How To: Branding Your Business On Social Media

Anyone can post anything online. Anyone can create content and make gains in the social world. Yet, not everyone can be successful in growing their brand online, and the main factor is whether or not you develop a social media strategy. How are you branding your business on social media?

Developing a Social Media Strategy

The competition is tough. New content gets posted every day, more eye-catching and more entertaining, it gets more difficult for smaller brands to attract the same attention as the larger players who have bigger budgets and desks dedicated to social media.

You have to be strategic in posting content. You have to know your audience, what will interest them, what they possibly want to buy from you. To put it simply, what will make them want to patronize your brand?

Focus on Your Brand to Stay Relevant

Establishing an online presence on different social media platforms is a good start. But to keep reeling in new audiences to your product or service, you have you come up with a content plan and branding strategy that will stand out.

Start with the basics.

First, show them what is the face of your business. The logo, color palette, bio, and handle name; all these must be consistent across all your social profiles. Consistency is the key to acquaint the audience with your brand, with what your business is offering. With consistency, it will be easier for the audience to recognize your brand anywhere.

Once you are done with the basics, you can start planning the next stage of promoting your online presence. Whenever there are changes in how you represent your brand – theme photos, seasonal posts, or announcements of product updates – put up these changes on all business profiles, not just the website. This is to ensure that the difference in audience reach per social platform will not matter because everyone will see the update whichever platform they are using to follow your brand.

Work some more on brand visuals.

Don’t just stop with a unified logo, cover photos, and company biography. Work some more on your overall visuals. “How do you do that?” you might ask.

The key to this is still consistency. Identify the colors and fonts you want to be associated with your brand and use the same choices in your media outputs: images, videos, PDFs, infographics, graphs, etc. Use the same or a similar font style you’ve used on your blogs and inner pages when adding texts to your videos. When editing images, use background colors with the closest shades to the colors your brand is known for.

The continuous use of the same font and color shades will leave a lasting impression on your audience. Over time, they will be able to recognize your content even without seeing the logo or business name. When you master this art, your brand won’t have difficulty getting recognition from a bigger target audience.

Set the personality of your brand.

Setting the tone and voice of your company with it is ‘personality’. You can be an information-based brand or one that enjoys a good laugh from here and there. Or maybe your brand is more on awareness and self-enhancement. Whatever it may be, create a personality that is relevant to your audience, one that they can connect with right away.

Watch out for the smallest details like the use of clients versus customers or company versus brand. The term you use when addressing your audience and how you want them to see you as (an actual brand or some company) matters. By being specific with your references and terms, the content that you post will look and sound more credible. The audience will immediately know what you are talking about with the terms you have instilled in them.

Smart Businesses Use Social Networking To Build Their Brand

Boosting your online presence by establishing your brand and what it is about is a good measure in establishing familiarity and relatability. When you give the audience a simple way to understand what your company is about through consistency in visuals and content post, you are already selling your brand.

Read about the best branding example in history: Coca-Cola.

Get more branding and marketing strategy tips or our other blogs.

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The Algorithm: 6 Steps To Optimize Your Google My Business Listing

Get more prospects and leads from Google Maps than your competitors!

Use this 6 step checklist to go from invisible to owning a dominant position on the most valuable place on Google search results will ensure you work smarter than your local competition and beat them to the punch.

Savvy business owners that know Google Maps generates 82% of all local traffic should be investing a small amount of time to optimize and manage their Google Business profile.

In this video and the checklist download, you will be able to: implement the sequential steps to optimize your GMB profile, effectively learn a strategic approach to rank for dozens of keywords in Google Maps, and follow a proven framework to maintain and improve your Maps rankings long-term.

If this video was helpful give a like, download the checklist, and check out our other materials. We are advocates for small local business!

Want to crush the competition? Our video on the 6 steps to optimize your GMB profile will improve your lead generation strategy. Go from invisible to dominant on the most valuable place for leads- the Google search results. Work smarter than your local competition and beat them to the punch.

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How to Use Your Facebook Business Page To Its Full Capability

You likely know of our company and products through Facebook. We spend a lot of money to use the platform in order to raise awareness and to connect to the prospects we have created products for. Our product for Facebook is one that boosts social engagement.

Facebook is the most direct and powerful tool for marketing ever. It’s laser precision is something never before seen. This post will talk about how to use Facebook business page and the benefits of doing so. More than anything it’s a quick guide and introduction into the need for you to leverage the social media giant. There are already step by step guides out there, so we won’t cover the absolute basics.

How Can Facebook Be Used for Marketing

Facebook is an obvious choice for advertising online. Here are some of the biggest benefits, from Postplanner:

Top 10 Benefits of a Facebook Business Page

1. Increased Exposure to Potential Customers – 1.19 BILLION USERS.

2. Gather More Leads – Smart businesses gather leads in the form of email addresses — so they can contact their community outside of Facebook.

3. Lower Your Marketing Expenses – Starting a Facebook business page costs you exactly $0.

4. Reach a Targeted Audience – If you’re a local business, direct your ads to target customers within a 10-15 mile radius. The ads might cost you more, but the Likes and potential customers are laser targeted.

5. Use Facebook Insights – They’re easy to understand, and they provide great information for business owners.

6. Build Brand Loyalty – Besides being a place to build a customer base and sell products, a Facebook business page can do wonders for helping you build brand loyalty.

7. Increase Your Web Traffic – Smart Facebook page owners use their pages to drive traffic to their websites.

8. Boost SEO – Links from Facebook go back to your website, a huge ranking signal.

9. Be Mobile Ready – When people view your Facebook page on a mobile device it shows users all the relevant information they need to call or stop by.

10. Spy on Your Competition! – An interesting new feature on Facebook pages lets businesses spy on competitors.

Facebook Marketing for Beginners

It’s important to distinguish between personal use and professional use. The way you use the platform through personal and professional channels are completely different. Let’s get into the easiest and simplest tips you can do in order to maximize.

How to Maximize Facebook Business Marketing

1. Professional Profiles often Use a Logo

People often recognize brands with its associated logo. Getting found and getting likes on Facebook is easier when people recognize your Page and your posts right away. Since a profile picture is located at the top of your Page and is used as a thumbnail for all your posts, give it character. Make it noticeable.

2. Maximize the ‘About Us’ Section

Give people immediate access to the most important details about your company:

• • What are you selling?
  • What time do you open and until when?
  • How about on weekends?
  • How about your customer service number?
  • And don’t forget to add your website.

By giving people these information right away, you’re initially giving them a positive site visit experience.

3. Use Targeting Tools for Every Content Posts

Organic posts can also benefit from using targeting tools, and not just the paid ads. Instead of bombarding your audience with every content you plan to post, think of ways to integrate targeting tools. This can largely help you organize content posting schedules based on the target audience’s location, gender, age, professional class, interests, education, etc. You might have a better engagement rate if your targets are more specific.

4. Post Regularly

Posting twice a day is often ideal. It doesn’t crowd your page, it doesn’t look too salesy. It’s just enough for not to forget about your Page, it doesn’t seem too pushy. You can post anything you think the followers will like, especially an informative post or an image that comes with a helpful message. Visual content has impact and people tend to remember them better.

5. Create every Post with Impact

The best way to get your audiences’ attention is to make an impact with your posts. Be it a helpful, insightful, educational, or even a reminder post, always give them a reason to stay interested in your content. Make them want more posts from you, make them visit your page again by giving something beneficial to their day. You stay fresh in their minds and will mostly likely point other people to your page.

6. Be Strategic with Time

People are active on Facebook at different times of the day. Different pages have different posting hours depending on their target audience. However, some research has shown that between 1 – 4 p.m. have the most number of shares and click-through rates. This doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best time for your page too, but it can be a good starting point to figure out which time day you should post content.

7. Quick Response, Better Engagement

Did you know that 42% of customers complaining on social media, either through a post or by leaving a comment, expect an immediate response? A 60-minute response time satisfies any unsatisfied customer. So, if you see a comment, respond to it right away, especially when it’s from an unhappy customer. Take a few minutes a day to check your Facebook Page, look out for those unpleasant remarks, and try to resolve the issue right away.

8. Paid Ads Boost Organic Posts

By now, you already have an idea of the type of content that works, those that give you better Return of Investment (ROI) results. Boost these organic content with paid ads to widen your reach, attract more people to visit your page, and increase your following.

Develop A Facebook Page Marketing Plan

Okay, so now you have some actionable steps… put them in action. To further develop your strategy, here are a few more strategic insights.

Make a calendar, develop a strategy, and get busy! This takes time, effort, money, and will improve your life in the long run. You can also focus on your original business plan, your day to day operations, and leave the actual posting and heavy lifting to use. We offer a daily posting service for many industries.

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Best Ways To Optimize A Google My Business Listing

Google is the dominant search engine for local searches. As the virtual inventor and catalyst for the widespread adoption of the Search Engine, Google is now controlling and shifting the towards more precise results and actions.

As a result of their unparalleled service, whenever someone is looking to make a purchase in their local market, they revert to Google.

It’s a question that all business owners ask at one point or another: How do I optimize my business listing on Google?

What Happens Without Proper Business Listing Optimization

These days, not being found on Google means you’re dead in the water. Are you in Google’s good graces?

This blog post will give you a quick glance at the things you need to do in order to leverage Google and get found when your local audience is looking for products and services that you offer.

Here are some stats that show why optimizing your profile is mandatory in the current state of affairs.

• 3.5 billion Google searches are made every day. (Internet Live Stats)
• The volume of Google searches grows by roughly 10% every year. (Internet Live Stats)
• 90% of searches made on desktops are done via Google. (Statista)
• Half of all users who performed a local search on their mobile device visited that store same day. (jotform)
• In fact, research shows that 63.6 percent of people are likely to check up on a business’ Google reviews before they visit. (reviewtrackers)

Some more statistics on the growth of Google.

The Benefits of Profile Optimization

Google My Business is the most powerful free tool at your disposal. Herein lies the opportunity for anyone wise enough to jump onboard.

Develop and utilize the platform to its maximum potential and get a prime placement on Google Maps.

• Only 61% of local businesses have even claimed their GMB profiles;
• Only a fraction of those actually optimize properly;
• And even fewer keep this information updated;

When done correctly, you’re essentially rendering your competition a non-threat.

How to Optimize Your Google My Business Listing

Claim and Verify Your Listing

Register with Google and get it set up. Many of your competitors may not have verified their listings and as a result, are getting penalized. It’s easy to sign up and claim your listing, the process takes some time to send a postcard to your location. Once you get your listing confirmed, ensure all data is 100% accurate. Google is helpful in this regard with claiming steps.

Choose All The Best Categories

There are likely several possible categories your business can be associated with. Get creative to find all the industries, professions, and categories you may relate to your products and services. Find all that applies to you and select what works.

Develop Your Business Description

Write engaging content that will persuade prospects to engage with you. Create a powerful copy that will be displayed on your GMB profile.

Develop Your Business Information

Fill everything out so that Google feels secure in suggesting you to their search audience. Keep this information up to date, and be as descriptive and complete as possible.

Develop Reviews

Ask for, respond to and engage your reviews on Google. Your happy clients make the best crowd to ask for reviews. Once you have reviews, thank those who left good reviews, and also thank those who left bad reviews. A bad review can dissuade a prospect, but if you respond saying that you’re improving your service to account for the shortcoming, you might bring them back in.

How To Know If Optimizing Is Working For You

Upon implementing all these things, you will start to see impressive results. Below, we have two images of separate business dashboards inside of Google My Business. They show the number of times that their brand was found on the search engine. Keep in mind it all depends on your ability to show up first.

Insights

Google ultimately wants to sell you ads, and their infrastructure allows you to monitor all types of clicks, impressions, calls, conversions, and a myriad of tools to show their paid campaigns are performing.

Lucky for the average GMB profile, they also have a suite of free monitoring tools. These are inside the dashboard, known as Google Insights. The case studies above are derived from that dashboard.

You will definitely want to track and monitor your results. At first, upon claiming your business, you might not have anything shown, results will be dismal.

As you optimize and improve your profile, get more reviews, you will start to see improvements.

Google Maps delivers powerful leads into your world via click to call features, directions, and website linking.

Google Maps is the #1 free source of high quality leads.

We have two examples that display what is possible with a high performing Google My Business profile. One of the best features of GMB is that it allows you to track the results it is having on your lead generation.

This is the Google Insights feature, and here are those case studies.

Insight Dashboards

Home Service Business:

Retail:

Get the Checklist and Get On The Maps

A definitive guide for local professional service businesses who need more highly-qualified prospects… right now.

1. Implement the sequential steps to optimize your GMB profile effectively.
2. Learn a strategic approach to rank for dozens of keywords in Google Maps.
3. Follow a proven framework to maintain and improve your Maps rankings long-term.

Get the checklist now!

The Step by Step Course For Optimizing your Maps

Maybe you’re more hands on and want to get this done instantly with the exact steps.

Learn about our optimization course for step by step instructions on placing yourself on the maps listing. We walk through the exact things you (or your team) need to do in order to get on the maps. Not one step is overlooked!

The post Best Ways To Optimize A Google My Business Listing appeared first on Neovora.

What is A Social Media Content Calendar?

Let’s say it’s World Friendship Day but you didn’t know about until you came across a competitor post about friendship and special offers. The natural thing to do is to panic because you didn’t prepare catchy content to post or a special offer for your customers. But hey, no big deal, you can still think of something… or anything!

And then you check the comments section. People are ecstatic about it, posting pictures of them with their friends or funny and memorable best friend stories.

It’s getting lots of likes, getting shared on their accounts while several friends are being tagged. The post is getting a lot of attention and is reaching more audiences effortlessly. BUT, it’s a competitor post.

The competitor is getting all the attention and you’re there anxiously thinking of interesting content to post right away. One that will grab attention. One that will bring traffic to your page.

The Power of Social Content Engagement

Apart from keeping up to date with relevant holidays, it will also help you stay active online. It makes you consistent with posting relevant, informational, or factual posts. By being consistent, you are promising to continuously feed the followers with engaging content without actually making a promise. It becomes habitual which will make followers look forward to your next posts.

It will also help eliminate the possibility of forgetting to post content on your other profiles. Because you have a calendar, you can schedule posts in advance.

Another advantage of having a content calendar is finding the right mix and tone to your posts. Don’t just post about your business, what is on sale, or what new products are your brewing. No one wants to keep following a page that only talks about the business. It becomes boring.

Add some color to your posts by curating articles, images, and videos from your industry. Talk about personal interactions with customers, answer common questions often asked by new customers, or share a screenshot of interesting follower comments from your other posts.

And more importantly, with a calendar, you are keeping a record of the published content. By doing so…

• You can avoid posting the same content which can be annoying to your followers.
• You are prepared and the posts are fully optimized to serve its purpose.

Create a Content Calendar

With a structured format for posting regularly, you’ll never miss an important date online. There can be a lot of reasons people around the world celebrate.

#NationalDogDay
#SiblingsDay
#EarthHour
#TeachersDay
#MentalHealthAwarenessMonth

Keeping track of all these special days that people love to celebrate can be difficult, this is where creating a social media content calendar comes in. This is where you plan ahead so you don’t miss out on important social events.

Social Media Audit

Before you start planning your content and posting schedule, take a look at your current strategy on social media for business. On what platforms are you active? Which ones are giving you a better audience reach? How often are you posting content in these accounts?

You need to know where you are at with your social profiles. Make sure you can access all these accounts with an active username and password. If you can’t do it, assign people you trust to handle these accounts.

These are valuable information you can use as a basis for your future planning and scheduling.

Check Previous Posts

Do away with out-of-date content. What seemed to be intriguing a few months back, isn’t as appealing now. Some content, though old and outdated, can be edited and updated. Maximize these as it will help save time and effort on your end.

Check out old posts that got a lot of attention. What was the content about? How was it presented? It will give you an idea of the content that followers are most interested in. And then, there are the competitor posts. Be mindful of the competition’s posts, it might help you create better content.

Posting Frequency

You’re done with social media and content audit. Next is determining the frequency of your posts on each social platform. Decide which post goes up on which day, on which platform. Decide how often you need to post within the day, whether some days will have more posts for the rest of the week. This will shape the bulk of your content calendar.

Content Ratio

Categorize your content. Is it self-promotional, user-generated, or curated? It can also be categorized by its type: blog post, announcement, infographic, or video. It’s all up to you and the resources you have at hand. If you want to focus on posting videos and some blog posts, then make sure that the social calendar reflects this goal. Labeling your content is up to you just be sure that they are descriptive and easy to follow.

It is a lengthy process, one that requires patience and perseverance. You have to be observant and sensitive to your followers’ interests. After all, it’s for them that you’re making a social media content calendar.

Visit the Neovora page for more fun and easy to follow online platform tips. Check out our social media services as well!

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Easy Social Media Marketing Strategy Steps

When planning your social media marketing strategy, don’t go for broad or unattainable plans. Make it brief but comprehensive. Simple but with long-term measures. Be specific so that every strategy execution is analyzed and calculated, threading through action steps already identified and decided.

For every post, re-post, like, share, or comment, make it count. Each action taken by the by existing clients, followers, prospects, or the target audience, in general, can be of an advantage to the business. So make it count. Maximize the individual potential of each audience engagement.

Where to Start With Social Media Marketing?

Being active and responsive to the audience, putting out content to inform or trigger social engagement is the second half of any social marketing strategy. It always starts somewhere else, a good marketing plan.

Know Your Audience

By knowing what your audience and potential customers want to see on social media will point you in the right direction when creating content that they will comment on, like or share. It will help you conclude which product you are offering will sell to these audiences. It will also help in conceptualizing new products as the business grows and expands.

Social media analytics will help you determine what the target audience is searching for on the internet, what are the latest trends, the hottest selling products, and even which age group searches what. These tools help you refine your marketing plan and come up with better social content.

There are different analytics tools out there.

• Keyhole – It “shows you when your users are most active, so you get to see your audience’s best engagement days and times.”
• Hootsuite – “Automatically schedules and posts content for you, freeing up more time to engage with customers.”

For a more platform-based analytics tool, check:

• Audiense Connect, Followerwonk (Twitter)
• Iconosquare (Instagram and Facebook)
• Tailwind (Pinterest and Instagram)

Know Your Competition

If you’re in a competitive business, most likely, your competitors are already into social media marketing. Don’t get distracted and learn from what they are already doing to promote their brand.

Conduct a competitive analysis. It is an evaluation of what the competitor is doing well and not doing so well in their marketing efforts.

It will help you learn which platforms they are active in, what type of content engages the audience more, know what strategy is working for them to pinpoint the loopholes in your own marketing strategy. Moreover, it’s another way of spotting opportunities for growth. For example, if the competitor markets their business by posting professional photos on Instagram but isn’t doing much on Twitter or Facebook. Then you can work your way on these two platforms, instead of trying to take the audience from an already performing brand.

Take note of competitor accounts and how they use industry keywords. Over time, there may be a shift in how these mediums are used and how these changes affect the competitor’s online presence. Watch out for these changes as well for it may benefit your business or affect your marketing plans.

Know What’s Working

If you’re already using social to market your product or service, re-examine your current marketing efforts. Pause for a minute to examine what you have done and accomplished so far.

What part of your marketing plans has worked? Which ones aren’t? Which platform does your prospect use more often? Compared to your competitors, how effective is your social media presence?

By getting factual answers to these questions, you will have a better view of how effective your marketing plan is. Or if you are working with the right plan. By knowing where you are at with your strategies, you know which platforms will give you the best results, which ones you should keep improving to reach more audience, and which social is just a waste of time.

With a lot of information to acquire, facts to analyze, and numbers to digest, creating your own social media strategy plan and sticking to it can become an overwhelming task. Especially when the business is growing and in need of more online exposure.

Neovora is an expert in social media marketing. We offer businesses the opportunity to grow their business using proven strategies that produce positive results and marketing tools that target more audience engagement.

Visit https://www.neovora.com/ for more information.

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Customer Retention Strategies To Grow Your Business – Part 2

From Part 1 of this post series, let’s continue our list of retention strategies that worked for many businesses.

Company Newsletter

A company newsletter is a simple and cost-effective way of retaining customers. You can use email automation to send updates or offers to all of your customers at once. And, you can send the email using an RSS feed on a designated frequency, so you don’t have to manually update the content or remember to click “send.” Even though it’s simple, newsletters remind customers of your brand every time they open their inbox.

Deliver Your Promise

As the famous saying goes, “under promise and over deliver”, therefore, don’t promise customers what you can’t fulfill.

Not everyone succeeds in surpassing expectations, and some businesses fail to meet their customers’ expectations. When you promise something to your client, be certain that you have the means to deliver. If you say the personalized product the client ordered will be ready in a week, make it ready in five days or less. If you say a rebate will be given to the first 50 buyers in 24 hours, give the rebate just right after they make the purchase.

It’s a simple action plan, but to the customers, it exceeds their expectations. To them, you are going beyond your promise to satisfy them. That’s more points for you and your business.

Exceeding customers’ expectations will help in keeping them for good.

Listen to Customer Complaints

At a glance, addressing customer complaints is a waste of time. There are more important matters to attend to, like convincing new leads to convert to buyers or how to retain existing customers. It is the most logical business path.

But on a long-term perspective, customer complaints can open doors for business growth. Care to listen to their frustrations, their issues at hand. What made them unhappy? What did not work for them that worked for other customers?

This gives you a chance to see things you haven’t considered before. Complaints need your attention, so attend to them now.

Hire people to power your customer care department. Train them to be flexible, welcoming, knowledgeable, and most importantly, they must know how to pick up the root cause of every complaint. Use their dissatisfaction to your advantage.

Customer Education

Knowledgebase… community forums… These are some of the tools a company can use to openly laid down accessible and useful information to the customers. It is a long-term investment.

It is an extension of your products and services. It is going beyond your promise. Customers can use these tools when they need help, when they want answers but are too tired to call customer support or when they need simple solutions that can be found in Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) page on your website.

Customers are active and participative when they know they can gain valuable information from you, and not just from your product or service.

Get Started Now

Businesses in the online world compete to get more leads, convert more prospects, or become one of the best brands out there. Getting your hands full of things that won’t give you a definite road to grow your business is a waste of effort, money, and time.

Know where to invest your resources in. Neovora can lead you there. We have social media posting services and other marketing strategies that have worked for many businesses. Visit our page!

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