Digital Marketing

Social Media Plan

3 Reasons Why You Need a Social Media Plan

Anthony

Recently, I was asked about creating a Social Media Plan for posting on Facebook. I can totally understand why there wasn’t one in place already or they were hesitant about creating one. By not having one, you can post what comes to mind that day or what you find ‘hot’ in your network. Finding something to post everyday without a plan will become difficult and you’ll find yourself posting just for the sake of posting. There won’t be rhyme or reason for your posts and you may not a return from those efforts.

Your business can not afford to miss out on the opportunity to influence the 68% of U.S. Adults who utilize Facebook. In this post, I will provide you with 3 reasons why you need to have a Social Media Plan.

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Content Marketing

5 Reasons Content Marketing is Important for your Business

Anthony

Content remains king. Like most businesses, your business are probably struggling with time to keep your blog and website content updated, what to post on your blog, and with how to speak to today’s consumers. Content marketing is not a new concept. Content marketing and storytelling are more than advertising, they are about showing your current and potential consumers who you are. It’s about creating content that provides value to your audience that is consuming it.

Today’s consumer receives their media differently than they did a few year ago. Plus, Social Media and Digital communication have transformed how businesses communicate with buyers. Rather than just putting together a brochure to hand out, marketers need to take that brochure a step further and put that brochure digitally in content form on their website. This was previously done by direct mail pieces and advertorial content in magazines. Today it is more important than ever for small businesses to have a content marketing strategy.

Here are 5 reasons your small businesses needs to do content marketing.

1. Boost Organic Search Visibility

Today, marketers are creating more content than they ever have before. Creating a ton of content is good, but what is even better is creating quality content that resonates with your consumers. This is an area that small businesses can level the playing field with their competitors and really stand out from the crowd. By creating content regularly, I don’t mean writing a blog post once a month, I mean posting content on your blog a couple times a week. By creating regular content you can boost your organic search visibility, and propel you to the top of the search results. With a content strategy focus on answering consumer questions and being helpful by providing them with the information that they are seeking, you will be become the authority on the topic and be a source of reference for them. Turning the consumer from a 1 time buyer to a brand supporter for life.

2. Increase Web Traffic

One of the main goals of every business, besides increasing sales, is to increase website traffic. One way to do this is by through content marketing. Creating regular content on your website is a must. The more content that you are able to produce, the more information you will be able to share on your social channels, the more links there will be to your business in the organic search results, and the more opportunities that potential consumers have to find you. Google has a tendency to prioritize new content and give presence to businesses / organizations that add fresh content regularly. Plus, businesses that have an active blog, have more indexed pages on the search engines that ones that do not. If you are not adding updated content regularly, you would be missing out on a ton of organic search traffic.

3. Build Consumer Loyalty

Once a consumer makes a purchase, you don’t want them to disappear and not come back. One way to keep them coming back is by providing great content. They have already bought a product from you so they do not need the hard sell, they want to learn about new products and offerings and to learn something about you that they may not have known before. Be helpful in your content and the consumer will keep coming back. This is the perfect opportunity for you to build a relationship with the consumer. Understand their wants and needs and solve their problem through your story. Consumers want to do business with a brand that they trust.

4. Content Builds your Brand

Everything that you do online is about building your brand. Content is every where today. Your billboard, radio or TV commercial may entice a consumer to come to your website, but your content will keep them on your site longer and keep them coming back for more. To do that, you need to create great content. Content can be anything from a blog post, Twitter post, Facebook or Instagram update, or a YouTube Video, you just have to have it all working together. Creating content is today’s version of word of mouth advertising is a great way for you to introduce your business to new audiences and retain your past consumers. This will also help to get consumers talking and sharing about your business to their networks, which is a huge win.

5. Creates Longer Customer Retention

It is a lot easier to sell to an existing customer than it is to new customer. Once a person buys from you they are more likely to possibly like you on Facebook, follow you on Twitter or sign up for your newsletter. This allows you to keep those customers updated with new product offerings and services, tips and insights, and build a relationship with them, providing numerous upselling opportunities for you. Content allows you to talk with the customer long after they have purchased from you.

Content can be a very powerful tool in your marketing strategy. How are you using content in your marketing plan?

The Difference Between Content and Content Marketing

Anthony

Content and Content MarketingWith every business from private to public to non-profit, including tourism organizations, producing more content today than they did last year, it is important for marketers to understand the difference between content and content marketing. Everyone is creating content. But with content marketing, you’re attracting an audience to a brand-owned destination versus interrupting an audience on another platform. Many businesses are creating content that supports the brand or products they sell, not because it meets the customers need. The problem with most of this content is that it isn’t created for the audience you are trying to reach, engage and convert. Stop creating content that sells. Stop creating campaigns that have a short shelf life. Start creating content that is helpful and lasts more than your traditional campaigns. Create evergreen content that can be used over time.

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Social Media Crisis Communication Tips in the Digital World

Anthony

Crisis CommunicationBy now, everyone has seen the viral video of a passenger being taken off a United Airlines flight. What happened next is a text book example of how to do PR wrong. The United Airlines CEO’s inadequate response sparked even more outcry on social media. Now, I am not going to get into what they did wrong, but I am going to talk about why everyone organization, whether your a small business, tourism organization, or a large company, you need to have a social media crisis communication plan in place. It doesn’t matter how big your brand is anymore, social media gives us all the same opportunities to be creative, stretch our reach and engage with consumers from all over the world. if you’re prepared with the right crisis plan, a social media crisis can be transformed from a negative situation into yet another positive brand opportunity. Remember it takes 20 years to build a reputation and less than 5 minutes to destroy it. Your brand should be prepared for when a potential crisis occurs.

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5 Tips For A Better Business Blog

Anthony

business blogBlogging is one of the most valuable tools that businesses have to engage with their present and future customers. There are many benefits for businesses / organizations to be blogging, especially if you are a tourism organization. When I create a content marketing strategy, blogging is one of the pillars of that strategy. It provides content for us to post on our social media channels, in our newsletters, provides content on our site that helps increase our organic search, and keeps consumers coming back. It is of my opinion that organizations should publish a blog at least once a week, but realistically, I had our tourism organization publishing a blog 3 times a week. Which had a huge impact on our social media marketing, website stats and SEO. There are many reasons why blogging is beneficial for your business.

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Why Brands Should Create Content Before An Ad Campaign

Anthony

Create Content before an ad campaignAs you know, I am big on content marketing and believe you should create content before an ad campaign. I feel that it is vital to the success of your overall marketing plan and affects your traditional advertising, social media posts / ads, SEO and more. When I talk to people and they tell me, yeah we have content, we write blog posts, I always ask them how often they publish blogs and are they creating content on other pages of their website. When I first got started in marketing I thought I knew the concept of content marketing and what had to be done; content marketing referred to blogs and traditional marketing was everything else being TV, radio, newspaper, billboards, etc. Bottom line, I was under the impression that content marketing started and stopped with blogging, but there is much more to it than that. I then changed my strategy and started creating content on every page of the website, creating “guides” and experiential content that was both evergreen and niche targeted.

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