by Kimberly | Jan 8, 2017 | Blog, small business, Social Media, social media marketing, Social Media Virtual Assistant
As a small business owner or entrepreneur, you probably know that it’s a good idea to get started using social media but may be wondering where and how to get started. In this article, I’ll be going four steps that will help you establish your business with a social media presence and get a good, solid start reaching your target market, creating a community and engaging with your customers. It’s important to plan out how you want to approach social media to ensure that your efforts are efficient and effective. STEP 1: Goals, Branding and Target Audience Your business has goals and your social plan should too. It’s also a good idea to identify your branding objectives to help guide you in creating your social media plan. Tie your branding objectives to your business goals. If your goal is to gain more customers, then one of your social media goals would be to increase your visibility (let people know you exist). Another goal would be to use social media to engage with your customers to give them a sense of who you are, what you do and what your business offers. Your social media presence will be a reflection of your business so it’s important to think about the tone you want to use for your social media posts, the images you use and the ad campaigns that you run. These will be the parts of your social media presence that will leave an impression with your audience so you want to have some planning and strategy behind. Your social media channels should also work together with your other...
by Roz | Feb 6, 2014 | Blog, Marketing, Pinterest, small business
Pinterest now has 70 million users, are you one of them? If not, here’s why you should; the Pinterest Pin it button is on more retailer’s sites that than the Facebook Like button. Pinterest is definitely here to stay and a force to be reckoned with and utilized to sell your product, your service, etc. If you think about it, Pinterest IS best for product based businesses. Users look up a product, like a kitchen table, tons of pins come up, they find one they like, the posts might even include a price on it and by clicking on the image it takes them right to the business webpage where they can order it. In fact, pins with price tags included get 36% more likes than those that don’t. More and more users are signing up daily on Pinterest. The average user is female and on average spends about an hour on the website. Let’s get going with some basic tips. 1. Set up a business account. Join as a business if you plan to use it to sell products. If you already have an account that you’ve been using for your business but isn’t defined as a business on Pinterest, you can convert it as well. 2. Determine if your website is pinnable. Do you have any pictures/images to pin? If not, get some. 3. Get the Pinterest Pin-it button on your website, or the a Follow button or Board Widget. One benefit of getting a Board Widget on your website is you can entice people to follow your boards from your website. 4. Get to know your audience. Who are you pinning...
by Kimberly | May 4, 2013 | Blog, small business, Social Media
Small business growth has grown exponentially in recent years. So has the use of social media. Not surprisingly, the two of these have found they are good match. Social media helps small businesses have a voice and engage directly with their customers. While many small business owners want to use social media more for reaching their target market, there is still quite a bit of reluctance for them to take the leap. (Hint: That’s something I can help with!) But, you can do it! And here are my tips to help any small business get started using social media. Don’t worry about being perfect. So many small business owners are reluctant or even just flat out afraid to start using social media because they are afraid they’ll make a mistake. They feel like they won’t do it right. And you know what? That will probably happen. So what. Make a mistake, learn from it and move on. You’ve probably run across an article or two or ten from the “social media expert” who’s blasted some business or brand for making a social media mistake and they’ve skewered them as being so obviously unaware of what they are doing. Get of the Internet, they yell. Of course, there are brands and business out there that have made mistakes. But they also usually have PR or Marketing Agencies that were getting paid the big bucks to protect the brand, be the voice and NOT make these mistakes. That’s not you. As a small business owner, you know your business best and you (hopefully) know your market the best. Take the jump...
by Kimberly | Sep 23, 2009 | Blog, Internet Marketing, Marketing, small business
Analytics Help You Understand Your Effectiveness and Reach It is reported that nearly 20% of email marketers do not know how well their email marketing campaigns are working simply because they do not track them. The importance of reviewing and analyzing the metrics of your email or e-newsletter campaigns is a major component of knowing whether or not what you are doing is effective or is providing you with any return on your investment. Here are the major components of the metrics of any email marketing campaign. Delivery Rate: The delivery rate is simply the total number of email that were actually delivered to the intended inbox. Delivery rate percentages are determined by taking the total number of emails that bounced (undeliverable) by the number of emails sent. Spam filters and other issues can cause an email to be bounced. You can reduce the chances of having your email bounce by asking the recipients to white-list your email. Open rate: This is the number or percentage of total delivered emails that were actually opened by the recipients. There is some debate about how accurate this number is and whether it is reliable. However, it is still an important number to be aware especially as you send out multiple emails and if you are seeing any drastic change in your open rates over time. Industry research estimates the average open rate is 30%. If your rate is lower than this, you may want to research and evaluate how effective your emails are to the target audience. Click-Through Rate: This tracks the number of times a link in your email was...
by Kimberly | May 16, 2009 | Blog, small business, Social Media, social networking, Virtual Assistant
I saw this video posted today in my Facebook newstream and I really liked the message. As a Social Media Virtual Assistant, I also see myself as an entrepreneur and I do think entrepreneurs are changing the world. We are not only contributing to how the world works but we are doing it to make better lives for ourselves and for those who follow us. With the recent economic hard times upon us, I think it especially important to keep telling yourself that anything is still possible, even when it seems like it’s not....
by Kimberly | Oct 21, 2008 | Blog, Internet Marketing, small business, Social Media, Social Media Virtual Assistant
Image by against the tide via Flickr Marketing yourself and your business has undergone a complete face lift with the explosion of social networking and Web 2.0. For anyone who is looking to establish an online presence, promote themselves or their business online or sell a product or service, then using the social networks and other Web 2.0 application is quickly become an absolute. A post over on Hiring the Internet about the theory of social media marketing talks about how social media is evolving as a marketing tool but is also a tool that many businesses will fail at using correctly. Statistics from several recent reports show that 60% of Americans are using social media to interact with companies and businesses online and that nearly two-thirds of businesses are establishing their presence on social networks. Social media marketing is a new kind of beast that many do not yet understand how to harness it’s power. Most people are tired and distrustful of the old world marketing tactics. Using social networking for your business is a relational type of marketing where you can gain consumers by gaining their trust and providing them with a sense of knowing who you are or what type of company you are rather than just by your service or product. Setting up social network profiles, updating and maintaining them is a time consuming process. It not only takes knowledge of the many different types of sites that are available but you must also know how to use them (correctly) which also requires that you understand what benefits you will achieve from using a particular...
