Business Archives - Page 4 of 5

Influencers: Why You Need Them And How To Identify Them

The power of marketing in the digitally led global business climate should never be underestimated. The sad fact is that no matter how incredible your product, no matter how well run your operations and no matter how much time, blood, sweat and tears you pour into your business, it all amounts to little if the right people don’t know who you are. There was a time when marketing was a strategy of broadcasting. You’d send your message out as far and wide as possible and hope that the right people would find it. Today, the world of social media and digital connectivity has made it far easier to identify your target audience and market directly to them via pay per click advertising. This reduces extraneous marketing costs and maximises the chance of your content and advertising reaching the right audience. Yet, as important as it is to know your target market, it’s just as important to know who influences their behavior.

What is an influencer?

Influencers can make all the difference between your content falling on deaf ears or going viral. The rise of the influencer is a relatively new phenomenon but one which numerous big brands recognize the value of. Influencer marketing works in a similar way to celebrity endorsement, but influencers tend to be easier to reach, cheaper and more receptive to working with brands. They tend to be individuals who have gained a sizeable and loyal following on social media.

Why you need them

Like celebrities, they’re usually attractive and aspirational figures whose look, style and habits your potential customers find aspirational. They can help you by endorsing your products, link building and even agreeing to be the face of your brand. They can also help to elevate your brand’s status, giving you a degree of “cool by association” in the eyes of your target market. Moreover, unlike roping in a celebrity, influencers tend to actively want to work with brands. They may well have content of their own to monetize and will be grateful to be able to piggyback on the recognition of your brand in order to expand their own reach.

How to identify an influencer

Instagram and YouTube celebs like Zoella or Jamie Genevieve may not be the best influencers for your brand, it’s important to find an equivalent that speaks to your target market. Looking for people with large followings and an interest in your product or service is a no brainer, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

It’s important to keep an eye on an influencer’s social media engagement. Throwing money at an influencer with a large following is unlikely to pay dividends if that following is not actively engaged with the influencer. Make sure that their posts all have a healthy amount of likes and comments.

Important caveats

Any time you associate your brand with any individual, there’s always an element of risk. There’s a chance that they could be ostracized by their following by their actions, their posts or their political affiliations. They can misrepresent your brand or mislead your potential clientele. Thus, it’s extremely important to make sure that your influences are vetted and well managed.

Here You Go Again On Your Own!

There was a time when the idea of starting a business entirely on your own was practically inconceivable. After all, there are so many different things that go into creating a successful business, how are you possibly supposed to be able to take care of all of them by yourself. The very idea of running a business on your own has always seemed laughable. Of course, all that has changed in the modern world thanks to one simple but significant thing: the internet. The internet has changed just about everything about modern life and business is certainly no different. It’s now easier than ever for a single person to break out of the confines of their previous job, strike out on their own, and be genuinely successful doing it. With that in mind, here are a few ways that you can create a successful business all on your own.

Simple web design tools

There’s no doubt that if your business doesn’t have a website, then it might as well not exist in the minds of many customers. It’s lucky then that it’s never been quite so simple or easy to build a gorgeous, highly functional website. There are plenty of tools online that you can use but figuring out the right one for you can be a challenge. That’s why sites like http://WebsiteBuilders.com are so useful. They allow you to find the best tools to create a website that you can be genuinely proud of.

Accounting made easy

Accounting is one of those things that, unless you’re a very specific kind of person, is never going to be especially engaging or exciting. Not only that but it’s often pretty complicated as well. However, if you’re not the kind of person for whom accounting has any appeal, don’t despair. There are plenty of tools available online that can make the whole process far easier. From invoice creation software to simple tools for calculating how much tax you should be paying, you no longer have to worry about wading through piles of documents that you barely understand.

Social media marketing

Marketing has always been one of the most important parts of any business, but it’s also been one of the more expensive. After all, a large scale marketing campaign isn’t going to come without some significant costs. However, the rise of social media has given many businesses the chance to market themselves to a potentially global audience without spending a single penny. All you need to be able to create content that people will actually want to share with one another. Of course, that’s not exactly easy but it’s certainly going to save you a lot of money.

Of course, it’s important to remember that there’s a big difference between being “easier than ever” and actually being easy. The truth is that there are still plenty of challenges that you’ll have to face trying to get out on your own. You need to be willing to put in a lot of hard work if you really want your solo business to be a success.

The Art Of Making Your Content Go Viral

“So, content is King is it?” I can hear you saying it now, “I have the content. I have lots of content, but why aren’t I king yet?”. There are many reasons why (besides living in a democratic republic or not being next in line to the throne by blood) your content may not be making you king. You see, when Bill Gates made that statement way back in 1996 he misled a lot of people. It’s not having content that makes you King (although the quality of your content is a major factor), it’s the way in which you implement and share that content, whom you share it with and when that will determine its success. There was a time when simply having some form of content marketing (however ill-strategized) gave businesses a leg up, but those days are long gone. Content marketing is no longer a novelty, in fact it’s used by around 94% of brands. In order to make your voice heard among the masses, you need to give yourself a viral boost. But how?

If there were a single, foolproof way to make your content “go viral”, everyone would be doing it and the exercise would be pointless. However, there are some ways in which your content can be tweaked to enhance your likelihood of going viral.

What is “going viral”?

Many use the term “going viral” in relation to online content without a particularly clear idea of what it means. So, for the sake of clarity, virality is how quickly and widely a piece of content is shared around the world. When content goes viral it’s very often a case of the right people noticing, consuming and distributing the content at the right time. The rise of social media celebrities means that certain people are well placed to share content with their sizeable following and boost its distribution exponentially. These people are called influencers.

While many books and articles claim to be able to impart the secret of virality, the truth is that it’s a process that will occur organically under the right circumstances. While you can’t force these circumstances, there are some things you can do to help yourself…

Invest in regular, high quality, relevant content

Sounds like a no-brainer doesn’t it? The fact, however, is that too many businesses think that they can build a powerful content strategy on cheaply sourced, poorly written or irrelevant content, just as you can’t build an impenetrable fortress on sand. Your content should be posted regularly (for regularly read daily), and should be of high quality, written in a way that is SEO friendly (use the Yoast plugin if you need guidance with this). Outsourcing your content is all well and good, but the more specialized your field, the more specialized your content should be. Your content should be attuned to the demands of your target market and address issues, news and trends that matter to them.

Dare to be different

In an age where more providers than ever are dishing out free content to your target audience, it pays to do what you can to make your content look or feel different. For example, turning a regular series of blog posts into an instant Flipbook gives your content the look and feel of a magazine. This will be more appealing to readers and increase their chances of sharing it.

It’s okay to make lists

A small but vocal online subculture look at list articles with disdain, but look at Buzzfeed and you’ll see that some of their most shared articles are in fact lists. Lists are popular because they represent digestible yet information dense format that’s suited for consumption in small doses while on the go (which, in case you weren’t looking is how people consume their content these days).

Have personality

Aside from providing specialist information and the kinds of insights that only you and your insights can give, it’s important to have personality. After all, intelligence is attractive in our friends and loved ones but nobody wants to hang out with a walking encyclopedia. Finding the right balance between personality and making your content feel weighty is a tricky one. Your tone should be engaging without glossing over salient details. You should be funny without being flippant, you should be articulate without being confusing and information dense without being dry.

Finally, know your onions

You can have the punchiest and most engaging prose style in the world, but if your information is incorrect or unfounded, audiences will not forgive you for it. Having someone tear your insights to shreds on social media because you didn’t do you research isn’t a good look on any business.

5 Interaction Channels That Create Unparalleled Brand Loyalty

With the explosion of e-commerce retail, customers now expect the shopping experience to be cohesive and connected. In other words, if consumers have a dispute to settle, they want to receive timely and efficient customer service on the channels — phone, email, social media, live chat and more — in which they spend a majority of their time.

But the quicker your business recognizes the channels that are most optimal in providing a positive brand experience, the sooner management will see a bigger return on investment. Plus, happier customers are never a bad thing. Here are five popular omnichannel options to consider.

1. Texting

These days, anything can be done from the palm of our hands. Knowing people send upward of 100 texts per day to family and friends, why not make it yet another option for customers to reach your support team?

Indeed, give the people what they want. According to Marketing Sherpa, 27 percent of consumers ages 18 to 34 prefer to receive communication from brands via text versus a paltry 6 percent amongst those age 65 and older.

Additionally, an eWeek study concluded that 89 percent of consumers want companies to offer multiple channels in which to respond to support requests. Of that same group, more than half (52 percent) said they would prefer having a conversation via text conversation with a customer support rep.

2. Live Web Chat

Looking to save time, drive more business to your website and keep your customers satisfied? Implementing live chat support on your e-commerce site could do the trick. In fact, this feature provides the immediacy that consumers want — without having to pick up the phone and wait on hold for an eternity.

Not only does live chat provide more in the way of efficiency, it can also save your organization time, particularly if the feature employs AI to more quickly provide answers or tips. Because most customer service issues addressed via live chat can be solved in 42 seconds, these interactions often don’t need to be escalated to the phone or via email. Moreover, 63 percent of customers are likely to do business with a brand whose website offers live chat capabilities.

3. Email

The speed, efficiency and record-keeping capabilities of email no doubt allows this communication channel to remain popular throughout the business world. Plus, no matter your industry, email is bound to be a popular communication tool to connect with colleagues, customers and clients any time of the day.

In fact, 91 percent of all consumers use email every day, providing a basis for this interaction channel to be standard in your customer service offerings. From inquiries related to distribution and service downtimes to account balances and missed payments, email provides a host of opportunities to easily rectify most customer service issues.

Plus, easy-to-use, navigable interfaces via Gmail and Outlook mean most employees won’t need a rigorous onboarding session, as most employees use a similar system at home. And with tools like MailChimp, you can select from a number of email templates that can be tailored to best communicate with your audience.

4. Voice

Despite monumental tech advances in recent years, consumers still want and enjoy the ability to have a two-way conversation with support reps to rectify an issue. In fact, customer support via phone still accounts for 68 percent of all customer service interactions, according to New Voice Media.

Like email, most consumers expect the brands in which they do business with to offer phone support. For many, it’s the speed and convenience of picking up the phone and speaking with someone directly that makes this interaction channel appealing. Of course, long hold times and call transfers can be a major turnoff.

But cloud-based customer engagement platforms can eliminate some of these pain points. In fact, cloud contact center solutions, including those sold by Aspect, provide flexible options that allow businesses to more efficiently provide answers to questions and inquiries from any number of service channels.

5. Social Media

The ability to instantly connect with brands via social media not only provides you more ease and flexibility, but it also lets you hold their feet to the fire should certain companies not respond in an efficient manner. Indeed, calling out a company directly on Twitter can have massive implications on how it handles future customer service inquiries.

And this communication channel is only continuing to grow in popularity. Case in point: An estimated 1 in 3 consumers who use social media prefer this channel to communicate with brands versus phone or email. Plus, the ability to have instantaneous back-and-forth conversations between company and consumer via social media is meaningful: Consumers spend 20 percent to 40 percent more time and money with brands that respond and engage via social media.

So who are these consumers? According to Marketing Sherpa, 18- to 34-year-olds are most likely to use social media as a customer service tool, followed by consumers ages 35 to 44. So, on which channels should your brand be providing customer service? While social media and email remain the more popular options, do some research to determine how your customers like to communicate.

Digital Marketing Strategies That Work: A Quick Guide

In this modern technological world that we live in, digital marketing needs to be part of your business plan. Businesses and consumers are all going to be looking online, so if you want to get their custom, then having a good online presence is the way to help that happen. If you’re just starting out with your business, then it can feel like a pretty overwhelming place to be as it can be ever changing. So here are some of the sure fire ways that you need to be implementing as part of your digital marketing strategy; are you doing any of them already?

Know Who To Target

To market your business in the best way that you can, you need to know who your business is trying to target or who the ideal customer is for you. You might have an idea of this, and may have designed your business in a particular way for a certain demographic. But when you use online platforms, you can actually check who your business is marketing. Using online tools related to your website, you can check the location of people that view your site. You might not have intended to go global. But if you have plenty of viewers from overseas, it could mean you targeting your audience or product to suit those overseas too, for instance.

Identify Goals

Having an idea of what you want to get out of your online presence is a great way to be specific with what you decide to do. Do you simply want to get more followers on social media or more hits and shares on your blog posts? Do you want to rank on the first page of a Google search for a specific keyword? Do you want to double your current revenue from your online store? When you identify a goal, you will then be able to take the right steps to achieve it.

Look For An Agency or Mentor

If you have only got a small team of people at work, none of whom are particularly savvy when it comes to digital marketing, then it could be a good idea to look for an agency to outsource the work to. You could also look for an online mentor to help you, such as someone from LDI (Lifestyle Design International), for example. If you’re not sure what that is, then you could look up a Lifestyle Design International review to see if they could help you achieve what you want to do. When you want to achieve online, then you do need to get the best advice to help you.

Audit Your Owned Media

At the heart of what you will do with your digital marketing strategy is your owned media, which will essentially be the content that you have. If you have a website, then anything from your about or contact page needs to be looked at, as well as blog posts and anything relevant you are sharing that way. Boost the posts, use keywords, images, and social media posts to help.

Important Ideas for Turning Around Your Company

All companies have good times and bad times, even when the market is booming. Sometimes there can be no obvious reason why your company is struggling, but it is important to get to the bottom of it as soon as possible. Deciding what the issue is, and trying to resolve it might not be as easy as you imagine. Here are some ways you to help you identify the reasons for a downturn, and how you can put things right.

Ask the Right People the Right Questions

If you want to find out why your company is having problems, speaking to the management team might not always get you the answers. That isn’t because they don’t want to tell you, or that they don’t know, it is probably because they are too close to the situation to think objectively. Try asking some of the staff to see if they can identify what the problem is, or if they know how the situation can be fixed. It is also a good idea to take a look at things yourself, as sometimes you might see something others cannot.

Get the Opinion of Your Customers

One of the best people to ask about your company is going to be your customers. If sales have dropped, or growth is slowing, it could be because of something your company has done. Maybe you have changed your payment system, or maybe you have changed supplier, and the quality isn’t the same. By asking your customers through a poll or questionnaire, you may well be able to see a pattern forming that will identify the issues. If you send products to outlets, speak to them as well, they may have heard something from your customers that could help.

Speak to Your Suppliers and Clients

If you are starting to see your financial situation suffer, then you might have to speak to your suppliers and see if they can renegotiate their contracts with you. The other thing you can do is to go directly to a client rather than through an intermediary. For example, if you normally send your recycling to a third-party company, then you might be able to save money by approaching companies like balingwiredirect.com to supply you the wire to tie up the materials yourselves. Then, you can send the recycling directly to the factory and cut out the extra expense.

Look at Your Competitors

It might be that the slowdown is more than just your company. Take a look at your competitors and see what they are doing. If they are also starting to struggle, then it could be that your market has slowed down. One way you might be able to breathe life into it is by trying to offer something the other companies don’t. It might be the catalyst the market needs, and it may help you to recover instead of your competitors.

By trying to analyze all the areas of your company and thinking objectively, you can start to turn your company around.

4 Questions You Must Ask Yourself Before Making That Hire

If you’re thinking of hiring somebody new, there are a few questions you need to ask yourself first. You might think you’re making a great decision, but doing things like this quickly isn’t a good idea. You need to make sure you have plenty of time to mull it over. Here are 4 questions in particular that are important when hiring somebody new:

1. Do I Really Need To make This Hire?

Hiring somebody can save time and make your business more money. However, hiring an official employee isn’t always necessary. You could outsource work, hire somebody temporarily, or look into other methods of getting the job done. When you hire somebody, you have responsibilities and another mouth to feed.

2. What Am I Basing This Hire On?

There are a few things you may need to base your hire on. Qualifications aren’t everything, unless you work in a regulated industry and this person absolutely must have the right qualifications. In some cases, you could simply hire somebody smart with a great attitude and train them on the job. Know what’s really important.

3. Do They Fit The Company Culture?

Any new hire should fit your company culture perfectly. However, you shouldn’t look over red flags just because somebody matches your culture. Be smart.

4. Do I Have Any Unaddressed Doubts?

Make sure you’re aware of anything questionable that’s making you feel uneasy internally. If you think something needs to be addressed, look into it ASAP. If you don’t, you could end up with one of the following outlined in the infographic:

get help with workforce management

Forming A Practical Marketing Wing For Your Business

Every business needs to have a marketing team that works non-stop to make sure the products and services of the company are projected in a positive light to customers and clients alike. However, the traditional style of a marketing department is slowly going to the door, and more modern practices are now being pulled in. Rather than just working on ways to make the business and the newest item look great and innovative, now marketing teams are more inclined to show customers how. This means that the marketing and communications departments, more so for small businesses that have to make sure each employee possesses multiple talents, are able to practically make this happen. No longer should a small business try to go outside the company to get a logo, animation, mascot, digital walkthrough or model, made so that the products and services are better understood.

Hiring and filling a group

Marketing staff is a versatile bunch, and many are more orientated toward the analysis and behind the scenes impact of the projections, advertisements, and campaigns have on the business. Others are simply more creative and want to be much more hands-on with regards to the actual creation of the project. Therefore it’s vital to realize that some marketing professionals will be better at formulating a plan, watching the figures and others will be more inclined to take the artistic route. Those that are can be shown an Altium course. At seminars, meetings, exhibitions, and lectures, they will be put on training courses. Here they can learn the importance of design and be shown the essentials. They can also go on to do, more advanced courses that will delve deeper into the software and technical aspect of designing and managing components.

Research and impact

Of course, if this method is done, that means there will be a split in the marketing department of your business. This is actually a good thing, as smaller teams that work together are able to almost purify a subject and the results down to a simple form. However, the impact that design has on the business, especially with regards to clients that are familiar with the business, should be studied and logged. The research and impact a marketing campaign has on consumers, can and should be made into a digestible report for the business itself. If consumers are reacting positively to one part but are nonchalant toward the other, this can be corrected and improved with more staff members dedicated to sifting this out. The design team can, therefore, use their creative means, to alter a patch of the campaign, be it a 3D model, the logo or simply an interactive component that consumers are reacting to such as a smartphone app.

Forming a creative wing for your marketing department isn’t just about including more artists and creators. It’s about now making the design of such projects, purely in-house and not having to rely on a third-party. Therefore the communication between departments has to be bolstered, and though the original team will have to split into practical and technical minds, the evolution of marketing campaigns is paramount.

Wow The Market With Your Positive Brand Reputation

Whether you are an entrepreneur at the head of a massive business empire or you’re a freelancer using your name as a brand, the way others perceive you can make or break a deal. First impressions, as the saying goes, always matter. However, when these first impressions can be shared with others, they become difficult to address and fix if they’ve been negative. Imagine this scenario: As a young graduate, you’ve prepared for an interview for your first job, but on the big day, your nerves get the best of you. The interview turns into a fiasco, and you don’t need long to realize that you’ve ruined your chances for this job. Others candidates have made a better first impression. It’s annoying, but unfortunately, these things happen. Maybe you’ll be lucky next time. Now, put yourself in the same scenario, but with one noticeable difference: The interviewer publishes an article about how bad they found you and why no company should bother hiring you. You’ve not only ruined your chances for this specific job, but for any job! The same thing can occur at a business level. Creating a positive reputation is about making sure that the interactions with your market run smoothly and that, if mistakes happen, they can be sorted out efficiently and durably.

Monitor what others say about you

You may try hard to appear on top of the search results on Google and Bing, but what happens when others beat you to it with your own branded terms? When bloggers, reviewers or journalists write about your company, they use your brand name. Depending on the reputation of the online platform their commentary is published on, it’s likely to appear before your own website, especially if you’re looking at customer reviews. Tracking what others say about you is part of your Online Reputation Management strategy or ORM for short. Indeed, there’s nothing worse than finding that the top search results for your brand rank negative reviews or articles about your business. It’s damaging to your reputation and your growth, and that’s precisely why there are options that you can use to remove online content and improve your brand reputation. When a blogger publishes something negative about your brand, for example, you can contact the webmaster to remove the page, or in some instances, you can ask Google to remove the information permanently in the case of fraud, sexually explicit information or even Right to Be Forgotten in the EU.

Be a confident professional

Building a positive reputation begins with your professional skills. Becoming an expert in your business environment is at the core of making the best possible impression. In a word, the day you neglect your professional training is the day you will cause harm to your reputation. While you may not need to become the very best, your ability to remain knowledgeable about the latest industry trends and evolutions is essential to maintaining the image of expertise that you crave.

Shout about your successes

Nobody likes to sound big-headed or pretentious. As a result, less and less small businesses like to shout about their achievements and latest successes. But let’s get things clear from the start: If you don’t tell the market about your results how do you expect people to know about them? Self-promotion is not a shameless excuse to boast. It’s about promotion what your business is good at. So make sure to create success stories and monitor the metrics that you can share with your audience.

Let others tell their stories with you

The main reason why happy customers are so precious is not that they’re easier to deal with for your customer service team, but instead, it’s because they are your best advocates. If you don’t like the idea of promoting your successes, maybe you can let your best customers do the promotional work for you. When a customer shares a positive experience they’ve had with a brand, their circle of followers listen carefully. Why so? Firstly, because people trust what strangers say about you. Secondly, because it’s likely that your customer might be describing a meaningful issue that others struggle with too. Promoting your services for their problems also presents your brand as a solution to people in a similar situation.

Share your knowledge

You don’t always need to talk about your successes. Sometimes, sharing your experience willingly can make all the difference to an audience. You could speak at a conference, for example, to share your expertise about a specific market theme, or publish a book to discuss a niche business strategy. Usable knowledge is, after all, the best advertising campaign you could get.

Are you ready to improve your brand perception and build a reputation that will attract future customers? Then it’s time to maximize your expertise, monitor branded content, and make the most of your satisfied customers.

Social Media Engagement 101: How To Boost Your Followers Interaction

If you’re considering making any form of branding or business online, it’s always important to remember your audience. If you want to build your online presence, you should always consider social media engagement.

Some might think that since you’re starting an online business, or want to gain revenue from blogging, it’s alright to stop with just increasing your audience size. However, you’re missing an essential step. It’s always important to be consistent with follower interaction to grow your presence online. For those who are curious, the following are the top ways on how to increase follower interaction on social media. Let’s take a look.

Social Media Engagement: Why Follower Interaction Matters

If you want to make your online presence considerably relevant to your customers and fans, it’s always important to engage with them on a regular basis. This allows them to “grow” into your products and services. People who frequently visit your sites and social media accounts should be the ones you constantly engage with.

These people, although “lurkers,” can be transformed into fans and even customers.
Devoting time to build relationships with them can potentially jumpstart sales, increase numbers in positive reviews, and even develop customer loyalty.

Follower Interaction Know-How

It’s therefore a priority to make sure you’re engaging with your followers in order to boost your so-called “cred” or credibility. After all, it’s much more comforting as a customer to be able to interact with a service or a brand as it establishes good relationships. Customers may prefer to buy products from a service that they know they can ask questions to or talk to, than to buy from a “reputable” brand that ignores its customers.

If you think it’s time to start focusing on follower interaction, you’re on the right track. Here are some of the best behaviors for social media engagement that you can do for your business and branding.

Consistency is key. Perhaps you can start by making sure there is a consistent theme throughout your social media platforms. Use a common color scheme, a common logo, and focus on your niche. This allows people to “know” what they’re getting into.

This affords them the opportunity to trust you, as they know what to expect.
This also means it’s important for you to start developing ways to “show” your brand to other people.

Advertising is perhaps the most common way to generate follower interaction. Be warned, however, that it also tends to be extremely expensive. Social media platforms such as Facebook give you the option to “expand” your reach via your ads. For a fee, Facebook can “boost” your posts and help reach more people.

This is a double-edged tactic, however, as there’s no guarantee on the level of interest people who will see your ads. They can be potential customers, or just lurkers who can see your advertisement.
This is still a good shot if you have the spare budget. After all, expanding your advertisements’ reach can help you assess just how popular a potential product or service can become.

Creating unique content is perhaps the second-most common way to generate follower interaction. It also tends to be the cheapest way. However, be warned that this process takes a lot of time. This is because you have to slowly develop content to make you a relevant figure in your niche.

If you’re planning on sharing pieces created by others, don’t forget to give them credit.
If you’re planning to make unique content, try utilizing useful quotes, viral videos, funny GIFs, and even entertaining graphics.
Remember to always create content that’s unique and not used anywhere else as this helps to improve your overall reputation as an authority leader.
Make sure all content is spell checked. Spelling mistakes can appear unprofessional.

Collaborations can help, especially if you’re friends with people from other famous brands. If not, try approaching the notable figures in your niche if you could perhaps do a collaboration. You can for instance offer if your service or products can be “joined” with theirs, as you can boost the chances of selling products.

Examples of collaborations can be blog posts that promote products and services, contests and giveaways, and other forms of unique content.
This also helps you develop more fruitful relationship with other figures in your niche. This can help establish a good presence even to other members of the market.

Other Things You Can Do

Finally, here’s some other things you may be able to try to help increase follower interaction.

Offer freebies, contests or other incentives that may grab your follower’s attention.
Trigger emotions by sharing funny posts.
Share random questions or quotes to help peak their interest.
Share something controversial but not too controversial. You want to peak interest but not make people hate you if they don’t agree with you.

These are just some of the ways that you can engage your followers better to get better interaction.

Conclusion

At U-Thrive Marketing, we know that these tips above of course do not work “instantly.” You have to mix and match elements of these tips in order to boost your chances of getting more followers to become customers. Try to find ways to have these techniques “match” your branding and marketing, as this helps establish your “identity” in the market.

Bill Sheikh

I am the founder of U-Thrive Marketing, Tulsa’s premier online marketing and website design firm. We have helped hundreds of businesses across Oklahoma and the rest of the US take their online marketing to the next level. We specialize in generating more customers for the businesses we work with by utilizing proven online marketing tactics such as SEO, PPC & Social Media marketing. We also have a team of experts that specialize in website development, website design and graphic design. I have also been personally featured on many national and local publications related to marketing.

Marketing Methods Debunked

Marketing is one of the most important things a business needs to do. Right from the beginning you should be looking for ways to market yourself, and your products. The official definition of marketing is, “The study and management of exchange relationships”. Basically, you’re communicating with your customers products and offers. Without it, you’ll be struggling to get yourself noticed in a very big world. Before you start a marketing campaign, you first need to do some market research. Knowing exactly what your customer wants, and what your competitors are doing can help build your own marketing campaign. This can either be done in house or outsourced. Getting an expert to look into your market for your first campaign might be a little easier than giving it a go yourself, that way your first campaign will be strong and effective. There are a lot of different ways of marketing, some of which can be confusing. This article is going to debunk some of the most effective.

SEO

SEO stands for search engine optimisation. This is one of the most effective methods for getting your website noticed within a search engine’s rankings. It works by increasing traffic to your website, or a particular web page within your site, and in turn boost your overall rankings. Everything is on the web at the minute, so getting your website to the top is so important, hence why SEO should be your number one method of putting yourself or product out there. Like with market research, it may be best to outsource this one yourself. A successful SEO campaign can be hard to do, but SEO can be self taught. The backbone of SEO is link building. So basically, a search engine his little ‘robots’ that’ll crawl through all the websites on a web search. Within a website or webpage there should be a number of links that the robot can follow through the continue its crawl. If you have no links, and the robot can’t crawl your site, you site will be right at the bottom of the rankings. So this is where keyword research and link building come in. The more links that are dotted around the web that link to your website the better. Search engines assume that the bigger and better that your link building profile is, the more interesting your site is. But you can’t just build spammy links on random fake sites. This could face you being penalised. You also can’t build hundreds and hundreds of links at once. Again, you’ll be penalised. The robots aren’t stupid, you need to build your backlink profile up naturally. This is where companies that specialise in building backlinks come in handy. As you start to dabble in the world of SEO and backlinks, you should start to notice a rise in your rankings pretty soon.

Social Media

Again, this is a really big method of marketing, purely because social media is so huge. It is however, not as effective in terms of drawing traffic to your site as link building would be. It is more to showcase yourself to the world much more quickly. Social media is a real time thing, people are constantly tweeting, putting a picture on instagram etc. As soon as you tweet or post something, it’ll instantly start to get noticed. Your business should always have the three main social media pages set up. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If you create a business page through Facebook, they have a really good tool called boosts. Basically, if you post something such as a new deal, you’ll be asked if you want to boost the post for a set price. This will then rocket the posts views from maybe hundreds, to in the thousands. The prices are relatively cheap, but it isn’t alway reliable in terms of meeting the right people. If you’re going to utilise Twitter, you need to think of hashtags that are relevant to your business. For example, if you’re selling gift hampers, you could promote a product by using hashtags such as #Gifthampers, #Christmas, #Birthday, and so on. Twitter is huge, and if done right you could be sending a lot of people your way. Make sure you’re always active in terms of tweeting, and try to gain followers as best as you can. Instagram is more for just showcasing what you have to offer, it won’t be as effective in terms of sending people to your website. Use it to show professional pictures of your products, and again you can use the hashtags that instagram has to build a decent following. Make sure you show your products off in the best light, use photo editing software to make them look as professional as possible.

Adwords

This is a service ran purely by Google, and it is effective if used alongside other methods such as link building. If you’ve ever done a Google search, you’ll notice that at the top of the search they’ll be three pages separated from the rest of the search with a little ‘Ad’ sign next to them. These are Adwords. Google uses keywords to determine which website should appear for which search. This is the difference between natural non-paid rankings, and paid rankings. To get your website in the top three, you’ll have to be paying a bit of money. You’ll be competing against other companies to take one of those spots in a particular keyword search. So for example, if you’re running an Adword campaign for the keyword ‘Sports Clothes’, they’ll be a few other companies doing the same, pumping money into this keyword search to try and secure the Adwords spot. It’ll sort of become like a bidding war to stay there. Whoever pays more, wins. It is effective in the sense that your website will get noticed instantly, and it does look more trustworthy. But it can be a really expensive game, and unless you want to constantly be paying a lot of money, it’s only a temporary method. But it will boost sales quickly, even if only for a short period of time.

Shop Talk: This Is How Much Space Your Office Should Have

When the time comes for you to open a new office, or even get your very first office, it’s not always easy to know where you should start. You’re probably thinking of calling a commercial realtor, and you’ve probably already looked online at what you can get for your budget, but other than that, you might not know where the start. And if that’s the case, you’re not alone. It can be daunting to find a new space for your business. But the way to make it a little bit easier is to firmly know what you’re looking for. Yes, budget will play a big part in what you can and can’t afford, but it will help you to know what kind of space you need when you start the physical search.

Reception

First up, you need to think about whether or not you’re going to need a reception area. When you’re just starting out and you’re looking for somewhere to house your staff, this may not matter so much. However, if you’re planning on having clients, customers, or suppliers over to the office, then you’re definitely going to want to think about a space that has a reception area. Then, you need to work out whether you need a small area just suitable for greeting guests, or somewhere huge and impressive, with an array of receptionists working away.

Meeting Space

Next, you should then think about what meeting spaces you need. Or whether you need any at all. For some companies, they can get by with one communal area to hold their meetings in. But for others, they’re going to need dozens of meeting rooms to conduct meetings at the same time. So look at your calendar. This can often be the biggest indicator of the amount of meeting space you will need for your new office space.

Restrooms

Then, you need to be thinking about the facilities the space should have. If there’s one bathroom and you have 20+ employees, it’s just not going to work. You’re also going to want to think about covering off everything from urinal mats to sanitary machines. Whether it’s something you have to supply or the landlord will sort for you, it’s food for thought to think about as you’re planning and searching.

Communal Space

But you’ve also got the communal spaces to think about too. It’s easy to know that you need areas for people to work in, but they also need areas to take a break in. From kitchen space complete with the right office kitchen essentials, to somewhere to sit and breakout areas too, you need to work out how much communal space your staff will need and whether that should take priority over anything else.

Individual Offices

Finally, you’ve also got individual offices to think about. You may not need them, but if you’re planning on moving somewhere that you can grow into, they could be handy to have, or at least space to add them in, should you need to have senior offices in the future.

5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Starting a Business

If you are considering starting your own business, it is important to realize that the plans you make up front on its structure often will be the keys to its success. Indeed, the difference between a successful small business and one that fails is often determined at the planning stage. It’s not always easy to know what those plans involve and how to make them. But we’ll help you do so with five crucial questions to ask yourself. Your answers will help you shape your own venture and will go a long way in making it work for you. These questions are based on a study that were conducted of scores of successful small businesses over many years. We know that they can help you focus your mind and help you succeed.

1) In Which Business Field Do You Have The Most Experience?

It is vital that you start your small business in a field that you know and that you know well. If you start out in a field with which you are unfamiliar, you will have to learn as you go. You will make mistakes and you will lose money as you learn and the business likely will collapse. We have watched many businesses fail because they did not realize the importance of experience in the field into which they went. The way most people gain experience in a field is through working in it. They learn how the system works. They learn about sources of supply, about invoicing, and about profit margins. They learn what customers want. They learn about the competition. They learn where they could start their own business to fill a gap. Your answer to this question, therefore, will determine the nature of your business.

2) What Is Your Aim In Starting Your Own Business?

If your aim is simply to make money, you are probably better off working for someone else. You should have a passion for the business you want to start. Making money comes second.

Here’s why:

If your aim is solely to make money, you will be tempted to cut corners to boost your profit. The result is likely to be an inferior product or service. Customers soon will be turned off. If your aim, however, is to produce a quality service of which you can be proud and which you love to provide, you will put all you have into making the product or service excellent.

The money will follow.

3) Do You Have The Drive To Make The Venture Successful?

Unless you are fully dedicated to the business and throw all you have into it, it will collapse when you face the first hurdle (and you can be sure you will face hurdles). If we have found one characteristic among the small businesses that we have studied, it was that the owners were determined at almost any cost to make the venture succeed. When failure loomed, they learned from their mistakes, picked themselves up, went in a new direction if necessary, and tackled their venture with renewed energy.

4) Will You Fulfill A Need In The Market?

Here’s where your experience in the field helps. You will know whether the product you produce or the service you provide is already available in the area in which you plan to provide it. You will know where there is a need that you can fulfill. You will know that it is a losing game to compete with major players in the field. The difference in your product or service could be geographic; the area is undeserved. It could be the nature of the product or service; no company anywhere is providing it. It could be the price; you can produce this at a significantly lower cost using today’s technology and still come out ahead. It could be a host of other ways. But there must be a need for it. Clearly the answer to this question must be yes.

5) Do You Have Access To Capital?

Almost all small businesses need some sort of seed capital. Some, such as a restaurant for example, need substantial upfront money. Furniture, cooking equipment, an industrial kitchen and staff are all expenses that need to be met even before the first customer walks in the door. Others, such as an online shopping store, need little in the way of start-up capital beyond hardware and software. One way is to obtain financing online. You might want to learn more about applying for 90 day loans from reputable websites like WeGot1000. But businesses also need money after they have been launched. Indeed, many small businesses are likely to need to tap into a money source at some time. Markets change, natural disasters occur, and sales suddenly slump for no apparent reason. Usually the downturn does not mean that the business will fail. It means that it will have to take measures to overcome the temporary setback and that it will need capital to see it through the tough times.

Bottom Line

Your answers to the questions above will help you to focus your thinking so that you have a plan to be successful even before you launch your own small business. Please share this article and let us know if these questions have helped you.

5 Reasons Why You Could Lose Your Best Employees

The success of a startup business not only depends on the business owner but also the employees of the business. However, as a business owner we can often become so caught up with budgets, meetings and numbers, that we forget about the important people. The people on the ground who keep our business running on a day to day basis. It is important that we recognize the contributions of our employees, or we possibly face losing them to a rival company.

Why Our Employees Might Leave

We Don’t Know Them

If our employees feel like we haven’t taken the time to get to know them, then they will feel unvalued and used. They are not just another employee, we shouldn’t just know them as “the man who is good with numbers”, we need to make an effort to get to know them on a personal level. No, I am not suggesting that you interrogate them in a small room with nothing but a table and some Gooseneck Lighting, that would just be weird! However, you do need to take the time to learn more about them. Find out about their family life, what their interests are and what they are good at. Your employee will really appreciate this and as a result they will be more likely to stick around.

You Don’t Give Them Enough Freedom

We get that it’s your business and as a result you want to be the one making all of the decisions. However, if you don’t give your employees some freedom to make decisions, then they are going to feel stifled. We need to show our employees that we trust them and that we believe in them. We need to them the freedom to make some good decisions. Having too many rules suggests a lack of trust. Clear expectations are good: never-ending rules are not. If we don’t trust our employees then we will find that they are leaving to work for someone who does trust them.

We Don’t Give Out Praise

We all want to know when we are doing a good job. I am not suggesting that you start dishing out medals, unless you want to (who doesn’t love a bit of bling around their neck). However, I am suggesting that you give praise where praise is due. Don’t wait for that person’s annual review, take the time to let them know that week. It could be a quick ten minute chat, a brief email or even a few words of praise in the weekly meeting. Just make sure you make the time to do it.

You Resemble A Dictator

No one wants to work for a dictator. You do not want to spend your time managing your team through fear. You shouldn’t also be expecting your employees to work crazy, long hours just because you do. You need to respect your employees and show them respect. If you work people too hard then they will leave.

Lack of Training

You should be investing in your company by investing in your employee’s training. Regular training keeps your employees up to date with the latest industry requirements and your employee will feel valued as you are investing in their training and, therefore, them.

In order to make a success of your startup business you need to keep all of your employees happy and motivated. That’s not that difficult, is it?