17 “No Brainer” Social Media Strategies


17 “No Brainer” Social Media Strategies

By: Matt Bacak

Social media strategies have become an integral part of online marketing ever since the onset of online social media. It took most of us by surprise and marketers did not know how to engage social media services with other aspects of online marketing.

Of late, social media advertising and other social media aspects have dominated the bigger part of online marketing. It is the cheapest and the biggest source of traffic to websites. However, many are not harnessing even 1% of this tremendous resource. I would attribute this to not knowing how to go about this.

In case you haven’t stumbled upon a social media blog to get some tips, these basic tips below will be of great help in tapping more benefit from the social media.

  1. The platform of social media is interaction. Take time to see what your clients and fans are saying on social media. Comment and show that you care.
  2. Social media advertising hails quality of information as first priority. Show how you care and willingness to help, as opposed to selling. Find a balance between these two.
  3. From one of the social media blogs I have been religiously reading, it has been clear that you should not stick to one type of social media. Each media has its strengths and relevance.
  4. Since social media is a daughter to online marketing, make your presence searchable. Optimize it as much as possible.
  5. When crisis about your brand show up on the social media, keep calm. Just have a disaster preparedness plan to counter the tragedies.
  6. Do not let anyone to represent your brand on the social media. Social media strategists advise that it is not right for everyone to participate on behalf of the firm, online. Not all of them believe what your firm believes.
  7. One thing you should not forget is the reason why you are using social media advertising or other strategies. Set realistic goals and remind yourself of them.
  8. Have an efficient way of measuring how effective of your social media strategies are.
  9. Your competitors may be using the same social media services you are. However, you need to be above the edge. Be innovative, or open to them.
  10. Do not ignore your audience. One factor that will affect the quality of your social media services is responding to your audience.
  11. A social media blog taught me not to be impolite online. You may disagree with your audience or competitors; but, save your company from damage control.
  12. Do not set up a social media account if you won’t use it, reduce the social media advertising costs where you can.
  13. With social media services, consider the platform you are using as well as the audience you are trying to reach. Not all of them are equal.
  14. Make your firm as friendly as possible on the online platform. Faceless and nameless companies are not friendly at all.
  15. Grow your social media presence by not only gaining followers, but by winning them as clients.
  16. Handle your countless encounters online just like you would do with real business.
  17. Do not only use social media services to market your products but provide useful information to your followers that they wouldn’t find anywhere else.

Important Tips on How to Build a List Fast

 

Important Tips on How to Build a List Fast

 

By: Matt Bacak

Numerous internet marketers are still trying to learn how to build a list. This is because many users are often very cautious when requested to sign up for a mailing list. At times, we gladly give all the information required to subscribe to a mailing list. Furthermore, we seem to beg for it. Is it a mistake? Is it luck? What do online marketers do wrong?

Learning how to build a list fast is not difficult. However, it is very costly and frustrating if you do not get the basics right. This article comprises of the simplest and winning list building techniques that have left many gazing and smiling at the same time. Here they are:

In starting out how to build a list fast, let’s start with the basics:

  1. Have a well-written capture page. Talk about your offer and solution to prospects.
  2. Have a clear and concise Privacy Policy. Link your lead capture page to it.
  3. Use an auto responder service.
  4. Have your readers’ view in mind. Be in line with their thought. It is easier to convince this way.
  5. Give your readers what they need right away. Do not keep them waiting.
  6. Give away value. It should be information that is not so easy to come by for free.
  7. Give people a chance to opt-out if they need to. It is the first step in winning their trust.

When you have the basics right, the next step in learning how to build a list fast is by gaining your subscribers’ trust.

  1. Do not sell, especially when still trying to people to subscribe to your mailing list.
  2. Present the best of you. Do not forget to be yourself, almost all the time.
  3. Show your list that you care and understand their needs. If you get an email, reply to them.
  4. Be an expert in your niche. Establish credibility and you will build trust.
  5. Be very truthful to your clients. There are possibilities that they will recommend you to others.
  6. Engage your readers in one of the social networking site. Customize them around your niche or topic.

Once you have some established trust, the third step in learning how to build a list fast is by driving traffic to your site.

  1. Go for search engine results pages through SEO.
  2. Make use of video sharing sites to leverage virility.
  3. Respond to all the video comments you receive.
  4. Mention your products and offers in the social networks.
  5. Comment on other people’s blogs.
  6. Participate in forums.

At this point of learning how to build a list fast, you should be having a considerable list which is now growing. The next task comes in maintaining the list.

  1. Watch out unsuccessful sends. Delete or mark them.
  2. Make your promotions interesting and fun.
  3. Find out about the interests of your niche. This will keep you a step ahead.
  4. Send emails on regular intervals to maintain contact with your list.
  5. Measure your subscribers’ satisfaction. Find out what they are saying about your products and act accordingly.
  6. Engage yourself in joint ventures.

How to increase blog traffic in 2012

How to Increase Blog Traffic in 2012

By: Matt Bacak

Traffic is one of the main determinants of the success of a website meaning that it’s of utmost importance. You should spend most of your time and resources on targeted website traffic, particularly if said website is monetized. Fortunately, there are a number of techniques you could use to achieve this end in a relatively short time. They include:

1.           Paid traffic

This is one of the best ways on how to increase traffic instantaneously. It works best when you are selling a product or service or otherwise looking for website visitors to complete a certain action on your website e.g. answer a survey, submit an email etc. Some of the sites where you can buy your blog traffic include:

  • Search engines – Most reputable search engine allow people to buy traffic on their self serve ad platforms e.g. Google Adwords, AdCenter etc. You’ll be able to buy highly targeted website traffic using predetermined keywords. There are also numerous mobile optimized search engines where you can use for mobile sites.
  • Media buys – A method of how to increase traffic by buying ad space in related websites. In order for this method to be profitable, you must only go for established, high traffic websites.

Other methods include social media marketing, email marketing etc.

2.        SEO

This is one of the most common methods of how to get targeted website traffic on a long term basis. This is where you modify your website so that search engine bots can crawl your site more easily, index more of your content on SERPs and therefore garner you more organic traffic. Most SEO techniques are usually free but require a lot of creativity and determination to pull off successfully. Some of the things you should include in your SEO strategy for increasing your blog traffic include:

  • Sitemaps – These allow bots to find out the linking structure in the site and therefore index more of your content. There are free online sitemap generators you can use for this.
  • High quality content – People and bots will always return to a site with regularly updated and high quality content making this one of the most popular ways of how to increase website traffic. You can either develop content yourself or hire writers, coders, designers etc. for this.
  • HTML tags – These are mainly used to show search engine bots which keywords you are targeted and the description of content in individual webpages. Some of the most important include Meta tags, alt tags, robot tags, title tags etc.

3.         Offline methods

You must also include offline marketing techniques in your quest to get targeted website traffic. This is because there are many people that will get to know of your website when away from the internet. Some of the most effective ways of increasing your blog traffic with this method include:

  • Business cards – You should include a prominent link to your website on your business cards. The increasing popularity of smartphones ensures that your blog traffic will increase within a short time.
  • Sponsoring public events – This is where you fund offline events in exchange for your putting up banners that advertise your business.

There are many other ways you can use to get more targeted website traffic. The most important thing is to add creative twists on each method.

 

 

 

7 Simple Steps to Build a Fan Page

 

7 Simple Steps to Build a Fan Page

 

By: Matt Bacak

Earlier this year, Facebook changed the look and feel of fan pages to a more visual look called Timeline. While this change was not well received by many Facebook fans at first, many users have since grown accustomed to the new look and the new Timeline.

If you’re new to creating a fan page or if you’ve been avoiding tackling your existing fan page, we’ve got 7 simple steps to help you build the Timeline journey.

1. Image-focused for Branding: There are ample opportunities to show off your brand through fan page real estate dedicated to images or graphics. For example, the Cover Photo at the top of the page offers 851 X 315 px of space to place your logo or brand while the Profile Photo offers 125 X 125 px of space. Just below the profile photo is an area dedicated to four Custom Tab images measuring 111 X 74 px in size.  They say “a picture is worth a thousand words”  – use these areas wisely.

2. Cover Photo Do’s and Don’ts – This is the first area visitors will see when they visit your fan page. Use all the available real estate space to show off an image of who you are and what you offer. However, what the cover photo area allows in space, Facebook has added restrictions. You cannot advertise specials or sales (i.e. 30 percent off), nor provide contact information (this belongs in the About section), nor suggest the visitors “like” or “share” your fan page with others, nor include call-to-actions like “buy now”.

3. Profile Photo Tips – While 125 X 125 px sounds like ample size to show your brand or text, this square image will do double duty and serve as your avatar when posting on your page or commenting on others’ pages. The avatar icon size is only 32 X 32 px meaning your image which looks gorgeous at the larger size will now be greatly reduced in size. Be sure the image you chose looks great at both sizes.

Several web developers took the cover photo and profile photo one step further and integrated the two. On first appearance there is no distinct separation, the end result was two photos seamlessly pieced together. Corona (beer) and Fanta (soda) are two examples of this idea.

4. Custom Tabs—The loudest complaint Fanbook fans had was eliminating the ability to set the default landing tab for non-fans. The custom tabs feature is the next best thing. Your fan page can have up to 12 custom apps of which 4 images will display on the fan page while the remaining 8 are kept hidden. It is easy to switch the order of these apps to display as the top four, except Facebook’s own apps are static – they (i.e. events, photos, videos) cannot be moved.

If you have multiple products or books for sale, the custom tab images are a great place to show off your works. The key to using this space effectively is to be consistent with your message and brand. The custom tab image can include only an image, an image with text overlay or just text.

5. Have a great post? Timeline offers two new features: the ability to highlight a good post and “pin to top” option. With highlighting, your post gets displayed across the width of the timeline allowing you the opportunity to draw attention to certain news. Pin to top feature lets your post stay at the top where visitors will see it first.

6. Interact with Contests—If you’re looking to improve traffic to your fan page or increase the number of likes or buying customers, consider running a contest. While Facebook has rules about contests (be sure to read the rules first), people love the opportunity to compete for free prizes! And the prize doesn’t have to be expensive; a bag filled with your own books or products would suffice. One more tip: Keep it simple.

7.  History and Milestones—One important feature of the Timeline is the opportunity to “tell a story” about the history of your business, milestones you’ve accomplished or memories of your friends or customers. People love read stories because they can relate—we all know someone who has survived a terminal disease or a story of triumph or beating the odds. Show your vulnerability by sharing your story.

The new Facebook Timeline is image-focused which also means you can take advantage of sharing these images on Pinterest or posting on Instagram (be sure to include a link). The opportunities are endless.

17 Custom Fan Page Design Tips and Tricks

17 Custom Fan Page Design Tips and Tricks

 

 

By: Matt Bacak

A good custom fan page design is ideal for the attraction of fans to the page. Many choose to build a fan page but the pages struggle with less than ten likes. Even their own friends cannot like the fan pages. If you need to build a successful fan page, this article has been written for you.

Facebook is no longer for only the kids. It is the biggest traffic source in the social network and it is growing. They work best for groups and company pages as well. These techniques have been used by thousands of people and it will also work for you.

  1. When you create the page, go to “edit the page” and enter your website URL, address and operation hours.
  2. If you have a great logo, use it for your profile image. If it’s slightly boring, use an image that represents your company.
  3. Use a photo application like photo-shop to create a welcome screen image for your custom fan page design. It should have a width of 520px.
  4. Below the profile image click “Edit Page” tab. You can create a page for your fans and another for non-fans.
  5. To add a link to your fan page images, add this code: src=http://mywebsite.com/FB/image.jpg>. You can also change the text tittles with the HTML tags. Once done. Click on save and view the changes.
  6. To set your new page as default landing page, on the edit page tab, go to “wall settings” and set your new page as default.
  7.  As you continue to build your custom fan page, visit authority company pages in various niches and see what they are doing with the pages.
  8. In case you have some programing know how, you can create a miniature website in your FBXML box.
  9. For your custom fan page design, the recommended width for the profile picture is 200px. The height can vary.
  10.  Make the profile picture impressive and eye-catching. Keep it professional and in line with your product too.

Once you have your fan page built, you should engage your fans and interact with them.

  1. Start a meaningful discussion on the wall of your built fan page.
  2. I enjoy posting controversial questions on my Facebook fan pages. They attract a lot of replies.
  3. Promote free stuff on your custom fan page design. Your fans will appreciate them and like visiting your page frequently. They might also recommend you to their friends.
  4. Add Facebook widgets to your website or blog. This will help convert your website visitors to fans.
  5. If you have a mailing list, very well for you. Let them know your fan page and what happens on it. They will like it.
  6. Frequently update your custom Facebook fan page design. This will increase your exposure to your fans.
  7. Do not spam. Users easily unlike pages that over promote products and offers in their news feed. Be creative and offer value to your users.

 

Cheap, Bulk-Rate Traffic (1,000 visitors for a buck)

Charles Kirkland and Jason Parker just
released a piece of traffic software that can
help you profit in 11 different ways.

The first thing it does is helps you generate
cheap, bulk-rate traffic.

I’m talking about 1000 visitors for $1. *

And this software will “route” traffic to any
offers you want based on country.

If you’ve been in internet marketing for longer
than even a month, then you see how powerful
this is.

(This just launched and price is going up
every 4 sales, so NOW’s the time to get in):

All the best,

Matt Bacak

 

* The owner of this blog receives compensation when
products and services featured herein are purchased. Your
results will vary widely. This is an advertisement.

5 Additional List Building Strategies

 

5 Additional List Building Strategies

 

By: Matt Bacak

When traditional list building strategies no longer work, it’s time to engage a more aggressive strategy.
1. Advertise in other people’s related newsletters – Most internet marketers will spend thousands of dollars on conferences and information products but spend nothing on advertising their own product. There are two good reasons to buy advertising in related newsletters: 1) people have an interest in the product or service and 2) they are already subscribed to a newsletter. Think of this strategy as a sound investment. When you advertise on Facebook or Google, you try your best to identify potential customers but you could end up with people who are not interested or sign up for the free giveaway and then remove their names from your opt-in list soon after opting-in.
2. Cross promotion campaigns with other internet marketers – When Brendon Burchard first started out he had a dozen names on his list. Every event that he attended he would exchange business cards and then follow up with each person. He offered to email his list with the other person’s product if they would reciprocate. Soon he turned his list of 50 into 100 and then 1000 by practicing this one strategy. Others have used this technique with internet marketers with products to offer. You should suggest this strategy to people with similar list size. In other words, someone with a list of 10,000 won’t be open to promoting your product or service if you only have 50 names on it.
3. Have a compelling lead magnet – Offering e-books on a topic for free in exchange for your visitor’s opt-in information works; the problem is there are thousands of e-book offered every day. The e-book message gets diluted among the majority of websites. Make your offer compelling and different. Instead of an e-book, offer an audio book as a download (where you read the same e-book into an audio program like Audacity). You can also separate the e-book into individual reports and offer each report for free. This strategy would also be good with split testing to see which report draws more opt-ins.
4. Consider offering your product to an affiliate market like Clickbank and let the affiliates sell it for you. Affiliates are motivated by commissions so offer a higher percentage commission than your competitor. The affiliates will drive traffic to your website where you can capture the leads in the form of opt-ins.
5. Paid traffic – You can buy advertising through Google Adwords or Facebook ads or you can locate websites with high traffic and ask them to place your banner ad on their site. Some web owners may say no, but many will say yes. How many times have you visited a website and saw banner ads prominently displayed on the header. Although paying for traffic in the form of ads is controversial, the potential customers you get (who click on your ad) are targeted customers. They already have an interest in the topic and may well be ready to buy.

3 Ways to Test for Website Optimization

 

3 Ways to Test for Website Optimization

 

By: Matt Bacak

Successful internet marketers attribute their success to their ability to monitor their website components and make adjustments appropriately. While internet marketers research what works and what doesn’t and build their websites accordingly, they understand the need to split test, tweak and retest every component in order to increase their conversions.

There are tips to follow:

1. A/B Split Testing – Have you ever wondered how to split test a web page in order to convert visitors into buyers? You can use the split test to test your call-to-action (what you want the customer to do), your product’s price, or any other component used to convert visitors into buying customers. For example, you are unsure what price point to charge for your product. You set up two identical landing pages, one with a price of $17.00 for your product while the second one offers the same product for $27.00. After carefully monitoring and analyzing the number of sales for each landing page, you can determine which price point is more effective.

Split testing, or website optimization, is not limited to testing items found on websites or web pages. Serious internet marketers split test in other areas as well:

a)      Images used in paid advertising to determine if text, an image of an object or a person outperforms other images

b)      Attachments (PDF files) that are offered for free or a minimal fee in exchange for opt-in contact information

c)      Sales letters in both long and short versions. While many experts agree the long sales copy out performs its shorter version, many visitors don’t have time to read through page after page of content to get to the bottom line. Also video sales letters are gaining popularity which may eventually make the text sales letter an obsolete relic.

2. Split Testing for Site Conversion – As mentioned in a previous article, you need to be clear on the objective for your website’s landing page.  Is the page meant to generate new leads? Or is the page meant to convert sales? Following the same model as stated above, you should begin with two landing pages whose components are identical with the exception of one piece that is different – the piece that gets visitors to convert into buying customers.  Then you can track their page conversion.

3. Google Website Optimizer – In June 2012 Google retired their Google Optimizer as a standalone product and replaced it with Content Experiments in Google Analytics. Content Experiments lets you experiment with up to six versions of a page in your website. The experiment is tied to your goals in Google Analytics allowing you to customize what results you want to improve and options for how to make those improvements.  Google Analytics, on the other hand, offers many features as well and can provide you with results on which keywords visitors are clicking on or how much time visitors are spending on each page.

By taking the time to plan, map and monitor your web pages in advance, you will be able to track results and make appropriate changes quickly and efficiently. Internet marketers no longer have to second guess what features attract or convert visitors – Google has the tools to help them succeed.