new articles: internet and businesses online

Showing posts with label internet and businesses online. Show all posts

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Google+ businesse

Google+ (or G+) has been quite late to join the social media marketing party, so a lot of small business owners still view it with suspicion - should they or should they not engage with it? Is it worth spending extra time on social media marketing, by adding another tool to manage? According to Social Media Examiner's 2014 Report, while 54% of marketers are using Google+, 65% want to learn more about it and 61% plan on increasing Google+ activities in 2014.

But Google+ is not just another social media site, it works as a social glue that ties the internet together. Read on to find out if it's worth your while in marketing!

By February 2014, G+ has already 359 million active users, it occupies 65% of business/personal search results, it is linked to Gmail, which also has more than 4 Million users, it is also linked to YouTube, which has 800 Million visitors per month, and to Google mobile offering over 1 Million Android devices activated daily.

Google+ is integrated into all Google products and applications: Google Search, Gmail, Google Apps, YouTube, Android, Google Play Store, Google Translate, Google Drive, Analytics, AdWords, Maps, Places, Webmaster Tools, Google News, Images, and so much more. If you use Google tools for your business, in fact it's quite difficult to avoid creating a Google+ profile in the process for your user identity.

However as we all know, having a profile on social media and actually using it effectively for marketing - are two different things. And what's more, with Google+ you can not only have a personal profile, but a business page as well - a bit like Facebook.

So let's look at why and how you can use Google+ as part of your digital marketing strategy.

Google+ benefits for business marketing:

There is a growing G+ community - with more and more users getting on board. However at the moment it's not as busy or hard to promote as Facebook (especially with their new algorithm).
It has a clean and user-friendly interface, it's media (image and video) friendly, so your content can be made visual and stand out more.
Google Products/Service Integration - you can access everything with your single Google+ account.
With changing rules of SEO - profiles, posts and communities are indexed and searchable, so your activity on Google+ has a direct impact on your SEO results.

Google rates your posts based on the interactions they receive. These can come in 4 different ways:

+1 'ing a post (similar to a Facebook Like)
Commenting on a post
Re-sharing a post
Adding someone to circles (circles are similar to Twitter Lists, you can create as many as you like and organise your contacts in a way that will help you engage and interact more effectively).

More interaction = More trust = Higher Search Rankings for that interaction.

If you are new to Google+ and not sure how to get started at all, and what all different menu options mean.

Google+ Marketing Strategy

1. Improve your Local SEO results

Google+ Local pages are replacing the old Google Local business listings, so you will need to claim both old and new profiles for your business and merge them together. Add all necessary information that your customers will be interested in: how to contact you, address, opening hours, verify your website, add other social media, add images to showcase your products and services, write a description including your key search terms and keywords. Link from your website to your Local page and to your personal profile (as an author - see more below).

2. Link your Google+ profile to your blog

Confirm that you are the author of your blog in the eyes of Google and link the two together. This will get your photo and G+ link appear next to search results from your blog. If you have a WordPress blog you can easily link them up using one of the plugins (like SEO by Yoast) or through your theme settings. More technical information on how Google Authorship works can be found here.

3. Integrate Google+ into your website

Ensure you have your Local and Profile listings added to the site and that your site is verified with all Google services you will be using (including YouTube). Add your G+ profile badge or button to the website and show a +1 option for your posts and pages. This way other Google+ users can share your content with their followers for you. More interaction for your links = more SEO trust.

4. Use Hangouts on Air to connect and build your brand

With updated and enhanced Hangouts, you can connect with your customers, promote your products and services, run webinars and team meetings - all free of charge. And you can then share those videos automatically to YouTube increasing your reach even further. You can offer people your knowledge, insight, solutions or exclusive access to content and they will register for your hangouts, growing your Google+ circle and expanding your influence. A regular schedule of webcasts is a good platform for announcing product launches, discounts, promotional events, sales, etc.

5. Network effectively with the right followers using Circles

Circles are a great tool to organise your connections and followers in Google+. Circles help you segment your connections into interest or pipeline lists and thereafter share content only relevant to this particular Circle. You can also see what only those in a particular Circle are sharing, making it easier to comment and engage with their content back. You might find that you will engage with some of your Circles more often than others based on users in it. To find people worth connecting with you can use Google Search function and Ripples.

6. Share interesting and compelling content

As with any marketing channel, you would want to share content that's relevant, interesting and timely for your followers. Although you can't share posts directly on Google+, you can use a third party tool like Buffer or HootSuite to schedule your updates in advance. When posting updates you can tag other users, use hashtags (this is similar to Twitter again). Visual content is usually more appealing than text only, but test different options to figure out what really works for your audience. You can even post mini-blogs there, as unlike with Twitter or Facebook, there isn't a character limit for your posts.

7. Engage and interact with your audience

To grow your community and gain new business leads, it's not enough to just post and post content about your brand. You need to connect and interact with your followers - like you would on any other social media channel. You can do this in several ways: mention others in posts (e.g. if you want to give credit or link a case study to their business); reply to any comments you receive on your posts; use Circles to segment and simplify curation of content by your followers - comment, share and +1 their posts; keep and eye on "what's trending" topics and join in when you can; join relevant business communities and Hangouts and engage with other targeted users there.

Finally, don't forget to measure your success by comparing your results to your marketing goals. You can track some of it with just Google Analytics, and for more advanced information about your Google+ efforts you can use third-party sites like All My Plus Stats, Simply Measured, Circle Count and Google Business Insight for your business page.

My name is Tamara Baranova. I run TJConsulting and I help small business owners grow their business by delivering effective online marketing mentoring, support and training. My clients see their business succeed, grow fast, and generate healthy profits through online marketing strategy that works.

Want to know more? Go to my website http://www.tjconsulting.co.uk to grab my free eCourse 7 Steps to Online Marketing Mastery and learn how to plan your unique social media strategy. Use our step-by-step jargon-free guides to master all popular online marketing tools: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email, blogging, and more!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tamara_Baranova

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8665703

How to Stop Wasting Time on Social Media

If you want to grow your business you want more people to hear about it and to connect with you. So you start using social media - because everyone else seems to be on it now. Then you hear that you need to be on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram - and the list is growing. Pretty quickly social media marketing can become overwhelming. So what do you do? Read on to find out.

So how can you expand your network, build your profile, raise your visibility, without wasting valuable business time on various social media networks?

So maybe you feel scared before you even started and you don't want to waste time. Or maybe you've tried it for some time without much success. Or possibly you are getting on well, having some success with promoting your business. But all in all, are you doing the right things at the right time, or will it turn to a waste of time and effort in the long run?

Step 1: connect and engage with the right people on social media.

With millions and millions of users of each social media network, it's easy to focus on "vanity metrics" and spend you time trying to get the most followers and fans for your business. But unless you are connecting with the right people - potential clients and partners - the numbers will mean nothing.

For example, if you are a coach and are connecting with lots of other coaches, you will have great conversations about coaching techniques and practices, but no one will gain new clients. If you connect with small business owners talking about business overwhelm or being stressed - you are more likely to get them as your clients or refer you to clients.

In order to find the right people on social networks, you need to be pretty clear yourself on who these people are: where do they live? What do they do? What do they talk about? Are they male or female? What other interests do they have? Exploring your client profile in detail is a very important step in planning your marketing, whether online or offline.

Step 2: balance social and marketing for an engaging mix of content.

SOCIAL media MARKETING is about being social, I.e. engaging with other users, and about marketing, I.e. promoting your business, products and offers. If you spend too much on one or the other the balance will be broken - either you will be spending too much time on just social interactions and having fun. Nothing's wrong with that obviously, but usually it's not a goal you would set for your business marketing.

Or your social networks will get filled with marketing messages sell-sell-selling your stuff to others without any engagement or personal touch to it. No one want to just get a stream of blog posts and special offers on your Twitter profile, hence it's important to strike this balance.

Step 3: less is more, you don't have to be on ALL social media networks at once.

It's better to get started with just one-two social media channels and do it well, rather than set yourself up on ALL social media networks and fail spectacularly. As a social media manager, I keep track of development in various networks at the same time, I spend my professional development time learning about and upgrading my skills for each social network.

But that's the business I'm in - unless I'm knowledgeable about social media marketing I won't be able to consult my clients effectively.

Your business as a coach or a consultant is different, and it will be impractical for your to waste hours and hours each week trying to catch up with what's going on in the world of social media and keep endless social networks updated all the time.

So don't feel bad about not being everywhere. Choose what you like and where you ideal clients are already present - whether it's Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest or LinkedIn - and get started. Once you get used to one or two and start seeing some success with it, add more social media networks to your practice.

Step 4: use marketing tools effectively to save time and to track your efforts.

There are numerous digital marketing tools available to help you automate your message, create images online, track and analyse your results.

The same advice applies here - you don't need to have 10s of tools set up to be successful on social media. Yes, it helps to dive into stats and work out at a deeper level what really works and when, but not when you are getting started or working on your own.

The bare minimum you need to get is network's own built-in analytics tool (Insight for Facebook, Analytics for Twitter or LinkedIn) plus Google Analytics which will not only track goals conversion for your website, but also give you a good overview on what's working for your website in addition to social media marketing.

Step 5: have fun in doing it and be authentic with your messages and branding.

When you are using social media to promote your business, you are your brand. So whatever you say needs to be representative of your brand's voice and personality.

If your brand is professional and serious, your messages need to follow suit. If your brand is playful and quirky, don't be afraid to show this side of your personality.

When you are the business as a solo-preneurs potential clients will be connecting not just with your business as a service they can hire, but with you as the person will be delivering this service to them. If they are looking for a coach, and they get interested in the content of your "marketing" messages on social media - they will still be looking for the right connection with you as a professional before they sign up for the 1-2-1 coaching services.

So your "social" and your "marketing" elements of social media marketing need to be congruent and mutually-supportive in order to work effectively, rather than wasting your time and efforts.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tamara_Baranova

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8665754 or http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Stop-Wasting-Time-on-Social-Media&id=8665754

Steve Jobs as adorable manga man

An excerpt of the manga-style biography of Steve Jobs, which appears in… (Kiss Magazine )

Using Walter Isaacson's best-selling biography as a frame, award-winning author Mari Yamazaki has created a manga version of the life of Apple founder Steve Jobs. It's being serialized in the Japanese comic magazine Kiss, alongside tales of teen love.

So it's not surprising, then, that Jobs is portrayed as "a cute, doe-eyed kid who worries about whether his adoptive parents love him," writes Sam Byford at the Verge. In the first installment, he also grows into a rebellious teenager; the Verge has a shot of the frame in which Jobs reclines on the grass, smoking a joint.

It all starts, though, with the instantly recognizable adult Jobs: black turtleneck, glasses, pensive expression. That's in the present day, when Jobs discusses the biography with Isaacson, and it's rendered in a realistic style, a departure from the manga look.

Will Apple's early days be portrayed in the manga style, with Steve Wozniak and the rest dressed as action heroes? Will the Apple IIc or first generation, jewel-colored iMacs have special powers?

source : http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/27/entertainment/la-et-jc-steve-jobs-adorable-manga-man-20130327

Facebook Pages Or Facebook Groups For Your Business

There are many business owners who are now facing the dilemma of finding out which of the Facebook style of pages is going to be the best one or them. There are Facebook pages and there are Facebook groups, they both provide different features and they serve different purposes. The most important thing to realize is why you should or should not use either one of them for your business or product. I will give you a rundown of what they both do and how you can take maximum advantage of the one that is right for you.

The Facebook page:

This page allows the user to get fans and they also count as likes to a page. There is no doubt that the most popular way for a business to get to be known online is to see a Facebook fan page as the main method of communication and delivery of posts and messages. The advantages of using a page are that you are the one who controls what kind of content is posted. The users will be able to comment on the publications you make, but you can moderate them and delete them if necessary.

Another important aspect of using the Facebook page is that it can be customized quite well with very a good header and profile picture that are both going to make it much easier for you to get people to notice the page. You can also create a call to action on the header to get visitors to give their like to the page and start posting their opinions.

The Facebook group:

Facebook groups are really not meant for people to use them as business pages because there is really too much freedom involved for anyone who is a member of the group. People can post news on the group wall by just becoming members of it and this is a situation that could easily turn ugly for a business page that is not strictly screening their members for quality. You could get someone who is a spammer who will flood your wall with spam links from outside source and it could be even worse than that. This is why you need to consider the fact that you will not be able to keep things monitored easily and your customization of a group is not as detailed as that of a fan page. There is a group member count on display but there are no page likes at all.

The Facebook group is recommended for those people who have a page about a specific interest. This is perfect to create a forum like environment that is going to make it much easier for them to start posting anything they want without having to be monitored for it. This is the main reason why you need to be aware of the big difference that having a Facebook group provides in comparison to a Facebook page.

In the end you can always create a group after you have created a page and vice-versa, but the ideal situation is to be able to work hard to get a fan page moving forward with likes and activity and then jump into a group to create a complementary option for your business or products. This should be the standard for you to follow. Just remember that groups and pages have very distinct functions that you cannot have in one of them alone. The Facebook page is the best move you can make in most cases for a business.

Sharon Callix
Award Winning Social Media Consultant, UK
Platinum Expert Author EzineArticles

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sharon_C_Callix

This Week In Social Media: Facebook Save Feature And More

If you are looking for some information about what's new and hot in social media, this is the place for you, we have a weekly edition with the most amazing and interesting news about your favorite social media like Facebook or Pinterest. If you want to know what's new this week, we'll give you all the information.

We are going to start with Facebook, which is one of the favorites, they just introduce a "save" feature, so how it works? Well, is simple, for example if you are looking on Facebook for something and you find it, but you don't have time or you don't want to check it at that moment, you can save this item so you'll be able to keep it safe until you have time to watch it, this is a fantastic and useful new feature for all Facebook users. Also Facebook has a new buy button, and its purpose is to help business to boost its sales through the news feeds and on different pages on Facebook.

But what about another favorite, Pinterest, well, they have some great news as well because they just added a specialized interests, which means that now, every single one of the categories they have on Pinterest, let's say for example: Sports, has a new selection of specialized interests that you can explore, also you have the chance to follow along to get new pins from other users who also share the same interest, and this will be delivered direct to your home feed on Pinterest.

Now, if we talk about Foursquare, we have some exciting news because they have a complete new logo and a whole new look, this is a version created especially for you, so go and check it and enjoy of the new Foursquare.

Finally, we are going to mention some social media tools that we think you should check out: Bamboo paper: this is an application that lets you write exactly like if you were writing on a real paper, the good news are that this is available now for Android Tablets, IOS and Windows. Another one is Steady camera which is perfect if you want to record all your action videos with stabilization and slow motion for example and the last one that we want to talk about is: Vingle, which is perfect to meet people who love the same things that you do and also share things with them. So what do you think about all these new features of your favorite social media sites? Which one is your favorite?

Sharon Callix
Award Winning Social Media Consultant, UK
Platinum Expert Author EzineArticles

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sharon_C_Callix

Getting More For Your Business From LinkedIn

LinkedIn is regarded as one of the best platforms for businesses. This is considering that it is the largest especially in the B2B network. It has more than 300 million users from all parts of the world and millions of active users making it ideal for any business. There is a lot that can be done using this platform apart from the normal socializing. You can actually get great value for your business using the network. A LinkedIn training course can do wonders for your business.

The LinkedIn Training Course

This is a course that is designed to teach you more about the network and how you can use it to build and grow your business. You will also find secrets to improve on customer engagement and impacts that you achieve through a recruitment process that is efficient enough for the business. The course is developed to teach you fundamentals of managing a profile that is powerful enough with combined techniques proven to build new and valuable business contacts. It is divided into modules to make the learning process more convenient for you.

Module 1: Introduction to LinkedIn

This module briefs you on the basics of the social media network. It tells you more about why the network matters to your business and introduces you on worldwide engagement data, paid accounts, privacy settings, integrating the network across other social media platforms and assets and the demographics and date of active users.

Module 2: Compelling Profile Creation

In this module, you will get to know about the importance of having a professional image, how to craft a career history and summary that is effective enough, joining groups and how to start your own group, using recommendations and endorsements, setting up company profile and how to maximize social amplification and SEO for the sake of business progress.

Module 3: Building Business Network

Under this course module, you will learn about communication and etiquette, the advertising options you have with LinkedIn, formats of content marketing for the development of new connections and building relevant connections with engaging strategies.

Module 4: Advanced Features

You will find out about the advanced features of the network and how you can use them to make business improvements. It will include advanced people searches, third party app usage, plug-ins, scheduling tools and mobile among many others that you can use.

The Benefits of the Course

The LinkedIn training course carries benefits for your business. With the course, you will understand:

The LinkedIn context
How to set business objectives and how to optimize personal and business presence on the network
Building network effectively and easily
The key techniques you can use to integrate the network into broader social media strategies you are interested in as a business
How to work with advanced features to extend your reach through the network and enhance the business brand and personal presence
How to easily set up and also run self serve ads on LinkedIn

How to use the network for lead generation which is always beneficial for business any day

There is so much that can be done for business using social media. To find out more about LinkedIn training course, the modules, benefits and the charges for the training, please click on the link given below.

http://letslearndigital.com/course/twitter-course/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Shalini_Mittal

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8682228