social media marketing

Combine Your SEO & Social Media Strategy To Maximize Success

February 6, 2017 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

In the past, both social media and SEO were worked on in silos. SEO was primarily focused on technical improvements and on-page optimization while social was (and often still is today) not even considered a part of the strategic marketing plan. To maximize your digital marketing efforts, SEO and social media need to be in a committed, strategic relationship.

1. Social Signals Are A Ranking Factor

As the use of social media continues to grow, so does the influence it has on search visibility (the likeliness of being found within search results). In 2016, Google and Twitter agreed to make a deal that now gives tweets a prominent position within the SERPs (search engine results page). Additionally, Facebook and (especially) Google + both show up within Google’s organic search results. This not only means that you need to be active on these major platforms but also that it’s imperative to optimize your accounts.

Create relevant posts to reflect your strategy (using the same keywords, message, and tying them all together).

The image below shows social media presence amongst Google’s organic search results.

Search engines not only take into account being listed on these social platforms – they also evaluate your authority. A company with millions of followers receives stronger social signals than a company with a few hundred. With that being said, search engines aren’t stupid. Social media metrics can be easily manipulated and search engines know when that happens. For example, search engines can detect the quality of your followers. This means buying 100,000 proxy Twitter followers will not do much.

The best approach is to build your following organically. Keep in mind that this takes time to do it right.

2. People Are Showing Love, Love Them Back

Your business’ digital presence is not limited to your website; it’s throughout the entire internet. People are talking about your business and their conversations have a direct impact on your efforts. You need to be a part of the discussion. This is where both SEO and social media come into play (in holy matrimony).

With SEO, your company will have complete access and control of your local listings, some of which incorporate popular review systems (Google My Business, Yelp, etc). With social, you’ll interact – through comments, likes, shares, and retweets – with the actual people that use those popular review systems. Through proper management, you’ll see when anyone mentions your company’s name (even when you are not directly tagged in the post).

Facebook also has a popular review system. Most of the time, if a consumer is unsatisfied, he or she will immediately go to social media to complain or write a review. 90% Of Customers Say Buying Decisions Are Influenced By Online Reviews. Not monitoring and responding to them is a huge missed opportunity.

3. Social Sharing is Caring

In terms of outreach: The goal of SEO is to acquire more high-quality links and increase visibility for new/existing traffic, lead conversion, and content exposure. The goal of social media is to engage with your community, connect with new audiences, and increase your brand presence.

Now, as social media and SEO have begun to blur the lines of separation, these both have been somewhat combined, naturally.

As opposed to traditional, and often ineffective, outreach methods – emails or contact submissions – a more modern approach is connecting with target audiences via social. By creating these social relationships, you’ll not only know which of your followers to send your content to, but you also enhance the probability of them sharing and reposting it. While social links do not carry the same link juice that highly-reputable sites do, it does increase your content’s overall exposure. This increases the chance of reaching other industry influencers and succeeds in showing you’re a leader in your industry.

Since it was shared by their peers, those influencers are more likely to share it on their site or blog. It also shows that you care when your audience engages with you and you care about building relationships with them.

4. Your Social Audience Helps Shape Your Content

SEO and content marketing are not all about just search trends, volume, and other metrics. It also has to do with actually producing content your audience gives cares about. Sure, you could look at historical data to see what has traditionally performed well (or not so well) to develop your content. But, that will always leave you one step behind if this is the ONLY method you use.

You need NEW content, too.

With social media, you should stay up with the latest trends, events, and news, as well as monitor the type of content your audience is interested in. On top of this, you can evaluate what’s working or not working for your competitors. This information will allow you to craft content that is timely, meaningful, and strategic to your users. In doing so, you’ll see engagement increase (comments, sharing, and contact submissions) and you’ll appear higher in the rankings for producing fresh, relevant content.

One simple way to view trending topics is to see what’s trending on Twitter.

5. Get Engaged To Your Community With Social & Local SEO

Businesses, especially small ones, can not succeed without the support of their community. This applies to the digital landscape, as well. In terms of SEO, the impact of your local area has never been greater. Major search engine’s – such as Google’s and Bing’s – algorithms have shifted towards more personalized results with a heavy emphasis on locality.

Aside from maintaining an accurate profile within the local listings, it is also extremely beneficial for your business to produce both localized content and social posts. Create blogs and other web pages that speak directly to your local audience. Then, utilize social media to disseminate it to local businesses and influencers (news reporters, bloggers, or those active in the community). This will increase not only the local discussion around your business but also the likelihood of earning local links. All of these signals will improve your ranking position within the organic search results.

The image below shows a blog post from a staple restaurant in West Reading, Pa, Say Cheese!, and a fellow DaBrian Marketing client. The blog highlights the restaurant, it’s history, future plans, and the announcement of their new website.

Tying Your Efforts Together

Your SEO and social media efforts need to be tied together to maximize efficiency. But, why stop there? For your digital marketing plan to be truly effective, you need to make sure all of your efforts are tied together. This includes your PPC (Pay per Click) advertising, web design, content marketing, email marketing, strategy, and your overall digital brand, in addition to SEO and social media. Your mindset needs to shift from different departments working independently to your business functioning collectively as a team, allowing to not let anything fall through the cracks.

Need someone to align your SEO and social efforts to help generate leads?

Why the Financial Industry Needs to Invest in Social Media

January 31, 2017 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

Social media’s original purpose was for friends and family to stay connected with one another. Since its birth, it has evolved into more than just a way of communicating. It’s an effective medium to get in front of your customers. Often, banks, wealth management firms, and insurance companies skip out on this marketing opportunity because of the fear of breaking regulations with compliance. Do not fear compliance. With your own policy and social media strategy, you’ll soon be adding another powerful marketing asset, connecting with new potential customers, and having more people walk through you door.

Is it actually worth the risk?

Yes. The average person maintains more than 5 social media platforms. Millennials specifically use it when they wake up, multiple times throughout the day, during their downtime, and right up to the moment they fall asleep. If they’re using it, you need to use it, too. This group is quickly gaining purchasing power. Get in front of them before they make the final decision on opening a checking/saving account or gaining financial advice from one of your competitors. Yahoo! states, “50% of shoppers have made a purchase based on a recommendation through a social media network.” Your presence on social is critical to staying relevant in today’s digital world.

How to Start

Many banks and firms have had many mergers and acquisitions. So, there may be social media accounts associated with previous company names that lead to your current website, address, or phone number. Gain access, merge your pages, or delete old accounts that have nothing to do with your current brand. Not only do you need to think about the business’ accounts, but some employees may be marketing themselves through social media. If you do not have someone monitoring, you have no insight into what your employees are saying (social’s not just about your customers).

Once you have the appropriate channels, you’ll need to decide what you’re goal is for them. Obviously, gaining more customers for your business is one of them. But, this may not be the true purpose of your pages. Goals may include to quantify content to a dollar amount, to educate your followers, to recruit, or to provide faster customer service. Defining this will help you get started on the type of content you will be providing and give you a clear vision of where you are heading.

Posting Without Fear of Compliance

The FINRA, the SEC, FFIEC, and the FDA will need to know about your social media channels and you know they will be auditing your content. Creating a standard strategy for you and your employees to abide by will help you to avoid violating any regulatory guidelines while maintaining full control on all content disseminated online. Setting these standards on what you expect to see will leave anyone with admin access in a comfortable position for posting onto social media. Avoid the madness, completely, and never have an issue with compliance.

Get to Know Your Customers

Monitor the conversations that are happening about your brand. The first place people go to complain, to brag, and to share their opinions is a social media account. You’re leaving your reputation in the hands of others without any say. Be a part of the conversation. If a negative comment occurs, be the first to respond. Having a social voice will not only help your credibility; you’ll soon truly get to know your customers. What are their interests, hobbies, locations, and languages? What do they like or not like about you? Where did they come from or go after interacting with your brand? Answering these questions will eventually help you in all areas of marketing for your company. If you want customers to invest their time and resources into you, you need to invest in them.

Working With a Social Media Marketer

We’ll do what we need to in order for you to have peace of mind about your new venture. We’ll help you educate your employees – what they’ll need to look out for, how to build those relationships, themselves, on their own channels, and the appropriate language and wording. We’ll thoroughly explain the strategy to leave no one questioning any part of it. We’ll help you gain access to all of your previous channels and secure each page. Our social media management tools have built-in compliance features that will help us all avoid disasters. Most importantly, we will create a crisis management procedure if a problem were to occur. The combination of a social media marketing team and a compliance officer will allow your content to be accurate and entertaining for your followers. (Yes, entertaining. Your boring content won’t get you anywhere. We’ll give you a personality compared to your standard legal jargon.)

Example of Financial Companies Utilizing Social Right

We understand the uncertainty you may feel about utilizing social media marketing. There’s the pressure of legal limitations and costly violations if an error occurs; but, you must soon realize the pressure is even greater to be active on social media. You’ll soon be a forgotten face in a crowd of your competitors without it.

Learn what is being said and what needs to be said. Let’s build our relationship so we can help you build one with your customers. We know you have questions, so ask away in the comments below!

National and Local Companies That Excel on Social Media

January 24, 2017 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat. Your customers are on them, every day. Are you connecting with them? Don’t lose out on valuable interactions. Check out this list that we made of companies that exemplify social media marketing best practices.

Sharing (Cute) Stories on Social

Animal Rescue League of Berks County – @BerksARL

Stories that accompany images are always important for Facebook. Users have the privilege of extended text in posts on Facebook. The Animal Rescue League of Berks County uses this privilege, well. They know how to stop scrollers in their tracks (who doesn’t stop to look at adorable animals? ? ??). They emotionally attach users to their images with personal, stories about the animals in each photo.

Wendy Isn't a Girl to Mess With

Wendy’s – @Wendys

The best part of Wendy’s social media presence is that they’re actually present.. They consistently post relevant content that directly communicates with their target audience. And, they respond to users that mention them in posts or ask questions. This often results in hilarity for the rest of us. Take a look at this article about an interaction on Twitter for a perfect example. Wendy’s social media marketing emphasizes the power of relationships. It is as if Wendy, herself, talks to people. And, it gets people to come to their restaurants.

Protecting and Connecting

Exeter Police Department – @ExeterTownshipPD

This local police department expresses regular updates that lighten the mood of stigmatized work. Exeter P.D. makes positive impressions on users through jokes and creative photography. They also provide relevant information about the current activity of Exeter Township. Videos and imagery offer safety advice and comment on their own workplace culture. Exeter P.D.’s posts make people want to connect with them. Even in the serious business of law enforcement, we can always enjoy a good laugh!

Getting a Slice of the Social Pie

Mimmo’s – @Mimmosrestaurant

A focus on social media marketing gets people to Mimmo’s for popular events. Mimmo’s knows it’s own brand: a great place for lots of people to gather and celebrate the Super Bowl, New Year’s Eve, and family occasions. They capitalize on the changing seasons with posts about reservations for holidays like St. Valentine’s Day. They also sponsor posts through Facebook to expand their reach to the local community. This naturally gets more customers to the restaurant. It helps that their food and drinks are pretty good, too.?? ?

Spreading Smiles Physically and Digitally

Grove Dental – @GroveDentalWyomissingPA

You might not expect a dental practice to connect with users in a human way through their posts. But, Grove does. Highlights of employees’ achievements communicate their expertise. Posting articles about dental health captures the attention of users that need information. Grove also keeps their social media fun and entertaining. They make the dentist’s office social – not scary. Promotion of their social media through business cards and employee-referrals only brings in more customers. And, yes. We do Grove’s social media marketing. #shamelessplug

Getting Shredded on Snapchat ?

Shredz – Shredzsnap

This national company is the proud and only entry on this list that capitalizes on the power of Snapchat. Shredz specializes in fitness and workout supplements. For an active company, an active and mobile social medium is necessary. They use Snapchat to give momentary updates on relatable moments that their target audience experiences on a daily basis. They announce sales for their customers via the app to capture users at any time, anywhere.

Learn from these companies:

Tell stories to your audience – keep it relatable and relevant.
Capture users’ attention with videos and imagery.
Create consistent posts and always respond to comments and questions, ASAP.
Communicate your company’s culture with humor or professionalism.
Be relevant to the changing needs of your customers.
Promote your posts to expand reach across your region.
Connect with mobile users instantaneously with opportunities for interaction.

Have any questions? Ask the certified members of our team. Place your comment, below, and we’ll get right back to you. Let’s start a conversation!

Also, check out our own social media: @DaBrian Market on Twitter and DaBrian Marketing Group on Facebook.

Which Social Media Sites Are Right For Your Business?

September 27, 2016 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

For 2016, Statista reports that 78% of U.S. Americans have a social media account. You can assume that most of your customers, clients, and employees are all part of this percentage (because really, who doesn’t actually have a Facebook?). So, reaching your customers through social media marketing should be easy… right? Not exactly. Most of us aren’t on every social media platform, so picking any random one will not guarantee you’ll reach the right people. Utilize the ones that your industry’s audience frequently uses while creating a social media marketing strategy to raise brand awareness and connect with your customers.

Let’s find out. Are you using the right social media channels for your industry?

Home and Garden

Within the home and garden industry, your job is to create a beautiful space for your customers. This should easily be carried over onto your social networks. A unique social channel that works extremely well to aid in becoming a thought-leader of this industry is Pinterest. Pinterest is essentially a way to organize your innovative ideas and thoughts. Whether you design home decor or landscaping, you can create specific Pinterest Board’s based on certain areas of the home or by specific locations. Better Homes and Gardens has created 185 today of everything from holiday boards, to casserole dishes, to one called “Let’s Get Organized.” Users can follow the page itself or only the boards that pertain to them.

Hospitality

Instagram works great for companies who offer entertainment, lodging, and tourism locations. It is used for sharing a feed of videos and pictures that can be edited directly on the application. One piece of advice when creating a strategy for Instagram is to maintain the same look throughout each post. This could be one particular filter or border for every picture you post. While this is not essential, it does help with brand consistency. Staples, an office supplies company, simply adds their branded Staples’ name to the right-hand corner of each image.

Non-Profit

Most non-profits have a lot of freedom on how to promote their services. Snapchat offers a lot of room for customization and building brand awareness that can definitely be taken advantage of. First off, a non-profit location could design a geotag that can be used by its guests when they visit. This will allow friends and families to see where they are volunteering and visiting. Another idea would be to allow a few departments access to the Snapchat account. If it is an Animal Rescue League, the head of the cat room, kennels, and any other department can easily share the adoptable animals and the day-to-day routine of what it’s like to work there.

Ecommerce and Retail

Ecommerce and retail businesses where you are selling a variety of products should be simple to run Instagram, Snapchat, or Pinterest for. Michael Kors, an apparel and accessory retail store, sticks to a common theme for a certain period of time. The company will take a seasonal color or pattern and promote it in roughly 8-12 photos before moving on to another one.

Social Media Marketing Takeaways

While this blog is focused on one particular social media platform per industry, you should never only devote your time to only one social media platform. Take the time to create a plan for a few social media accounts that will work best for you company and will reach your target audience. Common social platform, such as Facebook and Twitter, are two platforms that any industry should be utilizing since they are the most common for all demographics and businesses.

If you do not know how to begin with social media marketing or have any other questions, let us know in the comments below, or contact us today!

Does Your Company Exist Without Social Media Marketing?

August 22, 2016 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

Your nieces, nephews, children, grandparents, and even great-grandparents are all on social media. Do you actually exist anymore if you don’t have a social media account? In today’s society, it’s our way getting to know someone. When we want to see what someone looks like, figure out when a birthday is that we forgot, or find out what someone has been up to these days, we check Facebook, Twitter or Snapchat. So, if this is how we get our news about each other, why doesn’t your business have a social media marketing strategy to get to know “these people” or should we say, your customers?

1. Immediate Customer Service

Whether you’re tagged directly in someone’s post or if someone mentions your company’s name at all, you can track what they’re saying about you. Directly responding to them publicly will show the customer you want an open and honest relationship with them.

2. Social Media Marketing will Humanize Your Brand

As mentioned through customer service, building relationships with your customers will further your lifespan as a company because customers will trust you. People don’t want to see advertisement after advertisement of you trying to get them to buy your product. People like seeing other people! Show off your employees, post about the holidays you celebrate, and give your company personality! Research by Texas Tech University shows it’ll bring long-term brand loyalty once you do.

3. Expand Your Company’s Reach

Traditional marketing can be limited at times. A billboard will soon become unnoticed by townies which limits its worth. Social media allows your company to be everywhere and anywhere at any time of day. A customer may tag you in a post boasting about your wonderful product or service which may be seen by someone outside your target audience. This customer may do the same and this process will be repeated over and over again. (and if you have ecommerce built into your website, they can buy your product from anywhere, too!)

4. Drive Customers Directly to Your Website

Whether it’s an organic post or a paid ad, interesting content will get people to click their way right to your services’ or products’ pages. Social media advertising is relatively cheap (as low as $0.10 per click sometimes) which means a higher return-on-investment (ROI). Paying for a few clicks to lead to one sale is definitely beneficial! Daily monitoring of engagement on what content your followers are interested in with further help your overall marketing strategy and what you should be focusing on. (That’s where we come in!

5. Outdo Your Competitors

Your competitors are already using social media to connect with their customers and possibly, your customers. Since social media boosts brand loyalty, it may be hard to steal customers back from your competitors. Share interesting customer stories, pictures, gifs, videos and more to get people to follow what YOU have to say, not your competition.

While there are many more reasons you should be utilizing social media marketing, these few mentioned should be the most relevant to convince your company to invest in it. Strategizing for each specific platform you could be utilizing will positively impact your business and your customers will also thank you. Not sure which platforms will be most effective for your industry? Stay tuned for my next blog.

For more information about Social Media Marketing contact us today or leave a comment below!

Stay Connected With a Social Media Certified Partner

August 1, 2016 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

What’s all this Hoot-n-Holler about Hootsuite?

Hootsuite is a social media management program which helps consolidate a variety of social media platforms into one location. From Twitter to Facebook to LinkedIn and even YouTube, Hootsuite gives us the ability to check posts, images, comments, reviews, likes, hashtags, and more all on the same page.
We can create individual posts to immediately share or schedule it for a later date and time. We can also bulk-upload an entire month’s worth of content at once. It shortens links (called ow.ly links) within the posts to allow for more room to write (which is extremely helpful with Twitter’s limit of 140 characters).
Hootsuite has many integrations. If you use MailChimp for your email marketing or WordPress as your website builder, there’s an app to include updates and track your activity. Tracking information through Google Analytics can be easily transferred into a Hootsuite analytics report for an easier way to disseminate the results.

Team Up With Hootsuite Certified Partners

Being Hootsuite certified requires us to take lessons on how it operates and pass an exam with a grade of 95% or higher. We understand the platform and know each of its capabilities (and there are a lot, believe us). As an agency partner, we have a point-of-contact on their staff that will immediately answer any questions or assist in solving any issues. Whenever any changes occur within the platform, we are the first to be aware of them. We are on Hootsuite every day monitoring the accounts, responding to customers, and making recommendations for your company, so we are completely knowledgeable on what it can do.

Hootsuite’s Analytics reports display just how well your social media accounts are performing and we always explain them, thoroughly, for you to understand.
Since we’re in-the-know, you’re in-the-know. You will never have a slacking social media marketing campaign if you’re on our team.

How We Use It to Help Your Company’s Social Media Marketing

Whether you have a campaign that you’re interested in implementing or you’re not sure what you should be doing with social media, we will work with you to get started. Whatever ideas you may have, we provide you with feedback on what will work the best. We work with you to develop a unique hashtag, customize the imagery, and figure out the distribution of posts across all accounts.

We will track specific keywords, hashtags, and geocodes (those are keywords within a particular location). Whenever someone mentions your industry or business, we will know about it. We will collaborate with you in order to provide the best customer service to your digital customers or prospective customers. We will represent your brand in its entirety; from tone of voice, to language, to imagery and video.
We won’t let you struggle like this social family.

If you’re ready for a kick-ass social media marketing campaign to connect with an assortment of current and potential customers, chat with us about what we can do for you.