Jay Baer, the founder of Convince & Convert, once said: “Make your marketing so useful; people would pay for it.” While we couldn’t agree more, this statement indicates that it’s not just about marketing; it’s about good marketing as well when it comes to growing your brand. Whether it’s social media marketing in CT or in LA there are certain strategies that work in general. Social media with 4.66 Billion active users in 2021 (according to Statistica) brings a lot of opportunities for businesses when it comes to marketing.  In this article, we will take you through some techniques; that can help you make the most out of your social media marketing campaigns. Below are 5 tips or strategies to keep in mind while designing a marketing campaign on social media. Strategies You Need to Know! 1.     Develop a smart plan This might seem pretty straight forward but its’ something; many ignore.  When you start out with a plan, you know what you are doing and why. Taking a step without a plan is like traveling on a ship without knowing your destination. Without a clear and realistic goal, you are bound to get lost and fail! Start out with a plan; that is smart. Smart stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. When you make a plan, it should be on point and not vague. The plan should also be measurable so you know what you need. It should be achievable and not unrealistic and relevant as you shouldn’t waste your time on anything irrelevant or unimportant. About time bound, you should respect the time you have and should know how much you need for each step. Let’s take an example. You set a goal of having 1000 followers in 3 months on Instagram and post content accordingly. You will know what you want to do and how much time you have if a goal is in place rather than shooting arrows in the dark. 2.     Follow metrics and check reports When it comes to marketing, performance metrics like the number of likes, followers, retweets, etc. are crucial indicators of how well you are performing. While some metrics might show positive growth some might not. It really comes down to what helps your brand grow and what helps you make the best decisions. Let’s talk about another example. Steve’s Hot Dogs, a St. Louis-based restaurant had an event. They marketed it well but focused more on their neighborhood. As a result, they didn’t get many Instagram or Facebook likes but their sales tripled.  So when it comes to metrics, you need to decide what to focus on more than the other. To have in-depth knowledge of each metric, checking reports and comparing metrics is important. Thus make sure you keep checking reports regularly so you can spot issues beforehand and are aware of your marketing status. 3.     Understand your competition and collaborate There is a famous saying: “Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer”. While keeping friends close is great, keeping your enemies close lets you know what threats might come your way. Applying that to marketing, you must know what your competitors are doing so you can perform even better. One strategy you can use is to spot the top three competitors and check their social media to see how they market their brand. Check the platforms they use how often they post, what they post, the responses on their posts, etc. While competition is a reality, you should also benefit from it. You can work together or approach influencers to market your brand. Apart from marketing or raising sales, you can also build brand...

Looking to improve brand awareness? Whether you are a new startup trying to establish your presence in an industry or you have been around for many years and are simply looking to create a stronger presence, there are a number of strategies to try which should help to increase brand awareness. When you are able to increase brand awareness, you can attract more customers, compete at a higher level and improve the reputation of your brand, so it is certainly worthwhile. With this in mind, here are a few of the best strategies to try if you are looking to increase brand awareness. Get Involved With The Community There is a strong focus on creating a strong online presence when it comes to brand awareness and while this is certainly important, you should not overlook the value of more traditional forms of marketing. Community engagement is an excellent way to increase brand awareness and attract customers from the local area as you can form strong connections, make a positive impact on your local area and establish your brand as an important organization in the community. Hosting events is one of the best ways to do this along with volunteering and partnering with other local organizations. PPC A fast, cost-effective and smart way to greatly increase brand awareness and to direct more traffic to your online website is with PPC. PPC will allow you to immediately become highly visible online and allow you to reach your target customer when they are looking for products/services that you can provide, but it is important that you use an experienced PPC agency in Manchester for the best results. The top agencies will be able to deliver the best campaigns, boost your sales and ensure that it is a smart investment for your business. Encourage Social Media Shares Social media is obviously a great way to get your name out there and to engage with your target customer, but it is also a platform that many brands struggle to use effectively. In terms of increasing brand awareness, the key is to encourage likes and shares so that you can reach the network of your existing followers. There are a couple of effective ways to do this, including: Social media competitions (like and share to enter)Creating and sharing high-quality contentBeing a source for news in your industryStanding for an important cause Partner With Influencers These days, one of the best ways to get your name out there and to increase your sales is to partner with influencers. Influencer marketing continues to grow at a rapid rate and this is because it is such an effective form of marketing and one that will allow you to reach a much larger audience, improve your brand reputation and attract new customers to your business. If you are looking to increase brand awareness, then these are currently the best strategies to try. No matter if you are a start-up or you have been around for a number of years, these strategies will help you to reach a much larger audience and enjoy the benefits that this can...

These days, search powers the internet and having a website that is search-engine friendly and capable of ranking high is essential if you’re to be found by potential clients or customers. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing a site to rank higher in the search engine results pages. In truth, SEO is a highly detailed and involved process, but there are still some small changes you can make to your website and site content that could see you enjoying better results in a relatively short time. DIY SEO vs hiring a specialist digital marketing agency While there are some tricks you can employ that may help you achieve better rankings in the short-term, if you hope to achieve the best results you should really look at outsourcing to a third-party professional digital marketing company. Achieving high rankings can take a frustratingly long time if you don’t know what you’re doing – and, even if you manage to get good rankings, there’s also absolutely no guarantee of staying high up in the coveted result pages of Google and others. Also, if you don’t know what you’re doing, there’s an equal likelihood that you’ll harm rather than enhance your ranking. If you’re in any doubt, you should think about enlisting the help of a professional firm like Flyrise that will align your business’ website with its top keywords and execute a plan to get you ranking for them. Simple tactics you can do that will help your rankings All that said, there are still various things you can do yourself that should have a positive impact on your rankings – and will also make the job of a digital marketing company considerably easier should you decide to work with one. Develop a list of keywords and phrases likely to be used by your clients (potential and existing): You know your business and market better than anyone, so you should also have a pretty clear idea of what terms or phrases people might type in to find a firm like yours. Developing a list of possible keywords and phrases will help you populate your pages with words people are likely to use when they search – greatly increasing your chances of Google registering and delivering your content under these terms. Give prominence to your keywords: You will likely be using some form of Content Management System (CMS) so, when you’re titling your page and adding a header, think about the keywords that relate directly to that content and include them in both. Also, you should split your main page content into headers – again featuring these keywords liberally. Remember not to go over the top and start throwing words in repeatedly where they aren’t required or don’t make sense, which is considered spamming. Google’s spiders are now incredibly sophisticated and aim to ‘read’ a site’s content much as a human would. In fact, its bots are now so smart they can recognize poor grammar and structure – which, in turn, Google uses to prioritize pages in listings. Keep sentences short and split long paragraphs: As mentioned, Google now attempts to ‘read’ content and is increasingly frowning upon overly long sentences and paragraphs. Reading long reams of text is tiring on the eyes, and Google knows this. So keep your text concise and to the...

Small and large businesses all share the same interest: they want to connect with their audience through social media. There are many reasons for this, though mainly, it is to: Increase brand awarenessIncrease revenue Social media marketing makes achieving these aims possible – and it is not as difficult as it sounds! Follow these tips to gain a clear understanding of how you can use social media as an effective marketing tool for your business.  Share high-quality content Every successful business regularly shares content on their social media pages – it drives consumer engagement and enables them to promote their products, services, and everything else that is important. It is simply not enough to post content every couple of months out of obligation – that is poor branding. Before you start working on any content, it is a great idea to create a content calendar, which is a tool used by many social media professionals. A content calendar puts all your content plans into one document, which helps you to organize upload dates and who oversees each project. Microsoft Excel is one of the most popular choices for doing this. Here is an Excel function list to get you up-to-date on how to use Excel. Your content calendar should include: The title of the contentA detailed description of what it is aboutCreators (which employees are working on it?)The platforms the content will be shared onThe deadline Now, what makes for high-quality content? High-quality content could be anything from a blog to a product unveiling video, but it should always: Benefit the audienceEvoke emotionBe aesthetically consistent with your brandCatch the viewer’s attention, be it through an interesting title or thumbnailBe posted on the right platform (for example, a ‘How To’ guide is probably more suited to YouTube than Snapchat) Make your brand ‘human’ A popular trend in social media marketing right now is making your brand as ‘human’ as possible. Corporate jargon is often thrown out of the window and replaced with everyday language, often even humor evolving around memes. However, this can occasionally cause controversy – so do not get too carried away trying to be funny. So, make sure to express your personality, regularly engage with your audience, and even show the faces of some of your employees. Analyze your performance A major positive of social media marketing is that platforms (such as YouTube and Twitter) enable your business to see how your posts are performing. For example, you can see how many views your videos receive. Moving forward, this gives you a clear idea of what is working and what is not, so you can make smart changes. It is expected that 92.1 percent of U.S. companies (with 100+ employees) will use social media marketing by 2022, meaning analyzing your performance levels is going to be a valuable tool to stay competitive. Finally… Do not oversaturate A fatal mistake that many businesses are currently making is oversaturating their audience with social media posts. Too many videos, too many questions, too many hashtags – it is not good. It will frustrate your audience and potentially make them leave. Make sure you find the right balance for keeping people engaged without scaring them away. It may take some time, but you will get there in the end....

Marketing your brand is one of the core factors in getting your name out there, and your employees are one of the vital components that can make or break your business. These are two peas in a pod. It might be obvious that a good team are the backbone of a business just from the work they do; however, there are other ways in which your employees can help market your brand. Here are a few ways your team can help get the word out. Make Sure Your Employees Know What Your Company Stands For One of the most important factors for employees to know is what your company stands for. It is more common that those in a managerial position understand your company’s ethos and the core values of the employees that are more likely to interact with your customers every day. Not only could this be doing damage to your brand, but it is also unfair to expect employees to market the brand if they are unaware of what it is they are actively marketing. So, make sure this is clear-cut across all areas of employees and especially those who are at the front of your business every day. Make Sure Your Employees Are Happy Unhappy employees certainly will not be a walking endorsement for your brand, or at least not in a positive light. Employees that are listened to feel secure, valued, and are happy; this will go a long way when it comes to how they communicate with customers, but also how they talk about the brand in their spare time. Energy is infectious, and if employees seem happy to work somewhere, and customers can feel it, customers are more likely to be drawn to the brand. In fact, a Linkedin study suggested that while only 3% of employees are likely to share company-related content (a personal endorsement), that 3% gained a 30% increase in traction towards website traffic! Make Merch to Be Proud of The afternoon break when everyone walks out and goes off to get their lunch is a key time for advertisement. We will often have logos on our shirts or a little key lanyard, making it apparent where we work, but it is something that we have all seen before. If you want your employees to stick out, then invest in some merch that will be a little more eye-catching. Think custom converse shoes or bags and let them make a statement. Get Blogging Written content is one of the best ways to draw people to your website and keep them on there. Each of your employees will have a good understanding of your business and will be able to come up with unique content that will help generate leads and promote sales. This is another great way to keep the blog up to date as you can incorporate more personal or day-to-day work posts to show the fun and human side of your...