It is just not another notion that social media is getting far much greater outreach as expected by many some years ago. It was considered to be a more of a fun time activity, and to form social groups. Now, it has taken a diversified step to play its most updated part in internet marketing and optimization campaigns. So, you need to be sure that your products are properly seen or heard in the internet world, and the best way is to be on all mediums.

If you want your product or service to become a Brand Name then you have to have a clear cut thought in mind as where you want to take your business. If you feel like getting on top of the game, with all white hat Search Engine Optimization practices then you have to fire a reliable agency that can perform such functions for you. It is just not a matter of direct or conventional marketing anymore, and you need to focus on prospect clients who are moving all around with smart phones in their hands.

An effective campaign on social media like face book page creation and management or a LinkedIn profile will do great works for you. You will see lots of potential customers switching to your brand due to an eye grabbing advertisement on Social Media or a blog that kept their attention and they redirected to your official website. So, it is just too much necessary to be out for proper SEO Practices and for Social Media Marketing for sure. It is just a great thing that comes around for you to carry on a very good level for your Business Promotion and to be seen on top ranks on search engine results.

Internet Marketing is combination of so many marketing factors and Social Media Marketing is one such domain that is rapidly taking charge of brand promotions and advertisements. You can make it all happen in great delights for your financial prosperity and for having a proper stance in the world of digital marketing. You will do it all for your great Return on Investment (ROI).

It is here that you need a well reputed search engine optimization company, to let you introduce to the whole new group of clients and best people around. You can make all that well with a proper presence on local business lists and with a proper social media campaigns by great SEO technicians. Well, it is a separate field and social media managers are hired and work independently for your business promotion. But you can get these services form a good optimization company as they work all at one place and in a bigger scope.

Facebook

Facebook is one of the most commonly used platforms for social media marketing of brands and businesses. While you might be using this platform for your social media marketing activities and getting good results as well, here are two tips to enhance and enrich your business’s Facebook presence.

1. What are people talking about your business? Use Targeted Conversations to find out!

When you type a few keywords related to your brand and business, you will find various search results. Of all the search results, there will be a few results which are old posts from people’s News Feed. These help you understand what sort of conversations happen about your business and what people’s opinions about your business are.

2. Use the Poll feature to bring in people’s opinions in groups and events

Earlier, you could create polls from your timeline itself. Now this has been replaced by a ‘polls only in groups and event pages’ feature. This helps you get feedback about events conducted by your company and feedback about other activities conducted.

 

Twitter

The social media marketing techniques used on Twitter should be yielding you good results, but going a step further, it is good to do a little bit more to get better results. Here are 2 tips to  enhance the output of your efforts put into marketing your business on Twitter.

1. Keep track of those who unfollow you

If you are a business still building your brand in the social media space, especially Twitter, it is essential for you to keep a track of who’s unfollowing you. If influencers from your industry feature in the list of people who have unfollowed your Twitter handle, then it is a red alert for you to check your Twitter strategy.

2. Research hashtags before using them

When you are using hashtags in your tweets, it is better to understand more about them. This helps ensure you use hashtags unique to your business, thereby helping you create a solid identity on Twitter. In future, your customers and potential customers will surely be able to associate the hashtags with your business or brand. Topsy is a tool which you can use to analyse hashtags. It is a free tool which will give you the analysis of various hashtags.

 

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is also used for social media marketing of brands and businesses. The kinds of posts carried out on LinkedIn are slightly different from those on other social media platforms. The social media marketing techniques used for LinkedIn are slightly on the serious, intellectual side. Here are two social media marketing tips to help you utilize the power of LinkedIn better.

1. Add media files to your LinkedIn profile

LinkedIn allows you to add various kinds of media files to your profile. This can be a great way to portray your company’s work to the people out there! Embedding files to your LinkedIn profile is a very simple process. This helps you create a portfolio of your work.

2. Create a Showcase Page

LinkedIn offers a Showcase Page feature to companies. This is part of the Company Page but is also an exclusive section which can be used to promote your products and services. The advantage of having a showcase page is you can have content specific to your target audience. This helps draw the attention of your target audience easily.

 

Pinterest

Pinterest is a social media marketing platform for businesses belonging to certain industries. Here are two tips for businesses which benefit from having a Pinterest for Business account. This will help further your business’s social media marketing activities.

1. Use URLs which can be tracked but not marked as spam

Pinterest marks shortened URLs as spam. So, when you need to track the traffic coming in from various platforms which includes Pinterest, it is best to use URLs with UTM codes which will help you track the traffic from Pinterest on to your website or blog. This URL will be long but will not be marked as spam by Pinterest, but since Pinterest URLs cannot be seen by viewers, it is easy to use.

2. Track who Pins from your site

Pinterest lets you find out who Pins from your site. This helps you understand the demographics and interests of the people who view your website. This in turn lets you target your posts better as well as understand what sort of content and resources people who visit your website look for. You can find out who Pins from your site using this URL – http://pinterest.com/source/yourdomain.com/

We are sure these tips will help you create better and more effective social media marketing strategies for your business. Social media marketing is a constantly changing landscape with a never ending stream of knowledge for you to lap up.

Not to be confused with the Better Business Bureau, which represents the interests of both consumers and businesses alike, the Chamber of Commerce solely represents the interests of business owners.  Today there are thousands of these organizations all across the U.S., all of them focused in one way or another on promoting any number of pro-business initiatives.

Today’s Chamber of Commerce organizations range from the all-encompassing and nationwide U.S. Chamber of Commerce all the way down to the state, regional and local levels.  The exact nature and extent of the activity undertaken by the Chamber then varies in accordance with the level at which it operates.

For instance, local Chambers of Commerce are focused on bringing their own business community together in ways that will foster their members’ own growth and support for one another. In many cases, that means working with local government representatives, such as the mayor, the city council and other local representatives to ensure the voices of the Chamber’s actively engaged entrepreneurs and other business owners are heard and that their needs are being met.

Becoming a Local Chamber of Commerce Member

Okay, so it sounds like a no-brainer that any small business owner should get on board, join up and join in, at the very least where the local Chamber of Commerce is concerned, but not so fast!

Before you do, you need to understand going in that becoming a member of your local Chamber of Commerce will cost you some money.  That’s right, paying dues of some kind is required.  And while those dues will constitute a tax write off for you and your business, given that joining the Chamber isn’t free, it begs the question: “Is it worth it?”

We’ll get to that in a bit.

For now, just know that conducting a straightforward cost-benefit analysis is only part of the equation when it comes to making this decision.  It’s also important to understand that getting the best return on your investment will require something you may already believe you don’t have enough of these days…time.  Joining the local Chamber if you’re not going to take the time required to become an active member is probably not going to pay off much for you, certainly not in the long term.

Yes, joining your local Chamber of Commerce is essentially about your own business’ growth, that’s for certain, not just initially but well into the future.  It’s also about building relationships over time that will take time, but that will also have a tremendous positive impact on your professional and personal growth, as well as that of your surrounding community.

Chamber of Commerce Membership: Benefits from the Consumer Perspective

When it comes to describing the benefits of doing anything, there’s a tendency to rely on what would be considered more anecdotal evidence, especially where there’s been little research conducted or a lack of more scientifically driven information is available.

Thankfully that’s not the case when it comes to understanding the value of joining a local Chamber of Commerce from a consumer and customer relations standpoint.  On this subject, the findings are pretty clear.

In fact, a recent study designed to measure consumer perspectives on this topic yielded some pretty impressive numbers for building a persuasive argument as to why businesses and companies that don’t join their local Chamber may be doing themselves a tremendous disservice.  It was conducted by The Schapiro Group and Market Street Services using a scientific web-based survey of 2,000 adults across the country.

First among the most telling results?  When consumers know that a small business is a member of their local Chamber of Commerce, they are 44% more likely to think favorably of it, and they’re a full 63% more likely to purchase goods or services from that company in the future.

Talk about brand awareness and image enhancement!

Additionally, a high level of involvement in the local Chamber by a business grants it a certain level of trustworthiness and a competitive edge in the local marketplace. In fact, those businesses are automatically perceived by many to be industry leaders.

Furthermore, Chamber membership confers a higher level of distinction on certain types of businesses in particular, including restaurants and insurance companies.  And it results in all companies being more highly perceived as users of good business practices, reputable, caring about their customers and being more involved in their communities overall.

Chamber of Commerce Membership: Benefits from the Business Owner Perspective

So we’ve pretty much established that joining the local Chamber of Commerce carries a certain level of cachet where consumers’ perceptions are concerned.  And that alone is a great reason to get involved, no question.

But remember those more “anecdotal” benefits we referred to earlier?  They’re every bit if not more important to you as a small business owner because they represent the nuts and bolts of how your joining the local Chamber can yield measurable and positive results for you and your specific business over time.

Here they are:

Promotions and publicity—Many local Chambers run programs that offer promotional materials, events and activities to welcome new residents and businesses to the area, ensuring that your business is front and center and ahead of the local competition with this very valuable target audience.  Additionally, business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) advertising and publicity opportunities are oftentimes available to members exclusively, and mailing list access alone could be worth its weight in gold.

Networking—While today’s technology and the ability to network online may have you wondering if the local Chamber of Commerce way of doing business in person is obsolete, think again.  There’s still nothing as strong as face-to-face communication where building trust, respect and name recognition is concerned…nothing.  And it’s only through building that level of relationship over time that you are likely to acquire customer referrals and find the most suitable vendors, consultants and distributors you need to help you grow your small business long-term.

Mentoring—We’ve talked a lot in these pages about the incredible benefit of having a mentor when you are starting or trying to grow your own small business, and the local Chamber of Commerce is a great place to find one.  It’s also a great place for you as an established small business owner or entrepreneur to offer your services to an up and comer in this regard.  Nothing pays you back like paying it forward, and mentoring is no exception to that rule.

Events and programs—The local Chamber of Commerce will likely facilitate a whole host of activities and events over the course of a given year, each designed to help you as a small business owner to either get to know your peers, your competition or your customers that much better.  These kinds of programs provide tremendous business opportunities for people to get to know one another and expand their prospect base and generate great leads.

Members-only discounts and services—Oftentimes, local Chambers of Commerce will negotiate deals with companies and businesses that provide the products and services that businesses need most, such as phone and internet service, computer hardware and software or other vendor products and services.  And don’t forget health care insurance access.  These discounts alone can mean hundreds of dollars in savings to the small business owner in particular, making the cost of dues almost negligible by comparison.

Government access and impact—Because the local Chamber of Commerce speaks with a united voice, one very much in favor of business interests, members are more likely to have an impact on government decision-making as part of a larger body than they would on their own.  Additionally, elected officials are much more likely to entertain an audience of concerned local Chamber of Commerce members than they are any one individual business owner, especially if he or she is not representing a very large concern or at the very least a large contributor.

An Office Away from the Office—Small business owners, especially those who work from a small home office, will have a place they can go to congregate with other professionals when and if the need for human interaction and exchange becomes preferable.  Moreover, they can oftentimes use the Chamber’s facilities to host clients and hold meetings, ensuring they have a more professional office environment available to them that may even be available at a moment’s notice.

For More Information:

Looking for more insight on what belonging to your local Chamber of Commerce might mean for you and your business in terms of consumer appeal? We invite you to read more about the study findings referenced in this article at The Real Value of Joining a Local Chamber of Commerce: A Research Study.

If becoming an active member of your local Chamber of Commerce is something you’d like to learn more about, we recommend that you contact that organization directly, and if you’d like more information about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, you’ll find it here at http://www.uschamber.com/.

Internet marketing is becoming more and more popular. A clean and professional strategy helps to build backbone of your online business. In the world of digitization traditional marketing has shifted with the popular online marketing techniques to reach out potential customers. As, we are in twenty first century, where our world is much advanced with technology, it’s time look forward to the most relevant trends of marketing this year.

Advancements and regular changes in digital marketing techniques are always accelerating and make it hard to keep up for the casual observers. So, let’s review the trends and predictions for 2015.

 

Mobile Optimization:
Mobile marketing has shown maximum growth rate in the past few years. In 2014, we saw the responsiveness and adaptive features in websites or mobile app. This year is moving beyond the simple mobile friendly websites and app. Apart from these techniques, mobile optimized content and social media marketing has shown significant growth.

Google’s specific emphasis on the mobile-friendly websites has been crucial for SEO point of view. They even stated that mobile usability is further relevant to search results and a major search ranking factor. So, we might predict that half of the websites will finally incorporate mobile into all areas of digital marketing. Mobile Ads, specific content creation for Smartphone users with a fully responsive website are crucial to boost success this year. So, consider a strategy of how the customers react with your social media posts and consume the feeds about your services.

Be more social:
Social media is the integral part of marketing strategy. Increasing number of fan followings in Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest have forced the marketers to invest more in social media. Advertising campaigns, regular posts and updates have increased exposure to traffic, given new way to scale the results. Website clicks, app download, email opt-ins, etc are beneficial for small to medium scaled businesses.

More on Content Marketing:
From Google’s perspective, content is the king in every marketing effort. In B2B marketing research, over 90 percent of marketers use content marketing due to effectiveness. As, SEO, PPC and Social Media have allocated more on content marketing efforts, you need to find out the best way to stand out amidst the throngs. Content is not only text; video content and research base content boosts search engine activities and gives advantage in huge competitive market. Invest in mobile content, video and visual content is the basic marketing technique to look forward this year.

Email Marketing:
Email marketing is a cost effective solution of reaching more customers and large ROI. You can reach to customers and start direct communication with them, which helps to build relationship, trust and loyalty. You can reach the current and potential customers effectively using the well written, engaging e-newsletters. With each email sent, brand awareness starts to develop and thus keeps your business in top priority list within customers. After a successful reach out, people will remember your business and come back again.