How to Optimize Your Local Business’ Online Listings

27Mar

Social media is an exciting opportunity to engage with your customers, reach new audiences, and all of that happy jazz…but only if you’re smart about it. You wouldn’t believe how often I see local businesses that don’t have consistent, clear listings across social media. Why even advertise on social if nobody can find your store?

I don’t want your local business to fail at online marketing like the others, so I’m going to break down how you should be listing your business online!

Finish the Listing
You’d think this would go without saying, but I can definitively tell you that people need to be told this.

Partially filling out your online listing is not nearly good enough. If people don’t know your hours, it’s not really worth anything for them to know your address, is it? The same goes for photos of your store, your phone number, etc.

If your business is in some kind of middle ground right now, you still have to fill out the entire listing. Maybe you’ll be moving locations soon and don’t want to post the old location—do it anyway. Post whatever is accurate at this moment, then update it when it changes. Which brings me to my next point…

Keep Everything Updated
If your social media page, website, online listing, etc. lists your business’ information, that information should probably be accurate. In my experience, what happens is that people input that information correctly, but it becomes outdated. Hours change, stores get moved around, and suddenly the people Googling your business have no actual means of buying anything from you.

Don’t just think about text, though; visuals can play a huge role in your online listings too. 60% of consumers say that local listings with quality images encourage their business. What does that mean for you? Your images need to be a.) appealing, with no garbage or other clutter in the shots and b.) recent! If you recently updated your storefront, make sure your listing photos match. The last thing you want is for a customer to walk past your business because it doesn’t look like what they saw on the listing!

The solution is simple; just check your business’ listings every now and then, and be especially watchful when big changes are happening. My one caveat is to remember to check more than one platform. Just because your Facebook hours are right doesn’t mean the same is true for your Google listing, so be proactive and thorough if you want people to find your business!

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Have a Consistent Style
If you want people to take you seriously, then the written parts of your online listing need to share a style. For example, if one listing has your business’ name as “The Brewery Co.” and another lists it as “The Brewery Company,” you’ve got a problem. Your business looks unprofessional, and it’ll be more difficult to have a uniform brand identity if you can’t keep the name straight.

This also becomes an issue when listing your address (“road” vs “rd” vs “rd.”), and while I understand that these can sound like nitpicky details, they’re things that all come together to either make your brand look experienced and professional or amateurish and lackluster. When you’re checking up on your listings, just make sure that these stylistic issues are consistent across platforms, or you may be spreading the wrong idea about your local business.

List Wisely
Online listings are must-haves if you want to see your local business grow, but they’re only as valuable as the effort you put into them. Without optimized listings, it’s going to be an uphill battle to get any traffic to your business. Save yourself the hassle and use these tips if you want to save yourself a lot of headache!

Do you have questions about your online listings? Let’s talk about them during your free consultation with The Go! Agency!

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What Your Social Media Marketing Doesn’t Have (But Really NEEDS!)

By Christopher Tompkins

2Jul

Advertising, Email Marketing, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Local Marketing, Marketing, Periscope, Snapchat, Social Media, Social networking, Twitter, Uncategorized

At this time, millions of businesses are on social media. Yet this doesn’t mean they are all successful. Perhaps, they have created accounts out of sheer obligation to a boss, or it was a one-shot attempt to stay trendy. As social media gurus, we see these kinds of accounts often. “Bare bone accounts” do the minimum by showing up on their platform of choice’s search results. However, this actually backfires on the owners by disappointing fans due to their lack of content. What should a social media account bring to customers?

To utilize the potential of your business profiles, you will want to optimize your page. In detail, go through each area that Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms offer, and your profile will have increasingly positive results. Sure, your name, address, phone number, and website address are all important, but an effective page requires in-depth copy for short descriptions, a company overview, a mission statement, and several other areas of the page.

Customers do not enjoy having to search for your resources and they shouldn’t have to. Facebook offers you two menus to provide helpful links. The “Apps” section allows your business page to showcase the essential pages of your company’s web presence. This section can also turn into a handy portal to your other social media platforms. The top of the page’s horizontal menu can be customized to transport customers to your most important assets and the web pages you want them to visit.

Twitter offers less optimization options, so you will want to take advantage of every single line offered. Descriptions, web addresses, locations, and a powerful cover image will make your profile look just right. Like everything else about Twitter, their customization options are effective and sleek.

Unlike Twitter, LinkedIn has tons of room for customization. Fill out as many fields as possible. Both personal and business pages have their own unique set of options, so take your time and don’t leave any room for customers’ unanswered questions. Your pages should speak for themselves!

Every platform offers different ways to present your information. Optimizing your page is one of the most important early steps in social media success. Here is another tidbit- this isn’t a once and done step. As your company grows, so should the information on social media. Keep everything updated and accurate. You may find this process repetitive, but by enriching all your pages with as many details as possible, a whole new level of professionalism will be yours!

What optimization tricks do you know of? Share below!

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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!

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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!

Tag : social media optimization

How to Optimize Your Local Business’ Online Listings

What Your Social Media Marketing Doesn’t Have (But Really NEEDS!)

5 Ways to Optimize Your Content on Facebook and Twitter

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

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