Archive for category Social Networking
Pinterest for Your Business
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Networking on March 6, 2012
The new rage in the social media sphere is Pinterest – an online scrapbook where users can pin and share images in an easily customized way. Users create boards inspired by their favorite topics or brands; using a “pin it” button from their toolbar, they can instantly share their inspirations to their network of friends. Within moments, other users can pin that image to their board, creating a social network of image sharing and inter-linking. Some of the best candidates for Pinterest’s vast network of sharing include wedding planners, digital designers, foodies, fashion lovers and interior decorators.
Why is this good for a business? Members use images from the web – and those images are often linked to the websites where the images originated. But it’s not just all pretty photos – California restaurant chain Tender Greens uses Pinterest to showcase images of chefs at work, and the ways in which they plate catered foods. Another example – retailers like Raymour & Flanigan or West Elm can show off catalogue shots featuring their designs, and users can talk back by showing those retailers inspirational images for their living spaces. This gives businesses a chance to have a two-way visual dialogue with their customers. Some businesses using Pinterest – such as Wedding Republic – have seen a 75% increase in traffic through Pinterest.
Users say they love Pinterest because it’s like getting magazines delivered straight to your desk, without adding clutter or cost.
How do you use Pinterest to promote your business?
Spend the time using the platform. Like any social media site, you will not see results unless you can put in the time. It takes constant interaction on any platform to keep your brand relevant. Also build relationships with “Pinners” who have quality boards, and who post quality images. Influencers who have a solid relationship with a brand are more likely to talk about that brand.
Keep it simple – cluttered boards are a surefire tactic to keep “Pinners” from NOT clicking on your page. Mimic Pinterest’s uncluttered design, but be sure to include ONE link back to your site through each pinned photo. Also, make sure your business is a good match for Pinterest. If you sell pianos, make sure you can provide aesthetically pleasing imagery to “Pinners” who will use your images. If you sell power sanders? It will probably be difficult to see a return on your time investment using Pinterest. And remember – don’t just promote yourself. Social networking is about sharing a vast array of ideas. Pinterest users are savvy when it comes to spotting boards that are too-self serving. This means you must interact more than just promoting your own products.
If in doubt, try out a daily theme! Come up with a theme or slogan and build themed boards around that, using at least 1 product from your homepage. Be selective, be inspiring, and be creative.
Read the Terms and Conditions – Pinterest is based on pinning images, but make sure the images you’re adding are your own. There could be ramifications to pinning copyright images.
And above all, remember to interact – Pinterest is built on a concept of networking, and networks all depend on connection. Ensure you take a little time to build that connection with other Pinterest users.
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At RoryMartin.com, we are focused on creating and executing effective social media campaigns for our amazing customers. We offer a full set of services; whether you need website design and web development, search engine optimization, or social media marketing. From entrepreneurs to established businesses, we do the work so you don’t have to – making social media simple.
Twitter and Facebook Build Customer Loyalty
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing, Social Networking on October 24, 2011
As a company that specializes in Seattle Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing, the RoryMartin.com team likes to keep you informed about new studies regarding social media. A recent study, generated by Chadwick Martin Bailey, states that Twitter users who follow brands on Twitter are more likely to buy from and recommend that brand. The group also produced a previous study correlating Facebook users’ purchases with the brands they “like” on Facebook.
This is good news for businesses who are using social media networks to improve their marketing efforts, especially because Twitter and Facebook users are some of the most frequent internet users in general. The study showed just how Twitter users were interacting with brands, reporting that 84% of Twitter users who follow brands do actually read brand tweets, making Twitter an effective form of presenting your company and products. Even better, approximately 1/4 of users who follow brands on Twitter do tweet about the brand. 1 out of every 4 users in your Twitter audience are likely to be talking about your brand right now.
Twitter is proving itself a very useful forum for customer loyalty. It’s important to know your audience and to make sure you’re tweeting authentic content, though. 67% of users expect unique content from the brands they follow. In the decision to follow brands on Twitter, customers cite exclusivity and promotions as some of the top reasons they follow brands. Here are the top five reasons users follow brands:
- 64%: I am a customer of the company
- 61%: To be the first to know information about the brand
- 48%: To receive discounts and promotions
- 36%: To gain access to exclusive content
- 28%: To receive content/information to retweet and share with others
If your business is not using Twitter right now, you are missing out on a very valuable marketing method. The report shows that businesses shoud be tweeting to their customers as a means of building brand loyalty. Don’t know where to start? At RoryMartin.com, we help businesses customize their social media marketing plans, provide customized facebook pages, overall website overhauls, web design, and perfectly timed tweets.
We can help you build a Social Media Strategy that reflects your unique brand and meets your business goals. From a one-time site analysis to full search engine optimization strategy and execution, RoryMartin.com makes social media simple.
Forbes: 10 Social Media Mistakes
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing, Social Networking on August 5, 2011
We found an article on Forbes this morning listing 10 social media mistakes businesses commonly make. They range from not addressing negative feedback, to skimping on social media time, to not measuring your return on investment. Forbes tells you what to do, and at RoryMartin.com, we tell you how to do it:
Mistake No. 1: Not Having a Plan
Sit down with your marketing guru and map out where you want to be with your social media campaign and what you want it to do for you. Be realistic about what you can achieve in 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 3 years. Figure out how you’re going to do it and who’s going to administrate your accounts. Map out your monthly social media calendar and estimate how much time you need to spend on each piece of the puzzle. Great planning produces great results.
At RoryMartin, we create customized social media calendars for each of our clients, making sure we match our marketing recommendations with your marketing plan.
Mistake No. 2: Too Much Too Soon
You don’t have to do everything all at once. Your plan (above) should work in waves. That way, you have ample time to put into each step of your plan and nothing is missed. If you follow your social media calendar you should avoid that overwhelmed feeling of trying to do it all. Keep it simple, and only build when you’re ready to take on a new challenge.
If you don’t have the time to keep up with your social media accounts, consider hiring a company like RoryMartin.com, a search engine optimization, web design and web development, social networking, and social media marketing firm.
Mistake No. 3: Not Measuring Your Success and Return on Investment
You need to know if what you’re doing is producing results, right? Get Google Analytics and become familiar with that tool. Check out Google Webmaster tools (and yes, the two are very different). Create Google alerts, email alerts and Twitter alerts to find out when, where and how your company is being talked about. Analyze which avenues work the best and build on them, which will help you cut out the unnecessary steps in your social media plan.
RoryMartin.com specializes in helping businesses create social media strategies with the analytics and reports that help you see the effects of a good social media strategy.
Mistake No. 4: Underutilizing Social Platforms for Branding
Make sure you fill out every available field you can on those social media accounts. It’s like talking about your company or touting your elevator pitch. The more complete your profiles are, the more accessible your business becomes and the more transparency and brand value those sites have. Won an award? Manta asks for those kind of stats, and that can be the reference your brand needs to pick up that high profile account. Got a blog that offers industry insights? Put that into your LinkedIn profile, to make sure other professionals in your industry know about your blog and have the chance to stay up to date. Make sure your Twitter account is linked to that blog, and to your LinkedIn, and to your Facebook. Leave no stone unturned.
Mistake No. 5: Promoting Without Listening or Engaging
We’ve talked about social media engagement, here on the RoryMartin blog. Social media is a communicative tool. As with any form of communication the best thing you can do is listen. Listen to your audience, your competitors, and people you want to work with. Listen, or look for conversations that you want to be a part of. Listen to, and watch social media influencers and keep track of ways that you can contribute to become an authority.
Be a part of the conversation – the HUMAN conversation. Creating relationships in the social media world is important to creating trust between your brand and the world. Develop a deeply human relationship with your audience, and your audience will reward that relationship.
Figure out why your customers would want to befriend you in their social media networks. They want to know “what’s in it for me?” And you need to be able to answer that question. At RoryMartin.com, we can help you answer these questions and show you how to engage your social media customers.
Mistake No. 6: Not Addressing Negative Comments or Feedback
Instead of responding with ire, or just ignoring this conversation completely, ask those negative commenters what you can do to “make better”. Customer service is all about finding better ways to communicate and better serve your customers. Look at those avenues of social media as creative ways to give better customer service. Start a dialogue with your unhappy customers, and they’ll be a lot less unhappy.
Mistake No. 7: Not Claiming Existing Profiles
Your business is most likely listed in several places you didn’t know about. And the info on those sites may be old, outdated, incorrect or incomplete. The strategy here is to search for your company, across the web, to find out where you are listed and what needs to be updated. After you’ve made a list, go through and systematically update your profiles to reflect your website, your address, your contact info and interlink your profiles – adding things like your Twitter account and Facebook page.
Mistake No. 8: Skimping on Time
Let’s face it: Social media is a time investment. It can take months for your social media efforts to pay off, and patience is key. That’s why tip #2 is so important. Don’t bite off more than you can chew, and know that you’re going to have to block out chunks of time to monitor and engage in your social media efforts. If you don’t have the time, hire a professional who knows the ins and outs of social media engagement, or look for a Social Media Marketing company like RoryMartin.com who can help you build and implement your social media strategy – so that you have more time to run your business.
Mistake No. 9: Lacking Passion
If there’s one thing we have here at RoryMartin.com, it’s passion for social media. Without the passion, your social media efforts may fall flat – you know your brand and as a business owner, you more than likely love what you’re doing. Try to channel that into your social media efforts, since social media is an extension of the way you promote what you love. If you just can’t get jazzed about interacting on the social web, consider hiring social media professionals who have the passion and knowledge to be the voice of your brand.
Mistake No. 10: Not Knowing When Social Media Isn’t Right for Your Business
81% of entrepreneurs still don’t take advantage of social sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and 40% small and medium-businesses don’t even have a Web site. That said, internet users spend approximately 22% of their Internet time in social media, making social media a priority for any company that wants to be visible. Think about your target market and your audience. Who are they and where do they spend their time. Maybe social media isn’t right for your business, but how will you know unless you try it?
At RoryMartin.com, we’re focused on finding the right social networking and social marketing options that are right for you. We do the work so you don’t have to, bringing social tools to every business, and making social media simple.
Make the Most of Linkedin for Your Business
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Networking on July 28, 2011
As a web design and web development, search engine optimization, search engine marketing and social media marketing firm, we like to keep on top of the trends – and exploring trends on LinkedIn is no exception. We stumbled across this article that boasts 10 LinkedIn Tips for Professionals, that says:
Despite the hype over Twitter and Facebook, Linkedin offers the greatest opportunity for professionals to make connections that lead to business.
We agreed with Ian Brody’s article, especially the following tips
1. Don’t make your profile look like your resumé. Brody says that the number one temptation when setting up a LinkedIn profile is to fill in all those prior job slots, but that’s ineffective where LinkedIn is concerned. The business connections that you’re looking for are going to want to see solution-oriented details. Add the business name and title, leave out things like, “managed four people who perform business-related tasks.” Explain where you went above and beyond the basic job task, improved something, saved money, or where you were excelled and were just plain awesome.
2. Find Connections – Know your Strategy. LinkedIn is social, and there are a lot of professional networks on LinkedIn, where you can flex your knowledge and show off your skills – for example, you might find us in the LikeSocialMedia.com group. Of course, like any social network, it’s best to get a feel for the pulse of the community. Listen, watch and learn; find out what other pros in your industry are doing and saying and be cautious at first about sharing dissent. Like anywhere (or any social network) first impressions are lasting impressions. And Ian Brody notes, “Create a connection strategy to build valuable discussion.”
3. Ian Brody suggests updating your status to remind people what you do, and what you’re currently working on. If you connect with a lot of people, staying current with status messages can do anything from help you connect with someone who’s looking for YOUR expertise to keeping you up to date on news in your field, to helping you and your brand grow in ways that your clientele are looking for.
What do you think readers? Have anything to add to Brody’s tips for LinkedIn?
If you’re curious about how to use LinkedIn for your business, contact RoryMartin.com to find a strategy that fits your social networking needs, as well as the social tools that simplify your social media integration. We offer a comprehensive set of services from website design and web development to search engine optimization and search engine marketing and social media marketing. If you need creative ideas, easy implementation, and a limited investment into your social media campaign, RoryMartin.com has experts available to assess your needs, provide excellent customer service and innovative marketing tactics before you’ve even signed a contract.
The State of LinkedIn
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing, Social Networking on July 12, 2011
Have you ever wondered how LinkedIn actually affects your business? Ever asked yourself why LinkedIn is important to your company’s potential? At RoryMartin.com, we’ve been researching ways for businesses to use LinkedIn to build a better social media strategy.
Having your business profile out there on the web WILL help increase your organic search results, so if you’re not optimizing sites like LinkedIn, you’re not fully optimizing your search engine potential. LinkedIn also helps your business look more complete, and is an established tool for reputation management – especially through customer testimonials.
LinkedIn is also a powerful tool to analyze your company and its connections through your employee network. An article on Mashable notes that, “…it will automatically calculate your company’s median age, top schools, and other companies that they are well-connected to.” This can be effective for recruiting job candidates, and networking in your industry. Through LinkedIn you have the ability to post polls, and receive answers, letting your business know what your clients are interested in, and keeping you up to date on industry standards.
If you’re curious about how to use LinkedIn for your business, contact RoryMartin.com to find a strategy that fits your social networking needs, as well as the social tools that simplify your social media integration. We offer a comprehensive set of services from website design and web development to search engine optimization and search engine marketing and social media marketing. If you need creative ideas, easy implementation, and a limited investment into your social media campaign, RoryMartin.com has experts available to assess your needs, provide excellent customer service and innovative marketing tactics before you’ve even signed a contract.
Time Your Social Media Efforts for Maximum Effect
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing, Social Networking on June 30, 2011
We found a cool infographic on the best times to send out social media posts. We like to couple this with the Problogger strategy for blog postings when we’re considering the best way to send out social media messages. This is a great infographic to keep in mind – especially if you’re using something like HootSuite to schedule your posts. The original post says,
Included are stats for Facebook and Twitter on what days and times are best to maximize the audience size and the possibility that your content will be both found and shared.
As a Seattle Web Design company that specializes in Seattle Search Engine Optimization and Seattle Social Media Marketing, RoryMartin.com can help you build a Social Media Strategy that reflects your unique brand, draws and keeps visitors on your page. We help implement exciting content and social tools that will make your business stand out. From a one-time site analysis to full search engine optimization strategy and execution, RoryMartin.com can help your business grow.
The World, in Social Networks
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing, Social Networking on June 24, 2011
We found a cool infographic from Vincenzo Cosenza’s blog (Vincos.it) showing the world in Social Networks. Vincenzo says,
Facebook is slowing gaining users around the world (almost 700 millions) establishing its leadership in 119 out of 134 countries analyzed (in this edition I’ve added Ethiopia and Tanzania).
Europe has now became the largest continent on Facebook with 205 million users…
It’s interesting to look at how these numbers have changed this year.
Facebook is by far the social network winner here, so we encourage our clients to make sure they have a solid presence on Facebook and are actively engaging their customers. Need to know what goes into your Facebook strategy? In this article we tell you how to make an impact on Facebook.
RoryMartin.com is that secret weapon that will revolutionize the way you engage with your clients and end-users. We offer a comprehensive set of services from website design and web development to search engine optimization, search engine marketing and social media marketing for companies large and small.
The New Landscape of Social Media Marketing
Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking on June 20, 2011
Navigating the new marketing landscape means knowing which marketing tactics are effective, and which tactics are outdated. Improving the visibility of your website has become a marketing priority, yet it can be frustrating since competition for rankings is intense. As many businesses lack the time or cashflow to continuously monitor, report and adjust their strategy, the results of many social media marketing campaigns are often poor. If you’re struggling to boost your page rank, you may need to adapt your SEO and social media strategy to reflect the new trends in social media marketing and search engine optimization.
If you’re not embracing social media as a business, you’re missing out on one of the biggest marketing tools available. Using tools like Facebook and Twitter actually boost your search engine rankings, making your website more visible to search engines like Google. Consider how much content is shared on Facebook each day – users spend approximately 22% of their Internet time in social media, making social media a priority for any company that wants to be visible.
Of course, just hiring an intern may not do the trick. While social media can be a valuable marketing campaign tool, it’s often a commitment. Hiring a professional will ensure that you get the best results from your brand’s digital communications. You want someone who can represent your brand and company, not just the message behind your brand. Social media has become an avenue for customer service, sales inquiries and ongoing questions – you want someone who understands your audience, and can think out of the box in a way that is both specific and familiar to your client base.
Hiring a professional will ensure that your message, and your core product do not get lost in a sea of irrelevant information. Anyone who’s been on the web knows just how much junk the web holds – having a true professional on your team will ensure that your relevant keywords and terms drive traffic to your page. A professional can tell you which information to include and which information is irrelevant. They can help you streamline your content, showing off your product’s benefits in a straightforward way. A social media professional can also help you determine terms that are broad and wide reaching, and help you optimize key words and phrases so that your site gets a good SEO ranking.
Content is still key on the web, and having someone who knows your brand, your clients and your company will ensure that users come to your website because you are an authority. Social media is all about providing something of value to your customers. You need interesting and relevant content, you need high-quality inbound and outbound links. You need customer interaction that is fun and info-rich. Monitoring industry key words and phrases will continually provide feedback on what your customer or audience is interested in, making a tailored social media strategy easier to attain.
RoryMartin.com is that secret weapon that will revolutionize the way you engage with your clients and end-users. We offer a comprehensive set of services from website design and web development to search engine optimization and search engine marketing and social media marketing. If you need creative ideas, easy implementation, and a limited investment into your social media campaign, RoryMartin.com has experts available to assess your needs, provide excellent customer service and innovative marketing tactics before you’ve even signed a contract.
Make an Impact on Facebook
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing, Social Networking on June 15, 2011
One of our focuses at Rorymartin.com is helping customers create and execute their social media campaigns. An effective social media campaign should be married with your marketing campaign, and should use a wide variety of social media tools – including Facebook. Facebook is one of the most useful social media marketing tools out today; yet many businesses don’t quite know how to implement Facebook into their social media strategy. One key point to Facebook as a social media tool for business is building interactions.
Initially, Facebook didn’t offer pages, and so businesses created profiles as a way to reach out to users, especially since messaging users has continued to remain a feature reserved for profiles. Yet, one of the most common mistakes businesses make on Facebook is creating a profile instead of a Facebook fan page. What these businesses may not know, is that profiles have not been as visible and don’t necessarily get the visits that pages do. While Facebook updates may seem like a way to alert fans to events and news – showing up like messages in users’ inboxes – a very small percentage of updates are actually visible to fans, because of an algorithm called EdgeRank.
EdgeRank gives every post a quality score – measuring the number of comments, likes, and shares per post against the number of fans a page has. Businesses who want to be seen need to build up their EdgeRank, by making their posts interaction friendly – which means businesses need to spend more time building community with their fans. Fans don’t interact with self-promotion nearly as much as they interact with conversation. Your page needs to have a conversational, community feel – a give and take that makes your brand appealing to your fans and their friends. To really optimize your Facebook experience, mix up the types of posts to include blogs, videos and engaging questions.
Building the interactions your Facebook page is just one part of a good social media strategy. Seattle Social Media Marketing company, Rorymartin.com focuses on helping our customers build their EdgeRank. This helps our clients educate their markets and build brand awareness while winning and retaining customers with engaging and impactful websites and web marketing. We offer a comprehensive set of services from website design and web development to search engine optimization and search engine marketing and social media marketing.
Tips to a Stellar Social Media Strategy
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing, Social Networking on May 20, 2011
As social media becomes a key component in online marketing, businesses who aren’t creating and implementing stellar strategy may be left in the dark. Social media creates buzz around your business; and as your company becomes more visible, social media drives traffic to your business or website. With a solid strategy, you’ll have a chance to talk to new and interested audiences, while ultimately becoming more user-friendly. We’ve curated a few key tips to make your social media plan succeed:
Listen: Social media is a communicative tool. As with any form of communication the best thing you can do is listen. Listen to your audience, your competitors, and people you want to work with. Listen, or look for conversations that you want to be a part of. Listen to, and watch social media influencers and keep track of ways that you can contribute to become an authority. There are tools that you can use to monitor these conversations, and track keywords, once you determine which users and conversations are relevant to your business. But above all things it’s best to determine who your target audience is, and why they want to be a part of your sphere.
Once you have a clear line of sight it’s time to…
Plan: Social media influence *can* happen organically, but for a business it’s best to take the bull by the horns. Listening to the buzz happening in the social media world will help your business determine your social media goals and objectives (these should tie in to your businesses goals and objectives). Plot out which social media sites you’d like to use and the contacts you’d like to gain. Define your strategy, the people who will implement that strategy, and how they/you will engage with your audience. Plan out the time it will take to implement this strategy, so you don’t waste time splashing around in the metaphorical social media pool. Create a social media calendar that coincides with that strategy, so you’ll know what kind of content to create and when. As Margaret Thatcher once said, “Plan your work for today and every day, then work your plan.”
And while you’re doing all this planning, remember that the best connections are personal, human connections so you’ll need to…
Engage: Be a part of the conversation – the HUMAN conversation. Creating relationships in the social media world is important to creating trust between your brand and the world. Develop a deeply human relationship with your audience, and your audience will reward that relationship. Show them that your business is a team of actual, relatable people, not just a big logo run by a bunch of robots. For example, a set of auto-tweets won’t be nearly as effective as coming up with relevant content that varies from day to day. That’s not to say your auto tweets aren’t important, but that you should also respond to the influencers, audience and industry relevant to your business. If it’s relevant to both your contacts and to your businesses goals, it’s a conversation your business needs to be a part of.
And if all else fails, you can check back to RoryMartin.com where we’ll continue to write about tips, tricks and tools of the trade when it comes to SEO, online marketing and social media management. As a Seattle Web Design company that specializes in Seattle Search Engine Optimization and Seattle Social Media Marketing, RoryMartin.com can help you build a Social Media Strategy that reflects your unique brand and meets your business goals
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