How Good Is Your Social Media Marketing? – Part 2

October 3, 2011

By Zia Ul Aein

Formulation of a Social Media Marketing Strategy and Things to Consider Beforehand

Social media marketing can be a beneficial and successful path for your business, product or service to adopt. Proper planning and right formulation is very important otherwise every strategy can backfire and your objective of achieving the best marketing techniques can get hurt.

Before you formulate your social media marketing strategy, understand the state of online presence in which your organization is at the moment.  The focus of this post is on the things which you should consider before the formulation of a SMM strategy.

social media marketing

Analyze Your Online Presence

  • Keep a considerate eye on the statistics of your website. You should be aware of the total number of visitors on your website and their origin.
  • Find out the amount of visitors which are directed to your website by the search engines.
  • The number of links your website has with other sites.
  • The activeness of your website in the target markets.
  • Compare your strategies with the competitors and find out what they are doing better than you and what you are doing better than them.
  • Find out if you already having a presence or reputation over social media sites or if you need to start from the very first step.

target audience

Know Your Target Audience

You should be aware of the:

  • Interaction level of your audience (how do they interact with the businesses, products and services like yours).
  • Keywords used by your audience to search for the products and services.
  • Needs and interests of your target audience.

Turning Your SMM Strategy into a Successful One

  • In case of an organization, you need to achieve commitment and dedication from your top management and especially marketing department so that you can attain the goals of your SMM strategy. Delivery of education and information would definitely be required in order to receive the maximum amount of commitment.
  • Start from micro goals and slowly move on to the macro strategies. Assign the tasks of posting and distribution of the content to the correct department such marketing or communications.
  • There are a number of social media marketing sites but you need to study all of them in order to identify the ones you need to focus the maximum amount of your attention on.
  • Do not dream or create those goals which you cannot achieve right now, always go with measurable, achievable and best marketing techniques.

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How Good Is Your Social Media Marketing? – Part 1

September 11, 2011

By Zia Ul Aein

Are you having the right mix of social media marketing? Do you think that you have those competitive social media marketing strategies which can help you stay steps ahead of your competitor?

You are most welcome to read further if the answer to the questions above is either ”Maybe” or ”No”. A social media marketing strategy needs planning and careful execution. After the right placement of every aspect, you can benefit long term. Social media marketing helps you in connecting with your customers in real time. You are able to receive immediate feedbacks, a new offer is instantly delivered, target audience is perfectly reached and customer loyalty is achieved.

social media marketing

Social Media Marketing is a blend of Publishing > Sharing >> Discussing through Social Networking Sites > Microblogging >> Video Publishing >>> Photo Sharing >>>> Podcasting.

Social Media Marketing Strategy

A well planned social media marketing strategy is about the utilization of every single online social media. This technique brings diversity to the online presence of your business. There are four basic hubs of social media marketing.

We are going to start our discussion with Social Networking Sites. The giant of social networking sites is known as Facebook. According to the recent statistics, Facebook has 750 million active users and out of those, 50% log in on daily basis at any given time. On the average, each user has social networking sitesaround 130 friends. 700 billion minutes are spent by people per month on Facebook. If we talk about the mobile access, then 250 million Facebook users access their profiles via mobile and they do it two times more actively than non-mobile users.

Facebook is one out of many social networking sites or in other words, social media marketing opportunities. Creating a Facebook group or a page allows you to reach live, active and targeted audience. Twitter allows tweeting and retweeting updates and news in real time which is indexed by Google and many other search engines. Creating a profile over Linkedin provides your business with an exposure in the form of connection with professionals and other businesses.

The second online aspect of social media marketing is Microblogging. Blogging or blogs are a healthy way of interaction with your audience, especially your loyal customers. You can also direct traffic from your blog to your company or business website.  A blog should be regularly updated and monitored. A community of loyal readers is created by responding to the comments and creating internal links. Microblogging on the other hand includes sending out short but interesting news and updates related to your company like on Twitter.

There are many famous company blogs which you can view in order to get an idea about how a company blog should look like and what kind of content it should have.

Facebook Blog

Google Blog

Acrobat Blog

Video sharing is more than just an enjoyment now. YouTube has changed the world of video sharing. Some years back, YouTube was a hub for people from the entire world to share personal videos and main focus was on the funny content. Now, video sharing sitesbusinesses and professionals are taking video sharing as a serious matter by creating ads and videos related to their products and services.

As a business owner, you can share videos of your product developments, offers, press releases or information in the form of slide shows. Videos in the form of product reviews serve as the most important source for people to know about the pros and cons of a product which later on influence their buying decision.

Millions of iPods are sold every year and this brings us to the last but not least online aspect of social mediapodcasting marketing which is known as Podcasting. The term ”Pod” in Podcasting originated from iPod because the trend of downloading and listening to podcasts started after the invention of iPod. People find it easy and interesting to keep themselves updated while on the move.

This is the reason why so many companies create podcasts and make them available for download for their customers to listen and get their knowledge polished about the latest innovations and offers. Podcast.com and Apple’s Podcast store are on the top of the list for famous Podcast sites.

My next blog post will focus on the things which should be considered before the formulation of a social media marketing strategy.

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Facebook – More Than Just a Profile

September 10, 2011

By Zia Ul Aein

Facebook Marketing

Undoubtedly, Facebook is one of the most famous websites over the internet. With every passing day, thousands of people join the powerful online community of Facebook, fill up their profiles, add friends and chat with their loved ones. But, according to my perspective, Facebook is a lot more than just a profile and chat. For business owners, marketers and advertisers, Facebook is a pipeline of achievement and one of the best marketing techniques to flow through and prove to be successful.

There are a number of ways on Facebook using which you can promote your business, products or services.

Let’s start with Facebook Profile. The first thing you will need to create on Facebook in order to utilize other marketing techniques of Facebook is the Facebook profile. You can add the URL of your website or blog in the provided spaces along with a brief bio of your business. Make sure that you fill everything completely and wisely in your profile as empty or incomplete profiles are easily ignored.

After the creation of your profile, start adding Friends. Do not aim for adding 100 friends at a time because you can easily get flagged as a spam by Facebook and most probably your account will be blocked permanently. Add not more than 15 to 20 friends per day or every second day in order to keep it natural and secure. This way, you will easily be able to reach 500 friends in a month.

If you are looking for something like a forum, then Facebook Groups is the best way to go for. The best thing about Facebook Groups is the easy way to add people. You can add all of your Friends in your group and there is no need for them to approve it.

Facebook Groups

The only issue with Facebook Groups, just like that of a forum, is that you can only see the discussions or the content if you are a member of the group. This is because of the reason that Facebook Groups are not indexed by the search engines. Here I will recommend that you keep just a little part of your focus on Facebook Groups and more on the other marketing techniques of Facebook.

Facebook Pages are my personal favourites. I consider Facebook Pages as one of the best marketing techniques over the internet. Facebook pages are easy to promote because they are indexed by the Google and anyone can view the content.

You can make your Facebook page as attractive and interesting as possible. Fill out all of the necessary and important business information along with the URLs. Make sure that you use the most important keyword as the title of your Facebook Page in order to make it SEO friendly for search engines.

Facebook Pages

Facebook page is the perfect marketing technique to put the maximum amount of your focus on. You can make your Facebook page as viral as a Facebook group. Whenever you will post something in your Facebook page, each and every member of your page will get it displayed in his or her Newest Feeds section.

Facebook Applications is one of the most interesting developments of Facebook to this day. Anyone can create a Facebook application to engage users in different kind of activities. Some Facebook Applications are based on fun such as games whereas some are made for the sake of business promotion and they are proving to be useful for the users.

facebook-marketing

There are many Facebook applications which are having thousands of active users and if you want to create one for your business, product or services then check out the Facebook Developers page. After the creation of your application, you can market it in your profile, page or group.

Facebook Advertising is another great way to advertise your business. You can get unexpected CPC and CPM outputs with Facebook Advertising. If you haven’t created a Facebook Page yet then you can advertise an external website otherwise you can direct the traffic directly to your Facebook page. You can always target your audience according to age, gender, interests or locations.

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Why to Switch from Facebook or Twitter to Google Plus?

August 14, 2011

By Zia Ul Aein

If you are one of those folks who are making use of social media for 2-3 years now then most probably you are having a set of both professional and personal accounts divided between Facebook and Twitter. It is possible that you need both Twitter and Facebook to monitor and manage your social media activities because both of the social media websites provide different options for social media marketing.

What if there is a solution which has the properties of both Facebook and Twitter?

That solution is known as Google Plus. Google Plus was released by Google a few months ago and many people didn’t pay much attention to it just like Buzz. I was myself not so moved by Google Plus but recently I decided to sign up for it and see if it’s worth using as a social media website. At the moment, Google Plus is the first website I open when I turn on my laptop in the morning and it is also in my bookmarks. I found it very useful to switch from Facebook or Twitter to Google Plus and here is why:

  1. Google Plus proved itself to be an exclusive social media platform by introducing the concept of invite-only sign ups. Those people who were always attached to the network of social media jumped right in. The system of invites created a hassle and there are so many threads over different forums with at least 2000 replies where people are only asking for invites to sign up for a Google Plus account as fast as possible.
  2. You can easily set up your profile with Google Plus once you are in the account. There are five tabs named Posts, About, Photos, Videos and +1’s. Posts will be activated automatically after the creation of your Google Plus account and in +1’s tab you will be able to see the websites, photos, videos, posts or anything you did Google Plus to. Google Plus ProfileGoogle Plus 4 Tabs
  3. There is no need to create multiple accounts at Google Plus for personal or professional use because Google Plus Circles are there. You can write anything you want to and it will only be exposed to those people to whom you want it to. There is no need to spend hours in creating lists and adding people to those lists in Facebook when you can simply drag the people in Google Plus to specific circles. I have created around 7 circles named Friends, Family, People I Sort of Know, Following, Co-workers and my Business Relationships.google-plus-circles
  4. Video Hangouts in Google Plus, in my opinion, can present a great amount of competition to Skype. The video quality is actually better than in Skype and without paying any extra money you can start a video group session. Google Plus would simply inform the people in your circle that you are hosting a video stream and you should expect anyone to join in (and maybe make some new friends).Google Plus Hangout
  5. There is one last reason but definitely not the least which made me switch my social media efforts from Facebook or Twitter to Google and that is the availability of Gmail, Google Buzz and Search at one place. I can switch between all of those services without the need of logging into multiple accounts or opening multiple tabs. I can save both time and efforts with Google Plus and you can do the same.

There is no doubt that Facebook would make use of counter marketing strategies and Twitter would keep on acting as the gold mine for people with 140 character messages but Google Plus has its own place and people are slowly realizing that. It was unbearable for Google to see Google Buzz failing but now I see their efforts proving with Google Plus.

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Online Marketing Guide – Everything You Need To Know

August 4, 2011

An online marketing campaign is not only limited to registering a website for your online business or store. You should simply modify your thoughts about marketing if they are limited to registering your website with search engines like Google and Yahoo and nothing after that.

We should not forget that there is a tremendous growth in the number of people who prefer shopping online. This factor and demand has also encouraged the growth of online stores therefore it is not an easy task anymore to be the only one with a unique service or a product.

For so many internet companies, spending millions of dollars on marketing campaigns is still not enough for getting the attention of the online users. There are so many advertisements over the internet and the user himself or herself gets confused about whom to choose and whom to drop. This environment is making it difficult for many businesses to stand out.

The right mix of your online marketing depends on the type of services or products you are selling, your target audience and your marketing budget. You can download the online marketing guide from the link below where a basket full of different online marketing techniques are described that you can use effectively to increase the value of your online business profile.

Marketing your online presence is not an easy task. It is a long term investment, a continuing hard work and durable results.

Download: Online Marketing Guide – Everything You Need To Know

You will need an Adobe Reader to open the Ebook and in case you don’t have one, you can download it here.

Posted By: Zia Ul Aein

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Why Your Business Needs Google Plus

July 18, 2011

Zia Ul Aein Google Plus Profile
Would you like to join another social network? Most probably not because your life is already too occupied with Facebook. What if you are told that there is a new dimension of social network which can prove to be really helpful for the promotion and marketing of your business?

It’s no other than Google Plus.

The objective of this article is not regarding the fact if Google Plus is going to be something better or worse than other marketing techniques over the internet. The objective here is to describe how you can effectively use Google Plus to provide benefit to your business.

Sooner or later, Google Plus would be able to gain position in the list of best marketing techniques therefore it is better to implement things right now instead of waiting. At the moment, Google plus is not offering profiles for businesses but it is just temporary because many things are in the beta mode. Still you can benefit from Google Plus by following simple and straight forward steps:

Sign Up

If you already have a Google Plus account or profile then thumbs up because you are good to go. In case you don’t, there are two things you need in order to get a Google Plus profile.

–    Gmail address
–    Invitation for Google Plus

Without a Gmail address, it is not possible to create a Google Plus account.

Momentarily, you have to have an invitation from someone who already has a Google Plus account in order to create a profile for yourself. Soon this requirement will be taken off and everyone will freely be able to make accounts. You can also mention your Gmail address in the comments section and I will send you the invitation so that you don’t have to wait.

Creation of a Profile

It doesn’t matter if your profile is supposed to describe all about you, it can still be used for the purposes of promotion and marketing of your business. But, how to create an effective Google Plus account which can serve the purpose of a business promotion?

Profile Picture – This is actually the very first thing you should be doing in your profile. A profile without any profile picture is an element of zero attraction. If you already have a picture of yourself or your business then excellent otherwise get up, take or fetch a picture and upload it.

Profile Content – Do not get overwhelmed with the contents of ”About” section in your Google Plus profile. Instead, be happy that you can provide so much information about yourself. Fill in as much as you can especially your occupations, educations and links to the website of your company.

Adding Videos – If you made some videos regarding your business then do not hesitate to upload them in the video section. Such things fuel your credibility in the online world.

Friends, Friends and More Friends

Social networking is all about friends. Your business can spread farther if you are having tons of friends.

Basically there are two types of friends. You can either add only those people whom you know but this will formulate a very small circle of friends or you can simply add anyone.

Adding people you don’t know is not called as spamming. You can simply add your target audience to your business profile and it can be possible that many out of those people would turn out to be your clients. This is also termed as one of the best marketing techniques.

Keep Track of the Conversations and Take Part in Them

Having a great number of friends would actually make it difficult for you to follow each and every conversation but still you can do your best. Give a Google Plus to a conversation you like, comment on it or share it with other people. It will allow more people to get connected to you if you share stuff around Google Plus.

Start Conversations

It is very important to create conversations in Google Plus. If you want to achieve the purpose of best marketing techniques then you should know that it is not enough to simply contribute in the conversation but also create them. Simply post stuff on your profile so that everyone in your list can see it on their own stream.

It is also important to keep track of those people who are engaging with your conversations so that you can also do that with theirs once in a while.

Promote! Day and Night!

You now have the amount of people you need to keep them posted about your business. Never stop promoting. Link everything about your business with Google Plus. In my opinion, soon Google Plus will be considered as an essential part of top marketing techniques and it will become impossible for businesses to promote well without it.

Also, do not forget to add the Google Plus button to your website. Your traffic is highly dependent on the number of Google Plus you will get from the visitors with the help of the Google Plus button. If you have a Google Webmaster Tools Account then you can easily track the affect of Google Plus button on the traffic of your website.

Conclusion

Forget about the fact if Google Plus is going to be something small or big. Simply utilize a promotion tool, from wherever and however you can.

Note: If you want an invite of Google Plus then do not hesitate to leave your Gmail address in the comment section.

Click here to add me in your circles of friends on Google Plus.

Posted By: Zia Ul Aein

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Google Plus (Google +1) – Does ”Facebook Like” Got A Competitor?

July 17, 2011

Google recently announced its newest service and it is called as Google +1 (Google Plus). A number of questions are arising now regarding the competition between Google +1 and Facebook Like.

Can it be that Google +1 would achieve the top place in the list of best marketing techniques?

The functionality of Google +1 is not much different from Facebook Like. Google +1 is not like many other social networks over the internet. It is something different and worth using. At the moment, it is not open for businesses but that doesn’t mean that a business is not going to benefit from it. It is possible that soon Google +1 will be on the top of all promotional and marketing tools and social websites.

Google has a huge advantage of being the largest search engines and using this, a strong and immediate integration of Google plus one can be achieved. At the moment, more than 50% of traffic over the internet and on most of sites comes from Google. Facebook is trying its best to reach that level but Google +1 is already there.

best marketing techniques Google +1

best marketing techniques facebook likeWe all can agree to this fact that social networking is an essential part of online marketing. Tweets of Twitter, Likes of Facebook and now +1 of Google. Google has also the advantage of making Google Adwords more like a social networking panel by placing the Google plus one button next to every advertisement.

There is no doubt that this is going to be a great step from Google towards the trends of internet marketing but the question which needs to be answered is the intensity of competition Facebook is going to face.

The integration of Buzz was a failure on the part of Google and even though many internet users are already rushing into the scene, we still have to wait and see as how successful Google would prove to be in the case of Google plus.

Posted By: Zia Ul Aein

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Ebook of the Month

July 14, 2011
Online Marketing Guide - July

Online Marketing Guide - Coming Soon!

Ebook for the month of July ”Online Marketing Guide – All You Need To Know” will be available for download on August 4th 2011.

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How to Choose The Best Marketing Techniques?

July 8, 2011

A Guide for What You Need to Consider In Order to Make The Best Choice

”What should I do?”

This is what most of us ask ourselves whenever we are encountered with making a decision for marketing techniques or plans. The reason is that there are hundreds of them and many of us make huge mistakes while choosing an option.

It is not easy to create a marketing plan for your business. Many of the times while searching for the best marketing techniques over the internet, you encounter techniques which are termed as ”must” for every business. This makes you wonder if those techniques are really going to help you in a positive manner.

If you talk in the sense of traditional marketing then there are more than 50 techniques and over 30 techniques which can be applied in the sector of internet marketing. So the question is how to find the most powerful and best marketing techniques out of so many to bring in the best possible results and rankings?

Whenever I design a marketing campaign for my clients, I never let go some important things or questions out of my consideration.

What are the Goals and Objectives of Marketing?

It is very important for a business to know about objectives and goals they are looking forward to achieve with their marketing. This can help to a great deal in choosing the right technique. Basically, marketing is implemented to achieve these four purposes:

  1. To tell your target audience about your brand and how they can know more about your brand, product or services. In textbooks, this is known as Brand Awareness.
  2. To build a pre-sales relationship with your target audience in order to talk about the sales or make them request information about your product or services. The textbook term for this purpose is Lead Generation.
  3. To allow your target audience to consider your brand as one of their short listed choices. This is known as Brand Consideration.
  4. To perform direct sales with your target audience.

Target Audience

You should select those techniques to which your target audience will respond to and pay attention to. But, did you properly identify your target audience? If yes then you should know that there are some people in your audience who will not buy from your business unless and until they get to know you very well. For this, you will have to make your audience aware of the brand by making use of a marketing technique such as public speaking. Then, for lead generation, you can either use SEO where Google Adwords can be useful or by providing your audience with free offers. Finally, when you are confident enough about the trust of your audience, use email marketing to achieve direct sales.

Services vs. Products

This is one of the biggest and most destructive problems that many of us face in internet marketing: the application and implantation of same marketing techniques for both products and services. The effects of such blunder can only be poor results because there are different mixes of marketing techniques for both services and products. The purchasing pattern of people is different when it comes to services as compared to products. Therefore, a single marketing mix cannot be used.

What Else To Consider?

Your timelines and your budget are also very important things to consider. By budget I mean both in terms of money and time. You will see that some marketing techniques can be implemented for free but they require a huge amount of time to spend.

If you know your audience, your budget, your objectives and your time along with the regular testing, you will be able to figure out the top marketing techniques to use for your business over and over again.

Posted By: Zia Ul Aein

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Top Marketing Techniques – It’s All About The Customers

July 5, 2011

Marketing is one of the most important aspects of a business. Without marketing, it is not possible for any business to gain ranking over the both offline and online world. I have gone through a number of texts and articles and came up with some common and important conducts they share about marketing.

According to my experience with marketing, I believe that these 5 aspects can be termed as the best marketing techniques which should be implemented in order to build a strong base of any business.

1.    Most Profitable Clients and Advertising Focus

For many companies, this fact is of a great surprise that it’s the small percentage of their clients out of which they make the majority of their profits. It might be that you are focusing your advertising on 95% of your customers whereas half of your profit is coming from left out 5%.

Would you find it useful to focus your advertising on non-profitable clients? Not at all, therefore focus your advertising and efforts on finding out the most profitable clients, even if they comprise of a small percentage. If the percentage of your profitable clients is 20% then spend 20% of your advertising budget on them.

2.    Most Profitable Clients and Consistent Advertising

Once you are able to know about the most profitable clients of your business, direct the advertising of your company on those clients and not just once but on regular basis. To build both trust and recognition, make effective use of your advertising. Stay in a regular contact with your clients along with a proper allocation of your advertising budget.

3.    Positioning of Your Company

If you can see that your targeted customers are happy with the service or product of your competitors then position your company in such a manner that it serves as the second choice for them. Many other competitors would like to brag positive things about their companies and spread negative things about the competitors but you should avoid this. This is because whenever clients would require a backup or replacement, your company will be perfectly positioned for that. Many of the companies and businesses avoid this strategy even though it is one of the top marketing techniques. You can achieve long term results with this strategy.

Every company’s greatest assets are its customers, because without customers there is no company (Michael LeBoeuf)

4.     Advertise. Stay In Contact. Ask For Feedback.

There is nothing better than your existing customers. They trust your business, they know how your business works and they show their loyalty. Always keep the maximum focus of your advertising on your current customers because they always buy more from you and cost you less in return.

Don’t forget: ”A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”

5.     Advertising is Familiarity – Familiarity is Trust – Trust is Customers

The relation between you and your customers is solely based on trust. Your customers will only do business with you if you are trustworthy. But, building trust takes time. A strong advertising campaign would help in making people get familiar with your company, the type of business or services you are offering. This consistent familiarity building will lead to trust building and finally you will achieve your goal of having loyal customers.

trust building cycle

Cycle of Trust Building

Remember: There is no shortcut to building trust.

Posted By: Zia Ul Aein

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