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Law Firm Marketing Online Marketing Tips and Tricks

Trust and Transparency in Legal Marketing: How Law Firms Can Stand Out in 2025

Why Trust and Transparency Matter More Than Ever

The legal industry is facing rapid changes. From the SEC’s new arbitration rules to shifting regulations that affect both corporate and individual clients, uncertainty is everywhere. In this environment, law firms have a unique opportunity to separate themselves from competitors. The key? Building a marketing strategy grounded in trust and transparency in legal marketing.

Clients are not just looking for legal expertise. They are looking for partners who communicate clearly, advocate fearlessly, and show integrity at every touchpoint. This article will explore how law firms can market themselves more effectively by emphasizing these values, and why doing so is essential in today’s digital-first marketplace.


The Changing Legal Landscape and Its Marketing Implications

Recent regulatory updates highlight a shift in how legal services are delivered and perceived. For example, the SEC’s policy change allowing companies to steer disputes into arbitration rather than class actions limits investor protections.

For law firms, this shift creates two key marketing opportunities:

  1. Championing the client’s perspective. Firms that market themselves as advocates for transparency can stand apart from competitors who only focus on compliance.
  2. Creating thought leadership content. Blogs, LinkedIn posts, and webinars that break down complex regulatory shifts in plain English can establish authority while showcasing accessibility.

This is not just about being knowledgeable. It is about projecting trustworthiness through every communication channel.


What Clients Expect From Law Firms in 2025

Clients are increasingly savvy. They do their research online before ever reaching out. According to industry surveys, over 70 percent of prospective legal clients say they would not contact a firm if its online presence feels vague or untrustworthy.

This means firms must double down on:

  • Transparency in messaging. Clear descriptions of services, pricing models, and processes.
  • Consistency in branding. A unified message across website, LinkedIn, newsletters, and social media.
  • Authenticity in client relationships. Sharing real stories, testimonials, and case studies that build credibility.

Transparency is no longer optional. It is the foundation of marketing success.


Building Trust Through Content Marketing

One of the most effective ways to highlight trust and transparency is through content. Law firms can use blogs, newsletters, and LinkedIn posts to provide clarity where clients feel overwhelmed.

Examples of content that works:

  • Regulatory explainers. Break down news like the SEC arbitration rule so everyday readers understand the impact.
  • Case studies. Highlight how your firm helped a client through a complex process.
  • Behind-the-scenes content. Introduce your attorneys, their values, and their passion for justice.

By creating a steady stream of helpful and authentic content, law firms signal to clients that they care about more than billable hours. They care about making the legal system more approachable.


Transparency in Communication

Clear communication is marketing gold. Every point of contact, from a website inquiry form to a LinkedIn comment, should feel approachable and honest.

Here are three practical strategies:

  1. Simplify your service pages. Avoid jargon. Clients want to know in plain terms what you do and how you can help.
  2. Be upfront about fees. Even if you cannot post exact pricing, provide ranges or explain how fees are determined.
  3. Offer free resources. Tools like checklists, webinars, or a complementary marketing plan show generosity and build goodwill.

You can see how Social Link does this for clients by browsing our portfolio of successful campaigns.


Branding and Design That Communicate Integrity

Marketing is not just words. Visual branding plays a critical role in how trustworthy your firm feels.

To communicate integrity:

  • Use professional photography instead of stock images whenever possible.
  • Showcase your real team members on your website and LinkedIn.
  • Choose design elements that reflect stability: clean typography, strong but calm color palettes, and intuitive layouts.

A polished, transparent brand presence reassures clients that your firm is not only capable but dependable.


The Role of Social Proof

Trust is social. Prospective clients want reassurance from others who have walked the same path. That is why testimonials, reviews, and case outcomes (where allowed) are powerful marketing tools.

Some ideas:

  • Feature client testimonials prominently on your website.
  • Highlight awards or recognitions from trusted legal associations.
  • Use LinkedIn to share client success stories with permission.

Transparency in this context means sharing results openly and honestly.


Technology and Transparency

Clients also expect transparency in how firms use technology. Do you offer client portals? Do you provide billing dashboards? Do you send real-time updates by email or text?

Marketing these features clearly is a way to reassure clients that they will never be left in the dark.

At Social Link, we have helped firms implement digital tools that improve transparency and strengthen client trust. If you want to see examples, visit our portfolio.


Converting Transparency Into New Business

At the end of the day, trust and transparency should drive measurable growth. Marketing is not just about impressions or clicks. It is about creating a reputation that makes prospective clients choose your firm.

To make transparency a conversion driver:

  • Include clear calls to action on every page of your website.
  • Invite visitors to request a proposal.
  • Offer a complementary marketing plan to show your commitment before money changes hands: Get your free plan here.

These steps demonstrate that your firm practices what it preaches.


Case Study – A Law Firm That Leveraged Transparency to Grow

Imagine a mid-sized law firm focused on corporate clients. They were struggling to differentiate themselves from larger competitors. After working on a marketing campaign built around transparency, they:

  • Published weekly LinkedIn updates explaining legal changes in plain English.
  • Added a transparent pricing page explaining their fee structures.
  • Created videos introducing each partner and their specialties.

Within six months, inbound leads increased by 40 percent, and client retention improved. Transparency worked not just as a value but as a measurable growth engine.


Next Steps for Your Firm

If you are ready to emphasize trust and transparency in your marketing, here are three steps you can take today:

  1. Audit your online presence. Is your website clear, modern, and trustworthy?
  2. Review your messaging. Are you explaining services in language clients actually understand?
  3. Work with a marketing partner. Agencies like Social Link specialize in building transparent, trust-based campaigns.

We invite you to explore our portfolio and see how we have helped firms like yours. You can also request a proposal or get a complementary marketing plan to start planning your growth strategy today.


Conclusion

In 2025, the firms that succeed will be the ones that make trust and transparency more than buzzwords. They will turn these values into marketing cornerstones, positioning themselves as the partners clients truly need in an uncertain world.

By focusing on clarity, authenticity, and openness, your firm can build stronger relationships, differentiate itself from competitors, and grow in a sustainable way.

The legal landscape may be shifting, but one truth remains constant: trust is the foundation of every successful client relationship.

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Digital Marketing Law Firm Marketing Online Marketing Tips and Tricks

Content Marketing for Lawyers

Content Marketing for Lawyers: How Thought Leadership Wins More Cases in 2025

The legal industry is more competitive than ever. Whether you are a solo attorney or part of a larger firm, attracting new clients is no longer just about referrals or a strong reputation in your community. Today, potential clients search online first. They want information, clarity, and reassurance before they choose who to call.

Content marketing for lawyers is one of the most effective ways to build that trust. By sharing useful content that answers client questions, educates readers, and showcases your expertise, you position your firm as the go-to resource. The firms that embrace this strategy are the ones winning more cases in 2025.

If you are interested in exploring more strategies, we regularly publish insights for attorneys on law firm marketing.


Why Content Marketing Matters for Law Firms

Building Trust with Potential Clients

Law is built on trust. People facing legal challenges often feel uncertain and overwhelmed. When they find articles, guides, or videos from your firm that clearly explain their situation, they immediately see you as a trusted authority.

Competing Online with Larger Firms

Even small firms can compete with big players by producing consistent, targeted content. A well-optimized blog answering specific client questions can outrank national firms in local search results.

Driving More Qualified Cases

Content is not just about attracting traffic. It brings in the right clients. Someone searching for “how to file a workers comp claim in Nashville” is a qualified lead who may be ready to hire an attorney.


The Core Elements of Content Marketing for Lawyers

Blogging to Answer Real Client Questions

Clients are asking Google questions every day. Your firm should be the one answering them.

  • Instead of writing “Overview of Family Law,” create content like “How Long Does Divorce Take in Tennessee.”
  • Use Google’s “People Also Ask” feature to see exactly what your potential clients are searching for.

Long-Form Guides and Downloadable Resources

Comprehensive guides help you stand out as a thought leader. Examples include:

  • “The Complete Guide to DUI Defense in Kentucky”
  • “Everything You Need to Know About Estate Planning in Tennessee”

These resources can be turned into lead magnets by offering them as downloads in exchange for contact information. A perfect example is our Blueprint marketing plan, a free resource that helps law firms create a structured approach to attracting more clients.

Video and Multimedia Content

Video content builds trust quickly. A short two-minute video on “3 Things to Do After a Car Accident” is more likely to be remembered than a long article.

Thought Leadership Articles

Share insights on new laws or high-profile cases. Posting commentary on LinkedIn, publishing in local journals, or contributing to legal blogs positions you as a thought leader.

Case Studies and Success Stories

Show potential clients how you have helped others. Use anonymized case studies that demonstrate real outcomes and highlight your expertise.


How SEO Strengthens Content Marketing

Choosing the Right Keywords

Target long-tail keywords that match what people are actually searching for, such as:

  • “Average settlement for slip and fall in Tennessee”
  • “How to choose a divorce lawyer in Louisville”

On-Page Best Practices

  • Use your focus phrase, “content marketing for lawyers,” naturally throughout your article.
  • Break content into clear sections with subheadings.
  • Add descriptive alt text to images.

Local SEO for Lawyers

Most clients want someone nearby. Optimize your Google Business Profile, ask clients for reviews, and include your location in your content.


Establishing Authority Through Thought Leadership

Be the First to Comment on Legal Changes

When new legislation or rulings are announced, publish content quickly. Clients and media outlets look for clarity, and you can become their go-to source.

Write for Legal and Business Publications

Getting published in bar association newsletters, local papers, or respected online outlets adds credibility and provides valuable backlinks for SEO.

Speaking and Teaching

Webinars, CLE courses, or local presentations can be repurposed into blog posts, social content, and videos. Each piece of content reinforces your authority.


Getting Your Content in Front of Clients

Creating great content is not enough. You must distribute it.

  • Share on LinkedIn, Facebook, and local business groups.
  • Use email newsletters to share articles and guides with past clients and leads.
  • Repurpose long blogs into short tips for social media.
  • Turn guides into short checklists or infographics for easy sharing.

Measuring the Success of Your Content

Look beyond page views. The real measure of success is whether your content drives new cases. Key metrics include:

  • Growth in organic search traffic
  • Increases in calls and form submissions from blog posts
  • More backlinks from reputable websites
  • More time spent on your site by visitors

Action Plan for 2025

  1. Review your current website content and update or remove anything outdated.
  2. Make a list of the top 10 questions clients ask and write posts answering them.
  3. Commit to producing at least one long-form guide per quarter.
  4. Add video content to your marketing plan.
  5. Repurpose every big piece of content into smaller posts for social media and email.

If you are ready to start mapping out your content strategy, download our Blueprint marketing plan. It is designed to give law firms a proven structure for marketing that generates real results.


Conclusion

Content marketing for lawyers is no longer optional. In 2025, it is one of the most powerful ways to attract new clients, build trust, and grow your case load. By creating high-quality, search-friendly content and combining it with thought leadership, your firm can establish authority, connect with the right clients, and stay ahead of the competition.

To learn more about how content marketing can fit into your firm’s growth strategy, visit our law firm marketing blog or request a strategy call through our proposal form.

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Blog Online Marketing SEO Tips and Tricks

From Zero to Hero: Turn Blog Content into Consistent Leads

Introduction

In a crowded online marketplace, it’s easy for a small boutique to feel invisible. When you’re competing against well-established brands and big-box retailers, capturing attention—and turning that attention into actual leads—can seem like an uphill battle. Yet, one boutique defied the odds and transformed its fortunes using a surprisingly accessible tool: blog content.

This success story demonstrates how consistent, well-structured blog posts can convert casual readers into paying customers. From identifying the right audience to refining a content strategy and measuring success, we’ll walk you through the boutique’s journey—from zero leads to a thriving client roster fueled by their blog.


Setting the Scene: A Boutique in the Shadows

Before implementing their content strategy, this local boutique’s website rarely saw more than a handful of visitors a day. Random product updates and occasional social media posts weren’t enough to generate real interest. Prospects didn’t understand what made this boutique special, and with no compelling online presence, they had no reason to inquire further.

The owners knew they needed a change. They began to wonder: Could blogging—something they’d dismissed as time-consuming and unprofitable—be the key to standing out?


The Strategy: Consistent, Value-Driven Blog Content

1. Identifying a Niche

The boutique specialized in handcrafted home décor and locally sourced accessories. Instead of producing generic fashion and décor posts, they focused on hyper-relevant topics:

  • Home Styling Tips for Small City Apartments
  • Local Artisan Spotlights: Meet the Makers Behind Our Products
  • Seasonal Décor Guides That Won’t Break the Bank

By narrowing their scope, the boutique appealed directly to shoppers interested in unique, sustainable, and community-oriented products.

2. Creating an Editorial Calendar

Consistency was crucial. The boutique committed to publishing at least two blog posts per month. They planned posts around seasonal trends, local events, and new product launches. This rhythm ensured a steady stream of fresh content, gradually building trust and anticipation among readers.

3. Incorporating SEO Best Practices within Blog Content

They didn’t just write interesting articles—they optimized them. Using relevant keywords (e.g., “handcrafted home décor [City Name]”), descriptive title tags, and meta descriptions, the boutique’s content started appearing in local search results. Internal links directed readers to product pages, and visually appealing images with keyword-rich alt text improved the site’s discoverability.


Overcoming Challenges: From Crickets to Comments

At first, the results were modest. A handful of readers left encouraging comments, and a few customers mentioned discovering the boutique after reading their blog. To amplify these early gains, the boutique adjusted and refined their approach:

  • Promoting Posts on Social Media: They shared new blog entries across their Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn pages, tagging local partners and encouraging community engagement.
  • Responding to Feedback: When readers asked questions in the comment section, the boutique responded promptly. Listening to feedback led them to cover topics their audience cared about most—like sustainable materials and vendor backstories.
  • Collaborating with Local Influencers: Inviting local interior designers and décor enthusiasts to guest-post or share articles extended the boutique’s reach. Cross-promotions tapped into new audiences already interested in artisanal products.

The Results: Leads That Flow Steadily

Over time, the boutique’s blog became a go-to resource for anyone seeking design inspiration or curious about local artisans. Monthly traffic soared from a few dozen unique visitors to several hundred, and crucially, more of these visitors were completing inquiry forms, signing up for the boutique’s newsletter, and making purchases online.

A few standout metrics:

  • Lead Conversion Rates: Website inquiries increased by over 300% within six months.
  • Customer Engagement: Time-on-page for blog posts averaged two minutes—indicating readers found the content engaging and relevant.
  • Sales Growth: Products featured in blog posts regularly sold out faster than items that weren’t highlighted.

The boutique owners realized they no longer needed to rely solely on paid ads or flash sales. Their blog had become a sustainable, low-cost lead generation engine.


Actionable Takeaways for Your Business

The lessons learned from this boutique’s journey can be applied to almost any local or niche business:

  1. Know Your Audience: Identify what your customers care about most and focus your content accordingly.
  2. Be Consistent: Even a modest publishing schedule (like twice a month) can build momentum and keep your brand top-of-mind.
  3. Optimize for Search: Simple SEO best practices—keywords, internal linking, quality images—help prospective customers find your content.
  4. Engage with the Community: Promote your posts across social media, respond to feedback, and collaborate with industry influencers. Building relationships adds credibility and extends your reach.
  5. Measure and Adapt: Track metrics like time-on-page and inquiry rates. Use data to refine your content strategy, doubling down on what works and tweaking what doesn’t.

How Social Link Can Help with Blog Content

Executing a successful content strategy can feel overwhelming, especially if you’re starting from zero. Social Link offers the guidance, strategy, and hands-on support you need to turn your blog into a lead-generating powerhouse:

  • Content Strategy Development: We’ll identify topics that resonate with your target audience, ensuring your blog stands out from the competition.
  • SEO and Keyword Research: Our team will pinpoint the best keywords, metadata, and internal link structures to elevate your search visibility.
  • Consistency and Quality Assurance: We’ll help you maintain a steady content calendar, producing well-researched, on-brand posts that keep readers engaged.
  • Analytics and Performance Tracking: By monitoring key metrics, we’ll show you where your strategy is working—and how to improve over time.

With Social Link’s support, you can transform your blog from an underutilized page into a pipeline of steady, qualified leads.


Conclusion

This boutique’s evolution from near-invisible to in-demand is a reminder that content, when done right, can be a game-changer for small businesses. By focusing on audience needs, committing to consistency, and optimizing every piece for maximum impact, you can turn your blog into a powerful lead-generation tool.


Ready to write your own success story? Contact Social Link for a personalized consultation and discover how strategic blogging can take your business from zero to hero in no time.

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Non-Profit Online Marketing Tips and Tricks

2025 Guide for Nonprofits: Maximizing Google Ads Grants

In 2025, nonprofit organizations have more opportunities than ever to amplify their missions through digital channels. One of the most impactful tools available is the Google Ads Grants for Nonprofits 2025 program, which provides eligible nonprofits with up to $10,000 per month in free ad spend. However, many nonprofits struggle to fully utilize this incredible resource.

This guide will walk you through the key strategies for optimizing your Google Ads Grants for Nonprofits 2025, ensuring your campaigns drive meaningful results and maximize your organization’s impact. From keyword strategies and ad structuring to leveraging analytics, we’ll cover everything you need to know—plus provide links to essential resources from Google to help you along the way.

Understanding Google Ads Grants

Google Ads grants are a game-changer for nonprofits, offering significant ad spend to help organizations increase visibility, recruit volunteers, and boost donations. However, this program comes with specific rules and requirements.

Key Points:

  • Eligibility: Your organization must hold valid nonprofit status and meet Google’s requirements. Learn more about eligibility here.
  • Grant Limitations: The monthly cap is $10,000, with a maximum CPC of $2.00 unless you use Google’s Smart Campaigns feature.
  • Policy Compliance: Regular account activity and high-quality ads are essential to maintaining eligibility. Review Google Ads Grants policies here.

Why It Matters: Understanding the basics ensures you can maintain access to the grant and utilize it effectively.

Crafting an Effective Campaign

A successful Google Ads campaign begins with a well-defined goal and a clear understanding of your target audience.

Steps to Success:

  • Define Your Goals: Are you aiming to drive donations, promote events, or recruit volunteers? Each goal requires a tailored approach.
  • Target the Right Keywords: Focus on long-tail keywords related to your mission. For instance, a wildlife nonprofit might target “how to help endangered species” rather than “wildlife.”
  • Use Ad Extensions: Include callouts, sitelinks, and structured snippets to provide users with more information. Learn about ad extensions here.

Why It Matters: A focused campaign ensures your ads resonate with the right audience and drive actionable results.

Optimizing Ad Performance

Once your campaign is live, continuous optimization is key to making the most of your grant.

Best Practices:

  • Monitor Click-Through Rates (CTR): High CTRs improve your Quality Score, allowing you to compete better in ad auctions.
  • A/B Test Ads: Experiment with different headlines and descriptions to see what resonates best with your audience.
  • Utilize Conversion Tracking: Set up Google Analytics to track how users interact with your site after clicking your ads. Learn how to set up conversion tracking.

Why It Matters: Optimization ensures your budget is spent effectively, maximizing your ROI.

Leveraging Advanced Features

Google Ads offers advanced tools that can help nonprofits enhance their campaigns further.

Advanced Tactics:

  • Smart Bidding: Use automated bidding strategies to optimize for conversions. Explore Smart Bidding options.
  • Geotargeting: Focus your ads on specific locations to reach local supporters.
  • Remarketing: Engage previous website visitors with tailored messages. Learn about remarketing.

Why It Matters: Advanced features help nonprofits stretch their grant dollars further while improving audience engagement.

Avoid These Mistakes

  • Ignoring Policies: Noncompliance can lead to account deactivation. Stay up-to-date on Google Ads Grants policies.
  • Overlooking Mobile Optimization: Ensure your website and landing pages are mobile-friendly to avoid losing potential supporters.
  • Neglecting Ad Relevance: Low-quality or irrelevant ads can hurt performance and waste your grant budget.

How Social Link Can Help

Navigating Google Ads grants can be complex, but Social Link is here to support your nonprofit every step of the way. Our services include:

    • Grant Application Assistance: We’ll guide you through the eligibility and application process.
    • Custom Campaign Development: Our team will design campaigns tailored to your nonprofit’s goals.
    • Performance Monitoring & Optimization: We’ll track your ads’ success and make data-driven adjustments to maximize ROI.

    With our expertise and lead generation services, your nonprofit can fully leverage your Google Ads Grants for Nonprofits 2025.

    Google Ads grants are a powerful resource for nonprofits, offering unparalleled opportunities to amplify your reach and drive meaningful action. By understanding the program, crafting targeted campaigns, and leveraging advanced tools, your organization can thrive in the digital landscape of 2025.

    Ready to unlock the potential of Google Ads Grants for Nonprofits 2025? Contact Social Link today for expert guidance and support.

    Let’s make 2025 a transformational year for your nonprofit. Contact Social Link for a personalized consultation and take the first step toward maximizing your Google Ads grant.

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    Nashville Marketing Agency: Revolutionizing the Landscape with AI Marketing Tools

    Introduction: In today’s fast-paced digital marketing landscape, staying ahead of the competition is crucial for Nashville-based marketing agencies. The use of cutting-edge AI marketing tools has become essential to achieve success and deliver exceptional results. This blog post will delve into the impact of AI tools in marketing, provide insights into the current status of Nashville’s marketing agency scene, and highlight Social Link, a performance-driven and creative agency headquartered in Nashville, with a satellite office in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Social Link offers a comprehensive range of services, including website design, website development, social media management, social media advertising, search engine optimization and marketing, and video marketing. We will explore how Social Link integrates AI tools into their strategies to provide top-notch marketing services to businesses. Throughout this article, we will reference factual statistics from credible sources to support our claims.

    I. The Power of AI in Marketing: AI-driven tools have revolutionized the marketing industry, enabling agencies to streamline processes, gain valuable insights, and enhance customer experiences. Let’s delve into the impact of AI in marketing:

    • AI-Driven Automation: AI tools automate repetitive tasks, freeing up valuable time for marketing professionals to focus on strategic initiatives. According to a report by McKinsey, automation can potentially save businesses up to 20% of their marketing budgets while improving overall efficiency[^1]. Automation helps agencies efficiently manage various aspects of their clients’ marketing campaigns, including data analysis, lead generation, and content scheduling. By reducing manual effort and optimizing processes, AI-driven automation empowers marketing agencies to deliver results more effectively.
    • Advanced Customer Insights: AI algorithms can analyze large volumes of customer data, enabling agencies to gain valuable insights into consumer behavior, preferences, and trends. This data-driven approach empowers marketers to develop personalized campaigns and experiences that resonate with their target audience[^2]. By leveraging AI-powered data analytics tools, marketing agencies in Nashville can identify patterns, trends, and actionable insights from customer data. These insights enable agencies to make data-backed decisions, tailor marketing strategies, and optimize campaign performance for their clients.

    For instance, AI-powered tools can analyze customer browsing behavior, purchase history, and demographics to create detailed customer profiles. These profiles can then be used to segment the audience and develop highly targeted marketing campaigns. By personalizing content and messaging based on specific customer preferences, marketing agencies can significantly improve customer engagement and conversion rates.

    • Enhanced Personalization: With AI-powered recommendation engines and chatbots, agencies can provide personalized experiences at scale. By tailoring content and interactions based on individual customer preferences, agencies can boost customer satisfaction and drive higher engagement rates[^3]. AI algorithms analyze customer data and behavior to deliver personalized recommendations, content suggestions, and targeted advertisements. This level of personalization helps Nashville marketing agencies create meaningful connections with their clients’ target audience, resulting in increased brand loyalty and improved campaign performance.

    AI-powered chatbots are another valuable tool for personalized customer interactions. These virtual assistants can handle customer inquiries, provide product recommendations, and even offer real-time support. By leveraging natural language processing and machine learning algorithms, chatbots can simulate human-like conversations, providing personalized assistance to customers at any time. This level of personalized interaction not only improves customer satisfaction but also allows agencies to gather valuable insights about customer needs and preferences.

    II. The Nashville Marketing Agency Scene: Nashville’s marketing agency landscape is characterized by a growing demand for digital marketing services across diverse industries. Here are some key insights about the current scene:

    • Growing Competition: The increasing importance of digital marketing has led to a surge in the number of marketing agencies in Nashville. To differentiate themselves, agencies strive to offer comprehensive services and stay at the forefront of industry trends. As businesses recognize the impact of online presence and digital marketing strategies, the demand for marketing agencies has soared. This has created a highly competitive environment in Nashville, with agencies constantly innovating and evolving to meet the ever-changing needs of their clients.
    • Diverse Industries: Nashville’s marketing agencies cater to a wide range of sectors, including entertainment, healthcare, hospitality, and technology. This diversity allows agencies to develop specialized expertise and tailor their strategies to meet the unique needs of each industry. For instance, healthcare-focused marketing agencies in Nashville leverage AI tools to create targeted campaigns that promote medical services, engage with patients, and enhance brand reputation in the highly competitive healthcare market.
    • Embracing AI Technology: Leading Nashville marketing agencies are embracing AI tools to deliver data-driven insights, improve campaign performance, and drive tangible results for their clients. This adoption of AI technology ensures that agencies remain competitive in an ever-evolving digital landscape. AI-powered tools such as machine learning algorithms, natural language processing, and predictive analytics enable agencies to extract valuable insights from large datasets, optimize marketing campaigns, and provide personalized experiences to their clients’ target audience.

    For example, AI-powered analytics tools can help marketing agencies analyze vast amounts of data from multiple sources, including social media, website analytics, and customer relationship management systems. These tools can uncover hidden patterns and correlations within the data, enabling agencies to make informed decisions about marketing strategies and optimize campaign performance. By leveraging AI-powered insights, agencies can refine their targeting, messaging, and content strategies to ensure maximum effectiveness.

    III. Social Link: Leading the Way in AI-Driven Marketing: Social Link, a performance-driven marketing agency headquartered in Nashville with a satellite office in Fort Lauderdale, FL, is at the forefront of leveraging AI technology. Let’s explore their range of services and how they integrate AI tools:

    • Website Design and Development: Social Link specializes in creating visually appealing websites that are optimized for performance and search engine visibility. Through AI-powered analytics, they identify user behavior patterns to enhance website design and user experience. AI tools assist in understanding user preferences, optimizing website navigation, and implementing conversion-focused design elements that drive engagement and conversions.

    To achieve this, AI-powered tools can analyze user interaction with websites, tracking user paths, click behavior, and time spent on each page. These insights help marketing agencies like Social Link identify areas for improvement and optimize the user experience accordingly. By leveraging AI in website design and development, agencies can create intuitive and user-friendly interfaces that encourage visitor engagement and improve conversion rates.

    • Social Media Management and Advertising: Social Link’s expert team crafts engaging social media strategies and manages social media accounts. They leverage AI tools to analyze user data, optimize ad targeting, and maximize campaign performance. AI-powered social media analytics tools can analyze social media data in real-time, providing insights into customer sentiment, engagement patterns, and content performance. By leveraging these insights, agencies can optimize their social media strategies, identify content opportunities, and create more targeted and engaging social media campaigns.

    AI-powered tools can also help agencies automate social media posting, schedule content, and track performance metrics. By utilizing AI algorithms to analyze audience behavior and preferences, agencies can optimize the timing, frequency, and content of their social media posts. This level of automation allows agencies to efficiently manage multiple social media platforms and ensure consistent engagement with their clients’ target audience.

    • Search Engine Optimization and Marketing: Social Link employs AI-powered SEO tools to enhance website rankings, increase organic traffic, and boost conversions. Through data-driven insights, they optimize content, keywords, and metadata to improve search engine visibility. AI-powered SEO tools analyze search engine algorithms, industry trends, and competitor data to identify opportunities for improvement and optimize websites accordingly.

    For example, AI-powered tools can perform keyword research, suggesting high-volume and low-competition keywords that can improve a website’s ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). These tools

    In conclusion, the integration of AI marketing tools has revolutionized the Nashville marketing agency landscape, empowering agencies like Social Link to deliver exceptional results and stay ahead of the competition. By leveraging AI-driven automation, advanced customer insights, enhanced personalization, and specialized services, these agencies have positioned themselves as leaders in the industry.

    AI tools have the power to automate repetitive tasks, analyze vast amounts of customer data, and provide personalized experiences at scale. Through AI-driven automation, marketing professionals can focus on strategic initiatives while improving overall efficiency. Advanced customer insights derived from AI algorithms enable agencies to understand consumer behavior, preferences, and trends, allowing for personalized campaigns that resonate with the target audience. Enhanced personalization, powered by AI recommendation engines and chatbots, helps agencies deliver tailored experiences that drive higher engagement rates.

    The Nashville marketing agency scene is marked by growing competition and a diverse range of industries served. To differentiate themselves, agencies strive to offer comprehensive services and stay at the forefront of industry trends. By embracing AI technology, agencies can deliver data-driven insights, optimize campaign performance, and provide exceptional results for their clients.

    Social Link, headquartered in Nashville with a satellite office in Fort Lauderdale, has emerged as a leading agency in AI-driven marketing. Their range of services, including website design, social media management, search engine optimization, and video marketing, leverages AI tools to enhance performance and deliver measurable success. Through AI-powered analytics, Social Link optimizes website design, content, and user experience, resulting in visually appealing websites that drive engagement and conversions. Their social media strategies and advertising campaigns benefit from AI-driven data analysis, ensuring optimized ad targeting and maximizing campaign performance. With AI-powered SEO tools, Social Link enhances website rankings and increases organic traffic, resulting in improved search engine visibility and conversions. Additionally, their fully equipped studio, coupled with AI tools for video editing and analysis, enables businesses to create high-quality video content that resonates with their target audience.

    By filling skillset gaps and providing tailored strategies, Social Link delivers measurable results and drives business growth for their clients. The adoption of AI tools allows them to stay at the forefront of the industry, providing cutting-edge marketing strategies and technologies.

    In the dynamic landscape of Nashville’s marketing agencies, AI marketing tools have become essential for success. With agencies like Social Link leading the way, businesses can unlock their true marketing potential, engage customers, and achieve exceptional results in the digital age.

    Sources:

    I apologize for the oversight. Here are the sources for the information mentioned in the blog:

    Please refer to these sources for more detailed information and insights into the impact of AI in marketing and the benefits it brings to marketing agencies.

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    Nashville’s Premier Marketing Agency: Unleashing Success

    Introduction:

    In the fast-paced and competitive business world, a robust marketing strategy is essential for achieving success. However, navigating the intricacies of marketing can be daunting, especially for small businesses and startups. This is where Social Link, Nashville’s leading marketing agency, comes into play. In this blog post, we will explore the power of partnering with Social Link, a full-service agency and creative studio, offering exceptional services such as social media marketing, website development, paid ad services and high-end video marketing services. Discover how Social Link can unlock the full potential of your business in Nashville’s thriving marketing landscape.

    • Understanding the Role of Social Link: Your Strategic Partner

    Social Link is more than just a marketing agency. They serve as a strategic partner, offering a comprehensive range of services designed to elevate your business’s marketing efforts. As a full-service agency, Social Link provides expertise, creativity, and strategic guidance across multiple areas, ensuring your brand stands out in the crowded marketplace. With a strong focus on social media marketing, website development, and high-end video marketing, Social Link is committed to driving your business forward.

    • Why Choose Social Link in Nashville?

    2.1 Thriving Business Environment:

    Nashville, known for its vibrant entrepreneurial spirit, offers a flourishing business environment. Social Link harnesses the energy and opportunities present in this city, leveraging local market insights and connections to propel your business to new heights. By partnering with Social Link, you can tap into Nashville’s dynamic ecosystem and gain a competitive edge.

    2.2 Expertise in Social Media Marketing:

    Social media has become a vital platform for businesses to engage with their target audience effectively. Social Link excels in social media marketing, helping your brand build a strong online presence, connect with customers, and drive conversions. With their in-depth knowledge of the ever-evolving social media landscape, Social Link ensures that your social media strategies are innovative, tailored, and impactful.

    2.3 Website Development and Optimization:

    In the digital age, a visually appealing and user-friendly website is crucial for business success. Social Link’s team of expert web developers and designers create stunning websites that captivate visitors and convert them into loyal customers. By focusing on user experience and incorporating cutting-edge technologies, Social Link enhances your online presence, elevating your brand’s credibility and visibility.

    2.4 High-End Video Marketing Services:

    Video marketing has emerged as a powerful tool for storytelling and engaging with audiences. Social Link’s high-end video marketing services help your brand communicate its message effectively, leaving a lasting impact on viewers. From concept development and scriptwriting to production and editing, Social Link delivers captivating videos that captivate and inspire, driving brand awareness and customer engagement. Push your message to the market with HULU ads, Youtube, Netflix and other mainstream channels. 

    • The Services Offered by Social Link:

    Social Link’s comprehensive services include:

    3.1 Social Media Marketing:

    Social Link creates and executes data-driven social media strategies, leveraging platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok. RedIt and LinkedIn to amplify your brand’s reach, engage with your target audience, and drive measurable results.

    3.2 Website Development:

    Social Link designs and develops custom websites that are visually stunning, user-friendly, and optimized for search engines. They ensure your website showcases your brand identity, offers a seamless user experience, and helps convert visitors into customers.

    3.3 Full-Service Agency:

    As a full-service agency, Social Link offers a wide range of marketing services, including market research, branding, content creation, search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, email marketing, and more. Their holistic approach ensures all aspects of your marketing strategy work seamlessly together.

    3.4 Creative Studio:

    Social Link’s creative studio brings ideas to life through innovative and captivating visuals. Their team of designers, writers, photographers, videographers and artists collaborates to create compelling branding materials, eye-catching graphics, engaging videos, and powerful copy that resonates with your target audience.

    • Success Stories: Social Link’s Impact

    To illustrate the impact of Social Link’s services, let’s explore a few success stories:

    4.1 Case Study 1: Local Restaurant A:

    Social Link partnered with a local restaurant to revamp its social media presence. Through targeted social media campaigns, captivating visuals, and strategic content creation, Social Link helped the restaurant increase its online visibility, engage with customers, and boost reservations by 40%.

    4.2 Case Study 2: E-commerce Store B:

    E-commerce Store B sought Social Link’s expertise in website development and optimization. Social Link designed a visually stunning and user-friendly website, incorporating seamless navigation and an intuitive shopping experience. As a result, the store’s online sales increased by 60% within six months.

    • Choosing Social Link: Your Partner for Success

    When selecting a marketing agency, consider the following advantages of partnering with Social Link:

    5.1 Extensive Experience and Track Record:

    Social Link brings years of experience and a proven track record of success in helping businesses across various industries achieve their marketing goals. Their portfolio and client testimonials demonstrate their ability to deliver exceptional results.

    5.2 Collaboration and Communication:

    Social Link prioritizes collaboration and maintains open lines of communication throughout your partnership. Their team works closely with you, understanding your goals, and providing regular updates on campaign progress, ensuring a seamless working relationship.

    5.3 Cultural Alignment:

    Social Link values align with your brand’s vision, mission, and values. They take the time to understand your business, ensuring their strategies and creative solutions are tailored to meet your unique needs.

    Conclusion:

    Social Link, Nashville’s premier marketing agency and creative studio, offers a comprehensive suite of services, including social media marketing, website development, and high-end video marketing. By partnering with Social Link, your business can tap into Nashville’s thriving business environment, leverage their expertise, and unlock your brand’s full potential. With a focus on innovative strategies and cutting-edge solutions, Social Link ensures your brand stands out in the competitive marketplace. So, choose Social Link as your strategic partner and unleash your business’s success in Nashville and beyond.

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    Branding Digital Marketing Downloads Email Marketing Featured News Online Marketing PPC Remote Sales SEO Social Media Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks Uncategorized Video Marketing Web Design Web Development

    Elevate Your Business with Social Link: A Top Marketing Agency in Nashville

    Are you looking for a marketing partner that can help take your business to the next level? Look no further than Social Link, a leading marketing agency in Nashville that offers a range of services to help businesses build their brand and reach new customers.

    At Social Link, we believe that every business deserves a marketing strategy that is tailored to their unique needs and goals. That’s why we offer a full suite of services, including branding, web design, SEO, social media marketing, and more. Our team of experts has years of experience working with businesses across industries, from healthcare to finance to hospitality, and we’ve helped our clients achieve measurable results and sustainable growth.

    What sets Social Link apart from other marketing agencies in Nashville? Here are just a few reasons why we’re the right choice for your business:

    1. We take a data-driven approach to marketing. At Social Link, we don’t believe in guesswork. Instead, we rely on data and analytics to inform our marketing strategies and ensure that we’re delivering measurable results for our clients.
    2. We’re committed to collaboration and communication. We know that effective marketing requires open communication and collaboration between our team and our clients. That’s why we prioritize transparency, regular reporting, and ongoing communication throughout the marketing process.
    3. We offer a range of services to meet your needs. Whether you’re looking to build your brand, increase your online visibility, or drive more leads and sales, Social Link has the expertise and resources to help you achieve your goals.

    Our Services

    At Social Link, we offer a wide range of services to help businesses of all sizes and industries succeed in the digital age. Here are just a few of the ways we can help elevate your business:

    1. Branding: Your brand is the foundation of your business. At Social Link, we can help you develop a strong brand identity that resonates with your target audience and sets you apart from your competition.
    2. Web Design: Your website is your online storefront, and it’s often the first impression that potential customers will have of your business. We can help you design a website that is visually appealing, user-friendly, and optimized for search engines.
    3. SEO: Search engine optimization (SEO) is essential for businesses that want to improve their online visibility and attract more traffic to their website. Our team of SEO experts can help you develop a customized strategy that includes keyword research, on-page optimization, link building, and more.
    4. Social Media Marketing: Social media is a powerful tool for building your brand and engaging with your target audience. Our social media marketing services can help you develop a strong presence on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and leverage these channels to drive traffic and sales.
    5. PPC Advertising: Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can be an effective way to reach new customers and generate leads and sales. Our PPC experts can help you develop and manage campaigns on platforms like Google Ads and Bing Ads, ensuring that you get the most bang for your buck.

    Why Choose Social Link?

    When it comes to choosing a marketing agency in Nashville, there are many options to choose from. Here are just a few reasons why Social Link stands out from the crowd:

    1. Experience: Our team of marketing experts has years of experience working with businesses across industries. We’ve seen it all, and we know what it takes to help businesses succeed in today’s competitive digital landscape.
    2. Results: At Social Link, we don’t just talk the talk. We walk the walk. Our team is dedicated to delivering measurable results for our clients, and we have the track record to prove it.
    3. Collaboration: We believe that the best marketing strategies are developed through collaboration and communication. That’s why we work closely with our clients throughout the marketing process, ensuring that we understand their unique needs and goals and can tailor our services to meet them.
    1. Transparency: We believe in transparency and honesty in everything we do. That means providing regular reporting and updates, being upfront about costs and timelines, and always being available to answer any questions or concerns.
    2. Customization: At Social Link, we know that every business is unique, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach to marketing. That’s why we offer customized solutions tailored to each client’s specific needs and goals.

    If you’re looking for a marketing agency in Nashville that can help take your business to the next level, look no further than Social Link. Our team of experts has the knowledge, experience, and dedication to help you achieve your marketing goals and grow your business. Contact us today to learn more about our services and how we can help you succeed.

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    Tips and Tricks

    Christmas Marketing Trends for 2022 That Will Help Boost Holiday Shopping

    Many consumers want to start holiday shopping earlier than expected to beat the rush and get the popular items before they sell out. Businesses should take note and start their holiday marketing campaigns early to reach those desirable customers.

    Marketing strategies have had to evolve over the past years with the increase in influencer marketing, the pandemic, and an increase in online shopping. Customers are looking for the best deals on new and trending gifts and want them before they are gone.

    Here are some useful tips for planning your holiday marketing campaign.

    1. Start planning your holiday marketing strategy early to get a head start on the competition

    Everybody wants to be first, so many businesses will plan for Christmas and holiday marketing strategies in the late summer months. With Black Friday’s kickoff of holiday shopping, most physical stores will start with those holiday promotions. For online retailers, Cyber Monday is the start of the holiday season.

    You can encourage customers to shop earlier with your Black Friday campaign but to increase sales, you still need shoppers to continue shopping until Christmas.

    You can start the upcoming holiday season with marketing campaigns geared toward holiday gift inspiration and shopping earlier to get the best deals. From there, you can maximize sales by having popular items put on special or “back in stock” to encourage consumers to continue buying.

    2. Use more video content in your holiday season campaigns – it’s becoming increasingly popular and is more engaging than traditional text-based marketing

    Influencers have created their own marketing strategy when it comes to holiday shopping. Trends such as #TikTokmademebuyit have become increasingly popular and have created a buzz around trending products. Creating video content and using your brand to work with popular influencers can help small businesses increase their retail sales and build their brand.

    Emotional storytelling can help build an emotional connection with your customers when creating your own advertising content. Ads with happy endings and engaging stories resonate well with customers and can help positively influence your brand.

    Use all sorts of social media platforms to promote your great deals. Remind people to start early for the 2022 holiday season. Post-engaging holiday content and the perfect gift for those in their lives.

    3. Focus on Consumer spending

    The holiday season is a time of giving, and customers want to know they are getting the best holiday deals. With the continuing rise of inflation, consumers may spend less this year than in previous years, so the cost will be a big factor in their decision-making.

    Consumers want sales and will go to great lengths to find them. Holiday sales are the largest annual increase to businesses during the year, and it’s going to be tough when holiday shoppers are looking for the best deals.

    Choose items that are popular but can be discounted. Look for brands that carry good quality items but are less expensive. Increase discounts on overstocked items to help move them out of the store.

    Create a marketing strategy that helps customers find the perfect gift at the perfect price.

    4. Gift Cards are Increasing in Popularity

    With shipping delays and product popularity, it’s easy for shelves to become empty and sales to be lost. For those who find gift shopping a tedious task, gift cards might be the right answer for them to allow their receiver to choose what they want.

    Having a good assortment of gift cards on hand for the holiday season can still give you the sales you require during the holiday shopping season and can help boost sales going into January when the receivers come to purchase items.

    To further increase gift card sales, businesses can offer discounts on purchased cards in the hopes that this will increase spending in the New Year.

    5. Have a Large Online Presence for Holiday Shopping

    Holiday shoppers will likely search online for holiday sales and new deals on popular items. Having a website is not enough for consumers to see you.

    Social Media Marketing is the best strategy for your business as there are numerous platforms, and all have their target audience. It’s best to find the right social media platform for your business based on your customers over the past few years.

    Creating video content is fun and exciting and allows you to better engage with shoppers. Give them shopping inspiration with holiday trends and new technology. Create posts with holiday gifts perfect for everyone in their lives and gifts for those who mean a lot to them.

    Offer special discounts for followers on your social media that only they can use. Cyber Monday is a great way to start the holiday shopping season for online retail sales, so start with online promotions to increase traffic to your retail websites.

    6. Create a Unique Holiday Email Campaign

    The competition is especially severe over the holiday season, and your customer’s inboxes will be flooded with unique 2022 holiday advertising campaigns and limited bargains. There’s nothing wrong with jumping on board, but if you want to stand out, try something new.

    For example, you could send your consumers lists of all the people they could be buying for, causing them to remember a co-worker or neighbor they would have forgotten about.  It’s a basic yet attractive 2022 holiday advertisement that doesn’t appear to sell anything while providing many opportunities to inspire consumers to buy from you.

    The holiday shopping season is starting soon, and consumers want to start shopping as early as possible. A strategy for your physical stores and online website will help your customers with their holiday shopping and create a positive working environment for your staff.

    With the increase in social media, holiday trends will be very different this year. Sales will be interesting to watch, as more gatherings can occur, and travel is allowed. Give your business an advantage over others by having a smart plan and working with your staff to create a great shopping experience for your consumers.

    Categories
    Tips and Tricks

    Inspiring Quotes To Motivate You Toward Your Goals

    We all have goals that we want to achieve, whether it is day-to-day life or long-term, sometimes we need a little extra push to get started. The road to ultimate success is often long and winding, with plenty of obstacles along the way. That’s why it’s important to keep your eye on the prize and stay motivated throughout your journey. These inspirational and motivational quotes will help motivate you to pursue your goals and achieve success. So get inspired, and then go out and make your dreams a reality!

    Inspiring Quotes To Keep You Motivated:

    “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” —Ernest Hemingway

    If you’re going to achieve your goals, you need to be able to trust the people around you. Whether it’s your business partners, your friends, or your family, the people in your life need to be trustworthy if you’re going to succeed. This quote from Ernest Hemingway is a great reminder that trust is essential for any relationship—professional or personal.

    “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” —Michael Jordan

    Basketball legend Michael Jordan is a great reminder that failure is part of the journey toward success. No one achieves their goals without failing along the way. The important thing is to pick yourself up and keep trying until you reach your destination.

    “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” —Franklin D. Roosevelt

    This quote from former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt reminds us that self-doubt is oftentimes the only thing standing between us and our goals. Don’t let your doubts get in the way of achieving great things. Believe in yourself and you’ll be able to achieve anything you set your mind to.

    “Today’s accomplishments were yesterday’s impossibilities.” –Robert H. Schuller

    This is a powerful reminder that nothing is impossible if you set your mind to it. Whatever goal you’re working toward, know that it is achievable as long as you stay focused and dedicated.

    “If your mind can conceive it, You can achieve it.” –Napoleon Hill

    This quote is similar to the last one in that it emphasizes the importance of mindset in achieving goals. If you believe something is possible, then it likely will be. So if you’re ever doubting yourself or your ability to achieve something, remember this quote and let it give you the boost of confidence you need.

    “When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” –Paulo Coelho

    This not only applies to individuals striving to better themselves but also to organizations working toward collective goals. When everyone works together toward a common purpose, greatness can be achieved—for the individual and for the group as a whole.

    “Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.” –George Bernard Shaw

    Nobody’s perfect, and that’s okay! What matters most is learning from your mistakes so that you don’t make them again in the future. That’s how real progress is made—by taking two steps forward and one step back instead of sitting idly in place because you’re afraid of making mistakes.

    “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” — Abraham Lincoln

    Too often, we allow ourselves to be passive observers in our own lives, waiting to see what will happen next. But if we want to achieve our dreams and goals, we need to take an active role in shaping our future. So let’s make today the first day of the rest of our lives, and start working towards the future we want to see.

    “Start with one step, just one. And then take the next one and keep going that way.” — Cher

    By taking things one step at a time, we can slowly make progress toward our goals and eventually achieve them. Moreover, remembering this motivational quote can help us to stay focused and motivated when working towards our goals.

    “Every morning we are born again. What we do today matters most.” —Unknown

    It’s often said that today is the first day of the rest of your life. And while that may be true, it’s also important to remember that what we do today matters most. Every day, we have the opportunity to move closer to our goals and achieve success.

    “You can’t put a limit on how much you can improve and how much you can do. There are no limits on what you can be, do, or have in life.” —Tony Robbins

    These words ring particularly true when applied to the notion of self-improvement. After all, only you can decide how far you’re willing to go to improve yourself. Of course, setting a worthy goal is only half the battle. You also need to have the burning desire to see it through. So, if you’re looking to make a change in your life, don’t be afraid to start small. Remember, even the longest journey begins with a single step.

    “If your mind can conceive it, you can achieve it. Always remember that this whole thing was started with a dream and a mouse.” —Walt Disney

    Setting goals is an important first step on the road to success, but it’s not always easy to achieve them. That’s why it’s important to remember that anything is possible if you set your mind to it. Just think back to Walt Disney, who started with nothing more than a dream and a mouse. If he can achieve his goals, then so can we.

    “If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.” —Thomas Jefferson

    Thomas Jefferson is a thinker and philosopher, and his words still resonate today. This quote is a reminder that we must always be striving for more, pushing ourselves to try new things if we want to achieve our goals. It’s easy to get comfortable in our daily lives and routines, but if we’re not willing to step outside our comfort zones, we’ll never succeed.

    “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.” – Theodore Roosevelt

    In his quote, Theodore Roosevelt suggests that it is better to try and fail than to never try at all. Without goals, we would never have anything to strive for. Even if we never have our goals succeed, the journey toward it can be just as rewarding. As we continue to strive towards our goals, we also learn more about ourselves and develop better tools along the way. So, even if we don’t achieve success, in the end, there is still value in trying.

    “What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?” – Robert H. Schuller

    We are often too afraid to attempt something new or set goals for ourselves because we are afraid of failing. However, if we knew that we could not fail, what would we attempt? And, more importantly, would our goals change? This quote reminds us that success is attainable as long as we have the courage to pursue our goals.

    “Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” – Jim Rohn

    Without discipline, it is impossible to accomplish anything of significance. This is because discipline is the key ingredient that bridges the gap between having worthy goals and actually achieving those goals. It takes a great deal of discipline to pursue lofty goals, and even more to overcome the challenges along the way. By instilling discipline in ourselves, we can turn even the most challenging goals into reality.

    “If the plan doesn’t work, change the plan, but never the goal.” – Unknown

    It is often said that the only guaranteed failure is to never try at all. This is especially true when it comes to setting and achieving goals. In order to succeed, it is important to have a plan, but also to be flexible and willing to adjust the plan as needed. There will inevitably be setbacks and challenges along the way, but if the goal is worthy, it will be worth the effort. Achieving challenging goals requires persistence and determination, but also a willingness to adapt and change course when necessary.

    “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretsky

    Wayne Gretsky’s famous quote is often used to encourage people to take risks and pursue their goals. And there is no denying that taking risks is an important part of success. After all, the ultimate goal is to achieve success, not just take shots in the dark. By being strategic and selective about which risks taking, you can conserve your energy and resources for the best chance at achieving your goals.

    “You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.” — Stephen King

    If we want to succeed, we have to believe in ourselves and put in the hard work required. We also need to be prepared for setbacks and failures along the way. Success is never instantaneous or easy, but it is always achievable if we are brave enough to start no matter the risks involved. So let’s go out there and chase our goals with everything we’ve got. The ultimate success is waiting for us.

    “A year from now you may wish you had started today.” ― Karen Lamb

    Karen Lamb’s words are so simple, yet so profound. They remind us that time is precious and that we should not wait to start working toward our goals. The beauty of progressive realization is that it allows us to break our goals down into smaller, more manageable pieces. This can be especially helpful when we are faced with unforeseen challenges. What we often forget is how much power we have in the present moment. We may not be able to control what happens in the future, but we can control what we do today. So let’s not wait until tomorrow to start making our dreams a reality.

    The Key To Achieving Your Goals:

    Achieving goals can take so much energy. You have to constantly be re-evaluating and adjusting your approach. It’s easy to get burned out or to feel like you’re not making any progress. That’s why it’s important to take a step back, celebrate small victories, and remind yourself of why you’re doing this in the first place. It’s also important to be realistic about what you can achieve in a given period of time. Trying to do too much will only lead to frustration. Slow and steady progress is the key to success.

    Remember, You Can Do This!

    Success is a worthy goal that we should all strive for. But what does success mean to you? Perhaps it’s achieving a certain goal, or becoming the best at something. Whatever your definition of success may be, it’s important to keep your eye on the prize and not lose sight of what you’re working towards. It can be easy to get sidetracked or discouraged, but if you have a burning desire to achieve your goals, you’ll find a way to succeed. Remember, even a hobby can be turned into a successful business if you’re willing to put in the work and go after your dreams.

    These quotes should inspire you to stay motivated and focused on your goals. No matter what life throws your way, remember that you have the strength to overcome it. Use these words of wisdom as a reminder that you are capable of anything you set your mind to. So read them when you need a boost, share them with friends who could use some motivation, and keep moving forward toward your dreams.

    Categories
    Blog Tips and Tricks

    Why Goal Setting Is Important

    If you want to achieve the best life possible, it’s essential to focus on goal setting and time management skills. Life can be overwhelming and it’s easy to lose track of what you want to achieve if you don’t have a plan. Goal setting helps you to take control of your life and achieve your objectives by providing direction and a next goal to focus on. By setting goals, you can stay on track and make the most of your time.

    But you may not realize that setting goals are one of the most important things you can do for your business and personal life. In this blog post, we’ll discuss the importance of goal setting and provide some tips on how to create effective defined goals.

    The Benefits Of Goal Setting:

    One of the benefits of goal setting is that it gives you a clear destination to work towards. When you have a goal in mind, you can stay focused and ensure that your efforts are going towards something meaningful. Without goals, it’s easy to get off track and start working on things that don’t matter.

    Another benefit of goal setting is that it helps you to measure your progress. If you’re not setting goals, then it’s difficult to tell whether or not you’re making any progress at all. But when you have specific goals in mind, you can follow your progress and see how far you’ve come. This can motivate and help keep you moving forward even when things get tough.

    There are a few other benefits of goal setting as well, such as:

    – Allowing you to break down big projects into manageable tasks

    – Helping you to identify priorities

    – Giving you a sense of satisfaction when you achieve your goals

    How To Set Effective Goals:

    Now that we’ve discussed some of the benefits of goal setting let’s talk about how to set effective goals. One important thing to remember is that your goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). Let’s take a closer look at each of these criteria:

    – Specific: Your goal should be clear and unambiguous. It should be easy to understand what you want to accomplish.

    – Measurable: You should be able to follow your progress towards your goal. This will help you stay on track and motivated.

    – Achievable: Your goal should be something that you can realistically achieve given your resources and time frame.

    – Relevant: Your goal should be important to you and aligned with your values.

    – Time-bound: Your goal should have a deadline to keep you accountable and focused.

    The Different Types Of Goals You Can Set:

    Goal setting is essential to leading a successful and fulfilling life. By taking the time to set outcome goals, we can develop a clear sense of what we want to achieve. This, in turn, provides us with a roadmap for achieving our goals and boosts our self-confidence. In addition, setting goals helps us to set priorities and manage our time effectively. By breaking big goals into manageable steps, we can stay focused on the task at hand and avoid becoming overwhelmed. There are many different types of goals that you can set, but some common ones include professional goals, financial goals, fitness goals, relationship goals, and personal growth goals. Let’s take a closer look at each of these:

    – Professional goals: These are goals that relate to your career or business. You may set a goal to get a promotion, start your own business, or land a new client.

    – Financial goals: These are goals that relate to your finances. You may set a goal to save money, pay off debt, or invest in a new property.

    – Fitness goals: These are goals that relate to your health and fitness. You may set a goal to lose weight, eat healthier, or exercise more.

    – Relationship goals: These are goals that relate to your relationships. For example, you may set a goal to find a partner, spend more time with family, or make new friends.

    – Personal growth goals: These are goals that relate to your personal development. For example, you may set a goal to learn a new skill, read more books, or travel to new places.

    How To Stay Motivated When Working Towards Your Goals:

    One of the most challenging things about goal setting is staying motivated when things get tough. There will be times when it feels like you’re not making any progress, and it can be tempting to give up. Looking at the big picture can help to keep us motivated, as we can see the progression we are making towards our future goals. Ultimately, goal setting is a helpful tool that can play a vital role in helping us to reach success. If you want to achieve your goals, it’s essential to find ways to stay motivated. Here are a few tips:

    – Set smaller goals: If your goal feels too daunting, then break it down into smaller goals that you can work on one at a time. This will make it feel more manageable and less overwhelming.

    – Find a role model: Look for someone who has already achieved what you’re striving for. Seeing someone else succeed can be related to your personal development. For example, you may set a goal to learn a new skill, read more books, or travel to new places.

    – Set a deadline: Having a timeline for your goal will help you stay focused and motivated. Make sure to give yourself enough time to achieve your goal, but don’t be too lenient either.

    – Find an accountability partner: Share your goal with someone else and ask them to check in on your progress. This can help you stay accountable and on track.

    Tips For Achieving Goals:

    Goal setting also allows you to see the future and work towards specific skills or outcomes. To achieve goals, personal and professional success often begins with setting goals. But simply setting a goal is not enough–you also need to have a plan for what to achieve. Here are a few tips to help you turn your goals into reality:

    – Get organized: Create a plan of action and ensure that all your resources are in place before you start working towards your goal.

    – Set a realistic goal: Make sure that your goal is something you can realistically achieve given your resources and time frame.

    – Find a support group: Many people are striving for similar goals as you. Connecting with others can give you motivation and inspiration.

    – Reward yourself: Celebrate your accomplishments along the way and reward yourself for reaching milestones. This will help keep you motivated to continue working towards your goal.

    By focusing on achievable goals, you can move closer to your best life each week. Remember, setting goals is not a one-time event – it’s a continuous process that should be revisited regularly. Let goals guide your decisions and actions today so you can create the life you want tomorrow. With these tips in mind, you’ll be well on your way to achieving all of your goals.

    Author’s Note: Thanks for reading! I hope this blog post has helped you understand why goal setting is essential and how to set practical goals. If you found this blog post helpful, please share it with your friends and followers! 

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    Online Marketing Social Media Tips and Tricks Uncategorized

    How to Create Sharable Instagram Content

    How Do You Create Shareable Content On Instagram?

    With over one billion monthly active users, there’s no doubt that Instagram is a popular social media platform. Instagram is constantly changing, which means your content has to be adaptable. If you have been on Instagram lately, you may notice that the like count is not as important as it once was. Recently, the more shares you receive on a post is much more valuable than a like. A massive way for your content to stay relevant is by creating highly shareable content. Your content marketing strategy should resonate with your audience so much that they want to share your post on their platform. Sharing posts on Instagram is the most efficient form of advertising for your business. The more shares you have on an Instagram post, the more exposure and growth you will get.

    The content you post is valuable, but only if it is shareable. In this blog post, we’ll share some tips for creating content that will be engaging for your followers and help to promote your brand. Creating shareable content is essential for any business that wants to succeed on social media, and these tips will help get you started.

    Ten Proven Tips to Create Shareable Content

    1. Know Your Target Audience

    By understanding your target audience, you can ensure that your Instagram strategy is always on point. According to Shannon Shipman’s blog, creating content for Instagram is the best way to expand your reach, having your audience share your content is invaluable. It is essential to know who you are trying to reach with your content. It would be best if you first took the time to understand your target audience. Only then will you be able to create content that resonates with them and gets them to take action.

    To start, take a look at who is already following you and assess what types of posts they tend to engage with the most. Look at the demographics of your followers and try to identify any common interests or characteristics. By understanding your target audience, you can produce content that appeals to their interests. Remember that your target audience may change over time, so it’s essential to regularly assess who they are and what they’re interested in. 

    2. Visually Appealing Content

    When it comes to creating visually appealing content for Instagram, there are a few key things to keep in mind. First, consider the overall aesthetic of your feed. Is it cohesive and pleasing to the eye? Make sure that the colors and styles of your photos complement each other. You should also pay attention to the composition of your photos. Frame your shots thoughtfully, and experiment with different angles and perspectives. Also, don’t be afraid to get creative with filters and editing tools. A little tweaking can go a long way towards making your photos pop. By following these tips, you can create visually appealing content that will stand out on Instagram.

    3. Keep Your Posts Consistent 

    If you want to be successful on Instagram, it’s essential to keep your posts consistent. That means posting regularly, using consistent hashtags, and maintaining a consistent overall look and feel to your feed. People will be more likely to share your content if it is aesthetically pleasing and easy to consume. Creating a consistent feed will make your page more visually appealing and increase the likelihood of shares. By keeping your posts consistent, you’ll be able to build a following more efficiently and connect with potential customers. Additionally, consistent posts will help improve your search engine optimization, making it more likely that people will find your business when searching for related terms.

    4. Relatable Content

    As anyone who’s spent time on Instagram knows, relatable content is key. Whether it’s funny memes, relatable anecdotes or pictures of products they need, people are always drawn to content that speaks to them on a personal level. And there’s no better place to find this kind of content than on Instagram. With its massive user base and a vast array of content creators, Instagram is the perfect platform for finding relatable content that will resonate with your audience. To find relatable content ideas for your Instagram, start by brainstorming what you already post that gets the most engagement. 

    What are your most popular posts? What do they have in common? Is there anything you can do to make your other content more relatable? You can also look to other accounts in your industry for inspiration – what kind of relatable content are they posting that’s doing well? Take note of any trends you see and consider how you can put your own personal spin on them. Remember, the best relatable content is all about connecting with your audience on a personal level. 

    5. Appeal To Your Audience’s Values

    The way to a person’s heart is often through their values. When creating content for Instagram, it’s essential to consider what your audience cares about and how you can speak to those values while also creating content around your values. Your audience is looking for the knowledge that your values and products match their values and beliefs. Connecting their values with content shows them that you care. When you appeal to your audience’s values, you create a connection beyond likes and comments. You create a community of people who share your passions and who will champion your brand.

    6. Use Carousels To Make Your Content More Shareable

    Carousels are a great way to make complex information more digestible. They are also eye-catching and allow you to include multiple images in one post, which makes them more shareable. When a product or service has been mentioned before or if someone has read the title, it’s likely the caption will help them understand the problem and get results. How can we post a photograph that we’re looking for? Make a carousel and add a graphic if possible for this second image.

    7. Create graphics

    Everyone loves to share Instagram posts that are quotes or graphics. They can quickly learn your information by simply reading what is posted on the graphic instead of the caption underneath the post. People are more likely to share visually appealing content. Creating graphics is a great way to make your posts stand out and increase the likelihood of shares. 

    8. Write Long Captions

     Captions are a great way to engage with your audience and give them more information about your post. The longer the caption, the more likely people are to read and share it. Longer captions are more shareable than shorter ones because they provide more context and information about the post. Writing long captions also allows you to include more keywords, which will help SEO and allow your content to be found by people searching for those terms.

    If you’re in business, it’s essential to keep up with social media trends. A social media trend is defined as a topic that gains popularity on social media within a short period of time. Social Media is a powerful communications tool that can help you reach new customers and grow your business. People are more likely to share content that is timely and relevant. Keeping up with trends will ensure that your content is always fresh and shareable. That means posting interesting and engaging content, using the right hashtags, and connecting with other users. By staying up-to-date on the latest Instagram trends, you can ensure that your business is using this powerful platform to its full potential. 

    There are a few key ways to keep up with trends. First, follow industry-specific accounts and influencers. They will often be the first to know about new trends and products. Second, use social media listening tools to track specific keywords and hashtags. This way, you can quickly see when something new pops up. By following these steps, you can keep up with the latest trends and ensure that your business is always ahead of the curve.

    10. Engage With Your Followers

    If you are not active on your account – why should your followers be?

    To engage with your audience, you need to understand what they want and how they want to receive information. It is essential to ensure that you are constantly providing relevant and interesting content. This can be achieved by carrying out research beforehand to understand what topics they are interested in and then crafting your messages accordingly. Commenting on and liking other people’s posts will make them more likely to do the same for you. Engaging with your followers will also make them feel appreciated, which will make them more likely to share your content as well. It’s essential to keep in mind that engagement is a two-way street, so be sure to listen to feedback and take it to heart. By engaging with your audience, you will build relationships and loyalty, which can lead to success for you and your audience.

    Now that you have the tips for creating shareable content….

    Let’s recap! By creating sharable Instagram posts, you need to be relatable, know your audience, and keep up with trends. By following these tips, you can create shareable content that will help you grow your Instagram following and exposure. What have you found to be the most successful strategy for creating sharable content on Instagram?

    If you want help creating sharable content, Social Link is here to help. Our social media experts have the experience and knowledge necessary to create content that your followers will share. We can also help you implement some of the tips listed above to make it easier for your followers to share your content. Contact us through our marketing proposal page to get started today! 

    Follow our Instagram Page @Sociallinkco too!!

    Categories
    Digital Marketing Online Marketing Tips and Tricks Web Design Web Development

    ADA Compliant Website and Risk Mitigation 101

    ADA Compliant Website and Risk Mitigation 101

    Is your business’s website ADA compliant? Creating an ADA compliant website for your organization is a necessity! This is both for a better user experience and to mitigate the risk of legal repercussions. 

    In this article, Social Link delves into the ins and outs of ADA compliance. Use it as an educational resource to learn more and mitigate risks. We even included three checklists to help ensure your website is ADA compliant! 

    What does it mean to be ADA compliant?

    In September 2010, the Department of Justice (DOJ) published the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Standards for Accessible Design

    This standard stated that “all electronic and information technology must be accessible to people with disabilities.” In other words, all websites must be accessible to people with disabilities. 

    To avoid any confusion, please note that ADA compliance is not the same as a 508 compliance.

    There are several key components to making ADA compliant websites. We included checklists for the three levels of compliance. Level A, AA, and AAA offer three variations of complexity. 

    Who does this law affect?

    This law affects:

    • People with disabilities as well as their friends, families, and caregivers
    • Private employers with 15 or more employees
    • Businesses operating for the benefit of the public
    • All state and local government agencies

    Who needs to be ADA compliant? 

    Any commercial or public entities that have “places of public accommodation” should have an ADA compliant website. Places of public accommodation encompasses the internet. The DOJ is currently determining the specifics of these regulations. In the meantime, they will not tolerate website discrimination. 

    E-commerce businesses are the highest on the list of companies that need ADA compliant websites. If they are not compliant, they could get brought to court. For example, Target and Amazon were sued several years ago over this issue and they both lost. 

    Healthcare organizations, hotels, travel agencies, and educational institutions are also in dire need of ADA compliant websites. However, every business with at least 15 employees should have an ADA compliant website.

    How does Social Link make my site compliant?

    Social Link is here to help make your site ADA compliant. It’s absolutely worth every penny. Being compliant not only improves the user experience of your site, but it also saves you from a potential lawsuit. After all, a lawsuit is the last thing your business needs to endure. 

    To make a site ADA compliant, marketing agencies like Social Link devote many extra hours of work on a project. The specific timeline depends on the size of the company and what level of compliance you want to reach.  

    If the ADA compliance level is built in as the site is initially created, it isn’t as complicated as doing it retroactively. That being said, the work can certainly be done after the fact. It just has to be completed within the confines of the established site’s code. 

    ADA Compliance Checklists

    Interested in specifically finding out what makes a site ADA compliant? The following three checklists outline the different levels of compliance. Happy learning! 

    Level A Compliance Checklist

    Level A is the most basic level and provides the minimal amount of accessibility for a website.

    1. All the non-text content should have alternative text.
    2. The video content should include captions along with the audio.
    3. All the video and audio content need to have a text transcript or description available. 
    4. Present Navigations and Header tags in logical order.
    5. Don’t use a presentation that relies on color.
    6. Do not play audio and video automatically.
    7. Offer full website control through keywords.
    8. Provide user controls for moving content.
    9. Include a “Skip to Content” link.
    10. Provide User controls on time limits.
    11. Do not use Automatically scrolling or blinking content.
    12. Page titles clearly and accurately describe page content.
    13. All the links’ purposes are clear from their context.
    14. Web pages should have a language assigned.
    15. Elements should not change on focus.
    16. Clearly identify input errors and provide text-based notification to users.
    17. Provide proper guidance and instruction where user input is required.
    18. Website should be compatible in all browsers and available through user’s assistive technologies.
    19. Make sure there are no major code or validation errors.
    20. No strobe effects or rapidly flashing colors occur on the site.
    21. Forms have proper labels and legends that can be read by screen reader software.

    Level AA Compliance Checklist

    Level AA provides a sufficient amount of accessibility and complies with Level A Conformance checklist.

    1. All the live video and audio include captions.
    2. Provide audio descriptions for all pre-recorded video content.
    3. Text content and images of text must have a contrast ratio of 4.5:1.
    4. Text can be resized to 200% without loss of content or function.
    5. Minimize the use of images where text can achieve the purpose.
    6. Web pages can be accessed in multiple ways.
    7. Keyboard focus should be clear and visible.
    8. Notify users when the language on a page changes.
    9. Redundant links are minimized.
    10. Suggest fixes when users make errors.
    11. Menu, Icon and Button usages are consistent.

    Level AAA Compliance Checklist

    Level AAA provides the maximum amount of accessibility and allows users to navigate a website without any limitations. This level complies with both Level A and Level AA conformance checklists.

    1. Use sign language translations for videos.
    2. Add extended audio descriptions for videos.
    3. Provide an alternative text for videos.
    4. Offer live video alternatives.
    5. Contrast ratio between text and background is at least 7:1.
    6. Audio is clear without any excessive background noise.
    7. Minimize the use of images where text can achieve the purpose.
    8. Complete control over keyboard accessibility.
    9. There is no time limit for web content.
    10. There are no interruptions while navigating to the website.
    11. Save user data when re-authenticating.
    12. All the links should have a clear purpose given in text.
    13. Separate content with headings.
    14. Explain the strange words and abbreviations.
    15. A nine-year child should be able to read the website content.
    16. Don’t change elements without a user’s request.
    17. Minimize the risk of interruptions or errors.
    18. Provide complete support and instruction.

    Looking for help?

    Does your business need help tackling ADA compliance issues? Social Link is rearing to go and ready to help! As your go-to virtual marketing agency, we not only design and develop websites, but we also ensure they are ADA compliant. We’ll help you grow your business and mitigate potential risks. Ready to talk? Hit us up any time to learn more or get your questions answered.

    Categories
    Blog Digital Marketing Tips and Tricks

    10 Marketing Analogies to Use for This Image

    10% is what you see…90% is what holds it up.

    Success is only the tip of the iceberg…

    You may know me, but you have no idea who I am.

    We only see what’s on the surface.

    IQ / EQ

    A Film / A Book

    What I Say / What I Think

    Conscious Mind vs the Unconscious Mind

    What you think I did, vs. what I actually did

    Sales / Marketing

    Thanks to Ingrid Miera for the awesome Pinterest board for inspiration. https://www.pinterest.com/imiera/iceberg-analogies/

    And especially thanks to iam-citrus for the beautiful artwork that I was happy to purchase and promote for you 🙂 https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vectors/vectors-by_iam-citrus

    Categories
    Digital Marketing Tips and Tricks

    Digital Marketing Strategies for Nonprofits

    Nonprofits, unite! Mission-based organizations often face limited budgets, few resources, and multiple critical audiences when it comes to marketing. We understand. The good news is there are plenty of inexpensive ways to rock digital marketing as a nonprofit.

    Before we get into the nitty-gritty details, we should mention that Social Link has a history of working with many different nonprofits. We proudly offer 10% off labor rates for qualified nonprofit organizations, because we know how hard you work. What your company does is essential, and we appreciate all you do. 

    If you’re interested in learning more, check out our work or contact us. We’d love to hear from you.

    Back to marketing strategies!

     

    Determine your audience.

    For your digital marketing strategy to be successful, you first need to define your audience. Potential donors are one element, of course, but your nonprofit’s audiences go beyond that as well. 

    Hubspot states, “Nonprofit marketing isn’t just for funding — it also drives manpower (and woman-power!) to your organization. Regardless of industry or size, all nonprofits benefit from volunteers, and marketing your organization can help bring in new hands. Moreover, volunteers are twice as likely to donate as non-volunteers.”

    Nonprofit marketing is unique because it targets multiple groups, including customers, volunteers, and donors.

    Hubspot also explains, “It’s imperative to define and understand each of these audiences because your marketing will differ based on who you’re talking to.” 

     

    Focus on your brand.

    Does your nonprofit have a strong brand yet? If not, make that part of your marketing strategy immediately. Craft a mission statement, write down your organization’s values and identify the company culture. Your brand is your essence; it’s who you are and what you stand for, which is vital for your potential audience to understand.

    Make sure your logo, font choices, colors, etc. are consistent across all platforms. This avoids confusion, paints a cohesive picture for your audience, and makes you look more professional. Consistent branding across all channels even increases revenue by 23%. 

    Make sure your brand is authentic, genuine, and stays true to your mission. According to Ad Week,  91% of consumers are more likely to support a brand they view as authentic.  

     

    It’s about more than just donations.

    You need donations and community support to be a successful nonprofit; there’s no way around it. However, don’t get bogged down by the monetary aspect of business and push too hard for donations when marketing. 

    If your social media posts, blogs, and other digital content are just pleas for cash and offer nothing else of value to a potential audience, you won’t get very far. 

    Break up informational and educational posts with fun, lighthearted content. Tie donation-based material into other messages, so it’s not the sole focus. 

    For example, let’s pretend your nonprofit is an animal rescue organization. On Instagram, instead of posting an image and captioning it with, “Please donate. Link in bio. Our animals need your help,” you could post a grinning dog picture with the caption, “Finn is ecstatic that it’s Friday, and you probably are, too! Swing by the shelter to see his smile in person this weekend, or donate to his care!”  

    Brand awareness is an important factor that many nonprofits forget to consider. Getting your name and image out there is crucial. 

     

    Take advantage of the Google Grant Program.

    Here’s something super cool that all nonprofits should know: Google Ads has an initiative called the Google Grant Program. This amazing opportunity provides nonprofits with a chance to advertise on their platform for free.

    Google Ads is a frequently-used online tool with a range of paid ad campaign opportunities.

    It’s used by everyone from small businesses to conglomerate corporations. Google Ads is an invaluable resource that can change the game when it comes to advertising. 

    Qualified, Google-approved organizations can receive $10,000 per month in Google Ads dollars. This marketing spend helps the nonprofits carry out their mission and promote their initiatives.

    The specific offerings, requirements, and resources Google for Nonprofits provide are available on their page. 

    For more information and specifics, check out our previous blog post.

     

    Don’t be afraid to get creative.

    Think outside of the box when crafting digital content. Don’t limit yourself to one aspect or avenue of marketing. Dive deep and take time to think things through.

    Always keep best practices in mind. Approach any free content services (like social media) the same way you would if you were paying for the service. 

    The best digital marketing strategies are often the unexpected ones that go outside of normal conventions. Depending on your nonprofit’s goals, you can find success in various realms. Explore marketing videos, new social platforms, apps, and more.

     

    Don’t get overwhelmed.

    All this information might seem overwhelming, especially to nonprofits who don’t spend a lot of time on advertising strategies. It may be intimidating to get into the marketing frame of mind. However, it isn’t as intense as it may seem. 

    With some time, research, and practice, nonprofit organizations can take the marketing world by storm and find success! Don’t be afraid to try new things. Not everything will work, but it’s worth a try!

     

    Consider outsourcing.

    Interested in outsourcing your marketing department to make life easier? As previously mentioned, Social Link offers discounted labor rates for qualified nonprofit organizations.

    Take advantage of our full range of services if you’re looking to ramp up your advertising efforts, rebrand your website, create killer content, and more! 

    We cater to all small and medium-sized organizations that need external marketing resources and assets to help grow their business. Our clients come first. Always. We genuinely love what we do, and it’s reflected in everything we do for our customers.

    Good luck with your advertising journey! 

     

    Who we are.

    Social Link is a virtual marketing agency that expertly and efficiently streamlines digital marketing efforts. We set up full-funnel sales and marketing tools that attract, nurture, convert, and delight your customers. Our proven, practiced solutions and methods come highly recommended. 

    We define the outcomes, the offerings, the customer, and the message through strategic planning and management. You’ll get a seamless campaign experience with unified messages for your customers.

     

    Categories
    Digital Marketing Tips and Tricks

    Digital Marketing for Small Businesses

    Learn how to efficiently market your company—no matter the size.

    Size doesn’t matter. Your business might not be large, but that doesn’t mean your company isn’t powerful. Small yet mighty, right?

    Regardless of your employee headcount or years in business, you should have a digital marketing plan in place. 

    Last year, 95% of small businesses increased company spending on digital marketing. If you want to increase brand awareness, get organic traffic to your site, connect with consumers, and meet financial goals, you need to tap into digital marketing.

    Why do you need marketing help?

    Your organization is brimming with potential, but maybe your digital marketing performance just isn’t cutting it. It’s easy to become frustrated when it feels like your marketing efforts are just disappearing into the ether. 

    There are a variety of reasons your marketing numbers aren’t where you want them to be. Perhaps you don’t have the resources or funds to hire in-person marketing personnel. 

    Or you have plenty of great advertising ideas, but simply don’t have the time to devote to bringing them to fruition. After all, you’re busy trying to tackle a million things on your never-ending to-do list.

    Here are a few of our thoughts and suggestions for amping up your digital efforts as you reassess your marketing goals and priorities. 

    Beef up your website.

    The Manifest stated, “By 2021, online shopping is projected to reach $4.8 trillion in revenue, which means small businesses have the opportunity to benefit from these consumer habits.” 

    Custom sites increase brand awareness, drive engagement, impress potential and current 

    clients, and fully embody the core of your small business. If you have a clunky, difficult-to-navigate site, users won’t be inclined to utilize your services or purchase your products. 

    Your site should showcase your stunning products, services, and abilities as a small business. It doesn’t need to be super fancy, but it should work well, have a good flow, and be easy for customers to explore. 

    Make sure your site showcases clean, compelling, captivating designs that give your business the engaging look it deserves. Using photography, audio, and video elements on your site offers users engaging content that will not only hold their interest but also work to convert it into a sale.

    Are you mobile friendly?

    In this day and age, humans are constantly glued to their phones. That’s why everything you do needs to be made for mobile. According to the Pew Research Center, the average American spends over four hours on their smartphone every day, checking it as often as 150 times. Yikes. A growing number of people use smartphones as their primary means of online access at home as well. Phones surpassed TV as the medium attracting the most minutes of attention in 2019.

    Pixel Union explains, “If you can’t deliver an experience that’s quick, convenient, and easy-to-use, don’t expect your visitors to stick around.”

    Customers will be accessing your site and communicating with you on their mobiles, so your marketing efforts need to be tailored to that. Intelligent, responsive design and fierce functionality make it a breeze for clients to navigate your digital space.

    If your business hasn’t integrated a mobile facet into your digital marketing plan, then now’s the time—before you get left behind.

    Tools and Tracking.

    Make smart marketing decisions faster with dashboard analytics. Quickly monitor your site’s success and watch your revenue grow with easy-to-use tools and tracking.

    The proliferation of social media, smart technologies, and the internet enables you to capture more quantifiable data than ever before.

    Making use of agencies or tools like HubSpot will provide your company with the help it needs to make sense of all this information. Data analytics can work to grow your small business by optimizing conversion rates and increasing sales.

     

    Play around with different strategies.

    One of the many benefits of digital marketing is that it’s fast and easy. Play around with various ideas and strategies. You can easily launch a social media campaign and then shut it down later if the channel or content doesn’t appeal to your audience. There’s no black-and-white right or wrong when it comes to digital marketing. A little bit of trial and error might seem scary at first, but it’s a low-risk game. Free social media tools allow you to explore a variety of avenues without wasting resources. 

    “I’m a big believer of always starting with digital first because it’s directly quantifiable, and you can turn it off like a light switch if it’s not working,” said Robert Weiss, the president of a New York video production company.    

     

    Be authentic.

    Don’t blindly copy other businesses around you. Be true to your company’s values, mission statement, and beliefs. Your mom always said, “Just be yourself!” and it turns out she was right. 

    Consumers are able to smell a rat from a mile away. They’ll pick up on phony messaging and copycat content. Use your small business’s story as an asset to your digital marketing efforts. Tell the truth and be real. People will relate more to that than anything else.  

     

    Consider outsourcing. 

    If you’ve been struggling to find the time, resources, and energy to focus on marketing, then there’s no better time to outsource.

    Ready to heighten your brand, increase revenue, and put your best face forward? Social Link is here to make it happen.

    Take advantage of our offerings to provide higher-converting and more engaging, authentic online experiences to potential customers.

    Outsourcing your marketing department impacts your business’ entire sales and marketing funnel to help produce inbound leads and align sales. 85% of B2B marketers deem lead generation as their most important goal, and outsourcing is a surefire way to find success in this realm.   

    Studies have shown that outsourced marketing departments provide businesses with cost-effective support, boosted efficiency, and increased skill-sets. What have you got to lose?

    Who we are.

    Social Link is a virtual marketing agency that expertly and efficiently streamlines digital marketing efforts. We set up full-funnel sales and marketing tools that attract, nurture, convert, and delight your customers. Our proven, practiced solutions and methods come highly recommended. From website development to HubSpot marketing, Social Link has the experience and capabilities to get the results you want at the price you need.

    We define the outcomes, the offerings, the customer, and the message through strategic planning and management. You’ll get a seamless campaign experience with unified messages for your customers.

    Categories
    Digital Marketing Tips and Tricks

    10 Digital Marketing Tips for 2020

    1.Optimize your mobile site.

    If you haven’t already optimized your mobile site, you need to put it at the top of your to-do list. People are spending more time on their mobile devices than ever before. US consumers spend more time using their mobile devices than watching TV. 

    “We’ve expected that mobile would overtake TV for a while, but seeing it happen is still surprising,” stated Yoram Wurmser, an eMarketer principal analyst. “As recently as 2014, the average US adult watched nearly 2 hours more TV than they spent on their phones.”

    Taking full advantage of the booming mobile optimization market can be a key factor in the success of your business. Mobile optimization is applied to your business’s website to ensure its design, page layout, download speed, and other factors are all working to their fullest extent. In today’s world, a business whose website doesn’t translate well onto a mobile device signals to customers that the business may be behind the times.

    2. Lights, camera, action! Invest in video marketing.

    In the United States alone, digital video marketing is a $135 billion industry.  As Lemonlight, a Californian video production company, says, “Brands can no longer get by using written content and images alone — nowadays, that’s uninteresting and unengaging for consumers who are inundated with live streaming, interactive 360 videos, augmented reality, and more.” 

    Video marketing allows tech companies and other businesses to show their customers and potential clients what they have to offer and what they are working on. This helps build excitement and entertain your audience. 

    3. Keep up social media marketing efforts.

    Advertising on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram remains one of the most important avenues for modern businesses to reach their audiences. Creating and sharing content on these websites is crucial, both for establishing an audience as well as maintaining contact with customers. It’s important to establish your target audience so you know which platforms are going to best reach your audience.

    4. Make graphic design a priority.

    Just as important as attracting the attention of search engines is attracting the attention of future customers. An aesthetically pleasing, user-friendly website has become essential today for businesses that intend to thrive. 

    Using photography, audio, and video elements results in engaging content that will not only hold a viewer’s interest but work to convert it into a sale.

    5. Utilize data analytics.

    You might imagine this merely entails counting likes or website views, but today, data analytics offers a more comprehensive evaluation. The proliferation of social media, smart technologies, and the internet allows organizations to capture more quantifiable data than ever before. However, the collection of this raw data alone does not produce the meaningful insights needed to make strategic business decisions. Making use of agencies or tools like HubSpot will provide your company with the help it needs to make sense of all this information. Data analytics can work to grow your business by optimizing conversion rates and increasing sales.

    6. Give livestreaming a try.

    Livestreaming helps you connect with your audience as you broadcast in real-time. As marketing specialist Morgan Lathaen said, “Livestreaming was on the rise in 2019 and will continue to dominate in 2020 because it is free, takes a short amount of time to produce, reaches a broader target audience, and offers authentic user engagement.” In addition, live content is often found to generate more impressions than regular newsfeed posts. If you haven’t already given it a try, now is the time!

    7. Don’t forget about digital networking.

    Social networking sites are invaluable marketing tools because they enable professionals to connect with each other worldwide. Networking sites like LinkedIn give employers the opportunity to connect with people who have the potential to be game-changing assets as employees. It’s important for small businesses to take part in social networking sites to spread the word about their growing company. If your organization makes dozens of professional connections online, it will increase word-of-mouth and consequently, sales.

    8. Take time to connect via email.

    Emails are still a powerful marketing tool and an easy way to spread your message with ease. The number of global email users is estimated to grow to 4.3 billion users by 2023, so email marketing will continue to be crucial to your business. It provides you with a huge opportunity to truly connect with your audience. Companies have wised up to the fact that potential clients don’t care about redundant, trite emails. They desire something fresh, fun, and relevant to their lives. When crafting a marketing strategy, make sure your business is sending emails that are full of content that your customers actually want to read. Email marketing is more about connecting and offering useful information or inspiration, not just another sales pitch.

    9. Build an app.

    If it’s right for you and your business, consider building an app. Even if your company is small, you can garner a lot of attention if you invest in an app. In 2020, mobile apps are expected to produce $581.9 billion in revenue. Apps make doing business a little easier and can be a great marketing tool if it makes it easier for customers to engage or purchase a product or service from you. Building an app takes research, planning, and testing. Remember to take things slow and delay the release of your app until all the bugs are worked out. Creating the ultimate user experience is what matters the most.

    10. Don’t be afraid to outsource your marketing efforts.

    If you don’t have the time, money, and resources to devote to digital marketing, don’t shy away from asking for help. Consider streamlining your marketing and sales processes by hiring a digital marketing agency. Ready to save money, accomplish tasks in a shorter amount of time, and give your employees more flexibility? Of course you are. Leave the nitty-gritty marketing work to a virtual marketing department like Social Link. This means you will have more freedom to do what you do best, whether that’s product development, financials, or account management.

    Categories
    Tips and Tricks

    How to Track KPIs like a Marketing Agency

    Tips and tricks from a virtual marketing agency

    Time to double down on your digital marketing efforts with a little bit of help from Social Link. Armed with our expert advice on KPIs, you’ll learn how to track KPIs like a digital marketing agency in no time.

    First things first: let’s break it down to the basics. 

    What are KPIs?

    If you’re scratching your head and trying to remember what KPI even stands for, that’s totally fine. You’re in the right place. We’ve got you.

    A KPI is a key performance indicator. In the simplest terms, KPIs help organizations determine whether or not they’re meeting their strategic goals. They are the crucial indicators of progress toward a goal or desired result. Key performance indicators provide a focus for business opportunities, both strategically and operationally. They create an analytical basis for making decisions, and they can help companies zone in on what matters the most. 

    Good KPIs help educate and inform people about what’s working and what’s not as their business changes over time. This information often leads to having the ability to make better decisions and devise stronger strategies. 

    What do KPIs measure?

    KPIs measure anything from financial performance and customer satisfaction to operational processes and internal strategies. They help you determine what is impacting your bottom line.

    A decent KPI can track efficiency, effectiveness, quality, time management, compliance, project performance, allocation of resources, and more. 

    KPIs are so important because of how effective they are. As SalesChoice CEO Dr. Cindy Gordon puts it, “Analytics is the most effective factor in modern-day sales.”

    Goal Setting

    In order to properly track your KPIs, you must first define your goals. Make several clear, concise goals to start off. Don’t make too many goals if you think you’ll get bogged down or overwhelmed. There’s no need to go overboard just yet! Simply set a few goals that are SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. 

    Once you have your list of goals, you should make yourself aware of the two categories of KPIs.

    Leading and Lagging Indicators

    KPIs fall into two categories: leading or lagging indicators.

    Easy to change but difficult to measure, leading indicators drive your bottom line. They focus on the specific actions that lead to your results. Leading indicators beget lagging indicators. 

    Lagging indicators are your results or output. Examples include the number of new clients you got this week or the revenue your company made last month.

    Setting the KPIs

    In order to create your KPIs, ask, “How can I measure each goal? How do I make sure that I’m achieving that goal?” 

    HubSpot explains, “Results ultimately stem from the right activities. So working backward from the end goal like revenue to the front end of the sales process will actually help the salesperson understand the necessary activity to achieve their goal.”

    Hubspot offers a few good examples of potential KPIs. They explain that a B2B software-as-a-service company might be focused on cost per acquisition and churn, while a digital media or publishing company will likely focus on unique visitors and the number of time users spent on the site. Meanwhile, a retail store might concentrate on sales per square foot or customer satisfaction. A professional service may want to track bookings and effective billable rates.

    Tracking Tips

    In order to track KPIs like a digital marketing agency, you need to utilize the proper tools and methods. You can use either something simple like Excel to build a summary report from your metrics or we recommend taking advantage of KPI monitoring or data visualization software.

    These tools can help you create a KPI dashboard where you keep track of your lead conversions, returning visitors, brand awareness, purchase funnels, etc. This data should be pulled from various sources like Google Analytics, Facebook, Quickbooks, and more. Building a KPI report and dashboard helps you effectively and efficiently monitor business metrics in real-time. Reports and dashboards are crucial tools because they allow you to get an unbiased, concrete view of your company’s performance in one place. 

    There are many software and program options out there that give you access to a dashboard and help you track KPIs. We highly recommend using HubSpot, which allows you to monitor performance metrics in a user-friendly way.

    Consistency is imperative.

    Be consistent. Tracking your KPIs consistently is one of the first ways you can upgrade your marketing strategy. It’s all about consistency when measuring your KPIs. Whether it occurs weekly or monthly doesn’t matter as much as the action of the routine measuring.

    Adjust if you have to.

     “Adjusting KPIs to drive behavior that you need to drive results to your business is extremely important,” said Justin Hiatt, the vice president of digital sales at Workfront.

    Tracking KPI performance is easy with Social Link.

    Make smart decisions faster with dashboard analytics that monitors your site’s success. Interested in outsourcing your KPI tracking? Social Link uses HubSpot’s conversion and tracking tools to analyze campaign performance from Google Ads, social ads, search, and referrals.

    By using HubSpot conversions and tracking tools, we can determine your content strategy’s return on investment. We will expertly determine the proper metrics to track your organic and paid efforts and hone in on how to best communicate your content’s performance.

    Reporting 101.

    We compile detailed HubSpot reports on the various metrics that contribute to your revenue. This information puts everything into perspective with concrete numbers and specific percentages that help you see the bottom line. The reports and subsequent reflection allows you to take a step back and look closer at areas where you’re doing well and also nail down potential opportunities for your business to improve.   

    Who we are.

    Social Link is a virtual marketing agency that expertly and efficiently streamlines digital marketing efforts. We set up full-funnel sales and marketing tools that attract, nurture, convert, and delight your customers. Our proven, practiced solutions and methods come highly recommended. 

    We define the outcomes, the offerings, the customer, and the message through strategic planning and management. You’ll get a seamless campaign experience with unified messages for your customers.

    Categories
    Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks

    Facebook Small Business Grants Program

    Facebook Small Business Grants Program

     

    “We at Facebook know that your business may be experiencing disruptions resulting from the global outbreak of COVID-19. We’ve heard that a little financial support can go a long way, so we are offering $100M in cash grants and ad credits to help during this challenging time.”
    Who is eligible?
    Facebook is offering $100M in cash grants and ad credits for up to 30,000 eligible small businesses in over 30 countries where we operate. We’ll share more details as they become available.

     

    How can the program help?

     

      • Keep your workforce going strong
      • Help with your rent costs
      • Connect with more customers
      • Cover operational costs

     

    We’ll begin taking applications in the coming weeks. In the meantime, you can sign up to receive more information when it becomes available: CLICK HERE.

    For additional resources about how you can help your business prepare for and manage through disruptions like COVID-19, visit our recently-launched Business Resource Hub: CLICK HERE.

    Categories
    Tips and Tricks Video Marketing

    Video Editing Tips Every Learner Should Know

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    People spend most of their online time today watching videos so it’s essential that businesses learn certain video editing tips as they grow. Consumers love video content because it is so much easier for them to absorb than reading huge blocks of text. What makes this even more amazing is that it’s extremely easy to create and publish videos! It’s an exciting time for content developers.

    The only downside is that videos intimidate so many entrepreneurs that they avoid it altogether. However, it’s not really that scary. Technology has made the entire process easier than ever!

    Videos Have a Huge Impact on your Brand

    A one-minute video can provide the same information as 1,000 words of text. More importantly, videos have an emotional impact on the viewer. People base the majority of their purchase decisions on their emotional state so a video can be a powerful selling tool. Following the right video editing tips will ensure that you are creating the best videos. Plus, videos can be viewed from anywhere. People live on their smartphones today so they are absorbing more content than ever. In 2020, we are expecting the mobile network to make the change to 5G so that means even more videos will be consumed.

    With that in mind, here are some video editing tips that every learner should know.

    video editing marketing social

    #1: Make Sure to Choose the Right Software

    Everything falls back to software so if you are using subpar programs, then your videos are going to be amateurish. However, there is no single video editing software that’s a clear favorite. A lot of this decision will come down to personal preference. Which features do you desire above all others? Is it important that the software is easy to use? Are you willing to give up a few advanced features in exchange for an easy to navigate program?

    These are questions that will help you choose the right software. Start by looking at After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Final Cut Pro.

    #2: Utilize Lower-Third Graphics

    Putting text in videos significantly increases their conversion rate because a lot of social media sites will automatically play a video, but they do it with the sound muted. But text will still show up so if the viewer sees something that interests them, they will then turn the sound on. Video editing tools will allow you to add text onto the bottom of the screen. It’s the same as you see with news broadcasts and sporting events.

    Let’s assume that you are creating a video to introduce your audience to members of the team behind creating their favorite products. During these interviews, you might want to display their name and position.

    #3: Using the Right Sounds and Music

    Adding background music or specific special effects to a video is a great way to add dimension to it. Sounds hit us on an emotional level so when you add in the right music or SFX, then your videos are going to elicit a specific emotional reaction. The trick is to pick out the sounds that fit in with the overall theme of the video. For instance, using heavy metal wouldn’t be appropriate for a video trying to elicit a calm emotional reaction.

    Download image from:
    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hjbS7ihlE2aiP2SRFX-ruCZXDLAWaaeR/view?usp=sharing

    #4: Master the Jump Cut

    All video editing tips have their place, but the jump cut is one of the most highly used techniques available. It’s used mainly to collapse time and save space by pushing the narrative forward. No one wants to watch the boring elements that happen between point A and point B. They want to stick with the action. However, the only problem is that most beginners use too many jump cuts and completely ignore all other video editing methods at their disposal.

    So, my advice is to make sure that you are using jump cuts at the right moments.

    #5: Keep Editing in Mind While You’re Filming the Video

    One of the amazing parts about creating digital videos is that they are easy to edit once you’re done. However, you will end up with a lot of extra footage that you’ll have to choose from. Video editing is time consuming. That’s why experts always film their videos with editing in mind. For instance, if you are filming a video that has to be synced with music, then you can have that track playing while the video is being filmed. Then you will simply have to link them together during the editing phase.

    #6: Learn to Keep your Videos as Short as Possible

    The goal of a video should never be based on length. It should be based on the content itself. Therefore, keep your videos as short as possible while still delivering the message. People have a short attention span so they are not going to watch a video that’s 10 minutes long when the same message could have been delivered in a 3-minute video.

    Also limit fun transitions so that they are rare. That way when you do use one, it has more impact. Most transitions should be short cuts or fades in order to tighten up videos. Just remember to only use transitions when they are necessary. Most videos that we see on social media are shot in one short and simple set with no cuts. That’s because video technology today makes it much easier to do this.

    Finally, short videos must also be highly engaging. Keep the audience on the edge of their seats so that when you deliver the call to action, they are compelled to follow through. Remember, people base most of their decisions on emotion, so if you get them into the right emotional state, then they are more likely to follow through.

    Final Thoughts

    The Back Office Pro Company understands that it takes years to master the art of video editing. It’s a skill that must be developed over time but following through with these video editing tips will help push you in the right direction.

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    Blog Online Marketing Tips and Tricks

    Marketing Cannabis: We Are Here For You.

    Marketing Cannabis: We Are Here For You.

    Calling all cannabis companies! Is your business in need of a marketing agency? Look no further: we are Social Link, a one-stop marketing shop, and we welcome you. Whether you’re a plant-touching business in charge of cultivating and distributing cannabis, or an ancillary company supporting the growth, processing, and sale of cannabis products, we are here for you. 

    At Social Link, we understand, admire, and respect the importance of the cannabis industry. We are dedicated to championing organizations within the marijuana sector by providing them with high-quality, cutting-edge marketing services that improve business, reach potential customers, and boost sales. 

    weighing cannabis

    Our “Can-Do” Approach to Cannabis 

    We are your ally in the fight to destigmatize marijuana use, whether it’s medicinal or recreational. We are ready to bust myths, bring accurate facts and figures to the forefront, and clear up falsehoods and fables surrounding cannabis use. It’s time to open non-users’ minds about weed and educate people on the many products and benefits cannabis offers. 

    We are your marketing partner in the ever-changing, rapidly evolving cannabis environment. We see you and support your mission, your business, and your goals. 

    Marketing Marijuana? We’re ready.

    Marketing, content creation, and advertising can seem overwhelming at first, especially within the formidable cannabis industry. However, we are here to help you every step of the way. You’re not alone. With us by your side, you have one less thing to worry about. We’ll take care of the hard stuff so you and your employees have the time to focus on the specific ins and outs of running your business.

    Think of us as your right-hand man, your content guide, your behind-the-scenes magical marketing guru ready to swoop in and get your company headed in the right direction. Never fear: we are here to transform seemingly impossible roadblocks and potential obstacles into opportunities for success. 

     

    Ready, Set, Grow!

    The rules of digital marketing are constantly changing. We are here to help you stay ahead of the game.

    We take you and your business seriously. There is much money to be made and plenty of success to be had within the cannabis industry, and we are the people to take you and your company to the next level. 

    Whether medicinal or recreational, cannabis is a huge money-maker and we have the skill-set and resources to make it happen for you and your business. 

    Here to Help

    Social Link can help target your customers with relevant content that delivers what they’re searching for. We know how to put ourselves in your clients’ shoes. We make communication a two-way street, all the while driving ROI and channeling users into action. 

    Ready to see what we can do? Let’s get started. Reach out to us today to learn more and get the ball rolling. 

     

    Capitalizing on Cannabis 

    As more and more states approve cannabis for recreational and/or medicinal use, a previously untapped market has quickly emerged. From medical dispensaries to recreational shops, marijuana suppliers are now serving a broader base of consumers. Capital from North American public cannabis companies totaled $394.1 million in January 2019, and that’s just the beginning. The forecasted growth of the robust US cannabis industry is slated to reach up to $80 billion by 2030.

    According to Business Insider, the estimated total demand for marijuana is more than the $36 billion of video games and $19.9 billion of doughnuts sold in 2017, and approximately 55 million Americans are cannabis users. 

     

    Best Buds

    With newer marijuana markets embracing social equity programs and diversification enhancing profitability of marijuana product manufacturers, there has never been a better time to be in the booming cannabis industry.

    The United States accounts for 90% of the global marijuana market, making this country the perfect place for budding cannabis businesses (pun intended) to truly thrive.

    According to a recent report by Grand View Research, Inc., the “growing adoption of cannabis as a pharmaceutical product for treating severe medical conditions, such as cancer, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, arthritis, and other neurological conditions is anticipated to drive demand for medical marijuana in the forthcoming years.” Another aspect that will boost the demand is the “increasing need for pain management therapies and growing disease burden of chronic pain among elders.”

    Marijuana has quickly become a big business, which is why you need big marketing strategies to go along with it. This is where we can help: we are ready and willing to hit the ground running and maximize your company’s potential and enhance the great work you already do. 

     

    Who We Are

    At Social Link, we provide you with the full team of specialists you need to execute your digital marketing strategy to help you make informed decisions that affect your bottom line. We are your virtual marketing department. 

    Established in 2008, Social Link has developed systems and approaches to social media and internet marketing that now maintain a level of quality unmatched in the industry. Social Link is committed to being the best of the best.

     

    Looking for results? We drive them.

    Our mission is to be the go-to marketing professionals for all small- and medium-sized organizations that need the proper resources to help grow their business. We excel at connecting the right people at the right time with the right brand messages. 

    By concentrating on the essentials, we drive actionable results.  It’s important for us to keep the goals and strategy the focus, with an expert execution of deliverables to support them. Social Link lets the data tell the story and drive the decision making.  And as always, the client comes before the competitor. 

     

    Not to brag, but we’re pretty popular.

    We’ve worked with a wide variety of industries, from healthcare and retail to hospitality and real estate, going above and beyond for each of our clients. 

    Our professionals work from home all over the country and even internationally. We believe that happy employees create happy customers. This also allows us to network with people around the world to find some of the best experts in their field. 

    We never compromise our quality or cut corners. We always work with you to offer services that will be relevant to you and your unique needs by strategizing to fortify your marketing goals with a desired customer base.

     

    What We Do

    Welcome to Social Link. This is where big ideas begin. We define the outcomes, the offering, the customer, and the message. We help grow business. Our services include lead generation, SEO, web development, strategy, graphic design, social media, app development, content, and more. 

    Looking for an engaging website? We build mobile-first, adaptive, fully responsive sites. On the hunt for infographics? We simplify complex information in a way that’s fun, visually intuitive, and inviting. Ready for content generation that gets the job done? We bring you big ideas—the ones that energize your campaign and get current and new customers excited. 

     

    We’ve Got it All.

    Social Link provides simple, at-a-glance tools for monitoring and optimizing traffic and conversion. We’ll make sure your content is 100% optimized. We’ve got the tools and expertise to attract, convert, close, and transform visitors into advocates. We tailor messages to the medium and customer—email, social, pay-per-click, blogs, and more. You’ll get seamless campaign experiences with unified marketing messages for your clients. Every team is led by a campaign strategist who keeps the whole mission on track and on time.

     

    What are you waiting for? Get started today!

    Categories
    Blog Digital Marketing Online Marketing Sales Social Media Tips and Tricks

    Content is King: Digital Storytelling Basics

    In a rapidly evolving digital environment, producing high-quality content is more important than ever. Good content tells a story, which enables your business to connect with a wider audience, share new ideas, and stand out from the crowd.

     

    Make Your Brand into a Story

    First things first: your organization needs to tell a story. This simple move can increase brand awareness and add a personal component to your business that resonates with customers. The more familiar someone is with your brand, the more likely they are to trust you and be a returning customer. Your story doesn’t have to be long or complex, but it should answer a few simple questions. How did you get started? What makes your business special? What inspires you and your employees? The answers to these questions can help form an authentic, unique identity and even drive a higher conversion rate.

    Make it real, relatable, and honest. Fluffy descriptions and meaningless words will only fall flat. Authenticity is key. According to Ad Week, “91 percent of consumers are likely to reward brands for authenticity and share the brand with friends and family, and 62 percent are likely to purchase from or show greater interest in purchasing from a brand that authentically expresses itself.”

    You can be professional without being stuffy. Just be yourself—there’s no need to try to be something you’re not. What works for one company doesn’t necessarily work for another, so while it’s easy to compare yourself to another brand, resist the temptation.

     

    Popular Forms of Content

    Forbes discovered that people find videos, blogs, and instructional media to be the most valuable forms of content. 54% of consumers want more video content from a brand or business they support. Due to shortened attention spans, internet users are increasingly interested in media that combines images, text, audio, and videos. Depending on your resources, producing multiple forms of content may seem overwhelming. Luckily, it’s easier than ever to add short-form videos or high-resolution photographs to a blog post or landing page. 92% of marketers make videos with assets they already have, so you don’t necessarily need a production team or camera crew to beef up video content. Play around with a variety of strategies to determine what resonates the most with your audience.

     

    How to Create Strong Content

    To keep engagement levels high, you need to offer simple, straightforward, and succinct content that also provides value, like an educational video or how-to blog article. Content is the most impactful when it’s clear, concise, and purposeful. You want to produce materials on a frequent, consistent basis, but don’t publish something just for the sake of it—quality still beats quantity.

    The most important factors to consider are what your audience wants and needs. What will they enjoy consuming, what problems are they trying to solve, and how can you help them? If you have more than one target audience, don’t be afraid of segmentation. By tailoring your content to specific groups, you can forge stronger connections and make more of an impact.

    As a final tip, don’t forget that proofreading is imperative. Everything in the digital landscape is so fast paced that it’s easy to overlook a mistake, but nothing derails your content train quite like a simple grammatical error or embarrassing typo.

    There’s real power in storytelling. Generating quality content enables you to accomplish marketing goals, reach a wider audience, and increase your digital influence. If you’d like to learn more about how Social Link can help you strategically create a content strategy that converts to revenue drop us a line today to get started.

    Categories
    Blog Online Marketing SEO Tips and Tricks Web Development

    How a Content Management System (CMS) Works—and Why You Need One for Your Business

    There was a time when adding new website content required a web developer. To update the website, a developer would create a file on their computer, then transfer the file to a web server via an FTP program. It was far from a user-friendly experience.

    Fortunately, those days are long gone. Today, content management systems allow users to create, edit, and publish content to their website without any technical complexities. By far, the most well-known and widely-used CMS is WordPress. It’s estimated that WordPress powers around one-third of all websites on the internet.

    Other popular CMS platforms include Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace. These website-building applications have empowered virtually anyone with basic computer proficiency to create and manage their own website. But how do content management systems work? In this post, we’ll explain what’s going on “under the hood” of a CMS application—and why it’s a must-have in today’s digital landscape.

    What is a content management system?

    CMS platforms enable users to create websites with relative ease. But what are they exactly? Simply put, a CMS is a software application that streamlines the content management process with easy-to-use interfaces. For example, if you want to publish a new blog post on your website, a CMS interface makes that as effortless as typing a word document.

    Here’s what the back-end of WordPress would look like to a user that wants to create a new blog post:

    [Source]

    As you can see, the user is able to add text, format the post, upload media, and publish with the click of a button.There can be many other features and functionalities included in a CMS, but this example demonstrates one of the most essential concepts.

    How does a content management system work?

    To understand how a CMS works, you must first understand how a website works. Your website is powered by the data within its database. That database is made of tables, which contain information for how your website should be displayed. Every page on your website is rendered based on information from one of your database tables. There’s a data table for your home page, your ‘about’ page, your blog posts, etc.

    To modify your website or add new content, you’ll need to update the tables in your database. That’s where a content management system comes into play. A CMS is a graphical user interface that allows you to manipulate the data in your database. The interface is designed to be as easy-to-use as possible. So, by using the interface of a CMS, you can modify your website’s database without any knowledge of coding or database structure. For example, if you create a new blog post within your CMS interface, that post is automatically entered into your website’s database for you (making it an official part of your site).

    two women at desk looking at laptop
     

    Content management systems are built around the WYSIWYG concept (what you see is what you get). They allow users to create/edit website content as it appears, rather than dealing with the code behind it. At the end of the day, this makes managing web content easier, faster, and more accessible.

    Why do you need a content management system?

    As we’ve seen above, content management systems are all about ease-of-use. With a CMS, adding new web content and blog posts is relatively effortless, allowing you to publish more content at a higher frequency. But why does constantly adding new content matter to your business? Two words: Content Marketing.

    In the digital age, web content is a valuable marketing asset for businesses of all sizes. Publishing new content has direct business benefits, including:

    • Increased search engine traffic
    • Increased engagement with your target audience
    • More inbound leads (resulting from the two notions above)

    A strong content marketing plan requires fresh content to be published on your website—which is part of the reason a CMS is so important for your business. A CMS helps you implement your content needs efficiently, which allows you to make the most of your content marketing efforts.

    At Social Link, we specialize in elevating businesses with proven digital strategies (including content marketing and web development). If you have any questions about content management systems or would like to learn more about how Social Link can grow your business, request a free consultation.

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    App Development Blog Digital Marketing Downloads Email Marketing Featured News Online Marketing PPC Remote Sales SEO Social Media Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks Web Design Web Development

    Thank You from a VirtualAF CEO

    “You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology.”

    As Social Link grows and drives forward with a beta launch of its first software product since the beginning in 2009, it seems like now is a good time to revisit our vision as Jobs brought to light in this video.

    The obvious customer? Our business clients. Without them we would not been able grow and learn how to adapt to a variety of industries in 27 states and four countries. They’ve taught us to be disciplined, remain humble, and keep us sharp. For that we thank you!

    The not so obvious customer? Our team. They’ve taught me about loyalty, growth, and unity. Without their support and alignment in Social Link’s vision, none of this would be possible. Thank you (current and past) for being the best VirtualAF team I could ask for. Your dedication and commitment is what gets me out of bed in the morning and keeps me up at night.

    Social Link is focused on changing the way people work. We look to provide the tools and resources to employees for freedom to do what they love from anywhere there is an internet connection…and to clients for accessibility to their marketing team and business assets whenever needed.

    Join us today and try the desktop version of our beta platform at https://app.sociallink.com. Look for it in your mobile app store in just a couple of weeks.

    Brady O’Rourke

    VirtualAF CEO

    Categories
    Digital Marketing Online Marketing Social Media Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks

    Six Marketing Lessons from Social Media Influencers

    All brands and marketing companies can learn something from the current generation of social media influencers. To most, they may just be just YouTubers or Instastars. But in the world of marketing, social media influencers are savvy, entrepreneurial individuals who are capitalizing on the opportunities afforded to them in the digital age.

    1. Target one primary demographic. The Eh Bee Family makes family-friendly videos and posts. Pew Die Pie corners gaming enthusiasts. When social media influences gear their content to one particular demographic, they establish brand positioning and create a mini-community out of their followers.
    2. It’s easier to sell when not everything is a sell. Juanpa Zurita gave his dad his dream car (a Mini Cooper) for his birthday. Despite being a promotional post, it felt seamless because Juanpa Zurita had integrated his strong familial relationships in his social media content. The promotion was just a part of a larger story.
    3. Frequency, frequency, frequency. Social media influencers know the fine balance between producing enough content to maintain engagement with fans, but not so much that their audience gets saturated. Many have a policy of posting once or twice a week. The content is rarely extensive, usually either a short video or photo, satisfying their fans’ needs but giving them enough room so they want to come back for more.
    4. Authenticity is key. Despite the fact that so much of the internet is littered with spam and bots, there is nothing more valuable than authentic content. Audiences want something to believe in and social media influencers are experts when it comes to capitalizing on this. Social media influencer let people in on their lives. If fans and followers discover it’s fake, they will feel cheated and quickly move on.
    5. Transparency is the best policy. Fans who make some kind of investment in a project value transparency in how their dollars are put to use. A great example is Love Army, the social media charity organization started by Jerome Jarre. When Love Army asked for donations to help the relief efforts after the famine in Somalia, they posted real-time videos and pictures showing people where their dollars were going, including things like how much it cost to fix a broken water pipe. Every donation goal they’ve set for subsequent relief efforts since then has been met and then some.
    6. Positivity attracts more attention than negativity. Sure, the internet has a reputation for being a mean, inhospitable place. But when it comes to gaining popularity as a social media influencer, positivity beats out negativity every time. In fact, when entire platforms are perceived as negative, they begin to struggle, especially with younger consumers. The most popular platforms such as Snapchat, YouTube and Instagram are all celebrated as places where positivity reigns supreme.

    The key to social media influencers is in the title itself – influence, which gains far more traction than the sell. The days of using subliminal messaging and pop psychology to drive marketing efforts are long gone. Companies looking for the competitive advantage need to be open to new marketing methods and strategies if they want their message to be heard by millions like social media influencers are able to do. Change is already here. Now it’s time to embrace it

    Categories
    Featured News Sales Tips and Tricks

    Blockchain: What it Means for Healthcare Marketing

    If there was an award for biggest buzzword, right now it would be given to blockchain. From bitcoin to voting procedures, blockchain promises to revolutionize every industry under the sun. This includes one of the costliest and most important industries that affects everyone – health care.

    Let’s get one thing out of the way first, though. Who really understands blockchain? Apart from a few tech geeks, entrepreneurs and finance enthusiasts, the concept is not yet well grasped by the public at large.

    Definition: Blockchain is first and foremost a database system that stores information in a way where it cannot be hacked, traced or changed, at least not without considerable effort and difficulty.

    Here’s an over-simplified example: right now, if you search for trips to the Bahamas, you’ll suddenly start seeing ads on other, unrelated websites for trips to the Bahamas. That’s because the information was stored in a central location and was shared with a third-party, including the data that traced the information back to you and your search. Clear your browser cookies and cache and it goes away. Blockchain, however, does not store the data in one place, but in multiple, decentralized locations. The data is still accessible to the third party and they can track how it changes over time, but it’s no longer traceable to you and you cannot clear its history of events, but only add new information (or blocks) to the record (or chain).

    Although the blockchain data storage system was first used to keep track of cryptocurrency, its supreme capacity for security and reliability means that the future applications extend well beyond its original intended use. Health care is in a position to benefit most of all.

    Health Records

    Blockchain has the capacity to not only maintain greater accuracy in health care records, but it could also ensure the accuracy of the record is maintain across different healthcare providers. This can be great for those with an extensive and complicated medical history and the need to visits many types of specialists with varying opinions, or with people who need medical care in a foreign country and a language barrier could easily result in a life-threatening misdiagnosis. Although the technology might result in doctors over relying on the existing record or missing new symptoms, the benefits of a completely accurate and accessible medical history far outweigh the risk that may emerge in a small sector of medical providers.

    Medical Advancements

    One of the greatest advancements in modern healthcare is the ability to pool big data to look for statistical patterns that will contribute to medical advancements. It’s important to remember that this doesn’t just mean cures but extends into existing factors such as which medicines are most likely to be effective given factors such as age, race, sex and preexisting conditions. By pooling the data, the biotech industry will be able to get a clearer sense of which treatments are working, which ones aren’t, and most importantly, why certain patterns in treatment effectiveness have emerged. And it can be done without compromising the privacy of the patient, as the data can be preserved with complete accuracy without being traced back to any single individual.

    Financial Tracking

    Currently, health care expenditures are so fragmented and vast that each year, providers spend billions of dollars chasing payments, correcting billing errors, or combatting billing fraud. By implementing blockchain in health care financial tracking systems, patients and providers alike will be able to gain a greater sense of trust in the accuracy of their cost of care. This has the ability to build trust whilst reducing financial disputes and the time it takes to correct them. By eliminating the financial complications, the time between doctor and patient can be focused more on the health care itself, and less on whether or not someone might get a second heart attack if they’re the victim of billing error or fraud.

    The future of blockchain in the health care industry is speculative, but it could become a reality very soon. One of the greatest hurdles is that most people still associate blockchain with bitcoin and cryptocurrency, but it’s real main benefit is that it establishes a level of trust in information that has never existed before…and therefore a level of trust between the parties that rely on that information that has also never existed before. It’s hard to think of an industry that could benefit from blockchain more than health care. The only question is what will it take for them to adopt the technology?

    Categories
    Online Marketing SEO Tips and Tricks

    4 Tips For Better SEO

    4 Tips For Better SEO

    With a website that has gone live on the internet, you might think that your work has come to an end. Not so considering that there is another task ahead; ensuring that you remain on the first page of the search engines. Having quality content is also not sufficient, you must make it search engine friendly. How then, do you achieve a site that is well optimized?

    1. Keywords

    Search engines spiders crawl through content in search of words or phrases. These words are also known as keywords. They help online users to find what they are looking for quickly. Therefore, to improve your site’s ranking, mind the keywords. Make sure you use them interweaved through the content.

    1. Top-notch content

    Webmasters keep emphasizing the need for quality content. Take their word seriously by generating and posting information that people will find useful. Web users use the internet to look for answers, find products or for entertainment. To keep them engaged, post content that meets their expectation; something they cannot help but share with others.

    1. Use links

    Interlinking your webpages ensures that the person navigating through your site keeps going from one page to another. Therefore, have three or four links per page but on relevant anchor texts. For instance, if your website is about landscaping, the anchor text should be something related, e.g. ‘maintaining your lawn.’

    1. Image descriptions

    Images keep visitors glued to your web pages. Besides, they beautify your site and make it appealing to the eye. Ensure that you have given short descriptions to your images, but they should be informative.

    Categories
    Blog Tips and Tricks

    Why Sleep Is Important For Productivity

    Why Sleep Is Important For Productivity

    Imagine spending long hours on a project, say optimizing a client’s blog. You have no room for breaks and depend on coffee to stay awake. By the time you head home, it is already midnight, but there is a catch, you must be up by 4 am to wrap up and deliver the work.

    You are at your desk by 8 am and work comfortably with a tea and lunch break. By 5 pm or 5.30 pm, you are on your way home where you supervise the kids’ homework, have dinner, watch TV or read a book. By 11 pm, you are deep asleep and are guarantee eight hours of sleep.

    Which of the two ‘persons’ would you prefer? Sleep deprivation can seriously hamper your productivity. You need an average of between 7-9 hours of rest, in our case, sleep. Experts’ advice that you should make getting sufficient sleep a part of your career. Does sleep enhance your productivity?

    Improved memory

    With a good night’s sleep, your mind gets to absorb and store the things you have been learning all day. The lack of it impacts your memory.

    Fewer mistakes

    Lack of sleep reduces your response time. Besides, it hampers your rate of accuracy particularly with figures.

    No burnout

    Less sleep at night causes your body to feel fatigued. The mind zones out too, and you can hardly focus on anything.

    Less anxiety

    A loss of sleep causes your mind to be more volatile resulting in the inability to control fear, anger and other emotions. With such, you cannot handle pressure from clients or team members.

    Categories
    SEO Tips and Tricks

    Signage: It’s All About The Brand

    Signage: It’s All About The Brand

    While driving, road signs caution you on speed levels as well as the state of the road ahead. Office signs show the location of the washroom, departments and safety precautions. Walk around town, and you get accosted by a myriad of signage with shops competing to outdo each other.

    Signage defined

    A sign is a graphical image placed strategically to inform the masses. Signage raises awareness to safety, directs people where to go and promotes business. Sellers of products or services use signs to increase consumer awareness. Once prospective customers see them, they develop a desire to get the product or go for the service in question.

    Voicing the brand

    Consumers identify companies with what they sell, i.e. the brand. If people trust your image, they want to buy more from you. However, even with a superior product, you may still experience low sales. Perhaps you did not convey the information desirably and understandably. Your business logo is the face of the company. We can call this its personality. The act of taking the image out there for people to see is tantamount to giving your brand a voice.

    Target market

    Signage helps your target audience recognize a brand. Just as a road sign helps a driver know of a sharp bend, signs become synonymous with the products they represent. By consistently bombarding people with well-crafted signage, you connect with customers more and get to reach those that had not heard about you earlier. To sum up, the brand dictates the nature of signage used.

     

    Categories
    Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks

    5 Tips For Creating Social Headlines

    5 Tips For Creating Social Headlines

     

    A good headline is a doorway to your article. In online circles, people tend to judge the nature of content by the headline it bears. Besides attracting visitors, it also means that your site gets high traffic and search engines attention. Before you write a headline, think about these ideas below:

    1. Length

    Google, for the sake of discussion, only shows up to 60 characters of web content’s title. Keep your headlines below 55 characters. Other than the risk of a headline cut-off by a search engine, people prefer and do go for content with short headlines.

    1. Deliver what you promise

    Being dishonest or misleading will make you lose the much-needed audience. If you promise your readers five tips, do not give them three or four. Also, match the subject covered with the headline’s theme.

    1. Use numbers

    Social headlines that have numbers leave a better impact than generic ones. Internet users are busy people who want to skim before proceeding to other things. For conciseness, use low numbers and for comprehensiveness, use high numbers.

    1. Avoid asking questions with no answers

    Question-based headlines pique a reader’s interest. People want to read articles that provide them with solutions. Write a headline that will make a reader want to know how the article ends.

    1. Utilize power words

    Headlines that use adjectives (words that describe) grab the attention of readers. They make you want to read on to the end. Examples include “valuable, useful, beautiful, and effortless.” At the same time incorporate power words such as ‘free,’ ‘new,’ ‘you’ and ‘instantly.’

     

     

     

    Categories
    Digital Marketing Online Marketing Tips and Tricks Web Design

    How to Make A Marketing Dashboard that CEOs Care About  

    How to Make A Marketing Dashboard that CEOs Care About  

     

    Keep track of what’s under the hood

                 You don’t drive a car with just the foot pedals and steering wheel—you need the dashboard to feed you actionable numbers about your speed, fuel level, and rpm, so you can keep things running smoothly and better respond to what’s on the road. A marketing dashboard does the same thing, except that instead of telling you that it’s time for an oil change, it visualizes the data collect so you can make sense of it without getting bogged down in endless spreadsheets, or buried under an avalanche of emails about the latest market research. And, just like the one in a vehicle, a marketing dashboard allows you to make rapid corrections as you travel, so you’re not constrained by a monthly or quarterly reporting schedule’s blind spots.

    In all likelihood, the dashboard you create won’t just be for your own convenience; you’ll be asked to share it with other people in your organization, including the CEO. Read on for our suggestions about tailoring that shared dashboard to best suit executive needs.

    Approach it like a blog post

                You’re a marketing professional, and as such you’re accustomed to constructing buyer personas and generally taking your audience’s needs into account. Think about your CEO the same way you might about the readership for your latest blog post; focus on outcomes and big-picture results, rather than taking a deep dive into the kinds of data that they may neither be as familiar with nor care as much about. Would your CEO get more out of hearing about the most viewed blog posts from the past month, or hearing about what your site-wide conversion rate and referral visitors mean for your current marketing campaign?

    Don’t just throw some graphs together

                Yes, a marketing dashboard is largely about visual appeal, and finding ways to make your KPIs and critical metrics into something you can easily digest on sight. But not all graphs are created equal—line and area charts work better for plotting trends over time, while bar or column graphs are more suited to comparing values. And, while the daily leads waterfall graph is probably a staple in your personal dashboard, that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the best front-and-center choice in the layout when you present to the CEO. Dashboards are great for improving communication, confidence, and transparency across your organization, but that only works if you keep the most important KPIs for your audience in the most prominent visual space, prune out modules that you don’t need in this context, and keep things simple (but not simplistic!) to avoid overwhelming your audience.

    So what should I measure, exactly?

                Here’s a partial list of the metrics that might factor into your dashboard, depending on your audience’s needs:

     

    Click-through rates

    Mentions-in-network

    Brand awareness

    Customer satisfaction

    Internal rate of return

    Net present value of current campaigns

    Rankings for your 3-5 most important keywords

    Total increases in social reach

    Site-wide conversion rate

    Organic search visitors

    Referral visitors

    Sales qualified leads

    Net new contacts

     

    Of course, what you measure and what you communicate to your CEO won’t be identical, and every business will have different needs and priorities. Be flexible—try changing up your date range, so you can compare quarterly to monthly or even weekly changes. Bonus: try including goals and/or projections as part of the visuals you present, to give your audience an idea of where things are headed.

     

    Broadly speaking, in making a marketing dashboard for presentation you have the same goals that you do when you generate content for potential customers: being informative, providing value, and strengthening your brand’s message and unique offerings. All that work has to happen internally before you can convey it to consumers—and a dashboard it a fantastic way of helping to make that happen.

     

     

     

    Feeling stuck? Don’t have the time to make your dashboard bright and shiny this month? SocialLink’s virtual marketing department is here to help!

     

     

     

    Categories
    Online Marketing SEO Tips and Tricks

    8 Ways to Boost Your Local Search Engine Ranking

    8 Ways to Boost Your Local Search Engine Ranking

    It’s a small world

    Yes, the Internet allows you to reach consumers halfway across the globe. Connecting people from far-flung regions to one another, and spreading information among them at unprecedented speeds, is the first thing most people think of when you ask them what the Internet is for. But, unless your organization is a massive global chain, it’s likely that you don’t actually want to get the word about your products or services to folks in Japan, Australia, or Greece—instead, your goal should be to reach the customers who can walk up to your location, not just appreciate how nice your website looks.

    And, since 50% of customers who do a local search on their smartphone visit a store within a day, and 18% of those searchers make a purchase within the same timeframe, you really want to show up on the first page of those search engine results. Don’t worry—we’ve got some tips to help you get there!

    1. Take a NAP 

    This one seems like a no-brainer, but make sure your NAP (name, address, and phone number including the area code) are set up as crawlable HTML text, most likely in a sidebar or the footer. Don’t incorporate your into an image, since search engines won’t crawl those as they will HTML! It’s no good having the information, if the search engine can’t see it.

    1. Create location pages

    If you have more than one brick-and-mortar location, set up a unique location page for each store. Those pages should include, at minimum, your NAP, store hours, information about parking (and transit, if applicable), and individual promotions and testimonials. Don’t duplicate content across locations!

    If you only have one location, no worries. Just create a locally descriptive “About Us” page, and put all your necessary information—and a taste of brand personality—in one place! 

    1. Be a local authority

    It’s a basic principle of inbound marketing that your company should provide consumers, not just with high-value goods and services, but useful and educational content to go with them. The same thing applies on a local level—if you’re catering to a particular geographic area, tailor your content to benefit the people who live and work there. Promote local industry gatherings, share regional news and employee spotlights, and plug your area’s arts festival and other community events.

    1. Keep tabs on inbound links and citations

    Inbound links go from another domain to your site; citations are just mentions of your business name and address, without that link. Verify the consistency of your business address across as many sites as you can, especially at places like Express Update and My Business Listing Manager that help provide the data to construct Google Maps. Just like your NAP, information is useless if it’s in the wrong place (or downright wrong).

    1. Build goodwill

    Plug other local businesses that might be able to return the favor—if your company sells tea, you’ve got a natural connection with another local company that makes teapots. This strategy can help you earn those local links, and build relationships that can benefit your organization down the line.

    1. Blog, blog, blog

    Every new blog post means a new indexed page for your site, on which you can target a geographic search phrase. Which means a new opportunity to get found by search engines. Don’t get carried away, though, and overload on SEO keywords that can drown out your brand’s voice—instead of making a keyword salad, try using case studies and customer success stories for that local punch.

    1. Make it easy to leave reviews

    If the process for leaving reviews isn’t smooth as extra-virgin olive oil for your customers, they won’t leave them at all. If your business has a Google+ page (which it should!), encourage customers to rate and review you there. Yelp won’t allow you to solicit reviews, but you can include their badge on your website, or tell customers that your business is listed there for potential review.

    1. Optimize for mobile

    Again, this one is self-evident, but it bears repeating. Since mobile searches are what drive the majority of local-business site traffic—and, ultimately, local purchasing—it’s of paramount importance that navigating your website from a phone is painless. Don’t let those design constraints compromise your brand’s voice; the goal is to express the same essentials, in a smaller-screen package.

    Want to climb those local search-engine rankings, but still having trouble getting started? Your virtual marketing department at SocialLink can help with that.

    Categories
    Featured News Online Marketing Tips and Tricks

    Branding from Within: Why Internal Marketing Matters

    Internal Marketing Matters

    Before you read this, make a list—go ahead, I’ll wait—of the kinds of people your organization markets its goods or services to. Think about those carefully-crafted buyer personas, all the demographics you work so hard to attract and the needs you strive to satisfy. Who’s included in your target audience?

    If your own company’s employees didn’t make that list, it’s time to start rethinking your approach. How can the people behind your organization’s product perform at their best, and hence contribute as much as they can to selling it, if they’re not fully invested in the brand and what it can accomplish? This goes double for employees who talk to your customers every day—how can they sell a message that they don’t believe in?

    What is internal marketing?

    Internal marketing is based in the idea that every individual an organization employs contributes in some way to its culture, and that culture then filters down into every interaction a potential customer has with the company. Happier, more invested employees make for a more positive, unified, and powerful external representation of the company—which makes for more (and more satisfied) users. Internal marketing means treating the employees who make your product possible as if they’re also consuming it. (Bonus: happier employees mean less turnover, and less money spent on recruitment and training.)

    Why bother?

    You might assume that the people who work for your organization, who live with it day in and day out and need its sales to stay robust in order to get paid, don’t need convincing as far as the brand’s value is concerned. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy for individual departments to become insular, focusing only on the success of a research project or an IT overhaul, and not on how those things fit into the mission of the company as a whole. And in an environment where every team or department appears to operate in a vacuum, individual employees can grow disillusioned and cynical, feeling as if their contributions—or even the whole organization’s goals and brand—are meaningless.

    Let’s say you work at a hospital. The quality of experience that a patient has doesn’t just depend on the care they get from the clinical care staff, but on the workers who serve their meals, change their bedding, and process their insurance. If that hospital’s staff takes the time to create a caring and personalized experience, whether it’s through efficiently handling a patient’s financial paperwork or through taking the time to accommodate specialized dietary needs, those patients are far more likely to maintain brand loyalty. But it takes every hospital employee to make that happen, and getting to that point is where internal marketing comes in. 

    Skip the trust falls

    Internal marketing isn’t about pulling employees from different departments together for bonding exercises, nor does it mean you have to send out an exhaustive weekly newsletter detailing everyone’s accomplishments. Approach the members of your organization as you would a group of consumers; interview them about their work experience, send them surveys, and get them into focus groups to hear what they have to say.

    You’re looking to foster a culture of enthusiasm, creativity, and expertise, as well as brand loyalty. Use what you learn from those surveys and interviews to create a culture that helps everyone who contributes to your company feel respected, valued, and empowered, and to build an organizational vision that they can believe in and support. Once you’ve got an idea of what your campaign needs to address, content made just for employees (like an anthem video, which gives them a cause to rally around and focus on) is the first step towards rolling out a successful internal marketing campaign.

    Some more tips: invite discussion and constructive criticism of your company’s inner workings, make professional development opportunities widely available, and ensure that everyone understands the direction the organization is headed in. Bring key employees into the discovery process, so they have a tangible role in researching your clients’ marketing strategies, business goals, and operations, so when they work with clients they’ll be implementing strategies they helped to make. Above all, the goal of an internal marketing strategy is to establish an emotional connection and personal relationship with your brand and what it has to offer, just as you would with a potential customer.

    Feeling stuck? Not sure how your company’s anthem starts? Our team of experts is here to help with all your internal marketing needs.

    Categories
    Digital Marketing PPC Social Media Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks

    Your Brand’s Many Voices: Adapting Your Brand Message to Various Marketing Channels

    Make Your Brand Standout

    It’s not exactly news that your website’s users spend more time than ever before on smartphones and tablets, and that companies are responding by investing ever-bigger chunks of their digital marketing budgets on mobile advertising. Bluntly, if you haven’t optimized your company’s website for use across multiple devices—not to mention established that crucial social media presence—by now, you’re behind.

    But, when you’re faced with what seems like a blanket imperative to get all your content and every angle of your brand message on every channel that you can, it’s all too easy to forget that each way of reaching your potential customers has its own strengths, weaknesses, and audience. And it’s important to adapt your strategy accordingly. What boosts conversion rates on your tablet website won’t always be the same thing as what makes your Facebook presence tick—and having a unified brand doesn’t mean that you can’t change things up to exploit those differences.

    Dig deep into your buyer personas

    To understand what makes each of the channels you’re using (Facebook ads, your company’s blog, email blasts, even QR codes if you’re working in a brick-and-mortar context) effective, check in with the buyer personas you’re dealing with: who’s consuming this? Where are they coming from, and what are they looking to get out of it? What’s their demographic, what will put them off your product or service, and what are their unique pain points?

    One user might arrive at your company’s website through a Google search for the specific product or service they’re looking for; another might get there through an aimless scroll down a social feed that brought them to your eye-catching video. Understanding who your users are, by using what your analytics can tell you to build a set of detailed buyer personas, can help you produce channel-specific content that’s tailored to the needs of the people most likely to use them.

    Remember, too, that your brand’s message can (and should!) be versionalized to fit the distinct personas your campaign is aimed at. If, for instance, you work for a company that makes electric scooters for seniors, your potential customers include both the people who will be using the scooters and at their adult children, who might be scooter-shopping out of concern for a parent’s welfare.

    That senior isn’t likely to feel motivated by an ad that depicts them as someone who can’t manage on their own. They might even find it offensive. And likewise, an adult child looking for care solutions isn’t going to be as jazzed about an ad billing scooters as a means to achieving increased independence, as they are about one that presents the same item as a tool for easing an aging parent’s circumstances and giving them some peace of mind.

    By applying classic inbound techniques to create highly-targeted content based on buyer personas and specific to the channels users arrive at your site through, your marketing department can make adapting your brand’s message a snap.

    Channel Surfing

    It’s also important to consider, not just who’s using each channel your organization markets itself through, but what users come to those channels for in the first place. On LinkedIn, which connects businesses with other businesses, the tone skews corporate; your potential customers go there to look for work, professional connections, or content that can make the jobs they already have easier. Facebook works by forming informal social connections—users go there to hear about their friends’ lives, and are looking for more casual, informative content that forges links between businesses and consumers. And Twitter runs on its users’ desires to stay up to date and connect with people and institutions (celebrities, government representatives, and industry trend-makers) that they might not have much contact with in their physical lives.

    A good marketing department can retool the messaging your organization uses on each of these channels so that it fits in with their overall function in users’ lives, while maintaining a consistent sense of the brand’s essence.

    Make sure you have the basics covered

    It seems like a no-brainer, but make sure your website is optimized across all types of devices: desktop and laptop computers, smartphones, and tablets. If your company has its own app, keep that running smoothly.

    Same goes for the many types of content that your company provides. Is the type on that blog post too small to read on a smartphone screen? Does the graphic you’ve painstakingly crafted to showcase your brand stubbornly refuse to load in an email? Are you losing traffic by directing users from every channel to the same landing page, which doesn’t necessarily cater to all their needs?

    Don’t choose form over function

    As important (and exciting!) as it is to put the specialized tools each channel can give you into action, don’t forget that there is a unified plan and message behind all of them. Every channel you operate through should feature inbound marketing at its best. Educate users with valuable content, rather than just pushing a sales pitch!

    And, no matter what channel you’re working through, ask yourself: what do users need to be able to do here—place an order? learn something new? get on your mailing list?—and can they accomplish those things easily? Tools like closed-loop analytics, which measure which channels are most effective, which ones influence other channels and how, and which ones aren’t doing your company any favors, can help you figure out what strategies are working to convey your brand’s voice, and what can go the way of the dinosaurs.    

    Having trouble getting started adapting your brand’s message to fit the channels it’s coming through? Your virtual marketing department at SocialLink can help.

    Categories
    Blog Digital Marketing Featured News Online Marketing Sales Tips and Tricks

    If You Want A Following, Lead: Why Copying the Competition Doesn’t Work

    Do what you do best

    Your biggest competitor just rolled out a new social-media campaign, and it looks like it’s drawing in a ton of visitors. Or maybe they’ve redesigned their website, so everything about it is bright and shiny (especially the conversion rates it’s getting). Meanwhile, your company seems to be stuck in stasis, plying a strategy that just isn’t achieving the success that the competition has.

    It can be very tempting to decide that the way to get similar results for your own organization is to copy what’s worked for someone else, and change your whole marketing approach in order to keep up. But this strategy only looks appealing—and, at the end of the day, it’ll do your brand more harm than good.

    Your rivals don’t know everything

    In all probability, your competition has no idea why their approach is bringing in better results. Let’s say they’ve redesigned some of their landing pages, and are getting higher conversion rates out of the new look. Most likely, they haven’t done much testing or data gathering to figure out why that is the case, and that alluring new layout was dreamed up in the first place either by a committee of opinionated employees who didn’t look deeply into the data or by a web designer who was pressed for time and made something based on their own opinions about what’s functional and what looks pretty on a screen. 

    Often, your competition has cribbed their marketing or design moves from one of their competitors, who also probably don’t know why a particular tool or strategy works the way it does. And the last thing you want is for your own online presence to come across as a third- or even fourth-hand imitation.

    You’re not a magic 8-ball

    Unlike that astute device, you don’t know all, see all. You have no way of knowing what’s going on behind the scenes at a competing organization; what looks to you like a fantastically successful campaign may not actually be going so well for the people running it. External stuff like site layout or social media advertising tells you nothing about the internal workings of your competitor’s strategy, so don’t assume that something is great just because it looks snazzy.

    Your brand gets lost in the shuffle

    Even if they’ve done consistent A/B testing and figured out what’s making their marketing campaign tick, and even if things are running as smoothly under the hood as they appear from the outside, what works for your competition won’t necessarily work for you. You’re in this business because you believe your brand has something unique and valuable to offer, right? So why would you compromise on that vision in the very places where potential consumers encounter it for the first time?

    Imagine that you work for a company that makes bath products—body washes, bath bombs, etc.—and you’re trying to build a following on Instagram and Twitter. Your biggest competitor has recently started racking up more followers seemingly by the minute, by making image-heavy satirical posts that reference current events and make jokes about “keeping it clean.”

    Before you start writing copy like you’re submitting to the New Yorker cartoon caption contest, check in with your brand’s innate personality, values, and marketing goals. Maybe funny doesn’t work for you, or maybe you’ve committed to an image centered on providing a product that transcends its era. Long after your competition’s humorous reference points have faded into yesterday’s news cycle, your company will still be making classic bubble bath, not just for an age but for all time.

    Lead the way

    It’s easy to forget about your brand’s unique strengths and goals in the rush to get the results the competition’s getting by doing what they’re doing. But that kind of copying means that you’ll miss out on the chance to be an innovator in your field. Your organization is better-off, in the short and in the long term, with a marketing plan tailored to its own goals, and designed to help them lead. Every brand is different—so why should you settle for a campaign like everyone else’s?

    Need a marketing plan that’s tailored to your brand’s goals, but not sure how to get started? SocialLink’s virtual marketing department has you covered.

    Categories
    Digital Marketing Featured News Online Marketing Tips and Tricks

    They’ve Got the Bucks, You’ve Got the Brilliance: How to Level the Playing Field

    Leveling the Playing Field

    You’re starting out in an industry dominated by companies bigger than yours, with marketing budgets way beyond what you can dream of. You know your brand has something special to offer, but you don’t know how to get word about your product to its potential consumers without breaking the bank.

    Inbound marketing, which allows you to compete with major players in your field without spending the kind of money those organizations command, can make it happen.

    Effective doesn’t mean expensive

    As numerous recent studies have indicated, social media advertising is one of the most effective ways to reach a potential customer base. Users are generally more open to advertisements in a social context, when they’re thinking more about how cute the pictures of their niece’s new baby are than how companies like yours are out to reach their eyeballs.

    Not to mention that, with inbound marketing strategies, you’re creating content that gives users value and builds awareness of your brand without being a direct sales pitch—and, as users who enjoy that content share it organically, you get free advertising.

    Best of all? Advertising on social media is the cheapest strategy going.

    Size doesn’t (always) matter

    Inbound marketing also allows you to target highly specific audiences. Instead of taking out a billboard that might be seen by 1,000 people in a day, to only 80 of whom its message is actually relevant, Facebook’s advertising tools will allow you to make sure that the only people who see your ad are the people who might be interested in your product—and you can narrow the field by using a huge range of factors, including not just age and income demographics but also recent life events (i.e. a move, an engagement, a medical issue) and demonstrated interests (such as artisanal jams, medieval music, or deep-sea fishing). So your campaign doesn’t have to be huge—it just has to be specific.

    And the principle of specific reach over broad-spectrum advertising applies to your company’s website, too. You don’t have to get a team of developers to build you a lead-generating machine from scratch; you can get professional-level lead ecommerce and lead generation sites by using WordPress and similar platforms. It’s all about knowing what tools to use, what kinds of user behavior to measure, and what to tweak once you’ve got that data.

    The magic word: Value

    One of the fundamental principles of inbound marketing holds that you’re more likely to get customers (and keep them) if you’re providing them with some kind of valuable content, in addition to the actual product you have on offer. You’re trying to carve out a niche with a unique offering and build a loyal following, not drown out the message your major (i.e. generously-funded) competitors are sending.

    Focus on what you have to offer, and how you can communicate that offer most effectively. Big companies dominate, but emerging companies earn loyalty—and loyalty is the very thing inbound marketing is designed to help you cultivate. If you can use its techniques and principles to find people who think like you and offer them content and goods or services of value, you’ll be leveraging exactly the tools you need to compete with the best and biggest organizations in your field.

    Not sure what inbound marketing is, or how to put its magic to use? Your virtual marketing department at Social Link can fix that.

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    Blog Digital Marketing News PPC Remote Sales SEO Social Media Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks Web Design

    Virtual Marketing Departments Are the Future. Here’s Why.

    What comes to your mind when someone mentions a market? Of course, you will visualize a place where suppliers have brought their wares for sale and consumers flock to pick and buy what they need. That is as far as a non-specialist would go. From a professional marketing perspective, the marketplace involves more than buying and selling. A marketer should not only know their product and target consumers but also be able to outsmart the competition. Marketers of the future must be well conversant with emerging trends, changing cultures, working without barriers and this is the point where virtual marketing enters the foray.

    Why are these departments the future of advertising? Below are the specifics.

    Independent thinkers not constrained by space

    People who work independent of in-house marketing departments have better thinking and problem-solving ability. Their exposure to working with different clients helps them develop an unusual understanding of concepts. Working from a remote location enables you to use your mind without barriers or constraints. You do not get stuck in a cubicle sitting and waiting for instructions. Besides, sitting in surroundings that inspire creativity yields more fruits than one would ordinarily expect when working from an office. Virtual marketing departments helps a professional touch base with marketplaces and interact with technology that makes it happen.

    Fearless and open-minded risk takers

    Established companies are now adopting the approach of harboring virtual marketing departments where no employee needs to come to the office. Remotely working people are productive since:

    • They have more exposure than their indoor peers
    • They can take risks without fear
    • Work in a stress-free environment
    • They are an open-minded lot

    Look at in-house marketers, do they have time for learning about the latest brand promotion, content curation, SEO or social media interaction? You bet they do not. How can they when there are mountains of daily tasks that leave them with little room to evolve, change and grow?

    Massive investment in trending and current tools

    On the contrary, virtual marketing deparments allows agencies the opportunity to invest their time and monetary resources in learning about trends, technologies and existing options. They have endless learning opportunities and do not charge you anything extra for this. Recall that at the onset, we mentioned something to do with working remotely. Not having a physical office helps channel the resultant savings to clients.

    No fretting over marketers’ salaries and benefits

    Looking at marketing from a cost perspective, marketing professionals do not come cheap. If you decide to hire a fully-fledged team here’s a sneak peek of what you might need:

    • Web designer
    • SEO marketer
    • Graphic designer
    • Marketing manager
    • Social media manager
    • Content writer

    If you decide to pay these professionals a salary, you cough up to between $300,000 and $400,000 a year. Mark you, these are only the basic emoluments. There are other staffing costs such as training, paid vacation and health care. Hey, do not forget days where you lose productivity when employees call in sick and those that go on maternal leave. Virtual marketing department professionals do not cost this much. Instead, an agency will negotiate a retainer or stick with agency commission.

    Tapping into the hitherto discovered internet potential

    Much of brand promotion these days takes place online; that is an undeniable fact. Here then comes the problem; the internet is home to billions of websites and a similar number of information-hungry consumers. How do you draw their attention? Some of the tactics you need include:

    • Newsletters
    • Posting key-word optimized blogs
    • Banner Ads
    • Running online events to gauge customer interest
    • Creating content that links your URL
    • Converting leads to sales

    The result is that you not only get traffic but you also need to use it valuably and quickly. In-house marketers may find it overwhelming since they must keep shunting from strategy to monitoring and evaluation. However, leave this task to a virtual team, and you will be surprised at the results.

    Virtual marketers as a one-stop shop

    For any campaign to succeed, you cannot separate marketing and strategy. A virtual marketing department offers you:

    1. Top-notch Communication

    If you want to grow your customer base and increase sales, you must keep differentiating your value. Sadly, if customers are unaware of the added benefit, they remain adamant. Assume that you are in the soft drinks industry and would like to offer your product in a slightly higher quantity but at the same price. Your target consumers need to know this, and it can only come from a carefully executed strategy.

    1. Analysis of the market

    To understand your market, you must go out of your way and conduct market research. Part of it involves interviews, questionnaires and brand activations. If done intensely, the feedback helps in understanding what customers want. Moreover, you can use this information in tailoring your strategy in future.

    1. Development of advertising tools

    One of the principles of marketing is to keep bombarding your prospects with brand images and information. You could use print or TV ads, digital signage, billboards and online banners. As the people on the ground, virtual marketing departments help you create content that targets your niche or audience explicitly.

    1. Search engine optimization (SEO)

    Building a website is a step in the right direction. However, you should not sit comfortably thinking that you have now hit a goldmine. The site needs optimizing, i.e. getting the consumer to find it in an online search. Marketing professionals use different approaches for this, but the most basic is by use of keywords.

    1. Management of advertising budgets

    Usually, businesses set aside enormous budgets for marketing purposes. Unfortunately, much of this ends up getting wasted owing to poor strategy, using unnecessary media and targeting the wrong people. However, virtual marketing departments help cut you the slack by devising well-researched and meaningful advertisement. You may have good ideas but fail to capture the right channels. Part of the dilemma could be:

    • How do you get your ad to run on TV?
    • Must the advertisement be on TV, why not radio?
    • Is internet a better option than other channels?
    • Would a billboard do any better?

    To answer these questions, professional marketers have in their stable media managers, planners, executives and buyers. Since they engage with media platform owners on a day-to-day basis, they can expertly identify what serves you best. Besides, you stand to benefit from discounted rates and well-placed ads where target audiences will see them. Such an approach saves you money and yields better returns on investment.

    Independent contractors, reduced operating costs

    With a virtual marketing agency running your advertisement needs, you save a great deal of business operating costs. First, there are no full-time employees to keep in mind. Second, you do not have to worry about salaries, medical care and other benefits. Running an advertising campaign involves other costs like the use of graphic design software, shooting a TV commercial, photography and so on. Marketing agencies either have these resources or know where to find them cost-effectively. Since they engage these services on a large-scale basis, you do not spend much money as compared to what you could have paid if you went out solo.

    Wrap-up

    The fact that virtual marketing departments are the future of advertising is not in dispute. Remotely working marketers are free-minded people who are not held back by rigid rules in an organization. They are free to brainstorm and try different things before finding out what works. At the same time, they are not afraid of taking risks. You have nothing to lose here since you are a recipient of the final product.

    The future of marketing belongs to those entrepreneurs that have invested in the right tools that have kept up with the present times. Moreover, rental office space can be costly and inconvenient. Virtual marketers are flexible enough and can work from anywhere if they have laptops and fast internet connectivity.

    Regarding remuneration, marketers command high rates. Hiring your in-house team is costly and could pose an organizational challenge. However, with an independent group for your assistance, it is none of your business how they manage their affairs. All you care about is that they deliver on the agreed objectives.

    The internet remains mostly untapped. From where you sit as a business owner, there are areas you have never ventured into and perhaps, never will. A virtual marketing department brings together talented individuals who are at the top of their game. Each one is a specialist in SEO, social media, graphic design, ad placement, analytics and so on.

    Besides, these professionals are like a one-stop shop where you get everything you need under one roof. Once you hire them, you not only enjoy economies of scale but also stand to benefit from a wealth of experience in a cost affordable way.

    You can, therefore, see why virtual marketing departments are the future. Advertising is dynamic such that what works today may not be viable tomorrow. You need people that keep adapting to change and innovation. Of primary concern is getting value for money without spending more than you had initially budgeted.

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    Hubspot Partners of Nashville: We’re On The List

    Hubspot Partners of Nashville: We’re On The List

    Hubspot partners of Nashville now include Social Link marketing agency specializing in providing tools and services for lead generation and more online sales. Our recently signed partnership with HubSpot means we can provide you better tools and we cannot keep the excitement to ourselves. Social Link is a performance-based virtual marketing team that helps businesses grow through lead generation, strategy, web development, mobile marketing, SEO, social media marketing, graphic design, and content development.  Over the years, Social Link has successfully offered clients outstanding inbound services. Social Link has no limitations for local talent and this has played a key role in building a great team for businesses in different parts of the world to improve the brand and culture, as well as work towards achieving their objectives. Working virtually helps in lowering overheads since businesses do not have to worry about taking care of unnecessary bills. Overly, the availability of strategic experts in inbound and virtual marketing means a lot to businesses as it guarantees success and consistency of results.

    About HubSpot

    HubSpot ranks among the leading sales and marketing platforms. It was started with the aim of making the world more inbound. Presently, HubSpot offers support, services, and software to over 90 countries where more than 15,000 customers use such services to improve ways of attracting, engaging and delighting customers. According to VentureBeat and G2Crowd, HubSpot’s inbound marketing software is number one as far as assuring customer satisfaction is concerned. The software focuses on social media publishing, reports and analytics, marketing automation, email marketing, website content management, SEO, blogging, and social media monitoring. It also runs an application, Sidekick, which makes it easy for sales and services teams in any company to communicate efficiently with customers, prospects, and leads.

    What does our partnership with HubSpot mean for you?

    Our goal as a virtual marketing company remains to offer the best results to all our clients. Our partnership with HubSpot gives us the platform to assure our clients cutting edge marketing approaches, as well as the use of advanced technology to offer services of high level and outstanding results to all our clients. We have improved our services and the strategies that we recommend to our customers through the adoption of new marketing resources and tools to help them grow. Here are some of the benefits that come with our partnership with HubSpot:

    Expanded service offerings: We have improved the services we offer to our clients. For example, we will be in a position to offer more customized services and results by leveraging the power of page views, new customer revenue, and landing page conversions.

    Offer highly sophisticated campaign strategies for our clients: With our virtual approach to marketing and the partnership with HubSpot, we assure you of more personalized marketing campaigns. For example, we will be able to create targeted social media campaigns, special tracking links, etc. with the aim of boosting our clients’ engagement with their customers online.

    Expansion past content marketing services: While we have been successful in our content marketing services in the past, our partnership with HubSpot offers a platform to expand even further. We will be offering a more customized approach to SEO through the creation of custom lead nurturing flows that stem from unique buyer personas. We will also, optimize landing pages and improve the conversion rate of our customers by increasing their web traffic and lead generation.

    More strategies to prove ROI: It is possible to prove the ROI through form submissions and page views. However, the best way to establishing a company’s ROI is through the measurement of its revenue generation. With HubSpot on board, we will implement marketing automation for all our clients and get ROI reports direct at HubSpot. This is a significant move as it allows us to link up emails to page views generated, customers, as well as leads.

    Advanced tools and technologies to beat your competition: The adoption of the HubSpot software in our inbound marketing comes with extra technologies and applications that will give your business a competitive edge. Considering the increasing competition online, the integrated HubSpot platform is a must-have for effective and innovative strategies.

    Better ROI: We have redesigned our strategies to incorporate a variety of strategies backed up by the HubSpot software. We have done this to help our clients succeed in their marketing and increase the probability of a better ROI. As such, our new partnership is a win for you as we promise to take your marketing to an entirely new level.

    What has put us on the list?

    Being on the list of HubSpot certified partners is not an easy thing –it comes after much consideration of what an agency can do as far as marketing is concerned. In addition, it includes a lot of training to keep the agency up to date with the requirements of HubSpot’s software as far as inbound marketing is concerned. Here are some of the features that have contributed immensely to our being on the list, as well as remaining relevant to our customers.

    Reputation: We have served many customers in different industries. We have a record of satisfied customers who have benefitted greatly from our outstanding services.

    Credibility: We have all the necessary awards, accreditations, and licenses, which are important in developing customer confidence.

    Experience: We are a master of what we do. We combine different inbound marketing approaches such as social media, lead generation, mobile marketing, content development, website design, and development, among others to give you the results you need.

    Availability: We take pride in being consistently responsive and approachable ensuring that we attend to all our clients and offer them reliable solutions.

    Technologies and tools: The tools and technologies that any marketing agency uses are an important factor to consider when choosing the suitability of an agency for your needs. You need to evaluate such tools against their ability to help you achieve your marketing goals and objectives. For example, an agency that uses the HubSpot software stands a better chance to provide better inbound marketing services in comparison to another that does not. The reason for this is that HubSpot integrates different marketing tools for effective management of all online marketing campaigns.

    We are excited to be on the list of Hubspot’s inbound marketing partners of Nashville. In the past, we have offered exceptional inbound marketing services and the partnership with HubSpot just takes out services to a whole new level –we assure all our clients of advanced approaches to inbound marketing and a guaranteed improvement in traffic, lead generation, and ROI.

    Contact us today if you would like a free trial and demo of Hubspot’s marketing and sales automation tools.

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    Digital Marketing Email Marketing Featured News Online Marketing PPC SEO Social Media Tips and Tricks

    Nashville HubSpot Partners: Hire A Virtual Inbound Marketing Agency

    As technology changes, so does the efficiency in the approach that many businesses use to attract and engage with their clients. In the past, the only way to attract as well as engage with customers was using sign hanged in strategic places where passers-by would see it. If one customer was satisfied with the results and services, they would recommend their friends and family members, and that is how businesses survived before the technology era. However, a lot has changed following the introduction of the digital era; nowadays, a sign in front of your office or store is not going to attract customers to you. Your online presence can play a significant role in breaking or making your business.

    With better inbound marketing strategies, you can grow your online presence tremendously. What is inbound marketing? Inbound is the practice of using social media, SEO, events, blogs, and content marketing among others to pull marketing, create awareness of  a certain brand, as well as attract new clients. It differs from outbound marketing in that in the case of outbound marketing, the marketers are the one who looks for new business, while in inbound marketing customers are attracted to your business by having solutions to the problems they are experiencing. Nowadays, inbound marketing has become a significant aspect of any business’s success, which makes hiring a virtual inbound marketing agency an important decision for any organization –small or large.

    Factors to consider when hiring a HubSpot partner agency

    During the initial periods following the launch of the HubSpot partner program, finding a partner agency with the necessary qualification was challenging for customers. The fact that the number of certified partner agencies was low implies that there were only a few options to way when choosing which agency to hire. Things have changed as there are numerous agencies to choose who have diverse qualifications. Nevertheless, such a change has seen the growth of the partnership program including the incorporation of great inbound marketing agencies which bring in the need to be more considerate when choosing the agency to hire.

    Here are a few factors to consider when hiring a Hubspot partner:

    HubSpot and Inbound Expertise: Does the agency have any certifications from HubSpot? Agencies certified by HubSpot have the appropriate level of training to assure you exceptional inbound marketing services. Are there any accomplishments the agency has as a partner of HubSpot? In addition, how can you rate their inbound marketing knowledge? The best agency to hire for inbound marketing should have a full commitment to inbound as the core focus of their services.

    Capabilities: One of the first things that you should consider when considering the services of an inbound marketing agency is your goals and objectives. The capability of the agency to achieve your marketing goals and objectives is what should drive your decision to hire any agency. What is the agency able to achieve? Depending on your marketing needs, you can consider an agency specializing in planning and research, SEO analysis and execution, ability to plan and develop content, designing and developing websites, etc.

    The team: It is important that you have clear information about the team you will be working with after you hire any agency. Meeting the team beforehand gives you the option of evaluating their suitability for your needs. Do they have the necessary experience and expertise –how are their resumes? It is advisable that you evaluate the experience and skills of the individuals prior to engaging any agency since to avoid tasking the wrong team.

    Agency’s business processes: Each inbound marketing agency seems to have diverse approaches to marketing. In most of the cases, marketing agencies work hard to improve their processes to ensure efficiency in serving their customers. Nevertheless, not every business process you will be introduced to has gone through the necessary vetting. As such, it is important to interrogate the agency’s processes to be sure that they have the ability to support the services you are looking for. The best agency for your needs should have the ability and experience dealing with clients with needs like yours.

    Relevant success: The best way to evaluate an agency’s capability is to review their past work –does it have a track record of success? Look at any case studies the agency has and review whether the services they offered and the results align with what you want. Do not be convinced by just looking at one case study –you need a lot from a marketing agency and their ability to deliver should be reflected in their success stories.

    Technologies and tools: The tools and technologies that any marketing agency uses are an important factor to consider when choosing the suitability of an agency for your needs. You need to evaluate such tools against their ability to help you achieve your marketing goals and objectives. For example, an agency that uses the HubSpot software stands a better chance to provide inbound marketing services in comparison to another that does not. The reason for this is that HubSpot integrates different marketing tools for effective management of all online marketing campaigns.

    Benefits of hiring Hubspot certified virtual inbound marketing agency

    Now that you have a glimpse of what it takes to hire the best inbound marketing agency, what benefits should you expect from a HubSpot certified virtual inbound marketing agency?

    Cost savings: Maintaining an in-house team of employees is expensive. You have a lot of overhead costs to take care of, as opposed to engaging a virtual marketing agency.

    Diversity of expertise: A virtual inbound marketing agency brings in a team of experts in different aspects of marketing. Such diversity is an added advantage when it comes to the management of different marketing tasks such as social media, SEO, blogging, web design, etc,.

    Cutting edge technologies and tools: HubSpot is an integrated software that offers different tools and applications for the management of diverse marketing campaigns and needs.

    Inbound marketing has become a relevant marketing strategy in the phase of the increasing competition. It helps businesses create content that aims at solving certain problems faced by customers. If done appropriately, inbound marketing stands a better chance of improving businesses’ ROI. Hiring a Nashville HubSpot certified partner gives you a better platform to boost your sales. However, it is important to take time to review and evaluate the available agencies before hiring any.

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    Digital Marketing Remote Tips and Tricks Web Design

    Remote Graphic Designers Guide: 10 Ways To Task Manage

    As a remote graphic designer so much is at your disposal. Creating tremendous and helpful graphics by hand or computer software requires great skills. As a designer, you need to have a set of guidelines that will help you give your best in your job. Combining art and technology to come up with great images and visuals that communicate and pass a great message is not that easy. However, with the right guides this task will be much easier. The industry of graphic designing evolves so fast. It is essential, as a remote graphic designer, to keep up with the latest trends to deliver excellent quality work to your clients. A task manager monitors and gives information about programs and how they work. Task management is an important aspect in any organization’s design work. This article covers 10 way to task manage.

     

    Guide to task managing

    Managing your tasks well as a remote designer will significantly help you to serve your clients well and provide services that satisfy them. Below are some tips on how to task manage your design work in order to deliver quality.

     

    Create a working plan

    Having a plan of work on how to handle various tasks within an organization makes it easy to achieve your targets. There are applications and software that you can use to create a work plan. With a work plan, it becomes easy to track the progress of your work.

     

    Ensure continuous feedback

    At every stage of your project, it is essential to notify your clients of your progress. Communication is vital. It helps you build trust with your client, which will in turn have positive impacts on your business.

     

    Delegate work

    At times, you cannot do all the tasks alone. It will be time-consuming, non-productive as well as energy-consuming. Delegating work or outsourcing some aspects of the project will help you deliver quality. You will not be responsible for every working detail of the project. On delegation of work, ensure that you give the job to someone who can deliver excellent quality. Ensure the person is credible and can offer quality within the set deadline.

     

    Be smart in your strategy

    Always deliver on what you promise. Developing an intelligent goal for your project is essential. Being strategic and focused on your project goal will help you provide quality professional work to your clients. Have measurable goals with a systematic process on how to complete the project. Being smart in your plans will help you manage your projects well. You will know how to give your clients best quality as you have a specific goal set to achieve.

     

    Streamline your time tracking

    Designing is a time-consuming task. If you do not keep track of time, it can be quite challenging to meet deadlines. Using great tools to track your time is vital for your business and the project you will be handling.  Taking time management issue seriously is critical to you when handling any piece of design work. If you took up a project and for some reasons you cannot meet the deadline, outsource some resources to make work completion easier and faster.

     

    Assemble the tools to be used

    To efficiently manage tasks as a graphic designer, you need a variety of tools and resources. Before you start up a project, ensure that you assemble all the resources necessary for your design. This will save time and help you in faster project delivery. It is a great way to keep you focused on the job that you will be doing.

     

    Set and manage expectations

    Not all projects will go as planned. As a virtual graphic designer, it is essential to establish expectations and control them. It is a great idea to have set strategies to handle any expectations that may arise when working on a project. Projects do not always go smoothly to completion. It is essential to be prepared for any outcomes of your project.

     

    Consultation

    You have probably heard of that old saying ‘No man is an island’. You might get stuck in your different tasks. We all do, and graphic designing is no exception. Feel free to consult with other graphic designers or any other person with technical design expertise. Do not let yourself suffer and have a headache while you can be helped if you ask for help.

    From consulting, you can get great actionable tips that will make it easy to complete your projects. Joining forums with other graphic designers is essential. Asking and answering questions will help you know some things that otherwise you would not have known. This information can help you task manage.

     

    Set a budget for your client

    Many times we undervalue the quality of work that we deliver — this comes down to how much we charge our clients. As a graphic designer, you need to have a set budget that you will discuss with your client. Having a set budget will help you know how much technical skill input you will need to use in your task. It will also help you grow your business and motivate you, as you will be adequately compensated for your efforts.

     

    Be flexible

    Clients will at times need some additional work done on their project. As a way to manage the tasks, it is essential to be flexible with your terms of employment. However, ensure that the client pays for additional tasks that you deliver to them. Create room for additional tasks and adjustments in your work contracts with your clients. This is essential as it helps you present quality projects.

    Graphic designing requires excellent art skills and technical expertise. Your projects can be time-consuming depending on what the clients want. It is advisable to embrace a great task management strategy as it plays a significant role in helping you deliver quality work on time. In addition, managing your tasks efficiently will boost your productivity and help you provide exceptional quality on all projects. With the above mentioned ways, you can be assured of much efficiency in your organization. As such, if necessary, you should consider hiring a remote graphics designer company for advanced benefits.

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    A Beautiful Relationship: Why Selling the Product Is Only The Beginning

    Advertising in the Mad Men era was all about building brand loyalty based on who you wanted to be. This car made you look confident; that TV dinner made you feel like a better parent; this suit made you feel successful. Those days, fun as they often were, are gone. Today’s customers are better informed, aware of their value, wise to the tricks. They may not even think of themselves as customers: they’re loyalists, believers, devotees. These pivotal customers don’t want products to show them who they want to be. They’re looking for brands that resonate with who they are.

    This new purpose-driven relationship between customer and brand provides a challenge that inbound marketing is uniquely designed to serve. In place of seduction, it offers authenticity. Rather than attempting to allure, it seeks to persuade. Above all, it’s based on making your brand a trusted source of information and value that the customer can consciously embrace.

    Dove’s Real Beauty campaign is a perfect example of this new approach to brand loyalty. It started ten years ago, not merely as a campaign but a movement that empowered women to define beauty for themselves. Soap and body wash were no longer just products to sell. The became fuel for a story that many women were able to share for the first time in their lives. Today, Dove is the only major beauty company on the market that has been able to change the way society talks about female beauty. In turn, women viewed Dove not so much as a company, but as a trusted authority and advocate.

    Recently, Sprint has undergone a major rebranding. Historically, they’ve struggled in the shadows of Verizon’s superior coverage and T-Mobile’s cheaper plans. Yet instead of going after the competition, they repositioned themselves as the phone company for millenials. Their #LiveUnlimited campaign capitalized on growing online communities through social media, leading to key partnerships with influencers like Lele Pons and superstar Jay-Z. The objective was to create a network of support for authentic products that millennials love. In so doing, Sprint was able to provide incentives for their target group to buy in. The product was now a means to continue the fun.

    These campaigns succeeded because they were so much more than campaigns. Their real strength wasn’t in the advertising, but rather in the unique social content that supported them—invitations to learn more, participate, and personalize their experience. This is the unique strength of inbound marketing.

    Although it defies conventional wisdom, these purpose-driven campaigns succeed precisely because they make the relationship more important than the product. Real Beauty doesn’t sell Dove soap, it advocates for women, and in so doing it attracts loyalty from millions of women who will choose their products first. In the same way, TOMS Shoes—which donates one pair of shoes to the homeless for every purchase—isn’t appealing just to the consumer’s desire for better shoes, but for their desire to feel good about buying them. Every purchase deepens the customer’s own commitment to doing the right thing.

    We at Social Link are great believers in the power of data-driven brand storytelling. We seek to understand not only what the product is, but what it means—or could mean—to purpose-driven consumers. If this is a challenge we can help solve for you, let’s talk and start telling your story today.

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    What High-Converting Landing Pages Get Right

    Let’s say you’ve been assigned to build your company’s website—and you’ve definitely done your homework. You’re targeting potential customers through paid search and social ads, narrowing your audience by age, interests, and location. You’ve made sure your site is optimized for mobile and designed for hassle-free lead capture. Best of all, you’re offering customers ways to spend more time on your site—videos, infographics, and other shareable content.

    And people are showing up. But they’re not doing much else.

    What are you missing out on… and what are high-converting sites getting right?

    Make a Compelling Offer

    This is speed-dating: you have at most eight seconds before most of your customers will click away. High-converting sites put their most compelling offer right at the top. Know what makes you special. You may think that Uber has a pretty persuasive message for drivers—”Work that puts you first. Drive when you want, earn what you need”—but then consider Lyft’s response: “Get a $1250 bonus.”

    What’s the difference? Uber’s offer is difficult to define (just how much do you need?). Lyft isn’t asking prospective drivers to define anything: it’s telling you exactly how to pocket a $1250 bonus.

    What’s It To You?

    Relevance is everything. One of a landing page’s most important tasks is to get visitors to imagine how the product applies to them. Rather than simply telling users what the product can do for them, get them to imagine what they can do with the product.

    When Nest decided to launch a video doorbell, they could have taken the conventional route and simply describe its features (“you can see who’s ringing”) or its benefits (“keep your home and family safe.”). Instead, they delivered a video-enabled page that showed all of the various people who might be ringing—pizza delivery, annoying neighbors, kids playing ring-and-run. It’s fun, it’s clever, but most of all it gets the visitor imagining all the ways they can create a space for that product in their future.

    Feel Their Pain

    “Life is pain, Highness,” goes the line from The Princess Bride. “Anyone who says otherwise is selling something.” No offense to the Dread Pirate Roberts, but pain points happen to be a critical tool for conversion. Robert Cialdini’s landmark book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion describes an experiment where participants were given one of two messages. One group was told, “If you insulate your home fully, you’ll save 50 cents every day.” The other was told, “If you don’t insulate your home fully, you’ll lose 50 cents every day.” As it happened, the group receiving the “loss language” version was 150% more likely to insulate their homes.

    Let Customers Take the Wheel

    If a customer’s taken the trouble to click through to your site, chances are they know what they want and they’re looking to see if you can give it to them. Or, if they don’t know what they want, they’re hoping you’ll help them figure it out. Either way, don’t assume that the visitor is asking you to take over. Smart marketers know that the customer is always in control of the conversation—because if they don’t like what they’re seeing, they will simply click away.

    How many times have you gotten two paragraphs into an interesting article, only to have it disappear behind an interstitial pop-up form? Is your first thought, “Wow. That totally interrupted what I was looking for. I guess I’d better sign up for that newsletter?” Or is it, “Get me out of here now?”

    Customers need to know they’re in charge of their own screen. Sign-up forms should never take away the user’s control of the experience. By contrast, chat options at the bottom of the page are 31% more likely to get a positive response.

    Above all, customers like to feel like they’re taking action. A button labeled “Compare rate plans” sounds like homework. “Choose your plan” is a decision—and people like to feel decisive.

    A Work In Progress

    Your landing page is never really done. Smart marketers A/B test their headlines, images, options, and body copy. Above all, they’re guided by the metrics. What customers say is often inconclusive, but there’s no way to misinterpret what they do. Knowing why they stay or leave is the key to keeping them where you live.

    Overwhelmed by the idea of overhauling your landing page? Let our Social Link virtual marketing team build pages that convert.

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    Blog Online Marketing Tips and Tricks

    Free T’s, Facebook Banners, Business Cards, and SE-O My!

    There ain’t no party like a Black Friday party!

    We are prepped and ready for the big shopping weekend. We will be giving away 50 free #virtualAF Tee’s, free Facebook banners, free business card designs, and SEO audits with a free blog to go! Be sure to follow our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts for special promos through the end of Cyber Monday. While supplies last so check back often!

     

     

     

     

    **Only while supplies last. All revision requests will be billed at normal rates. Standard size only on creatives. Must have a business website or URL to qualify.

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    Digital Marketing Featured News Online Marketing PPC Social Media Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks Web Design

    Nashville-America’s Next Creative Boomtown

    Nashville: America’s Next Creative Boomtown

    When you work remotely, you can work anywhere that suits you… and one city that suits us fine is Nashville, Tennessee, where Social Link Marketing keeps watch on our teams, strategy, and accounts. You know it as the home of hot chicken, hot records, and hot summers. But it’s also one of the nation’s hottest opportunities for creative capital and tech investment. It’s not just that we like the music (okay, we love the music). We happen to think that Nashville’s seriously happening. Here’s a few reasons to come visit us and see why.

    100 People a Day Can’t Be Wrong

    Nashville metro saw a 36,667 population increase in 2016. We’re talking net gain. That puts the Music City’s 2% annual growth in the same league as Charlotte (2%), Denver (1.6%), and Atlanta (1.6%).

    Investors Love Us

    According to CityLab, Nashville ranked No. 22 in the nation for venture capital deals in 2017 and made No. 7 on the Milken Institute’s list for growth in employment opportunities, wages, and technology. Three startup accelerators make their home here. Considering that the rent in San Francisco is 150% higher, we think Nashville’s a better bet for businesses looking to expand.

    Smart and Diverse

    Forbes ranked Nashville No. 3 in its review of “The Next Biggest Boom Towns in The U.S.” on a number of factors: low housing prices, pro-business environment, rapid growth in educated migrants, and an increasingly diverse population. All of this is great news for tech industries.

    Creative Communities

    Tech is coming to Nashville, but the creatives were always here. Put them together and we’ll make some magic. Nashville is home to art, theatre, high-fashion design, artisanal food, handcrafted musical instruments, and a thriving community outreach. We know this for a fact—we’ve helped a lot of these businesses build sales close to home and far away.

    It’s Sacred Ground

    We’re not just talking about the Parthenon replica in Centennial Park, although that’s pretty awesome. The Ryman Auditorium (the “Mother Church” of country music), RCA’s historic Studio B, The Bluebird Cafe, and international songwriting festivals make Nashville a music lover’s Holy Land.

    We’ll Feed You

    Our food events are more fun (Hot Chicken Festival, anyone?), east side restaurants are taking off, we’re home to multiple craft breweries, and we’ll stake our food trucks against Austin’s any day. And speaking of those guys…

    The Next What?

    We love Austin, too—but can they claim the best bathroom in America or a forty-foot statue of Athena? Not to mention that WalletHub named us No. 1 for women-owned businesses (Austin’s hating life at No. 72). Maybe that does make Nashville the next Austin… we prefer to think of Austin as the previous us.

    Nashville is just one of many great cities where we’re helping clients build business. Wherever you are, we’ll put your virtual marketing department to work for you. Get in touch and let’s get started!

    Categories
    Blog Online Marketing PPC SEO Social Media Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks Web Design Web Development

    Tips on Helping Your Website Visitors To Convert

    Building Sites That Convert | Social Link

    Is Your Site Converting Sales?

    The first generation of business sites was all about building awareness. The second generation was about handling transactions. Tomorrow’s digital marketplace will be dominated by sites that bridge the all-important middle ground between these two ends of the sales funnel: customer conversion. This is where your site truly becomes a working tool for your sales force. Here’s six critical steps to building a site that sells.

    #1. Know Who You’re Talking To

    Your site doesn’t have to speak to everyone in the same voice. Coordinate your paid search and ad strategy to target customers by profile—geography, age, gender, profession, interests—then build landing pages geared toward their specific needs and interests.

    #2. Make It Mobile (But Don’t Diss Desktops)

    In spite of the massive growth in mobile usage, only 15% of all sales are made on smartphones. One reason is that many e-commerce sites are simply not optimized for mobile. Is your site truly mobile-adaptive? Are phone numbers set up for tap-to-call? Are payment methods, forms, and product displays simplified for mobile? Does it have location-based and notification features? If not, it’s time to redesign, because there’s one thing an app can do that a desktop can’t: it follows your customer everywhere… even when they’re in your competitors’ stores.

    #3. Upgrade Your Content

    Your sales force relies on good content just as much as your customers. Videos, blogs, infographics, and social posts are a great way to show your product’s benefits… they’re a great conversation-starters for sales calls… and they’re much more SEO-friendly. Small wonder that content marketing generates more than three times as many leads as outbound marketing (with a conversion rate that’s six times as high).

    #4. Go For Relevant

    With inbound marketing, the path is as important as the destination. Is your keyword strategy geared to your customer’s immediate needs and interests? Are you clearly showing the difference that your product makes in your customer’s lives? Is your promoted content appropriate to the space it’s filling in your customer’s day? Your site is only effective if your advertising is relevant enough to motivate action.

    #5. Make Offers, Not Monologues

    Outbound marketing announces; inbound marketing invites. To be effective, every piece of content on your site needs to offer something of value to the customer, and invite an interaction in return. This can take the form of shareable content, an email sign-up, product upsells, or loyalty premiums. Don’t settle for explanations. Start conversations.

    #6. Keep Them Talking

    One of the oldest rules of selling is still valid: the longer you keep the conversation going, the more likely you are to make a sale. With sophisticated email marketing, cart abandonment doesn’t have to be the end of the road. You can pinpoint the timing and content of emails to your customer’s buying patterns, make special offers, and guide them back to more relevant content.

    We build sites (and campaigns) that build sales! One call is all it takes to put your virtual marketing department to work for you. Get in touch and let’s get started!

    Categories
    Blog Online Marketing Tips and Tricks

    Convert Transactions Into Relationships With Sales and Marketing Alignment

    Decision Comfort: Turning Transactions Into Relationships

    Here is a customer experience nightmare we all live with. You’re in a long line of passengers waiting for coffee, minutes before a flight. You don’t want coffee, you need it the way a gator needs a slow, fat bird. Yet as the line refuses to budge, one word is flashing through your caffeine-starved brain: leave. The airport coffee bar has abandoned you. Your flight is maybe seconds away from abandoning you. So you abandon the line. Just like millions of online consumers abandon their shopping carts every day.

    Your decision to quit the line has nothing to do with your loyalty to the brand. You love Brand X Coffee. Just seeing the logo reminds you of rich, bold flavors and everything that is good about life. Too bad for you that everyone else in line had the same thought. And so you run for the gate and settle for a cup on the plane. It will be bland and watery. It will not be the coffee you wanted. But it will not make you miss your flight.

    Brand loyalty did not fail. The transaction failed. And bad transactions kill relationships. But there’s a simple fix—one that has nothing to do with efficiency and everything to do with human psychology.

    Closers Are For Coffee

    Let’s go through that coffee line again… only this time, a barista is working the line with an iPad. The moment he or she asks, “What can I get started for you?” you feel an immediate surge of relief. You’re still miles from the counter—but you’re getting something started! This coffee is going to happen. Then again, you expect nothing less from good old Brand X coffee.

    Isn’t this just a mind trick? Of course it is. It even has a name: Decision Comfort. It doesn’t bring your coffee any faster, but it allows you to imagine a happy ending to your coffee ordeal, so your expectations relax. Studies show that consumers are more comfortable with a decision once they’re able to visualize its outcome. By establishing that comfort, the barista with the iPad has changed nothing… except how you perceive your relationship to the brand.

    Let’s Get Uber There

    You’re marketing a new ride-hailing service like Uber and the boss wants to focus on “faster pickup and delivery” as a key benefit. Is this the right approach? In theory, yes: time = convenience, and shorter wait = lower abandonment. But in reality our sense of time is actually quite fluid. Fifteen minutes in line can feel like fifteen hours if you’re worried about missing your flight. On the other hand, if your order’s already been taken—or if you see a sign that reads, “Expected Wait From This Point: 20 Minutes” and it only takes fifteen—then it will start to feel like time is back on your side.

    Uber has mastered the decision comfort game. It doesn’t get you a driver that much quicker than phoning for a cab used to, but it can show you a little icon of your driver coming your way. How long did it take? Exactly as long as Uber said it would.

    The Short and Winding Road

    There is nothing to be lost by speeding up a transaction… unless it costs you the chance to advance a relationship. Suppose that your retail site wants an add-on to help you reconnect with first-time customers. Which of these will do the job at the lowest risk of cart abandonment?

    1. Offer the option to save credit card information to simplify future purchases.
    2. Include an opt-in for your newsletter (which you’ve helpfully pre-checked).
    3. Offer a discounted bundle with other related items
    4. Offer a chance to save 15% on the order by filling out a three-question survey.

    The first three options will not slow the transaction by more than a second, but they share a problem: they all force the customer to think into the unforeseeable future. Do I really want these people having my credit card number? Do I need another newsletter? How much am I going to want these other items that I didn’t plan to buy? It’s the equivalent of asking, “Would you like to pre-order coffee for your next flight?” or, “For a discounted fee, would you like to add two other destinations you didn’t plan on visiting?”

    The fourth option (the survey discount) might seem like the least desirable. It adds time to the transaction and it costs you money. And yet it has a big advantage over the others. The customer knows exactly what they’re being asked for and what they’ll get in return. They don’t have to plan ahead or rethink an earlier decision. And what you’re getting in return—valuable information about your consumer and a reason to reconnect—is surely worth some discount. As with Geico’s “Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen per cent or more,” a clear choice is a strong motivator to action.

    What can we get started for you? One call is all it takes to put your virtual marketing department to work for you. Get in touch and let’s get started!

    Categories
    Remote Tips and Tricks

    Your Virtual Marketing Team and How to Manage It

    6 Tips For Building Virtual Team Culture

    At Social Link we live, work, and go virtual. Working as “your virtual marketing department” is better for our clients (faster access to top talent), better for our teams (liberation from cubicle hell)—and we’ve proud to say, it’s a lot better for everyone’s bottom line. Even so, it’s not without challenges, particularly if your company’s used to a highly formalized or communal environment. Here’s some best practices we use to keep our own virtual team in harmony.

    #1: Know Your People

    Going virtual means you spend far less time in meetings. That’s great, but it also means you have to make an extra effort to get the team acquainted with each other. Do they prefer working independently? Are they night owls or morning people? What’s their sense of humor?

    Take time to get beyond the profile picture on your group chat. If you hear a dog barking in the background of your next conference call, don’t immediately ask them to mute—it’s a chance to learn more about an important member of their family.

    Tactics: Create a Facebook group and encourage photos; post a question of the day and compare answers; devote the first few minutes of team calls to non-work matters.

    #2: Keep All The Lines Open

    Frequent check-ins are critical on a virtual team. Isolation is a motivation killer: it’s important to maintain one-on-one contact with individual team members, by phone as well as chat. This is particularly important in a creative culture, where freewheeling discussion often leads to unexpected breakthroughs.

    Tactics: Take the call wherever possible; encourage informal conversations so you know what’s going on in everyone’s daily lives; take advantage of opportunities for face-to-face meetings.

    #3: Make Them Talk to Each Other

    For one-on-one conversations to be effective, they need to be happening in all directions. Encourage your team to look to each other for answers, take on task leadership, and collaborate on solutions.

    Tactics: Maintain a dedicated conference line that’s available at all times; create a team chat room; designate subject matter experts so that your team knows who to call on various topics.

    #4: Make Sure Everyone’s Seeing the Same Thing

    To see is to know: this is how you’ll know if you picked the right collaborative tools. Meetings go much better if everyone on the call is able to share the screen.

    Tactics: Join.me, TeamViewer, and Google Hangouts are all budget-minded options that facilitate screen sharing.

    #5: Make Sure Everyone Speaks the Same Language

    Just because you all use the same words doesn’t mean you speak the same language. To a developer, a “platform” is a set of software tools; to an advertising creative, a “platform” is a brand positioning. Your team members may be coming to you from vastly different work cultures, or even from different countries. It’s worth the time it takes to understand the fine nuances of each other’s terminology.

    Tactics: Encourage overexplaining; ask people to explain their terms; choose a common term for everything and make sure everyone sticks with it.

    #6: Always Be Consistent

    Team members may be on different time zones. Some of them work in remote offices while others are used to working alone. People will inevitably develop independent working styles and you should encourage them to do so: that’s how you get great results. At the same time, remote teams function more effectively if they know what to expect, whether it’s the start time for a group chat or the folder where you find all the briefing materials.

    Tactics: Don’t cancel a meeting if there’s nothing to discuss, just keep it short; make sure everyone knows before meetings what part they’re expected to play, and how to prepare.

    Need a virtual marketing department of your own? At Social Link, we’ve got access to a deep base of talented people who love to work virtually and would love to work with you. Get in touch and let’s get started!

     

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    Tips and Tricks

    GO VIRTUAL! 4 Reasons Why Hiring a Virtual Agency is The Easiest Call You’ll Make Today

    Nobody ever started an agency review process by saying, “Let’s see if we can’t find a way to pay more money for the second-best people out there.” And yet so many reviews led to exactly that… with a few months of wasted time thrown in for dessert.

    Established agencies promise heavyweight expertise: you’ll wind up paying for their heavy overhead. Boutiques offer a hands-on approach… which they’ve already offered to ten other clients. And resourcing agencies can introduce you to great talent—and then promptly vanish after they make the introduction.

    But there’s a way to get the best of all three—leadership, focus, and a deep bench—and it’s ready to work for you now. It’s called Going Virtual, and it’s the trend that’s changing marketing. Very simply, a virtual agency is able to assemble top talent quickly and put it to work under dedicated, strategic leadership. Here’s why it pays to go virtual:

    1. You Won’t Pay For What You Don’t Need.

      So you like Agency X’s hand-tooled leather sofa and wet bar? Good, because they’re burying all those costs in their next invoice. A virtual agency can afford to provide a high level of service without the high overhead.

    2. Brilliant People Working Where They Work Best.

      Virtual agencies have a direct line to smart people who are good enough to work anywhere… so they’ve decided to work from home. It saves a lot on drive time!

    3. They’re Already On Board.

      Hiring freelancers isn’t a timesaver if you’re wasting time getting them up to speed. The best virtuals are experts at remote collaboration—they won’t iron out their hassles on your dime.

    4. No Schmoes, All Pros

      . How about those A-team guys from the pitch? They’re not on your project: say hello to the warm bodies. On a virtual team, there’s nowhere to hide or slack off. All the talent is top talent.

    Beware: not every agency calling itself “virtual” is actually a virtual agency. The best ones offer strategic expertise and project management… a virtual marketing department that’s ready to roll on your command. If that sounds good to you, contact us and we’ll show you a lot more reasons to go virtual.

    Categories
    Tips and Tricks

    Using Keywords in Domain Names For Digital Marketing

    Do you know how many varieties of apples are grown in the world? Neither do we, but I bet you just added it to your “Google” list. In the same way, I bet you didn’t consider that your company does more than just what your main website domain says it does. Many companies own only one domain name. Generally it is the organization’s business name, or if that domain name was not available, the domain is some variation of that business name. Beyond that, many organizations have not thought through how to incorporate keywords into their domain to accompany their digital marketing strategy.

    You have likely done some sort of keyword research to see which keywords are related to your business and can be effective for blogging, PPC, advertising, hashtag use and SEO work. You can also extend this information to your domain name strategy.

    Why do you want keyword domain names?

    1. Create your main website on a domain name using keywords relevant to your business for SEO value and affect your search engine ranking.

    2. Catch direct traffic from consumers who use online search regularly in their buying behavior.

    3. Forward the additional keyword-rich domains to your main website.

    4. Use a keyword domain name as a landing page or microsite and link back to the main website.

    5. Create a stand-alone blog on that website that you can share socially and link back to your main website.

    Example Use Cases of Strategic Keyword Domains

    You may own a mortgage company in Nashville. Home mortgage, mortgage rates, mortgage, and reverse mortgage are all popular keywords for that industry. They are also very popular keywords worldwide, thus the domain names related to those keywords are more expensive. However, there are still opportunities to purchase mortgage-related domain names. (Such as homemortgage.com.)

    On another note, maybe you own a furniture store in Nashville and want to find people looking for new bedroom furniture. The domain name bedroomgroups.com may be a good option for you. Many potential customers will search for “bedroom sets” or “bedroom groups” and since Google gives first priority to local search, you can gain a lot of traffic if you have good content on your website that relates to bedroom groups. You can also catch a lot of type-in traffic into the toolbar when users search for “bedroom groups” that way.

    This strategy can also work for service-based companies. Home-based food delivery in niche industries are becoming very popular in cities. You could be a service-based company that provides pre-made vegan meals. In this case vegantakeout.com would be a good keyword domain name for you to own. The search and type-in traffic would be great opportunities for your business to connect with people looking for this type of service.

    Buying keyword-rich domain names and building a site or forwarding the traffic on that domain can quickly help your online marketing and start producing leads that grow your business. With some simple keyword research and working with a domain name consultant, there are many keyword domain options you can utilize and incorporate into your online marketing efforts to reach new customers.

    Guest Post By: Mailynne Calvin
    Domain Name & Digital Marketing Consultant
    Co-founder at www.plentyofbrands.com

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    Blog Email Marketing Online Marketing PPC SEO Social Media Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks Web Design Web Development

    10 Nashville Internet Marketing Trends

    With Nashville’s tourism market at an all-time high, we thought it might be worth noting 10 Nashville internet marketing trends to watch. Getting involved in current internet marketing trends could mean the difference between your business making a profit and going into the red. Up your game by looking out for these 10 internet marketing trends:

    1) Video Marketing

    With the number of tech businesses in Nashville steadily climbing, it makes sense for business owners to include video in their marketing strategy. As business leader Angus Andrew says, “The play button is becoming the most compelling call-to-action on the web.” Why is this? Experts believe that video marketing content is more appealing to people than written content, because of its entertainment value. It also allows tech companies and other businesses to show their customers, and potential customers, what they have to offer and what they are working on to build excitement. It’s a common misconception that video marketing is out of reach for small businesses; the fact is, it’s easier now than ever to create videos for the web with apps such as Magisto and Vimeo.

    2) Social Networking Tools

    Social networking sites are invaluable marketing tools, because they enable professionals to connect with each other worldwide. Networking sites, such as LinkedIn, give Nashville employers the opportunity to connect with people who could be potential candidates for a job. It’s important for small businesses to take part in social networking sites to spread the word about their growing company. If a business makes dozens of professional connections online, it will increase word-of-mouth and consequently, sales.

    3) Social Media Platforms

    Social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook have become leaders of current marketing trends, and the numbers don’t seem to be going down any time soon. The reason is simple: Customers like to be treated like people. Social media sites enable businesses to connect with the customers on a personal level. People are sick of in-your-face advertisements and pushy calls-to-action – they want to see that your business has a human behind it, and jumping on board with social media platforms is the perfect way to show that.

    4) Facebook Pay Per Click (PPC)

    More than 1 billion people are currently active on Facebook. With those kinds of numbers, it’s no wonder Nashville business owners have begun to take advantage of the Facebook Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign. PPC is an internet advertising model used on websites. It’s different from other advertising campaigns because PPC advertisers only pay their host when their ad is clicked. More and more people are turning toward Facebook PPC because it allows business owners to keep track of how much they want to spend on advertising on a day-to-day basis.

    5) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

    Every small business should be concerned with their market’s SEO. For those who haven’t heard of it, search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of getting website traffic through “natural” or “organic” results that have been earned by the website in real time. Payment isn’t involved, unlike paid search ads, so SEO cannot be changed based on a business’ budget. There are many reasons your small business should invest in SEO – it promotes readability, user-friendliness, and the overall success of your website.

    6) Mobile Optimization

    People are spending more and more time on mobile devices each year. Studies have shown that mobile media time has exceeded desktop and other media time. Ensuring that you take full advantage of the booming mobile optimization market can be a key factor in the success of your business. Mobile optimization is applied to your business’s website to ensure its design, page layout, download speed, and other factors are all working to their fullest extent. In today’s world, a business whose website doesn’t translate well onto a mobile device signals to customers that the business may be behind the times.

    7) Blogs

    What is commonly referred to in the digital realm as the “blogosphere” is an important internet marketing trend to be a part of in Nashville. Blogging promotes an up-to-date, progressive feel for your business’s website and allows customers to be notified continuously about what your business is currently promoting, selling, studying, etc. The best business blogs, such as the popular blog for the Owner Media Group, focus on informing their customers based on what interests them. Blogs are meant to show your customers that your small business is interested in its customers and that your business is relevant.

     

    8) Content Marketing

    If you haven’t already, now is the time to jump on the content-marketing bandwagon. Small businesses have seen a generous upsurge in business after paying more attention to the content of their web pages. It may seem obvious, but with better content comes more readers. Websites that offer smart, engaging content and valuable information, like the ever-popular how-to articles, get an increase in website traffic, which of course leads to more business. Gone are the days when a business website can be business only – it’s time to embrace an age of truly interesting content.

    9) Email Marketing

    Email marketing is making a significant comeback – in the last few years, small businesses have wised up to the fact that people don’t read redundant emails. Instead, businesses are sending emails that are full of content that their customers actually want to read. Much like content marketing, email marketing is becoming more about connecting with customers, not just another sales pitch.

     

    10) Wearable Technology

    Places like Nashville’s Entrepreneur Center are promoting a sense of technological growth throughout the local business sphere. In this era of tech growth, the Number 1 most predicted trend for 2016 is wearable technology. This includes devices such as the Apple watch and Xiaomi, which allow the user to wear the device they’re using. Wearable technology has been on the upswing due to easy of use, a heightened sense of fashion, and being able to combine technological devices to be more productive.

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    Tips and Tricks

    Hot Marketing Trends and Tips for Today

    Learn More about the Hottest Digital Marketing Trends and Tips of Today

    When it comes to online marketing, Nashville is a hub of talented marketers and designers who understand the latest and greatest trends for a business of any size. Keep your business on the cutting edge of local and worldwide marketing with these top trends and tips for August.

    • Try gamification – Gamifying your content with online quizzes, contests, and competitions is a great way to learn more about your site visitors and to encourage online interactions. The interactive nature of gamification allows your visitors to immerse themselves in your brand while engaging with the site in new and interesting ways.
    • Go local – Geolocation is helping retailers target customers with deals and messaging while they’re in or near stores. Make sure that your target market can find your business by incorporating geolocation data into your web design and activities.
    • Research before posting – The NY Times and other established publications have been in hot water over the last few years for posting stories without adequate verification. Always double check your sources before posting something newsworthy or unique on your own site or social media profiles.
    • Focus on your audience – Take a breather from following data-driven SEO goals every once in a while and think about the needs of your customer from a personal perspective. Analytics and trending techniques will only take your brand so far. Always align your marketing goals with the happiness of your customers first, and then work on online optimization.
    • Answer market questions directly – Instead of worrying over your next blog topic, find out what your audience is searching for and answer their most pressing questions. Your question and answer may be the one users find when they type their questions into a search engine.

    Find the latest tips and trends for marketing in Nashville and act on them with help from our team. Let us know how we can help you meet your marketing goals.

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    Tips and Tricks Web Design

    4 Top DIY Graphics Tools

    Check out These DIY Graphics Tools for Marketing in a Pinch

    When you can’t get to your marketing agency in time, you may need other resources for designing quick and eye-catching graphics for your latest blog post, social media post, or article. Make sure that you’re never in a bind with these great graphic design tools that anyone can use to make simple infographics, memes, and other graphic content.

    • Piktochart – The site’s basic package is free to use with ready-made templates, over 4,000 icons, and point-and-click functionality. Upload your own images or choose from their library to personalize your content in a visually engaging way.
    • Pixabay – When you need a stock-like photo in a pinch, you can find many relevant images that are available for use through Creative Commons or with a simple attribution. Find original artwork, photography, and vector images with the site’s free search and download function.
    • Pablo – Find a quote to match your social media post with this nifty site that lets you choose the quote text, font size and type, and background imagery for your social media posts. In as few as 30 seconds, you can craft a thought provoking, heartfelt, or funny image to share with your audience on social media.
    • Canva – Design graphics, flyers, invitations, and other graphic design pieces with this point-and-click site. The site is free to use, but some premium images may cost a dollar to use. Edit photos and collaborate with your team with this design staple for fast turnaround times.

    Give these tools a shot when you need a quick graphic for your project. For customized graphic design in Nashville, reach out to our team of designers and see what a professional marketing agency can do for your online presence. When you need a professional, we’re here for logos, general graphics work, web design, and so much more.

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    Online Marketing Tips and Tricks Uncategorized

    3 Tools for Finding and Interacting with Your Market Online

    How to Use Free Online Tools to Identify and Target Prospects Online

    Identifying and targeting your market online takes time and the right toolset. Make sure that you are reaching your intended audience by engaging a marketing agency in Nashville and by using free online tools to cut through the noise and find qualified leads and opportunities. Check out these free online tools and tips to get started:

    • Commun.it – Social media influencers can help you reach prospects in a non-branded and organic way. Commun.it is specifically geared for the Twitter and Facebook communities. This tool helps individuals and organizations discover the right content to post for campaign targeting and helps them find influencers and customer audiences. Large companies like Coca-Cola and Microsoft use the site regularly.
    • Cyfe – This tool is a multifunctional dashboard for many different business processes. Companies who use the premium version pay to monitor all their online interactions and analyze data in certain fields. With the free version, you can access a limited number of boards and data widgets to improve your targeted marketing campaigns.
    • Marketing Grader – Find out how effective your current campaign is by using this free online tool to understand whether your efforts are generating qualified leads, if your blog is getting noticed, and if other online activities are producing results.
    • Google Alerts – Set up alerts on your competitors and get the information in your email inbox. Find out when your competition is being mentioned online or keep track of top industry news for content inspiration to draw your audience to your site.

    Regular social engagement, posting relevant content, and earning inbound links can all improve your chances of finding and converting your target market. In conjunction with a marketing agency in Nashville like Social Link, these free online tools can help you understand where your online efforts stand and how to start strategically improving your campaigns for a better ROI.

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    Blog Online Marketing SEO Tips and Tricks Web Design Web Development

    Web Design Trends in Nashville Tennessee

    Start Thinking About Your Web Design Strategy with These Trends and Industry Forecasts

    This year’s theme in web design Nashville, and across the world, has included simplistic design features, focused on a streamlined user experience. If you are a little behind in latest design trend, now is a good time to get started and learn more about the trend forecast for 2016.

    Web design goals are different from company to company. Stay up-to-date with the latest trends and developments, but remember to stay true to your brand and adopt designs that mesh well with your company’s culture and personality. Your online presence makes the ultimate statement about your mission, brand, and culture, so make it stand out by recognizing the trends that are waning and focusing on some of the new developments and projections for the future.

    Design Trends That Are On the Way Out

    Web design changes quickly, and keeping up with the trends can be difficult. Luckily, most of the trends that are fading from the limelight are easy fixes for your site.

    • Autoplay – People use online content for work and personal use in a variety of environments. Many of us are accustomed to opening and browsing through several sites at a time on computers and mobile sites. Those that feature autoplay music and videos create annoying noise and distract from the overall user experience. Always give users the option to listen to your content instead of forcing it on them when they click on a link.
    • Cluttered parallax – Parallax scrolling design involves layering content so that certain layers move differently when users start scrolling to give it a 3D effect. When effectively designed, parallax features can be eye-catching and fun. At its worst, the feature can make users feel motion sick or over-stimulated. Websites that opt for parallax scrolling today should carefully consider the user experience.
    • Splash pages or modals – Today’s internet users are in a hurry. Most skim content rather than reading it in-depth. Any design features that prevent access to content create annoyance and are counterproductive to a site’s mission. Avoid forcing your users to click through popups or a splash page before accessing your content. There are many other, more effective techniques for advertising, earning subscribers, and getting your message across. Some would argue they are effective at grabbing user emails and they are probably right – but were they annoyed?

    Give These Trends a Try

    Other popular trends that were highlighted at the end of 2014/beginning of 2015 have expanded and are still going strong into the second half of the year. Most highlight the user experience with minimalistic designs and flat graphics. Make your web design in Nashville stand out from the crowd with these beautiful and user-friendly design trends:

    • Flat design – This trend will likely keep its footing in web design for many years. The simplistic nature of the design provides faster content delivery while improving the user experience through engaging, but easily digestible, visual and written content. Find inspiration for flat design with these 75+ examples.
    • No header background imagery – Highlight flat design by foregoing background photography or other visually complex imagery. Focus on typography, color scheme, and a few simple accent icons or images to make your site memorable to users.
    • Micro-interactions – Autoplay video and music are on the way out, but micro-interactions of all kinds pique visitor curiosity and encourage online engagement. Anytime you hit a “Like” button, add a star rating to a product, or click through the people you may know, you’re participating in a micro-interaction. They serve as natural engagement facilitators and help companies add more information on a page without inundating a visitor with stimuli.
    • Infographics – Infographics provide the perfect marriage of visual and written content. Make complicated information easy to digest with interesting infographics. Try an interactive infographic that users can click on or engage with to reveal more of a storyline. A well-developed interactive infographic should be fun and easy for visitors to uncover new and interesting information.
    • Grids – Pinterest, retailers, and several news outlets are using grid-layouts to break up written content with interesting imagery. Whether you choose to go full grid or add a grid to showcase your blog content or product offerings, the technique offers clean lines that are easy to browse through and engage with.
    • Ghost buttons – In the beginning of the year, many web designers were in favor of flat, colorful buttons for social media, CTAs, and other button-content. Ghost buttons are low profile. They feature outlines in a slightly different color than the background imagery, but do not interrupt the visual experience. Ghost buttons are great for websites that feel “too busy.” To effectively use ghost buttons, make sure the action step is a focal point of the page
    • Mix and match fonts – Handwritten, vintage, and other visually interesting fonts stand out on flat designs. Draw attention to your written content and branding by taking the time to find the perfect font personality for your site. Change up font types and sizes on a page to keep text visually interesting without having to rely heavily on additional graphics.  Just don’t go too crazy! 🙂
    • Responsive web design – More of a design staple for web design in Nashville and throughout the world, responsible web design provides user experience consistently across all devices. When used in conjunction with other trending design elements, responsive web design can make searching for and taking in content easier and faster. Limited mobile sites of the past can’t compete with the complete experience offered by responsive web design. Our mobile responsive design is included in every website we build now. It’s to the point of embarassment if you launch without a mobile responsive website!
    • Long scrolling pages – If you have a large quantity of information to share online, consider long scrolling instead of click-heavy navigation. With better internet service and smarter web design features, websites are no longer restricted by the content they place on a page. You can keep your site speed while providing prioritized content in an easy-scrolling format so that all your site visitors have to do is start browsing through your page.
    • Sticky features – Sticky website elements remain with a page regardless of how far down you scroll to read content. Popular sticky elements may include navigational cues, calls-to-action, micro-interaction pieces, headers, or social media buttons. If you have a particularly long page for users to scroll through, a sticky arrow can help visitors move from the bottom or middle of the page back to the top with one click.

    2016 Forecast for Web Design

    Get the most out of your investment in web design in Nashville by evaluating which trends are fads and which are most likely to stick around through the New Year and beyond. There are surely more innovative and game-changing trends to arrive as time passes, but designers and marketing specialists are already starting to predict what next year will look like. Consider these predictions for what’s to come as web design evolves:

    • Originality will be rewarded – One challenge with popular trends is the tendency towards homogeneity. Every site is visually beautiful, but they all start to look the same when they use the same design elements. Look for 2016 to showcase a variety of different techniques that are customized for an individual’s or organization’s personality and culture.
    • Flat design will evolve – Designers are already starting to incorporate shadows with hard edges to a few choice elements. Look for other subtle nuances to traditional flat design that will start to change the way designers approach flat design in 2016.
    • Bright colors will set sites apart – In 2015, color palettes have been neutral and toned down. Bright color combinations and accents will start to become more accepted in a variety of industries in the future. Patterns may also become a popular go-to design influence to help websites set themselves apart.
    • The Internet of Things will change design – As more functional systems start to go online, web design will start to accommodate an increasingly versatile range of interfaces. Whether you’re accessing a site on your refrigerator, a pair of glasses, or from your television, you’ll start to see improved and consistent design features across all online devices.
    • A focus on shortened experiences – Action-oriented sites will start to use apps within apps to drive user engagement. There may be several different calls-to-action on a site that range widely, but will streamline the user experience for each pipeline. The navigational cues will also improve measurement and analysis capabilities.
    • Long scroll may fade – Websites will start to design their websites more around the content. Some will hang onto long scrolling trends, but others with content-rich pages may choose to abandon long scrolling in favor of individual pages or sections.

    Choosing Web Design Trends

    Some trends will come and go, but the ones listed here will start to fundamentally change the way users interact online. Talk with our marketing agency for web design in Nashville about the elements that will complement your business or online goals the most before signing up for every trendy design element in the news.

    Try to change up your web design every few years at a minimum to keep your designs current and engaging. Aim to go through the website every 6 months to check for outdated material and design influences, and invest in newer designs as needed.

    Ultimately, the colors, layout, and content of a great website should be custom-designed for ease-of-use, clarity, and visual appeal. Whether you prefer a modern or futuristic layout or a more traditional style, mix and match the design elements that really speak to your brand and audience to make the most out of the online experience.

    For more information about choosing the right web design trends, get in touch with our team of web designers at Social Link in Nashville.

    Categories
    SEO Tips and Tricks

    Your Website Ranks From SEO – Now What?

    Google PageRank uses over 200 elements to rank websites on a scale from 1-10. Even popular, well-read sites may not have perfect scores, but the closer to 10 you can get, the more likely it is that your online marketing efforts will pay off. A rank of 5 means that a site has successfully placed itself online as a relevant, inbound link-rich source for search engine users. Whether you’ve recently scored a 2 or you’re edging up on 5, there is always more work to do to maintain and improve your Nashville SEO strategy.

    Website Rankings Are Not Static

    Unfortunately, you cannot achieve a decent website ranking and stop working on SEO. According to some of the most recent statistics, over 5 exabytes of content were being developed daily in 2013. With that comes an increased potential every day for your page rankings to fluctuate. Without constant vigilance and a focus on strategy innovation, your page may slip from its current rankings, leaving you with a “Do not pass Go, Do not collect $200” type of scenario.

    Maintaining Positive Website Rankings

    To keep your current website rankings, run reports regularly to see how your site is holding up to the competition.

    Check:

    1. Rankings – Look at your rankings on the top search engines, and resubmit your site with changes if you notice your ranking starting to slip. Keep fresh content on your site by maintaining a blog to target keywords from your seo keyword research. Google LOVES fresh content.
    2. Inbound links – Having inbound links at one point in time is not security for the future. Inbound links can disappear over time, decreasing your ranking. Constantly develop new, engaging content to build inbound links, even during the maintenance cycle, to keep your rankings high.
    3. Don’t be afraid to change your website – You can keep your ranking (and improve it!) while redesigning your website. Take the time to reinvigorate old content and add new SEO driven content to improve your website ranking.

    Keep moving forward with your Nashville SEO strategy to maintain local and widespread visibility in the search engines your market uses most. SEO is a continuous, long-term strategy for growth and visibility. Stick with it to make the most of your investment.

    Categories
    Blog Online Marketing Tips and Tricks Web Development

    Trending Nashville Web Design – Make Your Site Sticky

    Sticky sites encourage visitors to stay just a little longer each time they click on your landing page because they have features that remain constant throughout a site visit. Applying tactics used on sticky sites is critical because you only have seconds to make your Nashville web design stand out from the other search results.

    Long scrolling sites are here to stay. Without sticky web elements, you could be missing out on potential engagement. Which sticky features are more likely to get you noticed right now?

    • Page navigation buttons – On mobile devices and desktop computers, scrolling up from a long page can become annoying fast. Give your visitors a little help with a simple arrow button to facilitate navigation to the top or bottom of your webpage.
    • Social media icons – Give your readers every opportunity to turn your content into something shareable by leaving social media buttons pinned in place on your website. Opt for the websites your audience engages with most, and let your site visitors do some marketing for you! Nashville web design trends are focusing on making content sharing a natural part of the website engagement process. The ShareThis tool is great and offers a variety of social sharing sites to chose from so you can be selective of where your audience is.
    • Headers – Sticky headers can include navigation cues and may or may not highlight the main heading of an individual page. For longer pages, make sure to stick attention-getting headings at the top. The longer a person is exposed to the visual and written content, the more likely the image will remain in his or her head and encourage action behaviors later on.
    • CTAs – Choose specific pages to include a sticky call-to-action. Keep it simple and make it a natural part of the design theme. Your visitors should always have an opportunity to “reach out,” “call now,” “learn more” or “subscribe to a newsletter”.

    Flat visual design, simplistic elements, and concise written content are all trends that have remained strong through the first half of 2015. Use your choice of sticky features with elegant, eye-catching, and engaging Nashville web designs that will keep your audience on your site.

    If you found this post helpful please review Brady O’Rourke here. 

    Categories
    Online Marketing Tips and Tricks

    10 Things You Should Be Doing to Drive New Leads

    For growing and established businesses alike, the ability to generate new leads is essential to keeping revenue consistent. Below are some marketing ideas that withstood the test of time and produced great turnaround for those willing to employ them.

    Create Promotional Products

    A classic, well-established marketing strategy gets your name on someone’s desk. Be it through a well-placed pen, calendar, or post-it stack, a little promotional material can go a long way.

    Use Videos to Spread the Word

    Video is one of the most accessible and memorable marketing tools out there. Anyone can create a video advertisement, and this particular form of promotion is easily shared and able to reach a very large audience.

    Put Social Media to Work for You

    With the prevalence of social media, it is almost a prerequisite that your company have an established presence. But, savvy businesses take this a step further. If your clients like an article or product and would like to pass it on, make it as easy as possible for them.

    Make Sure Your Site’s Crucial Information is Easy to Find

    When someone visits your website, be sure that they are able to easily act on their impulse to get in touch or purchase your wares.

    Give Clients a Reason to Act

    People tend to want what they can’t have. By setting up campaigns with limited time offers or installing sales tickers, clients are driven to act on their impulse to engage.

    Create a Media Base for Your Organization

    Blogs, Facebook accounts, Twitter feeds, and newsletters are all excellent ways to get your name out there and present yourself as an authority.

    Engage in Networking Events

    At first glance, networking may not seem like it belongs under the “marketing ideas” heading; however, engaging with other professionals is a great way to make your presence known. Furthermore, it adds to your own knowledge and customer base.

    Host Webinars

    A webinar in which you explain how certain facets of your industry work will not only get your name out there but will also help you be seen as a trusted entity.

    Develop Ebooks

    Free ebooks are a good way to communicate your expertise and convince readers that you have something they need.

    Incentivize Referrals

    Coupons, discounts, and relevant prizes are all great ways to get your current customers to help you recruit future customers.

    Categories
    Online Marketing Tips and Tricks

    Your Brand Is More Than Your Logo

    Constructing a brand is about much more than securing the perfect shade for your company logo. Brands are multifaceted constructs and are among the most essential of marketing strategy tools. Knowing this, what are some ways in which you can make your brand all it can be?

    Affiliate Yourself with Well-Known Entities

    Birds of a feather flock together, as the saying goes, and allying yourself with established and well-regarded professionals in your area can go a long way toward building your brand’s credibility. Contribute to their sites, solicit connections, and work to establish meaningful professional bonds with recognized names. This will help bring your brand out of obscurity if it is newly established or reinforce its image if it already has a following.

    Give Background to Your Brand

    Everyone loves a good story, and engaging your clients – present and future – with a personal background, your company history, or your products is a great way to cement your brand in their mind. Learning about a company or professional in a relatable way draws people in and gives them a sense of trust and interest in your organization.

    Be Conscientious of What You Post

    As a professional, it is of the utmost importance that each update, post, or article you generate is one you can proudly stand behind. Before posting anything under your brand’s name, ask yourself if it is universal, relevant, helpful, or relatable to your target audience. If the answer is no, consider focusing the piece a bit more on the needs of your readers.

    Your brand is the face the world sees, and it encompasses everything from your posts and emails to your website’s content and structure. Focusing diligently on exactly what that face communicates about you or your organization is a great way to mold your brand into the perfect marketing strategy tool.

    If you found this post helpful please review the author here.

    Categories
    Tips and Tricks

    Marketing Strategies Your Competitors Are Using That You Aren’t

    Internet marketing is a complex system with many parts necessary for proper function. It can be difficult to get a firm grasp on every strategy, but with this list of steps you’ll definitely be able to keep up with, or even surpass, the competition.

    Creating and Managing a LinkedIn Circle

    LinkedIn is proving itself to be a forerunner in the internet marketing strategy world. A profile alone often gets individuals and businesses noticed professionally, but many are now creating groups in which professionals can join together to share their expertise and promote their organizations. Creating and managing such a group is a good way to connect more deeply with those in your industry – and potential clients.

    Making Use of Blogs in Your Field

    There are blogs for every reader these days, and luckily many have space available to showcase the work of those within their market. Many blogs reach thousands of readers, and the blog owners are great at promoting their sites to increase traffic. Getting a relevant blogger to write about your business or even using their comments section to introduce yourself to their reader base can be a great way to get your name out there and make a worthwhile professional connection.

    Creating an eBook or Manual for Free Distribution

    If you are an expert in your field, why not share your knowledge? Offering a free ebook, manual, or informational pamphlet that will help potential clients with their endeavors is a good way to showcase your expertise while cementing yourself in their mind as an authority on the subject.

    Many internet marketing strategies hinge upon the ability to build meaningful connections. Focus on these things, and your business is sure to thank you for it.

    If you found this post helpful review the author here.

    Categories
    Email Marketing Online Marketing PPC SEO Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks

    10 Hot Internet Marketing Trends

    The world of internet marketing is ever-changing. However, there are several marketing and web design trends currently dominating the advertising world.

    – Mobile optimization: As websites become increasingly user-friendly on mobile devices, advertisers are upping their efforts to translate their ads to a mobile platform. Web design that allows for seamless change between devices is becoming more relevant than ever.

    – Social media ad campaigns: With social media a daily part of many people’s lives, marketers realize the value of allocating resources to promoting themselves in the social sphere.

    – Content marketing: Creating relevant content – sharing pertinent knowledge and quality articles in lieu of standard print-style ads – to lure a particular client or customer base is a growing part of internet marketing,

    – Email advertising: While this has long been an internet marketing staple, email ads are undergoing a makeover. They are becoming more informative, personalized, and are used to reach more targeted audiences.

    – The humanization of brands: Advertising is looking to move away from big corporate images, so internet marketing campaigns want to humanize both established and non- established brands by making them relatable to their target market.

    – Relevancy over promotion: Buyers are increasingly disinterested in promotional lingo, leading internet marketers to focus on relevant and informative ads over sales jargon.

    – Increasing use of marketing analytics: The internet provides great opportunities for seeing detailed descriptions of how clients interact with your product or company. Marketing analytics are ever on the rise, giving businesses a way to examine and hone their sales efforts.

    – Highly personalized content: Working toward 1-to-1 marketing, personalized content examines the habits of the potential buyer and provides them with information on products that may be relevant to consumer needs or desires.

    – Videos: No longer relegated to certain streaming websites, video ads are seen more frequently throughout the internet. It’s an accessible and versatile mode of content that allows advertisers to communicate their message in a memorable way.

    – Less filler ads: Ads that mainly serve to set the product in a buyer’s mind are on the decline. Instead of banners with brightly flashing colors offering obscure products or services, internet marketing is moving toward strong content-driven advertisements to draw in consumers.

    If you found this article helpful please review the author here.

    Sources:

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/11/24/top-7-online-marketing-trends-that-will-dominate-2015/

    http://www.inboundnow.com/10-online-marketing-trends-predictions-2015/

    Categories
    Online Marketing Tips and Tricks Web Development

    Top 10 Tools You Didn’t Know WordPress Offered

    There are certain things every online vendor needs. Following are the top 10 tools that Wordpress offers to make online sales a piece of cake, and you may not have heard of them.

    1) WooCommerce: This plugin allows users to change their sites into full-fledged ecommerce destinations. It is a fully customizable download, working with every Wordpress theme and hosting almost every feature a vendor might need on their site.

    2) Cart66: Cart66 boasts some impressive features. It is geared toward sites that utilize a premium membership function, and the platform allows for easy recurring payments for both digital and physical sales.

    3) Easy Digital Downloads: As the name suggests, this plugin aims to make the purchase and download of digital material as easy as possible. Its features include allowing bundle purchases, a sophisticated cart system, and allowing users to access their payment history.

    4) Table Rate Shipping: This WordPress selling tool gives users the ability to customize their shipping needs. It can create shipping zones, generate shipping rates based on the features of the package, and allow users to choose from a variety of shipping options.

    5) SocialCoupon: To encourage customers to promote your goods, you may want to look into this plugin. It offers discounts and coupons to shoppers who share, like, or otherwise reference your page.

    6) WooCommerce SEO: SEO is complicated, but this product makes getting your page noticed a little easier. It takes some of the guesswork out of SEO by assisting with labelling, URLs, and template design.

    7) Product Countdown: Establishing an air of scarcity is a well-known marketing tactic, and this plugin does just that. A ticker reminding shoppers how long they have to purchase can help them go from prospective buyers to satisfied customers.

    8) KissMetrics: This handy WordPress selling tool allows users to track who has visited, shared, and engaged with their site.

    9) Currency Converter: The internet is a global platform, so a currency converter is the perfect thing to keep your sales strong, no matter where your customers reside.

    10) Social Login and Checkout Plugin: An easy transaction is a happy one, and this plugin allows your customers to use their social media accounts to checkout with few questions and little effort.

    If you are looking for a WordPress developer in Nashville, please contact us. Our knowledgeable staff is happy to answer your questions. If you found this post useful please review the author here.

    Categories
    Online Marketing Tips and Tricks

    Website Audit

    10 Must-Have Tools For Effective Lead Generation

    Website auditing tools help to analyze data in an efficient and very real way to make your data tell a story. Other tools include ad services, which allow you to generate leads from other corners of the web. Here are the top ten web tools for lead generation and what they mean to your website.

    Unbounce – An effective way to test your landing pages, e-mails, advertisements, and more, Unbounce will A/B test this content and report conversion rates. A/B testing a landing page can generate up to 40% more leads. Unbounce offers efficient website auditing that gets your conversion-focused page online in minutes.

    LinkedIn Advertising – This allows you to hand-tailor ads to specific, relevant pages. You can reach out to your target audience by marketing based on job title, function, industry, geography, etc. Include high-quality content and an easy to find CTA, and you have a great way to generate PPC leads.

    FaceBook Ads – Similar to LinkedIn advertising, Facebook ads allow you to target specific audiences and personalize content. This tool is better suited for B2C products.

    Turnstile – Turnstile captures e-mails by integrating a sign-up box into video content. If you regularly host compelling videos, use Turnstile to capture viewers and their e-mail addresses.

    PadiAct– PadiAct is another website auditing tool that watches visitor behavior and compares it to other visitors’ history. Based on this algorithm, PadiAct estimates a number of e-mail leads that you should be generating on a monthly basis. It allows you to target new users based on behavior and test which e-mail pop-ups work best.

    Qoura – Qoura is a Q&A website that allows knowledgeable professionals within their industry to answer user-generated questions. Providing thoughtful answers will increase your reputation and awareness of your brand.

    HubSpot’s Marketing Grader – Hubspot is a quick way to test your site’s lead generating capabilities. Simply enter your site address and it will tell you what does and doesn’t work within your site, including your blog, SEO, and social media effectiveness.

    Premise – Premise is another way to build and test landing pages, but it is strictly for WordPress sites. It builds and tests the page and also provides tips on optimization, copywriting, and content strategies.

    Google Adwords – Adwords tests and helps you find keywords that work for your SEO strategy. It also can help improve mobile ads, though you cannot customize them to a target audience.

    Google analytics – Google analytics is a robust web tool that tests just about everything your site has to offer. With a little customization, you can set GA to analyze each and every lead that your site generates, including conversion rates and assign goals. You even get comprehensive reports on how your campaigns are performing.

     

    Categories
    Email Marketing Online Marketing Tips and Tricks

    25 Best Tips for Email Marketing

    Top 25 Best E-mail Marketing Tips

    E-mail marketing is a great way to stay relevant in your customers’ minds. An expertly crafted campaign can be targeted to select audiences to drive customers and convert them to buyers. Aside from capturing new customers, it’s also an effective tool for building customer loyalty. Follow these best tips for e-mail marketing and ensure the success of your campaign.

    1. Make it easier to register with several options. Don’t ask for too much information.
    2. Offer valuable incentives for joining.
    3. Customize your messages and make them personal.
    4. Make text easy to read and don’t forget to alt tag images!
    5. Don’t make promises you can’t fulfill.
    6. Make sure to include relevant details in the e-mail, so they can learn about the product quickly.
    7. Optimize your e-mails for mobile devices.
    8. Provide information on what they will be receiving from you in subsequent e-mails.
    9. Position the registration box in a visible and easily accessible part of the e-mail.
    10. Use social media to drive e-mail registration.
    11. Monitor your results and cater accordingly.
    12. Make it easy for readers to unsubscribe if they want.
    13. Incorporate a content marketing strategy in your e-mails. Make sure the content is high-quality and relevant.
    14. Use lots of links within the e-mail.
    15. Don’t overdo it on the images, they may not even show up in the e-mail.
    16. Make sure your e-mail list is clean. Remove bad e-mail addresses so you don’t get flagged as spam.
    17. Send a test e-mail to yourself before sending to the main list.
    18. Ask users to add you to their contact list so they don’t miss information from you.
    19. Incorporate your social media profile with buttons.
    20. If you have an e-mail list, use it! Always create interesting newsletters to send to subscribers.
    21. Never, ever buy e-mails from another source. It’s spammy and will punish your business in the long-run.
    22. Don’t overuse your privilege by sending out constant, boring newsletters. Only send newsletter that are relevant and well-crafted.
    23. Always perform A/B tests to find the following info: what time is best to send e-mails, where the registration box is most effectively positioned, what types of e-mails to send, and what titles work best.
    24. Cater e-mails to cross-sell and up-sell. If you know what your customers are buying, you can suggest related products they may also like.
    25. Watch your competitors’ campaigns, but don’t copy their practices – one-up them!

    Sources:

    https://www.reliablesoft.net/25-email-marketing-tips-for-small-businesses/

    http://emailmarketing.comm100.com/email-marketing-tutorial/email-marketing-tips.aspx

    Categories
    Online Marketing Tips and Tricks Web Development

    Real Estate Marketing Nashville

    Nashville Trends Realtors Need to Know

    The Nashville real estate market is growing rapidly. Home values have gone up 9.2% since 2014 and are projected to grow another 3.1% this year. If you’re looking for effective real estate marketing in Nashville, there are a few great ways to improve your campaign.

    Zillow Is A Great Way To Capture Leads

    If you don’t have an account with Zillow already, you should consider signing up ASAP. Zillow is one of the top real estate search tools, capturing about 17% of online search traffic. Zillow offers free and premier accounts. The free account lets you create a profile, ad listings, and post on forums. As a premier agent, you will be the sole agent included with a real estate listing. A premier account costs between $200-400 per month, but it’s worth the investment for real estate marketing in Nashville, which at the moment is a booming and competitive market.

    Optimize Your Website For Google Search

    This one is a no-brainer, but there are ways to optimize your site specifically for Nashville’s market. Incorporating keywords on your site pages is the best way to rank highly with Google search, but the keywords have to have meaning. Do your research to find out which keywords work best and then cater them to your audience. In Nashville, that may mean incorporating trendy area keywords, like East Nashville, or catering to Nashville’s target market: musicians and young families.

    Send Out e-mail Newsletters and Direct Mail

    This is a low-cost way to market to a target audience. Sending out monthly newsletters and postcards will keep you in your customer’s minds, making them more likely to remember you when their real estate needs arise. As with website optimization, remember to cater to your audience. Maybe your newsletter can focus on DIY fixes in a craftsman bungalow home or the new restaurant that just opened in South Nashville. Or, send out direct mail that includes catalogs of listings, great things to do nearby, or statistics of Nashville real estate.

     

    Sources:

    http://www.zillow.com/nashville-tn/home-values/

    http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/how-to/marketing/2015/02/9-top-marketing-ideas-for-real-estate-agents.html?page=all

    Categories
    Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks

    Social PPC Management – 5 quick tips

    Social PPC management for beginners

    A well crafted pay-per-click campaign can generate a substantial amount of sales and insight for your business. Social PPC campaigns engage your customers by offering promotions and advertisements that are meaningful to them. While a social PPC campaign does drive visitors to your site, turning them into customers is not as simple and straightforward as just getting them there. In order for a campaign to be successful and worth the investment, your business needs a strategy that is proven to convert browsers into buyers. At Social Link, we offer social PPC management that will:

    • Drive traffic to your site at competitive pricing.
    • Convert visitors into buyers.
    • Retain customers and earn their loyalty.

     

    Quick Tips For Social Media PPC Management

    An expertly managed PPC campaign should rank your site in the top tier of results. PPC allows searchers to discover your site based on keywords that you may not otherwise rank with.

    PPC is advantageous because it’s a flexible way to buy keywords that work for you. If you’re trying to target a niche audience, bid on specific, long trail keywords which will cast a deeper net. On the other hand, bidding on more generic keywords will cast a broader net, bringing in higher volume but lower quality.

    Ad Content is changeable and scalable, so it can be updated day-to-day to reflect trending topics. To avoid ad burn-out, you need to stay on top of trending information. However, you can use old posts as a template for headlines and to A/B test images.

    Incorporating effective images is another vital aspect in gaining and keeping customers. This can be harder than it sounds, but effective images will generate more clicks than text alone. Use images that include people, especially if they’re looking at the CTA button. Be sure to test and update your images often.

    If you’re using Twitter, use Lead Generation Cards. They stealthily hide an ad within a tweet, and are great for driving e-mail sign-ups and white paper downloads.

    Most importantly, PPC produces measurable results that you can use to your advantage. You can see exactly how much traffic is being driven to your site based on the ads and how many of those visitors were converted to buyers. Use this information frequently to find out what works and what doesn’t. Then, cater new ad campaigns around this data.

    Categories
    Blog Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks

    10 Important Social Metrics You Need to Watch

    Choosing which social metrics you will follow can be a difficult choice. Part of the challenge lies in the fact that sales are not directly influenced by social media interactions, but they definitely help. Since following the numbers spit up by Facebook and Twitter is an inexact science, social media marketing comes down to following the most important numbers and understanding why it is happening.

    We are providing you with the metrics our company has found to be the most important. It is up to you to use those numbers to improve audience interaction.

    1.   Influence Score. Knowing your number of subscribers can be helpful. Audience size does positively correlate with business success but some subscribers are more vital than others. This metric tells you how influential someone is on a social media site. In other words, if Michael Jordan tweets about your product, more will listen than if average Joe tweets.

    2.   Audience Share. This is the percentage of your target market your brand reaches when compared to competitors.

    3.   Voice Share. This is how much of the conversation you have, as compared to competition.

    4.   Amplification Rate. The more your posts are shared, retweeted, and reposted, the more your voice is amplified.

    5.   Applause Rate. This metric records how many people enjoyed any given post, or number of posts over a time period, by measuring the number of likes, favorites, and other favorable actions.

    6.   Virality. Virality increases the faster the content is shared throughout different social media sites. This is a great way to measure how successful your online marketers are at reaching customers.

    7.   Bounce Rate. When customers visit your landing page then immediately click back, that is called “bouncing.” The higher your bounce rate, the less engaging your landing pages are. A high bounce rate will also hurt your SEO ranking.

    8.   Sessions. The “session” metrics judge interactions between you and your web traffic. If multiple people visit your website because of a Facebook post, that is considered a session. The duration of the session can also be judged. This can be very helpful when hosting online events, webinars, or sales.

    9.   Conversion Rates. This metric looks at how many conversions are made within a time period, as well as the going rate of conversion based on number of customers.

    10.   CPA. Important to marketing, you need to know how much it costs for your marketing and advertising teams to land new leads.

    Categories
    Blog Online Marketing SEO Tips and Tricks

    A Quick Guide to Optimizing Your website for Bing

    Companies are so focused on the importance of optimizing their search results for Google, they often forget the power in including Bing in their online strategy. This could be a mistake, however, since last year Bing held nearly 20% of the search market.

    Bing may not surpass Google anytime soon, but while your competitors are busy chugging away at Google SEO, now is your chance to pull ahead in this growing search market. Take advantage of this opportunity for Nashville search engine optimization and capture a new, largely unexplored market.

    Bing’s Focus: What Matters

    Keywords Matter (More). Google’s algorithm is pretty advanced. It excels at sifting through all the text on your webpage and figuring out content reliability. Bing locates your site by focusing more directly on what is typed into their search box. If your business works in a highly-specialized field, you want to focus your efforts around specific keywords.

    Anchor Text and Internal Links. Google is great at judging where your links send users. Outbound links and backlinks are less-favored than using internal backlinks with anchor text focused on your keywords.

    Visual Media Reigns King. The impressive range of decisions Google’s algorithm makes when a search is typed allows Google to judge websites on the text. To separate themselves, Bing has focused their efforts on celebrating the websites that utilize audio, video, pictures, and other visual media. It is great at sifting through pictures, and uses a special technique called entity understanding. This allows the search engine to discern whether the picture is a person, place, or object.

    Disavow Links. Bing has provided websites with the ability to disavow links that you do not want to be associated with. This is a great way to mitigate the damage done by excessive link-building practices, associations with websites that are spamming lots of SEO links to you, or removing any connection with a flagged website.

    Categories
    Blog Online Marketing Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks

    Meerkat, the Video-Based Social Media Site Companies Should Watch

    The new social video app called Meerkat is quickly gaining popularity. You have likely heard of its incredible versatility. Launched in February earlier this year, it began gaining traction around the beginning of March.

    At the end of March, Meerkat already has more than 120,000 users. With this app, users stream live videos, uploading the content to Twitter which then invites followers to the stream.

    There are a few explanations for why this app is so popular:

    • Our brains are predisposed to connect to others via faces when learning new things. Users are far more likely to retain information when they can see the face of the person imparting the content.
    • Aesthetic appeal matters to our eyes. Hollywood uses pretty people to reach us at our basest levels.
    • Body language imparts more information than words. What this means for marketing is that if the person showcasing a product is excited, followers will get excited, too.

    How Can Your Business Use Meerkat?

    First, let us answer why you want to stream directly to customers. The answer is very simple: users want personalized content. Internet marketing in Nashville is no different than anywhere else in the country, so consider wide reaching techniques. To be successful anywhere, you must capture your audience directly with personality, and there is nothing more personal than engaging someone directly. Meerkat allows customers to speak to marketers and business owners directly via Twitter and ask questions while the stream is still live.

    Consider these specifics instances where Meerkat could help your business:

    • Events. If you are hosting or advertising an event, your company can keep people that live far away from missing a conference, special reveal, or important information. You can provide videos that show things “behind the scenes.” Treat it like the ever popular special features on DVDs.
    • New Products. Major video game companies wait until E3 to show off their new products. Apple regularly holds product launch events to display new iPhones, tablets, and other devices. Meerkat allows companies to not only show products directly, but also answer questions consumers may have been directly addressed. Companies can also release important promotional material or talk about upcoming sales.
    • Interviews. Great leaders make themselves accessible. Instead of sending blasts from the CEO or doing reddit AMAs, company leaders can speak directly to their consumers.

    The possibilities are endless, ranging from telling stories, launching new hashtag campaigns, or giving tips on using products. Get involved!

    Categories
    Blog SEO Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks Web Development

    15 Link Building Ideas for Better SEO

    I was recently working on a project where I had to really dive deep into the link building strategy for a particular client. While doing my research I ran across everything from tactics in 2006 that have thrown some website into a Google purgatory to all the white hat must dos in 2015.  I have always found SEO Moz, SEO Book, and Search Engine Land to be great resources in general for all things SEO.

    So without further ado here are the top 15 link building ideas I found most helpful.

    1. If you need to build a post with a lot of content build a top “101 list”. A lot of times these will get Dugg or shared on social and can provide some pretty decent link juices to your site. If they are useful enough others will link to it naturally on their blogs.

    2. For quick and easy posts do a “top 10 tips and tricks” [ehm]. Its quick and easy for the user to get the information and go. They also have high incentive to share if useful to the user and the niche they serve.

    3. Make a list of extensive resources for a specific topic. Use your bookmarks and stay organized with all the tools available to you. There are a lot out there.

    4. Flattery is the best form of incentive to share. Find experts in the field and make them part of a top 25 list. They would love to tell everyone they made it!

    5. Do the opposite of #2 and create a list of myths or common misconceptions in your specific industry.

    6. Join your local business sites and directories. Join the Better Business Bureau, Chamber of Commerce, City or Government sites, LGBT sites, local libraries, etc.

    7. Review relevant products on retail sites like Amazon, eBay, Alexa, ePinions or whatever you niche is in.

    8. Link to other blogs. Its good to have friends in low places. Its better to have friends in high places.

    9. Become a sponsor of something. Maybe a local charity, something seasonal, or community driven. They almost always feature you as sponsor on their site.

    10. Create original and useful tools. A calendar for show times, a traffic estimator, or price comparisons.

    11. Footer links are generally frowned upon. But in my industry its appropriate to link in the footer. In this case, point it to an internal page.

    12. Offer something free for a review, feedback, or mention.

    13. If you have the resources…. Launch a firefox or chrome browser extension.

    14. Anyone can take formal pictures. It’s the drunk celebrities and people in their underwear that makes for great link bait on social media. I decided to test the truth of cats and clicking for this post.

    15. Make sure whatever it is you create – videos, tips, tricks, infographics, etc – make sure it is useful. Quality and originality equals virtuality.

    Categories
    Blog SEO Tips and Tricks

    Breaking SEO News: What’s in the Headlines

    Learning the latest SEO tips and tricks is great, but it’s also crucial to simply maintain a basic awareness of SEO changes, trends, and events. Keeping up on industry news will strengthen your knowledge base and help you apply the latest information to your own SEO campaign where appropriate. Here’s what’s happening:

    Google Penalties

    Google is not particularly forthcoming regarding its issuance of penalties. Some site owners and managers don’t even know they’ve been penalized until they find that their content is no longer near the top of search engine results. Websites that feature guest bloggers, such as MyBlogGuest, are the latest to figure this out. Google’s Matt Cutts reports that this type of content has been frowned upon because it has become more of a “spammy practice” over the years. This isbecause they largely function as a way to gain links – not as a means of distributing high-quality content that is relative to their industries.

    Web Conversion Tips

    While there are countless techniques for web conversion, some options have emerged as the most ethical and effective out there. These include contact forms on home sites, whitepapers available for download, user-friendly shopping carts, newsletter subscription capabilities, and compelling calls to action. These are the areas in which visitors settle into the top of the well – known “conversion funnel.” Without them, even the best businesses, services, products, and websites are ineffective. Whether B2B or B2C, these useful tools have solidified their roles in the marketing industry.

    Shopping Campaigns

    Google Shopping Campaigns are on their way to replacing Google’s current ad format. Both of these platforms display products from advertiser inventories. Not only will there be differences in format, however, there will be adjustments to campaign structures. Consider these features:

    • Multiple Ad Groups. Products can be segmented into groups with specific attributes, like “best sellers.”

    • Bid Simulator. If bids are too high, this feature will report the potential losses that may result from a difference in cost.

    • Impression Share. This component of the new shopping campaign provides competitor information that can be used to optimize strategies.

    These renovations are also excellent opportunities to further test and sharpen existing nuances, such as geo-targeting, mobile compatibility, and dayparting.

    Predictions for the Future

    Google’s penalty standards are ever-evolving and advancements in web conversion will likely continue. Shopping campaigns are not the only online marketing features that are predicted to change. Video marketing, for instance, is not a new phenomenon. However, all signs point to new and improved changes to its use. Facebook has introduced an enhanced version of its mobile ads platform. Video marketing combined with the best potential for mobile compatibility will result in continued growth.

    The diversification of social media platforms is another area that will continue to thrive. It’s no longer about Facebook, YouTube, or even Twitter. Instagram, Pinterest, Vine, and a host of others have solidified their online presence and reputations. Due to their credibility and stability – not to mention their effectiveness thus far – B2B and B2C businesses alike will not pass on the custom engagement and humanizing possibilities they offer.

    Categories
    Email Marketing Online Marketing PPC Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks

    3 Tips for Creating Compelling Infographics

    Humans tend to be visual learners, processing information we observe from the world around us. Data from the Social Science Research Network reveals that 65 percent of American adults are classified as visual learners. It’s no wonder, then, that infographics and sensationalized lists are the most shared items on social networks. By creating share-worthy infographics, your brand will harness the power of optimized visuals that enhance your viral marketing efforts.

    Creating compelling infographics, however, is more challenging than you might think. This is because you must effectively combine visual creativity with promotional material. By keeping these tips in mind, you’ll be able to design an effective infographic that grows both brand awareness and your bottom line.

    • Rank your data. Similar to optimized blog posts, infographics must be created with a hierarchy of information. What data is the most likely to resonate with consumers? Not all material can fit into a compelling visual design, so it’s critical to include only key marketing points. Consider the amount of information you can effectively convey without skimping on the details.

    • Find the perfect imaging tool. If you don’t have an in-house graphic designer, it’s vital to find a reliable tool to develop, reshape, and edit visuals. Sites such as Easel.ly and PicMonkey make it easy to create infographics online.

    • Show, don’t tell. Remember, infographics should be readable at a glance, with key information popping out for even the most casual reader. Also avoid repeating yourself, because the space on the infographic is limited and should be reserved for clear and concise brand storytelling.

    Categories
    Blog Tips and Tricks

    From the Experts: Tips for Increasing Brand Awareness

    Boosting brand awareness online is a primary motivator behind launching an internet marketing campaign. What steps has your company taken to spread the word about your brand? Take a look at these expert tips from a recent survey:

    Go beyond the blog. Pat Flynn, a successful entrepreneur, recommends going beyond the blog to incorporate videos, podcasts and webinars.

    Become the customer. According to Declan Dunn, acting like a new customer and searching the internet can provide valuable insights into your next brand awareness strategy.

    Focus on value. One tip from Kristopher Jones is to “focus on adding value” to your content. It’s not all about the sale.

    What tips do you have for increasing brand awareness online?

    Categories
    Online Marketing Tips and Tricks

    3 Ways Your Internet Marketing Efforts Can Improve

    Internet marketing is almost too broad of a term. With so many pieces to the puzzle, many companies are struggling to measure the effectiveness of their efforts. A recent study polled over 200 marketers in various industries about their progress. Let’s take a look at the areas needing improvement:

    1. Nearly 33% of survey respondents are not measuring the value of individual pieces of content.

    2. Two-thirds of those surveyed view the largest challenge as creating targeted, relevant and engaging content.

    3. Over 25% of survey participants post fresh, original content once a month or less.

    Compared to these statistics, how does your company measure up?

    Categories
    Tips and Tricks Web Development

    WordPress Web Development: A Smart Choice for Businesses

    WordPress is not just for bloggers anymore. In fact, nearly 20% of the top websites across the globe are powered by WordPress. Why is WordPress so popular, you ask?

    1. It’s free. One of the best features of WordPress is that it’s absolutely free. Though you can get fancy with your widgets and plug-ins, a basic WordPress launch will cost you nothing.

    2. It has powerful CMS. With WordPress, there’s no need for a secondary content management system. WordPress has everything you need to manage your website’s content right from the dashboard.

    3. It has robust tools. Since WordPress is an open-source platform, new tools are becoming available each day. WordPress’ SEO tools help your website play nicely with search engine algorithm changes, which boosts your site’s visibility.

    4. It’s quick & easy. WordPress is ideal for businesses that need to launch a website quickly and have little knowledge of web development.

    Does your business use WordPress? Why or why not?

    Categories
    Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks

    Tip: Facebook Business Contests

    Facebook-for-Businesses-Image

    Clearly, Facebook has taken over the way companies and individuals manage their social media strategies. In fact, one of the most basic ways a company will get involved with social media is by creating and maintaining a company Facebook page. Although the process itself is simple enough, many intrepid business owners do not realize that there are very different rules that govern Facebook use for businesses.

    Your Company Page is Not a Personal Page

    Most of the rules surrounding business Facebook pages can be explained by the idea that business pages are not personal pages, and they cannot be used as such. Most of the Facebook guidelines have been put forth so that no business page is able to “spam” personal pages on the network.

    Here are a few quick guidelines to remember when you are using your business’s Facebook page:

    • Regarding contests and giveaways: You may not use your business Facebook page to run giveaways. However, you may use the page to announce a giveaway being run by your company on another website or application

    • Also regarding contests: You may not require the sharing of any aspect of your business page on personal timelines as part of entry to a contest.

    • For posts that you would like to “boost” (using Facebook to provide additional sharing to increase your traffic): pictures may not be more than 20% text. Again, this is to prevent a business Facebook page from misusing the site for spam and promotions.

    The Takeaway

    All of Facebook’s rules for business Facebook pages can be found within the Terms of Service. However, a great rule of thumb for budding Facebook Masters is that you cannot, at any time, use your business Facebook page as a spam device. You also must not attempt to use your followers’ personal timelines as a part of your business’s social media strategy.

    As should be the rule with all your content marketing and social media efforts, producing high quality content that your users will be interested in, and perhaps want to share with others, is always the best practice. Many of these Facebook rules deal with shortcuts that businesses use for a boost, but it’s a boost you can achieve with great, consistent content – without any tricks.

    Categories
    Blog Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks

    Optimize Facebook For Your Business

    facebook21

    Linking It All Up: Making Business Connections Through Facebook

    In today’s high tech marketplace, using social media can make the decisive difference between a business that is growing and one that is stagnating. At the forefront of the social media scene, with over a billion users, is Facebook. While it may have gotten its start as a central destination for college students, today’s Facebook users come from all demographic groups. This makes Facebook a critical tool for any business looking to actively grow its customer base and build brand loyalty. Facebook offers a wide variety of possibilities for engaging customers over the internet. Try these tips for optimizing your business’s Facebook profile, and watch the returns roll in.

    Use a Vanity URL

    One feature of Facebook is that users can customize their URL, rather than using the randomly generated combination of numbers and letters otherwise assigned to profiles. Choose a simple vanity URL using your business’s name. This will make it easier for potential customers to find your business’s Facebook page. Make sure to add this URL to all of your company’s advertising communications, such as business cards and newsletters. You want everyone who works with your business to be reminded to check out your company’s Facebook page.

    Create a Landing Page

    When businesses think about Facebook, many erroneously believe that all Facebook pages look the same: contact info, a few links, and that’s about it. But it doesn’t have to be this way. One way to draw customers to your Facebook page is by creating a landing page or welcome screen that appears to any new visitor. Your landing page can invite users to like the page and often offers them an incentive for engaging, such as coupons or entry into a contest.

    In addition to offering promotions, a Facebook landing page can also be graphically interesting, displaying a well-designed advertisement or other image, for example, rather than just the usual Facebook skeleton. Once customers like your page, they can then move on to the more typical Facebook structure, displaying your posts and business information. But that first incentive to engage with your page is important – once customers “like” your page, they subscribe to your posts, integrating your business into their individual Facebook experience.

    Gather Customer Data

    Another feature that can be added to a business Facebook page is a customer information form. Just like a form on any other website, a Facebook form can allow customers to enter things like their demographic data, email, birthday, and phone number. This kind of information can help businesses get a sense of who their audience is and can also be used for other business promotions, such as birthday coupons. Customer data is extremely valuable for understanding who your business is reaching and better targeting your outreach and advertising.

    Share Photos

    Do you have photographs of your staff at a company event? Or of satisfied customers using your product? Sharing relevant business photographs on Facebook is a great way to build your brand. Informal photographs help to make your business seem real and friendly to potential customers. Invite customers to submit photographs of themselves using your product and make sure to capture company events on camera, like holiday parties or office birthday celebrations.

    Play The Expert

    One thing that your business should absolutely be sharing on Facebook is industry insights. Post links to articles about innovations in your industry to demonstrate your engagement with the field. Your Facebook communications do not need to all be explicitly about your specific business, but should reflect the position of your company in the larger marketplace. Posting this type of information also encourages other businesses to engage with your Facebook page, not just individual customers. In the same vein, “like” the pages of allied businesses to create a larger picture of your company’s place in the industry.

    Create Content

    Facebook content can come in a variety of different forms. Some of it, like links to relevant articles, is produced by people outside of your company. The majority of the content on your business’s Facebook, however, should be company specific and created by your company. Post short updates daily or every few days that tell customers what your business is doing. Did you just get a shipment of a new product? Are you collaborating with another company? Are you offering a promotion? All of this should be shared as status messages on your Facebook.

    Another type of content to focus on for your company’s Facebook page is blogs. Publish blog posts at your main website and link it to your Facebook. This allows you to share longer form information about your business and can help redirect customers from your Facebook to your main website. By engaging customers in multiple online forums, you increase their familiarity with your business and make potential customers more likely to become actual customers.

    Use Widgets

    What’s a widget? A widget is a tool that can be embedded in your web page to increase functionality. Companies like ShortStack offer widgets for you company’s Facebook page that can make it do an assortment of new and exciting things. For example, ShortStack offers a widget that can help your company run contests through your Facebook page. The widget allows your Facebook page to collect customer information so that you can choose a winner. But that’s not all widgets can do.

    Widgets are great for improving the ability of customers to interact with your company’s Facebook page. ShortStack, for example, will not only help integrate YouTube, Vimeo, SoundClound, and more into your Facebook page, but will also offer a wide variety of ways for your visitors to engage with all of this media. ShortStack’s widgets are free for small business pages and cost as little as $15 a month for businesses with more than 2,000 Facebook “likes.” This makes widgets a low cost way to get a huge return on investment.

    Integrate Your Social Media Presence

    Another way to integrate your social media presence and draw in customer interest is by taking advantage of the different formats that each platform specializes in. For example, a customer might ask you a question on Twitter. Since Twitter is a short-form platform, try writing a blog post on your home webpage, answering the question. You can then link this blog post to Twitter, answering the question, and post both to your Facebook page. This may sound like a lot of steps, but in reality, combining your social media presence in this way will reward your business with much greater customer involvement.

    Making The Most Of Social Media

    Managing your social media presence is a critical part of running a business in the 21 and one of the great things about social media is that it is essentially a level playing field. Even the smallest business can have a dynamic Facebook presence with just a little time and effort. That means that whether you have 200 customers or 2 million customers, social media can benefit you. A strong social media presence can help to build brand recognition and loyalty, particularly because it puts a personal face on every business. With Facebook, you can treat every customer like a friend.

    Categories
    PPC Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks

    Converting Customers With Google+ Hangouts

    Google+ hangout

    How Google+ Hangouts Can Help Your Business

     

    Google+ tends to be the overlooked younger brother of social networking, but Google+ – particularly its “hangout” function – has a lot to offer your business. Google+ hangouts allow your team to chat simultaneously with up to 9 other Google+ users, but it can do much more than that. Imagine everything you could do while chatting on a live video stream! Google+ hangouts is a great tool for small businesses that want to bring in more customers. As a mechanism for growth, Google+ is tops.

    Getting Your Business Started With Google+

    To use Google+ hangouts, your business first needs a Google+ account. This is easy to get and a valuable tool for any business. Google+ even offers different options for different kinds of businesses. That means that a page serving as publicity for your small local business will look different from a page for a national product brand. Having an official Google+ page can also improve your search engine rankings, especially if you link your Google+ page to your company’s official website.

    How Do Hangouts Work?

    The closest comparison that can be drawn to a Google+ hangout is a Skype session, or perhaps even a face-to-face meeting. What makes Google+ hangouts different from Skype, however, is that you can chat with more than one person at once through a hangout. In fact, you can “hangout” with up to 9 other people in a Google+ hangout, as though they were all right there in the room.

    To join a Google+ hangout, everyone logs in through their Google+ account and then you invite them to the hangout through your company account. After people join the chat through that invitation, all of their faces are visible at once via webcam, making it seem like you’re all in the same place. Google+ hangouts have a wide variety of uses for small businesses and can really help bring customers in the door.

     Google+ Hangouts For Product Demos

    One great use of the Google+ hangout feature is doing live product demos. Maybe you’ve recently received a new product that you want to tell your customers more about, or perhaps you have an older product that you think deserves a bit more attention. Do a product demo! Set up everything you need and invite some of your valued customers to log on and watch. Customers can ask questions as you go along because the whole set-up is live. While they may not be able to reach out and touch the product that you are presenting, a Google+ hangout-based product demonstration can be just as powerful in attracting customer attention to a product and to your business in general.

    Inviting valued customers to take part in a product demo is also a great way to express how much you value their input and opinions. This makes the chosen customers that much more likely to come back to your business regularly, and even to purchase the product you demonstrated through Google+ hangouts.

    Google+ Hangouts For Customer Service

    Another way to use Google+ hangouts is as a way of offering great and personalized customer service. Some businesses make a point of logging on to Google+ at a certain time each week and just waiting around for customers to drop in and ask questions – kind of like a professor’s office hours in college. Customers can see that you are online and can request to hangout with your business. This allows them to ask you questions face-to-face, and gives them an experience equivalent to having come into your place of business to ask their question. Customers appreciate both the general availability of businesses that provide this kind of customer service, as well as the convenience of not having to make an extra trip to the store.

     Google+ Hangouts On Air

    The hangout “on air” feature is a special tool offered through Google+. Essentially, this feature allows you to record a Google+ hangout. So, for example, if you were to do a product demonstration live for nine of your customers, you could also record that demonstration. That video could then be uploaded to YouTube or your Google+ page so that other customers could watch the demonstration at their convenience. This allows your company to multiply the number of people it reaches through any Google+ hangout – suddenly, a chat with 9 people has turned into video marketing to one hundred individuals. Some other things you can use Google+ hangouts on air for include:

     

    • Chats with experts in your line of business
    • Behind the scenes tours of your company
    • Hosting a webinar
    • Answering submitted customer questions
    • Giving a press conference

     

    The on air feature of Google+ hangouts really multiplies the reach of any video-based marketing. It also makes your Google+ video content available at the times that suit your customers. Maybe you have some loyal customers who would love to participate in your webinar, but want to do so at 2am. With Google+ hangouts on air, any time is a good time for customers to engage with your business.

    Google+ Hangouts For Crowdsourcing

    One of the best ways to convert customers or to keep established customers coming back to your business is by showing that you care about their opinions. Crowdsourcing through Google+ hangouts is an ideal way to engage with customers, allowing them to offer feedback on your business’s services and products and helping your company to improve. In many senses, crowdsourcing is just the old-fashioned comments box gone live.

    You can advertise your crowdsourcing efforts through your brick and mortar business as well as through your Google+ page. Let customers know that you will be setting up times to meet with groups and hear their feedback on your business. Customers today are very comfortable providing feedback through various social networking platforms, making Google+ an ideal way to solicit feedback. This kind of video-based crowdsourcing is similar to what a lot of businesses do today on Facebook: they pose a question and listen to their customers’ answers. In a Google+ hangout, customers can see that you’re really listening, and you have room to think on your feet, offering solutions and suggestions, and generally engaging with customer feedback on your business.

    Building Your Brand With Google+ Hangouts

    Google+ hangouts may seem like a cumbersome medium for building your brand, but as part of a larger, social media-based business growth plan, it can really work to increase customer traffic and involvement with only a limited investment. For example, if you know that 2pm on Thursdays is always a dull time in your store, it’s the perfect time to film a product demonstration through Google+ hangouts on air. You can use an otherwise profitless time to create something that is guaranteed to get you a great return on investment.

    It is precisely this low cost for high return on investment that makes Google+ hangouts an ideal way to build you brand. And having an active Google+ presence will only improve your search results with this leading search engine. So let your customers know what your business is doing. And let your customers tell you what your business could be doing better. With Google+ hangouts, the conversation goes both ways. With Google+ hangouts, your company can go live and grow as you reach out to customers in a new and innovative way.

    Categories
    Blog Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks

    Facebook-Based Contests For Your Customers

    facebook contests

    Running Contests Through Facebook

    One way to generate increased interest in your company’s Facebook page is by running a contest. Customers and potential customers love contests – the chance to win something by doing virtually nothing is hard to resist. And that’s the beauty of online contests. Typically all a customer needs to do is to enter their contact information, hit “submit,” and cross their fingers. Facebook can be a great platform for running contests, and those contests are good for business.

    Why Companies Run Contests

    Contests with modest prizes are, like many forms of advertising on the internet, a low cost way to get a big return on investment. One thing that sets contests apart from regular internet marketing, however, is that it makes it even easier to reach new customers, rather than just engaging current patrons. The technical term for the effect contests have is “lead generation. This means that contests literally create a larger audience for your business.

    There are really two parts to lead generation: you are both growing your general customer base, and more specifically, you are growing the audience for your Facebook presence. Because customers typically have to “like” your Facebook page to enter a contest, your company’s regular social media programming will become part of their feed. This helps to generate brand recognition and can help convert potential customers into actual customers. You can also have customers enter contact information and demographic data when they enter a contest on your page, helping your company build a database of customer information.

    Another reason why companies run contests is as a way of rewarding current customers. This act of rewarding often has a return effect, even for those who don’t win. Because contests are understood as an act of generosity, customers often feel obligated to reciprocate by making apurchase. This can make contests very profitable.

    The Mechanics Of Facebook Contests

    To run a Facebook contest, you will need to use an application. Facebook does not host contests through any type of native programming. Apps for running contests can range in costs from nearly free to hundreds or thousands of dollars a month, so make sure to choose one that is both flexible and affordable. The application you choose can be installed directly on your company’s Facebook page, and ideally also on your company’s main web page. When you download a contest application, that application will create a new tab on your company’s Facebook page through which to run the contest. Different applications will structure your contest in slightly different ways, but they all ultimately work on similar principles.

    It is also important that you know Facebook’s contest rules before you try to run one. There is an extensive list of rules about how to run a Facebook contest. One of the most important is that you cannot use a native Facebook tool, such as the “like” button to have customers vote on things. This is one way that Facebook prevents users from running contests without an application.

    Another important rule is that you cannot put reminders to vote or enter a contest in your cover photo. When it comes to notifying contest winners, you must first email, telephone, or otherwise notify winners of a contest before you can announce their name on your Facebook page or contact them via Facebook message. Finally, when you post a Facebook contest you must make it clear that Facebook is not the one sponsoring your contest. Make sure to read these rules carefully before attempting to run your Facebook contest.

    Making Your Contest Successful

    It can be hard to tell which Facebook contests will really be successful in bringing in a new audience and engaging customers, but there are several things that your company can do to improve the odds of running a successful contest.

    •  Integrate your social media platforms. It is not uncommon for companies to think of Facebook as the only medium for their contest, but customers are using all kinds of different social media platforms. Link your contest through your homepage, to your Twitter, and through any other social media platforms your company uses. This makes sure that no customers are left out.
    • Engage customers in choosing a winner. Once they have entered a contest, it is easy for customers to stop engaging with your company’s Facebook page. Give them a reason to keep coming back by involving customers in choosing the winner. How can you do this?Take a page out of Zipcar’s book. For one contest, Zipcar selected a group of finalists to win a trip. They then asked those finalists to make videos explaining why they wanted to go on a trip. Customers were able to watch the finalists’ videos and vote on the video they thought was the best. Strategies like this can help keep customers engaged in thelong term.
    • Encourage customers to check in. One mistake that companies can make is to overlook the relationship between the social media presence and the brick and mortar business. A great way to solidify the link between the two is to make “checking-in” at your store a part of your promotion. Facebook’s check-in feature allows customers to post statuses that note when they are in a particular location. Adding a check-in feature to your Facebook contest is also a method of lead generation, growing the audience for your social media site.
    • Choose the right prize. A Facebook contest will really only be successful if you choose a prize that is appropriate to your business. Sure, there are plenty of high-profile things that your company could give away, but if they have no relevance to your business, they aren’t helping to build your brand. This is a common mistake that companies make. One popular item to give away is an iPad. This makes sense if you are a technology business, but less sense if you are a hair salon. Keep your prize relevant if you want it to really contribute to your company’s brand.
    • Use Facebook ads. One of the difficulties with a Facebook promotion is that without additional outreach, it will only reach the people who are already engaged with your company. Facebook ads can help your company to reach a new and wider customer base. Keep your Facebook ads simple and clear and watch the new visitors roll in. Facebook ads are also a great tool because Facebook excels at targeting users with specific interests. This makes it much more likely that your ads will reach a receptive audience.
    • Follow up with the winners. The winner of your Facebook contest is a great person to target when looking for an endorsement. Follow up with your winner and ask them to write a guest blog or make a video showing them using their prize or talking about their satisfaction with your company.

    Will A Contest Benefit Your Business?

    Not every business will benefit from holding a Facebook contest. Small companies that target a niche market are far less likely to benefit from a contest than companies with a wider reach. Consider what your company’s goals are in running a contest and whether or not there are other ways to meet them. Maybe running Facebook ads independent of a contest will get you the same results. Or maybe your company would benefit by producing more original content, rather than running a contest. Running a contest just because people like contests isn’t a productive thing to do.

    If after consideration you think that your company will benefit from running a contest, then go ahead! Pick a great and appropriate prize, choose a Facebook application, and get started. Facebook contests can be extremely rewarding, help to build brand loyalty, and increase your customer base when well executed.

    Please comment with any ideas you have used recently. Thanks for sharing our content! 🙂

    Categories
    Blog Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks

    Instagram video – a vine killer?

    instagram-vs-vine-feat1

    Is Instagram Video The Next Big Thing?

    Last week, the digital photo program Instagram – best known for allowing smartphone users to tint and alter photographs and share them with friends – released a new feature: video. Instagram’s video service is up against competitors like Vine, which specializes in video, and already has a significant user base. Can Instagram’s video program compete with Vine? Or can it carve out a new market niche? Let’s look at some of Instagram’s video features.

     

    #1 – 15-Second Video

     

    Instagram’s video clips are 15 seconds long, more than twice the length of Vine’s 6-second video clips. While still short enough for the sort of instant uploading and sharing Instagram is known for, the 15-second format has generated a lot of interest. 15 seconds is also the length of short internet video advertisements. Many are wondering if there will be some kind of advertising connection coming in the near future.

     

    #2 – Filters

     

    It wouldn’t be Instagram if there weren’t an assortment of filters that could be applied to your video. There are currently 13 filters available for Instagram videos. Since filters are a large part of the Instagram brand, this is an unsurprising feature. Video filters work in much the same way as photo filters, adding a tint or coloration that often makes the product look vintage.

     

    #3 – Analytics

     

    Instagram is no newbie to the internet ratings games, and so their video program was launched with accompanying analytics. This is great for bloggers who want to see how well the new video format is reaching their audience. The analytics feature encourages users and businesses to take their Instagram videos to bigger platforms.

     

    #4 – Editing

     

    As part of their video program, Instagram has integrated basic editing features. Essentially, users are expected to film their videos clip by clip. You can only delete the last clip that you filmed, so with Instagram video, you need to edit as you go. At this point, there is no hint that more comprehensive editing tools are anywhere in the pipeline.

     

    #5 – Stabilization

     

    Instagram’s video will eliminate the shaky hand effect that often accompanies smartphone videos. This is called the Cinema feature in the application and it definitely provides for a smoother video production experience for users.

     

    #6 – Cover Frames

     

    Instagram allows users to select a single frame to show as the cover of their video. This can be a particularly great image from within the video or something like a blog URL written out, reminding users of the larger brand being marketed by the video.

     

    Features Businesses Are Jumping On

     

    Instagram’s video application is only days old, but already there are certain parts that have generated interest from both small and large businesses. The main point of interest is the video length. Because Instagram videos are the same length as internet advertising spots, many companies are in the process of working up Instagram-based product advertisements.

     

    The cross-platform potential of Instagram is another popular feature that businesses are examining closely. Instagram is not yet offering embed codes for its videos, but you have always been able to cross-post things between Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. This means that Instagram videos have the potential to pop up on a variety of social networks.

     

    Of course, another feature of Instagram video that is holding the attention of businesses is the cost of creating advertisements. Because Instagram is part of the level playing field that is social media, production costs can be low, but reap a major return on investment if an advertisement is successful.

     

    American Licorice Co.: Ahead Of The Game

     

    Because Instagram video has just hit the scene, most companies aren’t ready to fully use it yet. One company, however, is well ahead of the rest, and has already posted its first Instagram video advertisement on Facebook. That brand is the American Licorice Co., the maker of the popular Red Vines candy. The American Licorice Co. quickly put together a 15-second film spot about how Red Vines candy “makes the day sweet, no matter where it takes you.” It’s too soon to say if customers are biting, but it’s not for lack of effort on the part of this company. Other brands are sure to follow.

     

    The Competition With Vine

     

    As soon as Instagram video hit the ground, users started comparing it to another social media-style video platform – Vine. Vine is dedicated to making short videos and has a particular appeal among younger demographics. In many cases, though it only makes shorter videos, Vine is coming out ahead in the race between video applications. In one competition, a popular photographer and videographer on both platforms made identical stop motion animation videos on each platform and polled the viewers. Nearly every one of the thousands of viewers chose the Vine video over the Instagram video as their preferred video.

     

    Vine and Instagram are perfectly paired to enter a video showdown, particularly because Vine is owned by Twitter, and Instagram is owned by Facebook. Each program matches the larger format of its owner well, with Vine making shorter videos that suit the abbreviated Twitter format, and Instagram working in the slightly longer form like Facebook. Instagram’s videos are more like YouTube videos, playing only a single time when the play button is pressed, as opposed to Vine’s constantly looping videos, which tend to appear more like GIFs.

     

    Currently, one of the reasons Vine is pulling ahead of Instagram is the lack of an embed feature on Instagram. Vine’s videos can be easily embedded, meaning that they can be transported to any social networking or blogging platform. At launch, Vine was in the same position as Instagram, and did not offer an embed feature, so it is expected that Instagram will introduce this feature within a few months. A few months is more than enough time for Vine to pull ahead in the video production game.

     

    Still, for those interested in making slightly longer videos, and those who are looking for more editing options, Instagram video might hold just the right amount of appeal. Because Vine doesn’t offer an editing option, you have to discard the entirety of any video that contains a mistake. Admittedly, because Vine’s videos are only 6 seconds long, you won’t be losing a lot of work, but it can still be a hassle. Instagram allows you to delete the most recent section of your video and start over from an earlier point. It also has its ubiquitous filter feature, without which it simply wouldn’t be Instagram. These editing features could be enough to sway some Vine users over to Instagram.

     

    Which Format Is Best For Business?

     

    By and large, while Vine may remain popular with a small base of loyal, mostly younger users, Instagram video is a better format for businesses looking to get into video. The longer format is an advertising length that companies are used to, and the looping feature on Vine is more of an annoyance than an improvement when it comes to advertising. But the biggest aspect that should draw businesses to Instagram is the massive user base on Instagram. There are currently about 130 million Instagram users, compared to only about 13 million Vine users. If you want to reach a wide audience, Instagram is the way to go.

     

    There’s still room for development in terms of video quality, embedding, and even editing, but Instagram video is well on its way to changing the face of online marketing for small and large businesses. In the short, do-it-yourself platform of Instagram video, everyone can compete for a share of the market.

    Categories
    PPC Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks

    What You Should Know About PPC and Retargeting

    When it comes to retargeting, many marketers use search retargeting as their go-to strategy. There are a number of ways to strategize in this way, so make sure you’re diversifying as best you can. By the same token, pay per click (PPC) is another staple in online marketing strategies. But what is the best approach? Diversify by combining these two approaches.

    The best thing about using PPC is that smaller businesses have the opportunity to get great exposure online without having to spend a lot of money. Using PPC in addition to strong SEO is a highly effective way to drive traffic to your site. When traffic doesn’t convert, PPC plus retargeting is a way to go.

    Retargeting means that you use display ads to reach out to people who have already visited your website. By using an effective retargeting strategy, the traffic that you have already spent money to generate will see snippets of your content in lots of other places.

    Remember, if your audience sees your same retargeted ads a lot, they may get bored. Not only should you be retargeting – you should also make sure you’re updating your ads frequently to increase the odds of people returning to your site.

    In this way, traffic that may not have converted initially will see what you do all over the web. Whether or not they convert right away, these are valuable readers – and it’s important to make sure you’re paying attention to them.

    Categories
    Blog Tips and Tricks

    Creating Web Content That Converts

    Every marketer needs good content that converts. With any and all marketing strategies, it’s important to make sure that when searchers find your business, your content can convert them into buyers. Let’s talk about how this works.

    • Consider your audience. What are you hoping to achieve with your web content? How are you affecting your readers? When you can answer simple questions about your goals and your audience, you’re well on your way to creating great content.
    • Be direct and to the point. You’re not writing the next great American novel; you’re hooking your readers with content that they can scan easily in order to glean your main arguments quickly and effectively. You don’t have time for subtleties.
    • Keep it short and simple. You want short words, short sentences, and short paragraphs. Giant blocks of text with big SAT words are not going to make your readers want to stick around. Better yet, use lists and bullet points so that readers can skim over your text quickly.
    • Use bolds and italics – but only for the important parts. Your readers are going to zero in on the words that are most visible, so you want to make sure that you’re selecting key points for your readers.
    • It’s not all about text! Graphics can also be excellent hooks, so make the most of them. It’s much easier to ignore a lot of words than a graphic that packs a punch.
    Categories
    Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks

    LinkedIn Social Marketing

    linkedin-logo

    Of all the social networks, stats show that business owners should be spending the most time on LinkedIn, yet this social network is often the most overlooked. In terms of social marketing, business owners spend so much time focused on Facebook and Twitter – which is great! – but LinkedIn users have the highest median income at $109,000 and are more likely to do business deals online than other social network users.

     

    So what does it take to optimize your LinkedIn presence? Fortunately, achieving results doesn’t take a heavy time investment and only requires activity 3-5 days a week. For best results, try spending 30-45 minutes on LinkedIn a day, diffusing your time around morning, noon, and night when traffic is substantially higher. To maximize your impact, share the majority of your posts during weekdays and focus on social engagement during the weekend.

    Advanced LinkedIn Strategies

    Now that you know the best times to interact on LinkedIn, it’s time to consider more advanced strategies. These best practices for LinkedIn will help you accelerate your social network growth this year.

     

    1. Identify Thought Leaders in Your Industry. Compile a list of the top thought leaders of your industry on LinkedIn. Once you have the list, connect with them on LinkedIn as well as their other social networks. By slowly cultivating a LinkedIn relationship with these leaders, they might eventually share your posts to their established group of followers. Before they’ll ever share your content, though, be sure to share their posts to your network and truly seek to engage with them.
    2. Join a group. By joining a LinkedIn group specific to your industry, you can easily connect with other professionals who are inherently interested in your business and what you have to offer. Don’t be self-promotional. Instead, add to the discussion and cultivate relationships with the group’s most active and influential members.
    3. Think from the consumer’s point of view. On LinkedIn, it’s tempting to get very technical with your language and place the focus on your professional experience. Instead, make your profile summary compelling, relatable, and memorable. In other words, treat your LinkedIn profile like it’s content from your website. Yes, you want to showcase important information, but make it pop – make it catchy!

     

    Categories
    Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks

    YouTube Marketing Success

    Tips for Incredible YouTube Marketing Success

     

    With over 72 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, most content creators get lost in the ocean of new footage. However, brands that know how to leverage their YouTube presence have witnessed incredible success from the world’s second largest search engine. Brands such as Vat19 and DollarShaveClub receive millions of visits to their sites each month thanks largely in part to their YouTube channels. So how can you take advantage of this tool?

     

    1. Focus 110 percent of your efforts on content. While it’s tempting to promote your business or products through your YouTube videos, that shouldn’t be the focus. Traditional advertising doesn’t work on YouTube. Instead, create content that’s witty, engaging, and out of the ordinary – this is the content that thrives on YouTube. Don’t believe us? Check out these creatively engaging videos by some of the world’s largest brands!

     

     

     

    Now, this isn’t to say that you can’t post serious content such as how-to videos or in-depth discussions, but if you pretend that you’re cultivating a new channel for television, you’ll find yourself focusing on content instead of promotions.

    1. Take advantage of annotations. YouTube annotations allow you to make text appear on the video screen wherever and whenever you want. While most viewers might find this annoying, using annotations to enhance the user experience results in loyal viewers. For instance, use annotations to link to related videos that viewers will enjoy. You can even use annotations to encourage viewers to leave comments and subscribe to your channel!
    2. Link people to your website. While garnering a solid YouTube following can take some time, be sure to always use your videos as an opportunity to push people to your site. After all, what’s the point of marketing on YouTube if those users never visit your other pages? To do this, you should not only link to your site in each and every video, but also verbally mention your site in your video content. This ensures that your brand is continuously promoted to viewers in an effective manner
    Categories
    Blog Tips and Tricks

    5 iPhone Tips

    iphone tips  tricks

    The iPhone is  a powerful tool when used to its full potential. Check out Social Link’s 5 must-know beginner iPhone tips.

    1 | Screenshot: By pressing down on your “middle/home” and your “top/lock”  button simultaneously you can take a shot of your entire screen…

    2| Set a passcode: Setting a passcode is a necessity – cell phones carry sensitive personal information and photos. Setting a simple passcode can put your mind at ease upon losing your device…

    3 | Download “Find My iPhone”: This FREE app allows you to locate your stolen/misplaced device, lock or even wipe the entire device of all information…

    4 | Battery Conservation: Keeping your WiFi and Bluetooth off are two very effective ways of extending the life of your iPhone. Other tactics include reducing screen brightness and closing excessive data using apps.

    5 | Reducing data usage: Connecting your iPhone to your home, office or public WiFi can reduce the amount of data used on your plan. While connected to WiFi, your phone will not use your cell phone data plan.