Google+ combines the networking features of Facebook and Linkedin allowing users and brands to be put into circles. With Google+ you can do a number of things like +1 a page and/or story, share content, hang out with users in one or more of your circles, join and form circles, and of course, comment on posts. Brands can create multiple pages and individuals can create one profile.

Google+ Direct Connect – G+ Direct Connect links Google+ pages with Google’s search engine. Go to Google and type ‘+a’. As you are typing, Google suggests brand pages. Visit one of them and you will be asked to add the page to your circles. You also have the option to share or follow the page. Direct Connect availability is limited for the time being and utilizes an algorithm that factors in the page’s relevancy and popularity. It also looks for a link between your Google+ page and your website, either through a badge, an actual web link on your G+ page, or with a piece of code.

+1 – Recommend a story or page by clicking the +1 button. Prominently display +1 buttons on your website, blog, and other online resources. Having more people recommend or +1 a page helps to determine its Direct Connect popularity.

Sharing – Shared content becomes visible in the user’s stream to their circles. Acceptable content includes photos, videos, and links. You can also italicize, bold, strikethough, and add other users to the conversation. This feature is similar to other social networking sites.

Hang outs – Start live, face-to-face conversations. Have a Q&A, teleconference, or webinar with a circle of your choice. You can invite circles of specific individuals to join a hangout, but they can freely invite others without your approval. However, when an unknown person joins the hangout, you will get the option to leave or stay. You can only hang out with up to 10 people at once and if you block someone from a hangout they will also be removed from your circles.

Circles – Create circles and customize your messages to the audience. Individual users must add a page to their circles before that page can add the person. Pages cannot add individual users to their circles at will. Your posts will appear in a user’s stream once they add you, even if you don’t reciprocate. On your home page, go to ‘Spread the word’ to encourage others to add you to their circles.

Comments – Commenting is similar to Facebook. Individual users can comment on a business’ posts even if they have not added the business page to their circles. Brands cannot freely post to a person’s page, but can share, +1, and comment on the posts of users in the brand to circles. The only way to limit interactions with individual users is by blocking them.

Althouh it is still in its infancy stage, Google+ is a great addition to your social media strategy. As with any other network, engage your audience and continue to adapt as more features are rolled out. Add me to your Google+ circle and leave a comment telling us how you use Google+ for marketing. Share your comments below.

If you are looking for innovative ways to create your brand image or promote your company through Google +, brief the Exchange now!

Tonya

By now, you have probably read my previous blog post entitled 12 things every marketer should know about the new Facebook timelines and gained some valuable insight. Reading the blog post above is essential to understanding the changes made to Facebook and how this post can help to increase your page’s visibility. Posting to your Facebook page frequently and asking users to highlight and share your content are only half of the ‘visibility equation.’ Use these tips to make sure your business page is set up properly to achieve maximum visibility.

Manage permissions. First of all, make sure your page is published and accessible to everyone in all countries. Also, check the option ‘People can write or post content on the wall.’ As we know, any time a user writes on your wall, that interaction is displayed in their entire network’s tickers. This is a huge way to increase visibility and offers a great opportunity to engage the user and possibly other users in their network.

Don’t be afraid to let users post to your page. Every post may not praise your great product or services, but it does give other users a chance to see how you deal with customer service issues. Whether or not customers post negative comments to your Facebook page, they will spread the word about bad service so it’s best that you are aware of it and solve the problem quickly. You can use the ‘Moderation Blocklist’ and ‘Profanity Blocklist’ to help control spam and other content posted by your users.

Basic Information. Correctly categorize your business page and include an address to enable ‘Check In’ and location services. Completely fill in the fields for your brand’s description, mission statement, and contact information. Facebook allows for personalization of your brand’s username. The username becomes the URL to your brand page so choose wisely and be consistent.

Profile picture. Your profile picture is a direct reflection on your business and should be clear and consistent with your brand’s overall image. Using a customized QR code as your profile picture is a great way to pique your audience’s curiosity and increase engagement.

Apps. Include photos, videos, events, and customized tabs to increase engagement and visibility. This is a great way to show your portfolio, product demos, and tabs that gather information and encourage lead generation.

Insights. This is the place to go to understand user activity such as the number of ‘likes’ and post views. This information should help you decide what types of content your audience responds to and what to post in the future to increase engagement. You can also create ads in the insights section. This process is similar to setting up a Google Adwords campaign. Since Facebook collects user data for you, they provide many more targeting options such as age, sex, relationship status, level of education, and even company name. Other demographic options include ‘precise interests.’ In this field, you can enter specific keywords that can be found in target audiences profile such as “cooking” or “reading.”

If you found my post helpful, please share with your network using the buttons below.

Tonya

A landing page is the first web page your visitors see after clicking on a link in search results, emails, and/or social media links. It’s important to have distinct landing pages based on the group you are marketing to. For example, prospects who are directed to your website after clicking on a Google banner ad should see a different page than those who clicked a ‘special offer’ link on your Facebook page. You want to send prospects to a form of some type in order to collect personal data for future marketing purposes, whereas the latter should be sent directly to the ‘special offer’ details. 

By following these tips and techniques you will be building optimized landing pages to generate leads and ultimately, increase sales in no time.

• As previously mentioned, direct different groups to different landing pages depending on why they were sent there in the first place. If they clicked your link to ‘learn,’ ‘find out,’ or ‘download’ ask them to fill out a quick form.
• The form should not be a ‘contact us’ form. Instead link to a simple form that asks for their name, company name (if you are a B2B marketer), email address, and phone number. You can ask for other information as you see fit, but remember that the shorter the form, the more likely people are to fill it out.
• Be sure your landing page title is consistent with the link and surrounding text. You don’t want anyone to think they were directed to the wrong page. If people get confused they will lose interest and you will lose a lead, and possibly a customer.
• Each landing page should include sharing buttons. Ask your audience to ‘share this special offer’ with friends and/or colleagues.
• Include links to your social media profiles. Also, if you have a newsletter, ask them to sign up. You want to build and maintain relationships with prospects and get them to help spread your message.
• Now that you got someone to visit your website and ‘download’ or ‘sign up’ you want to keep them there and prompt them to purchase something or inquire further about making a purchase. Hide links that would allow the user to navigate away from the landing page. Once they have completed the task at hand, the ‘thank you’ page can include navigation links again.
• If your landing page allows your audience to download a white paper, ebook, sales sheet, etc. make sure you have social media links embedded into the pdf so they can share it with their networks. The link contained in the tweet or status update should direct the new prospect to the original landing page.
• Once you have new leads, be sure to follow up. Use targeted promotions based on the information you just collected from them (ie. type of product or service needed). Don’t wait days or weeks to make contact with new prospects. More than likely they are looking to make a purchase pretty quickly following their inquiry. Send an automatically generated email after they fill out the form and/or have a customer service representative contact them as soon as possible.

If you want the most optimized landing pages for your marketing campaigns, submit a brief now!

Why not show us examples of great landing pages and campaign success – leave a comment or tweet!

Tonya

Your Twitter followers are an asset to your business and to your brand. Think of Twitter as the customer/prospect database for a direct marketing firm. That’s exactly how valuable they are! Followers purchase your products/services, spread your message to their networks, and provide feedback that helps you to improve.

Attempting to determine the value of your Twitter followers may seem like a daunting task, but here are a few ways to help you get started.

Who retweets your tweets the most? “Power retweeters” are very valuable. Think of this as free advertising. Keep track of who your “Power retweeters” are and continue to engage and reward them. That way, they will continue to spread your message. Pay With A Tweet is a service that allows you to sell products for the price of a tweet! This could be a great way to reward “Power Retweeters” and/or encourage others to retweet often. TweetReach is a simple way to track retweets nad visualize just “how far your tweet travelled.” TweetReach also includes analysis and reporting tools.

Quality vs. Quantity. Having 100,000+ followers is great, but if only 5,000 are your target demographic, the inflated number of followers can give you a false sense of accomplishment. This is the same as having a marketing database full of irrelevant prospects. Here are a few tips for increasing your Twitter following. You need people who will spread your message to their followers and so on. Make sure your followers fit your demographic and are regular users. Otherwise, they have no value and are only “taking up space.” Try Just Unfollow, a “freemium” service that identifies inactive followers.

Who’s Your MVF? Most Valuable Follower (MVF) just launched last week. The app tells you exactly who your most valuable Twitter followers are by evaluating criteria that the developers used to define value: scarcity and popularity. MVF is free thanks to developers, by Alex Taub and Michael Schonfeld. You may not want to rely solely on one measure to determine the true value of your followers. That can only be determined based on your specific marketing goals.

Equip yourself with the right tools. Tweepi is a handy social media management tool that provides stats on your Twitter followers – number of posts, Klout score, date of last activity, etc. It even includes a feature that suggests relevant users who are most likely to follow you back. Tools like Tweepi are useful and help to ensure you have quality followers versus a large number of unqualified followers.

Let your followers know how valuable they are to you. Thank you still goes a long way, even in the complex world of social media. Personally speaking to your followers makes them feel special and appreciated. Think about the feeling you got when your favorite brand followed you back or thanked you for following them. Your followers will probably feel the same way. Don’t be afraid to share your successes. “Thanks to our followers, we have reached…” Conveying their value to them directly reinforces the reasons they began following you in the first place…

Need help determining how to run your social media marketing channels like Twitter? Brief now!

Tonya

There are a number of reasons you should be blogging for business and they all lead to increased revenues. In order to be successful, your blog has to be updated regularly and contain information that your audience finds useful. Whether you are a large brand or a small business, blogging is an effective way to optimize your online marketing strategy.

Here are a few tips and techniques that every marketer needs when blogging for business.

Establish yourself as an expert on a specific topic or in an industry. Display your knowledge and customers and prospects will always think of you when they need your product/service. They will also be more inclined to recommend you to others.

Search engine optimization (SEO). When prospects search Google and other search engines, you will have a ton of indexed pages that will be returned in the search results. Organic results tend to be more credible than paid results.

Web traffic. The use of relevant tags and keywords in your blog posts will boost your ranking in organic search results. Higher ranking means increased visibility and the more likely users are to visit your website. More web traffic equals more leads.

Generate leads. Turn your blog into a “lead-generating machine.” Place CTAs or calls–to-action in blog posts. Ask them to follow you on Twitter or “call for details”, etc. You determine your CTAs based on your marketing goals.

“Free” marketing. Your blog will work 24 hours a day with a greater reach than your normal marketing activities. The content contained in each post will always be searchable and will be indexed by major search engines. One post will work forever.

Blog often. This gives your subscribes something to look forward to and effects your search engine rankings. The most recent posts/changes to websites are ranked higher with search engines.

Sharing. Make sure your blog includes a number of different ways for readers to share your content. Blogging sites like WordPress allows for Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Google+, and a host of other sharing tools. Ask your readers to share your content and make it easy for them to do so.

Timely. Take advantage of current happenings in your industry. Consolidate information making it easier for your readers to get the main points. They will appreciate the conciseness of your post and pass it on.

Visually appealing. Make your posts easy to read by including relevant images and by breaking up blocks of text. Try making bulleted lists and using bold and italic fonts to emphasize important words and/or phrases.

Publicize. When you blog, tell everyone you know. Tweet and post links on Facebook and always ask your network to share your posts with their networks. Publicize blog posts with your business followers as well as your personal network.

Don’t overdo it. Blog posts should be clear and concise. Tell readers exactly what you need them to know – nothing more, nothing less. Would you want to read a ten-page blog post with the main takeaways buried in page 9? Neither do your readers.

Tonya

Linkedin is a professional network of individuals and companies with diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise. If your brand does not have a Linkedin presence, you are missing a valuable opportunity to increase exposure and network with clients and other industry professionals.

These tips will help you to maximize your Linkedin presence, network with clients, establish your expertise, and generate new business leads:

1)     100% completeness: Complete your profile by adding a picture, update your education and work history, and ask for recommendations from colleagues and/or clients.

2)     Public profile: Your public profile should be visible to everyone. You can decide which information you would like displayed to everyone and which information you would like to reserve for your connections.

3)     Customized URL: Make it easy for clients, prospects, and colleagues to find you. Customize your URL so that it reflects your name or other industry keyword.

4)     Links: Include links to your twitter page, website, and blog. Clearly label these with names (ie. “Tonya Walker’s Marketing Blog” vs. “Blog”). Do this by selecting ‘Other’ from the drop-down menu and entering the title of your choice.

5)     Check out the competition: See how your competitors are using Linkedin. They may showcase work, clients, or provide information that is not readily available on their website.

6)     Groups: Join and/or create a relevant group. Groups can bring in leads, allow you to further network with professionals, and stay up-to-date on the latest in the industry. I recommend joining and participating in established groups before creating your own. Make sure the group you create is beneficial to your audience and fills a need.

7)     Connect with everyone: Unlike Facebook where you may only accept friend requests from people you know, accept requests from everyone on Linkedin. You don’t want to pass up a potential business contact.

8)     Publicize: Share your latest blog posts, industry news, press releases, etc. with your Linkedin network the same as you do on Facebook and Twitter. Services like WordPress will automatically update your Linkedin status when you publish a new post. Also, connect your Twitter account with Linkedin so that your tweets are displayed to your contacts.

9)     Answer questions: Establish yourself as an industry expert and increase your credibility by answering questions. Browse by industry and choose topics that you know the most about. Be as helpful as possible and invite them to connect and come to you with additional questions.

10) Applications: Apps are very popular on Linkedin as well. Use My Travel, Slideshare, Polls, E-Bookshelf, WordPress, Portfolio Display, Events, etc. to share your work, interests, and projects with your audience.

11) Introductions: Ask your contacts to introduce you to their contacts and vice versa. Your relationships with contacts should be mutually beneficial.

12) Ask for business: Post discounts and deals on Linkedin for your connections to share. Providing keycodes for online purchases is also a great way to track Linkedin sales. Don’t oversell! Every update should not ask your contacts to purchase something. Provide useful information as well. Content is key.

Why not share any tips you have on best practice on Linkedin? And if you’d like help in developing your marketing strategy, brief now!

Getting Twitter followers is not as difficult as you may think. The tips below should help you get started down the path to quickly building your Twitter following.

#1 Follow people in your target audience and industry. People that you follow will normally follow you back, but make sure they are regular users with recent tweets. Also, check their following to follower ratio. The closest it is to 1:1, the better chance you have of them following back. You don’t want to spread their messages if they are not doing the same for you, so pay attention to this.

#2 Provide useful, entertaining, or valuable content that users will want to share. As users share your tweets, their followers will become interested and follow you as well.

#3 Simply ask for your message to be retweeted (“Please RT”).

#4 Tweet often. There are so many tweets in a user’s timeline at any given moment that you must tweet often throughout the day in order to be noticed. Use some of the many tools available to schedule your tweets daily or weekly. Check out 20 essential social media channels and tools for tips on choosing the best social media tools.

#5 Don’t tweet the same thing over and over. Your link can be the same, but use teasers that will capture the attention of your audience. Otherwise they will ignore you and not share your tweets. Scheduling tools like SocialOomph will not allow you to post the same tweet more than once a day.

#6 Link your Twitter account to your website, blog, Facebook page, Linkedin account, ebooks, emails, etc. Make sure people know you exist in Twitterverse.

#7 Use relevant industry keywords in your profile. Many times people search Twitter using keywords. Make sure you can be found easily when they do.

#8 Most of all, be engaging. Customers want to interact with you. Thank new followers and encourage two-way communication. Browse this list of marketing tips to learn more about engagement.

#9 Tweet using relevant keywords and hashtags. People need to be able to find you and know who you are and what you do within the first 5 seconds of seeing your tweets. Twitscoop will show you which words are buzzing and who is using them the most. This will help you narrow down power users as well.

#10 Know what people are saying about you and your industry. Do a Twitter search using relevant industry keywords to find out what customers are talking about and how you can help them.

#11 Target power users. These are people in your industry that you may consider your “Twitter idols.” They have a huge following and the respect of other industry professionals. Build strong relationships with them in order to attract their followers.

#12 It’s your turn to retweet. Keep followers by showing you are paying attention as well. Retweet information that you find useful. This is also a great way to achieve #4 when you don’t have anything to new to say.

If you want some great campaigns using Twitter or other social media, then brief now!

Tonya

Email marketing is NOT dead. As marketers we just have to be smarter about reaching our audience. You are obviously reading this for a reason. Maybe you have seen a decline in response rates and are questioning the effectiveness of email marketing altogether. Well, I’m going to explore a few ways to jumpstart your email marketing campaign and prove that email marketing lives in 2012.

Let’s start with your marketing database. In order for any direct marketing campaign to be successful you must have updated contact details for your clients and prospects. Be sure to properly segment your data for your email campaign. If you send coupons for diapers to someone with no kids, they won’t be interested and will not open your emails. Also, Email addresses should be for individual people, not info@ or webmaster@. These emails will be lost in the www. Be sure to clean your data often. If emails are undeliverable to certain addresses, remove them from your email list. Be sure your customers and prospects receive two different emails.

Once you have segmented your data you are ready to craft a great email design. Your email should be easy to read on mobile devices and have a link for doing so. Keep all call-to-actions (CTAs) above the fold and provide interesting content. Get straight to the point. Immediately tell the reader why you contacted them or else you will lose their attention. Evaluate your opens vs. your clicks. How many recipients open the email, but don’t go any further? Your problem may be with your email design.

Congratulations, your clients and prospects have received your impeccably designed email, but will they open it? That depends on a number of factors. Do they have a relationship with you? Is your name in the “from” line? Does the subject line leave them curious? Use these tips and techniques to improve open and click rates. Make sure your email client provides crucial stats and use them to improve your email marketing campaigns. Don’t be afraid to test your subject lines and follow these subject line do’s and don’ts.

Once your customer or prospect opens the email and clicks through, the rest is up to you. 

Are you convinced that email marketing is still effective? Tell us your biggest email marketing challenge in the comments section below. Or submit a brief to get your email marketing off the ground!

Be sure to share this article if you found it useful. 

Tonya

First things first, set SMART goals for your Adwords campaign. You need to set specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely goals so you know what you want to accomplish.

Now go to adwords.google.com and set up your account. Verify your email address and “create your first campaign.”

Campaign type:

1)     Search network only -  includes all Google search pages (Images, Maps, Shopping) and partner sites (AOL).

2)     Mobile and tablet devices only – ads will only appear on mobile devices

3)     Online video – create video ads that run on Google’s content network

 Location.

1)     All countries and territories

2)     United States and Canada

3)     United States

4)     Let me choose: you have the option to enter specific locations such as city, region, or country. A map is provided.

Networks and devices. Google recommends new users display ads on all available sites, which also include partner sites. Once you learn more about your audience, you can choose very broad or specific reach depending on where your prospects are most likely to be.

Bidding and budget. Set your daily budget for the month; this can be changed at any time throughout the course of the campaign. Heightened traffic would means your ad will appear more often exceeding your daily budget by up to 20%. Your monthly limit will not be exceeded if your daily budget is consistent for a given month. Example: if your daily budget is $10/day for a month, Google will charge no more than $304.00 for that month. However, if your costs for a given day exceed the daily limit, Google will only charge 20% of the daily budget. Example: If your daily budget is $10 and you accrue additional costs in the amount of $5, Google will not charge $15, but $12, because 20% of your $10 budget is $2.

 Ad extensions.

1)     Location – shows your business address with your ad

2)     Sitelinks – include links to other pages on your website aside from the landing page specified in the ad

3)     Call – add a phone number to your ad

4)     Social – Connects your ad with your Google+ page; a +1 on your ad means a +1 on your Google+ page.

Schedule. Set your campaign’s start and end dates. You can also choose specific days and times that you would like your ads displayed, but if you’re new to Adwords you may want to have them run on all days and times until you better understand your audience.

Delivery.

1)     Ad rotation – decide if you want more clicks, conversions, or an even balance. Refer to your SMART goals.

2)     Frequency capping – limits the number of times you ad is displayed to a single user

Demographics. Specify who should see your ad based on age and sex.

Social settings. Choose whether or not to display Google’s +1 button on your Display Network ads.

Automatic campaign optimization. Choose standard or auto-optimized targeting. Auto-optimized will be disabled unless you have conversion tracking set up. Standard targeting shows ads based on the methods you set up (ie. keywords, demographics, etc.). Auto-optimized uses the Display Campaign Optimizer to find additional traffic. It’s availability is currently limited to a select group of advertisers. If you are new to Adwords you will not have to worry about this feature. Your ads will use standard targeting.

Now you’re ready to create an ad group. Choose a text ad, image ad, or display ad. Select your keywords and estimate traffic, enter your billing information, and your campaign will begin.

Be sure to perform analysis throughout your campaign and make the necessary in order to reach your SMART goals.

But there is always another way to help you with your Adwords Campaign… brief the Exchange! 

Here’s 10 channels and 10 tools that are essential for your marketing strategy:

Channels

There are tons of social media networks available today and list continues to grow. Every network may not be right for you, but you must find out which ones are important to your target audience before eliminating them. Here are a few that are essential to your marketing strategy.

1. Facebook: Use customized landing pages, tabs, videos, surveys, and other apps to keep users engaged. Read my previous post, 12 things every marketer should know about the new Facebook timelines.
2. Twitter: Customize your background, hold Q&A’s, and conduct surveys. Don’t forget to tweet often.
3. YouTube: Upload product demos and viral videos and integrate them into your website, Facebook page, and company blog.
4. Instagram: Share pictures of your team, retail location(s), events, products, etc. with iPhone users. 
5. Tumblr: Post pictures, videos, and text, to your customized page. Your posts appear in a timeline similar to Instagram.
6. WordPress: Having a company blog will increase your search engine rankings. You don’t have to use WordPress so long as you are blogging for your business.
7. Linkedin: Connect with colleagues, employees, prospects, and customers via Linkedin. Also, post jobs, screen candidates, and request introductions from mutual contacts.
8. Google+: Business pages are still new in the Google+ community. Share blog posts and get in the same circles as your customers and prospects.
9. StumbleUpon: Share your company’s blog posts and other useful information that can easily be found by other users based on category of interest.
10. Foursquare: Businesses and brands can benefit from Foursquare. Offer deals provide tips and lists, and encourage users to visit your location.

Tools

Managing 10 different social networks daily can seem like a nearly impossible task, but these tools make it easy to relay a consistent message across multiple platforms.

11. Ping.fm: Ping updates your Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Flickr, Foursquare, and several other accounts with one app! They currently list 32 supported networks on their website and say they’re “always adding new ones.” Did I mention this tool is completely free? 
12. Vitrue: Vitrue moderates Facebook comments, generates shareable coupons, and provides powerful analytics.
13. Disqus: Encourages interaction from blog readers by allowing them to respond from their email or mobile devices and receive notifications when other users post or reply.
14. Google Analytics: Find out which social network is the source of your web traffic.
15. bit.ly: Shorten URLs and track clicks and shares. You can also track your competitors clicks!
16. North Social: Create custom applications for your Facebook page.
17. Storify: Collect photos, videos, tweets, etc. online and share with your audience.
18. Brandwatch: Tracks your social media mentions.
19. Flowtown: Find out which social networks your customer and/or prospects are active on based on their email addresses stored in your database.
20. Klout: Scores your social media activity and allows you to see who you influence and who influences you on the topics you talk about most

If you want help making social media part of your marketing strategy, then submit a brief!