Jody Raines

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How To Develop An Online Brand

Online marketing strategyWhen it comes to being discovered online, the one part of your online presence that you “own” is your website.  Your website should be the cornerstone of your online strategy – the information contained is the beacon that customers can find when they look for you or your services.

But, your website is only a part of your online campaign for online branding. Granted, an optimized website is the most important component of your online marketing strategy, however even with the most glorious and well thought-out website, you may be missing huge opportunities to support your product, champion your brand and connect with your customers and prospects.

Social media marketing was a “buzzword” that we started to discuss a several years ago. You may also have heard the terminology “new marketing” or “online marketing” or even “inbound marketing”. The concept is to create an optimized online presence to help your customers find you and your business. A lot of the social media “guru’ types talked about “engagement” and there was much nodding of heads. But the reality is that there is very little engagement happening, even today, because so many companies have opted to run automated campaigns.

I’m not against all automation, but it just does not work for every organization in every situation. Especially in times of high national tension, when the focus is on an earthquake or superstorm, having an automated message about sunny skies is a real disconnect with your audience. The worst thing you can to is have your customers disengage, opt out, and disconnect. Now, those wonderful social channels have worked against you.

If I had to pick one word to describe the best practices for social media marketing, that word would be responsive. Not only are we striving for responsive design in websites, but we also should be responsive to our audience and to the societal and cultural changes around us. If you are responsive, you are creating content that is relevent and that has true appeal to your targeted customers.

A responsive website is one that fluidly re-conforms to the device it is being viewed on. Newer websites are being created that have this feature built in. Some of the older websites have both a desktop version and a mobile version. Without getting too technical, what you want to be sure to do is to present the version that is best viewed on the device that the viewer is using at the time they visit your site. It makes perfect sense, right?

One of my biggest frustrations is one of the news alert services that I use that sends me a link to an article that I want to read. When I click on the link, I’m taken to a general page that may or may not contain the article. Eventually, I stop clicking on the link and ignore the alert. I may even unsubscribe from the alert. This is no different than putting the wrong terminology or advertising or teaser to an article, then sending the reader to a site that is so general, they get turned off. Social media is an awesome tool to drive traffic to your site – just be sure that the link is truly the target of the tweet or Facebook post. Otherwise, you will lose customers.

When it comes to internet branding and social media optimization, the rules for marketing have changed, and without a social media presence, you will be a dinosaur. Customers are searching and researcing using the Internet. There is an entire generation that is growing up in a world where using Google is second nature to find answers. The changes that search engines have gone through are taken in stride, and adopted readily. To be sure that your online brand is being appropriately represented in today’s informational society means you have to be relevent and you have to be present. That includes social media. The old excuse that your customers don’t use social media is becoming tired and inaccurate. Your customers use social media, and they use it every day. They may be checking their email first thing in the morning, which includes their Facebook statuses and their friend’s updates. The way we communicate is much more fluid, more rapid and most likely, online.

Be aware of derogatory messages about your brand and be responsive. Don’t hide from critical reviews, but address them with equally positive reviews from your customers.

Social media marketing, is primarily social, and secondarily its media, and finally, it’s marketing. Keeping the appropriate perspective will go a long way to your successful online branding and internet marketing campaign.

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Social Media Tips: How Much Time Should I Spend on Social Media?

Clients who have accepted the fact that Twitter and Facebook andsocial media marketing, how much time for social media Linkedin are great for business, have asked me how much time they should devote to social media marketing.  It’s a valid question, and one that has more than one answer.

It depends on what your goals are and what you hope to achieve.  Keep in mind that Google has admitted that social media clout is one of the ingredients in their search engine ranking formula, and having your message tweeted by others can briefly have your website listed as number one on Google.

The Internet is a dynamic environment and the old days of optimizing a website and then leaving it for a year just don’t work any longer.  We no longer can say the Internet is changing daily or even hourly –  the content is changing every second as more and more people add to the information that is available online.

If you are not adding your business or brand information to the mix, then it’s tantamount to everyone taking a step forward, and you are standing in the same place.  Even though you didn’t move, you wound up behind everyone else!

So, the first step to determining how much time you should spend on social media marketing is to determine what your goals should be.  What do you hope to achieve using social media?  Are you using social media as a broadcast device?  If so, I can already tell you, it doesn’t matter how much time you spend, you are using it wrong!

One of the things I look at when I evaluate how my client is using social media marketing – and this is a great way to determine whether that so-called “expert” really knows what he or she is doing – is to see if there is a broadcast mentality to what they are sharing, or whether there is true engagement.  I have seen these ‘experts’ with the same message sent multiple times. That’s enough to recognize that they obviously do not understand how to use social media and therefore, I wouldn’t waste any money or time investing in having them help set up a campaign.

Automated programs also are a waste of time.  That’s the same as calling and hoping to get a live person, and then become frustrated with not being able to reach a person. They can actually cause more harm than good in a social media program, and any ‘expert’ who is advocating automating should be burned at the stake!

So, how do you manage your social media and how much time should you invest?

Just as organic optimization takes time, so does your social media program. If done correctly, it will stand the test of time.  Just like “black hat” SEO techniques can have a short upsurge then have dire consequences, so can these ‘quick win’ social media plans.

So, with that being said, here is my recipe for a general social media program:

1. Post a blog at least once a week. Twice a week if possible.

2. Link your blog to your Facebook business page and Twitter and Linkedin profiles.

3. On a daily basis, check into Twitter and send out Tweets for fifteen minutes.  You can break that into three five minute intervals during the day.  You’d be surprised how much useful information you can obtain in those five minutes.

4. Post a question or observation on Facebook on a daily basis.  Ask for input or feedback on a topical issue.  Encourage interaction.  This may take another ten minutes.

5. Daily, review your Linkedin messages and respond. This may take another 5 minutes.

So, all told, excluding the time you took to write your blog, your entire social media program may take thirty minutes a day.  Of course you can spend more time if you’d like.

There are tools that can make monitoring your social media much easier, and we will address these tools in a  future post.

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How much time do you take for your social media program? Where do you focus your social media efforts?  Have you seen an increase in sales based upon your social media efforts?

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Social Media Marketing And Your Online Brand

Jody Raines, social media tools

Social Media tools and your online brand

Your website is only a part of your online campaign for online branding. Granted,an optimized website is the most important component of your online marketing strategy, however even with the most glorious and well thought-out website, you may be missing huge opportunities to support your product, champion your brand and connect with your customers and prospects.

Social media marketing was a “buzzword” that we started to discuss a several years ago.   You may also have heard the terminology “new marketing” or “online marketing” or even “inbound marketing”.  The concept is to create an optimized online presence to help your customers find you and your business.  A lot of the social media “guru’ types talked about “engagement” and there was much nodding of heads.  But the reality is that there is very little engagement happening, even today, because so many companies have opted to run automated campaigns.

I’m not against all automation, but it just does not work for every organization in every situation. Especially in times of high national tension, when the focus is on an earthquake or superstorm, having an automated message about sunny skies is a real disconnect with your audience. The worst thing you can to is have your customers disengage, opt out, and disconnect.   Now, those wonderful social channels have worked against you.

If I had to pick one word to describe the best practices for social media marketing, that word would be responsive.  Not only are we striving for responsive design in websites, but we also should be responsive to our audience and to the societal and cultural changes around us.  If you are responsive, you are creating content that is relevant and that has true appeal to your targeted customers.

A responsive website is one that fluidly re-conforms to the device it is being viewed on.  Newer websites are being created that have this feature built in.  Some of the older websites have both a desktop version and a mobile version.  Without getting too technical, what you want to be sure to do is to present the version that is best viewed on the device that the viewer is using at the time they visit your site.  It makes perfect sense, right?

One of my biggest frustrations is one of the news alert services that I use that sends me a link to an article that I want to read.  When I click on the link, I’m taken to a general page that may or may not contain the article.   Eventually, I stop clicking on the link and ignore the alert.  I may even unsubscribe from the alert.  This is no different than putting the wrong terminology or advertising or teaser to an article, then sending the reader to a site that is so general, they get turned off. Social media is an awesome tool to drive traffic to your site – just be sure that the link is truly the target of the tweet or Facebook post.  Otherwise, you will lose customers.

When it comes to internet branding and social media optimization, the rules for marketing have changed, and without a social media presence, you will be a dinosaur.  Customers are searching and researching using the Internet. There is an entire generation that is growing up in a world where using Google is second nature to find answers.  The changes that search engines have gone through are taken in stride, and adopted readily.   To be sure that your online brand is being appropriately represented in today’s informational society means you have to be relevent and  you have to be present. That includes social media.   The old excuse that your customers don’t use social media is becoming tired and inaccurate.  Your customers use social media, and they use it every day. They may be checking their email first thing in the morning, which includes their Facebook statuses and their friend’s updates.  The way we communicate is much more fluid, more rapid and most likely, online.

Be aware of derogatory messages about your brand and be responsive.   Don’t hide from critical reviews, but address them with equally positive reviews from your customers.

Social media marketing, is first social, second media, and third marketing.  Keeping this in perspective will go a long way to your successful online branding and internet marketing campaign.

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Social Media Marketing Tips: How To Optimize Your Blog

Social media marketing and website optimization are dependentBlogging social media upon adding content on an ongoing basis. Business blogging is a part of social media marketing where you can add dynamic keyword-rich content to a website.  Assuming that the blog is part of the website, the blog can be a forum to express ideas, philosophies and share information.

Understanding the power of a blog includes making the commitment to use the blog in a way that it adds value to the website.  Simply having a blog that is dormant does not add interest or value.

Many businesses make the mistake of having a blog, but then underutilize it.  Here are three key blogging best practices that can help power your blog and help to optimize it’s value to your Internet marketing program and your website:

1. Blog often.

If you have a blog and you aren’t adding to it, it’s not really a blog.  Blogs are meant to be living, breathing and dynamic content for your website.  If you haven’t yet made the commitment, you really should blog at least once a week.  Obviously if you can blog more, then you have more opportunities to connect with a potential customer.

2. Use keywords.

If you write for your blog without considering keywords in your content, you are missing a huge opportunity.  Determing which keywords are effective and then weaving them into your articles can help your blog be discovered in Google searches.  Using the Google keyword tool is a free way to evaluate keywords.  Another trick is to use Google Analytics to evaluate how people are finding your website in order to focus on those topics.

3. Don’t sell.

Blogs add the  most value to the website, when they complement the site, but are not sales oriented.  Don’t make the mistake of using your blog just to pitch your products.  Share information, thoughts, lists, ideas on topics that could potentially be of interest to your customers. By sharing information, you position yourself as an expert and a go-to source.

If you follow these best practices for blogging, be sure to stick to them. Like starting an exercise program or a diet, it’s only as effective as your commitment.

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