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You know you have to blog but you have no idea where to start or how to get it done. We understand, and we are here to help! With our team of creative content specialists, we can help start and enhance your blogging efforts. The benefits of having a blog are: Increased traffic to your corporate website. Educational and informative content about your products are services accessable to your audiences. Enhanced search engine optimization for your website. Factors include consistent keywords and updates added to your website, more pages per visit from visitors, and more time spent on your website by visitors. Watch Tom and Lou explain why you need a blog now! The blogging solutions we offer are: Strategy Consultation Campaign Consultation Content Calendar Development Blog Integration for Websites Training Customized Blogs Attract leads now! Related Blog Posts: The Immeasurable Benefits Of A Blog 5 Guiding Principles for Creating Great Content
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Are you stumped on how to use email marketing! The possibilities are endless, and we’ll help you every step of the way. From discussing your goals, design concepts, messaging, execution, and measurement, your email marketing efforts will become perfection! Great for: eNewsletters Product Launches & Promotions Contests & Giveaways Event Announcements Your email marketing efforts can feature: Automated Triggered Emails Follow Up Emails Photo and Video Integration Surveys with Weighted Questions Online Forms and Landing Pages Digital Asset Downloads (eBooks, White Papers) Contact List Management Custom Designs and Layouts Take advantage of extensive measurement and reporting tools for each of your campaigns, such as: Open Rates Clicked Links Subject Title Success Rates Build leads with email! How Email Can to Promote Your Facebook Page A Customer Email Campaign Success Story
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With limited resources, many small and mid-sized companies are asking themselves, “What should be the number one social media outlet to pursue?
Unfortunately, there is no easy way of answering this because each social site is so unique. They each provide their own benefits, and each business would be able to use and benefit from each of them in different ways. Here is a breakdown of how you can use each channel.
YouTube:
This requires low management maintenance. Whenever you create a video, you should upload it and share it with your audience in different ways. You can embed it into your website, email marketing blasts, share it on Twitter/Facebook, embed it into your LinkedIn profile and have QR Codes direct to them. If you enjoy being creative with your marketing efforts and you tend to be more of a visual person, preferring to give a face to a name and show your audience how your business can help them, YouTube should definitely be a utilized channel.
Twitter:
Twitter requires the most management, but also has the most benefits. First of all, its outreach and engagement opportunities are very extensive. There are many tools out there that can help you search for leads and existing contacts. You can also initiate relationships by following people, and if they know you or have heard of your business, they usually follow you back. You can also embed your Twitter feed with your personal and company LinkedIn Status updates. Some tools even let you update your Facebook through Twitter. By syncing up social networks with each other, it can cover a lot more ground with just one post. Another benefit with Twitter is its hashtag feature. The best examples of hashtag usage would be during events. If you go to an event, attendees and vendors are able to include the hashtag (such as #BestEvent) within their tweets, which will make their posts show up in the #BestEvent Twitter feed. This is a great way of finding people at the show, engaging with them, and simply sharing your experience of the show with others. The only cons of Twitter would be that there are a lot of tweets out there, so you must be consistent with your posts in order to position yourself as a thought leader who provides information but who also engages with their audience as well.
LinkedIn:
This network requires low management and has a more professional setting compared to others. Everyone should belong to this network because LinkedIn members appear within or close to the top five Google searches when their name is searched for. This helps encourage connections and relationships and it makes it easy for inquires and prospects to find you. Personal profiles also give you the capability of sharing your website, social networks, more of your work portfolio and many other types of information. If people want to learn more about you professionally, LinkedIn gives them the chance to do so, and then gives them the option to connect with you.
While you are on LinkedIn, if your work email has its own domain, build a company page. This gives the opportunity for all of your coworkers/employees to be under one network. LinkedIn Company Pages also give you the opportunity to promote products, services, connect prospects with sales reps and more! You can also keep it updated by posting regular Company Page Statuses. I would recommend sticking with 4-6 company status updates each week, and try to focus on company news/industry news that your target audience would be interested in.
Facebook:
This would require a medium level of management. My recommended amount of posts for this site would be once a day, possibly a little more if there is an event happening that you are participating in. Sharing industry-related information in different mediums, such as photos, YouTube videos, blog posts or articles, is a great way to engage with your Facebook audience. Your audience in this channel usually consists of existing customers who like and trust your company, and prospects who are interested in your specials, features or knowledge. Facebook fans usually join your page in order to stay in the loop with what is new. Posting pictures and YouTube videos of what is happening around the office is also great content. This social network is meant to focus on humanizing your business. So if you have an existing dedicated fan base who is online and wants to stay in the loop, Facebook may be your top priority.
At the end of the day…
Every business has its own unique audience. Think about where your audience is and how they enjoy learning about the type of products you have to offer. Once you discover these key components, determining which social media networks are the right ones for your business will become more apparent. No matter which one you choose though, each network is great for enhancing your brand’s search optimization. The more you update them, the higher they will rise in search results, plus, the bigger your networks are, the more potential you have of sending leads and inquiries to your website.
Key Resource for You:
Don’t wait, get started on social media marketing today! If you’re in need of help, let’s talk about how Social Media Consulting or a Social Media Marketing Plan could help you and your business. Click here to learn more!
Business bloggers are always wondering …
- Am I accomplishing anything?
- How can I do better, really better?
For super successful blogging, try an onsite-offsite strategy. It’s pretty simple, actually:
- Onsite, supplement your own blogging with high-authority, relevant guest authors
- Offsite, get your articles published on high-authority, relevant blogs
Simple as it is, few companies implement this strategy. The three enormous benefits of onsite-offsite blogging:
- Vast improvement in SEO. When your articles are published on high authority, relevant blogs, you should be able to include a link back to your website. These backlinks are strong ranking factors for Google and other search engines.
- Greater reach to your target online audience. Your articles on other blogs will be seen and shared by new readers. Guest authors writing on your blog will bring their readers along for the ride. More exposure leads to more leads and referrals.
- Get a competitive edge. Because most companies blog listlessly, you can create space between yourself and the competition in terms of both SEO and brand awareness.
5 Tips for Attracting Great Guest Bloggers
- Maintain high content standards on your blog at all times
- Keep your blog’s content focused on your niche
- Publish inquiry forms and editorial guidelines to make it easy for potential guest authors to come on board (examples below)
- Connect with potential authors on social media, and invite them to write for you after you’ve established a relationship
- Ask your guest bloggers for referrals of other guest bloggers – bloggers are a generous lot and may surprise you by how eager they are to help
5 Tips for Getting Published on Great Blogs
- When you pitch an article idea to a blogger, be brief, businesslike, establish your credibility and make sure your proposal fits his/her blog
- After you pitch, follow up an a few days if you haven’t gotten a response
- Connect with relevant bloggers on social media to establish or cultivate a relationship before you pitch them
- Be flexible – if a blogger doesn’t think your article idea is the right fit, propose something else and/or ask for their ideas
- Write with passion – make sure your articles are consistently informative, valuable and engaging
One of my blogs, B2B Insights, has a couple of simple features designed to attract guest writers. The contact form provides the information I’m looking for from anyone pitching me on a topic:
Then, once a pitch has been approved, I have an editorial guidelines page to help guest bloggers understand how to write and submit posts.
Your guest bloggers will need to understand:
- Word count minimums and maximums, if any
- What type of style is out of bounds, if any
- How they should handle images used in their post
- How they should handle links in their post
- Your policies on intellectual property
- Any other considerations that are important to you
Over to You
Have you tried an onsite-offsite blogging strategy? How is it working? Do you have any suggestions for bloggers just starting to use this approach? Sound off in the comments.
Looking for some help interacting with your audience online? Click to learn 10 ways!
About the author:
Brad Shorr is Director of B2B Marketing for Straight North, a Chicago area Internet marketing agency. His articles on content marketing, social media and strategy have appeared on scores of industry-leading blogs, including Smashing Magazine, Six Revisions and Carol Roth.
I had a chance to sit down with Grow Socially’s Sales Executive Tom Barry to talk a little bit about the importance of blogging.
Is your company blogging? Grow Socially can help with that.
From October 4-6, Grow Socially and interlinkONE will be present at the 2012 Owners Conference, sponsored by NAQP and NAPL at the beautiful DoubleTree Hotel Chicago Magnificent Mile.
The Owners Conference is a fantastic opportunity for owners and general managers of quick, small commercial or digital printing firms. Attendees will leave with an understanding of how change is affecting their industry and what needs to be done for the future.
Grow Socially and interlinkONE will be well represented throughout the conference.
Supplier Showcase Reception
Friday, October 5. 5:00 – 7:30 pm
Join your peers at a networking reception sponsored by leading suppliers to the quick and small commercial printing industry. This will be your opportunity to meet (or renew acquaintances) with current industry suppliers, as wel as share your plans for profitable growth with your fellow printers.
Panel Discussion: Finding Success in Online Marketing: Social Media, SEO and More!
Saturday, October 6. 11:00 am – 12:00 pm
John Foley, Jr., Moderator
John Foley, Jr., CEO of interlinkONE and Grow Socially, will moderate a panel discussion on the challenges that service providers face as they seek to achieve business results with online marketing strategies. Panelists will cover strategic guidelines, tips, technologies, and tools that can improve printers’ social media presence, SEO, and website efforts.
Supplier Sessions
Saturday, October 6. 1:45 – 3:15 pm
Karen DeWolfe
Listen to real-life applications of the latest technology, ideas for new profit centers, and tips from our supplier partners and their customers.
About NAPL:
NAPL is a not-for-profit business management association representing companies in the $80+ billion commercial printing and graphic communications industry in North America. NAPL’s comprehensive slate of business-building solutions provides company leaders with the management tools they need to make informed business decisions in an ever-changing market environment. For more information, visit www.napl.org or call (800) 642-6275.
I must send a note of thanks to co-workers Nolan Antonucci and Kelly O’Halloran for giving me the heads-up on this video.
If you can make it through the special effects, it’s a one-minute video that may benefit your business.
It’s a Public Service Announcement that was produced in 1995 by 5th grade students at a Montana school.
Alright, did you watch it? If so, you may be wondering how I think that could help your business.
How That Video Can Help
I think it’s fairly amazing how accurate many of the predictions they made back in 1995 actually came true.
However, I’m sure you’ll agree that many businesses heard similar predictions from other sources as well, and yet they still delayed in embracing how the internet would change the way we communicate.
In many cases, delaying as for as long as they did may have seriously harmed their business.
They may look back at this video today and feel some form of regret.
Looking At the Landscape Today
Today, many people are beating the drum for companies to further utilize online marketing strategies and tactics to grow their business.
But once again, many are delaying to move forward.
Why?
Well, for a lot of the same reasons they may have had back then. They don’t have time for it. They don’t understand it. They’re not sure how it can truly help.
Grow Socially Is Here For You
Whatever the reason may be though, I’m happy to tell you that the team here at Grow Socially can help you to push forward.
We do not want you to look back a year from now, two years from now, etc., and regret that you didn’t start using online marketing sooner to grow your business.
We offer a wide-variety of services that can help to address whatever questions and concerns you may have, and then execute marketing efforts that will help you to achieve business objectives.
To learn just how we can do this, register for a no-pressure demo for our team today >>
Happy Social Media Day! We’re thrilled to share that tomorrow is Mashable‘s third annual Social Media Day and since we absolutely love social media, we thought we would share how we use social media in our company.
Grow Socially uses social media to post photos from trade shows on Facebook, upload videos of employees speaking at conferences on YouTube, tweet about webinars on Twitter, and so much more. It is safe to say that we use social media on a daily basis throughout our company. We also love following our customers on Twitter, and seeing their photos on Facebook as well.
So what are you waiting for?… Get out there and start tweeting, posting and “liking”!
Want to learn more about social media? We can help your company get on social media. Contact us today.
It is that time of year again —- students are graduating and looking to start the next chapter in their lives. This year, like many others, interlinkONE & Grow Socially have awarded scholarships to four local students.
Mike Ciampa, Trevor Foley, and Kelly DiCicco from Wilmington High School along with Jess Kenney from Shawsheen Valley Technical High School (Billerica, MA) have been selected as this year’s winners.
We hope that the scholarships help Mike, Trevor, Kelly, and Jess in their quest to further their educations. To all graduates of the class of 2012, interlinkONE & Grow Socially would like to say: “Congratulations and Best of Luck!”
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to return to my alma mater, Curry College to speak to the Continuing Ed. Marketing class and the M.B.A. Public Relations class with Professors Bob MacNeil and Tony Fabrizio, as well as Curry’s Director of the M.B.A. program William Topper .
The group of 26 attentive students were terrific as I spoke with them about the origins of Grow Socially, our client and fan base, as well as what business practices we use and how it relates to their current courses. We spoke at length about what clients want to get out of the social media marketing efforts, and why an increasing amount of companies are outsourcing these services in 2012.
They asked some great questions and had a tremendous amount of feedback about how social media marketing has influenced them not just as marketing students, but as consumers as well. It was a rewarding experience for me to be able to share some stories and facts with Curry students as well as see some familiar faces.
I’d like to thank everyone at Curry for having me back and look forward to possibly returning to the Milton, MA campus again in the near future!
…….Also thanks for this awesome mug!
Follow Graham on Twitter
The Grow Socially crew is heading down to Austin, TX for the annual SXSW Interactive Festival. Come find Graham or Dena around town between 3/8-3/14 2012 to scan the LifeDesk QR code and you could win one of these ergonomically enhanced amazing desks (and $800 value!)
Follow @GrowSocially
@GrahamSpector
and @TheLifeDesk for updates!
South By Southwest Interactive is rapidly approaching and we at Grow Socially couldn’t be more excited about it!
Last year, we had a whirlwind, non-stop few days in Austin and this year will be even bigger. Myself and Dena will both be at the mecca of technology and social media conferences in the capital of Texas from 3/7-3/12 so be sure to tweet them both if you’d like to connect if you’re at #SXSWi as well.
If you’ve ever attended any week of SXSW be it Interactive, Music, or Film; then you know that even the best laid plans eventually get thrown out the window as the city of Austin takes on a life of its own for a few weeks every March. Impromptu meetups, traffic issues, last minute changes, alterations, and cancellations are all a part of the environment of SXSW. The “Fly by the seat of your pants” feel of the event gives it that energy that no other industry based conference can give you.
With that in mind, here are 30 sessions, panels, meetups, podcasts, and parties that you just may be able to find the Grow Socially crew at…..
- Get Smart! Hack Your Brain for Peak Performance
- What’s ‘The Next Big Thing’ in Social Networking?
- TechKaraoke SXSW
- Likeable Social Media
- The Dark Side of Social Networks: Malware & Fraud
- Is That Your Final Offer? Mobile Dynamic Pricing
- Social + Location + Mobile = The Perfect Beer
- Social Media Is a Bubble and SXSW Is a Fad
- Marketing’s Shift from Waterfall to Agile
- PearHaven Launch Happy Hour
- Still Invisible? Waging Stories with Social Media
- What Makes Asset Sharing Platforms Thrive?
- Copy Matters: Content Strategy for the Interface
- Razorfish Happy Hour
- WTF with Marc Maron – LIVE Podcast
- Is Social Media a Human Right?
- SOPA Media Coverage Dissected
- Big Social Media Results at Small Organizations
- Mobile Payment Takes Lesson from Credit Industry
- WARNING: Are Online Reviews Bad for Your Health?
- Google Village
- TechKaraoke SXSW
- The Mix at Six presented by Can We Network
- The Present of Print: Paper’s Persistence
- Making a Grand Entrance: How to Launch a Product
- Afternoon Event: Registrants Lounge presented by MOFILM
- The Cloud as Skynet: Conquering Digital Overload
-
……So there you have it! Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to pack some aspirin and Red Bull.
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FROM THE BLOG
Benefits of the Top 4 Social Media Networks || Read More
May 21, 2013
Success through Onsite-Offsite Blogging || Read More
May 17, 2013
12 Ways to Incorporate Social Media into Events || Read More
May 15, 2013
