LinkedIn: 10 Steps to Creating an Impressive and Engaging Professional Profile

5Oct

Would you consider your professional profile maximized on LinkedIn?

If you hesitated, then the odds are that there may be some room for improvement.

When it comes to having a fully maximized profile on LinkedIn, there are many areas where your focused improvements can really make a difference. I’ve spoken to countless people who were firm believers that their LinkedIn profiles were built to deliver results.

And then I took a look through them. Let’s just say their profiles left a lot to be desired.

By just signing up for a LinkedIn account, copying your resume points, and adding a picture – you are not putting your best foot forward. In order to create a profile built for success, you need to really illustrate your value and credibility to your target audience.

How you may ask? Here are 10 quick changes that will help take your LinkedIn profile from a starter to a winner in no time:

1. Headshot: Ok, this seems SUPER elementary – but does your picture actually look like you? Have you ever met someone offline that doesn’t match what they actually look like? Doesn’t really help their credibility right? Use a shot that looks like you!

2. Keywords: Before you start working on your LinkedIn account, pull out the list of keywords that people use to find you online. If you don’t have one of these, make sure to take the time to put it together. Once you do, use these keywords liberally (within reason of course) through your ENTIRE LinkedIn profile.

3. Your Professional Headline: Underneath your name you have the ability to create a wonderful and engaging headline for yourself….so why not. For example here’s mine, “CEO of The Go! Agency, Founder of The Social Marketing Academy, Author of “The Go Method.” You can do the same. Use this real estate to your advantage.

4. Location: Make sure that the location that is mentioned in your profile is most suitable to where you do business. So if I was based in Orlando but did 100% of my business in Tampa – I might consider using Tampa as my location. Also, if you have moved and never updated this, it is a big no-no. This is another way people find you on LinkedIn!

5. Add Some Posts: You can easily add some Posts from the homepage of LinkedIn. These will show up directly underneath your Professional Profile header and will allow you to illustrate your expertise to a wide network of possible customers/clients.

6. Summary: Does your summary sound like you? Is it in first person? These are things that I strongly suggest. If I wrote my summary in such a way that I said “Christopher Tompkins is the CEO of The Go! Agency” versus “I am the CEO of The Go! Agency”….you can see the difference. You want people to engage with you – so don’t sound like a company bio from a corporate website, add a personal touch.

7. Add Files to Summary: Make your profile come alive by adding pdfs, links, and much more to your website. This way you can showcase your work in a whole new fashion. Well worth the time and will really look impressive to those who use your profile.

8. Bring Your Experience to Life Visually: There is nothing better than seeing visuals attached to the company that you have worked in. And LinkedIn wants to empower you to do this! So you can add Documents, Photos, Links, Videos, and Presentations to your experience to really shine!

9. Testimonials: If you are not getting testimonials to add to your experience you are missing out on POWERFUL third-party endorsements that will really make you look like the expert you are. Don’t hesitate to ask and follow up on these.

10. Fill in Everything: I know, I know – there are a lot of sections that may not pertain to you. But fill in every section until it is either maxed out, or it ABSOLUTELY does not apply to you. Think outside of the box – you might just be able to fill out more sections than you had originally thought!

My best tip I have left until last … DON’T NEGLECT. And by this I mean, don’t complete your profile once and then never go back again. There are so many variables in life and these always need to be reflected in your profile. Win an award? Add it to your profile. New brochure? Add it to your profile. New company video? Add it to your profile. Promotion? Add it to your profile.

Start off with these tips and you will be on your way to creating a winning LinkedIn profile that gets more views!

Want to Position Yourself as an Expert? Let’s Go!

By Christopher Tompkins

6Aug

Social Media, Uncategorized

If you own a small business, positioning yourself as the company expert is the easy choice, but in larger companies, the owner or CEO may not want to be the focus. In those cases, another member of staff with a solid online profile can act as the expert spokesperson for social media.

For example, if you are going to market your business on LinkedIn, you will need to either create or use an existing account for your spokesperson.

I strongly suggest using yourself (or one spokesperson only) for a period of time before introducing more experts. With more people, you have more to manage, and you can get watered-down results. You can increase your expert base as your skills and social media acumen grow.

Once you determine your company expert, you will need to compile a comprehensive list of your expertise. Having the items below at the ready is crucial to building your credibility as an expert. These also will help you build strong social media profiles on numerous sites, so this is very important information:

* Professional biography (200-300 words tops)
* Current professional contact information (including phone, address, email, websites, social media links)
* Up-to-date resume or CV (including higher education, past jobs, projects, hobbies and interests)
* Videos or pictures of your presentations, awards, training
* Organization memberships (e.g., Business Networking International, American Marketing Academy)
* Top 20 professional skills
* Honors and awards
* Publications you have written for or are featured in (and PDFs/documents of the content)
* Languages spoken
* Certifications, specialty courses, and test scores
* Volunteer work or causes that you support
* Marketing collateral (brochures, sales sheets, postcards, event sheets)

I know – it’s a big, scary list, right? But if you suck it up and get it done, all you have to do is dip back in once in a while to make updates or add new items. Your expert profile information is most useful on LinkedIn, but it will also serve you well on any social media site where you or your spokesperson will be posting. For example, I use my expert details across LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ and other social media sites. You can, too!

Need Online Marketing Help?

Fill Out the Form Below and We Will Get Right Back to You!

[ninja_forms_display_form id=1]

Why Are You Being Ignored Online? The Secret to Standing Out From the Pack

By Christopher Tompkins

6Aug

Social Media, Uncategorized

Who do people listen to online and what influences them to act? It is those that they deem as experts or specialists in their own field.

Simple as that.

This can be daunting to a business if being humble is a cornerstone of its tone and voice, but you want to brand yourself as an expert so that people will want to listen to you, share your opinions, and engage with you online.

One of the fastest ways to become an expert in your field? Stop talking so much. Surprised? I think you’ll agree that you can listen to the endless chatter emanating from an individual whose ego is out of control, or…you can listen to a real expert, offering laser-sharp advice stemming from deep and broad subject knowledge and true industry passion.

Who would you rather listen to?

If there is one thing an expert is not, it’s a blowhard. If you’d like to ensure your business sinks faster than a lead weight, go ahead and tell everyone how wonderful you are.

Nothing seems more pathetic than some virgin web designer, writer, or online marketer who is self-branded as #1 in every marketing piece and on every web page. Achievements are proudly displayed with adjective-filled descriptions and sometimes even proof about achieving vast wealth. I certainly don’t believe it. Would you?

Instead of running around and telling everyone that you are fabulous, you need to pinpoint your expertise in terms of what you have to offer your target audience that engages them with your brand and message. True experts understand their subject deeply, and it’s likely they know how to work it better than anyone else.

There are people all over social media sites who have effectively branded themselves as experts or a specialist in their fields. Let’s take me, for example. Personally, I don’t like the word “expert” used in my profession, as there is no such thing. The social media world is evolving at such a fast pace that no one can have all of the information. I prefer the term “specialist”, as I specialize in social media marketing.

With that said, I researched online marketing to see what people were discussing, what they needed, and how I could help them. Then I developed a myriad of interesting, engaging content that was centered around my target audience’s needs and concerns. I did this by pinpointing topics that I knew would create engagement, discussion, and comments.

Since I am a specialist, I share my insider knowledge, and I help others by answering questions whenever I am asked. I try to focus on creating content that is original and helps people grow and expand their business. I anticipate needs and create engaging content that fills those needs.

By generating innovative ideas, helping peers, and engaging with your community members, you can achieve one or more of these goals:

* Lead the market conversation
* Build loyalty
* Stimulate passion
* Build and maintain a buzz
* Create excitement

So calling yourself an expert is an ineffective way to become an expert, but repeating someone else’s claim of your expert status is a phenomenal way to become an expert. Why?

Expert status doesn’t stem from what you think of yourself; it stems from what others think of you. When others deem you an expert, suddenly your reputation grows, your credibility increases, and your reach is enhanced. In other words, your fans are your very best source for branding yourself as expert. This is beyond invaluable in the social media realm.

For example, in the copywriting industry, perhaps the most well-known expert is Bob Bly. Decades ago, publisher McGraw-Hill allegedly crowned Bob “America’s top copywriter.” The title stuck, and today it is difficult to read about Bob Bly without reading this accompanying fact. Whether he truly is America’s top copywriter or not has become of little importance. It is now considered an accepted fact, much like a royal title.

If you’re serious about building a strong business, let people notice your greatness, and they will tell others. This is why so many of us count referrals as such a valuable source of income.

When you are considered an expert by others, you become sought after for many reasons:

* Experts offer distinctive services that others cannot.
* Experts provide valuable sound bites.
* Corporations seek out experts to certify risky business enterprises.
* Followers are attracted to expert knowledge. (As humans, we all want the assurance we’re doing the right thing and following the right advice.)
* Experts sell more products because people are more apt to buy from an expert who is credible and legitimate.
So what are you waiting for? Get out there and start developing your own expert status!

Need Online Marketing Help?

Fill Out the Form Below and We Will Get Right Back to You!

[ninja_forms_display_form id=1]

Social Media Zen: 3 Mantras to Get You On Your Way

By Christopher Tompkins

27Jul

Facebook, Google+, Healthcare Marketing, LinkedIn, Marketing, Pinterest, Social Media, Twitter, Uncategorized

You are using social media to market your business. You are engaging every day, meeting new connections, finding new business, and starting exciting discussions. There is so much going on at times that you feel a bit overwhelmed, but are still eager to keep learning.

But, after a while, you begin to slip. You start cutting corners and begin to get unfocused. But this is normal right, happens to everyone?

No! You need to nip this in the bud now, before you go any further. When you spend time marketing on social media, you are investing time (and money) into your future online success. In order to keep the ball rolling, you need to keep your activity consistent!

Here are three social media mantras that I repeat everyday in order to keep me and my team at The Go! Agency on point:

Mantra 1: I will plan before I dive.

As you begin to engage with social media sites, you will come across new and exciting tactics, markets, ideas, and opportunities. When you hit these, do not drop everything and throw all of your effort that way immediately. Take a minute and see how you can approach new ideas in a way that is aligned with your overall marketing strategy and in a manner where you can get the most bang for your buck in the least amount of time.

Your marketing plan will be constantly evolving if you are incorporating social media into it, so please make sure to always approach each new idea with care. By having a well-thought-out approach, you will get the most out of the new opportunity that has been presented. Never turn anything down, but look at it objectively and strategically.

Mantra 2: I will listen, watch, and monitor before I join a discussion.

Many of us make the mistake of not listening before we leap. Our gut instinct is to stick to the same communication style as our conference calls, client meetings, email blasts, or corporate website. If you are going to use that style, you better make sure everyone else is speaking your language. In the social media world:

Listening = Reading

Speaking = Writing

When you are marketing in social media, it is 100 percent reading and writing until the time that the conversation moves to a phone conversation or in-person meeting. One of the aspects of social media marketing that you will have to come to grips with is that it requires a lot of writing and grammar skills.

Before you even write a single sentence, always read everything that has been written already. If someone sends you a direct message, read the entire message before responding (no skimming). If you are getting involved in a discussion on LinkedIn, make sure to read all of the points made by other members before leaving your own comment. If you are going to share someone else’s tweet, make sure that they don’t share explicit content regularly and make sure the link is valid.

For example, say that you are the leader of a national animal rights organization and are highly visible on Facebook. You look at some of your network’s Facebook updates and find a humorous one where they shared a YouTube video of a dancing dog. You loved it! And from the look of it, so did 34 other people. But since there are so many comments about the video, Facebook has hidden them, and you only see the most recent ones. One comment says, “My daughter loved the video, thanks!” You jump in and comment, “That couldn’t be cuter! Love everyone’s comments!”

The problem is that you didn’t read through those 34 comments because if you did, you would have seen that 25 of them were talking about how they would torture the dog. And then there you are, the leader of a well-known animal rights organization, endorsing this behavior.

Listen before you leap.

Mantra 3: I want to pull my customers toward me.

Any discussion of social media ethics would not be complete without first understanding the vital necessity of selflessness. I know it sounds pretty heavy, but stick with me here.

This is a good time to mention the terms “push marketing” and “pull marketing.” These terms refer to promotional strategies defined by the method of engagement. Push marketing requires pushing your brand message or offer onto your audience. Pull marketing requires customer engagement, wherein the customer pulls your products or services closer based on interest.

Push marketing is passive, but it can be pretty aggressive. The customer may or may not be aware of what you have to offer them, as is the case with traditional advertising. Even in an online environment, push marketing talks “to” the customer, not “with” the customer. In the online realm, push marketing can come across as “spammy” and heavy-handed. Most importantly, push-marketing methods are generally based on short-term strategies, such as discount offers for a limited time or coupons with expiration dates.

On the other hand, pull marketing is active. The customer chooses to seek out and engage with your highly visible brand. Creating relevant content that interests customers, entices them to register for your newsletter, or encourages them to join your community, are all effective pull marketing methods. Pull marketing methods focus on developing trust, reliability, and long-term perceived value. Prospects learn to believe your solution is the best for their needs. Pull marketing is the basis for social media marketing with a dash of push thrown in for good measure.

The point of this mantra? Every day you want to focus on getting your community to engage with you, not just read and forget. You want to create new and exciting opportunities for them to get close to you and share ideas, feedback, and their needs and wants. Your strategy needs to be focused on pulling your target audience closer rather than blasting them with one-sided content.

Need Online Marketing Help?

Fill Out the Form Below and We Will Get Right Back to You!

[ninja_forms_display_form id=1]

Have Writers Block? Here’s the Secret to Developing a Constant Supply of Content Ideas

By Christopher Tompkins

21Jul

Social Media, Uncategorized

As someone who is passionate about marketing, I love nothing more than having a solid list of approved resources to use when marketing on social media. In this post, I want to share how to concoct your own comprehensive list of content resources that you can add to and edit organically.

Businesses should have two sets of content resources that they use for marketing on social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+:

1. Industry topics, news, and trends that you read

2. Information that your target market read to learn more about your industry

If the second set of resources is new to you, don’t feel left behind. Many marketers leave these by the wayside when formulating a social media marketing strategy. The problems with leaving out this set of resources is that you lose touch with what is important to your target market and just push your agenda down their throats, no matter how off-base it is. Remember, your content needs to be engaging, and understanding what your audience wants is the first step towards engagement.

First, I want you to think about key problems that your product or service solves. Get a pad of paper and write down five or more problems that your product or services alleviate.

For example, if I was an assisted living facility that specializes in Memory Care for people with Alzheimer’s and dementia, my list might look like this:

1. Alzheimer’s

2. Dementia

3. Aging Parents

4. Memory Care

5. Respite Care

All of the above directly relate to assisted living facilities with memory care units. Let me share another one. How about a diet pill that suppresses hunger?

1. Eating Disorders

2. Overeating

3. Overweight

4. Obesity

5. Weight Loss

See how each of these is related to the diet pill?

Now, for each problem that your product/services solves, come up with 5-10 topics that can be associated with each problem. For example, let’s use the diet pill again. The problem it solves is being overweight/obesity. So 5 topics that can be associated with the problems of being overweight are:

1. Diabetes

2. Lack of Energy

3. Low Self-Esteem

4. Loneliness

5. Heart Problems

Now identify at least one online resource that corresponds to each topic. An online resource can be a website, newsfeed, or even a hashtag! In the case of the diet pill, a health blog or an online fitness magazine could be a great resource, write down the name of the resource with the website address next to it for easy future access.

When you are done with this, start a list of websites that you personally visit to find news related to your industry. Write down all of the websites that you go to for the latest trend and news with the website address written beside them. Come up with 5-10 of these as well.

To help you get started, here are a few sites to try out:

1. Alltop

2. Feedly

3. Hashtags.org

4. Quora

5. Buzzsumo

These lists are invaluable going forward because you need to generate content when using social media to market your business. Having an approved list of resources is paramount to success. These will help inspire your writing as well as help you easily find information to share with your target audience that will be valuable to them.

If you like this process, and would like some extra credit, expand your list to include opinion leaders within your industry. These people share lots of valuable information that you could repurpose as useful tips for your audience. In order to create an engaging social media strategy, knowing where you can go to pull fresh, engaging ideas for content is an absolute must!

Need Online Marketing Help?

Fill Out the Form Below and We Will Get Right Back to You!

[ninja_forms_display_form id=1]

5 Ways to Optimize Your Content on Facebook and Twitter

By Christopher Tompkins

13Jul

Facebook, Social Media, Twitter, Uncategorized

Content and optimization have become two very important buzzwords in the online marketing community. If you are a company who is interested in reaching your target market online – you need to have compelling AND optimized content to do so.

I’ve spoke about content and content optimization before. This is not something new. What’s new is the growing interest among companies who are desperately trying to get the most out of their online marketing efforts. Like I always say, if you are going to spend hours (or hey, even minutes) developing content – you want it to hit the mark AND actually be seen!

This brings me to the over-riding theme of this article: optimizing your posts for Facebook and Twitter. As a social media specialist and owner of The Go! Agency, my team and I are constantly on the lookout for the best ways to optimize content from every angle.

Briefly – here are my three pillars of content optimization:

1. Engaging Content: Well-written content which is laser focused on your target market.

2. Timing: When does the post go out and when will it be seen by your target consumer.

3. Social Media Optimization: Do your posts contain keywords, hashtags, tagging and more that can get your content seen by greater numbers of your target audience?

While I could break this down further, I think that these are the three main pillars that you need to concern yourself with when it comes to social media content optimization. These are overall, but when it comes to Facebook and Twitter, I want to give you specific tips to further optimize your posts in specific ways.

The reason I am choosing to focus on Facebook and Twitter is because these two sites are the ones that I am most frequently asked about in my classes, radio show, and when speaking with businesses in general. Everyone wants to know how to get the most “bang for their buck” when it comes to their social media posts on these two well-known sites.

With that said, let’s kick off with the people’s favorite – Facebook.

Facebook has many idiosyncrasies that prevent many newbies from truly being able to realize the full potential of engaging their target audience. This is due to their constantly changing algorithm which seems to be moving towards a more “pay-per-view” advertising model.

But do not fret! There are still ways that you can optimize your posts on Facebook. Here are 5 quick and simple tips for further Facebook content optimization:

1. Every Post Needs a Visual: Let’s start off with the most obvious tip – visuals are king on Facebook. Visuals have been said to drive increased engagement of 60% over posts without images. So start creating your own images, take photographs, or find some online to increase your posts engagement.

2. Longer Posts: We have seen with our own clients that longer posts to their Facebook Page have experienced higher levels of engagement than shorter posts. It has been said that posts with 80+ words get twice the level of engagement.

3. Hashtags: Make sure that your keywords are hashtagged for full optimization. Hashtags will increase your engagement by 60% in many cases.

4. Tagging: Are you mentioning another Page in your post? Then tag them in it! Even if you are using source material from a newspaper, it is a good rule of thumb to tag as much as possible. This will increase the reach of your posts.

5. Native Posting: All of your posts (whether pictures, links, video, anything) should be natively posted through Facebook as the site favors all information that is posted directly through them, rather than a third-party. This is especially true when it comes to video, hashtags, and tagging.

Now let’s move onto Twitter. This is a much more intimidating site for many as the learning curve can be steep and the understanding of the usefulness for marketing can be even steeper. I can’t tell you how many people get upset at the thought of Twitter.

Then I think about our clients and how their minds have changed once they have seen the power of Twitter. It is worth it!

Let’s just say that you understand the true value of Twitter and want your content to really shine. Here are the tips I have for optimizing your tweets!

1. Keep it Short: We probably all know that a tweet on Twitter is maxed out at 140 characters. But that does not mean that you should use all 140 characters! To fully optimize your posts for sharing (RTs) keep your tweets to around 120 characters for maximum effectiveness.

2. Don’t Overuse Hashtags: Make sure that your keywords are hashtagged for full optimization. And don’t overuse them! As a rule I always say no more than 2 per tweet.

3. Use Mentions: These are basically the same as tagging someone on Facebook. When you are mentioning another account, make sure to add their username to the post. For example “@ChrisGoAgency”. By doing this in your tweet, you will mention me, I will be notified, and then will entice me to engage with you in some fashion.

4. Shorten Links: Give your tweet more real estate – use a link shortening tool to give you more space for content.

5. Don’t Forget About the Visuals: While many tweets on Twitter do not have images, by adding some to your content mix will give you the edge over your competition. So grab some of the ones you are using in your Facebook (or other social media) campaign(s) and add them to your Twitter updates.

And there you go! Now while these tips will help you create more optimized posts that will increase reach and engagement, without solid content you will reap no results. Focus on defining your target market and creating well-written content. Once you have that, the rest (that I have mentioned above) is rather clinical and simple to do.

Writing the initial content is the hard part.

Take it from someone who has written 1,000+ social media updates for my clients per week in the past – I know!

Now GO! get optimizing!

Need Online Marketing Help?

Fill Out the Form Below and We Will Get Right Back to You!

[ninja_forms_display_form id=1]

The Definitive List: 30 Online Marketing Must-Haves

By Christopher Tompkins

8Jul

Social Media, Uncategorized

I want to share with you my top 30 suggestions on how to effectively get started with your online and social media marketing. As no business is alike, my guess is that each and every one of us are at different levels of preparedness. With that in mind, I started with the most basic point; (developing your website) and go onwards from there. Each point is an important action that sometimes we in the social media arena tend to gloss over.

The following list shows the order of how I would suggest you execute them for your brand. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t jump around. After all, this is your social media marketing campaign…and you are executing it! Use this list as a guideline to flesh out your plan even further, give you new ideas, and help you rediscover points you may have forgotten.

Of course the list isn’t limited to 30, but I think these offer a great primer in helping you jump start your conversation with your target audience….online!

ONE
You must have a website or online point of sale. Your website should look professional, be informative, educational and engaging. Make sure that your domain reflects your brand to the letter and aim for a dot com extension. Also, if using an outside designer, make sure that the relationship is strong and contains trust.

TWO
There is nothing worse than a website that is down 40% of the time. My advice: find a reliable web host that comes highly recommended and is built around a culture of service, rather than up-selling and hiding charges.

THREE
Now that you have a website, domain, and hosting, install a blogging platform into your website (recommended: WordPress). Check out the plugins, see what is the best for you and, of course, consult your developer with any questions you may have. Ensure you are able to integrate your social profiles into this platform.

FOUR
Excellent copy is an absolute essential, for both your website and your blog. Make sure when developing your content (and blog posts) to use keywords, the correct metatags and more. You want to create a promotional hub that can be found on search engines. Can’t create content? Find a writer pronto!

FIVE
Use the wonderful (and free) Google Analytics. This will help you track the sources of traffic to your website, what pages people are viewing and so much more. For those of you who have never taken a look at the power of this platform, you will be absolutely bowled over. An absolute must for tracking success.

SIX
Add RSS to your website and blog. RSS (which means Really Simple Syndication) allows your audience to subscribe to your latest updates and be sent an email directly to their email address when you add a new page to your site, a new blog…anything.

SEVEN
Once the previous steps are complete, make sure to create a consistent schedule for blogging. The most common is around 2-3 per week, but some people go for one per day! Do what suits you best and keep them between 400-600 words. Longer or shorter works as well, but the more words, the more options to add keywords!

EIGHT
Create an ebook or white-paper that you can feature on your website as an incentive to capture the names and email addresses of your target audience. My tip: Find something that your audience would find valuable (such as a tips report) and offer it in PDF form for download. Make sure that there is a picture of the incentive, short copy explaining it followed by two opt-in boxes: one for their name and the other for their email address.

NINE
Start building your social media profiles on sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Make sure to fully complete each of the fields provided in the profile in addition to adding the links to not only your website and blog, but your other social media profiles as well. Consult your plan regularly!

TEN
Pick one professional headshot and company logo and use it as your avatar across all platforms. This is extremely important as it allows for your brand image to be consistent in addition to helping people quickly identify you across the different sites.

ELEVEN
If you are going to use LinkedIn, make sure to contact your professional contacts (that you have worked with in some capacity) and request recommendations. These are a great way to build your profile on the site. My only advice is to only take and give recommendations to people you have actually done work with and don’t solicit them from strangers.

TWELVE
Join groups! On sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn there are more groups than you can shake a stick at. Find the ones that are relevant to your purpose and goals, then join them. But don’t end your activity there…participate! These groups have discussions, questions, answers, news and more for you to dig your professional teeth into. So don’t under-use them.

THIRTEEN
Another great way to get the most out of your branding on LinkedIn and Facebook is to start your own branded group! This would not be directly branded with your company, but more along the lines of your industry. For example if you are a dentist, then your group could be “Heroes of Dental Health” and be based around talking about the best way to keep your teeth healthy.

FOURTEEN
Aside from the groups, create a page for your company on LinkedIn and Facebook as well as a profile for it on Twitter. These are great ways to announce new and exciting developments as well as gain more visibility on these sites.

FIFTEEN
Twitter has a great tool to help you keep organized and not to be overwhelmed: Lists! Create lists of your favorite people on the site and it will help you pay close attention to the influencers that you want to interact with the most. Also keep your eyes on the recent Twitter trends for content ideas.

SIXTEEN
Don’t be afraid to get out there and comment like crazy! Not only on sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, but get out there and leave thoughtful comments on blogs. Make sure that they are well viewed and get ready to share your expertise like there is no tomorrow! New professional and personal relationships can result as well as strengthening bonds with key influential figures.

SEVENTEEN
Create visual content. There is nothing more powerful than video or still visuals on social media. Shoot short informative videos, host them on YouTube and then share them throughout. Have photos from a recent event? Make sure to share them on your social media profiles pronto to increase engagement!

EIGHTEEN
Find ways to save time when you are managing your accounts. There are free and low-cost tools readily available to help you view your activity on various sites from one platform. The most popular is Hootsuite and TweetDeck.

NINETEEN
Want to manage your reputation AND find great content ideas? Another Google tool that is absolutely vital are Google Alerts! You simply type in your email address and what you want to be updated on (and the frequency of the search) and Google will trawl it’s entire database each day and send you an email with the content you are looking for. This is great for not only listening to what is being said about you and your marketplace, but also to find topics for blogs, tweets and more.

TWENTY
Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want. Don’t be shy about offering help to those who need it. I know it may sound silly, but when you connect with a new professional person, don’t be afraid to ask them “Is there anything I can do to help you at the moment?” or the flip-side “Do you have any contacts that need my service?” You may just be surprised at what you find!

TWENTY-ONE
Go beyond the written word and share videos, audio and pictures that you believe your audience will enjoy. Sites such as YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram are fantastic for storage and make it easy to share across your social media profiles.

TWENTY-TWO
Make sure that everything that you share can either entertain, educate, enrich or engage. If your content ticks one or all of these boxes, then it has a much better chance of being shared. Which means other people are doing the work for you of virally spreading your content. This is a crucial goal of a social media campaign.

TWENTY-THREE
Start to become an opinion leader. Find allies in the social media world and network with them! Create and host local or virtual events and even try to get speaking engagements. Social media is a great place to not only promote events like this, but also a great place to share the content generated. The more of this you do, the more people will view you as an opinion leader.

TWENTY-FOUR
If you connect with someone of great value, remember that it is important to move the conversation offline to either a meeting or phone conversation. This can solidify the relationship and add lots of credibility points (after all, you ARE exactly what you say you are). At the end of the day, social media doesn’t close the sale….you do!

TWENTY-FIVE
Everyday there are new applications, social networks, tools and tricks that are released in order to help people use the medium more effectively. Don’t knock them until you try them. There are useful ones and not so useful ones, so approach with caution. Also, there are other fantastic ways of spreading content from online radio shows to webinars, don’t limit yourself with just the three main sites…try new things and think out-of-the-box.

TWENTY-SIX
Be honest, be caring, be interested. Simple as that.

TWENTY-SEVEN
Get your blog to feed automatically to suitable social media profiles (the same with YouTube, Instagram, and more)

TWENTY-EIGHT
Be constantly visible on your social media accounts daily. Don’t go heavy one week, just to be absent for two months. That can actually un-do lots of valuable work.

TWENTY-NINE
It can take time to reap the results: sometimes a week, sometimes months. Just stay focused and consistent!

THIRTY
You have nothing to hide, so be transparent as possible. Humanize your brand and use real emotion to connect with your target audience. Never bait and switch – that’s a HUGE mistake and can hurt your authenticity.

What tips would you add to the list? And remember -sharing is caring! Share this blog with anyone whom you think would benefit from it.

Need Online Marketing Help?

Fill Out the Form Below and We Will Get Right Back to You!

[ninja_forms_display_form id=1]

Increase Social Media Engagement: 10 Ways to Optimize Your Social Media Content

By Christopher Tompkins

22Jun

Facebook, LinkedIn, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter, Uncategorized

Attempting to master social media marketing can be both confusing and overwhelming at times. Keeping track of all of the latest changes and trends, while trying to implement all of the newest tips and tricks can be challenging for a busy company.

When it comes to social media, the nucleus of all engagement is content. So no matter what different changes may happen to the structure of social media sites, the one thing that will remain the same is the importance of well executed, optimized, engaging content.

Say you already have excellent content in place, but your posts are not generating the results that your campaign needs to deliver. What’s the problem?

While writing great content is a constant, optimizing it is a constantly evolving medium. Optimizing your content for social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter can be as specific as changing an element within your post to work with the infrastructure of each one of these juggernauts.

We all know that writing custom content for your social media marketing campaign can be time consuming, so let’s make sure that all of that time spent is an investment that will go towards accomplishing our goals.

What I want to share with you here are ten of my own personal tips for helping your social media marketing content truly “pop” online so that you will get increased engagement through shares, likes, comments and much more!

The list below is not in order of importance: these are all vital factors that will help enhance your social media campaign’s success over time:

1. Keywords: When developing strong social media content, keywords are absolutely essential. The words or phrases that your target audience use to find your company (both online and offline) should always be handy when you are developing your content. My tip is to create a list of keywords that you can add to your updates, and then use them when suitable. These keywords will turn into hashtags and will help increase your visibility and engagement (more on this later).

2. Be Conversational: What does your content look like? When you read it out loud does it sound like a used car advertisement? Does the post draw you closer, or push you away? Imagine your post intermingled with all of the other posts (of direct and indirect competitors) vying for your target audience’s attention. Does it still stand out? One of my top tips with social media posts is to remember that they need to be “social” i.e. conversational. You want to start a conversational exchange with your audience – which is what engagement is! So read your content out loud after you write it and make sure that it reads as if you are saying it – not writing it. Having your content sound “human” and not like “sales and marketing copy” is absolutely essential.

3. Use Different Content Lengths: Not every social media site is looking for a 140 character solution. So writing one update and sending it through to all social media networks is not the best rule. The ideal way of optimizing your content for size is to begin by writing a short update for Twitter (maximum 120 characters to promote sharing). Then write a slightly longer one that you can post on Facebook and LinkedIn. This way you are able to move beyond Twitter’s character constraints when writing content, giving you freedom to enhance your posts with more engaging content, as well as giving you the ability to add further optimization through additional hashtags, tags, links, and more.

4. Call to Action: One of the first things I learned when I launched our online marketing agency 7 years ago was the power of asking for what you wanted. People move through social media content so fast that they don’t have time to read your mind and or read between the lines. If you want someone to perform a certain action, make sure to tell them what you would like them to do: read this story, click this link, sign up today, etc.

5. Shorten Your Links: On some social media sites, namely Twitter, size is everything…when it comes to characters of course. So when you are sharing a link within your allowed 140 characters, and the link takes up nearly 60% of your available characters allocation – how are you supposed to engage your audience? Use a link shortening tool to save space to allow your content to breath. Also, if you are sharing links on other social media sites, a short and concise link will prevent the link breaking when posting to your social media profile. It’s a little extra insurance that will come in handy.

6. Hashtags: A hashtag is a type of label used on specific social media sites which makes it easier for users to find social media updates (or messages) with a specific theme or specific content. In basic terms, a hashtag indexes a post to be about a certain topic, rather than just mentioning it in the conversation so that it can easily be found and referenced. By hash tagging your KEYWORDS within your social media content, you will enhance your “find-ability” on the social web exponentially, thus optimizing it.

7. Tagging: Tagging on social media is a way of connecting YOUR social media content with another person, company, topic, or event. So whereas hashtags connect general KEYWORDS together (such as #socialmedia, #onlinemarketing, #contentstrategy), tags connect social media content to specific social media accounts. This is a great way to increase your visibility with not only potential customers, but also referral sources and influencers. These are essential in helping your content gain more visibility and engagement through association.

8. Photos/Images: While many people are getting wrapped up in the semantics of writing the “perfect social media post”, they are forgetting one of the most straightforward engagement enhancer: visuals. While you can have a perfectly optimized post, it is not truly optimized unless you add a visual. By adding a complimentary picture, a custom designed graphic, infographic, or even a candid shot that you took with your phone, you engage your audience in a more instantaneous way. For example, think about when you scroll through the newsfeed, are your reading the content or looking at the pictures? You’ll find yourself engaged with visuals more quickly than the actual written words.

9. Videos: Videos have long been heralded as the “be all and end all” of online marketing optimization. So why aren’t more people doing them? Time, money and lack of know-how. Well, you are not alone if this sounds like you! Videos done professionally or casually with your mobile device, can bring your content to life and create engagement. You don’t have to be Steven Spielberg to create an engaging social media video. As is true in the previous point (visuals are crucial to enhancing engagement), videos really promote enhanced engagement. For example again, think about how many times you stop at those auto-play videos on Facebook. You probably remember the video as opposed to the content. Or the video led you to actually reading the social media posting associated with it, which you would have normally overlooked.

10. Don’t Always Rely on Third-Party Scheduling Tools: Especially when it comes to Facebook and LinkedIn. While third-party tools won’t affect your Twitter posts, they really do reduce your optimization opportunities on sites like Facebook and LinkedIn: your hashtags won’t work, your tagging won’t show up, and your previews are tough to edit. Not to mention the fact that many sites don’t add posts scheduled through third-party tools to the insights that help you understand what posts are successful and which ones aren’t. By adding your content directly to Facebook and LinkedIn you will escape this risk. This way you will have full control over how effective your content is. It will take extra time, but will increase your overall effectiveness!

These are my top 10 ways of optimizing your social media content to promote increased engagement. While they may take a little extra time, it is a worthwhile investment. Engaging your audience with your content is one thing, but actually having the tools to make your content more findable is absolutely essential to success.

I’m sure there are also ways that have worked for you. If you have any others that you think should be added to the list, what would they be? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Need Online Marketing Help?

Fill Out the Form Below and We Will Get Right Back to You!

[ninja_forms_display_form id=1]

Tag, You’re It! The Importance of Tagging in Social Media Engagement

By Christopher Tompkins

16Jun

Facebook, LinkedIn, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter, Uncategorized

If you are executing social media marketing campaigns for your company, the odds are that you are encountering a foreign language. Not necessarily a foreign language in terms of continent, but in terms of social media lingo.

Social media lingo is one of the biggest barriers to entry for many companies. Learning a whole new “online language” is not something that many rapidly growing businesses have time to learn, or even the patience to deal with.

But with that said, if you want to start generating leads for your business on social media, you need to learn a few key terms.

In order to gain more engagement with your content, it needs to be optimized for social media so that the largest audience will be exposed to it. The first optimization tool was hashtags (which I have written about previously) and the second I want to discuss here is Tags.

Tags are generally referred to as a keyword or term assigned to a piece of information. This kind of tag helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching. I want to stick with one aspect of that definition and go into more detail.

Tagging on social media is a way of connecting YOUR social media content with another person, company, topic, or event. So whereas hashtags connect general KEYWORDS together (such as #socialmedia, #onlinemarketing, #contentstrategy), tags connect social media content to specific social media accounts.

Whereas a hashtag uses the “#” symbol, you would tag another account by using the “@“ symbol.

For example, say I wanted to tag The Go! Agency in a Facebook update. This is how it would look as you type it:

“There is nothing worse than not being able to get people to read the social media content that you are writing. Try these quick tips to increase your Facebook Page’s engagement, courtesy of @The Go! Agency.”

Now, when you put the tag into Facebook (not through a third-party tool like Hootsuite), when you type the @ and then begin typing “The Go”, you will see a drop-down list appear and you choose The Go! Agency from the list. So when you post the same update above it would look like this:

As you can see The Go! Agency is underlined in the post. This is now hyperlinked to The Go! Agency’s page. By doing this, if I am posting this tagged post on my personal Facebook Page or another Facebook Page, The Go! Agency would not only be notified about the post, but if they allow posts from others on their Page, it would show up.

This will not only increase the number of eyes that your post will receive, but this will increase engagement.

Think about it like this: tagging helps you get in front of a whole new audience – one that you normally wouldn’t be able to access.

Let’s go for a multiple tagged post and see what that looks like…

Say I am an Austin, Texas-based pharmacist who owns a range of pharmacies in the area. Here is an update that I might share with my audience.

“If you are located in the Austin, Texas area – I’m sure you have heard about the wave of sinus infections that have been making the rounds lately. It is always good to keep up with the latest pharmacist-recommended health products. Here is a list of all of the pharmacist-recommended health products of 2015: http://ow.ly/OowWp”

Now this is a terrific update. It targets the appropriate local market, it talks about a current event, and offers a list of engaging helpful information for the target consumer. But it might only be seen by a small few. Why don’t we enhance it so that it can get more views.

Take two:

“If you are located in the @Austin, Texas area – I’m sure you have heard about the wave of sinus infections that have been making the rounds lately. It is always good to keep up with the latest pharmacist-recommended health products. Here is a list of all of the pharmacist-recommended health products of 2015, brought to you by @Yahoo Health: http://ow.ly/OowWp”

Now, let’s look at that same post with added hashtags:

“If you are located in the @Austin, Texas area – I’m sure you have heard about the wave of #sinusinfections that have been making the rounds lately. It is always good to keep up with the latest pharmacist-recommended health products. Here is a list of all of the pharmacist-recommended health products of 2015, brought to you by @Yahoo Health: http://ow.ly/OowWp #SouthCongress #SunsetValley #AndersonMill”

The hashtags increase the optimization of the post by pointing out the keywords that people may use to search for this topic or like topics (sinus infections). To increase the local focus, the pharmacist tagged the areas of Austin where he has locations (South Congress, Sunset Valley and Anderson Mill).

Now this is very specific Facebook tagging. Let’s quickly look at how you would tag content on different social media sites:

*Facebook: You tag another account using the “@“ symbol. If you are using your Facebook Page, you are ONLY able to tag other Facebook Pages. If you are tagging from your PERSONAL Facebook Profile, you are able to tag both Facebook Pages AND Facebook Profiles. These tags ONLY work when you post natively on Facebook. When I say “natively” I mean directly to Facebook and not using a third-party tool.

*LinkedIn: From your LinkedIn account you are able to tag BOTH people and companies by using the “@“ symbol. This will only work if you post natively on LinkedIn and not through a third party scheduling tool.

*Twitter: This is where the social media tag originated from. Here you simply add the @ symbol and then the account’s username you want to tag. For example if you wanted to tag me in a post on Twitter it would be something like this: “Struggling with understanding tags? Check out this great new post by @ChrisGoAgency.” The best part? You CAN use a third-party tool to schedule and get the same effect. You do not have to post natively to Twitter to gain the benefits of tagging.

There are many other sites that I could mention here, but these tend to be the most popular for new companies just jumping into the “tagging”, “hashtagging”, and social media optimization process.

Remember, by tagging another company you will increase the size of your audience as well as the amount of engagement that you can expect on your posts. Have any questions – please ask!

Improving Facebook Engagement: What You Need to Know About Native Scheduling

By Christopher Tompkins

1Jun

Facebook, Social Media, Uncategorized

As a busy executive myself, I am sure that you are pressed for time on a daily basis. Who isn’t? With all the questions, requests, appointments, and projects that you need to complete – I am surprised at times that we can keep it all together.

So what is one thing we always look for? Shortcuts and time-savers!

This couldn’t be more evident when it comes to us administering our social media marketing campaigns. We are always on the lookout for shortcuts, or shortcut tools, that will help us save time with many aspects of executing our campaigns.

But, little do many of you know, these tools can also come back to bite you in the end – without you even knowing.

A prime example of this – Facebook.

Facebook has recently altered its algorithm (their custom self-contained step-by-step set of operations and how they are performed) to favor content that is posted DIRECTLY to Facebook.

Not through Hootsuite. Not through Buffer. Not through SocialOomph. Not through SproutSocial. Not through…well, you get the idea.

So, what can you stand to lose by using a third-party tool to schedule your Facebook Page posts? Here are 4 very important factors:

*Images: Many scheduling tools struggle with images and in many instances are very limited in terms of customization. This limits your success level as images are powerhouses of engagement.

*No Facebook Insights: When you post using third-party tools many times, if not all, the posts you schedule will not be picked up by Facebook Analytics. Meaning that you will not be able to see how your posts stack up against each other when it comes to engagement. This means Facebook Analytics will not track the likes, shares and comments associated with any post that you scheduled using the third-party tool. So if you are using Hootsuite, and then refer to Facebook Analytics, the data that you see is not representative of actual engagement.

*Drop in Views: Many companies have reported large drops recently in their post viewership recently. This has been attributed to their posts being scheduled through a third-party application.

*Tagging: It is very tough to tag other businesses through a third-party application, which results in a loss of valuable exposure.

These are the current issues that many companies are facing…but there are surely more to come.

How do you get around this? When it comes to Facebook, use the Native Facebook Scheduling tool that is available on your page (and appears as an option on every post that you write).

The process is simple. If you want to work a week at a time, get all of your posts handy and then one-by-one go through the 5 step process:

1. Go to your Facebook Page and input your update in the “What have you been up to?” box at the top of your timeline.
2. Make sure that the hyperlink has produced an image preview. Don’t like the image? Replace it by clicking the “+Upload Image” button at the bottom of the image.
3. Don’t like the headline or the short description that has been automatically generated by the link? Click to the right of the title AND body copy and write something more engaging in each spot.
4. Make sure that you have hashtags in your post and that they are hyperlinked and relevant.
5. Do you mention another company, product, service, etc that has a Facebook Page. Make sure to tag them! Use @ and then the company name to choose them from a drop-down list. The more tags the merrier. Just make sure they are relevant.

Now it is time to schedule, which is even easier!

Click the arrow next to the word “Publish” at the bottom of your update box and choose the time in the future that you would like your post to go out.

Click “Schedule” and you are done!

When the set time comes, the post will go out exactly as you have customized it during the process listed above.

What you may have noticed here is that by doing the scheduling directly through Facebook, you have more options to customize your message and how it appears to your target audience. When using a third-party application you do not get this exact same set of options.

While this may add a bit more time to your weekly schedule, it is time well spent. Why spend your valued time writing, when no one is going to see it. Try this and watch your post engagement go up over time.

Need Online Marketing Help?

Fill Out the Form Below and We Will Get Right Back to You!

[ninja_forms_display_form id=1]

Tag : online marketing

Need Online Marketing Help?

Fill Out the Form Below and We Will Get Right Back to You!

Need Online Marketing Help?

Fill Out the Form Below and We Will Get Right Back to You!

Need Online Marketing Help?

Fill Out the Form Below and We Will Get Right Back to You!

Need Online Marketing Help?

Fill Out the Form Below and We Will Get Right Back to You!

Need Online Marketing Help?

Fill Out the Form Below and We Will Get Right Back to You!

Need Online Marketing Help?

Fill Out the Form Below and We Will Get Right Back to You!

Need Online Marketing Help?

Fill Out the Form Below and We Will Get Right Back to You!

Need Online Marketing Help?

Fill Out the Form Below and We Will Get Right Back to You!