4 Ways How Digital Marketing Can Improve Your Blog

Having your own blog or website is a great first step in self-branding and being visible online. Blogs have different purposes, whether for personal or commercial use, but in most cases, being visible on the online sphere is the goal of any blog. Having that visibility and making it in a crowd of other blogs that could be addressing similar topics can be a challenging process. Digital marketing is exactly what a blog needs to shine online and improve in achieving its goals. 

Here are some examples of how utilizing digital marketing strategies can help improve your blog. 

1. Increasing Traffic

A successful blog is one that is read by a large audience and relates to them. Digital marketing can help any blog achieve that goal. Attracting the right audience can be a challenging ordeal for any blogger and as seen with internet marketing agency, digital marketing can help bloggers get to the maximum number of viewers and increase the blog’s traffic. An effective digital media strategy works on getting to the desired audience where they might be only, and this could be anything from reaching out to them on social media platforms to sending them email newsletters. The idea of working out a digital marketing strategy for your blog can be incredibly beneficial for commercial blogs who rely heavily on traffic to keep the business running. 

2. Allowing for Better Communication with Audiences

Blogging is all about communicating with the audience and providing online content that they want to see or can relate to. Having an engaging blog is key to its success. Digital marketing can be handy to bloggers when it comes to improving their blogs’ engagement and getting people to interact with the bloggers themselves as well as each other on the blog site. Sparking a conversation is all it takes for a blog to go viral, but it is all about choosing the right conversation and how to present it correctly and that is a digital marketing strategy’s job. Marketing for the blog to ensure it is engaging for the audience can be done through writing short paragraphs and adding visual aids that keep the readers interested and in turn, improves the blog. 

3. Providing Helpful Analytics

The online sphere is all about having the right analytics to be able to get to your desired audience and understanding their virtual behaviors. In the case of blogs, this is no exception. Digital marketing tactics can come in handy for bloggers by providing them with the needed analytics to run their blog successfully and understand their audience. Analytics are measured through tracking the online audience’s behaviors towards the blog, including the number of shares and comments on certain posts, the duration they stay on one page, and where they are accessing the site from in the world. All this data acquired through digital marketing can then help bloggers improve the blog and understand what the people want to see and how to work accordingly. 

4. Building Positive Brand Reputation

Having a blog means having an online personal brand; whether that brand is to be used for commercial or personal use purposes is up to the blogger. However, what is certain is that all bloggers want to have a positive brand reputation and that is what they can achieve through certain digital marketing tactics. Through building a serious follower base using online marketing tactics, your blog can improve and even expand its work to cater to what the people want, which is the ultimate goal for some bloggers. 

Digital Marketing Resources That Can Help Your Blog

Successful digital marketing for your blog can be achieved using a variety of resources. Artificial Intelligence, in particular, has developed over the recent years and proved to be incredibly effective in gathering analytics and helping bloggers understand their audience. User-Generated Content is also quite a helpful resource to use in a digital marketing strategy as it promotes audience engagement and drives more traffic to a blog as it makes it more relatable and approachable. 

Blogging can give a great sense of accomplishment. Having your own blog can prove to be pretty rewarding whether you write in your blog for personal or commercial purposes. If you are looking to improve your blog a little, then trying out digital marketing strategies might just be the positive push your blog needs. Since your blog is your brand, marketing for that brand online becomes essential for the success of that blog and its visibility in the busy virtual reality. Before trying out any digital marketing strategies, make sure you are familiar with all its aspects to ensure you are executing it effectively and correctly for the best results for your blog. 

Industries That Should Take Advantage of Online Marketing More

Over the past few years, the world of marketing has greatly revolutionized. While some traditional marketing approaches such as billboards, TV adverts, radio, flyers, newspaper ads, and business cards are still effective to date, internet marketing has taken the world of this age and day by storm.

It’s a digital age and one of the best ways to ensure your business reaches out to the maximum number of people is to adopt digital marketing strategies that will help popularize your brand, increase your sales, and boost your revenue, and see your venture soar to new heights. Well, almost any kind of business can benefit from online marketing, but certain industries definitely need it more. From legal practice to healthcare, retail, real estate, and much more. 

Here are industries that should take advantage of online marketing more.

Legal Practice

Lawyers are among the most essential service providers in this age and day. They serve individuals, groups of people, and businesses from large to small representing them in court and helping them to navigate legal matters. However, many potential clients happen to be in the dark about information regarding lawyers and how attorneys can help them in various situations.

As a law practitioner, you need to have a strong online presence using a website or blog, so you can educate the public about common legal issues and the various services available to them. In most cases, clients will have dozens of questions surrounding business law, marital law, criminal law, and a myriad of other kinds of law.

Through a creatively designed blog or website, a potential client can simply get all this information from the comfort of their homes using their laptop, tablet, smartphone, or favorite internet access device.

To come out on top and grow your practice, you may want to read more info here about how an experienced law firm marketing expert can help you. It also makes it easy for law firms to acquire clients since internet users can easily find your contact details, including office phone, office location, address, and much more from the website as well as other online platforms.

Real Estate

Real estate is by far one of the most competitive industries. For starters, there are hundreds of real estate listing sites online, and the numbers keep on growing. Secondly, many homebuyers do extensive research online first before deciding to buy a property.

They use the internet for home searching as well as to acquire information about the home buying process while comparing prices in different locations and listings. This means that to make it in real estate as a realtor, for instance, you may need more than just post homes on listing platforms.

In this case, having your own website will be a more effective way to reach out to your prospects, especially your local audience. Additionally, you’ll want to use other tools such as Facebook marketing, video marketing, and content marketing.

Healthcare

The health and medical industry also benefit greatly from digital marketing these days. From health clinics to manufacturers of medical products such as drugs, nutritional products dealers, and supplement producers, different stakeholders and businesses in the healthcare industry can achieve more and improve their ROI with online marketing. For instance, doctors with private practice offices can use their websites to provide resourceful health information to their patients or audience and even make it possible to schedule appointments online.

As a matter of fact, many people are always turning to search engines for tips and information that can help improve their health, which means that as a doctor, content marketing and online presence can help grow your practice by a significant margin. On top of this, having a strong social media presence will help improve outreach and gain a broader and larger client-base for your practice.

Entertainment

Well, billboards and TV commercials may still be effective tools for entertainment brands and companies to promote their products and content, but not as much as they used to be some years back.

This is because, in this digital age, more and more consumers are relying on the internet and online channels for their good dose of entertainment. For this reason, major players in the entertainment industry need to understand how to meet their target audience where they are, and that is online. 

Non-digital entertainment forms such as live concerts, plays, and comedy shows, often see a larger turnout at the venues if they promote the event using online platforms like Facebook, event websites, and online marketing tools such as email newsletters, app marketing, and so forth.

Fitness & Nutrition

Especially these days where people are more aware of the risks associated with poor nutrition and the lack of regular exercise, everyone wants to eat right, stay fit, and stay healthy. Of the reasons the fitness industry is booming, it is estimated that the fitness and nutrition industry generates a whopping $80 billion each year.

Needless to mention, the players who make the most out of these returns are those who take advantage of internet marketing. The best thing about products and services in this industry is that they are photogenic, and anything photogenic has a higher potential of catching a potential user’s eye, easily convincing them to make a purchase.  

In this industry, it’s all about targeting the right audience and having a proven online marketing strategy in place. It involves promoting your products through platforms where your target audience mostly is, including social channels and e-commerce websites, along with mobile app ads, and PPC ads. Influencer marketing on platforms like Instagram is also a highly effective strategy in this industry.

Food

The food business will always be marketable as long as man breathes. However, it also happens to be highly competitive these days. But then again, how about promoting your food business online and developing a way your clients can order food from the comfort of their homes or offices? On your site, you can also provide exciting blog posts covering things like nutritional tips, secret recipes, and other unique food ideas you may have in mind. Images and creative food videos will also go a long way in promoting your business.

With online marketing, it’s a win-win situation for both entrepreneurs and consumers. In addition to educating and informing potential clients about businesses, the internet has helped bring products and services closer to the consumer, thus saving time and adding convenience. However, only entrepreneurs who take full advantage of online marketing come out on top. The above are just a few of the various industries that should take advantage of digital marketing.

8 Ideas for Making Real-Time Marketing With Marketing Automation

Today more than ever, you should understand the importance of the customization of the marketing communication, which can be leveraged by a number of automation tools. However, to make the messages more effective, the time factor is very important.

With the use of electronic channels and especially mobility, it is crucial to present offers and proposals within the scope and in the most appropriate situations. This is possible once again thanks to automation, which allows you to reach your audience in real time.
CONTINUE READING

5 Social Media Challenges Faced By Business Owners (And How To Solve Them)

Erik Qualman once said, "We don't have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it".

Can you believe that, folks? Social media is a key generator for your business; let it be either an online or a brick and mortar business, you need social media to literally survive in this world.

The challenges small businesses face is inevitable. Yes you -- small business owners will face tons of obstacles which will either demotivate you or burn a hole in your pocket. As a social media consultant, I dare to say that there will be challenges in social media especially in two phrases; entry level and sustaining a marketing strategy to compete with the rest.

As Erik said above, social media is no longer a luxury; it is a needs that will determine success in business.

So, what are the challenges small businesses will face in social media? How do you overcome them?

Let's break them down in this article, shall we?
CONTINUE READING

How Different Social Media Platforms Generate Leads

Mike Bird is a co-founder of digital marketing agency, Social Garden. Social Garden specializes in data-driven lead generation & marketing automation to grow companies revenue in the finance, property and education verticals in Australia. Mike is an influencer in the social media marketing & Facebook advertising space and contributes to Social Media Examiner, Social Media Today, Yahoo! Business Advisor and most importantly, the Social Garden blog.

You have your social media accounts all set up and ready to go, but do you know how to use them to generate leads?

Read on and learn how to use each social media platform to generate solid leads and make your social media marketing an overall success.

social media platforms for lead generation

Facebook

Facebook is like the hub of social media. Everyone can post content from other sites to it, and nearly everyone has a Facebook account. This makes the social media platform instrumental in your lead generation plan.

Above all other social media platforms, Facebook's advertising services target exactly who you want and can put your content right into the hands of those most likely to use it. After all, you spend so much time creating great, quality content on your blogs so you might as well share it with new potential clients.

The Promoted Post feature puts your best content on the Facebook feeds of those most likely to be intrigued and click. You might promote a link to a free ebook or upcoming webinar you are hosting, or you might promote your most popular blog article. The only think you cannot post is a direct link to any sort of landing or product page. This is not the time to sell.

Whatever promotional angle you decide to use, make sure you have a sign-up form or some way of getting visitors to give you their email addresses. This is the best way to collect the leads that click on your posts.

 

Twitter

Sending out well-crafted tweets with defining hashtags is a great start, but you might have more success generating leads if you are participating in or hosting Twitter chats. Any Twitter account can host a discussion and anyone interested is allowed to participate. The host will decide on a relevant hashtag so everyone participating can find the most recent posts by searching for the hashtag.

If you are unsure about hosting one, try participating in a few chats to see how it is done. You will meet both other industry leaders as well as consumers, and you will be free to voice your own opinions on certain subjects. This is a great way to gain exposure for your brand and introduce it to a new group of consumers.

Whether you are participating or hosting, there are a few things to keep in mind when posting. These will help you make better use of your time and hopefully generate more leads:

Be active in Twitter chats and your brand will reach new consumers.

Cendrine Marrouat of Social Media Slant hosts a monthly Twitter chat using #smslantchat where users discuss various aspects of digital marketing.

twitter chat

joining twitter chat

 

Instagram

Want to give your audience a behind-the-scenes look at your company? Instagram, the photograph platform, is perhaps best used for showing off the personal side of your business. It gives you the chance to showcase your staff's antics and offer a glimpse at what it is really like to be a part of your company.

By introducing your staff members to the world, you're giving a face to your brand and humanising it. Your brand inspires these people at work every day so show your consumers why it is so great to work for you and be a part of your company.

You can also send live updates from promotional events you attend and show readers what you are up to. This is a great way to attract people to a local event or trade show that you are participating in, and you can offer small discounts to followers who attend the event or trade show and stop by your booth.

 

Pinterest

Want to show off your company's creativity and style? With Pinterest, you can create a board that represents your brand, and you can create multiple boards to meet the needs and wants of certain sectors of your audience.

To generate the best leads from Pinterest, optimise your pins for maximum pin-ability:

Promote your boards on multiple sites and encourage your followers to pin their favourite posts.

 

LinkedIn

One of the best lead generation features about LinkedIn is LinkedIn Groups. The site hosts hundreds of individual niche groups that participate in monthly, weekly and some even daily discussions together.  The groups bring all sorts of industry professionals with similar interests together in one place where they can talk about the issue that matter most to their business.

There is no limit to the amount of groups that you can belong to, and you can always start your own group. You might start a small business support group for your area and invite other local small businesses in your area to participate. You can share marketing ideas and connect with other businesses who might be interested in doing some cross promotion with you.

Regardless of whether you start a LinkedIn group or participate in existing ones, you should be regularly posting questions, commenting on other's opinions (politely) and answering any questions that people post. Like Twitter chat, active participation is key, and you should avoid doing any sales pitching. Doing so will only make people think that you are there to sell it them.

Research the participants in the group and take note of anyone who continually asks questions. You may answer them directly on the group chat and then follow up with a more in-depth direct message. This will help you build a good relationship with your fellow group members and portray your expert knowledge.

Thinking About Social Network Marketing? 3 Tips To Get Started!

Social network marketing is a gold mine when it comes to building traffic, revenue and sales.

It is not undeniable that if you are not doing social media, you are losing out; big time. And like it or not, we are already halfway through 2014.

Some says that 2015 will be a huge year for digital marketing trend which is wonderfully compiled by Lee Odden of Top Rank Blog (read more about it here).

The social media pace is getting fast and the 'slow and steady' don't win the race anymore.

If you have yet to start any social media campaign, you need to start right now. Yes, drop whatever you are doing and start creating a social media account on Facebook, Twitter or a zillion other accounts.

But wait! You have already done that.

Good job, you have just started your first step in any social media campaign.

The moral of the story is not many of us realized we had already started some sort of social media marketing, regardless we are aware or not.

While creating an account is easy, you need more than that.

For starters, you need followers. Tons of them.

There are several fundamentals when it comes to building more followers such as:

Luck is rather challenging as we have no control over them. Lucky for you, it is much opposite when it comes to 'timing' and 'funnel'.

 

Tip #1: Timing matters for any social network marketing

 

The importance of social media timing

 

Timing is everything. According to the Fast Company, you only need:

Take a moment to think about this. What's your first thought?

Mine is simple; "Are you freaking joking me?! I post around 15 times on Twitter and Facebook plus 5 times on LinkedIn daily!"

Let's talk about ROI myth and it is broken down into two parts:

This can be concluded that while there is absolutely no wrong-doing choosing either one of them, the method of reaching out to the prospective readers is important.

What's work for me is around 10 tweets, 5 Facebook shares and 3 LinkedIn updates close to a daily basis. How about yours?

There is no 'absolute timing' when it comes to social media scheduling. Yes, there are guides to help you with it but at the end of the day, it is totally dependable to your visitors (time of action).

 

Tip #2: Creating a funnel that drives traffic from social network marketing

 

Boost traffic using social network marketing

 

Are you using social media for marketing? If you are, you need good funnels to drive traffic and sales.

Social network marketing basically means reaching thousands and thousands of readers with just a few clicks of the button.

In social media, the easiest way to create funnel is by creating quality posts  with the proper Call To Action (CTA).

And when it comes to social media marketing techniques, there is no one else better than Rebekah Radice. Check out her latest article on 5 Ways To Create A Social Media Call To Action That Converts.

In short, a funnel can be done using:

  1. Knowing your (company) value
  2. Be exactly clear what you want your readers to do (read, click, buy etc)
  3. Understanding the market
  4. Speak your audience language
  5. Simply by asking for a kind retweet, reshare or a +1

My social network marketing method is rather simple. I would share the same post using various CTA's in a period of one week (or a couple of days). Judging from the response, it would provide us with a huge understanding on what readers love and what is driving those clicks.

 

Tip #3: Social network marketing done right

 

Drive traffic using social media

The right social network marketing strategy will drive traffic to blogs and websites

 

I'm a huge fan of social media automation. Running a hectic life with various projects from my start-up agency and as well as my lucrative day job is a no joke.

After all, it's our job to ensure that we put food on the plate right?

Social media is business for me. Believe it or not, most of my business traffic comes from social media.

If you want to rank well on Google, you need search engine optimization. In social media, you need social media optimization.

To kick start social media, all you need is the right technique. Allow me to share mine (you can share yours using the comment form below):

  1. Identify the right social media platforms
  2. Understand what your goals are and focus on them
  3. Building some social media metrics

There are more than a dozen social media platforms out there and you need to choose the most lucrative one for your social media campaign.

Using Google Analytics, determine which platform provides you the best traffic and clicks.

 

Referral traffic data taken from Google Analytics

 

If you are starting up a social media marketing and time is a huge factor for you, you can simply choose the top 3 most productive platform to work with.

Social media is always a two way traffic. This means that you need to be active and as well as utilizing the power of  automation.

And my go-to tool would be HootSuite Pro. Honestly speaking, having the ability to sync 50 social accounts at the same time is godly.

 

Bonus tip: Setting up HootSuite Pro for maximum social network power

 

Social network marketing using HootSuite Pro

 

HootSuite Pro offers up to 50 social accounts (free one offer 5 accounts) and this means that you need tons of planning.

There are two things you have to decide:

  1. What you want to view on the timeline?
  2. Which account you want to sync with HootSuite?

The below is an example my timeline. I separate them into platform based and even client's tab (not visible for obvious purpose).

 

HootSuite timeline arrangement

 

Each tab can holds up to 10 timelines and this includes mentions, private messages, scheduling etc.

Segmenting the timeline is important to ensure that you have enough visibility and contribution to avoid being labelled as spam or self promotion. This is where the segmentation in the image come into play.

HootSuite offers scheduled posts and you can schedule up to 5 accounts at one time.

The trick here is simple. Schedule posts which are highly attractive and relevant to the group or audience. Do that and you'll get a winner!

HootSuite starts from $8.99 per month and you can it for 30-days free using this link: Free 30-days HootSuite Pro

Tell me your thought on social network marketing and if you are feeling generous, let's discuss on social media strategies to increase traffic and sales revenue.