#ReviveYourMarketing – Your Marketing Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect

There is a lot out there about branding, and message and company image. You’ve been preached to about the do’s and don’ts of marketing since you first started your business. Some of it makes perfect sense, some of the advice is contradictory, and all of it is overwhelming. What happens when we get overwhelmed? You got it. We end up doing nothing at all.
This month I’m on a mission to help your revive your marketing. Promoting yourself and what you do is the key to business success. Fortunately, there are a lot of different ways to approach marketing and, even if you have let it slide, it’s easy to pick that ball back up and run with it.
The most important thing I want to emphasize is…. your marketing doesn’t need to be perfect. If you get hung up on the right image, or the right tagline, or utilizing the right social media platform – you will get nowhere at all.
It doesn’t matter what move you make, but it’s vital that you start moving. There isn’t just one way to approach marketing but here is a general outlineto get your forward momentum working.
Branding
If you aren’t clear about your brand or your message, you might as well be target shooting in pitch-black darkness. It’s possible you will find a small percentage of people interested in what you do, but it’s so much more effective to develop a brand that does your marketing for you. If you create a clear cut brand and use it to promoteyourself in person and online, you will find that people start coming to you instead of you chasing them. Why? Because they already have a feel for you before the first conversation occurs.
Develop a Marketing Strategy
Spend some time figuring out who your target audience is and where they enjoy spending their time. Then create a marketing strategy that focuses on where they already are. Instead of just putting your marketing out there and waiting on your clients to find you – put effort into creating a marketing strategy that showcases your company right where they are.
There are a lot of options to choose from and plenty of advice. Email newsletter? That’s a great way to build a list and funnel. Social media? Get your voice heard and establish an online presence. Advertising? Depends on your market and your budget. Content marketing? It’s a great way to gain traction online. Influencer marketing? That’s the perfect way to establish that you are an expert in your industry or niche.
The point here isn’t to try everything. That kind of thinking is going to keep you stalled. The purpose is to pick the one you think will offer the best results and just dive in! Something is better than nothing when it comes to marketing and you can work on making it better over time.
As you get good at one strategy, you can look into ways to automate or outsourceand then bring another technique into the fold. It’s better to do one thing well than several things in a mediocre fashion.
So, cut yourself a bit of slack and give yourself permission to focus on the marketing without worrying about perfection.
“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”
John Steinbeck
Need some advice or an expert to point you in the right direction? Give The Social Media Advisor team a call and let us help you #BeAwesome at what you do!

~ Social Media is changing the way people do business.  Don’t get left behind ~ 

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere, of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn,Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube,Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them. 

Click here for her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars.

#ReviveYourMarketing – Repurpose and Reuse Evergreen Content


If you are producing your own content – whether it is for social media, a blog, or online article sites – it’s essential that you understand the relevance of evergreen content. Evergreen content is anything you produce that can stand the test of time and still be useful. Most of your content will be designed to be timely so that it is keeping on top of industry trends or attracting visitors searching for something specific to what is currently happening in their lives. However, creating contentthat can be recycled and used again that also holds up regardless of current affairs gives people a way to stay relevant to their audience. 
Types of Evergreen Content
The best way to explain evergreen is to give some examples of content that falls into this category. When creating evergreen content, you want to avoid dates, trends, or commenting on current affairs. Some of the best evergreen pieces consist of “How to…” guides or tutorials. These generally don’t need to be updated over time and can be used to help potential followers find you online. 
Another example of popular evergreen content would be creating lists. Lists of various resources or recommendationswithin your industry attract both industry newbies and like-minded individuals seeking validation. If your lists include links, you will need to remember to check them from time to time. 
Really anything that encourages people to visit your sites and find out more about you is the type of content you want to create again and again.
Reuse Your Evergreen Content
While you can let your evergreen content just sit there and slowly attract attention using SEO techniques and practices, there is another way. If you take a stance to strategically use this content to garner more attention, reusing evergreen content can dramatically increase your viewership. Understanding which pieces of content are evergreen allows you to schedule them on a regular basis in order to continue attracting attention. 
Periodically post this evergreen work to your social media channels. Since you gain followers all the time, these posts will be new for much of your audience. This will keep you from having to constantly reinvent the wheel and come up with new content which will allot you the occasional break. 
Repurpose Your Evergreen Content
Some of your content won’t exactly fit into the evergreen mold. Maybe because the industry has changed a bit since you first wrote it or because there are references to current events or affairs within the piece, not everything you write can be edited into an evergreenitem. However, much of your previous content may only need a bit of tweaking to convert it to something you can use repeatedly. Reviewing and repurposing your content to match up with your current needs is a great use of your time and resources. 
The whole goal of focusing on evergreen content is to increase your efficiency and help with your content management. This is especially true during periods where you are experiencing a lack of inspiration or do not have the time to create something new but want to remain consistent online.
If you aren’t where you want to be in social media, we’d like to help you #ReviveYourMarketing and get back on track and successful. Need a helping hand or just some encouragement to #BeAwesome? Our team at The Social Media Advisor gets pumped to help business owners take a lead with their social and create something amazing!

~ Social Media is changing the way people do business.  Don’t get left behind ~ 

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere, of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them. 

Click here for her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars.

No Need to Start Over – Use Content Management Tools

For the month of March, my team is focusing on getting your online marketing back on track. Have you created, even used, some social media accounts but have let your content slip through the cracks? It’s okay. It can be daunting, as a small business owner, to keep juggling all the things you need to get done each day.
So, there’s a gap in your content. It’ll be all right. While consistency is important in social media and online marketing, a presence is better than no presence. Only this time, you are going to work smarter. There is no point in sending you back into the trenches without a game plan to make it work this time around!
What’s the magic to getting you ramped back up? It’s in knowing and understanding online marketing tools and resources. There are so many tools available now that take the stress, and sometimes the guesswork, out of staying on top of your online content.
Social Media Scheduling
There are many different choices but Hootsuite and Buffer are the most popular. They offer free accounts that will allow you to use many of their features. Scheduling software allows marketers to plan content ahead of time and then post it at the most opportune time of day.  Hootsuite also offers suggestions for content in case you are ever in a rut and need a little help. Buffer offers some insightful analytics as well.
Twitter
This platform moves fast and can be difficult to keep up with. Good thing there are so many apps, websites and tools to help make tweeting more manageable.
  • –       Bit.ly – used to shorten links in order to conserve space within that 140 character limit.
  • –       CoTweet – an analytical tool to track engage and analyze conversations.
  • –       Paper.li – a site that gathers online content and displays it in a newsfeed fashion. Can be used for content curation.
  • –       Triberr – A community based site to join tribes of like-minded content creators.
  • –       TweetDeck – a slick desktop management tool for Twitter uses.
  • –       TwitterFeed – got some RSS feeds? This tool allows you to share your tweets through your feeds.
  • –       Twitter Character Counter – This website is a simple to use box to copy and paste your tweets and edit them down so they fit the character limitations of Twitter.

Images
Want to quickly, and easily, create high quality graphics for your blog posts and social media accounts? Check out Canva. This free to use tool is set up to churn out graphics and images in a speedy and hassle-free way. Take your online content from blah to wow in only a manner of minutes!
By planning ahead of time, you could be creating a month’s worth of online content in just a couple of hours. This would keep you consistent and relevant on the web but still free you up to work on your business and keep bringing in new clients.

If you implement some new tools and still find yourself struggling to keep up with your online marketing, contact us at The Social Media Advisor and ask for help! We thrive on helping small businesses #BeAwesome online!
~ Social Media is changing the way people do business.  Don’t get left behind ~ 


Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere, of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them. 

Click here for her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars.

Why Should You Quote Yourself In Your Memes

If you spend any time at all on social media, you know what a meme is. Memes are such an integral part of Internet culture.
While they started as bits of humor and entertainment, today’s memes are more diverse. That doesn’t mean that the LOLcats or being Rickrolled is obsolete, it just means there is a lot more a meme can accomplish now. For businesses, memes are often used to spread popular inspirational / motivational quotes or brand messages.
The Popularity
The reason that memes are as popular as they are derives from the fact that these graphics are the gateway to going viral. Visuals are such a central part of any social media strategy because they attract more attention. Plus, memes are shareable. It takes mere seconds for a viewer to decide they like something enough to share it with their fans or followers. The right meme can build up a ton of traction and attention.
The Purpose
This amount of presenceonline is the real reason behind creating a meme. Of course, not everyone’s memes will go viral.  If they do, jackpot! However, there are still good reasons to create your own memes even if one of them never become viral.  Here are some stats about visual content from a recent Hubspot article:
“Researchers have found that colored visuals increase people’s willingness to read a piece of content by 80%.”
“Content with relevant images gets 94% more views than content without relevant images.”
“Visual content is more than 40X more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content.”
Branding Your Own Memes
Now, you know you should be creating your own memes. In a recent blog post, we talked about the importance of being the face of your own brand. It is time to blend these two ideas together to create memes for your brand.
What kind of content can you use to create your own memes? Well, you can go the easy route and grab quotes that relate to your brand and create your own visuals – slapping your logo into the image somewhere. However, I would like to encourage you to go through your own content and create memes with your own quotes. Why? If your meme resonates with your audience, they will share it. Not only will this increase your brand image on social media, having your own quotes on there automatically establishes you as an influencer or expert in your industry.
Another way to #LoveYourBrand, quoting yourself in your own memes is tool in the toolbox of personal branding ideas for your social content. As always, I hope this helps you #BeAwesome online and generate some business at the same time.
~ Social Media is changing the way people do business.  Don’t get left behind ~ 


Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere, of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them. 

Click here for her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars.

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