Online Marketing | Web Design | Social Media
Why is it more important?
Simple answer – you need to grab attention of your potential clients!
Only then you can explain them how good you are, or better than your competitors.
In short – without the attention of your visitors – you have nothing.
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A bet you know this saying…and if you’ve been using social media you know that images have become extremely important for user engagement.
Personally, I mostly just scroll through images, and if I see something interesting, I stop and read…and you know I’m not the only one.
Whatever you post online; be it a blog post, contest, announcement, offer, workshop etc., choosing engaging image to accompany your content will have a massive impact on whether your post gets read or not. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself, why Twitter is no longer ‘words only’ platform, or why Instagram and Pinterest have the biggest click through conversions.
So where do you find engaging photos?
Finding interesting images is not that hard. You can purchase stock images (please think outside of the box when searching), search Flicker (make sure you check licence) or make your own.
The real question is how do you turn an ordinary image to something more engaging without knowing anything about Photoshop or let alone graphic design.
Use photo-editing apps.
My favourite ones, that I use all the time are:
This is a desktop and iPad app. What I love about it is that it’s so simple and free. It already has set up dimensions for different social media graphic elements (Facebook profile and cover image, Pinterest post, Instagram post etc) and other most common graphic design elements such as business cards, posters, invitations etc, or you can choose your custom dimensions.
It has various design elements (backgrounds, layouts, shapes, lines, frames, icons) that you can just drag and drop and make beautiful design.
And if designing is challenging for you, then you can just use pre-designed layouts created by Canva designers and just replace content with yours. You have free and paid options.
You can also publish your designs (if you choose to) or look for inspiration from designs of others.
There’s really no excuse for bad graphics.
“It’s like a graphic designer in your pocket”. I just love this mobile app. You can add awesome text to your photos in most gorgeous and unique fonts, colours and combinations. It has tons of captions included, for days when you don’t have anything to say.
You can easily import photos from your phone library, dropbox, Google drive…any place you can access from your phone or you can choose from beautiful backgrounds and photos that come with the app.
You can post directly from the up to most popular social media accounts or send your designs via email.
You can easily add watermarks and logos on top to protect your designs.
Unfortunately it’s only made for iPhones.
This free tool that can be used as desktop app or on your Android phone as well as iPhones. Simple and advanced photos editing, HDR photos, beauty retouching to turn your photos into amazing photography. You can create various types of covers, collages and photo cards. It’s fun and easy to use…so no ore boring invitations.
There are many other photo editing and enhancing tools out there, that might be even more popular then what I use. The key here is to choose a tool that’s easy to use for you, it makes you happy (not angry) when you’re using it, and it gives you results you want in the shortest time possible.
I would love to hear what your favourite photo editing tools are…please share a link in comments below!
Today I walked past a $2 Shop and cringed when I saw Christmas decorations in the window. Then I though, s*** it’s only 13 weeks to Christmas. Maybe you personally don’t care much about the festive season, but if you own a business, you should be thinking about strategies to leverage the overall shopping madness. People are in the ‘buying mode’, and they don’t shop just for presents…they shop, period. So if you position what you’re selling in front of your ideal clients, you’re highly likely to make more sales, then at any other time.
The Guardian forecasts that Christmas online shopping will increase by 17% this year, so a well targeted Christmas marketing campaign will help you boost sales.
Here are some Christmas marketing tips:
1. Start Now
There is still time to prepare a good Christmas marketing campaign but you must start now. It all starts with planning. First write down what you want to achieve. Of course you want more sales, however also think weather you want to:
Your Christmas marketing campaign will need to look different depending on what your answer is. For example, the fastest way to get new customers is through paid advertising (Google Ads, Facebook Ads, etc), while existing customers will be encouraged through email campaign.
It’s important to know your goals, so that you can tailor your marketing campaign to your needs, then measure and track results.
2. Educate
There is still plenty of time to educate your audience about your services and products. Rather then pushing hard for thesale, educate your target market about the benefits they are getting with your products and services. Create awareness, excitement and demand. So that when the time comes to present your offer, your audience will be in anticipation and have a desire to get your products or services.
3. Think outside the Santa bag
Get creative! We’re all bombarded with Christmas messages but if you think outside of the standard Christmas messaging, I’m sure you’ll come up with something unique around Christmas theme that appeals to your audience. Remember the “Elf Yourself” campaign from Office Max that went viral?
The best ideas are always the ones that ask for participation of your audience. Ask them to share their images around Christmas theme or run a competition that ask for engagement. Such content always performs well as it get people to comment and share more then usual.
4. Create content in advance
If you plan out Christmas marketing campaign now, you have plenty of time to create quality content around your products and services. Think about how you can leverage the same content in different ways. For example, a review about your product can easily be broken into short posts for social media and turned into a short video about the product and how to use it.
If you prepare and schedule your content in advance, then you only need to think about driving traffic to your website to make sales. That’s much easier then doing everything whilst also enjoying the joys of festive season.
5. Be mobile ready
According to IBM, 45% of online sales during 2013 Christmas season were via mobile devices. If you’re website is not optimised for mobile, I don’t need to tell you that you may be missing out big time.
Your website should be built so that it’s responsive, which means it’s design adjusts depending on the device and size of the screen it’s been viewed on.
If it’s not and your website is build on WordPress you can add a plugin that turns your website into mobile ready website when it’s viewed on mobile, until you’re ready to get a new website with a responsive design.
If you need help, just send us an email or give us a call on 0432 698 913 and we’ll help you set it up.
Extra Tip: Leverage Social Media, especially Pinterest
It’s a no brainer, right?
Take a step further and start actively growing your fan base by identifying pages and groups, which have your target market. Then start regularly engaging with them by participating in discussion with good comments. This way your brand will be visible to much wider audience then just posting on your page.
Why Pinterest? You only need to know that:
Now, you make up your mind if this is worth your time.
Social media is hard. I don’t have time for it. I don’t know anyone that is getting any results. I don’t like it. blah blah blah
I heard it all; excuses from small business owners who are still resisting jumping on board with one of the most powerful and cheap forms of marketing. That’s fine. More head start for those who are already embracing it.
Whether you are already rocking it or trying to learn how to do social media right, this article is written for you.
Here are 7 simple steps to increase you influence, impact and income on social media
1 – Keep in mind that social media is about building relationship not campaigns.
Yes, it is a great marketing tool, but over promotion can bite you in the butt (pardon my French). Recent survey of UK Facebook users shows that users dislike the brands that are over-sellsy. Don’t just post stuff and leave. Be engaging with your fans and other pages.
2 – Listening is a skill that pays off
If you talk all the time, you never get a change to get to know the other person. You might not care but if you are running a business, you need to know what your customers think. If you don’t know, how can you market to them successfully? So take interest in others, engage and don’t be that boring person at the party that just stays in the corner.
3 – Don’t act like you’re working for CIA
We’re sometimes so secretive and precious about our life, especially when it comes to using social media for business. Yes, you are allowed to talk about your personal stuff. Of course we want your page to be professional and relevant; however people love to hear interesting personal things. Reveal your interesting habits, hobbies, events you attend. This makes you appear more real and human…
4 – Understand ‘culture’ of different social media platforms and tweak your message to suit.
People who use Pinterest are different to people who Tweet or Digg. Make sure you understand what the social media culture is and tweak your messages accordingly so that they are relevant to users.
5 – First impression counts
Take time and thing about how you want to present yourself on different social media platforms. People are visual. Use cover photos to your advantage; make them interesting, change them regularly and use the form promotion (if allowed). Profile pictures should be your logo, to build your brand awareness and for people to easily recognise your posts.
6 – Think before you type
Fast fingers and anger don’t go well together. Avoid posting negative and derogative comments. Don’t use social media for your ‘venting’. I’m not saying you shouldn’t share your opinions, but remember, it’s there forever. Also, people are attracted to people with great positive energy, so wouldn’t you rather be known as a ‘feel good’ business or a grumpy one?
7 – Test, measure, tweak
Testing what works for your audience is a must. Don’t give up if engagement is slow. It takes time to get the ‘formula right’. Don’t be scared to try new things. Mix things up. Don’t take yourself too serious…and be human.
Oh, and if you stuff up – acknowledge, apologise and make things right. We all make mistake…even Superheros…
If you follow these simple social media tips you will soon see more following, engagement and influence. And once you have trust and loyalty, with that comes more income too.
Sharing is caring – and if you found these tips useful or know someone else who might – go ahead and share!
A number one reason why many small businesses fail with social media is because they struggle with creating a compelling, quality content. Many blame lack of time, creativity and imagination and when challenged these reasons quickly fall short.
Many small business owners simply don’t realised that they already have awesome, compelling, quality content that can be ‘recycled’ for social media.
Here are some simple things you can do immediately and boost your social media content.
Most small businesses will have various types of brochures, presentations, product and service descriptions etc. Check for any content that gives your readers solutions to a problem. Re-use the content or use it as starting point for new content.
If you run a blog (and if you don’t you really need to start doing it), check for popular blog posts, identify content that provides a solution to a problem, break the blog post in valuable smaller chunks and educate your fans about that specific problem through sequence of social media posts. Through educating your fans base you are building authority in your own niche.
Talking about your products & services doesn’t mean hard sell. By using messages that are educative, creative and ‘non-selly’ you can raise awareness about them and by that create a need for them. Provided you are talking to your actual target market, this is the best way of advertising to them. Use images, create stories around use of your products and services and how they helped resolve problems, that your fan base might be experiencing.
It’s true that peoples’ favorite topic is them. However they do like to hear great stories. Social media is all about sharing. Start sharing stories about your business, how it started, what drives it, successes, awards and challenges. You’ll be surprised that people read this sort of stuff and engage more when business becomes personal. And you know any small business is a personal affair.
People like to feel inspired and they love looking at images. By sharing what inspires you, you are building rapport and connecting with your fans. This helps you build trust, which in turn helps you make more sales. If they have a choice, people will always buy from a person they know over the one they don’t – even if that means paying more for the same service or product.
I hope this gives you some inspiration for creating content for your social media activities. Remember, the overarching rule: Keep it relevant, engaging, cut back on sales and promotion talk and be yourself. It’s the thing you know how to do the best J
I’m looking forward to hear some ideas about how you overcome ‘writer’s block’ moments. Let us know in comments below.
Until next time
