Some of you may have businesses to run, and hopefully a successful website to go along with it. You also may, or may not, understand how integral social media has become in today’s technological world, but if you are constantly active with the likes of Facebook and Twitter you will be aware, with everything else going on around you in business, it can be a drag and sometimes time consuming updating status and tweeting each individual social network you wish to advertise on. So consider TweetDeck….
TweetDeck is a social media dashboard – an all in one program that can be downloaded (for free) from the Internet, and will help you manage the ‘big’ social networks – Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin – in one sitting.
Originally developed by Iain Dodsworth in 2008, Twitter obviously saw the use and potential in this product and bought it for a rumoured $40 - $50 million in May last year. Kudos to Mr Dodsworth!
The beauty of TweetDeck is the ease and accessibility you get in managing your entire social networks in one single interface. And if you prefer, you can combine multiple twitter accounts – like personal and business. Once downloaded you are presented with “core” columns that you wish to see on your dashboard – is it friends’ updates? Mentions? Trending Topics? It’s up to you. Once you are set up, you are ready to go.
All you do is type in what you would like to share with your followers and then select the different networks you wish to share it across. It’s as simple as that.
TweetDeck though, is not the only ‘all in one’ social media dashboard available. Hootsuite is another, and is actually used by some of our team members here at AsOne - it usually divides opinion in the office as to which one is the best to use.
But don’t take my word for it, have a look for yourself at both www.tweetdeck.com and www.hootsuite.com and see if it can help you!
Social Media is where you want to be when it comes to helping your business expand, as it is a priceless asset in the marketing world. Social media channels like Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin attract so much continual attention from Internet users, it has become a phenomenal and powerful venue for advertisers to create interest and traffic. Here are five reasons to use social media for business.
- Help Increased Search Engine Rankings: Social media profiles frequently rank highly with major search engines. Using brand names and keywords in your profiles can help you to generate traffic for your social media sites and company homepage.
- Generate Site Traffic: By updating regularly on sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn with posts that link back to your site, you can create additional traffic to your site.
- Find New Customers Through a Company Profile: Your company profile is a great opportunity for you to post regular updates on your activities, but also about important news and trends in your industry. It’s critical to post regularly if you want to increase your followers or fans and convert them to potential leads.
- Brand Monitoring: Having a social media presence allows you to better understand what current and potential customers are saying about your product or services.
- Networking: Through social media you can quickly build a network of core supporters, which is essential for any up and coming business to keep growing and expanding. It is that group of loyal followers that will keep bringing your company business and referring it to others if they are pleased with what they are finding.
Google have now published a new initiative called “Search, Plus Your World”, which aims to bring you more personalised search results. Now, when you search for anything in particular, you have the option to include related data from your Google+ profile as well as those privately shared with you.
The change will also provide auto complete results from your contacts, so if you begin typing their name into a search field, Google will automatically recommend their Google+ profile.
These changes have now come into practice, and you should be able to see two small icons on the top right of your search page that lets you toggle between two types of results – a globe (which offers the standard results) and a human icon – which will display related data form Google+.
But is this a good thing, or a bad thing?
The simple answer is, if you are a Google user then this is fantastic news- bad if you are a direct competitor. If you have a Google+ profile and depending on the various circles you are a part of, you have the chance to gain personal, unrivalled information that can only be beneficial when you make a search. However, if you are a rival to Google, in what is now becoming a social media world, then it’s not so good – just as Twitter found out!
f you are writing a blog post to capture the interest of new readers in the hope of them becoming customers at some point, then there are a few things you need to think about other than simply writing an article to assist in search engine optimisation (SEO).
Here are a few basic pointers to help you on your way:
- Think of a keyword relevant to your product or service that you wish to write about.
- Use a keyword search tool such as Google to research the keyword you have chosen that represents your blog topic and select keywords with the most monthly searches.
- Create a title that reflects your blog topic, this is the first thing your readers will see so make it engaging, interesting, descriptive and try and include your keyword.
- Depending on the blog application you are using, you may have an opportunity to include an overview or summery/introduction of the main blog post. This is an opportunity to give an insight into your main blog entry (sometimes called body text) and to include your keyword again which will further assist with SEO. Keeping this introduction short but ‘punchy’ and interesting will encourage more clicks to read your full article so bare this in mind; don’t get into the details, save this for the main body text.
- The main body text doesn’t need to be too lengthy, maybe 400- 600 words keeping your keyword as present as possible in the article without too much repetition.
- Add an image. As well as your text being search engine friendly you can add ‘alt tags’ to your images and descriptive headings (h1,h2, h3, h4 etc) to your text which will further assist with SEO and will make the post more visually engaging for those readers who choose to take notice of your article.
- Once you have completed your blog post and published on your blog do your best to distribute it through your online social media; facebook, twitter, linkedin is a good place to start.
AsOne would like to thank the support of Higgins Miller Solicitors, Stockport as the 1st Innovation Club member and all the early adopters of our newly launched Innovation Club. Already we have welcomed a number of clients into our membership, which provides bespoke reports and guidance on digital and social media and marketing.
After the launch of their new website, practice partners Sarah Miller & Mark Higgins of Higgins Miller Solicitors saw an opportunity to capitalise on their recent investment by engaging in social media but wanted the support of Innovation Club to provide guidance on what techniques are working and how to make the most of their online activities. Equally, having considered pay per click wanted to be assured in the hands ofAsOne, through Innovation Club they can expect to see the best return on investment knowing the campaign will be professionally set up and managed to prevent unnecessary costs.
Mark Higgins adds, “We are in our third month and already receiving an encouraging increase in enquiries which has resulted in a number of new clients for our practice, we are looking forward to more success through our business relationship with AsOne Design and our Innovation Club Membership”.
Research into our customers needs and that of regular enquiries brought us to the decision to launch Innovation Club back in late July; the feedback on our results has already been gracious. Its been proved it was a huge step in the right direction to provide a solution that demystifies and shares an understanding on how to tackle the every growing burden facing businesses today; what can I do to help myself and that of my business?
For more information visit Innovation Club.
Contemporary Clutter had that very question when they talked to us here at AsOne Design.
Taking the decision to have an ecommerce website opens up a whole new market place, a great opportunity to increase your reach whatever your product.
We are pleased to announce that newly created Contemporary Clutter’s website has been launched this week enabling customers to start buying their contemporary furniture online.
Contemporary Clutter is an online home ware retailer, aiming to provide some of the most innovative, fun and functional homeware furniture.
In addition to providing online sales of a retail nature Contemporary Clutter offer a group buying platform with frequently posted deals for the group buying experience.
Whether you are looking for designer chairs, an elegant footstool, dining table or sideboard Contemporary Clutter will service your needs, with over 25 years experience selling furniture.
View the Contemporary Clutter website.
With Christmas here before you can say Jack Robinson, here are ten things you can do to increase your sales potential and boost your figures for a Merry Christmas.
- Remember Your Customers
- Reward Loyalty
- Incentivise
- Up Sell
- Samples
- Social Networking
- Newsletters
- eCommerce
- Delivery
- …
