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Social Media Etiquette for your Business

Businesses who effectively use their social media accounts are able to build unique relationships with their customers. However, social media is eerily similar to your real social life: good manners often go unnoticed, but make one wrong move and become forever infamous among your fan base. Big names like Ashton Kutcher, Kenneth Cole, and Nestlé have made it onto Mashable’s Social Media’s Biggest Screw-Ups list . So, how can you and your business stay off future lists like that one? Thankfully, social media specialists and journalism experts are constantly working to better define the loose rules of social media etiquette. In fact, the Online News Association’s 2012 conference in San Francisco put together a panel of the top social media editors, “Social Media Debate: Best Practices vs. Bad Habits.” Watch their video to learn about some of the biggest changes social media is experiencing today.

Check out this list of our own favorite do’s and don’ts of online manners:

DON’T ignore negative comments (and don’t be argumentative).
Not everyone is going to agree with everything you have to say. You might discuss a piece of recent news that brings up a heated debate or receive a comment from a dissatisfied customer. You would not hang up on these people or shut the door in their faces, so don’t ignore them online. Maintain your cool business etiquette and attempt to redirect your followers towards a positive conversation. Realizing that you care might be enough to gain these customers’ loyalty and support.
DO be social.
It is no longer acceptable to have a social media profile that you don’t use. The point of these online platforms is for conversation. That’s why they’re called social media. If your fans reach out to you, don’t be rude. Answer them. Post multiple times a day and always be engaged (but be careful not to flood your followers feed!).
DON’T talk about you too much.
Obviously, your main goal in putting your business on a social media platform is to raise brand awareness and promote your product. But just like you would get bored listening to someone talk about themselves 24/7, you’re customers want to learn about a wider variety of information than just your business. Offer information of value that your target audience will enjoy following.
DO be real.
People don’t want to befriend robots, nor do they want to engage in conversation with your autoposts. Social media management applications like HooteSuite and TweetDeck are great options for businesses that need to manage multiple pages, but should not be used to send out automated messages to followers. Companies that autopost tend to lack authenticity, ignore responses, and lose followers.

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Event / Event planning / Facebook / internet marketing / Social Media / Social Media Optimization / Twitter — 1 Comment
2
May 12

Time Line Event Planning Using Social Media

Whether you need to work with organizers, generate buzz, or share post-party photos, social media should be a primary tool for event planning. With the power to share comes the ability to spread the word, increase awareness, and accomplish your goals.

Step1: PLAN

As with any event, the first step is to plan. This goes beyond the simple logistics – it’s about locations, agendas, and the people that will help you make it happen. Whether you’re inviting people over for a small BBQ or you’re planning a bigger event, you need to plan it right.

Step2: ORGANIZING & INVITING

This is different than promotion. Invite key guests, speakers, family, and whoever else is important to the success of your gathering, conference, or party.

• Facebook:
Invite people. Create a public event and invite everyone that has “liked” your page. Not only will this give people the logistics of when and where the event will be held, but this Facebook function includes a “wall” where people can post updates. This allows you to create a dialog and converse with donors. It also empowers supporters to invite other people to attend the event with them.
Share photos. In the days preceding the event, post photos of decorations, raffle prizes or any other items you think would entice people to join you at the event. Furthermore, you can also encourage attendees to take photos during the event and tag your agency in the post.
Update your status. This seems like simple advice, but Facebook is only a powerful social networking tool if you use it. Don’t forget to let people know what’s going on and consistently update the status on your page.

• Twitter:
Create a hashtag. A hashtag is found at the end of a tweet and is a phrase with a pound sign at the front of it. Why is this important? Hashtags make searching Twitter easier. Creating a hashtag is as simple as typing, nothing special needs to happen. Twitter will just highlight the hashtag and link all tweets that contain it. By creating a hashtag for your event, you can easily see what people are saying about it. Also, if you get enough people to tweet with your hashtag, it may become a “trending topic” and show up on the twitter homepage.
And as with Facebook, share photos of decorations, raffle prizes or any other items you think would encourage people to join you at the event. You need to connect with people that will attend the event.

• E-mail:
Use e-blast, newsletter to invite people.
Share the link to the event page (Facebook and website) from your e-mail signature line.

• Website Event:
Create an event badge and post it on your website home page. People can embed it in their blog sidebars or on their websites. Share the link to your landing page using a custom URL.

• Blog:
Use your blog to announce the event.
Create a special blog for big events.

Step3: PROMOTION

• Use Twitter. Live tweet during the event, connect with people.
• Encourage people to share how they feel about the event. Encourage them to “tweet” and “retweet” them and respond to their tweets.
• Use Facebook. Live stream, sharing pictures, memorable moments.
• E-Mail. Remind people just few days before the event
• Listen to your audience. Do people at the event complain about a specific speaker, the food or a lack of responsiveness? Ask for people’s feedback.

Step4: POST-EVENT

Contrary to what people think, the event is not over when everyone leaves. There’s still more to do to make sure the event leaves a great impression, especially if you intend to have future events or even an annual one.
• Thank the people who attended the event and all your fans on Facebook, Twitter and website/blog.
• Send a summary e-mail to all attendees with pictures. Send people to the Facebook page and your website that hosts that embedded content. The landing page should include calls to action to register for future events.
• Set up a survey form to capture evaluations from attendees. Google Documents supports simple forms at no charge. Publish the best comments as validation of the quality of your content. Here’s a simple form I use to gather feedback on my presentations. It took 10 minutes to set up.
• Continue to use the Twitter account and the Facebook page for updates and exchange with fans.

Have you used social media to promote or plan your event in the past? What do you think is the most useful tool?

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Facebook / Google / internet marketing / SEO / Social Media / Social Media Optimization / Twitter — 3 Comments
16
Apr 12

SEO Video by HessMarketing Websearch

Did you know that nearly 200 million unique websites exist on the Internet?
Do you know where your website ranks online? Are people able to find your business using search engines?
Today just having a website is not enough because 95% of the time users will click on the results listed on the first page of search engines!

So how do you get your company found on the 1st page of major search engines like Google?
The answer is using SEO Search Engine Optimization, PPC Pay-Per-Click Management and Social Media Marketing.

Watch our video to learn how to drive highly qualified traffic to your webiste or blog!

SEO by HM Websearch from Eric Hess on Vimeo.

Thank you for watching! Feel free to comment.

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Facebook / Google / internet marketing / SEO / Social Media / Social Media Optimization / Twitter — 8 Comments
5
Apr 12

5 tips to increase your Website or Blog Traffic!

Having a website or a blog is not hard, but it is hard to build a successful blog with significant traffic. With over 100 million blogs and growing how do you attract visitors? Follow these simple tips to drive traffic to your website or your blog.

1) Target Your Customers or Readers

When strategizing about what audience you’re writing for, consider that audience’s ability to help spread the word. Some readers will naturally be more or less active in evangelizing the work you do, but particular the communities, topics, writing styles and content relevancy play a better role in spreading the word on the web.

The purpose is to identify groups that have high concentrations of what is called “content distributors” and “heavy content sharers.” Content distributors are people with accounts on social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Google+ who might share links about your business or blog topic. Heavy content sharers are extremely active social users who run their own blogs and sites. The other group, which is most important, is called “potential consumers of your website or blog content.” These people are interested in your topic and receptive to your point of view. Identifying this group will dramatically improve the chances of reaching larger audiences and growing your traffic numbers.

2) Interact with existing Communities

Online communities can be greatly effective if you have value to offer and in return your potential community members also have value. But getting to the critical mass tipping point is not always simple. Many sites about online communities are full of suggestions about which tool or software package to use. You can have the best software package ever created, but if you don’t initiate interaction, your online community will not grow. Once you have determined the communities, you need to start interaction. Create an account, read what others have written and don’t jump in the conversation until you’ve have a good feel for what’s appropriate and what’s not.

Three things you need to think about:
- Tell Stories, try to make it simple and “personal.”
- Empathize with whatever market or audience you’re after.
- Engage and recognize. Find ways to ask your readers, subscribers, fans, friends and followers to interact and participate directly on your business blog as well as other social media and networking channels used to grow communities and promote useful content.

3) Use Social Media Networks such as Twitter, Facebook and Google+

Twitter just topped 465 million registered accounts. Facebook has over 850 million active users. Facebook pages are one of the most powerful tools for attracting potential clients or readers and involving your regular customers/readers in a constant collaboration. About 51% of Facebook users say they are more likely to buy from the brands they follow. Google+ has nearly 100 million. Together, these networks are attracting vast amounts of time and interest from Internet users around the world, and those that participate on these services fit into the “content distributors” description above, meaning they’re likely to help spread the word about your blog.

Leveraging these networks to attract traffic requires patience, skill and keeping up with changes and trends by the social sites. Also, it’s important to keep a clear understanding of what content to share and how.
Always add content like pictures, descriptions of your Facebook, and Twitter accounts to keep it updated and as full of information as possible. Once you have a packed site, start connecting and sharing with your customers or fans.
The goal is to get “viral content.” Using hashtags on Twitter and jumping in on interesting conversations are great ways to keep up with the latest on your social media. And don’t forget to share exclusive content!

By following these methods, your followers and fans will increase and your ability to bring traffic back to your blog by will be tremendous.

4) Make your Blog on top of Search Engines pages, SEO!

SEO or search engine optimization has become an indispensable part of online marketing. When this tool is used properly it can actually boost your business. What web business owners should understand is having a website with great content and a perfect appearance is not everything and can sometimes mean nothing. Something that has become extremely popular in search engines is the page ranking. This is an important part of promoting your website and attracting targeted traffic towards your business. Over 3 billion online searches are performed everyday on the Internet and that number continues to grow. More than never before, your business needs to be readily available to the online community.
20% of the effort and tactics to make your content optimized for search engines will yield 80% of the value possible. This means that it is easier than you think to bring in thousands of visitors to your online domain.
Don’t hesitate to contact a specialized SEO agency that can help you figure out what you should do and how you can boost your business and your sales.

5) Get an appealing design and use Photos and Graphics

If you’re someone who can produce graphics, take photos, create illustrations, then you should leverage that talent on your blog. By uploading and hosting images (or using a third-party service like Flickr to embed your images), you create another traffic source for yourself via image search, which will improve the engagement and entertainment of your visitors.

Adding photos or graphics on your website or blog not only helps break up the text, but it also can make your article more interesting, friendly and easier to understand. If you are writing a blog post about a specific product, take a picture of that product and include it in your blog post. That’s an easy quick way to improve your website.

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internet marketing / Pinterest / Social Media / Uncategorized — 2 Comments
26
Mar 12

Pinterest, the Social Network Women Love!

You certainly might have heard about Pinterest these past few weeks. It is the new trendy social network! Pinterest has quickly become one of the top five referring traffic sources for several apparel retailers.

The concept behind Pinterest is simple: it’s a virtual pinboard. You find things you like on the web or from your own photos and pin, organize and share them to your board.

You can also follow other people and see their pin’s board on your “home” Pinterest page.

A Pinterest’s board

What is getting the attention is the amazing growth. At the start of 2012, Pinterest’s daily user count was 810,000. Six weeks later, it was at 2 million!

The most interesting fact is that most of all users are women. According to Inside Network’s AppData tracking service, 97% of Pinterest’s Facebook fans are women.

A Pinterest’s home page

But why does Pinterest appeal women so well?

First of all the visual aspect is definitely a part of the answer. It’s important to remember that women are the strongest consumers, so it makes sense that a something driven on a visual board would strike a chord with them.

The second thing is about the content. Trend in creative communities such as home decor blogs, homeschooling blogs, DIY blogs, food blogs, as well as fashion blogs and those are definitely places where lots of women get together virtually.

Let us know if you are on Pinterest and if you are a man or a woman?

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internet marketing / SEO / Social Media / Uncategorized — Comments Off
4
Feb 11

The Road to Success is Paved With Familiarity

Today’s post comes inspired by this article posted through Technorati.

According to the article by John Egan, brand familiarity is the number one driver of visits to retail sites. It’s no great mystery why this is. If people are talking about your product, people are aware of your product. That’s it. Start a discussion, be responsive, and be an advocator for your product or service. Once people start to recognize your brand name, you’ll see this statistic kick in. Here are a few simple steps to jumpstart the discussion.

Facebook and Twitter are not platforms for creating a sale. They can, however, increase awareness of your product and get people talking about it. It is at this point that your job as a marketer is to become an active part of this discussion.Answer questions customers have, send out interesting tidbits of information you find, do anything you can to be a resource to your subscribers. When it comes to social media, be preemptive about your product but also appropriately responsive.

Selling is a more organic process. People simply don’t click on sidebar ads, or Facebook ads, and go straight to buying your product. When you make your product or service appear organically and tailor the road to purchase with more specific keywords, reflecting increased buyer intent, you make it that much easier for the customer to find and choose your product. In today’s world of Google AdWords and such, this process is a whole lot easier than you might expect.

In some instances you can combine social media with organic marketing to create a community around your product. In other words, make it easy for people to find other people talking about your product. This in turn will encourage discussion about your product, at which point you can jump in and become an active part of the discourse.

Simply put, marketing has evolved. Don’t let your customers think you are trying to shout a message at them as loud as possible until they get it. Let communication be two-way, and eventually your best customers will also be your greatest advocates.

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internet marketing / SEO / Social Media — 1 Comment
21
Jan 11

Going beyond Twitter & Facebook

While Facebook and Twitter are arguably the most significant social media sites for businesses to market themselves, there is a plethora of other social media sites targeting specific niches. With so many marketing venues available and new ones emerging, I find myself asking: are Facebook and Twitter enough?

Facebook is the number one growing social media site, gaining 250 million users in 2010 totaling 600 million users. Morever, Twitter more than doubled its users in 2010, gaining 100 million users, totaling: 175 million. Alth ough Twitter and Facebook are the fastest growing social media sites, there are many others gaining popularity. No business wants to be left in the dust when the next social media site explodes. In addition to utilizing social media sites, there are other necessary ways to gain recognition on the internet.

In order to drive ample traffic and gain SEO for your company website, there are multiple tactics to implement in expanding your internet presence:

Blogging
Email marketing
Search engine optimization
Pay per click
Social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn)
Blogger relations
Online public relations
Viral marketing
Free content (white papers)
Corporate web site

Using these online marketing venues in addition to social media sites are imperative to any company trying to expand their internet presence. Emerging social media sites such as Stumbleupon, Digg, Reddit, LinkedIn, and more, offer specific categories that allow for companies to engage in a more unifying topic. For example, Activerain is a social media site directed towards realtors. While Facebook and Twitter are still necessary, Activerain allows realtors to interact and discuss subjects related to their industry. The majority of social media users may not be aware of Activerain, however, it is pertinent in the real-estate community.

In an age where print, radio and television are becoming passe´as marketing techniques, it is important to utilize as many internet marketing channels as possible. Although Twitter and Facebook have become social media staples to market companies, they are not enough to keep your company looking media savvy.

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internet marketing / Link Baiting / Social Media — 1 Comment
5
Jan 11

Link Baiting: Buzz Word or Staple?

Link baiting; a fairly new concept in the Internet world that has caught on and exploded as a successful way to generate and maintain traffic to a website. Link bait, generally anything that is interesting or catchy enough to grab people’s attention, can be extremely effective and bring long-lasting results if done successfully. The goal is to drive traffic through back links to your website, thus increasing traffic. Simple enough, right?

Well some of us are still unclear of how, and if, this concept really works. It is based on the idea of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and Internet marketing, including social media. We want to make sure the information we put out there and post for our audience is interesting enough for them to not only click on and read, but to make them visit again for future information. Ultimately, we want loyal “followers” in order to generate visits to your website or blog. People who find your information or “posts” intriguing will likely keep a watch on you in cyber space. You are not making a sale or trying to convince your audience to use your company or purchase your product. SEO and social media is the process of building a relationship and providing information that is useful so that when it is time to make that decision, you are first on a potential customer’s mind.

With link baiting, you are increasing the likelihood that those viewing your posts will visit your website. You want to create a flood of natural one-way links to your site as well as direct traffic.The key is finding highly creative, catchy, and out-of-the-box topics that grab attention and makes viewers want to share it, repost it, link it, etc…in order to create a chain reaction on the web.

We have a few suggestions on how to successfully “link bait” your audience:

Reporting breaking news in your industry is always a must. If you cant be the first with it, research further. There is always more to the story than most know. By emphasizing on detail and digging deeper, you could uncover something that others may have missed and become “the first” with your story.

People want to be educated and always strive to know more. Provide your audience with interesting facts or trivia knowledge in, or outside, your industry. Be a little “out there,” it is a sure bet to grab ones interest and maintain it. Providing a source of valuable information, including odd and random facts, will surely attract a loyal follower.

You must be careful with this one: choose a controversial subject. Nothing stimulates people more than a little disagreement or a topic that others are timid to touch on. Putting something out there that will cause a little stir is sure to be noticed. Be tasteful and unbiased, this allows for conversations to generate and the audience to get involved.

Interviewing and reporting on prominent people in your industry, even locally, is an attention grabber as well. Be the one to discover answers to the qeustions everyone is dying to ask.

Dont be afraid to use some humor. Link websites that have content that are amusing, bringing lightheartedness to topics within your indsutry. Everyone loves a good laugh, or even a smile, throughout the day. This will bring awareness to your sites and establish a “down to earth” sense to the relationship your are buliding through your posts.

These are just a few suggestions in order to succesfully link bait to drive the traffic, directly and indirectly, that will provide results. This “buzz word” is becoming a neccesity in order to use the internet to its full advantage for your business. Use all the resources that are available to you in order to excel in this Internet-driven market.

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Social Media / Social Media Optimization — 1 Comment
19
Nov 10

Build Links—Build Traffic

As I mentioned in the blog earlier this week, Link-Building is one of the best tactics to gain search engine recognition via increased page rank. Link Building involves intensive work, but the results are unquestionably worth the effort. Picture link building as the coaching staff of your favorite sports team—they will not make the paper’s headlines, but are imperative for success.

What exactly is link building? From the beginning, links are clickable lines of text, that when clicked, escort the user from one website to another. For example, if you click the blue text (link) below, you will be ushered from our blog website to Hess Marketing’s brand new website…Try it! http://www.hessmarketing.com/.

In order to determine page rank, web crawlers (The Search Engine’s imaginary arm) make it a priority to review the links that each website has acquired. i.e. The web crawler will assess who has chosen to place a link to their website, on your page. For example, the web crawler will see Hess Marketing decided to place a link (back to their website) in my blog. You may ask, why does the web crawler asses who has placed links in your website and why is this important? Simple, if a company or website reveals a desire for their site to be recognized in conjunction with you, your site must be reputable. Thus, your website is deemed an excellent option to provide as a search result for their user.

There are two main types of links, one-way and reciprocal links. One-way links are much more powerful because as I mentioned earlier, they reveal a desire for other companies or sites to be recognized in conjunction with you. The second type of link is a reciprocal link (the name comes from the fact that websites can swap link placement on each other’s page). For example, let’s say we made an agreement with Hess Marketing to put links (to our own websites) on each other’s pages, this would be a reciprocal link. Unfortunately, these links are far less powerful because the web crawler recognizes the fact that a mutually beneficial exchange does not attest to the website’s quality, but more to the fact that both websites are trying to market themselves. So, don’t get carried away asking for links from millions of websites. It’s not a game of quantity, it’s a game of quality. Follow these seven steps to unleash your websites full Link Building potential.

a. One-way links (MOST POWERFUL) are accessible from article and directory submissions, social bookmarking, press release distribution, forums, and commenting on other blogs. Remember: A link pointing back to an .edu or .gov website is far more influential than 1000’s of links from free directory submission links.

b. Be sure to use deep links (these link to an internal webpage). For example, an article published on a website rather than the homepage.

c. Reciprocal links are exchanged by companies or websites for their mutual benefit (not as powerful as One-way links because of this exchange).

d. Add Links via embedded content. Ex. Widgets.

e. Viral content will attract links, if you have something interesting or can include a viral link, this will turn heads and links will follow.

f. Content, technology and API licensing- if you provide a service to a company, you can often receive links as part of your compensation.

g. Link reclamation- if you have a bad link, be sure to re-route it to a working link—no one appreciates being sent to a “page not found” screen.

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Social Media — 3 Comments
20
Oct 10

Tips and Tricks to Organically Grow and Maintain Your Facebook Page

With over 500 million users, Facebook has become an ideal medium to create a Redwood-sized network. The question is, where do I start? The first part is a no brainer—create a Facebook page for your firm. Unfortunately, the next component cannot be taken care of with the click of your mouse. Fans will not inaugurate the joining and liking of your page, you’re going to have to work at it–but this is why we’re here for you.

Have you ever chewed gum until it loses its flavor, then offered it to a friend? Yes to the former, but never the latter. Well, companies looking to organically gain fans must concoct both an everlasting and reusable “gum” that will keep their fans pleased, as well as permit them to share their positive thoughts about the firm. Regrettably, many firms fail to sustain their flavor, causing their Facebook marketing plan to fold. Here are the 9 crucial tips and tricks to organically create an everlasting tang that will keep your old fans chewing and your new fans excited to start.

To organically gain fans:

Reaffirm your business’s information on the fan page. Facebook’s popularity has grown so significantly that fan pages are no longer private, thus Google’s web crawler now collects this information and deems it important for its search results. i.e. when the number one most visited website since 2007 deems the information important, it is in fact, important!
Join Facebook groups of similar interest to your firm. Then, review the “members list” of the group and invite those who fit the profile of a potential customer to be a fan of your page.
Use video! Develop a video and post it on your blog, website and Facebook page. At the close of the video be sure to invite the viewer to become a fan of the firm–this call to action is extremely powerful, without the invitation to become a fan, the video will be far less effective. Also, be sure to have the video readily available for sharing.
Wherever you have a digital presence, promote your Facebook page. Provide links to your Facebook page from all of your social media accounts, including twitter, blogs and your website. If you have email campaigns, send invitations to all your targets, soliciting them to join your Facebook page. Furthermore, update your email’s signature to include a line with a link to your Facebook page.
Embed widgets on your website and blog. The new “like” button is Facebook’s social plugin, if clicked; the viewer will automatically become a fan.
Use the @ tag to link your profile to the firms page. All you need to do is type, @(your firms name). This will provide a link directly to your firm’s page.

To help maintain:

Engage your clients. Always respond to your client’s comments and posts. When doing so, make sure to be human. When you personalize your responses an aura of comfort is created, along with a personality for the company. Additionally, personal responses create notifications on the fan’s personal page, (which can be seen by all of their friends) producing a potential snowball effect of interested users.
Negative feedback is vital for success. The negative information allows your company to fix its flaws and it gives you the opportunity to provide personalized customer service. This is how brand ambassadors are created. Don’t forget, DO NOT delete the negative comments until you have contacted the disgruntled clients.
Reward your fans. In order to help keep your fans loyal and excited, provide them with deals and offers that can only be obtained if they are part of the exclusive group. Not only will this help solidify an existing relationship, this can help foster new bonds with potential clients looking for deals.

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