Best Ways To Transform Your Google Business Profile

Are you a small or mid-size business looking to grow your online presence? As you seek methods to enhance your SEO game, look to those that help your brand stand out. By making factors like these a priority, you’ll be able to attract the right people to your website.

The best way to grow your online presence is to select SEO methods that best address your audiences’ needs. When you go with strategies that put people first, you’ll be on a path toward long-term business growth.

You’re probably wondering how adjusting your Google Business Profile (GBP) helps improve your SEO game. Today, we’ll discuss the top ways to help make that happen and how you stand to benefit.

Check That Your Contact Data Is Consistent With Your NAP

One great way to optimize your GBP is to ensure your NAP is correct. NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number of your business. Taking this step may be simple, but your business does change over time. Not only that, but you may also have had different addresses in the past.

As you update your information, check to ensure your contact data on other directory sites is consistent with your NAP. By keeping your data consistent and up to date, you can build trust with your audience. Not only that, but you can also grow your rankings in the maps section of the search results.

Select The Right GBP Categories That Best Describe Your Business

Choosing the right GBP category is an important SEO factor as it can impact your local search rankings. For these reasons, make sure to select your categories carefully.

For example, if you have a store that sells coffee, you might consider choosing “coffee shop” as your category. These steps can help those looking for coffee online find your business in the local search results.

If your business does more than one thing, make sure to include subcategories too. For instance, your coffee shop may also sell cupcakes and donuts. In this case, “donut shop” and “cupcake shop” would be your subcategories.

Selecting the proper categories and subcategories helps you attract the right people to your business online. It also plays a crucial role in helping you outrank your competition in the long run.

Fill Out Your GBP Products Section

One of the most visible elements of a GBP profile is the products section. If you have a non-product business, filling out this section can bring you benefits. GBP also allows you to display photos of your service offerings. With your GBP products section, your business can gain visibility from your audience.

Google arranges your products/services photos in a carousel-style design. These features help go a long way in helping you drive more views, calls, and sales. You can categorize and add descriptions, images, and calls to action to these product profiles.

One thing to note is that the final product you enter will be the first to feature on your profile. Before adding products or services, make sure to organize them per your needs. You can also add GIFs as your product image by saving them as a JPEG. With these GBP tools, you can leverage your product section to help attract consumers.

Use Photos To Help Your Cause

Google also provides you with many options for photos you can include for your GBP. Here is a list of photo types you can add as you put together or update your profile:

360-degree view
Indoor pics
Outdoor pics

Businesses with photos receive 42% more driving direction requests to their location than those without them. They also receive 35% more clicks to their websites. These findings are according to research Google has done over the years.

The best photo practice is to include at least three pics from each of these business aspects:

Employees
Products
Services you perform

By following these measures, you can increase your web presence and get online searchers to explore your business further.

Write A Compelling Business Description

You can also optimize your Google Business Profile by writing a rational business description. On your profile, Google gives you a max of 750 characters to describe your business. One thing you want to avoid including there is sales jargon. It can potentially alienate your audience and go against Google’s rules.

Here are some things you can include in your GBP business description:

Company mission and vision
History
Products and services
What makes your business unique?

With a top-tier business description, you can give your audience the best details about your business. They also would be more likely to look into your business further.

Keep Your GBP Q&A Section Up To Date

You can also improve your SEO game by optimizing your GBP Q&A section. Google gives you the option to create a question and answer vault within your profile. They do this to ensure the answers consumers receive are the ones you want them to.

As with many portions of your GMB, consumers can contribute and control how others view your business online. To provide people with the right questions and answers, use the consumer data that comes up in your Insights section.

By adding the best questions and responding to them, you’ll have more control over the narrative. You’ll also ensure that people will perceive your business better.

Post Regularly From Your GBP

Keeping in touch with your audience is a prime SEO factor. Posts that originate from your GBP are pretty much mini-blogs. They provide your audience with important information along with updates from your business.

Below are two key benefits of how posting from your GBP can improve your SEO efforts:

Posting Boosts Your Keywords And Phrases

As you post from your profile regularly, you can boost your primary and halo keywords you want to rank for to Google’s algorithms. Over time, they build up your association with your goods and services. With these measures, you can reach the right people and influence consideration for your business.

Posting Drives Up Engagement

Google also evaluates engagement when it comes to SEO factors. They measure how much you engage with your profile.

As you provide your audience with regular updates via posts, you can drive up your engagement levels. The more you engage with your GBP, the more likely Google will reward you.

With top-quality posts, you’ll achieve better search rankings and more customers.

Check On Your Online Reviews

Review signals are another prime factor when it comes to SEO. They also influence whether people will do business with you or your competitors.

Research shows that 89% of people check online reviews before setting foot in a specific business. 84% of those consumers also trust online reviews as much as their peers. Also, 31% of them will do business with those that have great reviews.

If your business receives a bad review, that doesn’t mean doom for your business. When this happens, look to address the consumers’ concerns and work towards solutions that best address their pain points. With these approaches, consumers are more likely to view your business positively. They may even turn around to upgrade their rating to a positive review.

When it comes to reviews, make sure to also be proactive in requesting reviews. As they leave a positive review, make sure to thank them. With a people-first approach like this, you’ll be on track to gain the trust of your potential customers.

Choose People-First Approaches when Updating Your Google Business Profile

As you update your GBP, look to SEO methods that engage your audience and tell the best story about your brand. With these people-first methods, you’ll drive engagement and be on track toward building long-term consumer relations. By focusing on the needs of people, you’ll be on a path toward strategic growth for your brand.

What else do you feel is the best way to optimize your Google Business Profile? Which other SEO methods can also help you build trust with your consumers and drive business growth? Questions? Comments? Please feel free to share your thoughts below.

Four Tips To Using Local SEO To Increase Your Online Presence

Ski Lift In Aspen — Photo by Chase Baker On Unsplash

Are you a local small business or an eCommerce brand looking to move up the search engine results page (SERPs)? Whatever the case, you’ve come to the right place. Today’s consumers are searching online for products or services that can best fulfill their pain points or needs. That’s why it’s vital that you make Local SEO a part of your online marketing plans.

Today, I’ll discuss four tips on how to grow your online presence and attract your ideal consumer via Local SEO.

Make Use Of Local Link Building Tactics

Link signals like domain authority are among Google’s top-ranking factors. Local SEO will require these kinds of tactics, as does SEO overall. That’s why linking domains should be geared more towards your target location.

A great way to achieve this is to target top authority sites in your area. Let’s say that you’re a local shop in Aspen, CO, that sells skiing gear and offers ski lessons to beginners. You could target local tourist sites as a potential linking partner. When you gain valuable backlinks from sites like these, you’ll be on a path towards gaining credibility with search engines. You’ll also be on track towards growing your brand.

Use Long-Tail Keywords Within Your Content

If you’re a small to mid-size brand, it’s highly likely you’ll be competing against big brands for short-tail, broad keywords. That’s why you need to work on using long-tail keywords as you create content. These types of keywords are long and more specific that people use as they get closer to making a purchase. They don’t yield as much web traffic, but they’ll help attract the right audience to your site.

Using short-tail keywords like jersey is more competitive and won’t help you reach your target audience. For best results, use keywords like women’s Denver Broncos football jersey. These keywords are more detailed about what type of product you’re selling. This helps you gain more targeted traffic and will help increase your conversion rate.

When seeking to attract your audience, do these two things.

Seek quality over quantity when it comes to online traffic.
Use long-tail keywords to attract your ideal audience.

This will help you lead to long-term success with your Local SEO efforts and help grow your brand.

Build On Your Brand’s Reputation Management

Review signals are a key player in your local search rankings. That’s why you need to respond to reviews, good or bad, in a timely manner. It’s not the end for your brand if you receive a bad review. It all comes down to how your brand responds to adversity.

That’s why you should be attentive to the consumers’ concerns and work towards solutions that best resolve their pain points. Consumers will be more likely to think highly of your brand, and they may even change their rating to a good review.

Ensure Your NAP Is Consistent Across The Web

Search engines assess citation signals such as your brand’s NAP (name, address, phone number) consistency in local search results. This means that you’ll need your information to be on major citation sites like these below.

Google My Business
Yelp
Bing
Social Media Sites

You also need to take steps to ensure your brand’s NAP is consistent across all sites. Check for any misspellings, address, and phone number differences. Also, keep track to ensure that there are no duplicate listings. If there are any, work to resolve them promptly to improve your Local SEO efforts.

Make Local SEO Part Of Your Digital Marketing Plans

When it comes to Local SEO, always put the needs of people first before anything else. Make sure you take these steps to ensure that your content is easy to find, consistent, and reputable. This will help attract your ideal consumer and earn you respect from the search engines. In the end, you’ll be setting your brand up for long-term growth.

What else do you feel is key to using Local SEO to increase your online presence? How do you feel these tips will help translate towards growth for your business? Questions? Comments? Please feel free to share this blog post and share your thoughts below.

Aaron’s Top Nine Digital Marketing Trends For 2021

Without question, so much has happened this past year. Many of these events have drastically altered the Digital Marketing landscape. From changing consumer habits due to the pandemic to Google updates, those changes are surely here to stay. What worked early last year may not work today. The same could be said when working with different types of clients.

With that being said, Digital Marketers should take note and work to adjust to these changes. In Digital Marketing, it’s all about adapting to constant change and being flexible in changing your online outreach strategy. When it comes to trends, there are nine trends we as Digital Marketers need to get ahead of. Let’s take a look at these, shall we?

Voice And Visual Search

Today’s consumers are looking for easier ways to find what they’re looking for online. At the same time, they’re also looking for more convenient ways to do that as well. They would really love it if they didn’t have to type or leave their couch. With this in mind, it’s no surprise that voice search has become more important by the day.

The same can be said about visual search. The infamous saying that ‘a picture means a thousand words’ has become truer today than it has in the past. When it comes to visuals, marketers need to focus on image alt-text and sitemaps to ensure success. As for voice, they need to focus more on conversational keywords as opposed to computer text. For more tips about optimizing for voice search, check out my previous blog post here.

Experience Marketing

Experience Marketing (EM) has also become an evolving trend to look out for in 2021. This talks about how customers define how businesses respond to them and not vice versa. Every customer touch point – online reviews, web chats, surveys – turns into opportunities to discover vital insights to enhance the customer experience (CX).

That’s why you want to go further than just traditional feedback methods than just metrics like the Customer Effort Score (CES). While these do tell you how happy customers are, it doesn’t tell you what to do with that information. EM does that via these three ways.

It deepens the reach of data mining across customer reviews and survey responses.
It develops insights in seconds via machine learning.
It alerts the right people and uncovered patterns in customer data.

This helps teams to move quickly and make more informed choices on how to improve that CX.

User Generated Content (UGC)

When it comes to content, online consumers are much likely to trust that of regular folks than they do traditional advertising. Consumers today crave experiences with brands that are enjoyable and inspire them to take action. They also want proof before they buy and want to make sure that they’re making the right choice.

UGC helps build communities, relates to regular folks, and allows brands to meet their customers where they’re at. On top of that, it goes a long way in helping brands generate lots of content. UGC not only helps provide that social proof brands. It also helps build relationships with customers. With that said, brands should consider making UGC part of their online marketing strategy.

Reputation Management

With what has happened during this past year, It has become increasingly important to manage your reputation online. Whether you get good or bad reviews, you always want to respond to them promptly. It’s not a deal-breaker for potential customers if your brand gets a bad review. It all comes down to how you respond to it. The best way to respond is by showing that you’re committed to resolving their situation

One thing you should never do is try to game the system by creating fake reviews. That never ends well as customers look to multiple review sites to ensure that a certain brand is legit. Customers also check to ensure that brands will positively advance their cause. The best way forward is to listen to the customers’ concerns and work towards a solution that best benefits them. By going this route, they’ll view you more favorably and you’ll be more likely to end with a great review.

Personalization

In today’s online world, people prefer brands that best relate to them and are more human. In fact, 80% of consumers are more likely to buy from you if you provide them a personalized experience. That same HubSpot study also states that 99% of marketers say that personalization helps advance customer relations.

Whether you’re starting an email marketing campaign or creating web content, you must keep these stats in mind. Work to tailor that content to better meet the specific needs of online consumers. Also, don’t be afraid to share your story. After all, people love stories that speak their minds and make them feel that your brand relates to them.

That’s why you want your content to be relatable to your audience and not just about your brand. That’s how you’ll be able to stand out amongst the crowd online and gain good-paying customers.

User Experience (UX)

Without a doubt, it’s vital to give your online audience an excellent user experience (UX). This means that you need to do several things to make that happen.

Make Sure That Your Website Is Up To Speed

Site speed is a key factor when it comes to consumers choosing to stay or leave a site. Each second matters in this case. If your site takes too long to load, people will leave your site for your competition. That’s why you need to work to make sure that your site is up to speed. The GTmetrix Speed Test is a great tool to use to check your site speed and will give you details on how to do so.

Make Sure That Your Website Is Seamless Across Devices

You always want to make sure that your site is easy to navigate across all devices whether it’s mobile, desktop, or tablet. This means that you need to do these three things to make that happen.

Use responsive design to allow your website to adjust to the screen size of the device being used.
Make your content easy to see.
Ensure that site users don’t have to pinch to zoom in.

By keeping these steps in mind, you’ll help ensure that the UX of your site will be very good.

Content That Is Easy To Consume

In this day in age, people are always on the go. With that said, making your content scannable and easy to read is vital. This means work to create content that is easy to read via a standard reading level. You must have a Flesch Reading Ease Score between 60 and 79 to achieve success. To go the extra mile, aim for a score of 80 or higher.

The Ease Calculator helps check your score and guides you while you write your content. Grammarly also helps you make your content easy to read for your readers. It also helps you catch mistakes you thought you’d never make.

Here are some tips below on how to make your content easy to read.

Make your paragraphs no more than 3 to 5 sentences long.
Divide your content with sub-headers and make sure your H3 headers are below the H2 ones.
Add bullet points as needed.

Also, use the Inverted Pyramid writing style. This is where you put your key points at the beginning and then work to entice readers to read more. With this method, your readers will be able to better scan your content text and be able to derive value. This makes it more likely that they’ll take the actions that you want them to take.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer Marketing will be even bigger this year compared to last year. As mentioned earlier, today’s consumers look to brands that are authentic, human, and can relate to them. Study shows that 92% of consumers trust an influencer more than they do corporate ads or celebrities. That’s why brands should take note of this and make influencer marketing part of their plans.

When considering influencers to partner with, go for those who would best relate to your brand. It can be tempting to court macro-influencers like baseball players but that might not work for your brand. If you’re a smaller brand, you should consider micro-influencers. They may have a smaller following but they are cheaper and would do best at relating to your audience. All this is vital to keep in mind when considering influencer marketing.

Link-Building

Link-building is an essential part of any brand’s Digital Marketing plans. With that said, it will only work if you don’t cut corners and actually use this practice to build relationships. One thing you never want to do is to seek links that are not relevant to your brand’s cause. You also don’t want to buy links either. Those type of Black-Hat SEO tactics makes you look spammy and loses you credibility with your audience.

The best way forward is to seek links with others who will best benefit your brand’s cause. It will help you build trust with your audience and gain credibility with the search engines. Once again, Quality over Quantity is the way to go with link-building as is the case in other marketing situations. It will be a win-win scenario for both you and your linking partner thanks to your disciplined approach to seeking high-quality links.

Consumer-First Strategies Help Transform Your Brand For The Better

There’s no doubt that putting the needs of your valued consumers front and center is key to success. It will also help you overcome these fast-changing trends and help you stand out amongst the online crowd. This will also help you in your quest in helping your brand become that next great story. With that said, keep these nine trends in mind and you’ll help transform your business for the better.

What other Digital Marketing trends should brands keep an eye out on in today’s online world? What other strategies should brands adapt to grow their online presence and ensure success? Questions? Comments? Please feel free to share this article and share your thoughts below.

Eight PPC Tips To Help Grow Your Online Presence In 2021

Another eventful year is now behind us and another has just begun. So many events and changes have occurred this past year. This is especially the case when it comes to the fast-evolving world that is Digital Marketing.

From Google Core Updates to fast-changing consumer trends, having a solid Digital Marketing plan is basically a must. This helps ensure that your audience has high-quality content that best addresses their needs when they most need it. It also helps your brand stand out amongst the vast sea of brands competing for those same customers.

A great way to achieve those things is with a top-notch Pay Per Click (PPC) strategy. PPC is a form of Digital Marketing in which brands pay each time visitors click on their online ad. In other words, you only pay when someone clicks on an ad whether it’s search, display, social, or ad types. These eight PPC tips below will help address the users’ needs and grow your brand’s online presence in 2021. With that said, let’s dive in and find out what PPC can do for brands like yours.

Strive For A High-Quality User Experience (UX)

As I discussed in my previous blog post, a high-quality user experience (UX) for website visitors is a must. First, you need to ensure that your website is up to speed. The longer it takes for your page to load, the higher the bounce rate will be. That means that customers will be lost if your page is slow at loading. That is why taking steps to improve site speed is crucial. Using the GTmetrix tool will test your site speed and gives you details on how to fix on-page issues.

You also want to ensure that your site is easy to navigate. To address this, work to make your content easy to find in the least amount of clicks possible. It’s advised that you limit it to three clicks or less. That helps site visitors find what they’re looking for quickly and helps make their on-site experience that much better.

In addition to all that, you want to ensure that your website is compliant with responsive design. This means that your website needs to smoothly adjust to screen sizes. In other words, the website automatically changes to fit the device in use whether a desktop, tablet, or mobile device. This helps improve that UX greatly to the point where you don’t have to pinch the screen to zoom in. A convenient experience indeed.

Provide A Consistent Experience For Your Site Visitors

Without question, consumers look for consistency when they consider doing business with a brand. This is vital when it comes to PPC campaigns. Not only must your PPC ads be of most relevance to your audience, but there’s also something else to consider. You must also show consistency in each phase of your online campaign. This rings true for landing pages as this is the first thing your audience sees upon clicking your ad.

It’s not enough to just attract people to our website via PPC ads. We must also strive to give them a top-notch landing page experience once they’ve arrived at our page. We sure don’t want our ads to say one thing and for our landing page to say another. That will be a big turn off for potential customers. With that said, here are three steps we can take to ensure our landing page is consistent with our ads.

Make sure that you match your ad text to your main keyword at least.
Match your ad to the right landing page where customers can do what you’ve promised to them.
Ensure that your landing page is relevant to your ad text and keywords.

Following these steps will help ensure a high-quality UX and make it more likely that you’ll gain new customers.

Take Advantage Of New Features

Looking to really make your PPC ads stand out towards the right online consumers? Then making use of the new features and ad extension options should be a big part of your plans. Promotion extensions that are right below your ad title help searchers spot a top-notch deal with a slight glance. They can also help you generate high-quality leads for your brand.

Call extensions are another great option in helping you attract leads. With this type of extension, you can add a phone number without having to use any of the primary copy. It even lets people tap a button to call your business via a mobile device. The best part is that it’s really easy and quick to add so definitely consider this for your PPC ads.

Make Social Media A Part Of Your PPC Marketing Plans

Another crucial avenue in helping your PPC ads succeed is social media. With 84% of people with internet access on social media, making it part of your PPC strategy is vital. Most people are on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn on a daily basis. All age groups, especially young people, make up a big chunk of that audience.

This makes social media an attractive avenue for PPC marketers. In this new year, definitely add social media to your PPC marketing mix to go along with your Google Ads.

Dig Deep In Targeting Your Audience

When we say target your audience, we mean target the RIGHT audience that’s most likely to go with your brand. You always want to be detail-oriented when identifying which audience you’ll be going after. You can specify things like household income or age group to appeal to a specific audience. For ad preferences, you can exclude people that you think may not appeal to your services.

Let’s say that you’re selling super expensive Rolex watches. You might exclude people who make less than $75,000 a year. We say this since they’re less likely to spend big bucks on those kinds of fine items. This is the kind of targeting you should consider for your PPC ads. It will go a long way in attracting the exact audience you’ve been seeking to look into your brand.

Get Ahead Of The Game With Voice Search

Voice search has also become important In this day in age. Half of all online searches are now being initiated by voice. With that said, making voice part of your PPC marketing plan should be one of your top priorities. While paid voice search hasn’t yet made it to the mainstream, it will emerge in the near future. Until that happens, you can be ahead of the game with some high-quality preparation strategies.

There are two great ways to accomplish just that. One great plan is to enhance your website so that it can have a more conversational tone. Since people are more conversational when making voice searches, it’ll significantly improve your chances of attracting the right people. You also should update your FAQ pages on your site with the use of long-tail keywords. These actions will help set you up for success in voice search both now and in the future.

Get Ahead With Visual Search

Visual search is also on the rise and will be expected to see major advances in the near future. Visual search works by using an image as the search query as opposed to just a text search. Let’s say you take a pic of a mini-fridge. What happens after that is the visual search will output the links to buy it. People want results quickly and visual search helps achieve that than typing in something long.

A great way to optimize for visual search is by creating a photo catalog of your products and services. You want to add metadata to each image to ensure that search engines sort it out correctly. For example, a photo of a chrome mini-fridge would have an alt-text like “travel-sized chrome mini-fridge.” Taking these steps will go a long way in helping your brand get ahead of fast-changing paid search trends.

Utilize Re-Marketing In A Personalized Way

Re-Marketing is most commonly used on users once they have left your site. Re-Marketing ads tend to be very personalized which makes them an effective marketing strategy. When you show people ads for things they’ve shopped for before, they tend to have high conversion rates.

When it comes to re-marketing, it all comes down to keeping your brand in the minds of people. It’s no longer just about wooing people who aren’t ready to buy yet. It now mainly comes down to knowing where your prospects are at in the buying cycle. After that, you would create targeted, personalized ads based on where they’re at which helps them decide to convert.

Digging deep to understand your audience goes a long way in helping convert people into paying customers.

Top-Notch PPC Strategies Help Grow Your Brand For The Better

Without question, the online landscape is changing as are the online search habits of consumers. That’s why you need top-notch PPC tips like these to help you get ahead of the game. In the end, you’ll attract the right people to your website and gain loyal, paying customers. Following these steps will no doubt help your brand achieve new heights.

So what are you waiting for? Make PPC marketing a part of your online marketing strategy. It’ll help transform your brand into that next great thing and be a top leader in this fast-changing online world.

What do you feel will help grow your online presence and get people to convert into paying customers in 2021? What other PPC tips do you feel are key in helping your brand succeed? Questions? Comments? Please feel free to share this blog post and share your thoughts below.

Four Keys To Having A Top-Notch Social Media Strategy

Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash

When it comes to social media, it plays a huge role in helping grow your online presence. It is one of the most powerful ways to connect with your audience. In fact, 78% of consumers have said that they will visit the physical retail store of a brand they follow according to Sprout. This just comes to show you the importance of having a top tier social media strategy.

Social media is not just about gaining the most followers. It is all about giving your audience an excellent experience and giving them what they’re looking for. These four tips will go a long way in helping you achieve just that. Let’s take a look at them, shall we?

Engage In Social Listening

One key tip that helps you have a top tier social media strategy is what we call social listening. Social listening is the practice of tracking, analyzing, and responding to conversations across the Internet. Social media is not just for posting pictures and life updates. It is also a powerful listening tool.

A great way to use social listening is to keep an eye out for mentions and conversations about all aspects of your brand. This can help you find new leads about new product ideas or features for existing products. On top of that, social listening can also help you differentiate your brand from the competition. Offering people something that is unique and gives them value is how you set yourself apart from others.

Know How To Measure Success

A key aspect of success for your brand via social media is knowing how to measure success. For that, you need to set the appropriate Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). KPIs are quantifiable measures that are used to determine the success of a brand in meeting performance goals. One thing to be careful of is to not fall for vanity metrics. For example, getting likes on your Facebook page doesn’t necessarily mean that you will make more money.

Setting KPIs all depends on your business goals. There are four possible social media KPIs to use when measuring success. Here they are below:

Reach

If your goal is to increase your online presence, then setting KPIs based on reach is the way to go. Key things to watch for are follower count, impressions, mentions, and share of voice. These four things are key to measuring the success of your outreach strategy.

Engagement

If your goal is to get your audience to engage with you on social media, then you’ll need to set engagement KPIs. Things to watch out for are likes/favorites, comments, shares, retweets, ratings/reviews, and inbound website links. All these metrics are important when it comes to measuring your success with engagement strategies.

Return On Investment (ROI)

To check if your campaign is bringing you money, you’ll need to set KPIs based on Return On Investment (ROI). Key metrics to watch for are direct sales revenue, lead conversions, support costs-per-customer, and lifetime value. These things will help tell you which campaigns are earning you money and which need to be evaluated.

Retention And Loyalty

To check if you are attracting repeat customers or getting referrals, then you should set Retention & Loyalty KPIs. Key metrics to watch out for are reviews/ratings, issues resolved, service-level agreements (SLAs), time to resolution, customer satisfaction, and sentiment. All this helps you determine if you’re doing your part to satisfy customers and gaining referrals along the way.

For every type of KPI, make sure to revisit them every 6-12 months. This will help you determine whether your efforts are working or if they need to be adjusted.

Set Your Brand’s Voice And Tone To Make It Be More Human

In today’s world, people want to do business with brands that are more human as opposed to acting all boring. With that said, making your brand more human is a must. A voice and a tone are two things your brand must have in order to be more human.

A brand’s voice is the distinct personality or style of your brand. This helps give your customers a clear picture of what your brand feels like. For instance, HubSpot’s clear and inclusive voice helps them appear helpful and supportive in the minds of others.

A brand’s tone refers to the moods of specific content pieces. This can change based on the channel, situation, and audience. When choosing your brand’s tone and voice, ask yourself these questions below:

What purpose does my content bring?
Who am I addressing?
How does my audience feel?
What message should I convey to my audience?
Which tone of voice should I use?

By answering them, you’ll know what kind of content you should create for others in an appropriate tone and voice.

Provide Top-Notch Social Customer Service

A crucial aspect of having a top-notch social media strategy is providing your audience with top-notch social customer service. 49% of consumers say that they’ll unfollow brands that bring them poor customer service. 90% of consumers rate an immediate response important when they have a customer question. These reasons alone are why brands need to make social customer service a top priority in their social media plans.

Customers these days expect quick responses to their questions. Timely responses not only help problems get resolved faster, it also helps make customers more loyal to your brand. Even pointing your customers in the right direction gets your customers to think highly of your brand. All this makes it more likely for customers to stick with your brand in the long run.

A People-First Approach Leads To Success

No doubt that great social listening, great social customer service, and making your brand more human brings your brand success. It’s also crucial to set the right goals in order to help your brand get where you want to be. With these four great tips, your social media game shall lead your brand to great successes and long-lasting customer relations.

What do you feel is key in using social media to help bring your brand success? What are your thoughts on how social media helps build great customer relationships? Please feel free to share this blog post and share your thoughts below.

The Importance Of Influencer Marketing Today

There is no question that the nature of today’s online world is shifting towards more consumer-centered ideals. What that means is that online consumers want to hear less from brands about what they’re selling and more from brands about how they relate to them and their needs. In other words, authenticity is the name of the game when it comes to building relationships with online consumers. This is a big reason why Influencer Marketing is on the rise and is a great way to get ahead in today’s online world. In this article, we’ll go over the top reasons why Influencer Marketing is important and how one can use it to get ahead in today’s competitive online world.

It Has Become The New Norm

There’s no doubt that Influencer Marketing has basically become the new norm. In fact, 92 percent of consumers around the world have stated that they trust earned media like recommendations from friends and family over traditional corporate advertising according to a study done by Nielson. People these days can’t stand brands that attempt to shove sales jargon down their throats. What they want to hear from brands is how they can help them solve the problems that they face. In other words, online consumers are into brands that resonate with them and are caring about the ordinary people. This is a big reason why Influencer Marketing has become ever so popular today and isn’t going anywhere too soon.

Finding The Right Influencer

When it comes to trying to use Influencer Marketing to get ahead in the game, we must first know what we’re looking for in an influencer to potentially work with. We must do some research and ask these three questions:

Will they fit in with a brand and the vision that it has?
What role will they play in helping a brand accomplish their objective? Will they fit in with a brand and the vision that it has?
Will this potential influencer resonate with the brand’s target audience?

By answering these three questions, you’ll have a better picture on how to plan out your online marketing strategies. When it comes to influencers, there are three types of influencers listed below and what they’re best described as:

Mega-Influencers- Typically have at least 1 million followers and tend to be celebrities like Beyoncé, Chicharito and Alex Morgan for example.
Macro-Influencers-Typically have somewhere in between 10K to 1 million followers and tend to be journalists, bloggers and other people who share their passions with the world.
Micro-Influencers-Typically have less than 10K followers and tend to be ordinary people like you and me.

Now when it comes to selecting the appropriate influencer to reach out to, it all depends on who you are, what type and size of business you are and what you’re looking to accomplish. Corporations with room to “splash-the-cash” like Gatorade for example tend to go for those Mega-Influencers like they to Kevin Durant and Dwayne Wade for example.

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For small businesses, especially those who are more limited on advertising cash, you might be better off investing in either Macro or Micro-Influencers. They’re less costly and are much more likely to resonate with your brand as they’re viewed by online consumers as a more trustworthy source. One thing that every type of influencer has in common is that they’re more likely to respond to you if you show interest in what they do and offer something of value to them. Always important to keep in mind to always reach out to them in a professional manner and ensure that it’s a win-win situation for both sides in order to lay the foundation towards long-lasting relationships with potential business partners.

Putting Your Influencer Marketing Strategies To Work

Now when it comes to actually putting your influencer strategy to work, we must work to connect with online consumers in an authentic manner. The way we go by doing that is to obviously know who your target audience is first. Once you’ve figured that out, find out what the passions and interests of your target audience are and work to tap into their passions. A great example of that is when Nike partnered up with Megan Rapinoe and the USWNT to run a commercial inspiring women to strive for their aspirations and to shatter glass ceilings in order to advance women’s rights in this country.

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Nike without a doubt built inspiration among women and all those who are passionate in wanting to see women succeed everywhere including myself. Another important note to remember is to consider the feelings of how your target audience would react. It’s always recommended that you don’t try to relate your Influencer Marketing campaigns to controversial topics. If you must, proceed with caution and analyze your target audience to ensure that your current and potential consumers don’t get offended. Strongly recommended that you always focus more on the passions of your target audience.

Another great way to up your game in Influencer Marketing is to feature your influencers in consumer testimonials. A great example of that is when Dove featured an actual consumer in Molly Burke on how their products gave her a positive new experience as she faced blindness.

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This is definitely a great way of using Micro-Influencers like Molly to showcase how their products can give them that totally new feeling that one never experienced before. As mentioned earlier, when an ordinary consumer like Molly has this kind of positive experience, they’re more likely to be trusted by potential consumers more than traditional advertising would. Without a doubt, Influencer Marketing campaigns like these two can go a long way in advancing your brand or cause in a positive way.

Influencer Marketing For The Win

With the increase of Influencer Marketing in today’s online world, there’s no question that businesses from small to big need to get onboard as the future of advertising will depend on Influencer Marketing. Always important to remember the kind of target audience you plan to reach out to, figure out which types of influencers would resonate with your target audience and work to capture their attention by tapping into their passions, interests and emotions. With this type of formula in planning out your Influencer Marketing strategies, you’ll no doubt have great successes in making your brand stand out in an authentic way and lay the foundation towards long-lasting relationships with your current and potential consumers.

What do you feel is key in using Influencer Marketing in advancing your brand and/or cause? How has Influencer Marketing influenced your decision to consider a brand? Questions? Comments? Feel free to share this article & don’t be afraid to share your thoughts below.

Using Instagram To Establish Your Brand

A couple of weeks ago, I had the honor and privilege in taking part of an Five-Day Instagram Engagement Challenge hosted by Social With Shayna’s Shayna Marks. It was there where I had the opportunity to work alongside many female entrepreneurs from different places with different backgrounds while learning a great deal about the work that they do in building their online presence. One of the biggest lessons I learned from this experience is that people crave authenticity. They prefer brands that are open to two-way conversations and make it about their target audience. In other words, they love brands that speak their language. In this article, we’ll discuss creative ways on how one can use Instagram to be personable on your way to establishing the reputation of your brand.

Defining Your Target Audience

When it comes to establishing your brand via Instagram, the first step is to know who your target audience is. It’s important to know that the “One Size Fits All” approach won’t do the job when targeting a specific audience. Depending on the type of business or page that you have, each will have their own type of audiences who have different kinds of needs. In other words, you must dig deep in researching the kinds of consumers that are more likely to perform a specific action on your page or even become your customer. Let’s say you own a Digital Marketing blog page and want people to read your blogs, you might want to target people who work in Digital Marketing who are looking for ideas on how to make them better at Digital Marketing. They would be more likely to do business with you than say a bicycle rider (BTW, I love riding bikes 😉). Definitely take time to know everything there is to know about who your potential consumers are. If you do that, you’ll be off to a great start in building up your online presence here on Instagram and on social media overall.

Adjacent Accounts

In addition to defining your target audience, you also want to partner up with people who can be of help to you in establishing your brand. This is where adjacent accounts come into play. Now you’re probably wondering what adjacent accounts are. Basically, they’re businesses or page owners who have a target audience similar to yours but do different types of work. Let’s say that you’re a Digital Marketer looking for quality photos that capture the feelings of your target audience. A great type of adjacent account to try to partner with in this scenario would be brand photographers like Courtney Paige Ray. When it comes to partnering with adjacent accounts, it all depends on the needs of your business so I recommend that you take the time and research potential adjacent accounts who can collaborate with you while helping each other stand out in today’s online world in a positive way.

Using Location Tags

You’re probably wondering why I’m talking about location tags. Well just so you know, location tags can actually be more helpful than you think. If you use location tags in a strategic way, you just might be able to grab the attention of your target audience. The important thing to keep in mind when it comes to grabbing the attention of your target audience via location tags is know which places they like to hang out at. Let’s say for example that you want to reach avid bicycle riders. More than likely, the best places they would hang out in would be in recreational areas or in parks such as Big Bend National Park. That’s where the location tags come in handy when it comes to making yourself known to your target audience. Assuming that the Instagram profiles of your target audience is public, reaching out to your target audience via location tags is pretty easy. Always remember to never be afraid to reach out to them via their “natural habitats’ as Shayna likes to call them.

Using The Right Hashtags

Now we arrive at the section where music instrument players call the “sharp sign”. Oh and did I forget to mention that I played the baritone and mini-tuba during my days at Ropes High School in small town West Texas.Those were definitely the days. Well anyways, these hashtags or “sharp signs” or whatever you like to call them are a valuable symbol that can get you visibility if you know how to use them to your advantage. Now you’re wondering how you can get seen by your target audience when you post on Instagram. What you’ll need to do to be seen by your target audience is identify 7-10 hashtags that they actively use. Now comes the tricky part figuring out which hashtags would actually help you get seen by your target audience. It’s important to know that many hashtags have a high density (over a million) and are more likely to be highly competitive meaning that you’ll have a hard time being heard by your target audience. Same thing goes for using hashtags that very few people use. The one time I recommend using low-to-no density hashtags is when you want to create your own unique hashtag that best identifies with your brand. Now what you want to do to be seen by your target audience is use hashtags that a more moderate amount of people use. The recommended hashtags that you should use as Good Ole Shayna told us are those that have a density in between 10K-200K. By following these tips on how to use Instagram hashtags, you’ll definitely be on your way in seeing your online presence grow and making your voice heard in today’s competitive online landscape.

Authenticity Is The Key

Now that we’ve covered the basics of researching your target audience and how to grow your online presence on Instagram, we’ve now arrived at the part where we talk about the best ways to actually engage with your target audience on Instagram. The #1 rule when it comes to Instagram engagement is to never use sales jargon or ask for favors right off the bat. That will never end well in almost every scenario. Whether you’re reaching out to an Influencer or to your target audience, the one thing that people seem to be craving in today’s online world is authenticity. People are interested in brands that speak their language and are personable with them. When reaching out to them via Instagram, start out by complimenting their work or how a certain topic related to their content resonated with you. When inviting them to connect with you via Instagram, definitely mention what you liked about them and how you look forward to hearing more about the work that they do. That will help your cause in a big way and will help lay the foundation towards great relationships. In addition to that, always remember to tailor your messages depending on the types of consumers, Influencers or businesses you interact with. This will help make your target audience feel that they had a personalized experience and would more than likely do business with you in the future. Definitely important to remember that this is a long-term game. It will take time to build up your brand but by making it all about your target audience, you’ll be on your way to establishing your online presence in a positive way.

Recapping How To Grow Your Online Presence Via Instagram

No doubt that today’s online world is constantly evolving. The days of sales jargon and the “One Size Fits All” approaches are over. To recap, online consumers definitely love brands that speak their language and go the extra mile in being personable towards them. Always important to remember that the key to making your online presence known in a positive way is to research your target audience, research potential collaborators, make great strategic use of your location tags and hashtags, and most importantly, never be afraid to be authentic. By doing all these things, you will without a doubt be on your way to great successes in establishing your brand for the better.

I’d like to extend a special thanks to Shayna Marks, Courtney Paige Ray and everyone else who took part in Social With Shayna’s Five-Day Instagram Engagement Challenge in inspiring me to write this latest blog post about how to go by building your brand via Instagram. I learned a great deal on how to be better as a Digital Marketer. I’ll definitely do another challenge like this in the future.

What do you feel is key when it comes to building your online presence in a positive way via Instagram or through other social media channels? Questions? Comments? Feel free to share this article & don’t be afraid to share your thoughts below