Menu

Archives for February 2019

Why You Should Embrace Social Media Advertising

by Leave a Comment

If you are not doing social media advertising for your business, then you are doing it all wrong! Social media is full of content, so it is easy for your business to get lost in the feed. This is a problem that you do not want to face. So how do we fix it? Start using social media ads!

Social Media Advertising, or Paid Social is highly recommended to get your content in front of users. For starters, according to Hubspot, organic reach is down across most of the major networks. It is crucial to use social ads to stand out. Let’s break down why this is is needed.

First things first, what is the difference between organic social and paid social? Organic social is using the free tools from social networks to build a community, share posts and responding to customer comments. Paid social is paying to display advertisements or sponsored messages to social networks users based on user profiles.

Both are important to have, but organic is reaching limited amount of people. Organic is still important. You should use it to interact with your community and keep a presence online. However, it does mean that social media has turned into a pay-to-play space.

Here is a short list of reasons on why you should embrace social media advertising:

  1. You will stand out from competitors. Advertising will increase your reach and will create brand awareness. If your brand or business appears more, it’ll become more recognizable and set you apart from everyone else. 
  2. You can enhance your targeting. You will be able to refine who you want to see your ads! This can be based off of interests, demographics, locations, etc. This will help you become more intentional and reach who you want to buy into your brand.
  3. You can understand audience interactions. You can see which ad type was interacted with more. Does video work better? Who does it work for? What do people respond to? These questions can be answered through results and collected data. If you know what people like, then you can make more ads like it.

Know your audience. Each platform has a different audience. For example, most Latinx people will be on YouTube, women are dominating Pinterest, and African Americans are on Twitter. You should know how each demographic use these particular platforms to be more effective. Understanding your audience will make you more effective with social ads. 

Social-Media-Demos-e1551286144761.png

Each platform also provides different types of advertising, too. Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, have different ways and methods to target people. This blog gives you an introduction to how social ads are being used today, but a social marketing professional can help you determine which platform would maximize your ad dollars.

So again, why should you embrace social media advertising? Today, most businesses of all sizes must include paid social media in their strategies. Paying for social media will boost your reach, provide better targeting, and drive better results!

For more ideas and suggestions, check out how DaBrian Marketing optimizes social to drive conversions and generate leads HERE!

Check out our previous blog on social media management tools HERE.

3 Pro-Tips for Using Hootsuite as a Social Media Management Tool

by Leave a Comment

What is Social Media Management?

Social Media Management is the act of monitoring social content, developing and posting content, and managing conversations on social media platforms. This is different from social media advertising, which is paid efforts and targeting on social media. Social media management is customer service, while social media advertising is sales.

Social media can be overwhelming for most people, but there are tools in place to help minimize the stresses that come with social media marketing. Hootsuite is a social media management tool where you can schedule posts, curate content, monitor interactions with your social accounts, and more! This is a crucial tool for every social media manager to have in their arsenal and will help your business prosper in the digital age.

DaBrian Marketing Group is a proud user of Hootsuite which allows us to manage multiple clients, on multiple platforms, all from one dashboard. This blog will introduce three crucial tips that each social media manager must have.

Pro-Tip #1: Proactivity is a MUST!

Proactivity should be any social media manager’s best quality. It is important that you are at least a month ahead on any and all content. This way you can see your entire content schedule with just a glance while also leaving room for critical social monitoring responses throughout the month.

DaBrian Marketing Group utilizes Hootsuite to keep up with a variety of clients across multiple social media sites, which includes Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. This helps us stay on top of who takes priority or who has posts scheduled for the day.

If you are proactive, this will allow you to post about any sudden shifts or articles that come out, which leads into the next tip!  

Pro-Tip #2: Stay Relevant! Keep up with competitors and industry thought leaders

Hootsuite allows you to host streams that will update you with new trends and it features the app Nuzzel. This app allows you to track news sources and industry trends from the top influencers. This can help you curate information that will be relevant and can help you stay on the pulse of the industry, which allows for higher engagement.

We use this to make sure that we can pick our client’s brains about what is going on with them and if they want to separate themselves out as thought leaders. This will make your brand seem more attractive and trustworthy.

Pro-Tip #3: View Your Insights!

According to Hootsuite contributor, Christina Newberry, “it gives you bird’s-eye view of the conversation about your brand online.” This is important, since you can quantify your insights, but also see how people engage with your brand through how they receive your brand. Understanding this will allow you to recognize behavior on these digital platforms and adjust accordingly.

You can view your insights, but make sure that you also report on these insights as well! You can check in with all of your analytics and see how well your social media campaign has been doing. This is important to know how to plan for the future and manage your social strategy accordingly.

In the next blog post, we will delve into Social Media Advertising with a focus on Facebook and LinkedIn.

For more information on what DaBrian Marketing Provides on social, click here.

To get a crash course in Hootsuite, click here.

What Is A Local Business Listing?

by Leave a Comment

What is my "local listing" and why does everyone want to manage it?

Businesses often get phone calls and emails offering “local listing” management. If you work at one of these businesses, I’m sure you have a few questions about what exactly you’re being offered. Before we discuss what a local business listing is, let’s start with why you might want to check and maintain your business’s local listings. Here are some compelling consumer behavior statistics to consider:

  • 72% of consumers who did a local search visited a store within five miles. (Wordstream, 2016)
  • 30% of mobile searches are related to a location. (Google, 2016)
  • 28% of searches for something nearby result in a purchase. (Google, 2016)
  • Local searches lead 50% of mobile users to visit stores within one day. (Google, 2018)
  • Nearly one-third of all mobile searches are location-based queries. (The SEM Post, 2016)

Essentially, it’s very important to manage your local listings, especially if you’re a local business that relies on local awareness of what you do. Think of how often you’ve searched for things like “chinese restaurants near me” or “gas station near me.” When people want to find goods or services locally, they use a search engine every time. With good SEO practices, you can grab the top spot for a local search query and increase your organic traffic by leaps and bounds.

Local Business listing

Local Listing Management is about getting found more often by people searching for your services locally!

Often times businesses register and claim their local listing with Google, along with a Google My Business page. This is a great first step! Google My Business allows business owners to choose what appears on the Knowledge Panel for their business. The Knowledge Panel is the box full of information about a business that appears on the right-hand side of your screen on the Google search results page.

Knowledge Panels are more likely to appear for searches with local intent, which is why it’s important — especially for small businesses — to stay on top of their Google My Business profile.

In addition to the business owner, Google also receives data from many other sources. In a recent “Whiteboard Friday” video, David Mihm, Director of Local Search Strategy for SEOMoz explains how Google generates its business listings. David’s whiteboard video is one of the most concise explanations of the online directory entry creation. It’s worth watching!

There are hundreds of business directories online that all come with the opportunity for through traffic and lead generation. It is important to keep your “N.A.P.” — business name, address and phone number — consistent across all directories. This is very important and affects your search rankings, especially locally. Also important to keep consistent is the inclusion of your website’s URL. You want to link to at least your homepage on each of your local listings so you don’t miss any opportunities for referral traffic. Google My Business also gives the option of making posts from your profile, just like on social media. These can be used for promotions, events, or just general bits of information that your business would like to present to those users who find it through Google.

The process of keeping all of this information up to date can be very tedious. Keep in mind in addition to your NAP, directories often want images, videos, business descriptions, customer reviews, website links, category your business fits in, accurate hours, etc. Often — for a business owner or marketing executive — keeping up with all these directory listings is simply time prohibitive. This is why business will often employ a marketing agency for their local SEO services.

If you would like to learn more about Local Listing Management services offered by DaBrian Marketing Group contact us today!