Why and How to Use Social Media for Local Business
Whether you are an individual entrepreneur, or part of a small, medium or giant business set-up, you certainly know that your customers are using social media. Therefore, there is no reason why you shouldn’t use it too if you want to reach them.
The good news is that it costs almost nothing to use social media, and it is easy to get started, yet it has the potential of having an enormous financial impact on your business. Another reason why you need to establish an online presence through social media is that it is a timely way of obtaining feedback from customers.
Social media is also used to market the business’ brand and products, as well as build relationship with customers. If used well, social media can also help in SEO performance of your site. A research conducted by Pan African University provided the following interesting statistics:
- 88% of fortune 100 companies use twitter daily to connect to their customers and 85% of companies worldwide use twitter at any stage of their recruitment process.
- Facebook has over 500,000,000 users worldwide (although this figure could be more because many people have since signed up).
- 45 billion of content is uploaded daily on Facebook.
- Twitter has over 156 million users.
- YouTube is the 2nd most searched site after Google.
Moreover, In an Altimeter Group survey of 700 executives and social strategists in 2012 found that 100 percent of participating enterprise organizations run to varying extents an active social media strategy.
How: Strategy and Tactics
As you can see, social media presents a fertile ground for you to register your business presence online. The next thing is to learn how to launch your social media presence. The truth of the matter is that it is difficult to succeed in social media without using strategy and tactics.
Strategy and tactics are inseparable here. You can’t design a successful online presence through social media without deep, firsthand knowledge of the tactics you’ll be using. Strategy will guide you on how to implement the strategies. Otherwise, aimless actions might not yield much. Here is how to go about it.
Know the Market: some market research will be critical. This will help you to understand the market, where your target audience is, as well as understanding the competition. Once you know the market, you can now begin penetrating it with the right messages.
Time and Quality Updates: Providing your audience with good updates, engaging contents, and timely news will enable your media presence to grow to unprecedented level. The more regular your updates are the better; don’t give updates every month. You also have to make a schedule so that you are consistent. For instance, you can issue updates twice a day, once a day, and so forth.
Social Media Tools: learn how to use a variety of tools to make your social media campaign an easy and effective way of reaching your audience. For example, you can use micro blogging tool to simultaneously your messages to the masses. A number of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn apps are available. If you have a website, remember to include your social media comment/like/follow tools.
How to Create a Smashing Brand: 5 ideas to refresh your online branding
Did you know that a strong identity helps your customers to remember you and makes you stand out in the marketplace? However, here is some news for you: branding is more than just shinny logos and a fancy name. Branding essentially involves helping customers to have a sense of belonging and attachment to your products, services, culture and values. If you want to create an unforgettable brand online, it needs to be consistent, recognizable and should appear across all aspects of your online presence. Learn how to create an unforgettable brand using these five tips.
- Are you prepared to spend some money?
When it comes to online branding, you cannot avoid spending some money. If you want to make more money, you have to spend more money. It means you will have to spend in things like social media, Ad Words, and content creation.
- Identify and convey your purpose
In order to create a powerful online brand, you need to create a defining purpose that will act as your compass. Sometimes it is good to go back to the basics. Why are you in this business in the first place? Does your mission and purpose translate into your online presence?
- Keep it real
Sometimes small businesses suffer into oblivion because of their insistence to look ‘big’ and corporate like. The truth of the matter is that you don’t have to. If you want your brand to stand out online, do not hastate to put your personality behind it. People are more receptive to people. For instance, try to include your picture in your company profile. You could also infuse some humor into the content. Authenticity should be your goal regardless of whether you are new in the market. Be passionate and you will attract passionate clients into your online business.
- Revisit your target audience
Do you really know who your target audience is? You need to know who your target audience are and where there are or where you can find them. Therefore, you need to make sure you can consistently target your audience so that your audience find content when they expect it.
- Conduct yourself professionally
Whatever you do, remember that this is business. So you should pay a close attention to how you conduct yourself. Avoid being remembered for the wrong reasons by ensuring you post or publish credible and factual content. Go for quality over quantity. You have probably heard the saying that goes: it is not what you say, but how you say it that is essential when it comes to marketing. Although your personality reflects on your startup at the beginning, the personality of your startup will become an integration of voices that write for your brand.
It is important to keep in mind that what is being said about your brand is very important; therefore, it is important to make sure you listen to your audience.
Mjrvisuals can help you increase your reach out of that content in your website through our expertise. We run the gambit of visual imagination including video production, digital marketing, video editing, print design, advertising, graphic design, graphic animation, motion graphic and media design. Be part of our portfolio of clients and let us tell your story to the world. Click here to visit our website: mjrvisuals.com/
Common mistakes while choosing a web host
Are you in the process of searching for the appropriate web host for your website? Here are some of the common mistakes that you should be aware of.
- Going for the cheapest web hosting plan
The cheapest hosting plan is not always the best because it has some drawbacks, which may be limiting to one’s business. What people should actually be aware of is that when someone offers a cheap plan, there is something they take back and that they may not offer everything else that others get at a higher cost. In other words, it is not likely that you will receive the same level of service as those who pay more because if it was possible to receive the same level of service, everyone in the planet would go for the cheapest web hosting providers. This then makes sense why we have coupon hosting for those who are involved in reseller hosting.
However, it does not necessarily mean that the most expensive hosting plans are always the best options. But it definitely means that the less you pay, the less services and features you get. When you choose a cheap web hosting, expect to experience many downtimes and poor server infrastructure and this may translate to poor quality customer service.
- Looking out for freebies
It is obviously advantageous to look for freebies, especially if you are a first timer. However, it is important to note that looking for the maximum number of freebies in one web host can make you lose focus and ultimately make the right web hosting decision. Most web hosting companies give away freebies to attract customers, but is upon you to look careful what the catch is. Some of the freebies are as good as they seem but they end up luring you to make a buying decision which could prove expensive in the long run. Therefore, ensure that the most important factors are right with host before you look at what freebies they are offering. Some of the factors to look at include: server speed and up time, great customer support, reasonable price and domain name registration policy (let us look at this next).
- Free domain
Many web masters get attracted with the offer of a free domain name. But it is advisable to look beyond this domain name trick because it can inconvenience you in future should you decide to move to a better host. What happens is that while some companies offer free domain services, they ensure that the domain name is registered under their company and not under your name. what this means is that you may not be able to take it with you when you move. However, the good news is that domain names are not expensive and it is possible to get one at a very cheap price and make it your own. So before going for a free domain name, find out whether you will own the domain name or it will be registered with that company.
Mjrvisuals can help you increase your reach out of that content in your website through our expertise. We run the gambit of visual imagination including video production, digital marketing, video editing, print design, advertising, graphic design, graphic animation, motion graphic and media design. Be part of our portfolio of clients and let us tell your story to the world. Click here to visit our website: mjrvisuals.com/
Web design Tricks to Build Customer Loyalty
What are some of the elements in website design that one must include when looking to build customer loyalty? If you are looking to build a website for your small business, you know very well that nurturing customer loyalty is an important priority. Unfortunately, many businesses miss the opportunity to build customer loyalty and retain existing clients through their websites. You can get more out of your existing customers as well as new prospects if you incorporate the following elements in your website.
- Responsive Design
More and more business owners and agencies are embracing responsive web design and in this age of mobile technology, why would anyone be left behind?
Customers don’t want to struggle with websites that aren’t mobile friendly. Statistics show that non-responsive websites are likely to lose more than half of their potential customers because more than 50% of searches are now done through mobile devices. Moreover, customers who access your site are likely to access it in future using multiple devices. In other words, even if people visit your site via their desktop, they might get disoriented the next time they visit it using their mobile devices and it is not responsive.
You can have the best product in the world, but if your website isn’t designed to be mobile responsive, you are losing tons of customers to your competitors.
Therefore, it is important to look for a professional custom web design service that can create a responsive website.
- Encourage referrals
Did you know that a well-designed website can help to facilitate referrals? The most loyal customers are acquired through client-to-clients referral networks and recommendations. Looking for web design packages that are network-driven can make the difference between struggling to get clients and enjoying a constant stream of new leads.
You can encourage your existing customers to refer your business by giving them special bonuses for every new business they bring. People are more likely to believe friends who have done business with you than some ad in their sidebar. So you should make it easy for customers to refer other customers to you.
- Social media share buttons
Social media buttons are essential if you want your content to be shared widely. When your audience find your content valuable, they are likely to share it via their social media accounts. This is a free and effective way of marketing your website. In order to incorporate unique social media share buttons in your website, look for a custom web design agency that knows how to create elegant buttons.
As a rule of thumb, your social media share buttons should big, prominent, unique and beautiful. The only way to achieve that is to look for a web designer that knows what they are doing. Incorporate social media share and like buttons into every page of your website to enhance maximum engagement with your audience.
- Offer great value/offer irresistible value proposition
Customers come to your website because they want or need something. Give them solutions that will solve or help them solve their problems.
Through a custom website layout that promises value to your customers, you are able to gain more customers. It is advisable that you offer a freebie such as free eBook, webinar, and course or trial product so that your customers can have a taste of your services and content before paying for them. If it is what they are looking for, they will be more than ready to pay for the full service.
Having said that, your website layout must be neat, impeccable and functional in order to capture the attention your customers and entice them to sign up with your free offer or trial.
- Get customized web design
A customized web design enhances personal engagement with your customers. Customers want to enjoy personalized services. Customers also want to get assurances they can get hold of you through your phone or email when they want to. Therefore, your email, phone number and physical address should be prominently displayed in case customers want to reach you for whatever reason. It is also inspires confidence in your customers.
Don’t forget to include a comment form so that customers can give you feedback. In addition to that, it is good to have live chat capabilities. The more your customers are easily able to get in touch with you the better.
Are you Utilizing the Power of YouTube Marketing
If you have been ignoring the impact of YouTube marketing, then you have been committing a cardinal marketing sin. There are some shocking statistics that will show you just why YouTube marketing has become a big hit. Nielsen report shows that in the year 2011, internet video streaming views increased by 35% compared to only 0.2% increase in television views in America. Mobile video viewing also increased by 20%; therefore, it is clear that internet video marketing (like YouTube) is now more popular, cheaper, and result oriented than the traditional TV marketing. As a matter of fact, the number of people who visit YouTube for entertainment, research, and education is alarming. YouTube is now the second most search engine by volume.
However, something else you should know is that about 35 hours of videos are being uploaded in YouTube every minute, meaning if you take 10 minutes to read this article, you will meet about 350 hours of newly uploaded YouTube videos. So what? So, it means that if you are thinking of using YouTube to advertise your products, then you should bear in mind that competition is extremely high; so, you need to approach it with some plan if you hope to achieve positive results. In other words, just uploading a video does not necessarily mean that you'll automatically get YouTube hits.
The following are two suggestions to get you started on how to get positive YouTube performance:
1. Just like a website, content is king, and good quality is paramount. Please invest some time to create a quality and compelling video before you upload. Potentials customers should find your videos useful, engaging, and attractive to view. If you let them feel like they have wasted their precious moment viewing you video, be sure that the video will never go viral, or worse still, they wont come back. The rule of the thumb is this: the video should address the needs of the viewers. Anything else is thrash. Therefore, invest some time in researching on what the customer needs and create something relevant. For instance, it doesn't help uploading a video that talks about meditation, yet you are selling cars. In that case, you would want to talk about 'how to maintain a car'.
2. Since it is Google that owns YouTube, you have to play by Google Search optimization rules to get an edge. For instance, in order for the video to be findable, it must have a title, good descriptions, and tags, among others. Also, you should create a brand if you want to attract and retain customers. This doesn't have to be done with massive investment; all you need is to be consistent with your content, create a similar backgrounds, create a playlist for the most popular videos, and choose an appropriate layout.
All in all, taking your business online is not an option in this internet age if you are to stay profitable, and relevant. YouTube presents you with one of the best channel of informing the online users about your presence; hence you should take advantage.
Cheap Marketing Ideas you can implement on your Online and Offline Business
Don’t have many bucks to spend on your small business or start-up? Establishing an efficient marketing strategy is sometimes a challenge for small business owners in Australia because they are unable to allocate considerable funds for marketing; most of them operate on a shoestring budget. You don’t have to break the bank to market your small business in Australia.
Moreover, very day, we hear from small business owners who think they need special skills to reach their customers. Many of these Australian small business owners eventually get overwhelmed by the number and the complex marketing options available, and end up sitting on the sidelines because they are confused where to start. In this article, we will look at 77 local marketing ideas for small business owners in Australia.
Positioning and branding
- Build brand identity
Building your business brand identity can have a big impact
- Add emotion to your brand
Emotional branding is defined as the successful attachment of a specific emotion to a brand.
At one of the Business Marketing Association (BMA) conferences in Chicago, Jay Baer asked a room full of roughly 1,000 B2B marketers, “Are you more interesting than my wife?”
Can you think of the people you have had an emotional connection with in your life? How did they impact on your life? Now think about the brands and see the common threats among them.
It is true for brands as it is for people: to break through in modern marketing, small business owners in Australia need to be more interesting and relevant in the moment.
Brands need to connect with people in the way a close friend would—through emotion—in order to build, long-lasting, and quality relationships. There are huge opportunities for retail stores to take advantage of emotional branding.
According to one research, smell is powerful when it comes to persuading someone to buy a product. Stores using certain scents in their stores have been found to have a 30% increase in sales.
A study by University of Wollongong and Murdoch University in 2012, emotional branding is becoming widely used globally. According to Dr Steve Bellman of Murdoch University’s Audience Labs, marketers are tapping into customer’s feelings to market their brands. Another study shows men who show love for their brand beer purchase 38% more beer than the average.
Therefore, emotional branding can lead to substantially more sales without companies having to rely on discounts and promotions. On the flip side, however, creating that emotional connection can be a difficult task.
How brands can connect emotionally
- By telling a story that inspires an emotional connection:according to Beth Comstock, General Electric Chief Marketing Officer, you can’t sell anything if you can’t tell anything. Every brand has stories to tell.
- By allow their audience to be the real heroes: imagine who emotionally connected your brand would be by showcasing how your product has changed lives. Simply give your audience a voice, a platform and face to be heard.
- By being authentic: don’t be afraid to embrace your inner geek. Remain who you are and don’t try to be like who you are not. At Bizify, we try to remain true to ourselves. We try to help startups find their feet and we intend to remain true to that mission.
- By embracing the opportunity to surprise and delight:surprising and delighting customers can be an effecting marketing strategy. Use social media and mobile to spark moments of happiness in customers and you will be surprised at its effectiveness. Coca-Cola has really perfected this art.
- Create an irresistible value proposition
A value proposition is a statement that explains what value you provide to your customers and how you do it uniquely. Establishing a substantive value proposition is critical if you want to stand above the crowd. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs loose out because they fail to articulate a unique value proposition.
Be clear on what your business stands for. What is your promise? How will you put out a consistent and passionate message that attract the right candidate? This will also help you to hire the right people and develop products and services that are aligned with your unique value proposition.
- Be careful with launching too many brands
The big problem for many businesses is they think more brands will make them more successful but they have neither the architecture nor the capacity to manage a multiplicity of brands well. Businesses can increase profits by deleting none-performing brands. Even though revenue may fall in the process, reducing the number of brands will be beneficial in the long run.
Multiband strategies are likely to suffer from diseconomies of scale because of the hidden costs. By letting go off weak, declining and marginally profitable brands, you will be freeing resources to make your few remaining brands better and more attractive to customers. Thus, killing some brands in your portfolio may sometimes be the best way for your business to serve the customers.
- Package your products
Packaging is an important element when it comes to marketing. How you package your products can attract or repel customers. Is your packaging visually attractive through shape, color, design and does it communicate the right brand ideals. If not, it might be time to revamp the way you package your products.
More Difficulties for Businesses to Reach Followers on Instagram
Did you know that Instagram is about to change in a massive way? Instagram has announced that they will be ditching the traditional reverse chronological feed for new algorithm-based personalized feeds.
Posts will no longer appear in a chronological order and instead, followers will see posts based on what they are interested in and their relationship with the person posting, similar to what Facebook does.
This means that Instagram is likely to place videos and photos it thinks you will most want to see from people you are following on top of your feeds, disregarding the time those pictures and videos were posted. For instance, if your friend posted a photo of her new pet 8 hours ago while you were in a meeting, Instagram might make that photo the first thing you see when you open the app. This will be based on your history of interactions with the friend.
Announcing the changes on March 5th via its blog, Instagram said its growing popularity triggered the move. Most users miss on average 70% of their feeds, and this has made it harder for people to keep up with all the content people share on a minute-by-minute basis. This has meant that people keep seeing images they don't care about most of the time.
Speaking to the New York Times, Instagram co-founder, Kevin Systrom, said the new changes will ensure that the 30% of what you care is what is give priority. However, Systrom was quick to point out that the changes will not be abrupt. The Instagram community will wake up one morning and find a different Instagram. Instagram users should expect to see the changes in the coming months.
Not everyone is happy though
Marketing experts claim that these changes are a precursor to what they call Instagram’s content monetization strategy’. You know that Facebook owns Instagram, and this is exactly what Facebook did in 2009 before it began to monetize. In essence, they are trying to limit organic reach, and many brands fear they will have to pay for what was once free to get noticed.
Currently, a post to say 50,000 followers reaches 50,000 feeds. But with the new algorithm, things will be more difficult. That means the number of followers you have will be of little consequence; instead, what will be more important is the level of engagement your content generates.
As a result, more than 190,000 people have signed a change.org appeal to maintain the status quo. With many of those opposed to the new algorithm-based feeds being small business owners, they fear they will no longer be able to reach their followers. It is very unlikely that Instagram will reverse its decision. Similar opposition reactions of “Change Facebook back to normal!!” was witnessed when Facebook changed its algorithm. Twitter also recently faced similar resistance when it tried to move to algorithm based feeds.
Therefore, brands should start bracing themselves up for the new model instead of hoping that the proposed changes will flop. Apart from increasing their Instagram marketing budget, brands should find ways of creating a more engaging content. Simply put, customer acquisition via Instagram is about to get expensive.
With millennial changes such as Instagram personalized feeds, Mjrvisuals can help you increase your reach out of that content in your website through our expertise. We run the gambit of visual imagination including video production, digital marketing, video editing, print design, advertising, graphic design, graphic animation, motion graphic and media design. Be part of our portfolio of clients and let us tell your story to the world. Click here to visit our website: mjrvisuals.com/