click “Add New Post” or “Add New Page” as you do any time you are adding a post or a page. In the top right corner is the “Publish” box, which is defaulted to “Status: Draft”, “Visibility: Public” and “Publish: Immediately”.

To password protect a post/page, click on the edit link next to “Visibility: Public”. You can then select “Password protected”, where you will be prompted to enter a password. Once you have entered your password and selected OK, your new post or page is now password protected. Once posted, people won’t be able to read the contents of the page without first entering a password.

Using Password Protection to Build Leads

There are free plugins, like WP-Email Capture, that you can install on your WordPress.org blog to work hand-in-hand with password protected content as a lead capture system. This type of plugin requests people’s contact information in exchange for providing them your password protected, valued content.

For example, if you have a really great post or video, tip sheet, chart, e-book, newsletter subscription, etc. that you have spent a lot of time on that you don’t want everyone to see, you can make it an exclusive offer to those who provide their contact information. Let people know that by providing their contact information, they will be given access to that content on your site. Then, add the password in your automated email response or thank you page that people are sent to after filling out the form. Now they feel excited to have access to exclusive content, and you have successfully captured a new lead.

Password protected content can be offered as a download in PDF form, the viewing of a video, the entrance into an event, etc.  As an example, you can create PDFs (by using “Save As” from most desktop publishing programs) and then upload it with the “Add Media” button on your blog. Once the media is assigned a URL, you can add it as a link to a password protected page or post to make it available for download only to those who gave you their contact info.

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Google Authorship Gets You Better SEO And More Traffic

Small businesses that own and maintain a blog put a lot of work into developing and producing new content. Getting viewers to your blog is critical and is what makes SEO efforts so important. In this social media training tip, we’ll go over how you can set up Google Authorship Tags through Google+ to help improve your SEO.

Advantages of Google Authorship

Without Google Authorship, your blog posts that are found in Google searches will appear just like most other Google search results; a blue title link to the page with a green url and a brief description underneath it. When Google Authorship is added, underneath the title link and green url will be a small picture of you and the words “by (Your Name)”!

Now on a page full of nondescript search results, your blog post will stick out with your name and picture! Furthermore, if you are regularly posting new blogs, Authorship will teach Google to trust you as a quality source of content and help improve your search rankings. Studies show that Google Authorship will increase click-through rates overall, meaning more traffic to your website!

How to set up Google Authorship

Setting up Google Authorship on your blog is easy! All you have to do is add a link to your Google+ page somewhere in your blog post with the addition of “?rel=author”. For example, if your Google+ page URL is http://plus.google.com/12345678, posting a link in your blog to http://plus.google.com/12345678?rel=author will let Google’s crawlers know that you are the author of this page.

The nice thing about including this line into your blog post is that it doesn’t have to be posted as is, but instead can be added as a link to an image or word. For example, you could make the image you use in your post link to your Google+ page with the above URL, or you could add the line “Follow me on Google+” and add the link to that line or the word “Google+”.

Obviously you will need a Google+ account to make this work if you don’t have one already. The picture that you have attached to this account will be the one that shows up in search results, so choose a good one!

As a last step to tie everything together, on your Google+ profile there is a section called “Contributor To” that you can add which blogs or websites you contribute to. Add yours if you haven’t already! Once you have taken these steps, Google Authorship on your posts will soon take effect and help you stand out from the rest of the crowd in search results!

Please click through for a full view of our  Social Media Training curriculum!

Social Networking Creates Good Vibes

Many people have a hard time overcoming how not to just post at their social media audiences. So we thought everyone should see this slice of a Nielsen survey from last year…”76% of participants said they experienced positive feelings after engaging in social networking.”

How? Look at the infographic words and you can tell by the way people felt as a result. Have your goal to empower, connect with and help people where they need it most. It all starts with making sure you are rock solid on your brand and target market! Only through understanding their true needs, can you create this kind of result, versus trying to be everything to everybody! The Univeristy’s “Branding Equals Your Social Media Success” webinar is the one to watch for help on establishing your brand.

We all want to leave a good first impression…and an ongoing one as well. This is what we should all be thinking about with every tweet, video, status update and shared picture you put up online. Give yourself one rule, that all the content you create and share does one thing really well…HELP! If you can do that, then you are well down the path to social media success.

Please click through for a full view of our  Social Media Training curriculum!

What Are Pingbacks And How They Can Be Important For Your Blog

Many people have seen the word “pingback” before but are unfamiliar with what it is. Almost everyone who has a WordPress blog will recognize the word from the checkbox underneath new posts asking whether or not to allow them on your blog. In this Social Media Training tip, we’ll let you know what a pingback is and why it is important to your small business’s blog.

What Are Pingbacks?

In a nutshell, a pingback is a comment that tells the reader that another website has linked this article on their webpage. For example, if you write a blog sharing a delicious family recipe, someone that owns a cooking blog that reads your post might link to it on their blog.

In your pending comments section, you will be able to see this pingback and the blog that it is coming from. If you approve the pingback, it will show up in your comments section that the cooking blog posted a link to this blog post, along with a link to that cooking blog’s post.

How Pingbacks Can Be Helpful To You

Perhaps the most obvious way that pingbacks help you is via SEO (search engine optimization). Links connecting your website to other legitimate websites (and vice versa) help improve your search engine ranking.

Another way that pingbacks can be helpful to your website and small business is through networking with other blogs. Following the example above, if a cooking blog liked and shared this recipe that you posted, chances are they may like and share other recipes in the future. Now that you know this cooking blogs URL, you could visit it and get in touch with the owner as well, maybe setting up a link sharing system in the process.

This can also work the other way as well. If you see a blog that relates to your small business that features pingbacks, you might consider mentioning a post of theirs on your website so a pingback link to you appears on their page. They might even return the favor and link to you in a future post!

Pingbacks can be great for both building up SEO with linkbacks and for networking with other blogs. As long as you monitor your pingbacks to make sure they are coming from legitimate blogs (and not spam sites), there is no downside to allowing them in your comment section!

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Learn How To Build Up Your Pinterest Following with Facebook

After Facebook and Twitter, there isn’t a more popular social media platform in the world right now than the image-driven Pinterest. And while personal Facebook accounts are easy to integrate with Pinterest automatically (click on your account name > settings, and then scroll to the bottom for sharing options with Twitter and your Facebook personal profile), business pages must do so manually; a task that is perplexing to many small businesses. In this Social Media Training tip, we’ll give you some tips on how to build your Pinterest base up through Facebook in pages.

Integrating Your Facebook and Pinterest Pages

The first step is to make sure that people who have liked your Facebook page see your activity on Pinterest! In a status update, you can easily link to your Pinterest page and let them see what they’ll gain from following you on both Pinterest and Facebook…but there is so much more that you can do!

Some small businesses make the mistake of simply uploading the same pictures to both Pinterest and their Facebook pages and not doing anything unique on Pinterest. But remember, different people have different social media preferences and spend their time in different ways; the more platforms you are inter-connecting with your social media base, the better! By running contests, highlighting events, showcasing your blog posts or simply adding pictures exclusive to Pinterest (and then promoting that on your Facebook page and personal profile), you are giving people a reason to follow you on Pinterest as well.

Another way to promote your Pinterest page on Facebook is to link to and promote specific Pinterest boards on Facebook. If you are a small business revolving around health and fitness, for example, you might have separate Pinterest boards for pictures of workout routines, happy customers, and healthy meals. Promoting each of these separately over the span of a week or two (and then doing the same thing again once a month or so) will let your Facebook connections see all of the great images and topics they will have more exposure to by keeping up with you on Pinterest!

Getting even more specific than posting your Pinterest page or a specific board is posting a single Pinterest pin to your Facebook timeline. Thanks to Facebook’s automatic link expanding technology, adding a direct link to a pin will display the image featured along with the name of the board that includes that pin and the caption that has been added to it. This attractive display will certainly catch the eyes of your Facebook followers, especially if it is an interesting and relevant pin!

You are putting in the hard work to building and maintaining your Pinterest boards; make sure you are also taking the next step and building up their exposure on Facebook! It will also add to the interactions and commentary on both Facebook and Pinterest at the same time!

To explore the full range of our training curriculum, please click on this Social Media Training link!