One challenge for small businesses is being found online. Another challenge is developing marketing strategies to acquire new customers and retain existing customers.

How much time do you spend working your online marketing strategy?

Is it working for you? Or is it hit-and-miss because you find it takes so much time bouncing between different tools and platforms? Do you feel you’re making as much progress as you’d like?

Let’s look at several online tools your business should be using, how easy these tools are to use, and how to access all of these tools from one place.

When prospective clients and customers browse LinkedIn for people they want to do business with, the first section they look at is your Profile.

Is yours fully optimized?

If you’re not sure what “fully optimized” means in relation to your LinkedIn Profile, here are a few tips you can do to bring more attention to your Business and your Profile.

Did you just clean out your closet or have some miscellaneous items to sell? Or are looking for something unique to buy? Facebook Marketplace is the new “it” place to buy and sell just about anything and everything.

Check out these quick tips for both Sellers and Buyers!

There’s huge competition for Businesses to rank well for organic Local search results. Here are a few Tips to follow that will help your Business rank higher.

Make Your Blog / Website Content Relate to Local Search

Your goal is to create Web and Social content with a Local twist!

With the surging popularity of Stories (in Instagram) and the increased rate of users following Businesses - it's always good to revisit, refresh and refine your Instagram presence and strategy.

Instagram has recently published tips and information to guide you through several areas that many people - especially Businesses - need help with.

According to Facebook, almost 50% of buyers start shopping online in November (or earlier) for the upcoming holidays.

Just recently Facebook debuted several new features to assist Businesses with their holiday marketing. Facebook says their goal is to make it easier for all business entities to create vibrant marketing visuals with customizable Stories Templates.

Google My Business messaging via SMS (text messaging) will no longer be available, and will transition to the Google My Business app. After November 15th you'll no longer receive a text when customers reach out to you.

To keep messaging active for your business and continue using messaging with Google My Business, you'll need to download the GMB mobile app.

Messaging in the Google My Business app lets you receive and reply to messages free of charge. You can keep a record of your conversations and easily access reviews, bookings, insights, and other Google My Business app features.

If you're currently using Google My Business messaging via text (SMS), you'll need to download the latest version of the Google My Business app. Once the app is installed, you can turn on messaging. You’ll then receive and respond to messages in the app only - not via text.

You can engage with your readers and have conversations across both Facebook and Instagram platforms from the Facebook integrated "Inbox".

Do you know how to respond to Instagram DMs (Direct Messages) while logged into your Facebook pages?
It's easy and can save you time managing both Facebook Pages and Instagram accounts.

Facebook announced (May, 2019) it’s rolled out a long tested feature for businesses to book appointments directly on Facebook and Instagram.

You’ll need to be a Page admin, editor or moderator to set this up to allow customers to schedule Appointments and Events with a “Book Now” button on your Facebook Business page.

Business Benefits include:

• It’s Free.

• Customer Convenience.

• Attract New Customers.

• Save Time, easy to manage with connected Business Calendar.

• Manage all appointments from your Facebook Business page

Many Brands using Twitter as part of their Social Media strategy to reach a larger target audience, experience a ripple effect that includes:

• Community Building.
• Generating new Leads and Sales.
• Expanded Customer Service.
• Increased Brand Recognition.
• More Traffic to Your Website.

If you’re already using Twitter as part of your marketing strategy, or are about to start - here's a few things to remember so you don't come across as the new kid on the block.

Most small business owners agree that marketing on Social Media benefits their business.

Most small business owners agree those Brands without a Social Media presence are missing opportunities to engage with potential customers and risk losing them to their competition.

Do those same small business owners understand how to balance their Personal and Business online appearance?

Do You?

Sometimes we receive connection requests from people we already thought we had a connection with. If we in fact already do have a connection with that person, and they’re sending another request – it’s because they have more than one LinkedIn account.

How Might a Duplicate LinkedIn Account Happen?

The most common reason a duplicate LinkedIn account occurs is when a person receives an Email invitation to join LinkedIn, and sets up another account using an Email address not associated with the already established profile.

WahLa! Another LinkedIn account is in the system for the same person.

Is your Business one of the over 500 million active users on Instagram Stories each day?

If not - maybe it’s time to get on board. Stories offers ridiculous potential for companies to extend their reach and invigorate engagement amongst their fan base as well as those unfamiliar with their Brand.

Sliding through Instagram Stories can be riveting for many people, and it's difficult for them to exit rather than continue watching. Business owners are taking advantage of the Stories feature to reach large audiences with timely content, while boosting Brand awareness.

Small business websites are able to compete in the Google search engine results by following a few pertinent methods. Regularly audit your site and tweak new content to be sure all is in order.

Here are a few things to pay attention to:

1) Incorporate Schema markup (code that helps search engines return more relevant information to the searcher).

What Exactly IS Organic Reach?

The term “Organic Reach” is basically a marketing metric. This metric is based upon the number of ‘unique individuals’ that have viewed content. On social media, it could be a post, stories, video, etc.

Organic Reach excludes paid promotional ads, and the use of promotional tools that manipulate a higher visibility ratio.

Check out these tips to help you increase your social media's organic reach.

Whether you're creating a Headline introducing a new product, running a sales or Adwords campaign, posting to social media, writing an article or organizing a newsletter - the Headline is the magnet that initiates the click.

People will not take the time to read anything you've written/posted unless the Headline is intriguing to them. You want people to feel they have no choice but to satisfy their curiosity and read further.

Instagram has steadily been evolving into a viable platform for Business owners to establish their presence and cultivate new sales. Learning as much as you can about Instagram helps you to make better posting and advertising decisions.

Let’s see how much you know already:

How many Monthly Active Advertisers are on Instagram?

Are you just getting your feet wet with social media?

Are you a seasoned social media maven?

Either way – here’s a list of helpful and free social media strategies to help build your business.

Over 800+ million people visit Facebook each month to buy and sell things. If you’re an online business selling products and/or services, the FB Marketplace may be a good fit for you to extend your Brand on a Local level.

The Facebook Marketplace is a free option that allows businesses to sell products and services. If you're selling products online, you can sell in the Facebook Marketplace. If you run a home business, you can also sell on the MarketPlace. If you’re a local business providing a Service, you can sell on the Marketplace. The Marketplace is a combination of Craigslist, OfferUp and LetGo, all in one place.

A few things businesses and Brands shouldn’t be doing on Social Media:

#1: Offering Up Sub-Par Customer Service

Social Media translates to immediate engagement. People often post questions, complaints and concerns online - rather than calling and sitting on hold waiting for a sales representative. When online inquiries and audience concerns are ignored or you take days to answer, they'll likely just move on to another Brand to do business with.

A Blog that’s regularly updated with new content will compliment your business website and also:

• Give insight into your business and what your expertise is.

• Encourage people to visit every day to see what’s new.

• Attract New Buying Customers.

• Increase more traffic to your website.

Engagement Defined

Engagement is more about the level of involvement with your Brand content rather than about the size of your cumulative audience.

Engagement rates on any social media channel is basically the measure of how loyal your followers are to you and your business.

Engagement Parameters

Key elements for tracking Engagement are:

• Followers
• Comments
• Share and Reposts

How Important is Engagement?

Instagram uses Engagement as a metric to calculate where your content appears in a followers feed. The Engagement metric reflects follower activity and interaction. Instagram translates Engagement as a sign that followers want to see more of your content, resulting in a higher placement level in their feeds.

Check out these 7 Tips for Growing Your Business Facebook Organic Reach. Here is the first:

#1 – Post and Schedule Consistent Content

Facebook can become a direct line of communication between you and your audience. When people begin to view you as an authority in your niche, the information you post will begin forming a connection your viewers will count on. They’ll share and like your posts more frequently.

Create a weekly schedule for your Facebook posts and stick to it. Include images, and video when possible. Take advantage of holidays and events to post personal and business related content.

What is Snapchat?

Snap, Inc states they are “a camera company”.

“We believe that reinventing the camera represents our greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate. We contribute to human progress by empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together”.

Snapchat allows users to capture and send “Snaps” which are only viewable for a set duration between 1 to 10 seconds before they automatically delete, or with no time limitation until they are closed by the recipient.

Snapchat users have an option to save specific snaps on a private storage area with the “Memories” feature. Users can see locations on a map where other people make their snaps.

Using custom Facebook Frames will give a unique twist for your business page and/or to share images with your followers. Great to use for personalizing profile photos, page photos and for business event frames.

A LinkedIn Business page serves several purposes:

• Allows a Business to tell their story.

• Allows a Business to Educate others on their Services and Products.

• Allows a Business to Individualize themselves against their Competitors.

• Allows for Engagement with prospects, customers and employee candidates.

• Allows a Business to Network and build Referral relationships for Sales Leads.

• Allows a Business to Create a Public Image on an International scale.

Hootsuite is a posting and scheduling app to manage one or multiple social media profiles, posts and post scheduling. Just add posts, and Hootsuite will auto-process to your selected accounts. Extensions are available to work within Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera.

What Are Google Posts?

Rolled out to all businesses mid - 2017, Google My Business Posts are a feature within Google My Business that allows businesses to publish content directly to Google’s search results.

Deleting your Facebook account will permanently remove all of your personal data including photo albums, likes and timeline information.

• You can't regain access once it's deleted.

• Facebook delays deletion a few days after it's requested. A deletion request is cancelled if you log back into your Facebook account during this time period, usually 14 days.

• Facebook may take up to 90 days to delete data stored in their backup systems. Your information isn't accessible on Facebook during this time period.

• Certain information, such as messaging history, isn't stored in your account. This means Friends may still have access to messages you sent after your account has been deleted.

• Copies of some material such as log records may remain in the Facebook database but are disassociated from personal identifiers.

Launching in 2008 as a powerful Twitter social media tool, Social oomph has expanded to a fully featured posting and scheduling app that easily lets you manage one or multiple social media profiles, posts and post scheduling.

Social oomph currently supports Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, App.net and Plurk, plus any Blog platform that has an XML-RPC remote publishing API. You can also automatically create social updates from RSS feed entries.

Buffer is a posting and scheduling app to manage one or multiple social media profiles, posts and post scheduling. Just add posts and Buffer will auto-process to your selected social accounts. With this app, you can add content to Buffer from any website without signing in. Extensions are available to work within Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera.

Most marketers find it's a never ending challenge to keep their brand relevant while capturing the attention of their audience. With Video more prevalent now in social media than ever before - it's extremely important to use the correct social media video specifications and advertising video sizes. To avoid technical difficulties, and promote a positive user experience – note that each platform has it’s own set of video criteria.

The key to social media is to offer good, useful or funny content and to post it regularly to engage your audience.

Download our social media topics list and tips to help keep you on track when posting to your social media accounts. Always include a good photo or video. Remember, you don’t always have to create new content, sharing counts!

What is ORM – Online Reputation Management?
Quite simply, Online Reputation Management (ORM) is about influencing, controlling or restoring the good standing of an individual, group, business and/or Brand.

A Good Defense is a Great Offense
From the minute your website hits the internet - that’s the time to commit to a consistent schedule for online monitoring and building your brand deep and wide. Brand reputation management takes time and diligence.

If you don’t have time to do it yourself, then contract with a reputable source to perform the tedious tracking and monitoring steps involved. Identifying and nipping negative reviews / online comments in the bud is essential.

Awful images vs great images can be the difference between getting viewer attention, and being totally ignored.

Bringing attention to you and/or your brand is why you post on social media - so make your images work for you by making sure they're optimized using correct dimension and resolution criteria for each platform.

Awful images vs great images can be the difference between getting viewer attention, and being totally ignored.

Bringing attention to you and/or your brand is why you post on social media - so make your images work for you by making sure they're optimized using correct dimension and resolution criteria for each platform.

Awful images vs great images can be the difference between getting viewer attention, and being totally ignored.

Bringing attention to you and/or your brand is why you post on social media - so make your images work for you by making sure they're optimized using correct dimension and resolution criteria for each platform.

Awful images vs great images can be the difference between getting viewer attention, and being totally ignored.

Bringing attention to you and/or your brand is why you post on social media - so make your images work for you by making sure they're optimized using correct dimension and resolution criteria for each platform.

Awful images vs great images can be the difference between getting viewer attention, and being totally ignored.

Bringing attention to you and/or your brand is why you post on social media - so make your images work for you by making sure they're optimized using correct dimension and resolution criteria for each platform.

How often do you leave online Reviews for companies you buy products and/or services from?

Learn here why it’s important for us to take the time to post online Reviews, and how to do them well.

Leaving Positive Reviews:

• Are useful only when they’re relevant, trustworthy and useful.

• Increases potential customer trust level.

• Offers insight into a company’s customer service and products.

• Allows businesses to reward their staff for a job well done, and the opportunity to look into areas needing improvement.

Did You Know:

• Consumers trust Reviews only if it translates to them as authentic.

• On average, 88% of online shoppers make a purchase decision based on Reviews.

• On average, 84% of customers place the same level of trust in online Reviews as they do a personal recommendation.

• Consumers say their primary motivation for leaving an online Review is to “help other people”.

When a person visits your Facebook page and clicks on your Cover Photo, the photo will open up to display a Description. 

When you first add a cover photo to your Facebook account, or whenever you change your cover photo, you have the ability to add text and html link codes (hyperlinks) to the Cover Photo Description.

With Facebook frequently adding new options, you may want to evaluate your page and see if you’re utilizing Facebook to its fullest potential for your business.

Think back to when you first set up your Facebook Business page.

Did you build your Business page to evolve into a unique community?
Or did you build your Business page just because everyone said you had to have one for Social Media reach?
Do you add Valuable Content for your fan base?
Do you Start meaningful Conversations?
Do you Respond to fan Comments?

Most companies setting up a Facebook business page have the following goals in mind: Reach Targeted Audience, Build Brand Awareness, Create Brand Loyalty, Increase Traffic to Website, and Generate Leads that Convert to Sales

These goals can be realized by attending to your page with the attitude of building a Community. Adding value applicable to different segments of your audience, starting conversations, and posting a variety of content relevant to your business and brand, both on a professional and personal level - will all help to build a loyal Community.

If you’ve been using Instagram for a while, you may not have used “Stories” before. It’s a nice element that comes with Instagram and allows you to add custom photos and short videos to share with your followers.

The Instagram Story function was released mid 2016 and is only visible on mobile devices. There’s a 24 hour availability window for Stories to run on Instagram, then they drop off, with a new 24 hour cycle of Stories appearing.

Enhance your Facebook Business Page with a Call-To-Action button and make it easy for clients / customers to start food orders, make a reservation, shop your products, book a hair appointment and so much more! Not sure how to configure your Facebook Call-To-Action Button? Check out our step by step directions.

A Podcast is a series of audio or video recordings. 

A Podcast episode is one audio or video file from that series. The word 'Podcast' refers to a series of audio or video files, while a 'podcast episode' is one audio file from that series. 

Podcasts are similar to Radio shows and each Podcast series will have a specific theme. Each Podcast episode will talk about a particular subject in that theme. 

LinkedIn was launched in 2003, has over 500 million members in 200 countries as of April, 2017, and is touted as “the place” for B2B online connections, and uniquely allows you to present yourself as a Brand. 

Predominantly revolving around careers, LinkedIn allows users to share content and network with peers and professionals on all levels. Businesses small and large have found LinkedIn to be an essential piece of their marketing strategy, with case studies showing on average that LinkedIn drives the most customers to B2B companies.

Where B2B companies acquired customers:

LinkedIn at 65%
Their Own Company Blog at 55%
Facebook at 43%
Twitter at 40%

Learn more about Best Practices for Setting Up and Using LinkedIn

Here are a few online tools to assist with content promotion that you may or may not be familiar with, and can be used in conjunction with your Social Media promotion efforts.

Photos are one of the greatest tools we have at our disposal when making a brand-new website, blogging, and adding new life to a social media page. But many people fail to understand that there are laws and regulations governing how photos can and can’t be used. Typing your desired subject into a Google search and simply copying the images from Google isn’t exactly legal. To be specific, it isn’t legal at all.

Using social media to grow your business has become a standard in the marketing world. Any business can benefit from reaching out to their customers on social media platforms. However, some of us have an odd tendency to only focus on one platform at a time. While it might be slightly more cost effective to dedicate those budget dollars towards one specific platform and focus on perfecting it, the reality is that ignoring other social media networks is a really bad idea.

Some social media sites offer a much bigger audience than others, but ignoring additional potential growth from other sites is a big mistake, especially when similar content can be utilized for nearly all platforms.

One such site to look out for is Snapchat. This social media platform has grown rapidly over the past few years. It is estimated that out of all social media users out there, about 23% of them are using Snapchat or at least have a valid Snapchat account.