Compare how your company is doing with others in Social Media

Have you ever wondered how your Facebook Page or Twitter Account compares to your competitors or others in your industry?

There is now a great way to find out using a tool from WildFire called Social Media Monitor.  This tool will allow you to put in your Facebook Page info and the information of the page you want to compare and show you where you stand.  You can also do this with Twitter accounts.

 

This tool can be found at:  http://monitor.wildfireapp.com/

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Get a Social Media Policy for your Business

Social Media is something that your business can no longer ignore.  This being the case many companies are begining to craft Social Media Policies to ensure that all expectations of Social Media activites and employee use of Social Media is covered.

Creating a policy can be a large task to tackle.  We have found a tool that will help you get a jump start on this process.  The tool is called Policy Tool and it will walk you through the process online of creating a policy.

This will give you a basic policy to start with.  When you are ready to expand this policy we can assist you with our Social Media services here at SourceOne Technologies.

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Social Media – Is it Hype or truly a money maker for your business

Everywhere you turn you are hearing about Social Media and how your business MUST use it to grow and connect with your current and prospective customers and clients.  Unfortunately, however many businesses don’t grasp the power of using Social Media right away and sometimes wonder if the effort of getting on board and getting started is worth it.

We have seen several clients grow their base of Fans and followers and then in turn convert these connections into either new customers or repeat customers from Social Media efforts.  It does however sometimes take a 3-6 month period to begin to build a loyal following and truly convert these supporters to trusting loyal customers.

Today we wanted to share some  great case studies of companies that have embraced Social Media and show the success and profit they have gained from these efforts.

The first example of success is from a business called Healthy Horizons Breastfeeding Center.  This company is now getting about 15% of their business from social networking activities.  You can read more about this Social Media Success story from this USA Today article.

The Crème Brulee Man is another great example of a small business successfully using Social Media.  The Crème Brulee Man operates a food cart and in just over a year now has over 12,000 followers on Twitter.  Every day he announces his location for the day via Twitter.  You can check out his Twitter account at http://twitter.com/cremebruleecart.

Dr. Irenea Vaksman is a Dentist that has done a great job of embracing Social Media and using it to grow her practice.  Dr Irena Vaksman has deployed the following Social Media tools to take advantage of the power of Social Media: a Blog, Facebook Page, Twitter Profile and a YouTube Channel.

Hopefully looking at the above case studies of success with Social Media will convince you that it is not just hype and it can and is a money making and business growing activity.

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How can you discover pages on Facebook you want to follow?

Facebook is a great resource for businesses to market on.  In fact we encourage all businesses to create a Facebook Page for their business and start using this to engage current and prospective customers.

One question that we often here is how do we find the pages we want to follow?  For our business customers that are creating Facebook Pages we work with them with strategies to let their target markets know about their page.  These strategies include using email marketing, adding a link to their website, adding a link to their email signature as well as some targeted campaigns.

But what ways are there for an average user to locate pages they want to follow?  Facebook heard this as a need and not too long ago launched a tool that allows you to browser for pages.  This tool can be found at:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/browser.php and is called the Facebook browser.

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Custom Facebook Fan Pages are here

SourceOne Technologies is proud to introduce our dedicated service for Custom Facebook (Fan) Pages!!  Facebook is one of the best ways to market your business online and begin to connect with your customer base.  SouceOne Technologies understands this and wants to be here to help you take advantage of this opportunity by establishing your presence right on Facebook from the start.

To find out more you can visit our new service for Facebook Fan Pages at www.gotfanpage.com

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Local Search Marketing Tips

It is estimated that there are approximately 3 billion internet searches each month that relate to local companies, therefore local search marketing is big business.  Without a doubt, it is very important to your business success. There are steps you can take to improve search engine ranking, and ensure that you do not get left behind by the competition.

The tips for local search marketing are not that far removed from those applied to optimizing a website globally, but there are some additional ones that are applicable. We look at a few of them below:

Internet Yellow Pages: As more persons are using the internet to look for local businesses, the printed yellow pages is not as popular as before.  Instead, persons are going online and using resources such as YellowPages.com, to find information on companies near them.  As a result, this has become a very popular and effective method of advertising.

Local Map Listings:  Customers use tools such as Google Places to find local businesses.  Google Places is a free listing in which you can log vital business data. This includes information such as business name, address, opening hours, products, email address, and website address if you have one.  This is all the information that a potential customer will need so they can easily find your business, and make a purchase. To get listed with Google Places is pretty simple, you have to complete an application and Google will then verify that you are legit. 

Local map listings are also ranked by Google, and the position is dependent on the feedback you receive.  In other words, the more favorable comments your business gets from consumers, the more credibility Google will give it, and move it up the ranking. 

The standard SEO strategies can also be applied:

Backlinks: This refers to the inbound links to your site. The more quality links you have, the better your ranking will be in the search engine results.  However, in the case of local search marketing, the backlinks must be from local based directories.

Relevant Content:  The need to have content that is valuable and current is of vital importance, as it impacts search engine rankings. Users are always looking for content that satisfies their needs or desires, and it is important to keep this in mind at all times.

It is also essential to identify a niche market, and utilize local social media platforms.  By gaining a reputation for trust and integrity, you can build a following on social networking sites like Twitter.  Using that platform, it is possible to effectively promote your business, in a more personalized way.  More and more, consumers are demanding that personal business touch.

To remain competitive it is important that your business maintain a strong online presence.  There are several tools you can use to boost your ranking with search engines, and these have the added bonus of widening your customer base.  In addition, you can achieve this without having to spend too much.  Persons who use local searches are very serious about buying, so that is one market you don’t want to miss out on.

 

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Blogging is important for SEO

If you already have a blog for your business, then you are on the right track.  Blogging is huge.  It’s the latest way to promote goods, services, white papers, books, opinions, and so much more.  Once it has been established that you are not missing out on the opportunity, you need to ensure that you are blogging well, and making the most of it. 

It is not just about creating the blog, making posts, and then sitting back and waiting.  No, it’s more, much more.  It’s about attracting and enticing the traffic you want to your blog.  It’s about making sure your blog is visible on the web, so that it can be highly ranked by search engines.  It’s about optimizing your blog.  In the same way that search engine optimization, is a priority for websites, SEO is just as important for your blog.

So exactly how do you need to write those posts so that people will be drawn to your blog?  Well you have to become familiar with keywords. 

Keywords are the words that potential customers who are looking for a business like yours, are most likely to use.  They are the ones that search engines will be on the lookout for.  However, if the keywords are not on your site, then Google search, or any other engine, will pass you by.  When that happens, it is an opportunity lost, perhaps even a sale.  Therefore, keywords and phrases are an all important component of SEO.

It is important to include keywords in the blog title as well as throughout the text.  However, remember the golden rule is not to overuse them, because if you do, then your content will sound very clumsy, and will put off readers.

Another thing to remember when writing posts is that, the content should be unique.  Readers are always looking for something new and different.  There is no greater magnet.  Be careful to build anticipation, so that they are encouraged to come back to see what happens next.  You can do that by giving them just a little idea of where you’re going next with your product, and what they can expect.  The intention is to get them to anxiously await your next post.  There is no better way to ensure that you will get more traffic, and they are going to be sure to tell others about it.

It is also a good idea to post regularly.  Search engines like blogs because the content changes frequently.  The search engine is likely to spend a little time looking around your blog, once you have new information posted.

Blogs are extremely popular.  You can exchange links with other blogs to help promote your business.  More importantly, linking is another way in which you will become more visible on the web, as search engines are attracted to sites with quality links. In addition, once you are able to pull in traffic, you can redirect it to the sales page on your website, and get the sales you are aiming for.

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The Single Best Way to Market Just About Any Business

Of all the many ways you can promote your business today, I want to share with you one of the most effective, most profitable, and least risky ways to market your products or services – email marketing.

Now just to be clear, I’m not in any way talking about buying an email list of people that don’t know you and blasting out a million messages in the hopes of making a few sales. Sending any promotional emails to people who have not given you permission to contact them is clearly spamming and there are rules and regulations that prohibit that in most countries.

What I am talking about is “Permission Based Marketing” – where you offer someone some free, valuable information (like a free special report, audio or video) as an incentive to give you their email address and permission to contact and market to them in the future. Offering a free email newsletter to your prospects gives you the chance to get your name in front of your website visitors on a regular basis and allows you to provide value and develop lasting relationships with them.

What’s so great about email marketing? Perhaps the greatest, is that studies have shown that commercial e-mail marketing returned a whopping $43.62 for every dollar spent on it in 2009, according to the DMA’s (Direct Marketing Association) Power of Direct economic-impact study.

That’s an incredible return on investment of over 4000%!! Most businesses are lucky if they run an advertisement and get a 200% or 300% return, but when you can get $40 back for every $1 you invest, I’m amazed that more businesses don’t take advantage of this marketing method.

Here are some important points to keep in mind as you consider using email marketing in your business, and next time I’ll introduce you to some of the best online services available to help you with your email marketing efforts.

1. You must always ASK for permission to email someone first, and once it’s granted to you, you must respect and honor the responsibility that you’ve been entrusted with. You must never sell or give your list of addresses and names to anyone and you must maintain control of your list at all times.
2. If someone doesn’t want to be on your mailing list, you must respect their wishes and make it easy for them to be removed from your list.
3. If you don’t already have one, create a Privacy Policy that states exactly what you do with the information you collect from your visitors – and honor it! Just posting a link to a privacy policy can increase the likelihood that a prospect will sign up for your list.
4. If you’re a marketer in the U.S. you must be certain your email marketing efforts comply with the CAN-SPAM act. It’s not difficult to do, especially if you use a reputable email service provider to handle your mailings for you,
   but the penalties for violating it can be steep.

 

SourceOne Technologies Offers Email Marketing services to help every business.  Find out more about our Email Marketing Services Here.

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Social Media Tip – LinkedIn

Today's tip is all about LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a business network that is meant primarily for business professionals as a place to connect with one another and market tier products and services in a (B2B) business to business environment.

It’s a great way to connect and network with business owners and people in a mutually beneficial way!

You can add links to your websites, blogs and other social profiles. You can also set up groups that are similar to Facebook fan pages, and you can also have other recommend your services in exchange for you recommending theirs.

LinkedIn also has a lot of authority on Google and other popular search engines. If you currently have a LinkedIn profile, try doing a search for yourself on Google. There is a good bet that it will show up on the first page of results.

That is authority ranking and you don't want to miss out on it!

That ends today’s quick tip

If you are interested in help with your Social Media Campaigns please contact us with the form below:

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