Category Archives: Auto

10 Ways To Build an Effective Social Media Strategy

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If you’ve decided that you want to get serious about using social media to market your business, it’s important to take the time to develop a social media strategy. Creating and executing a strategy will ensure you’re getting the best return out of the time and resources you invest into social. So if you want to craft a strategy that’s going to help you succeed, here’s what you need to do:

Understand Who You’re Targeting
Just because there are over a billion people on Facebook doesn’t mean you should try to connect with all of them. The best way to use social media is to narrow your scope and only focus on users who are actually in your target demographic.

Put Time Into Creating Great Content
When it comes to social marketing, content plays a key role. However, simply pumping out lots of content isn’t going to cut it. Instead, you need to make it a priority to create awesome content that people will find interesting and engaging.

Utilize Multiple Platforms
There’s a lot of value in creating a presence on multiple social media platforms. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and LinkedIn all have proven track records of helping businesses grow. While it’s easy to understand that different platforms allow you to connect with different audiences, plenty of businesses get overwhelmed by the thought of managing multiple social media accounts. Fortunately, a social media dashboard can make it much easier to track and manage more than one account.

Use the Same Branding Elements
Although you may share different content through your various social platforms, it’s a good idea to keep elements like profile pictures and tag lines consistent. This will make it easy for people to identify your brand regardless of where they encounter you online.

Get Creative
While there are plenty of best practices, don’t be afraid to experiment with different approaches to sharing to see how well they perform.

Focus on Engagement
Make it a priority to actually connect with your followers on a regular basis. This will remind them that there is a real person behind your business.

Stick with 70-30
A big part of an effective social media strategy is to find the right balance between keeping people interested and promoting your business. The best way to strike this balance is with the 70-30 rule. By limiting your self-promotion to 30% of your updates and using the rest to share things that are genuinely fun or interesting, you’ll get far better results than if all you did was promote your business.

Review Your Social Media Analytics
Looking at your social media analytics data on a regular basis will do a lot for helping you to guide all of your marketing efforts.

Stay on Top of Your Industry
There are a lot of social media monitoring tools that can help you keep an eye out for trends within your industry. By staying on top of those things, you’ll be able to position yourself as an authority figure within your industry.

Don’t Be Afraid to Change
If something in your strategy isn’t working as well as you would like, don’t be afraid to try a new approach. Consistently reviewing and revising will allow you to keep your efforts moving in the right direction.

If you put everything we covered above into action, you’ll be very happy with the social media strategy you’re able to develop and the positive impact that it has on your business.

Social Media Marketing – How to Schedule Your Time

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So, you have decided to jump in and start building your business online! You have opted-in to numerous expert’s newsletters, joined as many social media sites as possible, started your blog, and made a few connections. Now what?

Well, that is a very good question that I would like to answer for you. Are you ready?

SET A SCHEDULE!!

Did you think I was going to tell you something else? Setting a schedule for your business is the same as knowing what time you have to arrive at work, what your daily tasks are while there, and most importantly, what time you get off. Why should working from home be any different?

First, start by setting your hours. What time and days are you going to open your business? This is essential in planning your daily income producing activities (IPA). Look at your schedule and see what family commitments are planned, what days you do not want to work, and begin to build your schedule from there. How many hours should you be working? If you are considering this a full-time career, start with 20-30 hours per week. For part-time, try up to 10 hours a week or work on the weekends.

Next, since you have decided to become a social butterfly, I would highly recommend that you set a time limit on this. You can become easily distracted by the other discussions and get sidetracked with your purpose. The goal in this step is to get your message out, interact with a few people, develop relationships, and build your business. It is okay if you go over time if you are performing these tasks, but do not just sit there watching other posts, playing games, and watching silly unrelated videos.

How do you plan your social media time? If you are a beginner, select one site for social marketing, one site for content marketing, and one site for advertising. Intermediate and Advanced Marketers can do two or three of each if you have the time. Once you have selected your primary sites, decide on a weekly goal. How many contacts do you want to have? How many posts are you going to make? How many articles are you going to write? Your answer to those questions will help guide you in making a schedule.

Last, but definitely not least, is self-development. Please, please do not neglect your mind and your body. Continue learning about your industry. There are so many changes in social media, pay-per click, and even technology that it is almost impossible not to stay informed. Also, remember to take care of your body. Take at least 30 minutes a day to exercise to keep yourself in good shape. What is the point of making all the money if you are unable to enjoy it??

Those are three easy steps to jump start your business online. Remember, setting a schedule for your business, your interactions, and yourself are all major parts in being successful in any business online or offline.