Want to refine your online presence but not break the bank?

SEO coaching by sem[c]

sem[c] offers a coaching service to give you the flexibility to have a professional review of your marketing at your convenience for a fraction of the cost of a full program.

Many businesses have questions about online marketing. No matter whether you are doing the marketing in-house or you’ve hired a consultant there are times that you’d just like to touch base with someone who knows more about marketing than you.

sem[c] can be that resource for you.

Find out more at https://semc.subkit.com/

Social media marketing (SMM) can benefit a business in several ways:

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  1. Increased brand awareness: Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and others can help increase brand awareness by making it easy for businesses to reach a large and targeted audience. By regularly posting content and interacting with followers, businesses can build their brand and establish themselves as industry leaders.
  2. Improved customer relationships: Social media platforms provide a way for businesses to interact directly with customers, which can help build strong and positive relationships. By responding to customer comments and reviews, businesses can show that they care about their customers and value their feedback.
  3. Increased website traffic: Social media can drive traffic to a business’s website by providing a platform for sharing links and promoting content. This can lead to increased sales and revenue for the business.
  4. Targeted advertising: Many social media platforms offer targeted advertising options that allow businesses to reach specific demographics and interests. This can help businesses reach the right audience and increase the effectiveness of their marketing efforts.
  5. Better customer insights: Social media platforms can provide valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences, which can help businesses improve their products and services and make more informed marketing decisions.
  6. Increased brand loyalty: By regularly engaging with customers on social media, businesses can build brand loyalty and encourage repeat business.

Social Media can be a part of successful search engine marketing

There should be no question that social media can be an integral part of search engine marketing. Social media content is content afterall.  At sem[c] we have been cross-linking our clients’ social media and websites for years. The prime business goal for a business, that will do the work necessary to best utilize social media (and it’s a lot of work), is to have good, real, frequently updated and optimized content on their website and an active and very interactive social profile. Each will drive traffic to the other. In both cases the strategy is based on the fact that sales are positively influenced by the amount of qualified traffic looking at your content. Each type of content serves a distinct and different purpose. Each type of content has costs and benefits.

You should think of your website as a repository of everything there is to know about your business. You should assume that by the time a prospect interacts with you they will have read everything on your website that is important to them. You really want to be in the short list of possibilities when a prospect is looking for what you sell. To be successful at this you need to develop a contemporary looking website with good, original content. The SEO process as practiced by sem[c] will help you to do this in a way that will get you found AND make it clear to a prospect what’s in it for them. A link to your social media will allow the prospect to see what other people are saying.  The costs are monetary: website development, hosting, domain name and time: content generation and organization.

You should think of social media as both part of the validation process when prospects are investigating your business and a potential source of traffic to your website when a prospects finds you via their social network. If someone gets interested in your business because of one your mutual friends they will want to know more and will visit your website. The great thing about social media is that it has little in upfront technical costs. The real cost comes in time. To get the most value out of your social media you will need to create content in an attractive way.  The goal is to get people to react to that content which allows you to interact with them. This is the most important task in maintaining social media and it works even in the case of “negative” comments. In fact, like in the old saw that there is no such thing as bad pr, any comment in your social media, no matter how bad it is, can send a powerful message about your business.

Social media can be a great tool in your online marketing toolkit.

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

sem[c] can help you sort out the social media jungle.
We’ve been using various types of social media, as appropriate, for our clients for years. For all the hype one is led to think that Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and all the other permutations are the silver bullet of marketing. In fact, we have found that the effectiveness varies from business to business according to a number of variables. Some types of social media work better for lifestyle-oriented businesses while others are more appropriate for B2B.

One of the dirty little secrets of a successful social media deployment is the same dirty little secret that applies to websites – fresh content is absolutely necessary. This is a requirement that is easily met if a business owner likes to write or has someone on staff that is a good writer. If not someone needs to be hired that can act as the voice of the business. Social media is only successful when this voice is engaging to the audience.

The current “common knowledge” about the importance and ease of social media is reminiscent of the early overly enthusiastic “if you build it they will come” hype about websites. In either case, implementing a strategic plan is what is going to help generate the interactions that will be good for your business.

Please contact us with any questions about using social media successfully.

 

Have you seen the latest feature of Google+?

Google is now including search returns that are influenced by their social network as a part of each search that you do.  What this means is that sites that are recommended by people that you know appear more prominently in Google searches. This means that your search returns are being tailored to you personally.

This makes your ability to create and promote a page on Google+ a really good idea. You can visit our page at Search Engine Marketing Chicago on Google+ to see what it looks like.  Once you create a page you can put a badge on your website to solicite +1’s from your visitors. You can see an example of one of the badges on our website Search Engine Marketing Chicago, Inc.

Bing has announced plans to make their returns influences by your social network contacts as well so this is clearly a trend in the major search engines.

Constant Contact has now made Facebook campaign tools available, too. Visit ours at Search Marketing Chicago on Facebook!
Contact us for additional information about how social networking can positively influence your business’ online marketing profile.
Got questions? Call, click or Google… you’ll reach us.