The History of Marketing for Business from 1450 through 2013
Ever wonder what we would do without technology? How would you market your business without the internet, or even television? Well, thanks to the our friends at Hubspot we now can catch a glimpse of how marketing has progressed since the 15th century. The infographic below provides a visual of the whole story. Enjoy!
Finally Social Media Marketing Giant Google+ Offers Vanity URLs
Wohoo! Social Media Marketing companies and consultants across the country are surely standing on their desk chairs fist pumping a big YES!
As reported by Marketing Land yesterday, Google+ has finally decided to begin its rollout of vanity URLs.
Here’s the top three things you need to know.
First, your current ugly url, which looks something similar to ours with the big ugly number – https://plus.google.com/u/0/117317463626781887442/ will eventually become a branded looking (vanity) URL.
Poobah Marketing’s vanity URL will eventually look like this: https://plus.google.com/+poobahmarketing
You can see the obvious difference. From a marketing standpoint this will make your Google+ business page more branded, professional and of course most importantly easier for your prospects, customers and patients to remember.
When it’s memorable it’s also easier to share, which is what we are ultimately after.
Second, according to Saurabh Sharma – Google’s employee who announced the news – this is only the first step for Google+ vanity URLs. What this means is that you and most other small businesses are going to have to wait just a bit longer to get yours.
At the moment Google has started its rollout with big brands like +Toyota, +Britney Spears and +Delta among others.
Third, if you’re a client of Poobah Marketing rest assured that as soon as you can get your branded vanity URL we’ll let you know.
In the meantime, if your in-house social media marketing teams haven’t heard the good news yet then let them know the big ugly Google+ URLs are soon to be no more!
One last thing…
Social Media Marketing Tip! Have some fun in your staff meetings brainstorming how to unveil your new Google+ vanity URL. Make sure that whatever your idea is it includes a picture that you can post to all your social media marketing profiles. Namely Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Send your idea and any pictures you have to chris@PoobahMarketing.com and we’ll give you some fame on our blog and in our social media profiles. The more creative and fun the better!
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Chris White is the Grand Poobah of Social Media and Content Development at Poobah Marketing a Denver-based SEO company that helps small to medium businesses dominate online and on mobile devices. For more information, visit PoobahMarketing.com or call (303) 578-1290. Mention this article and get a free 20 minute business marketing consultation.
Social media marketing is certain to be more important for business growth in 2012 than ever before. Especially now that social media marketing is being tied in with search. This means that even if you’re primarily an offline business social media marketing is now a must.
If you’ve been fighting it then it’s time to surrender before you get so far behind you never catch up with your competitors.
Here’s 3 Social Media Marketing New Years Resolutions for Your Business in 2012.
1. Find more ways to sell your products and services.
Any wise and successful business owner will tell you that one way to maximize profit is to simply find more ways to sell. This is the perfect reason for you to begin taking social media marketing more seriously in your business.
Is using social media marketing worth your time as an additional way to sell?
Well, according to Ad Age, there are now more than 800 million active Facebook users. 200 million of those were added in 2011 alone.
2. Find more customers to sell to.
This one might seem a little obvious as a way to maximize your profits in 2012. The real question, however, is where to find these customers? If the social media marketing statistic about Facebook in number one above wasn’t enough convincing how about this statistic.
According to Social Media Examiner the average Facebook user has 130 friends and is connected to 80 pages, events and groups.
Where’s the leverage in this statistic? Well, if you can get one person to become a Fan of your Facebook business page then when you execute your Facebook social media marketing strategy and submit updates those updates automatically post to the wall of your Fans.
Do you see the significance here? When your update posts itself to your Fans wall their friends will see it too. If your update is compelling enough with valuable calls-to-action chances are good you will generate more Fans. Thus, more potential customers to sell to.
3. Communicate more with all of your customers, prospects, and Fans.
How do you communicate with your customers and prospects and how often do you communicate with them? Two very important questions.
Here’s something to consider. It’s almost impossible to over-communicate with your customers and prospects.
Why is this the case? Because every day your customers and prospects are getting blasted with communication through email, social media marketing messages via twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube to only name a few. They are also getting direct mail correspondence. Throw in radio and TV and you’ve got a perfect recipe for information overload.
The point here is that you have to communicate often just to compete for your customers and prospects attention. Here’s the key with your communication strategy?
It must be systematized.
Social media marketing is one of the easiest communication mechanisms to systematize. Putting in the effort to setup your social media marketing system is well worth it.
In case you’re not counting we’re already 5% into the New Year.
If social media marketing is not a significant part of your 2012 strategy for maximizing profit and growing your business it needs to be. Don’t waste anymore time. You’ve got 95% of the year left to setup your social media marketing system and take massive action. Need some help getting your system in place? Call us today for a complimentary social media marketing consultation! (303) 578-1290
How are you most effectively using social media marketing in your business? Share with us below!
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Chris White is the Grand Poobah of Social Media and Content Development at Poobah Marketing a Denver-based SEO company that helps small to medium businesses dominate online and on mobile devices. For more information, visit PoobahMarketing.com or call (303) 578-1290. Mention this article and get a free 20 minute business marketing consultation.
Google just made an adjustment to their page layout algorithm that could affect your business website SEO. This new change is designed to offer a better experience for visitors to your site which is the top priority for Google. While it is estimated to only affect approximately 1% of websites, we suspect the number to be considerably larger.
The reason for this change is that Google has realized that sites with certain layouts get far more “bounces” than other sites. A bounce is when someone clicks to your site from a search result and then leaves without taking any further action (clicks a link, clicks a button, watches a video, opts in, etc.). A bounce tells Google that the website probably was not valuable for the visitor.
Why does Google care?
Google’s entire model centers around the quality of their search engine. If the search engine isn’t delivering good results for searchers, then people will quit using it and instead go to Bing or some other search engine. Because of this, Google is our friend, not our enemy. Can you imagine how life would be if you couldn’t quickly search and find what you wanted online? Chaos…
What should a business website have in order to comply?
It is pretty simple – have valuable content “above-the-fold.” Above-the-fold is a phrase used to describe the first thing someone sees when they land on a website, before they have to scroll down the page (see image to the right). Offending sites often are littered with ads and banners for other offers, making the visitor have to search around for the actual information they were searching for in the first place. Quality sites put their content first so that a visitor can easily get to it when they land on the page.
To see the Google update by Matt Cutts visit: http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/01/page-layout-algorithm-improvement.html
Social media marketing pop quiz of the day. Are you leveraging the full-power of Facebook’s social media marketing tools to increase ROI in your business?
If this pop quiz has created overwhelm, frustration, anxiety or any other negative emotion for you then stop reading this now and call us immediately. There is zero time to waste. Social media is no longer a luxury. It’s now a non-negotiable.
If you’re answer to the pop quiz was “yes” then you may want to consider Facebook sponsored stories into your social media marketing strategy.
Here’s 6 things you need to know about Facebook sponsored stories:
Facebook’s sponsored stories are attempting to tap into the idea that when we are out in the world looking for information to help us make decisions we want advice from the people we trust. The correlation here to trust is that if a fan or prospect or customer has taken the time to “Like” your business page then they trust you at some level. In such case Facebook is now providing you an avenue via sponsored stories to include in the tactics of your social media marketing strategy to better serve your fan base.
Here’s one quick example of sponsored stories.
Example: Leveraging the power of check-ins
You are a local business. Let’s say a restaurant. One of your customers shows up and performs a check-in action on their mobile phone. This action will show up as an impression on their Facebook page telling all their friends they are at your restaurant.
This example is really cool for the restaurant. The fact this person trusts you enough to be your customer and post it on their Facebook page has now just been subtly advertised to all their friends. If you don’t believe this kind of social media marketing action takes places in a BIG way just do some Google research on the social media marketing company Foursquare.
The challenge Facebook has identified with this example is that this check-in impression from your customer or prospect has a good chance of getting lost among all the other impressions happening on their Facebook page.
Therefore, Facebook created sponsored stories to provide business owners (and all Facebook users for that matter) a vehicle to help them rise above the clutter of impressions that are happening on any one Facebook wall at a given time. A sponsored story allows the friends of the Facebook page owner to click through the sponsored story to your Facebook business page and then “Like” it.
The implications here are tremendous for your business not to mention at the very least creating more organic content for you.
So, if you want the check-in impressions of your customers and prospects to prominently show up on their Facebook wall for all their friends to see then you can decide to make check-ins part of your sponsored stories social media marketing strategy. You can do the same for “Likes”.
Will Facebook’s sponsored stories stick?
We believe they will. Facebook has chosen to be more considerate of the user experience than they were in previous failed attempts of placing ads into the newsfeed.
Facebook’s decision to roll out sponsored stories to users slowly is a wise one. Early indications represent no more than one sponsored story per day showing up on a users wall. While business owners may prefer Facebook to do more initially, the most important factor for business owners and marketers is adoption by Facebook users.
Too much at one time will likely cause backlash from the Facebook community and kill the sponsored stories movement. We are predicting that sponsored stories with have higher click through rates than ads on the side of the page. Time will tell.
As social media marketing on Facebook continues to evolve by providing business owners with better more effective ways to reach prospects and customers keep your marketing eye on this sponsored stories movement. It may prove to be one of the most effective ways for you to reach your customers. If you require some expert advice about how Facebook’s sponsored stories fit into an effective social media marketing strategy for your business we can help. Call us today! (303) 578-1290
What’s your opinion on Facebook sponsored stories? Share with us below!
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Chris White is the Grand Poobah of Social Media at Poobah Marketing a Denver-based SEO company that helps small to medium businesses dominate online and on mobile devices. For more information, visit PoobahMarketing.com or call (303) 578-1290. Mention this article and get a free 20 minute business marketing consultation.
Social media marketing and branding endure a love hate relationship. Smart marketers who understand how to implement that latest branding discoveries into their social media marketing strategy love the relationship.
In contrast, not so smart marketers, who live in the dark when it comes to how social media marketing and branding co-exist well together, write the subject matter off as a waste of time.
Sometimes, these marketing types actually take it one step worse and try to implement branding into their social media marketing plans. Of course there is no better way to quickly ruin your brand than to market from a position of being unaware.
Have no fear if you or your social media marketing team more closely resembles the unaware type. Thanks to AYTM Market Research, after carefully studying the graphic below you’ll no longer have the excuse of being in the dark.
In fact, you’re going to be empowered to take your social media marketing strategy to a whole new level with these new branding discoveries.
So, let’s get to it.
AYTM Market Research recently surveyed 2,000 internet users from its database. The research company asked the following eight questions:
The infographic below represents the answers of those surveyed. Your social media marketing team would be wise to carefully analyze and assess your social media marketing strategy against these latest branding discoveries.
These latest social media marketing branding discoveries are certain to ensure your social media efforts are on the right track. How are you using this information to effectively marketyour products, services and brand? Share your best practices in the comments below.
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Chris White is the Grand Poobah of Social Media and Content Development at Poobah Marketing a Denver-based SEO company that helps small to medium businesses dominate online and on mobile devices. For more information, visit PoobahMarketing.com or call (303) 578-1290. Mention this article and get a free 20 minute business marketing consultation.
Is your social media marketing team a savvy marketing bunch when it comes to Facebook brand pages?
Here’s a fun test that will give you your answer.
Look at the picture below from Coca-Cola’s Facebook brand page and put the following percentages next to each letter A thru D. Percentages: 47%, 83%, 60%, 57%, 93%
The percentages represent the percentage of people in a study who noticed that section of Coca-Cola’s brand page.
(Image Source: Mashable)
Here are the main takeaways your social media marketing team should be aware of:
This EyeTrackShop study done for Mashable involved Coca-Cola, Skittles, Victoria’s Secret, Starbucks, Converse, PlayStation, Pringles and Red Bull. The study also shows how many seconds the participants eyes were fixated on each section of the Facebook brand page. This is definitely key data your social media marketing team will want to get their hands on.
Check out the full eye opening social media marketing study on Facebook brand pages done by EyeTrackShop for Mashable.
The social media marketing team at Poobah Marketing is determined to help business owners develop effective social media strategy and implementation plans to help turn their social media marketing efforts into bottom line results.
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Chris White is the Grand Poobah of Social Media at Poobah Marketing a Denver-based SEO company that helps small to medium businesses dominate online and on mobile devices. For more information, visit PoobahMarketing.com or call (303) 578-1290. Mention this article and get a free 20 minute business marketing consultation.
One of the most frequently asked questions we get regarding the search engine ranking of a business is related to how long the process takes.
A common misconception by business owners is that once they get their business ranked at the top of the search engines, they can stop using their SEO company that got them positioned there, or at least put a hold on things until needed later.
Unfortunately it does not work that way…
In June 2010 Google announced the completion of Caffeine, a web indexing system designed to provider “fresher” results in their search engine. Before caffeine, all data was pulled from previously indexed pages on the web. With the fast moving pace of the internet, including multimedia, social media, up-to-the-minute news, and real-time updates on more dynamically complex web pages, dated search results were no longer desired by web surfers.
Google decided to become more relevant and serve up better (more up-to-date) content and they began factoring it into their search engine results pages. Since that time, it has become increasingly apparent that dated, static content could not maintain search engine rankings. Instead, consistency became a requirement.
There are many things that can be done in order to stay current in the search engine’s eyes, including:
While an industrious business owner can certainly handle some of these things, it would be nearly impossible to stay consistent and accomplish it all with great optimization and massive syndication in a way that keeps them competitive in the search engines while still trying to run their business. That is why hiring a long-term expert SEO company is no longer an option, it is a requirement for business owners who want to win online and on mobile devices.
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Tim Berry is the Grand Poobah of Marketing at Poobah Marketing, a Denver-based SEO company that helps small to medium businesses dominate online and on mobile devices. For more information, visit Poobah Marketing or call (303) 578-1290. Mention this article and get a free 20 minute business marketing consultation.
