Blog Archives - Page 44 of 111 - The Social Media Advisor

October 9, 2018
Social Media Strategy

#LearnSocialMedia – Learn How to Build Your Social Presence

As a business owner building an online presence, you have access to a lot of tools. The trouble is, sometimes there seems to be so many that you don’t know what to use or where to even begin. If you aren’t using social media to market your work then you are missing out. It can be the most cost-effective way to connect with and understand your customers, promote awareness of you and your products, and grow your customer base.

The beauty of social media is that it gives you a direct line to your customers in a way that no other type of marketing can. To use social media effectively, you need to follow some best practices so that your efforts will prove beneficial.

Have goals: You probably already have a social media presence but do you have goals? If you are out there simply because you feel like you have to be then chances are you’re not using social media effectively. What do you want to achieve with your social media marketing?
Have a plan: Use a haphazard approach, and you’ll get haphazard You need a purpose for what you post and a strategy for why you’re posting. Social media strategy is the difference between just showing up and actually achieving results.
Be consistent: If you think about what makes advertising effective, then it will make sense to you that you need to create content and post regularly to become a channel that your customers and target audience can rely on.
Be human: Social media users are pretty savvy, and they can spot a fake a mile away. You behave like a robot you’ll get the kind of loyalty that robots deserve. Think about your most recent experience seeking quality customer service in your own life. Now contemplate how you interact with your customers. What lessons can you take from that to improve your online presence? Social media is meant to be social. Businesses that miss that truth will often be frustrated with the return on their effort, time, energy and money.
Focus on relationship building: The beauty of social media is that it can enable you to develop relationships with your customers. Post it and forget it? Not if you want to be successful online. People do business with people.
Tell a great story: Social media affords you the opportunity to weave a great tale about you and what you are passionate about. Social media storytelling is the difference between simply posting and creating a loyal brand following.

Using social media is easy. Using social media effectively is not. Fortunately, you have access to the Social Power Program. This online training resource puts expert advice and practical tutorials at your fingertips so that you can learn how to make the most of what social media has to offer. It’s the perfect resource no matter what your level of expertise. If you are just getting started, we recommend the Storytelling track. For companies with a consistent social media presence, it’s time to up your game with the Strategy option.

The Social Power Program is designed to help you learn how to discover your real audience and target your approach, make the most of storytelling, and get your message across. At the same time, you’ll learn the secrets to engagement and relationship building. The Social Power Program is not just affordable; it’s cost effective. After all, what’s the point of dedicating your valuable time and resources to social media if you aren’t certain how to make it work well? Join us at the Social Power Program.

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 Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

October 2, 2018
Social Media Training

#LearnSocialMedia – The Value of Investing in eLearning

As a social media marketer, you know how important it is to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and techniques. As a business owner, you know the value of investing in your company so that it becomes stronger, better and more profitable. But are you combining these two essential tools—staying up to date while investing in growth? If the answer is no, then it’s time to take a hard look at eLearning.

When done right, eLearning can help you achieve your business objectives, enable your employees to do their jobs better, be more productive, and stay in their jobs longer. That applies to social media as well as other areas of your business.

Setting Up An eLearning Program Is Quick and Efficient

If you are already providing your employees with training, then you know how difficult it can be. If they go offsite, you’ll experience significant lost time. If you bring experts in-house, you are likely spending valuable resources on document production, and other preparation.

ELearning can eliminate the need for your employees to travel, remove the overhead needed for creating manuals, and get rid of the expense of hiring professional trainers.

eLearning Is Cost Effective

With the tools that are now available, setting up eLearning programs has never been more affordable. Numerous studies indicate that eLearning is much less costly than in-house training with some companies reporting a savings of as much as 60%.

eLearning Can Help You Retain Employees

People leave their jobs for many reasons, but we know that burnout and lack of engagement are key contributors. An effective eLearning program not only gives your employees the tools they need to succeed in their jobs while learning new skills, but it also lets them know you value them. As a result, they are less likely to look for greener pastures.

If you’re looking for a good place to start when it comes to eLearning and social media, then turn to The Social Media Advisor’s Social Power Program. Social Power Program is an online eLearning and accountability program that is designed to teach you and your team how to take advantage of social media to grow your business. You’ll receive a new training module from a powerhouse team of experts each month plus you’ll be part of a community where you can get support when you need it.

If you aren’t taking full advantage of available tools when it comes to eLearning and social media, now is the time. You’ll see better engagement with your social media followers, happier and more productive employees, and you’ll be taking a big step forward when it comes to accomplishing your business objectives.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

September 25, 2018
Social Media Marketing

#BePrepared – Are You Getting Social Media Traffic to Your Website?

As a social media marketer, you spend a lot of time and energy making sure that you are posting high-quality content that engages your followers and customers. And if you are active in the social media space, you likely spend an equal amount of effort (or more) on your website.

But do you have a clear picture of how your social media and your site are working together? In other words, do you know how much of your website traffic is coming from social media?

The critical tool for finding out if your social media is creating traffic for your website is Google Analytics. If you are already using Analytics, then you know that there is a lot it can help you discover when it comes to site traffic sources. Best of all it can tell you in precise terms which social media platform is sending traffic to your site.

At the top level, Analytics can give you a simple breakdown of your visitors and whether or not they enter your site from Twitter, Facebook, Quora, Reddit, and others. This alone can tell you quite a bit and help you determine what you are doing right and wrong regarding converting social media users to website users.

While knowing which platform your users are coming from is great to know, there is much more you can do in Analytics to drill down into your data.

Goals & Conversions

You can set specific targets within Analytics to make sure you are accomplishing your objectives. A typical goal might be something like “sign up for the newsletter” or “subscribes to the email list.” You can also keep track of whether or not your social media users have “converted” into buyers or some other metric that you’d like to track.

Segments

To better understand your users, you can define segments within Analytics. This will help you determine if certain groups of your visitors have common characteristics. Another way to think about segments is in terms of filters. Facebook might be a segment of your visitors.

Behavior

One particularly intriguing feature of Analytics is the ability to monitor what your visitors do once they come into your site, what pages they visit, and what actions they take.

Google Analytics is a powerful tool. It will take some time and study to learn how to use its numerous features, but it is well worth the time. Once you have your Analytics dashboard set up and have a plan for regular monitoring, you’ll be able to make sure that you are maximizing the effectiveness of both your social media marketing and your website.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

September 18, 2018
Social Media Strategy

#BePrepared – Hashtags and Your Brand

Hashtags. You see them everywhere, and you may have a pretty good idea that they are important. But are you using them? If you are using them, have you built a hashtag strategy? In other words, have you thought about the hashtags you are including in your posts and making sure that they push your brand and your message strategically?

Hashtag Strategy

There are many good reasons to use hashtags. They are particularly important if you want to set your brand apart, reach more customers, and get your content found. If you rely on Twitter and Instagram, it is especially important that you pay attention to hashtags. Sure your followers may see your posts if you don’t use but hashtags make it easier.

One important thing to note before we continue is that each social media platform is its own search engine. Hashtags are used to locate the information we need with a simple search. Especially for platforms that reward hashtag usage – mainly Instagram and Twitter. The reason hashtags were created was to allow people to find and participate in specific online conversations. Today, they are used to attach content to a specific keyword so it can be found easily.

Hashtags are a powerful tool but you need a clear strategy. That means creating a plan, making a list, and then using the tags you choose consistently and strategically.

How To Pick Hashtags

Picking hashtags sounds simple, doesn’t it? The truth is it can be tricky. Think about how hard it is to find effective keywords for your content or an available domain name for your website. Pulling something out of the air (without a plan) just because it sounds good usually doesn’t work.

The more complicated or original the hashtag, the quicker your content will be found – but only by the people who already know to look for that tag. Common, frequently used, keywords have a better rate of return if the goal is to attract new traffic to your social media content. A unique hashtag is created for hosting and running events where you can announce the hashtag early and explain how to use it to attendees during the event. However, if you just want to attract healthcare professionals to your blog, for example, then #healthcare, #doctor, or #medical might be a better choice.

Where to start? First, your brand needs to create a strategy around why and how you want to use hashtags. Then you need to decide which hashtags to use. When it comes to Instagram, you need to find tags that focus on your brand, your community, or your content. Right now, the recommended number of hashtags per post on Instagram is between 20 and 30. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much engagement and how many new followers you’ll gain by using more tags on this platform. On Twitter, due to the character restriction, it really is better to limit it to 1-3 hashtags per posts. You’ll need to be much more strategic about the tags you use with your tweets since you are limited. These approaches are related, but they are also different. These social media channels are different since they are completely unrelated to one another so the strategy you use for one may not be successful with the other.

Twubs

Luckily, there are some tools out there that can help. One particularly intriguing tool is Twubs. Twubs is a platform that is designed to gather up all your tweets and create a branded page. The site can also help you find trending hashtags, register your hashtags so that you can stake your claim to them, and conduct conferences and live events. This type of tool can help you monitor and track the impact of your hashtag strategy.

If you don’t want to use another tool, you can the research and tracking on your own. Twitter and Instagram make it easy to find what’s trending. You can search to find out if a tag is already being used and what sort of traction it’s making. Pay attention to the volume of usage and engagement generated by those following and using that hashtag.

A well-researched and thought out a set of hashtags that are used strategically can help you expand your reach and strengthen your brand. While it may take a little work to make sure that you are making the most of your tags, it will be well worth it in the end. Hashtags should be a key part of your overall social marketing plan. We recommend that each of our clients sit down and come up with 50 hashtags they could potentially use and then start incorporating them into their content marketing strategy.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

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