Social Media: Photos Drive Twice As Much Engagement

social media facebook photosWhen marketers talk about social media and what businesses can do to engage customers using social media, they often limit their discussion to prescribed frequency and content of text posts. Granted, the bulk of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media posts will be short bursts of text. But some networks, like Facebook, lend themselves so well to photos (pics) that there are 250 million uploaded each day (making Facebook the biggest photos site in the world).

And, photos on social media networks drive twice as much engagement as text posts.

The growth of apps like Instagram is another indicator of the power of pics when it comes to social media. For businesses, photos allow for subtle marketing because each photo can accomplish a number of things:

1. At the simplest level, showcases new products, driving traffic to your site

2. Shows customers how to use or enjoy your products

3. Encourages customer feedback

4. Provides visual inspiration

5. Gives insight into your creative process

On number 5: All businesses may not be creative businesses, but all businesses need creative thinking to thrive. This is the kind of thing your followers and your new potential customers want to see – it’s part of why they approach you on social media to start with.

Using Photos on Social Media Correctly

Not all photos need to be product-centric. Related trends, pop culture references, and other examples that you are a vibrant and productive participant in your particular industry, are important. If you were a clothing designer, for instance, you would want to post photos of food or musicians that embody the aesthetic of your latest line.

What To Do Now

Tell us about your company. Join in our creative process in bringing out what it is about your company that will inspire social media engagement and drive traffic to your site.

 

Internet Marketing Tips | 5 Pivotal Points

internet marketing

Internet Marketing Pivot Points

5 Important Pillars of Internet Marketing.

1. Blogs

–Register your blog with popular directories
–Have your newest blog posts appear on your LinkedIn Profile and Facebook status with links back to the blog
–Read top blogs in your industry, and then post comments with helpful information and links back to your own blog or Web site.

2. Social media can be a great way to get the word out about your company or product. Effective internet marketing can help accomplish this goal.

–Did you know Facebook has more than 200 million users? Facebook allows you to create free fan pages about your business.
–LinkedIn is a professional network that includes allowing companies to create profiles.
–Manage your social networking presence and engage in consistent participation with your connections. Nutshell Mail is a service that brings users a summary of their social network updates to their inbox in a single email delivered to them on their schedule.

3. Monitor Your Cyberspace Presence

We’ve all heard of “Google-ing” someone or something… Keep an active eye on what’s posted on the Internet about you and your business. Assume that your clients and prospects are in the know about what’s out there. Searching your name on Google and Twitter can tell you several important things:

–What people are saying about your business
–Whether your work is being used without your permission
–Whether someone else is using your personal or business name

If your reputation is in trouble and you’re finding negative or false information, you may need professional assistance to fix the problem. Evaluate if you need legal representation or public relations and press release solutions.

4. Be consistent with your online message and branding

–Coordinate and integrate marketing communications tools within your business. By doing this, the business’s brand message will be consistent in all possibilities.
–Integrating communications helps eliminate confusion from the consumer and builds brand strength.

All advertising media selections, creative designs, and public relations efforts should strive to match the message, media, and audience, so the right person sees and/or hears the advertisement or internet marketing piece and can recognize the business and its brand consistency.

5. Apply Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to your web site

SEO is a great way to increase your online revenue stream. SEO allows you to:

–Develop and arrange your site’s content and navigation to be fully optimized
–Drive more traffic to your Web site
–Maximize your Internet exposure

If these pointers seemed like an avalanche of information, imagine executing all of these functions on a daily basis. It could get overwhelming. This is when it’s time to consider outsourcing the work to a team of industry veterans who will keep your business’ best interest at the forefront. At iQuarius Media we work on these different facets on a daily basis, so feel free to contact us and we can discuss how to make your online presence effective.

Copywriting Best Practices To Make Your Ad Copy Sizzle

copywritingCopywriting such as landing page copy, blog posts and writing effective email blasts’ is more art than science. Producing consistent web traffic boils down to:
writing outstanding content.

Writing Effective Landing Page Copy

Producing great landing page copy is a little different than writing, say, a blog post. There are some landing page copywriting nuances that, though seemingly minor, have a huge impact on conversions. So if you’re looking for the quickest way to create a great landing page, invest your time in creating copy that follows these landing page copywriting best practices.

Copywriting tips:

  • Use Action-Oriented Language
  • Use Value-Oriented Language
  • Use Reader Keywords
  • Go for Clarity Over Creativity
  • Format
  • Proof for Consistency

Keep in mind that the time and effort it takes to write effectively may be too much for one or two people to manage. That’s when it’s time to consider outsourcing the work to a team of writers who live and breathe copywriting.  At iQuarius Media, that is one of the many services we offer our clients. Please, feel free to browse our portfolio and let us know if we can be of service. Thanks.

 

Article Marketing and Syndication

article marketingInternet article marketing — or press release marketing — is an Internet marketing technique that subtly advertises products and services in online article directories. Article directories having good page rank receive a high volume of traffic and are considered authority sites by search engines. These directories then pass on PageRank to the author’s website and also sends traffic from readers.

More than just the dissemination of information that they used to be in traditional media, article syndication is a powerful and practical tool in branding and SEO.

A properly-worded article has the potential to garner thousands of backlinks — a smart technique for ranking well in the search engine — with the potential for an immense return for a relatively small investment. We can also monitor and analyze the impact of your articles so you can keep abreast of what it is you’re paying for.

iQuarius Media has an arsenal of experienced writers, verbally apt programmers, and SEO specialists to help you create compelling content and take full advantage of Internet article marketing.

______________________________________________

BASIC Article Submission

  • News sent to search engines and thousands of news outlets
  • Distribution through Newswire Today, PRLeap, and non-premium and local sources
  • Includes visibility on Google, Yahoo, Lycos, Ask.com, Bing, and MSN searches
  • Appears in Google News (via RSS), About.com, Topix.com, Boston.com, Bing News, BusinessNewsNewsNews, del.ici.ous, ForbesFinder, NewswireToday UK, PRToday.com, PRZoom, etc.
  • Automatic Twitter Posting (Custom Twitter Message)
  • “Share This” buttons
  • Permanent hosting on PRLeap.com
  • Keyword Anchor Text Links
  • May attach 1 photo/video/file

STANDARD Article Submission

BASIC, plus:

  • Optimized for search engines and use of social media sharing technologies for distribution through Twitter, Facebook, Technorati, Digg, LinkedIn, etc.
  • Distribution through Newswire Today, PRLeap, PRWeb, and various non-premium and local sites
  • More than 250,000 subscribers and 30,000+ journalists and bloggers on PRWeb
  • Ability to target distribution: choose 5 industries and 3 regions to reach
  • Anchor text links and custom URLs
  • Personalized RSS feed within release
  • Permanent hosting

PREMIUM Article Submission

BASIC+STANDARD, plus:

  • Published to the full battery of news and PR sites: PRWeb, PRNewswire, PRLeap, Newswire Today, various non-premium and local sites
  • More than 250,000 subscribers and 30,000+ journalists and bloggers on PRWeb and up to 1,000,000 unique monthly visitors to PRNewswire
  • Interactive new release
  • Ability to embed business and merchandise images
  • Ability to add video
  • Distribution to outlets such as USA Today, NY Times, Washington Post, etc., through the Associated Press

Social Media Marketing and Optimization in 140 Characters or Less

social media marketingSocial media hasn’t just grown – it’s exploded! Millions of conversations are taking place online each day.

Companies are being made or broken hourly — sometimes in 140 characters or less.

Are you trying to find value hidden in the millions of Twitter and Facebook conversations taking place every day? According to Nielsen Online, social media networks and blogs have surpassed even email in global popularity, and are growing at a rate of more than three times as fast as overall internet growth. It’s now more critical than ever to develop your strategy to engage, monitor and analyze social media. If you have have been paying attention to social media, you will know how vital it is in laying the foundation for your success. Learn the most effective ways to both monitor and analyze the conversation.

  1. Get a clear understanding of your online corporate reputation.
  2. Interact directly with your customers.
  3. Uncover potential sales opportunities for your company.

Social media has many more applications than just visibility on the Internet. Companies are using social media for product development, recruitment, brand building, business development, customer relationship-building, as well as for public relation exercises. It allows for a more healthy relationship between the company and the consumer, allowing direct interaction and transparency.

Social Media Marketing Checklist

social media marketing checklistWith all the noise and bright lights of the Internet, and with people’s attention spans getting shorter, we need to constantly create awareness about  our products, services, and businesses. Social Media marketing makes this lot easier, cheaper, and faster.

But how can we make ourselves heard over the din? The answer is by pursuing a Social Media marketing strategy which includes all relevant aspects and avenues.

The Social Media Marketing Checklist

  • Blogs. Any marketing strategy should start with blogs. If used intelligently, blogs can be a great traffic source — and the SEO benefits are immense.
  • Microblogging. It took the world by surprise in the year 2012. Twitter has been very popular and is a great tool for business promotion, but needs to be used consistently. 2010 saw Google come up with its own version of microblogging – Buzz – but all their efforts lately have been pouring into Google Plus, or G+.
  • Online video. Video sharing accounts for a major part of Internet traffic. The success of YouTube, Vimeo, etc., is an indicator of how people have embraced this media.
  • Photo sharing. Another great platform for social marketing. Flickr and Photobucket are the most widely used websites. And now there’s Pinterest, taking the social media world by storm over the past few months.
  • Podcasting. Podcasting is a new tool that is offered to promote your brand, services, and products.
  • Social networks Apps, fan pages, groups, and personalities: social networks are the platforms for personal communication with friends or with shared-interest groups. Facebook apps and fan pages are some of great ways to connect with customers and create awareness.
  • Presentation sharing. Sites like SlideShare, MyPlick, Scribd, AuthorSTREAM, or Myplickallow you to share document and presentation. Pinterest also falls under this group. Promoting yourself or your company is just as easy as uploading a document.
  • Bookmarking. Social bookmarking is a method for web users to share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of websites. Examples of popular social bookmarking websites: Delicious, Digg, Mixx, Propeller, Reddit, Slashdot, StumbleUpon, and Yahoo! Buzz.
  • Discussion boards and forums. Online forums are a great way to market your products and services and discuss the same with other your audience. Engaging your audience in your niche forum is a powerful way to capture that Internet niche for your business.
  • Content aggregation.  Content aggregation enables you to bring all news and feeds around your online communities accounts in one place. This may well be the future of social media marketing.
  • Brand monitoring. There are any number of ways companies can promote & position their brands effectively through the use of social media marketing.
  • Review Sites. Review sites like Yelp and Getsatisfaction enable people to write reviews about services and products. These can literally make or mar a company’s reputation.
  • Widgets. Great tool for promoting brands. By creating useful widgets, brands can create awareness and recall value.
  • Wikis. Wikis are very much like an online encyclopaedia with user contribution, making the possibilities almost endless.

We wouldn’t be surprised if you had some questions about your current marketing strategy and what more you could fit into it. We’d be surprised if we couldn’t answer those questions. Thanks. iQuarius.

Best Western Takes Booking to Facebook

best western on FacebookBest Western has stepped up their use of social media to engage with customers — they are now offering hotel booking through Facebook.

Big business is just doing on a grand scale what we as small- to medium-sized businesses can do with similar return. Businesses like Best Western look to social media to cut costs left and right and engage directly with customers. Social media is where businesses is conducted these days, period.

[see vide0 here]

 “Best Western introduces Facebook booking, so you can now reserve your hotel without ever leaving Facebook. The company joins other hotel brands who’ve already taken business to the social network.”

Credit Mashable.

Pinterest for Businesses: Branding, Direct Traffic, and So Much Fun

pinterestPinterest works almost like a never-ending magazine with just the prettiest, most-loved pictures. That’s great for people wanting to browse through vintage wedding dresses, recipes, or artwork…but what does that mean for a business?

Pinterest just cracked the list of Top 10 Social Media sites. So, a lot, apparently.

1. Collect visual material

You can collect pics that you come across – on your hard drive, or on the Internet – into your Boards. All it takes is a single click and you can Pin. Great for personal use, but for businesses, especially visual-centric ones like designers or artists, can use this as an opportunity to showcase their material. If pics are borrowed from places on the Web, Pinterest automatically sources the pic, so that infringement of copyright is minimized. It also means anyone who clicks on an image borrowed from your site can just click straight through to your site. That direct traffic alone may make Pinterest worth it!

2. Give a Presentation Some Oomph

Pinterest is a way to visually represent your ideas. Once that is in place, a Pinterest board can be linked to a PowerPoint presentation; or a screenshot can be printed on a poster board—neat and simple, and looks great.

3. Brand Yourself

Have a brand for yourself or your business? Use Pinterest to help people recognize you as an expert. Want to own a vintage dress boutique someday? Start pinning products from your closet, ads of vintage dresses from days past, or vintage dresses from others’ boards that you love, and people will start to recognize you as the go-to source for beautiful vintage dresses. If you’re a graphic designer, pin your own work, as well as work that you love from others.

If you’re in a less visual industry, you can also post infographics that relate your field, images of work you’ve done, or books, quotes, or poems that you’re reading. And since every pin comes with a source linked, this can also help drive traffic to your site or blog.

4. Engage Your Customers

Again, Pinterest just cracked the list of Top 10 Social Media sites — so if you use social media to market your company or brand, it’s time to consider throwing Pinterest in as part of your mix. Lands’ End recently hosted a (quite successful) contest on Pinterest, asking participants to create a pin board featuring their favorite Lands’ End products. The 10 people who made the best boards won a gift card—and Lands’ End got tons of its products promoted throughout the site.

Pinterest is more than just about play. While you’re being inspired by the stream of new images in your personal life, you can build your business brand and reputation. Get a little organized. Have fun. Call iQuarius with your questions.

Pinterest Infographic | User Trends

The newest social media network on the block is also the hottest: Pinterest. It has amassed millions of users in a few short months, many of whom are women interested in  traditionally picture-heavy interest points, like weddings, fashion, and interior design. Pinterestingly, UK users are mostly male, and their interest is focused more on topics like venture capital and SEO.

pinterest infographic

If you’ve got questions about why this is intensely interesting to social media enthusiasts like ourselves, or how we can leverage Pinterest for you, give us a call.

407-378-7817