Engaging Your EcoSystem in Online Marketing

Owners, employees, customers, creditors, and vendors are all part of the ecosystem of a small business. You rely on the relationships to build your business. The question is, how to get everyone to buy into your online marketing plan. For me, the most important groups that must engage in your online marketing plan are the customers and the employees. It is great to have your vendors and creditors involved on your website and social media accounts, however it is not imperative.

Offering good content to your current customers will result in them sharing the content on social media which will reach all of their friends. The friends will then view the content and can be converted to new customers. This cycle will continue to revolve and continuously provide access to new customers.

The customers are the most important group. Customers are the ones that can advocate for your business. By talking about you on social media and leaving positive reviews for your business they are helping to build you a positive online reputation. For example, if they like you on Facebook, all of their friends see that they liked your company. This will hopefully lead to their friends also considering doing business with you. Additionally, if they write a positive review for you on a site such as Yelp, or Tweet about your business, they are also helping to show potential customers that others have had a positive experience with you. For centuries businesses have built leads through referrals.

Now with the technology we have we can reach even more people. The question is how to ensure your customers are engaging with your business through social media. There are a variety of ways to do so, all of which will help online marketing. The first is through accessibility. Integrate social media applications into your business website. Ensure you have the social plugins for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and any other social media applications you have. Another way to get customers to engage in your online marketing plan is to offer them discounts. Offer a discount or a free item to any customer that likes you on Facebook, give an incentive for following your business on Twitter, offer them a chance to sign up for company newsletters. There are endless ways to get customers involved, share your thoughts with us as small business owners often have the best ideas.

Getting your employees involved with social media and online marketing is also key. They need to understand and follow what is being said about your small business online so they too can react to it, answer questions, and learn from criticism. I suggest that at least once a month small businesses should have a company meeting to discuss their online marketing campaign. During downtime, have your employees go online and post updates to Facebook, Google+, Twitter. Or you can even just have them browse your websites and social media accounts so they can answer questions about your content.

The more people you get involved, the better presence you will have, and the more beneficial this will be to your online marketing plan. Contact us for some more information and make sure to check back for weekly tips about online marketing.

Online Marketing with Google+

Last year Google released their own social media application, Google+, which they hoped would offer new competition to Facebook. It has been out now for about a year and in my opinion it has yet to really catch on. So this raises the question as to whether Google+ is a necessary part of a small business's online marketing plan.

The answer to this depends on your situation. Any time you can add more links to your business it is beneficial to your online marketing plan. Google+ is just another platform for small business owners to offer useful content to their audiences. If you are going to use Google+ make sure you give users a reason to check out your page. The content is what drives them to the site, and within the content you can "market" your small business. We have discussed this in prior posts such as embedding links and using keywords.

But is Google+ really worth your time. The answer to this is subjective to your situation. I do not think that Google+ should be any small business's #1 or #2 social media platform. Facebook has almost a billion users, Twitter has over 300 million users, and Google+ has only about 100 million users. The goal of any online marketing plan should be to reach as many potential customers as possible. When you think of it like this it is clear that Facebook and Twitter will be much more effective. However, if you have already mastered these other forms of social media, give Google+ a try. Check out the Google+ page for Innovative Ad Solutions LLC. If you like it, and you have the time, give it a shot. It hasn't really caught on as much as Google would like, but I still think it can be effective as part of your small business online marketing plan.

One part of Google+ that I like is the various circles that you can join. A circle is much like a group on Facebook. If there is a circle that is relevant to your industry this is even more of a reason to give Google+ a try. But remember we do not suggest you use it in place of other social media applications. use it in conjunction with them for an extra platform to offer content to your customers and embed more links and keywords. If you choose to try it out, make sure you have enough content to put on the site. Even if you just share links to blogs, tips, and news about your industry you will always have new content. A huge part of online marketing plans for small businesses is sharing information that others have put out there. This is a lot less time consuming and as long as you give the author credit it is okay!

If you want to know if Google+ is right for your small business's online marketing plan, Contact Innovative Ad Solutions LLC to talk more about it!

The Social Media Marketing Blog: From Social Sharing to Creative Collaboration

The Social Media Marketing Blog: From Social Sharing to Creative Collaboration    great discussion on how social media helps small businesses collaborate with others in their industry and their customers.

Press Releases for Small Biz

After reading the title of this blog post many small business owners may be hesitant to read on; thinking that press releases are only for big businesses. You may be asking yourself what your small business can possibly talk about in a press release. There was a time when I too had not thought of issuing press releases about Innovative Ad Solutions LLC, but the more I learn about them, the more excited I get.

Press releases are extremely beneficial to helping Search Engine Optimization and Online Marketing Plans for your Small Business. Before getting started with any of this, you need to find a press release topic that will be helpful to your online marketing plan. You can talk about new products your business is offering, about an event they are hosting or sponsoring, about a new location, or about how your small business is dealing with new industry trends. There is no limitation about what you can release, remember to be creative. The goal is to engage your audience.

A press release consists of three parts; title, summary, and body. The title should be descriptive, but short. Include your keywords in the title whenever possible. The summary must be very appealing. Again this should be brief, no more than two to three sentences. Most people won't waste their time reading the body if the summary isn't exciting. The last part is the body. This is where you provide the information you want to share about your business. If you want press releases to be helpful to your online marketing plan they can't just be about advertising your business. They need to offer exciting and interesting information. There are tools that can help you to write press releases. One that I found is www.press-release-writing.com. It offers tips and templates to help you get started. As far as issuing the press release, check out www.free-press-release.com or www.prweb.com. PRWeb charges for the release, but there are no restrictions as to what you can include in your copy. 

Remember, include your keywords and anchor text links in your press release! There are no restrictions to using your keywords, but as with any content writing, don't overdo it. The copy has to read well. Some of the free press release services do limit the ability to embed anchor links within the body. However, you can still include a few traditional links to your website. At the end of the body always include a few sentences that explain to the reader why they should contact or visit your business.

If you are having trouble getting started with press releases, contact us or comment on this article. Innovative Ad Solutions LLC loves talking about all forms of online marketing and press releases are a hot topic today. With the social media world being what it is, any small business owner's online marketing plan can benefit from their proper use!

Twitter as Part of Your Online Marketing Plan

Any business that is not using social media as part of their online marketing plan is missing out. Twitter is my personal favorite. Twitter is the best to engage and interact with your customers. Small business owners can post links to articles and news that are relevant to their industry. Using Twitter for this purpose will help your Search Engine Optimization. The personal interaction is when you engage in two way conversations with your customers. You can listen to their questions and comments and provide feedback. You are constantly linked with your customers. It is important to respond to the customers comments, questions, and concerns. While marketing your small business online and using Twitter you are bound to come across some negative comments. You are never going to be able to please everyone, but with Twitter you can react to the negative comments and find ways to fix what went wrong in the future. You want to show that you are open to suggestions and willing to work with the customer to provide them a better experience in the future. By doing this as part of your online marketing plan you are showing customers they have a voice. Customers are willing to give businesses a second chance if they are confident their issue will be resolved the next time around. You don't have to respond to every negative comment, but you should try to respond to as many as possible. Twitter is also a great way to direct customers to other platforms that your business engages in online. For example, embed links to your webpage and Facebook page. This plays into cross linking your webpage, as we discussed in previous posts. Marketing your business online can be a difficult task, one that many small business owners don't have the time or inclination to engage in. Small business owners should consider outsourcing their social media marketing plan. There are many companies out there that will provide social media management, Innovative Ad Solutions LLC being one of them. We service businesses in Putnam NY, Westchester NY, and Dutchess NY. Do your homework before contracting with anyone. Talk to a variety of businesses and then find out which is the best for your needs. Also, make sure that there is no conflict of interest. For example, Innovative Ad Solutions LLC will not provide services to two businesses in the same town that provide the same goods or services. Doing so would create a serious conflict of interest. This is definitely something you would want to ask social media managers that you are considering using. I encourage you to check out the About Us section of our website or contact us for a RISK FREE CONSULTATION. If we are not right for you, we will try and help answer your questions and point you in the right direction. A well used Twitter account is essential to your small business's online marketing plan. Create an account today, and remember to put a sign up in your establishment and embed the "Twitter" button on your webpage to encourage customers to follow you.

Cross Linking for Your Online Marketing Plan

In our last post we talked about anchor linking within your own webpage. Now once small business owners have that down, cross linking is the next step. Search engine algorithms love it when there are links to your website throughout the web. Cross linking is a lot more difficult than anchor linking because it involves more than just your own webpage. It will take much more time, but the effort is well worth it. You want links to your page on as many different websites as possible. Cross linking is an essential part of your small business's online marketing plan. There are ways that you can begin to cross link on your own. The first step is to list your website on all your social media applications including facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google +, Yelp, your blog, and in all directories. There is a section in the profile section where you can list a link to your small business's website. Additionally, when you comment on other people's posts on facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. you can include a link to your webpage. However when you do this you need to be careful and ensure your posts are more than just an "advertisement" for your own business. You need to contribute relevant information to the discussion. If your post is nothing but a link, search engines will not look fondly upon it and the authors can even block you from further posts. Another way to cross link is to to comment on blogs that are relevant to your industry. For example, I like to follow blogs online that relate to online marketing plans for small businesses and social media. Within the comment, I refer users to my own website where I provide more information about online marketing. This helps your rankings on search engines. It might take you a lot of time and probably a couple of months to start seeing results, but once you do you are sure to see your search rankings improve. Once you begin to be known in the online community you can also network with others in your industry to trade links. They put a link to your page on their website, you put one to their website on yours. You want to be careful though when you do this because if you have a link to a website that is not relevant to your industry, or that has poor rankings, then it will hurt you rather than help you. Contact Us to discuss this further or post here to let me know what you think!

Anchor Text Links for SEO

Link building is essential to Search Engine Optimization. There are two types of link building, anchor text links and cross linking. Here I want to focus on anchor text linking because it is the more basic of the two. Anchor text linking is linking one page of your website to another using embedded links. For example, if you review our webpage Innovative Ad Solutions LLC you will see that within our site content we have embedded links to drive users to other sections of our website. For example, if we mention our "free consultation" for an online marketing plan for small businesses we make it so users can click on "free consultation" and it will take them to that section of our website. Search engines love anchor linking because it creates more links to other pages on your site. You can optimize this even further by anchor linking your keywords. Going back to the above example, if we spoke about online marketing plans for small businesses on our homepage, we would create a link with the words "online marketing plans for small businesses" which when clicked on, would direct users to the section of our website where we discuss this topic. We get extra benefit because "online marketing plans for small businesses" includes our keywords. You can also take advantage of this when posting to other peoples blogs. Use your keywords, and embed links. However, you must be careful because if your post and content is nothing but a bunch of links nobody is going to want to read it. You need to find a happy median between using your anchor links and writing informative, useful content. For more information, check out our website, follow us on twitter @innovativeads1, or give us a call.