News flash, the online networks are increasing daily through social media outlets such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Well this is not exactly breaking news in fact these social media gorillas have member increases by the minute. Each day the number of users worldwide that login to Facebook and LinkedIn are increasing. It was estimated not long ago that Facebook had over 350 million users, probably closer to 400 million by now and LinkedIn with over 50+ million users to date. If your business is global you can sure bank on increasing foreign numbers as well considering roughly 70% of Facebook users come from outside the US.
There are many reasons to set up a Facebook Fan Page or a LinkedIn profile to act as a bridge to contacts, consumers and friends all over the world. Setting up a business fan page on Facebook and creating a LinkedIn profile allows at the very least for people to find you or your website through back linking. When you’re able to create an online presence and marketing buzz you create momentum and drive traffic to your website. This is a goal that can be reached when you use these social media tools. Depending on your target market or your business you can determine which one works best but you should certainly set up both accounts. Here are some reasons you should consider.
1. A Facebook Fan Page creates a platform to provide prospects, contacts and customers to connect with your business. You can provide company news feeds, sale information, set up a calendar for upcoming events. Another communication bridge is always a positive.
2. When you set up a fan page you can invite friends and colleagues on Facebook to join your page. When they subscribe they will be informed of company happenings which also creates word of mouth buzz. A friend in need is a friend indeed.
3. The most important reason to set up a Facebook Fan Page is it creates brand recognition and awareness. You can explain your business and or services for anyone on Facebook to view. These are just three proven reasons for creating a fan page and for reasons on using LinkedIn are discussed below.
1. LinkedIn can be described as the formal version of social media. LinkedIn is a business network for educated and connected people that can help bridge the gap for job opportunities, networking, job postings and just a great way to connect with industry leaders.
2. A LinkedIn profile can be used as a running resume, so to speak, that can help keep your contacts up to date with current projects or recommendations. Another great feature of LinkedIn is you can request recommendations from previous relationships or jobs that act as your own review source.
3. Visibility. If we haven’t emphasized it enough, if you stay active in social media you’re staying active with your community.
There are many reasons to use Facebook and LinkedIn and the applications and way we search the web are changing with each passing month. Social media is a great platform to promote, help, correspond, advertise and educate.
Successful Business Uses for Facebook and LinkedIn (GF202)
So you’re on the fast track to business success. You’ve just created a business website and you can’t wait to make that first online sale. Your website is perfect in your opinion and it couldn’t be more colorful and full of images. It’s a sure thing your sales will rapidly increase! A few months pass by and you’re still waiting. Why aren’t people visiting my website and why haven’t we had as much as a sniff at a sale? While there could be many reasons surrounding this problem, one of the most common is lack of SEO.
Search Engine Optimization makes it easier for search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, to locate, categorize, index and rank web content. It’s not uncommon for small business owners to establish a website but not establish a web presence. Put it this way, if your website content is not optimized it’s comparable to having a billboard on a dessert island. It’s there but no one is looking! It’s important to provide excellent, optimized content to get noticed.
If you are involved in inbound marketing or have an inbound marketing consultant helping you with your online marketing, chances are SEO has been employed. If you’re a small business owner handling your internet marketing and are unfamiliar with SEO, listen up because it’s important you understand why you need SEO.
It would take a very long time to present the overall benefits and SEO tactics since they are changing constantly. We’ll give you a brief overview of why it’s important and some simple strategies you can use to help your efforts. It’s important to first establish some keywords you would like your website to focus on that encompass your business. What words are most relevant? A good source to help you with this would be http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. To give you an example, say your website is based on classic cars. When you type in “classic cars” into the keyword box it returns a number of related keywords. Not only does it return related keywords but it will provide how often these keywords are searched. This is a very beneficial tool to help you determine the keywords you want your content to be focused around and be sure your updating your content frequently and check back with this tool to stay search current.
Another integral part of your website, that may be missing, is using keywords in your Title Tags, Heading, Paragraph titles, Meta description tag and Alt image to name a few. All of these can be updated if you have access to your website’s control panel. Now if you use WordPress you can download an SEO pack to make this even easier. If you’re not quite sure if these parts have been optimized, look at the very top blue bar, this is your Title tag. If your Title tag is not keyword rich and does not give a description of your website, there’s a good possibility your website has not be optimized. To use your Title tag as an example, it needs to be 8-10 words and focus on 1-2 keyword phrases. Each page on your website should have a unique Title tag.
Another easy way to increase your SEO efforts is to use links to build traffic. If you’re putting out unique content through social media marketing or just commenting on industry related blogs, you can create links back to your website. If you want to get fancy, you can always search down authoritative or relevant websites and ask for a link exchange. You put their link on your website and vice versa. If not, look to write articles with keyword rich content and use embedded links in the article that will link back to relevant material on your website. There are many ways to approach this so it’s just another simple way to get link traffic.
Some other beneficial ways would be submitting your website to free and paid directories, job listings, press releases, social media accounts, social book marking and even through affiliate programs. The fact is even if you are not tech savvy there are ways to improve your website’s SEO. The first step should always go back to researching keywords and knowing how to use these words or phrases. Small business marketing will need to have some form of SEO makeover to make the site relevant and noticed online. It does require some time and patience, trial and error, but the end result will be very beneficial.
SEO Crash Course to Get Found (GF102)
