Continue reading “An “Inside Out” Approach to Engaging Your Audience”
by Linda Pophal
Engaging with customers has always been important, but it has arguably never been easier than it is today in an era where we have a myriad of online communication channels and means to engage with our audiences. Whether they’re across town, or on the other side of the globe, electronic media allows for forum for marketers to listen to, learn form and leverage their online communities in a variety of ways. Continue reading “The Benefits of Building an Online Community”
Small businesses, I think, have an edge when it comes to social media engagement, and Facebook is a very good example of this. Effective social media requires a relationship between the business/business owner and their followers. This is much easier for small businesses to attain than it is for large businesses, particularly because small businesses tend to be closer to their customers offline–the online environment simply becomes another forum for engagement.
Despite the fact that social media channels like Facebook can provide a global audience, small businesses don’t need to extend their reach globally–in fact, they can (and should) focus on their local markets.
In attempting to do this, we believe there are some important keys to effective engagement: Continue reading “Facebook for Local Businesses”
One of the many things I enjoy about marketing is attempting to generate the most results with the least among of time, money and effort. I want to get more for less. From an advertising standpoint, that means, for instance, that just because the Super Bowl pulls in a large audience each year, it may not make sense to put your message in front of that audience unless a significant percentage of it might represent potential customers for your products or services.
Social media is a lot like that. Just because social media can deliver an international audience doesn’t mean that it makes sense for you to be out there communicating with an international audience. In fact, for many businesses, Continue reading “Tweeting Locally”
One of the benefits—and potential downfalls—of the online environment is that it is a great equalizer. The smallest company, including solo operations, can present a “big company” feel, effectively competing against the big players in their industries. This can also present a downside, of course, for those seeking goods and services from online providers; all that glitters is not, necessarily, gold, so caveat emptor certainly applies.
Still, for small companies, and even individual practitioners in service industries like consulting, law, accounting, engineering, etc., it can be relatively easy to establish a strong presence online.
We’ve done that for our own marketing needs, and we work with a variety of other small businesses and independent consultants to help them establish a “big brand” online. In doing this, we have found some very important best practices that really must be adopted to generate results: Continue reading “Social Media Best Practices for SOHOs: You Don’t Have to be Big to be Successful Online!”
I’ve said it often and will continue to say it to groups I have the opportunity to engage with around marketing communications issues: “If you don’t have a web site you virtually (pun intended) don’t exist.” Think about it. Continue reading “Are You Making Your Web Site the Hub of Your Content Marketing Activities?”
Like virtually every industry, marketing has been transformed dramatically by advances in technology, particularly the increasing ease with which high quality digital media can be produced and distributed relatively cheaply online. Professional audio and video can be incorporated into a website or distributed through email marketing with ease, and this has led to an increase in the use of such media when marketing for a variety of products and services.
Marketers have taken advantage of new technology and digital content techniques by increasing their use of such material to promote their products and services. According to a dual survey of content marketers and the B2B audiences they serve, Continue reading “Why You May Want to Avoid the Visual When Communicating With a B2B Audience”
Over the years I have learned something about myself: I like results. In fact, I’m pretty much addicted to generating results to various efforts. Many years ago this might have been responses to “query letters” I would send out to editors to attempt to interest them in a freelance article contribution. Then it was writing copy and renting mailing lists to generate results through direct mail. Today it could be anything from tweaking the content of a web page to generate more visitors, writing a social media post that “goes viral” and generates a lot of back links or, most recently, attempting to generate traction with LinkedIn long-form posts. Continue reading “The Masses Don’t Matter: Why I’m Looking for Fewer Followers, Fans, Likes and Retweets”
The difference between data and information can be helpful here. Continue reading “Social Media Analytics: Going Beyond the Numbers”
