Archive for: business success

CALL: 844-923-2953CONTACT US

4 Must-Haves for Your Social Media Strategy

By 405media
Saturday, October 18th, 2014

When you are posting on social media as the voice of a company for the first time, its recommended that you do some research and follow a few key steps before jumping right in. It takes a little bit of thought to decide what you want your company’s tone to be like. After all, the internet is where the majority of people are connecting with companies these days.

  • Design and keep a personality tone. No matter how many people handle the company’s social media, it must be constant with each post, comment, etc. You are identifying the company as one. This can be tricky if you have a few people managing the platform, so it should be discussed.
  • Post at appropriate times. If you are posting great updates at times when your customers or target audience isn’t online, chances are they won’t see that post. Doing a little bit of research can help identify when the most ideal time is for you to get the maximum reach. Typically this is before the work day starts- early in the morning, or right after work hours. Sometimes the peak hours can even be later on at night or on the weekends.
  • Connect with those that share your passion. It is so much easier to grow your social presence when you have others who share the same interest. You can share knowledge and learn for both yourself and your audience. Having a core group online also makes it more fun to connect and socialize.
  • Utilize many platforms. Just because Facebook worked wonders for one company, doesn’t mean that it will for you. Choosing a few social media platforms will help because you can do a little bit of testing to decide which outlet gets more attention. This doesn’t mean  that you should join every social media network that is available, but to have a few.

For more information on our Social Media services, click here!

Categories : Brand Personality, Business Success, customer service, Dallas Blog, Minneapolis, online marketing, Social Media
Tags : , , , ,

5 Tips For Your Social Media Engagement

By 405media
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2014

Social media has become very popular in recent years. Companies are now utilizing it to reach out to their customers and build relationships with them. Although it might sound easy, there are some rules to follow for optimal engagement.

Plan: Create a plan, and follow it. You can use social media without a plan, but the results will be minimal, at most.  Create a schedule that works for you and your company. Set a specific time throughout your day to spend a few minutes on posting/responding to customers. Once you have a pattern down, it will become easier to follow.

Set Goals: Set quarterly, monthly, weekly and even daily goals for your page. This will help with measuring how effective your strategy is with where you want to be.

Patience: Social media is like a slow growing snowball. It takes awhile to gain quality followers/engagement at first, but once you do, it will all pay off. It will be difficult for a smaller business to gain hundreds of followers overnight. Keep in mind that it can be more important to have a few quality followers compared to many of little value.

Offer Deals: Offering deals keeps the followers wanting to come back to your page. It also makes the follower feel valued and special if they are only getting a deal because they liked your page.

Friendly Voice:  Create a company personality for your page, so your follower knows that there is a face behind the computer. Adding character will increase the levels of engagement and make your page more lively.

For more information on social media with 405 Media Group, click here!

Categories : Blogging, Brand Personality, Business Success, customer service, Dallas Blog, Minneapolis, online marketing, Reputation Management, Social Media
Tags : , , , , , ,

Keys to Creating Shareable Content

By 405media
Thursday, August 28th, 2014

You have a great product or service, but what good is that if no one knows about it? Social media is a hot marketing tool to share with your company with people. With easy ways to share, pin and repost, it would be silly not to hop on board! Get your name and product out there before your competitor beats you to it. There are a few key ways to make sure that you don’t just post content, but so you make the most of your content to keep your audience coming back for more.

    • Watch for trends: How well your company does is influenced by how well your competitor is doing. Follow the trends of their social media sites. What content do they post? How active are they? Try something new. Combine what works for them and what works for you to find the perfect balance.
    • Inspire your customer: Create posts, tips and advice, so your customer wants to keep coming back for more. Focus on topics that they love and are interested in that also relate to your company. If they are constantly learning something from you, they will return. If they found your content interesting, it is more likely that they will share it on their social media sites, which gets your name out there.
    • Engage their emotions: When people can relate to your information on some level, they will be intrigued to learn more. This can be achieved by telling a story, making them feel special, or deepening a social connection. People are more attracted to positive emotional responses than negative because they finish reading the content and feel good afterwards.
    • Have a good header: These different approaches all intrigue the level of curiosity, interest, humor or admiration. When you use a header that makes the reader question themselves, it grabs their attention and makes them want to read. Sharing information with them that others in society might not know about makes them feel smarter, and boosts their self-esteem.

For more information on how you can make the most of your content, go to www.405mediagroup.com.

Categories : Blogging, Brand Personality, Business Success, customer service, Dallas Blog, Minneapolis, online marketing, Reputation Management, Social Media
Tags : , , , , , ,

Why Content Marketing is the #1 Strategy in Search Marketing

By 405media
Saturday, August 2nd, 2014

While content marketing is known to improve results on search engine ranking systems, it is also true that effective, high quality content marketing is more of a marketing art than a strategy. If you have not worked to implement content marketing for your business site yet, read further to determine why it is a great idea to start now.

Content marketing helps you solve any issues that your customers may have, which in turn solves your issues as well. Make sure to create content that is relevant to your customer audience and the services your business provides. This allows an easy platform for your customers to look through instead of working hard to find what they are looking for buried in your site. The best way to do this includes creating a blog post or an article posting on your website, while also sending out an email blast to your customers who are experiencing the particular problem at hand. By addressing your customers’ problems through content and sending it out, you are cutting down on customer service time by giving them their answers online.

High quality content writing that includes a great deal of value to your reader will get shared and spread throughout the web. This works to create a credibility and sense of authority attached to your business. Also make sure to have one author publishing content that is created under your content marketing strategy. It does not matter who this individual is, as long as it is consistently them posting. This use of content marketing will allow you to become more established and lead to greater leads and give you additional exposure in Google through Google+.

Consistently creating content for marketing will also strengthen relationships with your customers. This is also important for repeat and loyal customers, as updating your stream with helpful and rich content will keep your readers interested. This can not only include blog post, but video, images, apps, and more. Also work to get your customers involved and create content for you. Having guest authors is a great, creative way to keep your feed interesting. While content marketing is a great way to improve your SEO and drive traffic to your site, old and new customers will benefit from your successful content marketing campaign.

To learn more on your content marketing experts, click here!

Categories : Blogging, Brand Personality, Business Success, customer service, Dallas Blog, Minneapolis, online marketing, Reputation Management, Search Engine Optimization, Seo, Social Media, Website Design
Tags : , , , , , ,

Top Trends with Web Design

By 405media
Monday, July 28th, 2014

Looking back over the years, you can see what design trends stuck and what didn’t. They key here is the difference between a trend and a fad. A fad is hot, but only lasts for a short time, while a trend usually lasts for a few years. There are some new trends for the year 2014 to keep a lookout for to keep you customer as engaged as possible. Afterall, your website is your showroom. You want it to not only display the correct information, but to look appealing to the eye, too.

  1. Simplicity – Your site needs to be easy to navigate and use. Avoid unnecessary information to get the message across with less clutter. You must tell a message, not just have it look pretty if its not workable.
  2. Video– The best way to get the user engaged is to use animations or tell a story through a video. Videos are easy to share online and keep the user highly engaged. You can see the engagement statistics through online tools that measure the effectiveness. Having videos in place of text make it easier on the reader and get the information across in a faster manner.
  3. Long scrolling sites– An easier format to display content is to make a long scrolling website. Also have format changes, so the user doesn’t  realize how far they have been scrolling, and keeps them reading more.

For more information on our web design services, click here!

Categories : Brand Personality, Business Success, customer service, Dallas Blog, Minneapolis, online marketing, Reputation Management, Website Design
Tags : , , , ,

3 Ways to Make Your Website More Social

By 405media
Thursday, July 3rd, 2014

Your website might have high rankings in SEO, but would it rank high in the social category? Websites that come across more friendly and engaging are far more likely to attract more users and keep current customers interested. Here are three ways you can increase your social standings, today!

Improve quality

Creating content that your customers will find helpful and useful is important. Your users care about how helpful your website and content is; it can increase the level of trust they have with you. Make titles enticing, use infographics and videos often since they are generally shared more. They are quick, easy to read and visually more appealing than content.

Ask For Feedback

It isn’t uncommon for companies to not ask customers or visitors what they wanted to see next in terms of products or improvements. Having a poll is a great way to get helpful feedback that will help both you and the customer in the end. In the end, this will increase customer retention and future feedback.

Make Adjustments

Seek and encourage feedback- by choosing “emotionally intelligent words” to represent the personality of the brand. This makes it more of a personal experience for the user, which makes them feel more comfortable about leaving a comment on your site. Switch up your approach to see what works best for your company and see which leads to boost social activity.

To learn more on how you can increase your company’s social standings, click here!

Categories : Blogging, Brand Personality, Business Success, customer service, Dallas Blog, Minneapolis, online marketing, Reputation Management, Search Engine Optimization, Seo, Social Media
Tags : , , , ,

6 Tips For Marketing With Social Media

By 405media
Sunday, June 29th, 2014

In this day and age, social media has really boomed. With starting a new business, or just trying to give your brand more visibility, social media is a great tool to utilize. However, there is a right and wrong way to use it to be the most effective. Here are some social media fundamentals that are important to keep in mind before you begin:

  • Value. Understand who your target audience is and how you can best market to them. Join discussions and add the value that they are looking for.
  • Appreciate. Show appreciation for your own audience and be friendly to encourage continued engagement. Respond to all posts from your customers by being polite.
  • Focus. A focused strategy on what the information is that you bring to people is more valuable than giving a range of information.
  • Quality. High quality is more important than high quantity. Your customers don’t want to feel like they are being spammed, especially with content that they aren’t interested in. It is also better to have connections on your social media who read, share and comment on your posts, than ones who like your page and disappear.
  • Post.  If you publish content that is worth sharing and of value, your followers are more likely to share it with their own audience. Sharing information and articles on social media that are from your website will direct the user to the search engine, which give you more rankings.
  • Connect. Connect with those who have a quality audience and with your similar interests. After building a relationship with them, they can be a great catalyst in sharing your company’s name and a valuable community. A great way to find an audience you are looking for is to search with a hashtag. (ex: #socialmedia would help you find content on social media and those who have posted on that topic.)To learn other ways to help your customers find you on the internet, go to www.405mediagroup.com.
Categories : Blogging, Brand Personality, Business Success, customer service, Dallas Blog, Minneapolis, online marketing, Reputation Management, Social Media
Tags : , , ,

3 Keys to Social Media Success

By 405media
Sunday, May 25th, 2014

When companies use social media the right way, it can boost their search engine rankings, allow better customer service and build an effective, engaging online personality. Entreprenuers think that by just posting the content, that it is enough, but that’s where they are wrong. They need to be engaging online in conversations.

1. Answer questions from customers and clients. Using social media as a customer service platform is a great way to strengthen the relationship with you customer. By using the hashtag symbol and tagging your customer in the response, they will get a direct notification from you. Customers might not bother with a direct message, thinking they might not get an immediate response, but they won’t hesitate to tag you in a complaint for all to see. When you are tagged in a complaint, anyone that searches that term can see it, in addition to the owner’s friends network. This is great opportunity to respond because you can correct the issue directly and save your reputation if it was damaged.

2. “Like” Content. Use the “like” button when someone writes or comments on your wall, that acts as a “thank you.” This is equivalent to a +1 on Google+.  You could also say “thank you;” this is what companies can do to differentiate themselves and creates a great sense of community. When customers feel valued and appreciated, they are likely to continue liking your content.

3.Show gratitude. Build a community and network with those who share common goals, values and interests. Share each other’s posts and like them. Social media can be impersonal, so when you make an effort to change that, people feel appreciated. When you share other’s posts, the odds are likely that they will return the favor and your social network will bloom!

For more information on your social media and SEO specialists, click here!

Categories : Blogging, Brand Personality, Business Success, customer service, Minneapolis, online marketing, Reputation Management, Search Engine Optimization, Seo, Social Media
Tags : , , , , , , , ,

5 Reasons Why SEO Isn’t Dead

By 405media
Monday, May 5th, 2014

There has been debate on whether or not SEO is dead. The truth is, it is ever-changing and people need to adapt as it changes. “It is changing so drastically that people really need to learn to think of it as less of a marketing tactic, and more of a branding play,” according to Sam McRoberts, CEO of CUDU Marketing- a widely published expert in the SEO field.

Before you decide to give up on SEO, understand that:

  1. It isn’t going to stop anytime soon. Searches depend on keywords and text-based content, proving that it is still effective. All content needs to be indexed to appear in searches on the web, and whether it ends up ranking as #2 or #52.
  2.  Search engines grab more market share.  These days, nearly 90% of shoppers will check the web for reviews before making a purchase. If you want them to be able to locate your business with the accurate information, your organic SEO needs to be in place.
  3.  Mobile search optimization.  Less than a decade ago, mobile phones didn’t have the internet access like they do now. More and more people are using their smart phones for easy access to the web, sparking the SEO and local search optimization.
  4. Lacking website content. Google and other search engines are using content and backlinks to fuel the search engines. The more content that is linked, the more the search engine will recognize that site, and the higher you will rank. If you aren’t updating your website’s content or adding regularly, the companies that are will benefit from it. Now, social media has a strong pull on your ranking.
  5. Your competitors are doing it. Some companies don’t understand that doing SEO to your content once does not mean that your site is done with it. SEO needs to be updated regularly. Keep up with your competitors and make sure that your rankings are where you want them to be; otherwise, you’re losing ground to a competitor who is.

To learn more on how you can improve your SEO rankings, go to www.405mediagroup.com.

 

Categories : Business Success, Dallas Blog, Minneapolis, online marketing, Reputation Management, Search Engine Optimization, Seo, Social Media
Tags : , , ,
Next Page »

REQUEST A QUOTE