Are You Following The Rule Of Social Media?

It is tempting for companies to share their content exclusively to drive sales or marketing, neglecting authentic commitment.

It takes discipline to share content from like-minded companies or industry opinion leaders.

You may have heard from co-workers or business owners that social networks have really changed the game for them in terms of leads and sales.

Social networks are an amazing way to reach potential customers that you would otherwise have missed.

But some of you may have started doing some social campaigns on your own, and you are not seeing the kind of results you have heard!

One of the benefits of hiring a social media marketing company is that they know all the tips, tricks and social media rules necessary for your campaign to be effective.

And when we say the rules of social networks, we are not talking about subjective ideas that generally increase the results of a campaign.

We are talking about rules of real social networks: guidelines and advertising policies established by the platform of social networks that advertisers and companies like yours should follow.

Are you following the rule of social media?

By following the so-called “Rule of the thirds” of social networks, you will ensure that you are sharing content that attracts and keeps track of those interested.

What is the rule of the thirds of social networks?

  • ⅓ of its social content promotes its business, converts readers and generates profits.
  • A third of your social content should come up and share ideas and stories from opinion leaders in your industry or related businesses.
  • ⅓ Your social content should be based on personal interactions and build your personal brand.

Sharing your own brand content should be something natural. It’s the other two thirds that can be a challenge.

Let’s talk about why sharing professional and personal content is equally important.

Are you following the rule of social media?

What is 5: 3: 2?

Social media can play an important role in attracting audiences to your brand, but what do you need to do to get there? What should I be sharing and when?

The key you should not do is talk about yourself all day and every day; This is the sure way to keep people away from your brand.

It’s like that annoying “friend” you have on Facebook who brags all the time, who hides from your timeline or, ultimately, is not your friend.

It does not want to be that brand.

So, what should I be doing? This is where rule 5: 3: 2 comes into play, and it has nothing to do with the rules of football (or soccer, depending on your part of the world).

With regard to social exchange, it is about achieving the right balance, so think about every ten publications:

  • 5 should be content from other sources that are relevant to your audience, also known as healing.
  • 3 must be content that you have created, that is relevant to your audience or creation.
  • 2 must be personal and fun content that humanizes your brand for your audience, to be called humanization.

You will notice that each of these areas has something in common: they are all focused on your audience, not on you.

So let’s dig a little deeper into each one and see how they can attract your audience and what you can do to get the most out of each one.

50% cure

Therefore, most of what you share must be cured from other places and sources that are relevant to your niche and audience.

There is a lot of content out there, take time to read the industry news and be part of the conversation around topics that you know will interest your audience.

Sharing content that is relevant and specific to your industry area will indicate that you are aware. The pulse of what is happening.

Here are some tools to help you quickly customize the content of your social media channels:

  • Feedly
  • Storify
  • Quora

These are not the only healing tools you can use, but they are a starting point.

Remember that everything you post should be useful and shareable; It must also be relevant to your niche and audience.

Creation of 30%

Next, you want to spend some time creating content on your own, try to stay away from difficult sales. If you do, you will undoubtedly see that your list of followers decreases.

Social networks have to do with attracting the audience you want and what you do is valuable content. Try to create varied content as well, as this will keep things interesting for your audience. These types of content could include:

  • Blogs
  • Infographics
  • e-books
  • Videos

20% humanization

This is what gives life to your brand and shows your audience that you are human and not just a large faceless corporation that tries to sell you.

It’s okay to publish random publications like this if you have the correct balance. The result is likely to be more followers because they will keep coming back to see what other fun things you publish and also to find other useful content.

When sharing this type of content make sure:

  1. It’s the kind of fun your audience likes.
  2. It shows your brand personality

Now that you know the 5: 3: 2 rule and how it can work for your brand, but now you wonder how I can continue to share and publish all this excellent content?

Access a social media management tool, there are many options to help you program, manage and find content, all in one place! 

Below is a selection of the main platforms that will be used for the administration of their social networks:

  • Buffer
  • HootSuite
  • TweetDeck
  • SproutSocial

To help you with the best time to schedule your publications in each social network.

In conclusion,

So there’s the 5: 3: 2 rule for social networks, remember that it’s about your audience and finding a balance in the content you share.

Try not to try to sell all the time and, instead, focus on the content that is valuable, interesting and fun; You want to humanize your brand and make your audience interact with you.

Are you following the rule of social media?

The 80/20 Rule

There is no secret formula to successfully interact with your audience on social networks, but applying the “80/20 Rule” should always be an important part of your social media strategy.

It simply comes down to this: use only 20% of your content to promote your brand, and dedicate 80% to the content that really interests your audience and involve them in conversations.

Do not get me wrong, social networks are definitely a big part of your marketing mix. But because people use social networks to be social, they do not want to be subjected to their online sales pitch.

Always try to create relationships, instead of annoying your audience with irrelevant content and increase your own image.

Because people use social networks to be social, they do not want to be subjected to their online sales pitch.

The year 2018 was marked as “a great year for content”, therefore, content marketing is a really important component of any social media marketing strategy.

Here’s how to apply ‘The 80/20 rule’ to your social media content:

20% of your brand content: include persuasive calls to action

When you work on 20% of the content that deals with your brand, also include information that benefits your audience.

Include a discount, add a special offer, provide useful statistics, etc.

Be sure to integrate a persuasive call to action that will inspire your audience to learn more about your company so it can lead to conversion in the future.

80% of other ‘interesting content’: make it shareable

Dedicating 80% to interesting content that really suits the interests and needs of your audience means compiling content from influential people whose ideas and ideas you agree with.

It supports your way of thinking, the way you do business or what you think is happening in your industry.

Think of retweets, inspirational quotes, links to news, questions, etc.

Just look for content that appeals to your audience and shares it on your social channels.

Are you following the rule of social media?

Put aside your pride and share the content of another company

Why is it so important to share external content with other companies or opinion leaders? It shows your audience that you know the industry like the back of your hand, that you are collegial and aware of the competition.

It shows that it is collaborative and secure enough in its own brand to share the content of another person.

It also doubles your exposure by connecting your content to your audience or online community.

By sharing content from another company, even a competitor, your company is positioned as the best source of content more complete and rounded.

To get content from other companies, try these features:

  • Find industry influencers: use keyword searches or suggested Twitter user lists to find influential people in your industry. Once you have found them, add them to a list or transmit them to continue listening.
  • Follow your competition: find your competition or other online related businesses with keyword searches, add them to a list or transmit them and start sharing the good things.
  • Follow the hashtags and industry keywords: source the hashtags or keywords of your industry and follow them in a sequence to keep them in your backpack. This will help you find new content and know what to include in yours.
  • Make lists: create lists of influential people, competitors, industry keywords and opinion leaders and keep them in separate sequences for easy listening.
  • Configure transmissions: multiple transmissions simplify your listening opportunities so you can spend less time searching for excellent content.
  • Use several styles of Re-Tweet: In HootSuite for example, by selecting “edit” on the Retweet button, you can give your content its own spin. Or, by selecting “Yes”, it simply comes out through its channels with its attached profile. This makes your Twitter feed look more dynamic and shows that you are outsourcing content (something good).

Time to get staff

The personalization in social networks is twofold: build your personal brand in your own channels and be more customizable in your business.

Personal accounts give you the opportunity to share attractive content, create a personal brand around your interests and participate with your followers.

Companies, on the other hand, can learn a lot from personal social accounts. Getting involved with your audience through personal interactions opens your business and shows a more human and vulnerable side.

This could mean sharing the stories of your customers, appreciating your comments or encouraging employees to be brand ambassadors online.

By doing so, you not only recognize your audience, but you also build a committed community.

To listen and participate with your community, try these features:

  • Trust teams: train your employees to be online ambassadors. They can share and amplify the content of their business, participate in personal conversations with a personal touch and collaborate to respond and receive feedback from fans.
  • Configure Streams: use streams and tabs to get a quick overview of your activity on social networks. This helps you listen and participate better with your audience.
  • Find community ambassadors: Suppose you wrote a blog post about your business and a fan had a lot to say in the comments. Contact them to write invited publications or follow them on social networks to get different perspectives.

In Canarias Digital we empower our followers to be ambassadors with a personal touch. We encourage everyone to contribute to the blog and create a professional and personal brand.

This adds new perspectives and exposes Canarias Digital to more diverse audiences. Similarly, our customer service team is encouraged to sign messages with your name. Claudia is our example.

This allows them to have a voice and conduct personal interactions while they are useful.

13 social media rules to live

13 Social Media Rules To Live

Social networks are now a common place in sales, marketing and general business communications.

Unfortunately, some people still do not know how to use social networks in the workplace without having to land in hot water.

Here are the rules, slightly adapted to our social media policy with an extra portion of common sense:

1. DO NOT  provide confidential or other information. If there is any question in your mind, err on the side of keeping silent.

2. DO NOT  identify yourself by name and, when relevant, your role, when discussing your company or matters related to it.

3. DO NOT  write in the first person plural (for example, “we”, “our”). Make it clear that you speak for yourself and not on behalf of your company.

4. BE AWARE that everything you post will be public for a long time, possibly throughout your career.

5. NOT  violate the laws of copyright, fair use or disclosure of financial information. When you quote someone, link back to the source if possible.

6. MAKE SURE that your online profiles and related content are consistent with the way you want to present yourself to your colleagues and clients.

7. DO NOT  assume that the anonymous publication will keep your true identity secret if you post inappropriate comments and content.

8. Assume  personal responsibility for the content you post on blogs, wikis or any other public forum.

9. DO NOT  forget that the brand of your company is represented by your people and what you publish will inevitably be reflected in that brand.

10. Make the best effort to add value by providing valuable information and perspective instead of mere opinions and bluffing.

11. DO NOT  quote or make reference to the clients, partners or suppliers of the company without their approval. If you do so, you could take your business in legal trouble.

12. Show due consideration for the privacy of others and for sensitivities that may exist with respect to politics and religion.

13. DO NOT  use ethnic slurs, personal insults, obscenity, or engage in any online behavior that is not acceptable at work.

In summary, if a brand focuses too much on itself within social networks as a means to increase sales, its audience will see it and disconnect it immediately.

Only by discovering what really interests your audience and responding to those needs will your brand be able to maintain a consistent, sustainable and attractive online social media presence.

Inbound Marketing Strategies For B2B Companies

Marketing is defined as the activity, set of institutions and processes to create, communicate, deliver and exchange offers that have value for consumers, customers, partners and society in general.

Or, as the economist Philip Kotler defined it, marketing tries to satisfy the needs of an objective market for a profit.

There are many marketing strategies that can be carried out, but it must be taken into account that marketing is not done in all industries equally.

It is important to consider various factors such as the target audience, the product or service sold or the market position of the company.

Before starting to explain the different strategies that can be carried out, it is important to take into account two concepts: B2B Business and Inbound Marketing.

B2B (business-to-business) refers to transactions between companies, that is, those companies that sell to other companies, and not the final consumer. Therefore B2B marketing will be that which is done from company to company.

On the other hand, the Inbound Marketing or Attraction Marketing is a methodology that coordinates non-intrusive marketing and advertising techniques, with the purpose that the user is the one who finds you, is interested in your product or service, and finally make the transaction.

How can an inbound marketing strategy be implemented in B2B businesses?

First of all, take into account who you are, how you are and what your target customer’s purchasing method is. From this consideration, you will be more prepared to customize and carry out the inbound marketing strategies for your business.

Create quality content

It is proven that quality content generates the most organic search traffic. Creating this type of content is a good way to generate leads and potential customers.

But what should be taken into account to carry out this marketing strategy?

First of all, we must know what our purpose is and who our audience is.

From this, we can define which topics are of interest to them and, therefore, which we are going to talk about.

Who will be responsible for writing the content? Must be a creative person, well informed on the subject and have a rigorous control of the content.

Finally, you must choose the platforms through which this content will be published (blogs, social networks, etc.), define how often it will be published and measure and monitor these campaigns (visualizations, recommendations, etc.) .).

Promote your content

There are many platforms through which to promote the content that the company creates, either from a blog of the company or through social networks.

It is important to stay updated at all times and select well the platforms that will be used. It is not better how many more media you use, if not the quality of these.

Use SEO Techniques

Posicionamiento search engine has revolutionized the way we search for information and purchase goods or services.

The goal of this technique is to appear in the top search positions on Google and be found before your competitors. Because we all know that beyond the first page of Google we do not read.

SEO strategies are very varied, but some of the most important for B2B companies are the following:

  • The web content is the core work: it is important to have detailed descriptions of products and services, using images and videos, create a predictive web and always give contact details. It is also interesting to insert in your website a click to call or a chatbot to easily contact the potential client, without requiring much effort for him.
  • Create landing pages to create visitors in registers, that is, create potential clients in real clients. Thanks to these are the attention of the user and that is why it must be optimized to the maximum and should generate interest.
  • Use the jargon of the area to which you dedicate yourself, either in your own website or in what you publish externally and establish the keywords. Use these and their related in your web and in what you post externally.
  • Link your social network profiles on your website. They will give you credibility. But you must keep them up-to-date and use the keywords we’ve talked about in these too.

Welcome to my business, LinkedIn

LinkedIn is one of the most promising social networks today, and above all, very useful for this type of B2B companies. It is the professional network par excellence, where there are profiles of companies, CEOs, senior managers, etc.

The LinkedIn platform is perfect to spread your content to other businesses, as well as attract traffic to your networks, blogs, and websites or make yourself known.

LinkedIn is a machine to generate leads, since in addition to the millions of users that compose it, with a good communication and business strategy in it, many of them can become potential customers for your business.

To do this, you should only make a profile, share, recommend and create content of interest and update it every day. Be an active person, be seen.

An inbound marketing plan for B2B companies is not an easy task. All procedures need their time and a rigorous monitoring and control during and after.

However, companies must adapt to new user purchasing processes, this is no more than integrating new digital processes into their strategies and being up-to-date with the advances that take place every day in the field of marketing.

What Settings To Use For Your Cookie Banner

The cookie banners have been part of the Web landscape since the beginning of 2010, following the transposition into French law of two European directives that came into force in 2009. Despite the passage of years and innumerable precisions, brought by the CNIL (Commission Nationale Informatique et Libertés) of France, the settings restricting the trigger tracers, linked to the banner cookie, continue to vary greatly from one website to another.

The entry into force of the RGPD (General Regulation on Data Protection) in May 2018 has put the banner strips back on the forefront, without putting an end to the diversity of existing settings. Which are the most frequent modes of setting up at the beginning of the year 2019? What are the motivations of their adopters? So many questions to which this article proposes to sketch an answer.

The Unthinkable: the absence of a cookie banner

It has become rare, even on sites where the use of tracers and data collection tools is limited, not to note the presence of banner information cookies. Exceptions to the rule of systematically adding this element to its website are difficult to explain. Indeed, there is an innumerable number of cookie banner creation tools, some of which are directly referenced by the CNIL on its site.

To host on its own servers, or made available directly by their publishers, open-source or owners, free or paid, the offer is simply bloated. It’s impossible not to find a solution that meets his needs. With the generalization of tag management tools, the deployment of banners has become the business of a few minutes at most. It is therefore not justifiable, in 2019, to remain without a cookie banner.

The Norm: the lack of consideration of visitors’ choices

While the absence of a cookie banner is now an exception, that of a truly functional refusal mechanism integrated into the banner is the norm on sites managed by organizations with a low level of digital maturity.

Such a state of affairs is most often explained by a lack of knowledge of the legislation that leads website managers to consider that the deployment of the banner is sufficient in itself. It may even happen that no mechanism of the refusal of the tracking is proposed to the user within the banner. Another possible explanation for this state of affairs is the consequent cost of parameterization and/or the lack of competent personnel able to make the necessary modifications.

In the end, the only way for visitors to evade data collection is by blocking cookies on their browser, thereby rendering the visited website unusable. Although contrary to the regulations, because it makes it impossible to access the services offered on the sites where it is implemented, this mode of configuration remains largely proposed on the cookie information pages.

In-between: the default collection of data taking into account user choices

Structures whose level of dependence on digital is more marked and consequently the more developed knowledge and know-how, opt in most cases for default triggering of the tracers. This collection of data from the first page visited, without explicit collection of the user’s consent, is accompanied by the possibility of refusing that new data be collected, when loading a new page of the site, directly via the banner.

The choice of the user is respected, but only after a certain amount of information concerning him has been recorded. The choice of such a mode of parameterization is explained by the need to measure the ROI of the paid acquisition campaigns and more generally by the dependence of these organizations on the collected information in order to implement a strategy of piloting their activity based on data.

Blocking triggering of tracers by default would be tantamount to depriving these organizations of a vital source of information and would result in a sight-based digital ecosystem in which competition is exacerbated and investment is steadily increasing. In this context, full compliance with the regulation, which acts like a scarecrow, is constantly being deferred because of its potential negative impact on the operation of the Web device concerned.

Rational Compliance: the collection of data according to various forms of consent

The most mature organizations generally choose to take a fourth route, which is more expensive in terms of parameterization, but significantly more respectful of users’ privacy. Specifically, it is to block any data collection, as long as the user has not interacted with the first page visited via a click, or visited at least two pages, without expressing an explicit refusal on the execution of plotters.

This approach is in accordance with the instructions given by the CNIL on how to obtain explicit consent from the user. At the cost of an advanced configuration of their collection tools and a loss of certain information, because of the explicit but implicit refusals in the absence of consent expressed by some visitors, these organizations manage to comply with the legislation.

However, there are many players in this category to evolve in a gray area, where the consent in case of scrolling screen, alongside the use of user consent mutualization systems, or the choice of colors and implementation form of banners pushing the visitor to consent.

In Conclusion

“Dura lex, sed lex”, all do not seem to endorse the adage, far from it, so much can be great the complexity and impact on the activity of the websites of a setting of its banner cookie compliant with regulations. The temptation is great to privilege the collection and the exploitation of the data, on the respect of the right. There is no reason to believe that this fundamental trend, observable over the last decade, will evolve in the years to come.

E-commerce: How To Optimize Your Product Pages?

Selling on the internet involves ant work that never ends. Once you have chosen the platform for your online store, you have customized your theme and created your categories. It’s time to integrate your product pages and optimize them.

This is a key step for the success of your shop. Your product pages are essential to make you want to buy and convert your prospects into customers.

The Essentials To Present The Product

The first step is to present your product in a clear way for both your customers and the search engines. For this, make the most of the essential elements of a product page:

  • The title  :
    • We must be careful to always have an optimized title for SEO and that it is clear for the visitor.
  • The images  :
    • The photos must be homogeneous with each other. Try to have the same background for each product, or that the atmosphere is consistent.
    • Remember to publish several pictures of the same product in different situations and in different points of view.
    • Put yourself in the shoes of someone who has never seen the product. Show the texture, size and colors closest to the real.
  • The descriptions  :
    • In general, you must write two descriptions: a short that can be taken by Google to display in the search results and a longer text to better describe the product. Even if this step may seem tiring and tedious, do not neglect it! On one side the search engines like the content, and on the other side, your potential customer wants to have all the information about the product. You can describe its shape, its material, give ideas for its use, talk about its manufacture…
  • The technical sheet  :
    • In some cases, data sheets, or maintenance tips, or use may complete your product sheet.
  • The price  :
    • Do not forget to display the price including VAT if you sell to private individuals, in a clear and visible way.

e commerce

Reassure Your Customers

The above information is essential for presenting your products. Your page can be supplemented by various elements that will reassure visitors before moving on to the purchase.

Although these elements can be displayed in other pages, their presence on the product page can be a trigger of trust and convince the user to add the product in his basket. Among these elements of trust we can find:

  • Declinations: show the different sizes or colors of your product. Be careful not to propose more than three.
  • The stock available: inform your customers about the availability of the product, it is nothing more frustrating than receiving an email to indicate that the item purchased is out of stock.
  • The opinions: give the floor to your customers, good advice will reassure future buyers.
  • Fees and delivery time: avoid a cart abandonment at the end of the conversion tunnel, be clear from the beginning.
  • Means of payment: demonstrate that you offer a secure payment.

variant product page

Call To Action

Do not leave the user blocked on a product sheet, give him ideas to continue to discover other products:

  • Similar products: at the end of your product page you can submit products of the same category that might interest him.
  • Complementary products: a t-shirt that goes well with the proposed jeans, wax to clean the pair of shoes proposed…

As you can see, the creation of a product page needs to be thought through and worked on. The biggest challenge is to multiply this work by the number of different items you have.

But it is essential to have clear and attractive product sheets, a little for search engines but mainly for converting your visitors into customers.

How To Position Your Website In The 1st Google Results

Google is an indispensable tool to make itself known today. It is the number 1 search engine with 100 billion requests per month in the world. Nothing can be done, it’s the best.

But Google is mostly a robot. A stupid animal and nice because it allows us to free to position his website on its first page. An old digital adage says: “If you want to hide a body, put it on the second page of Google”.

There are over 200 SEO criteria to position its site. By respecting only a dozen criteria, you have the opportunity to overcome the competition and position yourself in the first results. Be methodical and patient. Moreover, by paying Google or Bing, we can also find ourselves in the first results. We tell you more below.

Opt For Natural Referencing

One thing is certain: Google positions web pages. No websites. It is therefore essential to work methodically and accurately every page of your site. Depending on the query (keyword) that the user will write, Google will search, with its powerful engine, all pages that refer to this key-phrase. We will give you some tools for Google to hear you and position your page on the front page.

Create a professional blog on your site

A website is good, it’s pretty. But it is absolutely necessary to make it live. And the blog is a great tool to make your website live.

Add a tab in the menu of your site and write your first article. Put yourself in the shoes of your customers, share your knowledge and experience and start writing your blog post.

Be Regular! It is best to write an article a month for twelve months rather than 6 articles a month for 2 months. The search engine will prefer regularity because your website will be built in the long term.

Share your articles on social networks

Take the opportunity to share your articles on social networks. Social media is increasingly being taken into account by search engines: engagement (likes, shares, and comments) prove that your article is of interest to many users and your article will be rewarded.

Think mobile for Google and Bing

Today, art mobile searches are superior to computer searches. The search engines have understood this and today value websites with mobile navigation adapted. 

Test your site today by opening it on your smartphone: if readability is good, navigation is fluid, access to the simple topic, everything is fine. Otherwise, it is essential to rework your website so that it is “mobile friendly”.

And, the loading time of pages is a paramount parameter. There are tools to check the speed of your site (Tools Pingdom for example). If the page loading time is slow, you need to make quick arrangements to improve it.

Opt For Paid Referencing

This is another way to position your services or your offers in the first results of Google. It will take less time than SEO. On the other hand, you will naturally need a budget.

By precisely defining your objectives, you will be able to control your budget and your results. Do not throw yourself too fast in each tool at the risk of spending a lot of money without result. Take the time to study each tool to optimize your campaign.

Pay ads from Google

This is the fastest and most effective way to appear immediately in Google’s first search results. You define the most relevant keywords, obviously related to your activity. After setting the maximum bid you are willing to pay, your ad will appear in first, second, third … position. It all depends on the auction of your competitors on the defined keyword.

To control your budget, take out your calculator and calculate your cost according to your investment. For example, if you pay a keyword € 1 per click. Arriving on your landing page, only 1 visitor out of 4 leaves his contact, 4 € the lead. And, after calling your contacts, 1 out of 3 contacts buys your solution, that is 12 € the customer. Do this calculation for your business and master your budget. It’s essential to succeed in your digital marketing.

Look after your ads, landing pages and especially the choice of keywords. Be consistent on the entire digital path of your visitor.

Paid ads from Bing

Google is a leader with 94% market share, but nothing prevents you to test Bing Ads. Bing is the search engine of Microsoft and is the 2nd most used search engine in France.

The costs are often lower and the contacts you can generate are just as interesting. Also, the platform for creating paid ads Bing is very close to that of Google. So you will not have a hard time switching from one to the other.

The vast majority of Internet users use search engines to find answers to their questions. If you want to know your products or services, SEO or pay is a great way. If you have time, write articles on specific keywords. If you have a budget in communication or marketing, use the Google or Bing ads tools to meet the needs of users. It’s never too late to get started. So go ahead now.

Social Selling: The Art Of Prospecting Without Selling

Social selling is an approach that relies on social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook in particular) to identify potential prospects, connect with them, and bring them value by distributing qualified information without selling.

The Social selling is not just to create profiles on social networks. It goes further! It’s a process of researching, selecting, listening to and exchanging with potential prospects on social networks to generate opportunities and accelerate the sales cycle.

What Are The Objectives Of Social Selling?

  • Detect signals (job offers, search for partners, search for service providers …)
  • Promote the expertise of the company and its employees through the production and publication of content.
  • Social listening to better understand the needs of the targets.
  • Keep watch on posts posted on social networks, and exchange
  • Perform interactions on social networks (recommendations, likes, comments, sharing, congratulations …).
  • Connect with decision-makers via social networks.

The 4 C Of Social Selling

4 C, the 4 keys to building an effective social selling strategy.

  1. Contact: Build your network and address book according to the priority targets and networks on which the targets are present: 74% of the decision-makers are on LinkedIn and 42% on Twitter.
  2. Context: Learn to know the prospects (persona), study their needs, the themes that interest them to be able to respond precisely to the expectations of different targets by providing them with appropriate content.
  3. Content: Broadcast relevant content on the right social networks, at the right time. 65% of BtoB buyers indicate that content marketing has a significant impact on their purchase.
  4. Conversion: Create an exchange, a discussion with the prospect to enter a relationship of trust to convert it into a customer. Offer an exchange by telephone or an appointment to study their needs and provide appropriate solutions.

Why Develop A Social Selling Approach?

Before becoming a customer, your prospect will go through different stages between the moment he finds a need and the one where he makes the decision to buy, this is the purchase journey.

Buyers are now hyperconnected. They spend their time on the web and social networks and are constantly looking for information on products, services or brands that interest them.

They have gone from consumers to consumers. They do not need sellers anymore. They know more about the product they want to buy than the seller himself. When they decide to meet a seller, they already have a great knowledge of the market and products.

In BtoB, 92% of buyers start with a search on Google, and 75% use social networks, including LinkedIn. Professionals seek information and content targeted to their interests and issues.

If you or your brand is not present during the shopping journey of your targets on the internet, you are unlikely to be identified as a potential provider.

Social selling is no longer an option because your company has to adapt to the 3 phases of the buying process by providing more service, more value and developing a relationship with its customers.

 The Prospect Buying Path

  • During the discovery phase: the client begins to worry about his problem or need and to take an interest in the idea of solving it. At this point, you must provide information by creating content tailored to the keywords searched on the web.
  • During the stage consideration: the customer does not know yet how it will solve their need, but he devoted himself to research products or services that will allow him to solve it. At this stage, the challenge is to help the customer find the right solution and evaluate them.
  • During the Decision Phase: At this point, the client has selected the different options available to him. The challenge is to position yourself as an expert to reassure the customer that choosing your product or service is the right solution.

For this, your website and your social networks are a major social selling tool because you can communicate, share content, and interact with your target prospects to promote the sales process.

However without a marketing strategy with a production of quality content, you will have trouble developing your social selling approach to your prospects on social networks.

Social Selling: The Inbound Marketing Strategy Guide

Social selling relies on inbound marketing and content marketing to communicate, and connect with customers and prospects without selling. What social selling strategy to be effective?

Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is a strategy that consists of:

  • Attract Internet users with a website optimized for content and SEO.
  • Turn visitors into prospects with free content to download.
  • Convert leads to customers with a marketing automation strategy.
  • Retain customers to become ambassadors of the brand.

Companies that have adopted inbound marketing generate 54% more leads than traditional methods.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is the heart of inbound marketing.

Its goal is to create and distribute free, qualitative, creative and relevant content intended for its targets in order to touch it, engage it in a relationship and turn it into a prospect and then customers.

Quality content is content that does not speak for itself. To impact your audience, your content must solve a problem, hence the importance of knowing your targets better to meet them.

And to know your targets, you will use the technique of buyers personas: it is about creating the typical profiles of your ideal customers centered on their needs, their challenges, their brakes, and their motivations. In a process of social selling, the profiles of your buyers’ personas will allow designing a content strategy that will be attractive and shared on social networks to connect with your targets.

Which formats for your editorial strategy?

  • The blog article
  • Images and photos
  • Videos
  • Computer graphics
  • The case study
  • The white paper
  • The webinar

The video will be the preferred format because it is content consumed by Internet users, and it allows to interact with prospects in a simple and powerful.

Which Social Networks To choose In Social Selling?

75% of Internet users are present on social networks. The choice to deploy a social selling strategy will depend on the sector of activity and the uses of the targets.

Each social network has its uses, and we do not communicate in the same way on Facebook and LinkedIn for example. It will be a question of adapting the contents, and the tone according to the targets.

The goal is to share engaging content and generate interactions to engage targets and conversation. You have to be social on social networks and have a relevant presence.

LinkedIn

It is the reference professional network, and the most suitable for social selling in BtoB and generates leads through targeting features for digital prospecting.

Twitter

BtoB or BtoC is the social network of the snapshot. It is adapted to social selling especially on niche communities, or influencers and opinion leaders. Prospects are responsive on Twitter. You have to be very active on Twitter because there are so many tweets, and you have to stand out to be visible.

Facebook

It is the most widely used social network in the world, and prospects are necessarily there. Nevertheless, it is a network especially adapted to a BtoC target. To practice social selling on Facebook, you will need to contact a different professional profile than a personal profile.

The communication on Facebook works well with publications on the employer brand of the company to make you want to join. It is not easy to develop a community in BtoB or with small business targets.

The visibility of company pages becoming increasingly weak on Facebook, it is necessary to communicate via a private Facebook group with content adapted to the expectations of the audience.

How To Be A Perfect Social Seller On Social Networks

Well used social networks are strong levers to engage prospects with a tailored and personalized speech.

Social selling is above all a position of expertise and credibility to establish relationships of trust with prospects. We do not sell on social networks, we socialize! The philosophy of social selling: “Stop selling, start by helping”.

A mere presence on social networks will be insufficient to have an impact on sales. It’s actions and interactions that will turn engagement into sales.

The perfect social seller knows how to “listen to customers” on social networks to meet their expectations. He is alert on the needs to show his expertise, and get in touch with them more easily.

Being a perfect social seller

  • To learn about the particularities of social networks

Social networks do not all have the same uses and the same codes. Understanding their operation is essential.

  • Be active to be visible and capture prospects

Build your personal brand and put your profile forward by multiplying content publishing and sharing. You have to show yourself on social networks to make yourself visible. It’s a way to work on personal branding and to heal your e-reputation.

  • Engage with prospects
  1. The first step is to know the prospects before they become customers.
  2. Start by following the target leads on social networks.
  3. Identify their interests as well as the people with whom they engage.
  4. Like or comment on their contents.

The second step will be to approach them with a speech adapted to their stage of maturity of purchase and to convert them into a buyer.

Put In Place An Effective Social Selling Strategy

Before you start social selling, think about your strategy:

  • What are your goals?
  • Who are your buyers’ personas?
  • What are their expectations, their needs?
  • What content to produce with which format?
  • Which are the social networks adapted to your strategy?
  • What messages to send to your prospects?
  • What indicators to follow to measure your actions?

Defining all these elements will allow you to have a clear and precise way to reach your goals with social selling.

8 Ways To Get More Traffic To Your Blog

There are at least 400 million blogs on the global network, although it is safe to say that not all are active. In fact, many bloggers rush to leave after discouraged from seeing non-existent traffic.

That’s why we have rounded up the eight (8) main ways to attract more traffic to your blog. Whether it’s a new face in the blogosphere or an experienced influencer looking for more readers, check out these strategies to increase the number of visitors to your blog.

1. Make Your Publications Friendly With SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is key to boosting the visibility of your blog because having an optimized blog means that it will appear more easily on search engine result pages. This is so important that there is a whole industry dedicated to discovering what websites Google likes the most.

Unfortunately, this also means that SEO is too complex to be reduced to a couple of key points. However, to begin with, you can follow these basic principles to make your blog SEO friendly:

  • Do not just write your blog posts according to your caprice: identify the main keyword phrases in which your target audience is interested and create content around them.
  • Make your destination keyword present in the URL of your publication.
  • Structure your publications using headings and subtitles, which help search engines better understand what your content is about.
  • Write titles and descriptions that will attract attention and that will help your publications stand out in the search engine results pages.
  • Link to quality websites related to your blog, which will tell Google that your content is not spam.
  • Tools like Yoast SEO in WordPress can help with basic optimization on the page, but they are also useful for controlling changes within the SEO industry.

2. Find A Niche

Trying to cover a dozen topics on your blog is a dispersion approach that will reject readers. How is that? Consider this scenario: publish an impressive publication about the payment of credit card debt. Interested readers mark their blog as a favorite, and eager for more content of a similar nature, they return in a few weeks. To his dismay, his next piece is about something completely unrelated: gardening tips.

However, when you choose to focus on a niche, returning readers will be happy to see more updates on the chosen topic. Not only that, but constantly writing about a topic will help build your authority about it. Google’s search predictions can give you an idea of which topics are trends among users.

To determine what to focus your blog on, ask yourself:

  • What are you well informed about?
  • Which topic are you most interested in?
  • And, if you want to monetize your blog in the future, does this niche have an income potential?
  • If so, how competitive is this niche?

Investigate what content already exists in your target niches to get an idea of what gaps you can fill. From there, you can start to build the content strategy of your blog.

3. Create Quality Content

Bill Gates, and almost all other content marketing gurus. But there is a reason why this saying has been repeated so many times, it is true.

The tarnished content filled with typographical errors will not make anyone want to click on your website more than once. Quality content that is informative, error-free and easy to read, on the other hand, will do so. But what exactly does the content make good?

Actually, this means making your content better than your competition. When it comes to blogs, you can improve the quality of your publications by following these tips:

  • Find a unique angle or something new that your competitors have not done before.
  • Always check and use the spell checker.
  • Make blog posts easy to read using bullet points and lists.
  • Give useful tips and advice.
  • Include images, videos and other forms of multimedia in your content.

4. Write Attractive Headlines For Your Blog Posts.

The first thing readers see is the title of a blog post, which means you can make or break traffic results. After all, if it sounds dry or boring, who is going to click? Take a look at how Gizmodo writes his titles to attract his audience.

To write a compelling title, remember:

  • Be honest, do not lie to readers about what their blog posts are about.
  • Use vivid and descriptive language.
  • Avoid making it too long. It is best to aim at less than 70 characters so that search engines do not cut your title.
  • Appeal to the emotions of the readers.

In addition to these tips, there are several approaches you can take when it comes to formatting the titles of your blog posts. Try one of these the next time you are perplexed with the title of your blog post:

  • Listicle – “The 15 most important outdoor holiday destinations in the world”
  • Practical guide – “How to get your first freelance concert”
  • Question: “Is it worth getting Lasik?”
  • Negative angle: “Why should not you eat meat?”
  • Surprising fact: “Climate change is worsening social inequality”
  • Controversial statement: “Standing desks are overrated”
  • Secret: “The # 1 way to teach your dog new tricks”

5. Share Publications On Social Networks.

It is estimated that 2.77 billion people use social networks worldwide, representing more than a third of the world’s population. As a result, social media is a powerful dissemination tool to attract more viewers to your blog.

The more you share your posts on different social networks, the more likely people will find them.

Keeping this in mind, it’s not a problem to promote your content on networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. To increase the reach of your publications, be sure to:

  • Include relevant hashtags
  • Label influencers in your industry
  • Share your content at the right time
  • Make your publications short, catchy and attractive

Be sure to attend your social media posts in their respective networks, that is, do not recycle the same social media posts on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Adapting your publications to each network will help your content resonate with your respective audiences.

6. Participate In The Community Of Your Niche.

The world of blogs works much like the real-life society, because it is made up of communities of people who interact regularly with each other.

You can find many different blog groups on Facebook, including those specific to your niche.

Although they may seem like competitors, at first sight, other bloggers in your niche have the potential to become your biggest supporters, even friends. Putting them on their side could mean more actions and, therefore, more long-term traffic.

Stay active in your blog community through:

  • Publication in subreddits, Facebook groups, and forums used by your target audience
  • Commenting on other blogs.
  • Responding to comments on your own blog.
  • Retweeting or responding to the tweets of other bloggers.
  • Attend conferences and meetings, either in real life or virtually

Do not be that blogger who only promotes his own content. You will find that when you get involved in a meaningful way with your niche community, others will be more open to sharing their work and may even invite you to contribute to their blogs.

7. Interlink

Did you know that the way you organize your blog can affect the way readers see it? For example, if your blog has poor navigation and zero links to any other place on your site, your readers will be stuck on whatever page they arrive at. That’s why you need to bond. That means linking to other blog posts within your content or even including a sidebar of related posts in your web design.

By providing links to other parts of your blog, it will make it easier for interested readers to stay and explore your site, which will allow you to get more visits to the page in the long term.

8. Guest To Write On Other Sites

You can think of a publication as a guest star on another website. This involves writing an article for another blog, which may or may not allow you to link back to one or more posts on your own site.

By doing this, you will accumulate the backlink profile of your blog, which is essentially a portfolio of websites that link to yours.

Why do backlinks even matter?

The backlinks of quality websites tell search engines that your website is also quality; This, in turn, will increase the chances of your blog getting a higher ranking on the results of the search engine page.

Links on other websites help attract new readers who would not otherwise see your blog.

Contributing to other blogs in your niche is better for guest publications because it will be easier to link to your content than if you were writing for a completely different niche.

You can find blogs that are open to invited posts by searching your target niche in Google and keyword strings such as “write for us”.

For example, let’s say you wanted to start a niche gardening blog. You can use the following searches on Google to find guest publishing opportunities:

  • gardening “write for us”
  • “Taxpayers” of gardening
  • gardening “send guest post”
  • “Guest post” of gardening

Simply replace “gardening” with the niche where your blog is located, and you will find opportunities to publish guests in no time.

Wrap

The increase in traffic to your blog will not happen overnight. It will take strategy, effort and time before seeing measurable results. Sometimes, you may even need to redo your work, such as rewriting a blog post to optimize it better.

But do not be discouraged. Months, even years, pass before some blogs see a boost in their traffic. Continue experimenting with the strategies above to see what works best for yours.

SEO, SEM And Everything You Need To Get The Most Out Of Your Website

What is the difference between SEO and SEM? Which is more important? What does each one work for? These are some of the most common questions from users who start to optimize their search engine web. 

In this post, we answer them and explain how to get your website to reach the top of Google, either through SEO, SEM or the combination of both.

SEO – Online Success Through Organic Positioning

The acronym SEO refers to the optimization of websites for search engines such as Google. That is, work a website so that it is perceived positively by Google and other search engines. If you want to perform effective optimization you will have to pay special attention to the content, structure, and metadata of your website. In addition, there are other disciplines within the organic positioning such as local SEO or link building that will help you get better rankings. This is an essential technique for any website that wants to achieve online success and ensure it in the long term.

SEM – Online Success Through Paid Positioning

The acronym SEM refers to search engine marketing, which is synonymous with improving the positions of a website in the search results Google and other search engines through payment strategies.

One of the most known strategies within the SEM are Adwords. These are ads that Google places in the top positions of its search results, recommending websites of companies that have paid an amount of money to appear in said place. This is a technique that seeks to achieve online success in the short term and fully compatible with SEO

SEO And SEM, Better By The Hand 

While we have seen that both are different disciplines, they are also complimentary. While SEO will offer you lasting results, the SEM can give you an initial boost.

However, keep in mind that investing in SEM without having a website that interests your visitors, may be wasting your budget. Therefore, it is always recommended that SEO and SEM go hand in hand.

Keep in mind that an ideal online marketing strategy should be distributed in figures of around 25% SEM – 75% SEO.

These are especially interesting since analyzing the behavior of your Adwords will help you modify certain aspects to achieve online success.

How To Optimize Your Website For Voice Search In 2019?

With 2019 here, it feels like we’re getting closer and closer to the future – every single day. And that means that more people are performing voice searches, whether they’re on the go with their smartphone or using their smart speakers like an Alexa or a Google Home. These voice searches are definitely on the rise and they’re not slowing down anytime soon. This is going to be super widespread in cars and everything else. You’re definitely going to want to be optimized for it.

Basically, one in two smartphone users uses voice search every day. Half of all searches are going to be voice-based by next year in 2020. And 72 percent of people who own one of those smart speakers like an Echo say that it’s part of their daily routine. And people want quick easy answers in one of two categories the first being, they want to know something, or they want to know how to do something or want to go somewhere or buy something.

How you can optimize your website for Voice Search

If you’re a local business it makes a whole lot of sense to want to be found in those near me searches. And it doesn’t even have to be a brick-and-mortar location if you just kind of serve a specific local area this is still going to be great for you. If you’re more of a national or online business this may be a little less important for you it still will help you get a little bit more business around your area.

To do this your first step is going to be to claim and optimize your Google my business listing which includes choosing the right categories. You’ll also need to make sure that all the info that’s in your Google my business profile is reflected back on your website itself. You’re going to want to include your business name, address and phone number on your site exactly as it appears on Google my business. And there are a few extra things you can include on your website as well that are really going to cement you into your geographic area like an embedded google map and links to the neighborhoods or cities that you serve.

A lot of these voice searches don’t act like Siri, don’t actually use Google my business listings for their results instead they use third-party sites like Yelp or Foursquare for those results. You’re definitely going to want to make sure that you have those profiles all optimized filled out as completely as possible. And you’re probably going to want some good 5-star reviews as well. And that’s pretty much all there is to getting found in those near me searches. Because the number one main factor is just proximity. If people are searching near you, you’ll pop up if they’re searching further away your competitor who’s closer to them is likely to show up there. But you do want to make sure that when people are close to you, they’re finding you.

But what about if you want to get some of your great content to show up as an answer to questions that people may have. So that you can you know become the go-to guide that they want to work within the future. You’d want to create and optimize that content to be findable in these voice searches. Usually what would be shown in a voice search is the same thing that would otherwise be shown as a featured snippet.

Brainstorm And Find Actual Question That People Are Likely To Be Asking

The first step here is that you want to brainstorm and find the actual questions that people are likely to be asking. Think about the problems your business all so were the services you provide and think of what are the most basic versions of those solutions or services that people may be trying to figure out how to do on their own.

If you’re an electrician it might be how do I change out a wall plate, if you’re a dog groomer might be how do I trim my dog’s nails. And if you’re stuck with finding these questions just start with YouTube type in the keywords how-to and then the general keywords of the topic that you’re trying to figure out. And then see what kind of videos pop up since Google loves showing a video is an answer to most how-to questions you might want to make one of them yourself.

It’s the best way to build trust and brand recognition with your potential customers. If you make that video make sure that it’s hosted on YouTube because Google owns it and they give preferential treatment. You’re going to want to optimize that videos title with the exact question as people are going to ask it. You’re also going to want to include that question and variants of that question in the tags when you’re uploading your video.

And then you want to write out a really detailed description of that video in this space they provide. You’re going to use that question verbatim in the description as well. If you don’t want to do a video you could just write a really detailed article explaining, how they can do something from start to finish? Just include lots of images, headers, lists, numbered lists if possible that’s just the overall structure that Google likes to see. Also think of questions that aren’t even how to’s they’re just general knowledge questions, like how often do dogs nails need to be trimmed, or can I switch my outlet with a USB outlet, things like that.

If you’re stuck thinking of these questions there’s a website, I like to use called answerthepublic.com just type in a keyword related to your field of expertise. And it’s gonna show you all the different types of questions that people type into Google about that topic. Just try to get the ones that are really structured to ask questions. Because that’s going to be what people are going to verbally search for into their smartphone or smart speaker. Just make a list of all the questions that you think you can do a good job answering and then create an FAQ page. And just be sure to structure the question in the exact words that you found it in your research and use that as a headline. And then make the answer body text below it. When you structure it that way Google can just detect that it’s a question and an answer.

Other than that, there are a few things you need to keep in mind in order to increase your chances of being found as a featured snippet and as a voice search:

  1. Make sure your site loads really quickly. Just go to Google PageSpeed insights, and run a test and see if there’s anything they recommend you can use to speed your site up.
  2. You want to make sure your site is authoritative, to begin with. That’s definitely going to help all aspects here. The way to do that is to start creating really high quality relevant consistent content on your site. And you’re also going to want to start building some really high-quality backlinks to your site.

AdCortex offers Integrated Digital Marketing services to startups and businesses. As fans of the scientific method, we at AdCortex combine science with all our digital marketing activities. Our formula is a method for designing and optimizing high-performance marketing campaigns. Get in touch to power up your digital presence starting today!


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