10 Must Have Social Media Tools for Small Businesses Do You Have the Time to Manage Your Social Media Empire? If you run a small business, one thing that you probably don’t have a lot of- is time. You don’t want to spend a huge amount of time learning how to find and learn how to use the best tools to achieve your goals. Since my business is social media and web development I actually enjoy researching the best tools and have developed a portfolio of great tools and a workflow that works well for me. In this article I list the main tools I would recommend to most small businesses. Of course every situation is unique so I do recommend tailoring a system that works for you. Social Media Plan Firstly, I have a question… What are you trying to achieve? What I am not going to cover… I am not going to cover how to build a social media plan in this article- I am going to assume that you already have a presence on your social networks of choice- perhaps Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and/or Google+. Marketing Areas View The Infographic 1. 2. bit.ly 3. 4.
Content Rules These 5 Brands and Nailing It on Pinterest When it comes to Pinterest, many brands aren’t quite sure how to turn boards and pins into followers and potential customers. However, now more than ever it is important to not overlook this image sharing social network. Pinterest users have proven that they trust their Pinterest networks to endorse solid products. These people trust their networks so much, in fact, that 47% of U.S. online consumers have made a purchase based on recommendations from Pinterest. Pinterest also generates 4x more revenue per click than Twitter and 27% more per click than Facebook. There are a few brands, however, who have figured out the business potential of Pinterest. L.L. From fashion, to the outdoors and wildlife, to outdoor activities and wedding themes, L.L. They recently added boards that are just in time for the holidays. Nordstrom ~ 4.4 Million Followers Nordstrom’s 64 boards feature all kinds of fashion, DIY, decor and designer boards for their large number of followers (and shoppers) to enjoy.
Developing personas for marketing strategy Personas are an extremely valuable tool for marketers in any field. If you're not familiar with the term, personas are representations of your target audience based on research and interviews. From PR to digital to advertising, any marketing team or agency can benefit from developing client- and/or brand-specific personas. As an example, let's say one of your target audience types is a 18-21 year old male who likes emo music, skateboarding and high-end electronics. You would come up with a name for this person along the lines of "Nate" and you would find an image of him to use in your planning. Why personas are important: Personas put a face on the customer. How people screw them up: Personas take time and research to get right. How you can avoid screwing them up: Get data. A great sample model. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. *Diagram developed by Lene Nielsen of Snitker & Co. More quality persona resources: So what else do you do when planning personas?
4 Pinterest Tools to Grow and Measure Your Pinterest Presence Do you need help measuring your Pinterest activity? Are you wondering which tools can help you grow your followers on Pinterest? In this article, I’ll show you 4 tools to help you analyze and grow your presence on Pinterest. Why Pinterest Tools? The average Pinterest user follows nine brands and spends just over 15 minutes on the platform. That means to compete, you have to be able to serve up fantastic images, measure the impact of your efforts and connect with new followers on a regular basis. If you don’t have a large budget to sink into your Pinterest strategy, integrating the time-saving shortcuts and functions of a few affordable tools can work wonders. Here are four tools worth consideration… #1: Monitor Your Analytics With Tailwind While Pinterest provides some basic analytics to help you assess the performance of your Pinterest account, if you want more advanced analytics and the ability to analyze your competitors, Tailwind is a good application. Features Setup The Tailwind menu. Summary
Topics Main Overview Among all adults, the most closely followed local topics are weather, breaking news, politics and crime, all followed by a solid majority of two thirds or more. Slightly less popular topics but still with a fairly good following of about half or more are arts and culture, local businesses, schools and education, community and neighborhood events, restaurants, taxes and traffic. Fewer survey respondents follow local news about housing, local government activity, job openings, social services, or zoning. Both local news enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts follow a wide variety of topics Local news enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts both follow a wide variety of local topics. The handful of local topics which local news enthusiasts as a whole are much more likely than other adults to follow therefore stand out. Yet again, among local news followers there are significant differences by age. Younger local news enthusiasts rely on different local news sources than their older counterparts
5 Ways to Get Your Pins Noticed on Pinterest Is Pinterest important to your business? Do you want to get your pins in front of more people? In this article, I’ll show you 5 ways to get your pins noticed on Pinterest. Why Pinterest? Pinterest has over 70 million users globally. The site also drives more referral traffic than Twitter, LinkedIn and Reddit combined. And if you want to take advantage of it, your pins have to be seen not only by users who follow you, but also by new users. Here are the tips: #1: Optimize Your Name, Boards and Pins for Pinterest Search Your Business Name Many branded companies make the mistake of using only their branded name for their Pinterest user account name. Add a descriptive keyword that you want to be associated with to the end of your business name to increase the chances of your Pinterest business account being found through a search for Pinners. Users search for Pinners when they are looking for specific brands and people to follow. Your Board Titles Your Pins #2: Pin Consistently #4: Repin Your Old Pins
International SEO Best Practices & Tips | FRUITION Foreign SEO has its own set of best practices as each country has widely different regulations. If your business expands beyond the borders of the USA, there are special considerations you should take to ensure International SEO success. 1) Buy the domain that is native to the countries you are targeting. For example, if you want German visitors, buy the www.website.de as most German residents search on their local search engine. 2) Host your foreign domain in country if possible so you will have a local IP address. 3) Establish a physical location/mailing address in each country if possible 4) Set Google Webmaster Tools to reflect each country you are targeting. 5) Translate several pages of your site into the language(s) most used in the countries where you do business. Have a professional translator re-write your copy to keep your message intact.
Pinterest Show a floating Pin It button over any image. Updated Decemeber 18th, 2013 Overview On Hover Pin It buttons work like regular Pin It buttons, but remain invisible until someone mouses over an image on your page. They look great on pages with lots of images and might look and feel better if your design is on the minimal side. Note: Be careful about using On Hover Pin It buttons on sites intended for mobile browsers. Activation is easy To activate On Hover Pin It buttons on your page, just add the data-pin-hover attribute to the SCRIPT tag on your page that calls pinit.js. If you're running our asynchronous script loader, add this line to set the data-pin-hover attribute: p.setAttribute('data-pin-hover', true); If you're not already running pinit.js on your page, please visit the Widget Builder to find out more about the Pin It button and the rest of Pinterest's fleet of handy widgets. Some Images Won't Work
Tips to Consider Before You Take Your Business Global - Instabill Blog Image by woodleywonderworks via Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License Owning a small, local business is nice. You don’t have to worry about shipping through customs or dealing with multiple currencies. But what if you want to take your business global? 1. When you take your small, local business international, the first thing you need to consider is your target market. Don’t spin a globe with your eyes closed and sell to wherever your finger lands. 2. Now that you’ve decided on a target market, you need to know your competition. Here’s some food for thought: In the past several weeks, I’ve seen dozens of news articles talking about South Africa’s e-commerce economy, how it’s growing, and how research trends predict that it will continue to grow. 3. If your target market speaks another language, consider hiring someone who can speak it too. 4. Not being able to accept payments in multiple currencies is the second deadly sin of e-commerce credit card processing. 5.