How to use Instagram to promote your business

Small Business no longer just create social media accounts just for the heck of it, but rather social media is a tool for small business to promote their brand and create a long term relationship with their clients. Social media is also used today to generate leads, promote products and service as well as customer service tool. Instagram has been introduced to mobile users for years now, but small business has just recently discovered what Instagram could do for their brand. Here are some of the reasons why you should use Instagram to promote your brand and get a head of your competition.

How to promote brand on Instagram

After reading this post you will be able to create Instagram marketing plan for your brand. Before we start on answering how to promote your brand on Instagram, you should first know these basic facts:

Facts about Instagram

Instagram was launched in October 2010, this application is mainly focused on mobile users as image and video sharing application. There are 13% internet users on Instagram on a regular basis, however there has been shared over 20 billion photos on Instagram and 60 million are shared every day.

Top Business on Instagram

Because Instagram is new to some businesses there are already some big brands who are doing better than others on this social media platform as for example:

·         Victoria’s Secret

·         General Electric

·         Sweet Pure Honey

·         Starbucks Coffe

·         McDonalds’s

·         Forever 21

And many more big brands can be found on Instagram. Not only big companies are found on Instagram but also Hollywood celebrities share photos everyday on Instagram. Why most celebrities prefer Instagram as their private social media platform over other? Because Instagram has great privacy features. Brands uses Instagram to interact with their customers just like on all other social media sites, however before doing any marketing campaign on Instagram, you need to make sure you have a smart phone or for businesses they use tablets to be able to use Instagram for marketing purposes.

How to get started

The very first thing you need to do is to download the application on your smart phone or tablet although you can access your Instagram account on desktop you will not be able to upload or share images from desktop.

Pay attention to these steps before you create an account on Instagram:

·         Use your business name as your username

·         Use your brand identity or Company Logo as your profile image ( some hire designers to create a specialized or customized logo which will fit perfectly for Instagram )

·         Add website link and Biography, do not forget to add your most important keywords in the latter

·         Link your account to other social media account you have such as Foursquare, Facebook twitter and other account which can be linked.

Images for Instagram

Here are some technical details you will need to remember once you are done signing up and start with sharing your products and images on Instagram.

·         Native image size for Instagram is 612px x 612px

·         The mobile application allows 15 second video recording

·         Your profile picture, if you decide to use your current Logo image it should be 110px X 110px

·         For new users Instagram cover up to 7 images at first

·         Your biography should be as short and direct, Instagram allows 150 characters long

·         Creatively you can add hashtags in your biography

These are the simple and basic details to creating an account on Instagram. Now let’s move on!

How to use Instagram for your business

Mainly Instagram for Small Businesses are created to visually share their products and services to anyone who are interested on following them. Creating an Instagram marketing plan is essential for success on the image focused platform.

·         Build audience – When your Instagram profile is ready for marketing purposes, you should then increase your Instagram followers. Make sure you make your images unique and attractive as much as possible.

·         Introduce your Instagram promotions – You can share your Instagram profile to your other social media sites letting your followers know you can also be found on Instagram for more images of your products and services.

·         Running contests – Instagram marketing campaign need to be run thoroughly to generate desired response from Audience.

·         Choose your brand to be hashtag focused for campaigns

·         Promote all your campaigns on all social media platform by linking your Instagram account with all your other social media profiles.

Instagram is about creativity

Instagram users are young, confident and love to share images, therefore when using your Instagram account you need to use it creatively. Instagram users always comes up with great ideas to connect with their fans, while big brands hire top Instagram marketers to manage their activities, while small businesses to not have the budget to invest on such you can get inspiration from this page : http://business.instagram.com/inspiration

How to apply attraction to your social media marketing

If you have an online business or any network marketing business, you are using social media platforms like everybody does in your market. When your business on social media channels, you have the power to connect with millions of people globally for a tiny investment. Unfortunately not every marketer are using social media to the point not pushing enough marketing campaign to their prospects. Here are some ways you can add attraction and creativity to your social media marketing campaign.

How can you make social media work for your type of business?

A very effective and professional approach to leverage social media marketing for any type of businesses is through applying the principles of attraction marketing. Attraction marketing is about establishing yourself as a leader in your industry and using that to entice people into your business.

Here is how you can apply attraction marketing to your business:

1.       Take time to establish yourself as a leader of your industry by publishing informative and fresh contents to the internet, this is the very first thing you should know about attraction marketing even on social media marketing because you cannot attract leads without becoming a leader first.

2.       Attraction marketing is about providing a lots and lots of content for free. No matter what type of business you have to regularly create informative content to make yourself stand and rise among your competitors. You can apply this throughout whatever marketing campaign you are doing and on social media as well.  Social media platforms such as Facebook, twitter, Google+, YouTube and many other can be your tool to feed your potential customers great and informative contents.

3.       Attraction marketing is about creating value for your brand. It is about nurturing those who look up to you.

Keep the communication open

Attraction marketing is about keeping the communication line open, answering your audience questions, providing them tools and resources, providing them advice and solutions to their problems. This kind of marketing, many business owners have overlooked. Social media marketing is not about advertising your products and services to the public but about engagement and interactions with your current and potential clients. You have to focus on your audience success, as their success becomes your success.

Social listening will be influential

Social media is deeply entwined with the digital world, social listening is described as a simple approach to learn more about your potential customers or what is being said on social media about your brand. It will offer you a lot of benefits to get a fully effective social media marketing campaign. When you learn to listen to your potential clients that is when you can already claim social success for your brand. No one can deny the widespread position in the social sphere it is Google+,  Google+ is already claiming rewards from bloggers,   writers and video tutorial experts. Google+ gives an exclusive experience for business and consumers to communicate through its wonderful features such as Google Hangout, Google places, Google maps, Google doc sharing and more. This should be your number one tool to listen to your consumer and communicate with your consumers as well.

 Socratic SBC | Small Business Consulting

2 Wisconsin Circle Suite 700 Chevy Chase, MD 20815

Office: (410) 344-7874

Fax: (202) 318-0689 

rwhunni@socraticsbc.com

SocraticSBC is 100% committed to creating solutions, and delivering quality content that improves the way you do business. We want to hear from loyal customers like you. Follow me on Twitter at @rwhunni or email me at rwhunni@socraticsbc.com and let me know what you think about our services. Your feedback makes us better.

Google Marketing when Launching your Dream Business

Google remained to be untapped by businesses all over the world because of the so many platforms your business could possibly get in. Also, we learn so many things in this search engine making it a reason enough why it has outstanding visitors every second. Building presence in this platform will give you countless audience which is why Google marketing has been introduced. Learn the facts making this marketing strategy a best channel to launch your dream business.

Engage with your Prospective Customers Effectively

Creating a piece of special content is just one of the many ways you can implement google marketing. Interesting contents with visual impact is what the google ranking is looking for; it is a determining factor that the posted content is in high quality.

·         Encouraging you readers to engage with your content through blog comment box. They will share their insights with regards to what you have posted. Replying to such comment will further circulate the social circle and increase ranking. So when someone researches on a similar topic as your content then rest assure you post will be seen on top lists.

·         Social media marketing through circulating your post from other social platforms simultaneously will your business develop popularity in an instant. This is why a blog is shared through these mediums for fast website traffic and again goes down to an effective Google marketing.

How can you Introduce your dream business to the Market?

 Offering unique experiences for your consumers will develop a sense of marking or making it notable for them. Apart from unique offers, what actually sets you apart from established businesses out there is the branding.

·         Trademark is very important in order for a business to become remarkable. Trademark includes product uniqueness, catchy graphical representation with relevance to your offers and tag lines that once heard automatically hits your business.

·         Conduct a target client research and again Google can broadly help you with that. Updates are weekly posted so with Google it will be easy to track down who these probable audiences are. When you are able to communicate to your audience they will find your service to be useful to them.

On SEO Tools to use

Google marketing along with SEO tools can help the leverage for your business. Hiring team of professionals for this technical task will boost further capacities of your business. Utilizing the tools require technical skills that which require proper training but the result of this workload is amazingly effective to make your business known to all.

For some reasons, strategies may come and go and what seems effective now may not be tomorrow. Google marketing with unlimited resources to create valuable elements will surely turn your dream business to success.

Socratic SBC | Small Business Consulting

2 Wisconsin Circle Suite 700 Chevy Chase, MD 20815

Office: (410) 929-6395 

Fax: (202) 318-0689 

rwhunni@socraticsbc.com

Ideal Business - Measurable Tasks for Social Media Marketing

If we will give a dollar for each person who would be thinking every minute about doing social media marketing and its techniques many would probably become an instant millionaire by now. Every business owner these days would want to push their limits within today’s tight competition.  But we can’t deny that social media marketing is one of the top priorities written in an online marketing plan.

What are the top Social Media Websites to Implement Marketing Campaign?

When it comes to business taking the top websites being given importance by online marketers would definitely be Facebook, Twitter and Google+.  They are the most tracked channels by website analytics for developing your business reach virtually. To know why and how the tools are used let this post give you some brief details.

The Amazing Facebook Marketing 2014

Facebook as claimed to be today’s most popular social media website provides Facebook  Insights that can only be seen by page developers.  With this, metrics can determine what points of your page must be developed and which are challenging. These metrics will help your business drive in the right missions and goals by attaining it.

·         Here is where you can find the page “Like” weekly status, number of reach or people who viewed your posts and create an algorithm to where you target your followers by letting them be updated with your posts in their homepage.

·         There are limitless possibilities to where you can conduct social engagement as part of your marketing plan.

About Twitter Marketing 2014

More than half a billion active users, Twitter ranks number 2 for top social media marketing channels. Many of the overwhelming number of users are businesses all over the worlds. Apart from getting countless prospects here, Twitter as well help to drive traffic in your website and turn conversions.

·         Follower growth tab to where changes are updated giving you an idea people following your company time after time. When you increase reach all the more traffic will be driven making your firm popular effortlessly.

·         Twitter also has a frequency tab to where tweets are track down as it will give you the idea of how much more should you tweet about in order to meet your followers’ growth. It will be ideal to create a tweet plan to be scheduled in order for your target followers to see it and might mention it.

The Convenience of Google+

Google+  works similarly with Twitter as it includes follower rate, social engagement rate and mention rates. Here is where you can use engagement metrics to know what posts you should share about. Content marketing is beneficial to this task since that you have to point out the information likely interesting to your circles.

How does social media marketing affect your marketing strategies?

Increasing business ideas are able to make it through this modern day living with having helpful internet access. This is a core reason why an increasing number of small businessmen would go for online marketing strategies. Aside from convenience, the business could possibly be widely acknowledged without paying much just simply performing online marketing. And so before jumping up to availing a company website we need to first know the value of website maintenance for your corporation success. For the particular virtual industry, this is crucial and must be planned before hand before execution. It must too be understood that your company website must usually reach the expectancy of customers in accordance with their needs and deeds.

How to assure that your social media marketing works

 Firstly, errors or any website content problem can be a big turn off if you are who’d be visiting it especially customers. Well maintained website page ensures excellent performance which justifies the general impact. You'll find varieties of actions to take into consideration which can help identify how all of it characteristics properly. One common instance of website maintenance is double checking if there are broken links from the site. Correcting it the particular soonest possible will assure to avoid being seen by website visitors. Web developers are the ideal ones it is possible to turn to in relation to managing broken links as fast as possible and here is where you can be sure with your online marketing strategies.

Strategic Marketing is possible anytime

Next find time to see if there are missing titles in your company website if not needed to include titles. It could make your company website appear more conventional and reliable which therefore a first step in attaining customers’ trust. Also be aware of website page and titles which are improper and cannot be for one effective social media marketing. In this website maintenance function, a web designer accounts for fixing such problem. This is a smart marketing campaign that you should never set aside.

Now we will go with principle part of site maintenance 

Website maintenance which is very important and that is to verify images inside of website content. Image size and design resolution has to be closely related for your firm. Furthermore, it has to be visibly attractive to ensure that website visitors would be interested on reading more about your current pages. If for instance the resolution might cause problems for the images to look then let your website design company analyze the problem asap! Social media marketing is not just about interacting with prospects but to primarily create a lasting good impression.

The main elements of inbound marketing for small business

On the internet today, marketing has become more and more challenging to overcome. Most small business drops the SEO for more interaction with their followers. But Google says that SEO is not dead though we still need to think like human rather than robots. Search algorithm Hummingbird is an advanced search tool which will also benefit marketers as well as searchers.

Know the elements of inbound marketing

 

1.       Email Marketing – Good email marketing can be the solid ground for your business. Most business deals are negotiated through email not social media

Email platforms to use

·         Exact Target

·         MailChimp

·         iContact

·         Mailgen

·         Active campaign

2.       SEO – Search engine optimization can give life to your website in form of organic traffic. A website cannot survive without SEO. SEO include:

·         Content Marketing

·         On-page Optimization

·         Off-page optimization

·         Keyword Research

·         Competitive analysis

Tools to use:

·         Google Analytics

·         SEOmoz

·         Ravertools

3.       Social media – is a tool that can spread your message well to your community and beyond, if your message is valuable and informative. Target audience will spread your messages in their network and so on, this will give you online credibility and online presence.

Platforms:

·         Facebook

·         Twitter

·         Google+

·         LinkedIn

·         Pinterest

·         Instagram

·         Foursquare

·         YouTube

·         Slideshare

Tools to manage your social media platforms are:

·         Hootesuite

·         Tweetdeck

·         Wildfire

·         Sproutsocial

4.       Content – Content brings life to the internet marketing efforts, without content you will not gain the brand awareness you are aiming for. No one will know about your business without spreading contents across multiple platforms.

Types of content for your marketing campaign

·         White Paper

·         Press Release

·         Blogging

·         Videos

·         Presentations

·         Infographic

·         Video/ online tutorials

·         Webinars

·         Ebooks

5.       Design – design is what binds all your marketing effort into one. A good website design with great user experience is one of the most fundamental elements of your overall business marketing. All your marketing campaign leads back to your website and it affects your overall conversions.

Website needs:

·         Branding/awareness

·         Website design

·         Mobile website version

·         Interface design

·         Responsive design

·         Business information

·         Blog

·         Images

·         Graphics

Tools to use to improve your website:

·         Wordpress

·         Drupal

·         Social media buttons

·         Photoshop

Inbound marketing plan should include these 5 important panels

1.       Identity

Buyer stage needs to have identify stage, whereof the customers permission to sell your products is earned

2.       Exploration

Use blog to publish valuable content and promote it on social media, invite more users to share your content across their network

3.       Decision making

One of the most important thing you can do for your inbound marketing is to help your clients make the decision through easy and quick solutions or informative content

4.       Take action

When your article meets the readers need, show them what benefit it has for them to choose your product and repeat the process.

5.       Advocacy

Turn your customers into your supporters and turn your fans into your clients

What to consider for your marketing mix

 

·         Social media marketing

52% of small business owners have found customers through Facebook, 67% companies who blogs have generated more leads than those who don’t, 43% of small business owners found customers on Linkedin through their professional Linkedin Profile. These statistics tells you that it is worth to mix your marketing campaign and learn the different platforms benefits as well as weaknesses

·         Content Marketing

Adding content with relevant keywords to your website will increase your page rank, having new valuable contents increases interactions with your potential customers. By creating interesting content can give you something to post on your social media sites. New content also means another reason to contact your customers through email content, which will be offered through presentation, white papers or Press release.

·         Video Marketing

Video marketing offers the same level of audience engagement, but more effective than content alone, in fact by year 2016 online video will be the largest single generator of internet consumer. Everyday 75 Million Internet users in USA watch online videos, from Advertisements, to DIY, How tos and Online tutorial videos. Video and marketing will be the perfect pairing, it also improve consumer engagement and increase your small business trustworthiness.

Final words

Make the most out of your inbound marketing by adding and mixing up different marketing campaign to suit all your target audience.

Roderick Hunnicutt

Socratic SBC | Small Business Consulting

2 Wisconsin Circle Suite 700 Chevy Chase, MD 20815
Office: (410) 929-6395  
Fax: (202) 318-0689   
admin@socraticsbc.com

Ways to market your small business on Pinterest

As social media continues to rule over marketing world, Pinterest is heading its way to market small business through media sharing. Do you truly get how Pinterest can help you market your small business the correct and precise way? If not here are some helpful tips how you can market your small business on Pinterest and gain the social business medal!

Create Brand awareness, sounds easy right?

Social brand awareness for most small business is definitely not easy at all, with the entire competition going on to get the title of most trusted social business, there are lots of work behind it. So here are some tricks and tips for your small business Pinterest Marketing.

1.       Learn the image showing and bragging

Create different boards with categories related to your business. Capture related images and name your boards accordingly.

2.       Pinning is fun

Once you have learned the Pin button, you will never stop pinning, share others pins and let your images be easily pinned as well.

3.       Interact with your pin mates

To be really social on Pinterest ask your followers to pin to your boards, Like and Comment on their pins

4.       Share your personal interest on Pinterest

Are you interested in Football? Share your interests and be more human. Make sure your content are exciting, attracting, interesting and fun.

5.       Be relevant

Always be relevant, post contents that will make your followers interested. Always use your target audience as inspiration for pinning, while it is fun to pin from your personal interests, make sure you pin from your own site and blog posts.

Optimize your Pinterest Profile and promote your Pinterest page

Compete your Pinterest profile, fill up the form and description or about you box to make it more interesting for your followers, add keywords that best describes your small business boards or Pinterest boards. Promote your Pinterest page:

1.       Connect you Pinterest account to your Facebook and Twitter, share your Pinterest posts to Facebook and Twitter automatically with a link back to your pin.

2.       Share communities or Groups, where members share their ideas and tips on how to market small business likes yours. Pinchat is also a great feature to use.

3.       Add “Follow me on your pinterest” on your Blog or Website

4.       Promote your Social site through email signature

5.       Follow similar pinners and share quality contents with them.

6.       Invite them to pin on your boards, the more pinners the better

Other ways to promote your Small Business through your Pinterest Profile

Be locally visible and promote your business and city

One thing that will attract your visitors or followers to your Pinterest profile is that, you care about your city and why you have established a small business there. Share you part of experience in your area, mainly focus on your business but it is also great to share other local businesses on your profile. In the long run your business will be easily located if you share much about your city.

Be a city Guide too

 

While you are busy promoting your own small business, be a city guide to those who are visitors to your city, take pictures of your favorite spots, café, parks, grocery store etc and create boards especially for these types of Photos.

Other things you can share

1.       Local Events

2.       Free outdoor and indoor activities

3.       Shine spotlight on other local businesses, they will appreciate it and refer customer who will need your type of services.

Roderick Hunnicutt

Socratic SBC | Small Business Consulting

2 Wisconsin Circle Suite 700 Chevy Chase, MD 20815
Office: (410) 929-6395  
Fax: (202) 318-0689   
admin@socraticsbc.com

http://www.socraticsbc.com