The Social Media Video Starter Guide (Infographic)

http://www.socialmediafrontiers.com/2014/08/the-social-video-starter-guide.html

The Social Media Content Funnel

Social media is one of the best ways to get in front of your customers and share the content you have created on your site. It allows you to build and brand your voice and communicate with your current, past and future customers in a way that is authentic.

One of the biggest misconceptions however is that having a social media page set up is enough. I hear it all the time, I have a Facebook page, or maybe I have a Twitter page, but I don't do much with it. 

Instead of thinking that just having a social media page is enough to help you increase your sales and get found, think of social media as an extension of your other marketing efforts. You can't only do social and call it a day.It needs to be a part of your long term strategy.

Another thing you should think about when it comes to social media is that it's best used as a funnel. It should take your customers and potential buyers on a journey. I like to call the social media content funnel IBECK. 

Here's what that means.

I - Introduction
B - Branding
E - Engagement
C - Conversions
K - Keep

Introduction - The introduction is often times the very first meeting. It is when your customer or potential visits any of your social pages for the first time. In this phase of the social media content funnel you are introducing yourself and your business to them. It can be a simple hello a follow back or just a post that someone shared by you. It is the first impression and it counts.

Branding - The phase takes place after you've made contact with the person. This is where you woo your customer into knowing who you are as a business and what you stand for online. As it usually takes at least 5 impressions to be remembered, this is the phase where consistency plays a major role. You want to be top of mind here and you can only do that by creating and sharing awesome content on a regular basis.

Engagement - Next up is the relationship building phase. The engagement and the backbone of having an ok or just there presence to having a really great one that brings people into your world and makes them feel welcome. This part of the social media content funnel is the one-on-one attention you give your customers and potential buyers. It can come in the form of a reply a retweet or a +1. It shows you care and is one of the most important aspects of this idea.

Conversions - You probably know where I am going with this one. We are called ConvertWithContent afterall. Conversions are everything and you should take this step very seriously. In our world a conversion is a lead. We measure leads because for us, leads turn into sales. In your world it could be a sale from the get-go. You can get conversions via social media through advertising, outreach, offering something of value or by sending people to specific landing pages. Conversions are key!

Keep - This next step happens after a sale or conversion has been made. Because your customers are more likely to buy again than non-customers you should pay extra special attention to them. Follow them and keep up with them on social media. Engage them. Start the funnel over again. Do what you have to do to keep them engaged and keep them interested.

https://www.convertwithcontent.com/social-media-content-funnel/

How and Where to Start on Social Media

I was scrolling through my social media feed the other day and I came across a simple, yet powerful quote that my friend had shared. And it got me thinking. The quote was something that could apply to most anything in our lives and businesses but I really connected with it from a social media perspective.

One of the biggest challenges that new companies, small businesses, or entrepreneurs face is how and where to start on social media.

Should you start now? Should you be on every platform? If not every platform, which one(s) should you use? What should you post? How often should you post?

How are you going to get followers and fans?
Are they going to like what you post?

OMG this gets overwhelming!

There’s so much to think about and so much to distract you! We’re so worried about getting started that we can’t even get started.

And that’s why this quote that my friend Mike Allton shared works so well:

(Side note: If you’re not following Mike, you’re seriously missing out!)

This quote from Arthur Ashe sums it all up. Perfectly.

Start Where You Are

We all start our journeys at different places and with different experiences. Social media will be no different.

Don’t worry about anyone else and where they are or where they started. Focus on where you are.

Whether you have a big customer base or are literally starting your business from nothing. It doesn’t matter. Maybe you have procrastinated starting a Facebook page or Twitter account. That’s ok. Start where you are today.

Share what’s relevant to your business today. Your business will grow and your social media will evolve. Don’t worry about what it should like or where it should be in a year. Get started.

If you don’t start, it can’t go anywhere any faster. Just get started!

Use What You Have

You might not have a budget for ads. You might not have employees to help you market or post on social media. You might not have a lot of content to share.

But you have what you have.

You have your product or service. You have your personality and your brand’s story. You have experiences and solutions that no one else has. You have resources and information that are valuable. You have opinions and thoughts to share.

You also have experience with some social media platforms from your personal use. Use this to your advantage. If you don’t understand Google+ or Twitter, these may not be the best places to get started right away. Start where you’re comfortable and work into more platforms as you get more comfortable with social media marketing.

Use what you have to create a basic strategy and get started. Know what you have and how you can use that to your advantage. In time, you will have more: more content, more advice, more products, more experience, and more information.

But you don’t need to wait. Use what you have now to get started now.

Do What You Can

You need to know what you can do. If you can only allot an hour a day to social media, that’s ok. Know your limits and restrictions. If you set your expectations too high, you are setting yourself up for overwhelm and failure.

Set your strategy in place to allow you to do what you can.

Don’t try to post 3 times a day to Facebook and 4 times a day to Twitter. Instead, post once a day to each. If you can maintain that posting schedule comfortably, then up the frequency.

Don’t try to be active daily on every major social media platform. Focus on one or two until you gain traction and know what’s working for you. Then branch out to another platform and grow from there.

Don’t try to be like every other page or brand out there. Be you. Be true to your brand voice and personality. Trying to be something you’re not is going to put so much more pressure and stress on your social media posts. Instead, do what comes naturally and you’ll find it so much easier.

Do what you can to get started now!

Have you noticed a theme here? How and where to start on social media is right now. Just get started.

Do what you can. Use what you have. The longer you delay starting, the more work you have to do.

The longer it will take to reach your goals. The harder it will be to stand out in the crowd.

Just get started.

http://jennstrends.com/start-social-media/

8 Blogging "Rules" You Should Probably Ditch

As with everything digital, blogging is an evolving field. What was once an accepted blogging practice may just not work in today’s changed landscape. So it may be time to sit back and evaluate whether generally accepted blog best practices still apply to you or not.

Here are eight current blogging practices that may be near the end of their lifelines:

1. Post Five Times a Day to Increase Traffic

It was once considered a standard rule that traffic is directly proportional to the number of posts. Therefore, to increase traffic, you upped output and frequency. There are many bloggers who would benefit from an increase in post frequency. However, each blogger’s threshold of that frequency will vary.

For example, a prolific high-profile blogger such as Michael Hyatt recently stated: "I used to recommend blogging five times a week. For some time now I’ve blogged two to three times a week and have seen the same level of reader growth. By cutting back the frequency I freed myself up to do other things."

Hyatt also referenced Tim Ferriss’ book, The 4-Hour Body, where Ferriss discusses the concept of the Minimum Effective Dose (MED). The MED is the "smallest dose that will produce the desired outcome" or as Ferriss quotes Olympic coach Henk Kraaijenhof: "Do as little as needed, not as much as possible."

The concept of blogging as much as is needed to maintain or grow traffic is a new one. No longer do you have to increase blog frequency to increase traffic. Glen Alsop from Viperchill posts once or twice a month and gets 120,000 visitors per month while Seth Godin posts daily (sometimes even twice a day) and has similar stats.

New Rule: Therefore, the new rule of blogging is to find your frequency sweet spot. It may be more or less than your current frequency, but by experimenting, you’ll be able to find your optimal posting frequency – the minimum number of posts needed every month to keep your blog on an upward trajectory.

Put another way, Hyatt states, "To make progress on the things that matter most, we can’t afford losing ground by trying to do too much — even if we’re trying to do the right things."

2. Leave Blog Comments

Like most people, I was quite surprised when Copyblogger closed off comments on its blog. Weren’t comments supposed to be the life-blood of engagement? And wasn’t Copyblogger all about encouraging a dialogue with your blog audience? These questions swam in my mind before I read Sonia Simone’s post explaining why.

It seems that the decision was in large part administrative. Copyblogger receives a lot of spam and to sift through that was becoming counter-productive for them. Instead of comments, they encouraged their audience to start a discussion on their social media outposts, most especially on Google Plus. But more than that, they lobbied that those who have something substantial to say should say it on their own blog and reference the Copyblogger post.

What Copyblogger ended up doing, in fact, is helping us remember that the only way to cut through the noise is to produce substantive content. And if a comment is thoughtful, then why not put it on its own pedestal as a complete blog post?

New Rule: Thanks to Copyblogger, the new blogging rule is to write out a blog post in response to a post and expand your initial comment to include a divergent viewpoint or more insights. Remember, if your insights are substantial, they probably warrant a blog post of their own.

3. Outsource Your Blog to a Professional

Content creation has always been outsourced and will always continue to be outsourced. But more and more bloggers are now realizing that outsourced content will never get them the leadership status they crave. This point is ironic coming from me, as my company produces content for clients.

Neil Patel recently wrote an excellent article for HubSpot titled "Why You Should Write Your Own Content," where he said, "Content writing isn’t just something that I do on the side. It is a core component of what I preach and practice every day of my life. Content is that important. As an entrepreneur and a content marketer, I recommend that you write your own content."

Patel cited five reasons why entrepreneurs should write their own content: better expression, brand authenticity, experience of speaking and responding to your audience, and staying abreast of industry trends.

New Rule: Produce your own content. If you absolutely can’t, then make content creation a bilateral process. Have brainstorming content meetings where the client and the bloggers together forge topics, direction, and voice. I encourage my clients to write their own posts in addition to the ones that we write for them. And I have seen the results first hand.

Entrepreneurs who write for their own blogs (in addition to outsourcing content creation) are more confident about what they want to say and are more in tune with their audience than those who outsource the entire process.

4. Always Write 100% Original Content

Oh pffft! With so much pressure to create content, bloggers need to cut themselves some slack and embrace the time-saving practices of content curation and repurposing. No one creates 100 percent original content all the time anyways. People are always getting inspired by others and riffing off of others.

New Rule: Curate, re-purpose, mash-up other people’s content and give your unique take on it. Give attribution and credit to your sources and references always.

And don’t just curate other people’s work, but also repurpose your own work. Dig through your archives looking for ways to put a new spin on an old topic or converting your post into another format to give it new life.

5. Not Every Post Needs to Have an Image

Every text post MUST have images. So should every podcast or video post. The Web is increasingly visual, but you already knew that, right? Do you also know what every image should have, besides being compatible with the post?

Derek Halpern states, "You should never run an image without an interesting, persuasive caption. I know this sounds crazy…it’s just a silly caption. But, as Drew Eric Whitman points out in Ca$hvertising, 'Studies have shown that up to twice as many people read captions as body copy.'"

If you think about Twitter and consider the 140 characters a caption of sorts, then the attached image becomes even more relevant. When Buffer experimented with adding images to tweets and measuring the results of the last 100 tweets, here’s what they found: Tweets with images received 18 percent more clicks, 150 percent more retweets, and were favorited 89 percent more times than tweets without images.

New Rule: Add both images and captions to every piece of content you create. It’s good for capturing eyeballs, it’s good for SEO, and it’s good for social sharing.

6. Stick to One Type of Format

Trent Drysmid of BrightIdeas.co was frustrated as to why his blog traffic was not increasing at a faster pace, despite him having a podcast with big-name entrepreneurs and earning some stellar praise from fellow bloggers. Turns out, his problem was podcasting. Or, only podcasting. As soon as he started to also write content (among other tactics), his readers were able to quickly scan his content and subscribe to his blog and he experienced a rise in traffic.

When you restrict yourself to producing just one type of content format, you also risk a traffic plateau for visitors who consume content in that format.

New Rule: Jazz up your content by producing the same or different content in multiple formats: written content, graphics, podcasts, videos, presentations, etc. This way, you’ll attract people who and squeeze plenty of SEO juice for your multiple formats.

7. Write a 500-Word Blog Post

Honestly, the era of the 500-word blog post is dead. Gone are the days when word count determined quality. Short posts are still popular. Quality listicles are still read. Longer posts (up to 2,000 words) are read, too. Word count just doesn’t matter anymore.

New Rule: Your post needs to be to convey your point and not any longer.

8. Don’t Publish Your Articles on Third-Party Sites

When James Clear wanted to reach more people with his content, he knew that peddling his blog post on his own social media accounts wouldn’t cut it. He needed to promote his posts to a larger audience with a larger social network. Enter content republishing, aka syndication.

Sites like Medium, LinkedIn, Quora, The Huffington Post, Business2Community, and more all allow for your content to be republished on their sites. Of course some have specific rules about what’s allowed for syndication and you’ll need to read each site’s terms to see what they are. Generally, however, these sites will provide you an author bio linked to your G+ profile, and possibly a link back to your site where the original article first appeared.

I know what you’re thinking. What does republishing the exact same content do to invoke Google’s duplicate content penalty? According to bloggers who regularly syndicate their content to quality sites: diddlysquat. Reputed institutes like the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) regularly syndicate their content without any penalties.

James Clear was able to grow his blog to more than 76,000 subscribers using content syndication on sites like The Huffington Post, Medium, and Quora without any duplicate content penalties.

New Rule: Promote your content on reputable third-party sites, which provide a link back to where content was originally published, and also give an author bio tied in to your G+ profile. You can wait a week or two before giving your content for republishing. That’s enough time for search bots to know where and when the original article was first published. Include links within your article that point back to your site to drive traffic.

Summary:

Your turn! What blogging guideline do you think should bite the dust? Which ones have withstood the test of time and will continue to be hailed as best practices? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2359962/8-Blogging-Rules-You-Should-Probably-Ditch 

 

How to Get Website Traffic

Many of us that drive a vehicle hate traffic. I know that when I drive the local highways in northern New Jersey and I run into traffic, I am always getting off the highway and taking the back roads. I learned early on that it is extremely smart to know how to get around instead of on the major arteries of traffic.

However not all forms of traffic are bad. There is one type of traffic that is very desirable and that is website traffic. Without website traffic you have no chance of becoming a success with your online business. So I want to discuss one of the ways in how to get website traffic that has worked well for me and others.

SEEK AND YOU WILL FIND

Building an online business is no different than building a brick and mortar business. You need to devote long hours and an unlimited amount of dedication in order to become successful. You cannot go into building an online business without realizing that it can take several years to become a very wealthy individual. If you are not willing to put in the time then guess what will happen? You will fail. Taking shortcuts do not work towards quality and will always lead to problems down the line.

In order to get website traffic you have to seek it out, you have to go looking for it. In today's world you have to seek out the areas where people gather and being that our businesses are online, we need to seek out where people gather online. I’m sure you know where that is, right? For those of you who may still be scratching your heads for the answer, that place is called Social Media.

Okay, I know some of you may be fearful of getting involved with social media but you better get over that fear because without social media you have no chance of getting a lot of website traffic. Social media is where the majority of people online hang out. However you DO NOT want to hang out on social media. Ultimately you want to go in, post and share your content, and get out. Staying around and commenting and liking everyone’s comments and photo shares does NOTHING for the advancement of your online business. That’s all just a distraction.

TRAFFIC DOESN'T COME FAST

Posting and sharing your content on social media is not as cut and dry as it may seem. You can't just post and expect to get traffic flowing to your website. That is not how it works. You have to lay the foundation for that traffic. Just like a city needs to build the infrastructure to handle the future traffic that will be flowing through it, you have to do that with your social media experience too.

How?

You need to build your target audience by networking with people that have an interest in your niche. You can search for those keywords within the social media forums or communities and become a part of these. When you become a member of a community do not start sharing your content right away. You want to first network with the other members by commenting on their posts and/or liking them, +1 if you are on Google+.

You want to do this for a couple of days so that the other members will take notice of you but as another member and not as someone who is there to spam them with your shared posts, even though that is your intention. Make friends first and promote to them later, slowly. Once you do start sharing your content, take note of who likes, comments and/or shares your posts. Then invite those people to follow you, thus building your target audience. This will be a slow and ongoing task that will never end.

PUBLIC OR PRIVATE

While you are in the process of building up your target audience you still should be sharing your content with those who have already started to follow you. To do this you could share your content under the setting of “Private” which will only go to those who are following you. However you will not have as great a reach to the people out there. So what you should always be doing is sharing your content with the setting of “Public” so that more people can see your content on their news feed.

You definitely want to cultivate as many followers outside of Wealthy Affiliate as possible because the members at WA are not your target audience. Depending on your niche some might be but most will not be. So that is why you have to really go after the people from outside WA.

OTHER TYPES OF TRAFFIC

Though I have mostly talked about the importance of Social Media and how it is a major player in getting increased traffic let us not forget the other important factors that will increase traffic. The most important factor is having well written content and to have a lot of it. Having a combined 10 pages and posts is right around the point where Google starts to take your website as a whole seriously. So be prepared to write about 20 or more pages/posts of content.

Well written, unique quality content will get Google's blessing and they will eventually rank you high. The closer you are to Page 1 for your targeted keyword the more exposure you will get. The more exposure you get, the more traffic that will come to your website and that traffic can become customers. So it all comes down to well written quality content.

If you want your content to rank well in Google so you can get more traffic, you better know everything there is to know, good and bad, about your niche. If you are not an authority on your niche, Google will be able to tell by the content you write. Like Matt Cutts of Google has said, “To write good content you have to enjoy what you are writing about.” This is why it is very important to pick a niche that you are passionate about.

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/boomergp08/blog/how-to-get-website-traffic 

What Is the Future of Email Marketing?

Forty-one percent of email opens now happen on mobile devices. 

Email is increasingly read on mobile devices, but that doesn’t mean the desktop is no longer relevant to marketers.

This is one of several insights in a new report by Campaign Monitor that examines behavioral data from nearly 6 million email-marketing campaigns across devices and platforms. The findings show that the recent shift to mobile has made it more difficult to get readers to engage with content, unless marketers can drive a subsequent open in another environment, like the desktop.

Check out the “Email Marketing Trends” report from Campaign Monitor

The report includes information like benchmarks on open rates across different clients, advice on improving rendering, data on the relationship between opens and clicks and an overview of behaviors that increase engagement.

Here are some key takeaways:

• Go responsive: 41 percent of opens now happen on mobile devices

Opening email on mobile devices is now more common than opening in desktop or webmail clients. For this reason, marketers need to prioritize responsive designs to get the best possible outcome from their campaigns.

• Improve the content: First open results in fewer clicks on mobile

Readers are less likely to click through on the initial open from mobile devices than they are from their desktops. The standard for compelling content is higher than ever.

• Create incentive: Drive second opens on desktop

Mobile readers who open emails a second time from the desktop are 65 percent more likely to click through than readers opening for the first time. Marketers need to understand how to drive subsequent opens.
To learn more about optimizing your email campaigns in 2014, check out the full report: Read More Here

http://www.adweek.com/brandshare/what-future-email-marketing-158470

4 Steps To Writing Killer Subject Lines

4 steps to writing a killer subject line from Adestra Ltd

Search Engine Email Marketing - The 4 Step Process You Will Love To Use

Search engine email marketing: Certainly, if you want to build an online income stream for yourself that is risk free, easy to do, fun and can be created in your spare time, then reading this short article to the very end might be the most profitable 2 minutes you spend this year.

As you scan every word, you will begin to feel that this is what you have been seeking. You will say to yourself, "Maybe this can work for me. Could it be that this is what I have been looking for? It can't be this easy!" Yes it can.

By the time you finish reading this article, you will have learned how to turn something you love into a life long internet income.

Search Engine Email Marketing Made Easy:

First, decide what you want your site to be about. Decide on something you are passionate about, something that makes your heart sing.

Then, the simple process:

• Content: Create high quality, in demand content that the visitors to your site will love because it is exactly on the topic they are searching for. This is why it is so important to build a website about something you love and are passionate about. Could you write a long time about pet rocks or Barbie dolls? Take your time and choose wisely. Search engine email marketing requires research. The internet is a massive market that can accommodate any niche you care to get into. Are you getting excited about all the possibilities this offers you?


• Traffic: This high quality content will be noticed by the search engines and they will send FREE traffic to your site. As part of the search engine email marketing process, they closely monitor everything. They check such things as how long the visitors stay on your site (bounce rate), how many pages do they visit, how long do they stay on your pages and do they leave your site following a link you suggested for more information or to buy a product you recommended? This is a sign that you offered a solution to their problem and this is another sign of a quality site. Imagine what it would be like if you could do this when you are away! You can. This is called a "portable empire".


• Presell: As you share free information with your visitors, they get a feel for what you are doing. They will quickly sense if you really want to help them and if your are qualified to do so. The passion you feel for the content of your site quickly becomes evident to them and they will respond with the back button if they see you are just trying to score a sale. Give them information, offer some solutions and, if you can, offer related information that will broaden their view of whatever they ae searching for. The search engine email results will make it all worthwhile. Confirm to them that you are expert in this field, you know what you are talking about and that you are offering them solutions whether it is a place to buy Chihuahua clothes or a corporate jet. Now I want you to go deep into your mind and visualize what you could do with something like this, on a subject you love.


• Monetize: Now, the fun part. A successful website can be created on any subject using this process. It is up to you to decide if you want to sell items yourself or if you want to build an affiliate business. Becoming an affiliate is easy and always free. Basically, it involves being the same as a commission salesperson for any number of companies you want to. If your site is about deck construction, you might want to be an affiliate for lumber yards, power tool companies and you might want to sell plans and blueprints. Being an affiliate is great. You share high quality information, your visitors like what you are saying, go to recommended vendors and, if they buy, you get paid a commission! You don't have to worry about warehousing, inventory, employees, shipping, customer complaints or anything else. As your view continues to expand, you are starting to feel excitement, aren't you? This isn't hard, is it? Your search engine email marketing empire will bloom and prosper.

It's a great system that works with any theme of website. These sites attract FREE traffic called organic traffic. They take a little time to build as you learn, but the final product will give you secure income for years to come.

Fact! Search engine research has found that a visitor to a website has to visit it an average of 7 times before they buy even if your prices are good and they feel secure with your online purchasing system. Chances are slim that any customer will return that many times.

The solution lies in building trust. You do this by asking them to be on your email list. You promise to keep sending useful information to them on a regular basis.

As you read this page more and more, you will feel better and better about all those financial black clouds that have hovered for so long over your life. In a moment, your subconscious mind is going to absorb all this information and will get to work putting all this together for you.

The visitors see that your information is good and that it is put forward in an interesting way. You might want to offer little bonuses as an extra inducement for them to part with their email address, As you send out new information, you quickly develop a trusting relationship and many of these people will buy from you in a little while. Many of those will buy from you for years to come.

Conclusion: Here is an example of a perfect search engine email marketing transaction.

Barb is looking for clothes for her little Chihuahua. She enters the search term "Chihuahua dog clothes". The search engines look through all the sites in the world and judge that your site is the most suited to the search query.

She clicks on your link and is greeted by a wonderful site on Chihuahua dogs. She immediately sees that you have many pages on dog clothes, but a page on Chihuahua nutrition catches her interest. She goes there and reads about many things she hadn't been aware of. Barb is impressed with your knowledge and visits your Chihuahua grooming pages and then checks out your pages on Chihuahua diseases.

She decides on the outfit that she wants for her dog, but she hesitates in buying. She doesn't know you. She does, however bookmark your page and agrees to receiving your Chihuahua newsletter.

The search engines have been monitoring all of this and rate your site highly. Barb might come back on her own, but your newsletter will gain her trust quickly and she will buy the doggie outfit she had chosen. Over time, she knows you are the goto person for Chihuahuas. Over the years, she will buy Chihuahua harnesses from you, she will buy dog medicines from a company you represent and so on.

Life is good and remember this: All this runs on autopilot. Your site is making money whether you are building new pages or are away for a month of vacations.

This is search engine email marketing at its best.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8610591

http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Octavien_J._Remillard