Staying Relevant for 2012 in the Social Media Arena

Every business needs a social media strategy. It is as simple as that. A new generation of consumer is upon us and they are engaging with social media in increasing numbers each year. Smartphones and other technologies has become a consumer’s go-to device for information.


Small and large businesses can benefit from a comprehensive social media strategy to engage and inform their customers. Your goal needs to be organizing a clear and compelling marketing strategy to garner a greater market share in 2012. Angela West of PCWorld offered businesses five hot tips for developing and navigating the social media market and how to put your business on the path to social media success.

Develop Clear and Precise Monthly Goals
Businesses need to determine what they want to achieve with social media. Are you strictly looking to drive sales, inform customers of product, or simply increase traffic to your website, or are you seeking to blend all three goals? Once you organize your goals, set about defining the goals and committing resources to achieving them. A well-trained staff can influence and target key goals to advance your campaign.

Name Your Numbers
Ms. West suggests products such as Google Analytics and Hootsuite to determine and measure your results. These products can track visitors and give you detailed page hits and origins for free. Recently, Google Analytics included real-time tracking to increase your ability to offer relevant customer information based on consumer needs. In addition, Klout offers a free suite of analytic tools to provide you with data.

Getting to Know You
A successful campaign requires that you engage and inform your customers with relevant and interesting information. This requires you to look beyond Facebook and Twitter and develop sites on LinkedIn and Google+ to increase your web presence. Directories are available to attach links to drive your website traffic and increase your visibility with search engines.

Time to Hire a Professional
Hiring a professional social media marketing firm might be your best bet. Typically, small and midsize companies have a limited workforce and each employee’s job description and workload is full. Spend the resources to hire a professional and let your current staff maintain their positions promoting sales and providing customer service.

An outsourced social media marketing firm can increase and promote your business to its fullest potential. Ask other business associates or your web designer to recommend a firm. During the interview process, ask them to provide references, to quantify their results, and ask what plan they will put in place for you.

Let’s Get That in Writing
Social media is all about subtle self-promotion, so don’t forget to include your sites on all your printed business material. Add your links to Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ on your fliers, business cards, brochures, and any printed material your company uses. Having these links on your printed material will make it easier for consumers to find you on the web.

The Last Line of Social Media Defense: How to Protect Against Online Attacks

The importance of protecting your business against hackers and other technologies which can destroy your business and personal data can not be overstressed. Your social content is vital and you risk losing the investment of hard work as well as money through cyber attacks. Take these important steps to ensure you build a wall that is difficult to breach and begin assembling an arsenal of tools to combat hackers.

Yahoo Finance recently offered six specific tips for countering attacks as well as safeguarding important content. Protect your bottom-line as well as your content with these companies who provide advanced protection against online attacks:   

• SocialSafe.net: SocialSafe.net offers a comprehensive service that backs up your data from a UK-based company, iBundle. It allows you to create an online as well as offline digital journal for photos and entries. Users can trace their social media profile and view changes. There is a free version that offers a limited Facebook back-up, and users can purchase the standard upgrade for $3.49 a year. This is a bargain considering you can transition from your Twitter and Facebook profiles to save messages and photo comments. SocialSafe.net also offers a professional upgrade, which includes Google+ and Viadeo for $6.99 year. If you are interested in backing up all your content, including your Facebook business pages, they offer a $13.99 a year upgrade.  
• My Facebook Account: Businesses looking for a free tool to save their Web pages from Facebook should look to Firefox and their free tool that allows users the ability to download this add-on and save messages, friend lists, photos, events, groups and notes as well as additional Facebook content directly to your hard drive.  
• My Twitter—My Tweets are Safe: Facebook is not the only media site with free backup available. TweetBackup from Triop provides Twitter users with the ability to archive up to 3,200 tweets and store their followers. No password is required so this application offers additional appeal to users who have been compromised before.

• My YouTube: The YouTube Downloader lets users download video from YouTube and convert them to different formats, such as MP3 and MOV files. And, the best part is this program is free.   
• My Blog—Yes, My Words are Important: Another import to the United States from Triop is BlogBackupr, a back-up program for bloggers. This application requires no software installation and automatically restores blogs from Blogger.com and WordPress.
• My Head is the Clouds—But, More Importantly, So is My Content: Backupify.com is a cloud-based service that regularly backs up content stored on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and others. Users can protect their photo albums, messages as well as online profiles for a cost of $4.99 a month to $19.99 a month, depending on how many accounts you hold as well as your data storage needs. Backupify.com also offers users a free version to secure up to one gigabyte of data and three accounts.

Taking the Necessary Steps

Planning a course of action and taking steps to preserve your valuable content will pay large dividends in the future. Don’t run the risk of hackers destroying precious data. Search these sites to find the best program for your unique position. 

On Target: The Advantages of Google Adwords

Many companies are looking for ways to generate revenue. One way companies can increase their Web presence and generate income at the same time is with Google Adwords. Google Adwords is a tool businesses can use to increase the traffic to their website and develop additional sources of income.

Building a Stronger Network

Google developed an online advertising system that uses textual ads within your website to reach customers via research by key words. Typically, ads are placed on the right column or top portion of your website to attract customer attention. As the website owner, you have control of how you want the ads displayed within your site. You can also choose design elements such as destination address, descriptions and titles. For the ads to be displayed, you purchase key words.

As customers punch in key words on a Google search, your ad will be displayed. A bidding system is used to determine who receives the highest rating. The cost of Google Adwords is based on a cost per click method. Each time a person clicks on your ad, you are charged. However, you control the region and language your ad is placed in.

The same is true with cost. You control your budget and determine how much you want to spend daily or by key word. You can also develop a budget strictly on a particular advertising campaign.

Seeing the Fruits of Your Advertising Labor

Here are some tips on maximizing what you get from what you put into your Google Adwords strategy:

• Time: Be prepared to spend a good amount of time personally developing a successful campaign. For individuals, plan on developing 50 similar keywords with 3 to 4 ads linked to the same landing page. Plan to spend anywhere from 4 to 6 hours a week managing your adword account.
• ROI: Keep a cost accounting of your ROI to see which adworks drives your cost per sale. Your cost per action (CPA) information is vital. You can determine if this falls into a lead or a sale and base your future marketing strategies on this information. 
• Click, Click: Be thoughtful when establishing your ads. You want very specific and targeted ads with each keyword. Proper keyword phrasing will increase your click rate and your revenue.

Promoting your website and increasing traffic can lead to higher numbers in revenue. Partnering with a Google Adwork marketing campaign can drive your business and traffic. A focused campaign will increase your web presence and lead to greater sources of revenue.

On target keywords will effectively drive your marketing campaign and bring these into a tightly managed group which will enhance your company profile. Flyline Search Marketing can create the type of campaigns that get you the results you are looking for in terms of reaching your target audience and converting them.

Pam Russom—Back Where She Belongs

Flyline Search Marketing is excited to announce the full-time return of our long-time President, Pam Russom. Pam had left the company briefly to focus on a personal matter and now has returned to Flyline Search Marketing to lead us during a time of tremendous growth and expansion.

We are busy developing inventive ways to help our clients reach their target audience, and Pam’s widespread knowledge of SEO and SEM techniques will increase our delivery time and your revenues.  Pam will focus her tremendous interpersonal and leadership skills to continue to develop our client base and growth as a Google Adwords Certified Partner. Her extensive knowledge of search engine optimization, search engine marketing, social media, website design, and brand development and marketing will drive Flyline Search Marketing and continue our role as a leader in Atlanta, Santa Fe, and Albuquerque’s business communities.

Pam will capitalize on her extensive understanding of SEO and SEM to continue building Flyline Search Marketing as a leader in social media marketing strategies. In addition, Pam specializes in multimedia consultation, sales training, and event planning to fully develop your business and maximize your company’s exposure. 

Numerous Capabilities and Deep Experience

Pam brings a varied skilled set defined by professionalism and comprehensive knowledge that defines success. Her business and professional experience is diverse with additional positions held in television and radio, which have led her to a fuller understanding of marketing strategies.

Pam was Marketing Director for American PolySteel Corporation and Marketing Consultant for multiple radio stations. She worked for American General Media as an Internet Sales Director before joining us as President. She also holds a BBA in Small Business Management from Georgia Southern University.

Pam keeps on top of the local business and community activities by being associated with the following groups and organizations:

•  Rio Rancho Regional Chamber of Commerce
• Albuquerque Business Builders
• Christian Business Leaders Network
• Business to Business
• Linked by Albuquerque
• New Mexico 200 Linked
• Synergy Networking
• Women Make a Difference (WMAD)

Each of these organizations strives to build businesses through hard work, communication, and networking. Pam’s affiliation with all of these organizations only serves to increase your considerable knowledge and business connections.

Give Us a Call

Pam is committed to positioning your company for success. Give us a call today at 1.866.258.5511; in Albuquerque, you can contact us at 505.718.4560; and in Atlanta, you can reach us at 678.867.6810 to see how we can position your company to maximize your exposure and increase your revenue with a competitively priced and comprehensive package that delivers results.  

Microblog: The End of Innocence

The Twitter generation has embarked on mission to impart all the tedious details of one’s life to an unsuspecting group of followers. We hear from our friends about the painful bumper-to-bumper traffic on the freeway or they share adorable pictures of their kids or pets. Whatever the occasion, no idea that passes through some people’s head is to trivial not to post.

This begs the question: When is enough, enough? What are the boundaries we should set, socially and in our business environment, to divulge to our followers in the social media arena? The Examiner raised this same question. 

The “TMI” of Microblogging

Microblogging has become a driving force in the world of social media. Twitter counts 140 characters as your tweet and you can update regularly to your followers. So, tweets like, “Hot sale today. Our sweaters are 30% off while supplies last” become commonplace, which is not a bad thing when you are looking for a beautiful winter sweater, but the problem occurs when you are oversaturated with boring and irrelevant tweets that do not inform, or worse, annoy.

Do we really need to know the CFO of our local company is “At the dentist, that tooth popped right out?” I believe this falls under the over-sharing category. And, this is becoming a slippery-slope for some individuals and businesses.

Where do we draw the line with engaging our customer or follower without boring them, or worse, offending them? There is a fine line to walk when you microblog.

Knowing Where to Draw that Line

You must focus on relevant and informative information that interests your followers and develops a dialogue.  Keep these ideas in mind every time you microblog to constantly check yourself and develop microblogging to its full potential:

• Plan Ahead: Like any good business plan, you should have a solid microblog campaign setup that focuses on upcoming sales, updated product launch dates, new store hours, or the unveiling of a new charity campaign your company supports.
• Be Real: Impart information that is honest and informative. Social media works in real-time and with the power of the internet to research it is easier than ever to spot a fake.
• Edit Yourself: Before you hit send each time you must review and ask yourself these questions:

How does this develop my brand?

Promote my business?

Empower my follower?

Increase my market share?

Create dialogue?

Because this is what you want to happen with each microblogging session. Make this tool work for you and not against you. Use sites like Twitter and Tumblr to your advantage. Great microblogging can do wonders for your business and drive your revenues. Just remember what to say and how much to share when you do.

Your Perspective

Please share your perspective or examples of microblogging in terms of what to say and what not to say. Let us know if you have questions on what makes for good content and we’ll be happy to help you get your points across in a way that leverages the true power of microblogging.

Marketing Strategies for the New Millennium: The Social Media Revolution

Social media has forever altered the way businesses operate their marketing campaigns. In the days of old, businesses focused on print ads, television commercials, and radio spots to reach their target audience. They relied on the tried and true method of delivering a strong message to the consumer and the consumer responding favorably.

                                        

Those days are over, strictly speaking. We still have radio, television, and print ads to send out our message, but now, there is a new game in town. Social media has arrived with a vengeance. Businesses are now partnering with the consumer to create dialogue and impart to the consumer some of the power of their advertising campaign.

Consumer Power

Companies have given a slice of their power over to the consumer to review, promote, and develop brand loyalty through social media networks. Social media depends on two-way communication to survive. And, this is where companies are moving their marketing campaigns to focus on consumers to receive product praise, company compliments, and negative reviews in real-time so says a recent article. 

Marketing has evolved from simply delivering a message to the consumer and the consumer running out to buy the product based on a savvy advertising campaign. Today’s consumer is increasingly turning to social media to research brands and products before they buy, during the process, and even after, to give their review, both good and bad.

Principles to Benchmark

This is where companies stand today. Their goal is to capitalize on this and increase their bottom-line with social media. Influential internet marketing gurus, Stevens & Tate Marketing, recently discussed ways to execute and develop brand success with social media. 

They focused on a few key areas companies should address as they navigate the social media waters that can serve as an excellent benchmark for your business:   

• Guidelines: Develop a business plan for social media success in the same way you would develop any marketing strategy.
• Attitude: Remember with social media you are creating dialogue and you want this to be at a much more informal level. Engage your customer with pertinent and informative information that encourages conservation.
• A Company with a Heart: Team with organizations that support causes that are important to your customer to establish a uniform sense of appeal. 
• Real-Time Interaction: Utilize social media to engage your customers in promotions, contents, and giveaways to encourage them to visit your site and spread the word about your brand. 
• Quantify Your Results: Free social media monitoring is available to track your success and allows you to implement immediate changes when necessary to increase traffic and alter message.  

The steps you take to now to direct your marketing campaign for the new millennium will pay huge dividends by developing a savvy and profitable social media campaign that gets people talking. Find out how Flyline Search Marketing can devise an Internet Marketing strategy for your business that capitalizes on these foundational principles.

  

A Primer on Google AdWords—What it is and Why it Works

When you Google something, you know those ads that appear down the right hand side of the page? Do you ever wonder how they got there, and why they always happen to relate to whatever search term you’ve entered? That is the magic of Google AdWords.

Technically Speaking

Google AdWords defines itself as, “an automated auction.” Basically, Google AdWords works by linking keywords used in search terms to keywords used in ads you create. This means your ad can appear next to the results when someone performs a search containing your specific keyword. To get a bit more technical, Google AdWords is a CPC (cost per click) advertising platform. This means you pay each time someone clicks on your ad.

Getting Started

The Google AdWords website has several tools to help you get started, including a comprehensive beginner’s guide as well as a 19-step checklist to help make sure you are getting the most out of Google AdWords.

Once you have created an account, the next step is creating a campaign. Creating a campaign has three aspects – campaign settings, the ad itself, and keywords:

• Campaign settings. These settings allow you to choose the language your ad will be in as well as the location your ad will be targeting. You can also choose whether your ad will run in Google’s search results or in Google partner sites as well. Additionally, the campaign settings are where you are able to decide on a daily budget for your campaign as well as your maximum CPC bid – the maximum amount you pay when someone clicks on your ad.
• Ads. Google AdWords formats ads with a headline, two lines of descriptive text, and a display URL. This URL determines where your potential customer will land when your ad is clicked on.
• Keywords. Keywords are the crux of your ad. They are the words and phrases someone would use to search Google for your particular product or service. Your keywords will determine which searches cause your ad to appear, so choosing the right keywords is crucial.

Quality and Cost

Google AdWords allows you to control your budget. You can either set a daily budget, or you can choose the CPC bidding option. With a daily budget, you can choose how much you are willing to spend on your campaign each day. However, the smaller your budget, the fewer times your ad will appear. With the CPC option, your bid helps determine your ad’s position on the page. Usually the higher your bid, the higher your ad’s position will be.

The quality and relevance – usefulness – of your ad, its keywords, and the website your URL leads to is critical. Ads are given a Quality Score, which is a measure of relevance of your ad, keywords, and website. In addition to your bid, your ad’s Quality Score plays a part in determining your ad’s position on the page. Generally, the higher the Quality Score, the less you will pay for a higher position.

Need Help?

While it is certainly possible for a business owner to successfully utilize Google AdWords, the service works best when you’ve got a significant amount of time to invest using and fine tuning it. That’s where a Certified Google AdWords Provider comes in. If you have any questions or need help with setting up or maintaining a Google AdWords account, please contact us in the comments section below.